The Ecommerce Experts

Helping you sell more online, increase customer conversions, beat your competitors and grow your business.
Information
Online retail continues to buck the downward trend
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Whilst the tectonic plates of the global economy continue to shift and jolt around the world, a closer look at online retail shows a positive trend which is giving online retailers steady ground in these shaky times.
Read More

offer
Exciting New tecMail features
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- Actinic Email Marketing Sales Conversion tracking!
read more
tecMail’s latest feature now allows you to send emails to your customers AND see how many of them buy from you AND see how much they buy.
As well as tracking the success and penetration of each email message you send, tecMail now also allows you to chart the cost effectiveness of your email Marketing campaign.
Email marketing is key to a successful online retail business.
The most successful E-retailers are doing it! Are you?
tecMail – Email Marketing Solution
Information
351 days till Christmas!
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Christmas Makeover results
After a large amount of applicants requesting entry to our Christmas makeover competition we had to extend the closing date in order to process all of the entries before announcing the winner.
We have now chosen the winner and we will be announcing the results of their makeover in an upcoming newsletter.
Thank you to all those businesses who entered and for the unsuccessful entries our team will be getting in touch directly to see what we may be able to assist you with.

Information

New Browser on the block – Chrome
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Google, the Search Engine Giant, has entered the internet browser market with their latest product offering in the form of a brand new internet browser, Google Chrome.
read more

We want to help you sell more products online, increase your customer conversions, beat your competitors and grow your business.
Information
351 days till Christmas!
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It’s getting closer and the countdown has begun!
Greenwich Meantime Christmas Countdown
Do you want a Christmas countdown installed on your web retail site?

Does your site need a Christmas makeover?
teclan want to demonstrate the benefits of implementing seasonal web effects and features into a live trading website to assist with the seasonal sales. We will be shortly picking a shortlist of applicants to undergo this process in the lead up to Christmas.
Click here to apply now!

offer
New Actinic Plugins available online
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We are pleased to announce that teclan have added more plugins to the hugely popular free plugins pages.
These plugins are designed to improve and add functionality to your store by adding non standard features to Actinic.
The new plugins are now live and we will be adding more in the coming weeks.
(VIEW CURRENT PLUGINS)
Information
Two-thirds of UK homes now online.
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Almost 16.5 million households in the UK now have internet access, an increase of 1.2 million since 2007, the latest official figures show.

Read more about this and what it means to your market growth.
(read more)
Information

Important dates for online retailers
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It is important to make sure that internet retailers are able to act and react effectively to key seasonal dates and events.
Following is a list of upcoming dates for you to review:
- 22nd Sept: First day of Autumn
- 26th Oct: Clocks go ‘back’ one hour.
- 28th Oct : British Summer Time Ends
- 31st Oct: Halloween
- 5th Nov: Bonfire Night
- 30th Nov: St Andrews Day
- 25th Dec: Christmas Day

We want to help you sell more products online, increase your customer conversions, beat your competitors and grow your business.

With that in mind we are increasing our newsletter publication to twice a month to allow us to update you with more relevant information, in a more efficient format for you to utilise in driving your business forward.

Information
With Christmas fast approaching, are your potential customers finding your online store?
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For the month of August, teclan are offering you the chance to take advantage of our FREE Optimisation and Marketing Consultation. During this consultation you will be able to see how well your optimisation efforts are doing, and also discuss potential marketing strategies.
(BOOK YOUR CONSULTATION TODAY!)
offer
Featured Site of the month… www.kids-partyshop.co.uk
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Kids-partyshop.co.uk is an Actinic site selling party supplies for children’s party ware and accessories. They sell a range of themed party supplies and specialise in First Birthday party-ware.
The Kids Party Shop has seen fantastic results through the Internet Sales Program, and within 12 months of starting the site had improved rankings and boosted traffic to the site…
(READ MORE)
Information
Major retailers add PayPal to their payments options
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More and more retailers are adding PayPal to their list of payment options as one in three UK online shoppers say it’s their preferred payment method…
PayPal is on a bit of a roll. Its share of consumer internet payments is up 5% over the last year, from 16% to 21%, 30% of UK online shoppers now say they prefer to use PayPal over any other form of payment online and over 120,000 retailers in Europe now accept PayPal. (read more)
offer
COMING SOON… NEW Actinic Plugins on www.teclan.com
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We are pleased to announce that teclan will be adding more plugins to the hugely popular free plugins pages.
These plugins are designed to improve and add functionality to your store by adding non standard features to Actinic.
The new plugins will be live www.teclan.com in a few weeks.
(VIEW CURRENT PLUGINS)

We want to help you sell more products online, increase your customer conversions, beat your competitors and grow your business.

