Digivate - More money for your blog

The National AIDS Trust today announced the official launch of the World AIDS Day 2007 website.

Utilising the latest developments in interactive online technology, the website aims to increase awareness of HIV in the build-up to the 20th World AIDS Day on December 1st.

It will be one of the first in the UK to provide a hosted conversation tool powered by Newsgator. User-generated videos, blog content and news about HIV and AIDS will be available to view.

Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust, told Medical News Today: “Last year the website attracted 6.5 million visitors in the five weeks surrounding World AIDS Day.

“The aim this year is to use new technology to encourage as many people as possible to get involved in World AIDS Day by interacting with and contributing to the website. We want to have a conversation about HIV with people across the UK. “

Nearly nine out of ten consumers have experienced problems when making purchases online, according to a new study.

The Harris Interactive research revealed that 37 per cent of customers found websites difficult to navigate, 34 per cent of people had received error messages and 29 per cent felt they had been given insufficient or incorrect information.

Other bugbears included endless loops that block transactions (22 per cent), search functions that do not work properly (21 per cent) and being automatically logged off the page (20 per cent).

The findings suggest companies should make ecommerce website design a priority - 42 per cent of those who faced such difficulties either switched to a competitor or abandoned the transaction altogether.

Nor was customer service rated highly. Some 49 per cent of those who had been in touch with customer services said that their complaint had never been resolved and 68 per cent were convinced that the person they spoke to knew nothing about the website.

For information on ecommerce technology click here.

Digivate has just launched a new ecommerce website for plus-size women’s clothing retailer Elvi as part of the merchant’s planned store rollout and multi-channel expansion.

Will Gotley, managing director at Digivate, said: “The new Elvi site showcases several exciting new interactive features that will make online clothes shopping even easier and more fun.

“One of these features is ’shop by outfit’ where shoppers will be able to buy all the components of an outfit on one page. Another is a simplified checkout which will minimise the clicks needed to purchase.”

Meanwhile, Oliver Spark - the chief executive officer of Elvi - commented: “Elvi has huge potential as a multi-channel brand and a first class transactional website is an essential part of the mix.

“It was easy to choose Digivate - they provide both proven ecommerce technology and powerful marketing skills.”

Digivate, which was founded in 1998, provides an integrated service to multi-channel retailers.

For information regarding website design click here.

Leading pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has selected Morello from Mediasurface as the platform for their Global Web Content Management System, it was revealed today.

Morello saw off competition from four other short-listed competitors to secure responsibility for one of the largest content management solutions ever devised.

Morello’s brief includes providing a user-friendly WCM system; powerful multi-stage workflow management; flexible handling of movies, PDF’s and flash content, and wide support for foreign languages including Chinese and Japanese.

Kay Wesley, global director of eMarketing for AstraZeneca, said: “Morello has enabled us to complete our programme of rationalisation, bringing together our previous disparate systems under one, global technology that will enable seamless online relationships and a better experience for our customers and stakeholders.

“We will gain associated benefits from a cost, control and consolidation perspective and created a new global standard for our websites.”

AstraZeneca have over 250 content-managed sites worldwide, with varying levels of traffic and numbers of authors, while Morello is Europe’s fastest-growing content management solutions provider.

For information regarding website design click here.