Consumers are becoming more comfortable with using mobile devices to access the internet and purchase products and native apps are becoming the preferred way that consumers engage with brands and mobile storefronts. This makes sense since mobile-browser apps (WAPs) are often very slow and don’t offer the rich, compelling experiences that native apps do. Currently Amazon and eBay have the largest share of total mobile-commerce revenues, and their native apps are just mobile versions of their web stores, with perhaps a couple native features sprinkled in. How effective is this approach? In 2009, eBay drove $500M in mobile revenues. In 2010, they project $1.5B. The era of mobile commerce has begun!

Product Features & Benefits:

Seamless Storefront Integration
With the new Magento-mobile admin, you’ll bring the functional powerhouse of Magento eCommerce to your mobile commerce channel, including full integration with your store’s catalog, checkout, inventory, reporting, and much more!

Manage Multiple Devices
Easily manage multiple devices with a single installation. Coming later this year, easily extend your mobile presence to the iPad and Android devices.

Hassle Free Submissions
Supporting a native app can be time consuming and tedious, so we manage the submission & support lifecycle for one low monthly fee. We manage the complexity of mobile apps so you can focus on running your business!

Fully Customizable
Deploy new device-specific features and branded themes with just a few clicks. Quickly update the colors and appearance of your app with the new Magento mobile admin, even after customers have downloaded your app.

Engage Your Customers
If you want to build deeper relationships with your most profitable customers, smartphones are the way to do it. From geo-targeted push notifications to immersive native experiences, mobile apps unlock new opportunities that will take your business to the next level!

Low Cost of Ownership
Magento’s cost-efficient approach allows you to bring best-in-class mobile experience to your customers without the high price tag. Pay only for the features and devices you want while Magento handles the ongoing maintenance of your app in the iTunes marketplace.

Interested in expanding your market reach?

There are limited number of spots available for the first release of this product, and anyone interested in joining the priority list can now sign up on the official Magento-mobile product page.  Pricing at this time will only be shared with those who are selected for the limited release, and we will announce the full price list to the community shortly.

If you want to discuss this with one of our in house experts Click Here to get in touch

The Predictive Intent software is very clever for automated product recommendation and merchandising, which can be easily controlled through an administrative interface. Their software is already integrated with the Magento eCommerce platform, which makes it very easy for us to roll it out to any Live Concepts  client who would like to take advantage of it.

We are in fact already rolling this out to one of our new clients and including this software integration as an additional feature in all our proposals.

Magento Enterprise has features to allow rule-based creation of product associations, with a range of input data usable. Predictive Intent can take a retailer a step further using powerful, self-improving statistical algorithms to predict which product a customer needs to see more than any other.

This news has only just been released and already there is a extension for Magento to capitalise on this, for more info on what the “Canonical Tag” means, checkout this post;

http://www.net-insight.co.uk/free-web-insights/google-yahoo-microsoft-all-agree-on-new-canonical-tag-to-reduce-duplicate-content-accross-the-web/

You can pick up this extension right now from Magento’s Extensions and implement is straight away, here’s a link – http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/906/canonical-url-s-for-magento

This is a great extension and just proves again how great this platform is for SEO!

However this has now been solved with the release of the Royal Mail Shipping Options Extension this great extension.

The extensions initially only calculated UK rates but due to requests from the Magento Community; EU and World Wide rates were introduced. Currently most of the Royal Mail’s service line has been factored in, see the options below:

• Firstclass Packet
• Firstclass Packet (Recorded Signed for™)
• Special Delivery™ 9.00 am (Upto £50 Insurance)
• Special Delivery™ 9.00 am (Upto £1,000 Insurance)
• Special Delivery™ 9.00 am (Upto £2,500 Insurance)
• Special Delivery™ Next Day (Upto £500 Insurance)
• Special Delivery™ Next Day (Upto £1,000 Insurance)
• Special Delivery™ Next Day (Upto £2,500 Insurance)
• Airmail
• Airsure® (Upto £36 Insurance)
• Airsure® (Upto £500 Insurance)
• International Signed For™

We think this is great and can’t wait for mot carrier extensions to be introduced!