With that in mind we are increasing our newsletter publication to twice a month to allow us to update you with more relevant information, in a more efficient format for you to utilise in driving your business forward.

Information
Catch your customers in a web of colour :
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One of the most important decisions you can make when designing your internet retail store is the colour. The colour that your site uses be it background or text colour greatly influences the users emotional experience of navigating though your site as well as reflecting your corporate identity and branding.
(read more)
Information
Amazon benefit from high fuel prices :
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The online retailer Amazon has beaten profit forecasts as it cuts prices to attract cash-strapped customers. Net profit for the three months to the end of June doubled to $158m, beating forecasts in what is traditionally the weakest quarter of the year.
Sales of books, CDs and DVDs rose 31% while electronics and general merchandise sales were up 58%.
Good news for internet retailers……. (read more)
offer
FREE Optimisation and marketing Consultation :
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FREE consultation
The popularity of our design consultations have led us to offer a free 1/2 hour seo and internet marketing consultation to offer direction to those people who are not already on teclan’s Internet Sales Programme. (read more)

July Newsletter

Welcome to another feature packed newsletter from teclan. Summer is upon us and everyone is hoping that internet retail continues to buck the trend of the global credit crunch as analysts continue to predict online growth throughout 2008.

You may have noticed that our newsletters are using a new format. This is to ensure that the information that we send to you bi-monthly is easy to read and follow.

We are also using new icon images, these icons are designed to help you prioritise and categorise the information.

See the key below to understand what these icons mean
teclan’s Newsletters Icon Key

Information
Sleigh Bells Ringing? Will your tills be ringing 50% more? :
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There is no avoiding it. Christmas inevitably comes once a year, however the successful retailers are already planning months, sometimes years in advance for each Christmas boom.
Analysts are anticipating another huge 50% increase in Christmas internet sales.
Find out what you should be doing now to capitalise on the busiest time of year for internet retailers.
(read more)
Information
Introducing Debit Mastercard :
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This August a new debit card called Debit MasterCard will be launched in the UK. Accepting the new Debit MasterCard means you can increase the payment choice available to your customers. There is also the potential to attract additional card purchases to your business.
Read more to find out when and how this new Card will affect your business…
(read more)
Hosting
teclan hosting service has grown again :
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teclan are proud to state that our hosting provision service has grown and improved year on year again. With consistent 99.9% uptimes, a doubling of our hosting capacity and hardware along with improved hardware upgrades the future for all our hosted customers is bright.
(read more)
offer
Internet Retail Design Consultation :
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FREE design consultation
Due to the success of this service we are extending this unique opportunity for one more month to existing teclan customers. A free design consultation service aimed at delivering quality web ecommerce design information to assist you in selling more online. Design is key to your online shop’s success. Allow our design experts to report back to you on the key areas you can improve upon for YOUR website.
(read more)

June Newsletter

Welcome to another feature packed newsletter from teclan. Summer is upon us and everyone is hoping that internet retail continues to buck the trend of the global credit crunch as analysts continue to predict online growth throughout 2008.

* Marketing :: Christmas :: Are you getting ready for Christmas?
* Internet Retail :: APACS :: Bank transfers in a matter of hours?
* Marketing :: Ecommerce tips :: 10 top tips for trading online?
* Legislation :: PCI confusion :: The tangled web of PCI Compliance
* Web Design :: Free Design Consultation :: for teclan customers
* teclan :: Customer Offer :: 25% off any teclan Actinic V9 theme
* Internet Retail :: PROTX Upgrade :: Planned system upgrade
* Marketing :: July Events :: National events for the month of July

Are you getting ready for Christmas? :
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Yes, we know. It can’t be that time of year already! For online retailers however now is the time to be planning and implementing your online marketing strategies to capture the Christmas trade. Search engine ranking and online advertising activities needs to begin soon.
We will be publishing a guide for Christmas marketing in next months newsletter. Watch this space………….

