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.

OK here it is, nice and easy:

In you Admin go to Sales > VAT > Manage Tax Zones and Rates

Click on UK Tax

Change the Rate from 15.0000 to 17.5

Click on Save Rate

Easy, hope this helps.

Happy Christmas & New Year from the whole Live Concepts team

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!

The First Magento Event In The UK

Just found out about this great event taking place in London late April! It’s called Mage::Camp, the first Magento event to take place in the UK, at London’s Earls Court between April 28th and 30th.

This has been organized by ‘On Tap’, the comprehensive three day event is taking place alongside the massive Internet World 2009 exhibition – Europe’s longest running, best attended and biggest event for digital marketing and online business. So as well as meeting the movers and shakers in the Magento world, there’s a whole host of other things to see and do.

The event will feature Magento presentations aimed at all sectors – online merchants evaluating Magento, existing Magento store owners, developers and marketers.

The keynote session will be given by Roy Rubin, Varien’s founder and CEO.

For further information about the event, please visit www.magecamp.com

We’ll see you all there!

Great news the new Magento version 1.2.0 for download and upgrade.

This version includes numerous issue resolutions for Magento version 1.1.x and some highly requested new features such as:

• Support for Downloadable/Digital Products.
• Added Layered Navigation to site search result page, with control on the attribute level to include or exclude attributes used on the search results page.
• Improved site search to utilize MySQL fulltext search
• Added support for fixed-taxes on product level for such taxes as “State Environmental Fee” in the USA and “WEEE/DEEE” in the EU.
• Upgraded Zend Framework to the latest stable version 1.7.2
• Added a Layered Navigation Cache for improved performance of large catalogs

To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page.

This is a great leap forward and just shows again how great this ecommerce platform is.

Multi Store Management has been a hot topic in the eCommerce market for a while now and the fact thet Magento has had this functionality as part of Magento’s core product from the begining is testimate to how forward thinking the whole platform is.

One issues it that many no-techs have problems fully understanding the exactly what it means, what it does, and how it can benefit their company.

So to resolve this we have grouped together all the best info available on the subject for you to research to your hearts content.

• This is a 45 minute recording introduces the basics of Multi Store Management as well as provides a technical overview of the fundamentals.

• In addition Magento have updated their Magento Demo to include a Multi-Store-Retailing implementation running on unique domains. This really helps demonstrate Magento’s multi store retailing functionality. Click Here for the Demo

The Magento Machine rolls on!

Magento, our choice of open-source eCommerce solution which offers unprecedented flexibility and control, the new release covers over 350 issue resolutions with new functionalities.

Google Website Optimizer Integration in Magento 1.1.7 is a major enhancement to the application. Website Optimizer is an easy-to-use tool for testing site content that delivers actionable results.

Here is the list of major highlights:

• Google Website Optimizer integration
• Google Base integration
• Scheduled DB logs cleaning option

As usual Live Concepts offers development of the new version to ensure you can benefir from these great new additions.

If you aren’t already using the Magento or if you have already made the move; you can view recordings of the webinars on the best tips and tricks and how to get the most out of Magento.

These webinars provide information on setting up promotions to maximize margin and increase average order size, targeting demographics in their native language, and setting up niche sites to increase your market-share.

So don’t hang about Click Here to get stuck in!

The Fastest Growing eCommerce Platform on the Market Continues its Climb to the Top

Magento continues to grow at a staggering pace and its flexibility, scalability and value have brought it to the Half a Million download mark. The momentum of Magento continues in other ways as well, with new extensions being added to Magento Connect, the continued growth of the community and impressive sites launching every day.

Here’s to the next 500,000 Downloads!

With new features and other exciting developments in the coming months, the next 500,000 downloads are on track to come at an even faster pace than the first.

Leading brands across the world are looking to Magento to power their next generation eCommerce sites and an impressive eco-system of partners, consultants and professionals has emerged to service the incredible demand for services around the product.

For these reasons and more, Magento is set to take a lead in the eCommerce technology market as the premier product of choice for innovative online retailers. Our vision doesn’t stop there as we’ll continue to push the boundaries, innovating and disrupting the stagnant market along with our community.