We made a review of eCommerce platforms used by companies selling their products and services for Finnish people. Magento was the most popular. We decided to take a deeper look at the Magento versions in our data. It appeared that about 67 percent of Open Source and about 47 percent of Commerce based Magento web shops are losing the official support next year. If you are a shopkeeper with a soon to be outdated Magento version, you are not alone. But that is not a reason to be comfortable. End of support is a serious thing. How serious? This article tells everything a web shop shopkeeper needs to know about it. Continue reading “End of life of old Magento versions is here soon!”
We found out the eCommerce platforms the biggest companies in Finland are using. According to our review, there is a wide range of different eCommerce technologies. There are exactly 50 different platforms in use, of which 23 are used only by one company each. The combined market share of three most popular technologies is 40 percent. Continue reading “Data review: eCommerce technologies in Finland 2019”
2019-10-07
The Nordic championship in the heavyweight company series is a game of two. Episerver wins by 19 percent market share. The second place belongs to WordPress with about 17 percent. Drupal, taking the third place, must settle for 7 percent share. Just behind the last medal position follows tightly Sitecore just 0.1 percent behind Drupal, Umbraco with 5 percent share and tailor-made solutions with almost 5 percent share. Continue reading “Content management system market shares in biggest Nordic companies”
26.11.2018
The web store requirements of Eckerö Line are very complicated. Similarities with typical consumer web shops cannot really be found. Already, the cruise and route trip sales have many dimensions and when enhanced with different kinds of extra services onboard, such as meals and vehicle shipping, and services in the destination, such as hotel accommodation and opera tickets, managing different kinds of combinations becomes really complicated. An extra spice is the pre-order selection, which comes with its own set of rules. Continue reading “CASE: Eckerö Line succeeded with a complex web store renewal”
18.6.2019
Today, Magento is the most commonly used e-commerce platform in Finland. The installation base is broad for both the open source version and the commercially licensed version. Due to the new ownership, the market position of the product changes slightly.
Global software company Abode announced an acquisition of e-commerce platform Magento back in May 2018. Adobe has had an extensive offering already before, but it’s been lacking an e-commerce solution. Magento seems to be the missing piece for the puzzle. Now that a year has passed since the announcement, it’s time to reflect the impact of the acquisition and the future of Magento. Continue reading “Magento is in the middle of a change – again”
When you look at the web technology platforms different companies use, the most popular open source products are still going strong. If we compare purely the number of installations, WordPress and Drupal are leaders of the pack. Free license attracts buyers, but the products are also very suitable for typical website implementation scenarios. Continue reading “Most popular web technology platforms in Finland 2019”
Quite a few do dare! Few years ago, we helped Kojamo (by then still VVO) with design and implementation of their new web store. A totally new renting process was very well adopted, because the availability of the rental apartments was (and is) poor in the Helsinki city area. Especially those moving in from distant locations thought that it is a good idea to rent a home on the Internet without even seeing it.
Right now, however, the situation is totally different. Kauppalehti tells in an article about Kojamo, that in the mid November 2018 over 7500 rental contracts had been done in the service. Continue reading “Would you dare to rent a home directly on the Internet?”
During the last few years the situation of IBM as a provider of web store systems has not looked very good. In Finland, the situation with partners has steadily become worse, and it is not easy to recommend IBM, even though the system itself is quite capable.
Now IBM has sold a remarkable collection of products to an Indian company HCL Technologies. HCL has become known especially as a partner in big outsourcing cases. This business case seems to be similar. Continue reading “IBM abandons its web store platform”
16.1.2019
It can be difficult to create qualitative metrics for modern service systems. Here are some thoughts to help your work. Continue reading “What you measure is what you get!”
November 22, 2018
It is difficult to sell products without high-quality, comprehensive and up-to-date product information. This is self-evident in B2C web stores, but the same requirements apply to B2B sales channels as well. The difference with B2B channels is that providing high-quality, comprehensive and up-to-date product information is much more complicated than in consumer business.
Continue reading “Survey results: Product information is the foundation of B2B sales channels”
December 5, 2017
Utilization of web analytics varies a lot around organizations. Many companies have a Google Analytics account (or corresponding tool) in place, but too few of these organizations take full advantage of it. But why is that? Shouldn’t the benefits be obvious? Continue reading “Ingredients for utilizing web analytics”
15.11.2017
There are a wide array of different conferences available in Europe for digital professionals and web designers. We asked several experts which ones are worth visiting, so you know, which ones to keep an eye on and when to plan your visit.
Continue reading “Top 10 must visit conferences in Europe for digital professionals”
10.10.2017
The content management system for the Finnish Tax Administration web service, Vero.fi, has been renewed. User experience, search functions, and maintainability were significantly improved in the process. Continue reading “CASE: Tax.fi user-friendliness fine-tuned through testing”
Forrester is one of the most well-known analyst companies that publishes ranking reports for content management systems (Gartner being the other one). The most recent Forrester Wave report about web content management systems (Q1/2017) was published at the beginning of this year, and there were some surprises, to say the least. I will review the report in this article and offer some background for how Forrester’s report should be interpreted. Continue reading “Forget the latest Forrester report about WCM systems”
24.4.2017
Helsinki Expo and Convention Centre Messukeskus launched their website redesign project in 2014. At the time, their website was running on SharePoint 2007. The site was not serving customers as well as desired anymore, and the technical platform was aging rapidly, too.
The aim was to replace the old SharePoint solution with a modern, easier-to-maintain combination of web services targeted to both visitors and exhibitors. Messukeskus wanted to offer their visitors inspiring and activating content before, during and after each event, and to encourage people to share their experiences with others.
Continue reading “CASE: Helsinki Expo and Convention Centre’s web services take a digital leap”
Nov 14, 2016
Deciding your digital touch points is not always a straightforward task. Especially right now when the mobile world is developing at a fast pace. Many organizations have already invested big chunks of money in mobile apps, but many are still wondering about whether they should invest in high-quality web apps or new channels instead, such as Facebook Messenger bots. Continue reading “Expert advice: Native mobile apps, bots or web apps?”
Aug 23, 2016
Many organizations are now paying attention to the development of their customer-facing self-service channels, with some of them already developing the second or third generation. Many customers are already accustomed to good self-service channels; online banks are good examples of services with a long lifespan. Continue reading “Different conceptual approaches to self-service channels”
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