APACS – Bank transfers in a matter of hours? :
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Faster Payments (APACS) is the first new payments service to be introduced in the UK for more than 20 years. For the very first time phone, internet and standing order payments can move within a few hours – almost at the touch of a button.
(read more)

Ecommerce top tips :
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Here are a few top tips for selling online. These tips are recommendations on how to maximise your internet retail presence and generate more revenue from your website.
(read more)

PCI Compliance Confusion :
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On June 30 this year Best Practice 6.6 of the PCI Data Security Standard becomes a requirement. If you are not already aware of the requirements for PCI compliance then please read on.
(read more)

Free Web design consultation :
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A unique opportunity for existing teclan customers. A free design consultation service aimed at delivering quality web ecommerce design information to assist you in selling more online. Design is key to your online shop’s success. Allow our design experts to report back to you on the key areas you can improve upon for YOUR website.
(read more)

25% off teclan Actinic themes :
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A unique saving for June only for existing teclan customers. Buy any of our Actinic themes and templates and save 25% off the RRP price.
Click here to view our range of Actinic themes

PROTX upgrade :
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PROTX are performing a planned system upgrade on Sunday 22nd June
(read more)

Spring is here and we are all hoping for the beginnings of a successful and profitable spring and summer for internet retailing. We hope that some of the following information will be beneficial to you and help you in achieving this goal.

* Actinic :: V9 released :: what are the features and benefits
* teclan :: tecmail V2 email marketing system :: new product released
* Legislation :: PCI DSS compliance :: more information on this important change
* teclan :: Developments in progress :: teclan open the lid on works in progress
* teclan :: Actinic themes :: teclan’s Actinic Themes are V9 compliant
* Internet Retail :: BT Yahoo email issues :: are you affected?
* Internet Retail :: Mobile revolution :: does the phone spell trouble for your internet retail site?
* Internet Retail :: HSBC outage :: even the large PSP corporations are having serious problems
*

Actinic V9 released: (read more)
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Actinic have finally released their new version 9 of the award winning ecommerce software. V9 heralds more performance and usability improvements over new, “wow factor” developments with their software. The keywords for this release would be: Stability, reliability, performance, design.

http://www.teclan.com/acatalog/Actinic_Version_9.html

tecmail – email marketing system: (read more)
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teclan are delighted to announce the release of tecmail V2 – Email Marketing System. Version 2 addresses and improves upon many issues in Version 1.
- Improved Email design template functionality
- Improved customer/subscription management
- Improved Email address data management
- Enhanced email marketing performance reporting
Read more and download a demo version here:

http://www.teclan.com/acatalog/E-Marketing.html

PCI Compliance: (read more)
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PCI DSS Compliance continues to gain more and more press and coverage. Streamline have released some information to all streamline users in the form of a leaflet regarding the need for PCI DSS compliance.

They state:
“PCI DSS is a joint development by VISA and MasterCard, fully supported by The Royal Bank Of Scotland Group, and together we urge you to comply as soon as you can. Please be aware that failure to comply could mean at best, fines from the card schemes and at worst, fines for breach of data so it is imperative that you understand what you need to do to protect your business.”

They recommend 2 routes for businesses:
1. Completing an audit whereby a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) conducts an onsite audit
2. Complete a self assessment questionnaire

http://streamline.co.uk/pcidss

Development: (read more)
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As part of our ongoing development to continually deliver and provide the best products to our customers we would like to notify you of some upcoming releases that are currently in development.
These are products and tools that teclan are developing which are aimed at provided added benefit and functionality to all of teclan’s customers

ActSync Order tracking from teclan (for Actinic customers):
An realtime order tracking and customer order information system.

TASK for Actinic V2:
The next generation of Actinic plug-in tools.

teclan.com – teclan will be shortly launching our new and improved website offering better features and functionality for our customers and partners. Watch this space for more details.

BT Yahoo Email issues: (read more)
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Any users who currently utilise BT Yahoo as their ISP and email provider may well have been experiencing problems. This is due to a security upgrade by BT on their email accounts. You can read more here:

http://help.btinternet.com/yahoo/help/servicestatus/0,8411,Narrowband_0_5_BTY_Home,00.html

iPhone: Web browsing revolution: (read more)
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With the introduction of new mobile devices like the iTouch, the N95 from nokia and particularly the iPhone from Apple more and more people are browsing and using the internet using smaller and smaller browsing devices. This sets challenge for existing websites to deliver content that will not cause problems for these browsers. The days of creating a WAP enabled website along side your existing web service are diminishing.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/iphone_tops_chart/

HSBC outage: (read more)
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With the recent outrage over the latest HSBC PSP problems it has highlighted that 100% is not guaranteed in the world of payment service providers which is why we would advocate looking at a second, backup option for collecting and processing online payments.
With PCI compliance becoming ever more of an issue, utilising PCI compliant PSP’s will be more and more likely and therefore more reliance will be placed on these services, hence the need to ensure maximum stability and reliability. The 3 main PSP’s that we would look to recommend would be WorldPay, PROTX and Secure Trading.
Please contact any of the teclan team for more information on this issue.
Read more about the HSBC crash here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/31/hsbc_epayments_badness/

