Seven companies reach Catalogue e-business Readers’ Award shortlist

Seven highly respected direct commerce businesses have reached the shortlist of the inaugural Catalogue e-business Readers’ Award. Having received some 462 votes, it was too close to call between Asos, Boden, Charles Tyrwhitt, Kiddicare, Lakeland, Net-a-Porter, and The White Company. As a result, it will fall to delegates at the CatEx Round Table Day—held on the same day as the ECMOD Direct Commerce Awards on 6th April—to cast their votes so that the outright winner can be named. The outright winner will then be invited to accept the trophy as part of the ECMOD Direct Commerce Awards evening.

In related news, congratulations to Carol Cade of the Book People who, by making her nomination for the readers' award, won our prize draw of two tickets to the Awards evening. Enjoy the night!

For information on booking a seat at the ECMOD Awards visit www.ecmod360.co.uk.

For information on attending the CatEx Round Table Day visit www.catalogueexchange.co.uk.

Live from the Cat X Factor

If you didn't attend the Cat X Factor conference in London today, you'll regret it--especially if your competitors attended. I just slipped out to give my hand a break from jotting down all the ecommerce tips and tactics that Amy Africa and Stephan Spencer are sharing. 

I know I'm not the only one who was both impressed (by the level of detail in the session) and dismayed (by how many things we're doing wrong with our website--alas).  

I'll be writing up the sessions in greater detail for our Insight enewsletter and the Catalogue e-business website. In the meantime, though, here are a few of my favourite quotes:

"You can't just throw money at the web. If you don't involve the right people and you don't think about your user, you'll have a crappy site."--Amy

"Keywords you consider relevant to your business might be keywords that no-one searches for except your CEO."--Stephan, in discussing the need to conduct keyword research for the most effective SEO.

"Navigation is about 60 percent of success."--Amy

"Long URLs are repellent, pushing the user to look at the [search] listing below."--Stephan

"Anything after an ampersand, people do not see."--Amy

I'll let you know when I've put together a more thorough summary of the session, which covered everything from meta tags to trigger emails to Twitter.--SC

One for the road

I'll be heading up to London later today to attend tomorrow's Cat X Factor Conference and the ECMOD Awards dinner. I'm especially excited about the conference, presented by two internet pros I've had the privilege of working with over the years: ecommerce doyenne Amy Africa and SEM guru Stephan Spencer. They're not only highly knowledgeable but also very entertaining. I've moderated panels on which both of them appeared, and boy, was it tough to hold my own. (That's assuming I even did manage to do so.)

The only downside, for me, is that because I'll be travelling today, I won't be able to partake in my annual Ronnie Lane birthday celebration. Ronnie Lane was a criminally underappreciated songwriter/performer, formerly of the Faces and Small Faces, who died in 1997 of MS at the age of 51. Each year on his birthday I play as many of his solo CDs as my family will let me get away with, but I won't have the opportunity to do so today. Well, maybe I'll be able to sneak in a few visits to YouTube.--SC

Three cheers!

Congrats to my alma mater Chief Marketer back in the States for winning a min award for best site design/relaunch. When we launched Chief Marketer a few years back it was just a weekly enewsletter aggregating the best of the company's other publications, with a bit of commentary from yours truly (and that was only because I was the lone sucker--err, loyal employee--to volunteer to produce the thing). It has since grown to become a network that includes the Big Fat Marketing Blog, which also won a min award, for best b-to-b blog. Kudos!

And kudos, too, to my colleagues across the road at Catalogue Exchange for the relaunch this week of CatalogueExchange.co.uk. The new, improved website offers member news, forums, a supplier directory, and much more. If you're not familiar with Catalogue Exchange, "the only trade group for print and online catalogue marketers", you should definitely check it out and consider joining--benefits included discounts on industry events, group-buying arrangements, and (best of all, in my humble opinion) a complimentary subscription to Catalogue e-business magazine.--SC