I just wanted to send this email to you to update you on some interesting news and information in the world of online retailing that may be of benefit to you.
: Legislation: Distance Selling Regulations (DSR) – do you know where you stand?
: Legislation: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) – does it apply to you?
: Web design : CSS vs Tables – what does it mean to me?
: Actinic : Actinic Version 9 in BETA
: teclan : Internet Sales expected to reach 15%!
: Actinic : teclan are the largest provider of Actinic themes (V8/V9)

Distance selling regulations – do you know where you stand if a customer returns goods?
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We merchants who trade online should be aware of the distance selling regulations which are in place and overseen by the OFT (Office of Fair Trading). These regulations are put in place to ensure suitable and effective guidelines are in place to protect both the consumer and the merchant during remote transactions i.e. selling online.
Some points to note:
- Business to Business contracts are not covered by the DSR
- Notable exceptions to the DSR are online auctions (eBay etc) and rental agreements (that have to be in writing!)
- The right to cancel does not apply in many situations e.g. perishable goods, betting services, unsealed CDs or DVDs, personalised goods
These are just a few of the pertinent points to note. Please make sure you are aware of them of have at least read them if you are trading online. More info can be found here:
http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/legal/distance-selling-regulations/
PCI – DSS compliance – does it apply to you?
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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was originally developed by Visa International and MasterCard Worldwide, and endorsed by other payment providers including American Express, Diner’s Club, JCB and Discover Financial Services.
The PCI DSS must be met by all organizations that accept or store information from credit/debit cards issued by the PCI payment providers/credit card companies.
Note – it is not law, more a contractual obligation applied and enforced by Payment service providers themselves. They can impose fines and restrictions of their guidelines are not adhered to.
If you collect credit card details to process through a terminal or other process then you should be aware of the criteria you should be complying with. See the following link for more info:

http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/pci_dss.aspx

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

Web design – CSS vs Tables – what does it mean to me?
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There has been a lot of hype surrounding web design using CSS rather than older, bloated HTML tables. At teclan we now only design in the main using CSS layout and styling techniques.
This helps us design better looking websites which: load faster than their HTML counterparts, are more accessible to different media types (PDA etc), allow for greater design flexibility for future changes, lower your hosting costs
You can see a nice presentation on the benefits here:

http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html

If you have not already taken advantage of CSS design on your website then let us know – we can help you with your own CSS design requirements
Actinic Version 9 in BETA
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Actinic have released the public beta of their long awaiting next release of their award winning software. Actinic V9 is currently being tested by many within the Actinic community. You can download the BETA for testing purposes from here:

http://www.actinic.co.uk/about/Beta.php4

Key new features include:
Tax-inclusive Pricing – Gives you the ability to enter all your prices including tax, to allow more accurate pricing and eliminate rounding errors.
Product Options Wizard – Stepping you through the creation of options that are priced and stock-managed
Google Analytics – Automatic integration and ecommerce tracking with Google Analytics
‘New Order’ Tab (Business only) – Allowing you to quickly and efficiently enter telephone orders into Actinic
Offer for V7 and earlier users – Upgrade to V8 now and receive a FREE upgrade to V9 when the production version is released.
Internet Sales expected to reach 15%!
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Analysts are anticipating the growth in internet retail to continue through 2008 with approximately 15% of ALL retail sales being undertaken online. Christmas 2008 is expected to see a boost of 50% from previous years.
Many analysts say that the 24/7 availability, not having to wait in queues and especially competitive pricing are all driving more and more consumers to shop online.
The 30 – 40 age group are the most likely to buy online, however one of the main markets that retailers can focus on are the 40+ age group whose online purchasing power is expected to grow and grow as more and more in this age group adopt the technology.
teclan are the largest provider of Actinic themes
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teclan have become the largest provider of pre-built custom themes for the Actinic V8 software – the UK’s leading ecommerce solution. This puts teclan at the forefront of design and building for the Actinic software and we want to make sure that all of our customers know about this exciting new development for the company.
Our custom web design service has grown and developed, utilising specialised knowledge of design closely married with sound internet retail know-how, and is still our most popular service.
We have developed the Themes for the people entering the Actinic ecommerce field or people who feel trapped by the basic Actinic themes that come with the software and feel the cannot afford the quality, custom service of an Actinic web designer.
Come along and have a look if you have not already!

http://www.teclan.com/acatalog/Actinic_Themes.html

That’s all for this month.
I hope some of this information was useful. We shall sent through another update next month.
Until then – many thanks.