I personally never heard of Missoni but the fact that the activity was even close to comparable to the biggest shopping day of the year is pretty amazing. To add to the impressiveness of this launch is that their website wasn’t prepared for it either. The numbers visiting Target.com during the launch must have been through the roof, I mean it’s Target.com.

This reminds me of one of our former records sales day we had a few years ago at DetailedImage.com that completely caught us off guard on how successful the sale we ran was as our site temporarily went in and out of commission. I can see how that happened us as a small growing company but Target crashing for one new popular product line is shocking to me since I assume they would already be prepared for a holiday rush so the demand for Missoni must have been truly unprecedented.  Nonetheless I think the Missoni at Target partnership had a successful launch since they almost cleared out inventory in one day for a planned one month limited-time exclusive on the line.

Below is a great analysis of the massive e-commerce beast that is Amazon.com. With entrepreneur Jeff Bezos leading the company from the beginning, see their evolution throughout the years and view the Hidden Empire. You may be surprised at what is part of the Amazon empire and the reach that they have. View the slideshow and find out how big Amazon really is and how they dominate.

I personally use Amazon.com all the time. They have a huge selection of categories and products, low prices, fast shipping with Amazon Prime, and much more. They really offer a fantastic e-commerce experience.

This big holiday weekend all started back in August with our holiday marketing preparation and our kick off to holiday specials in
November. We were proactive this year and took advantage of some down time in the fall to plan out everything from inventory, marketing, work hours, etc. to result in a very successful and less stressful holiday weekend. Having a few holiday seasons under our belt, our experience and constant improvements on efficiency let us whoop some candy ass this Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend.

Execution, execution, execution, it’s all about execution right now as we near the final stretch with shipping deadlines looming. A few more sales and a focus on free shipping is how we’ll finish off the holiday season. Again experience has helped us plan everything out and it’s made this holiday season go swimmingly so far.

Home Shopping Network
First lets start with the Home Shopping Network (HSN) newsletter featuring 5 Reason To Shop HSN. It’s wonderfully designed and it makes some very valid points on why to shop with them. When the holidays roll around you have to stand out and make every effort to provide as much value as possible to customers. Customers want value during the holidays and HSN lets you know exactly why you should shop with them.

Sports Authority
Sports Authority ran a great Black Friday Pre-Sale providing great value to themselves and customers. I like this promo because it’s something unique that I haven’t seen and here are a few reasons why it works.

• They’re getting Black Friday deals out to customers early and getting them excited
• They’re making it easy for customers to get big ticket Black Friday items by allowing them to pre-order
• Even though these are pre-orders they’re still getting customers in the store on Black Friday for the pick up
• If there is a deposit on the pre-orders Sports Authority is getting money in their pocket earlier which can help cash flow

It’s simple Sports Authority is making it easy for customers to take advantage Black Friday early and if they do require a deposit they’re creating better cash flow for themselves.

The wheels are in motion and it’s come down to execution. We’re very well prepared going into to this year’s holiday season and look forward to a successful one. There’s excitement in the air as November starts and I’m looking forward to see how some of the new things we’re doing work out.

Credit to the Gart Sports Company for starting SNIAGRAB which did a merger of equals with The Sports Authority in 2003. There is also a great story behind Gart Sports Company and the beginnings of SNIAGRAB that you can view in the video below.

What is SNIAGRAB? It’s Sports Authority’s new sale spelling “bargains” backwards. When I received the newsletter I got fixated on trying to figure out how to say that  wacky word and not looking right below the word to see that it’s bargains backwards. This email definitely got my attention the same way as naming my post that way has grabbed some people’s attention I assume.

I’ve been on Sports Authority’s newsletter list for a while now and they have certainly made a big change with the new newsletter template. You can see the differences in The Retail Email Blog’s recent post comparing the differences.

Checking the site it looks like they’ve also updated their site. I like the changes that they have made.  I’ve always thought their site was a little plain and outdated. The changes they’ve made have definitely caught my attention especially with the SNIAGRAB promo with popping graphics and creative sale name.

With the recent changes that SportsAuthority.com has made along with the new creative promos, it’s probably made a positive impact on their newsletter results. I thought their promotions were pretty predictable with $25 off $100 and the change of pace should grab the attention of subscribers that have become accustomed to their promos.

With our email marketing at Detailed Image we always try to keep it fresh and change it up so it doesn’t get mundane with unique promotions like our Easter egg promo. There are limits to what we can do but we work with what we got.  You got to keep your subscribers engaged and see value in staying subscribed to your newsletter.

Thumbs up to the creativity and new look at SportsAuthority.com.

Hover over the image below to see some of the key features in the design

Using the CSS image swap I posted about back in February you can hover over the above image to see some of the key design features we implemented. Some highlights of the new design include CSS3 @font-face and drop shadows which was nice because we had the opportunity to try CSS3. Ultimately the new design should convert better with the focus on selling products then content.

This Super Bowl weekend we got something fun in the works at Detailed Image.  We’re doing a Super Bowl free shipping promo with a special bonus for free products. The special bonus is if you pick the winner of the Super Bowl between the Colts and Saints you’ll automatically receive a free 8oz Optimum No Rinse and Microfiber All Purpose Towel.

This is another example of the creative promotions we can do at Pure Adapt. Last April we did this cool little Easter egg promotion where eligible orders received a random plastic egg with a gift certificate in it.

It’s exciting when we really get to be creative with our marketing.  We try to keep it fresh so that our promotions don’t get mundane and over done.  We’ve done a great job in my opinion in keeping things pretty flexible so that we can do promotions like this.  When I’m planning out our marketing promotions I can see it getting repetitive and it’s nice when you get something new out there for our customers.

The thing I like best about his promotion is how the customer gets involved in the promo for a chance to get some free products.

Here are the complete details to our Super Bowl XLIV promotion:

Super Bowl Free Shipping
Coupon Code:  superbowl44
Bonus - Pick the winner of the Super Bowl and get a free 8oz Optimum No Rinse (ONR) and 1 DI Microfiber All Purpose Towel. Enter your Super Bowl pick in the comment field as “Colts” or “Saints”.

Minimum purchase $75 is required for free shipping and bonus. You must place a valid order using coupon code superbowl44 to make your pick eligible for free products. This offer cannot be combined with any other offers. Free shipping is only valid to 48 contiguous US states. Offer ends Sunday, February 7, 2010 6:00 PM EST.

I’m looking forward to a great Super Sunday, can’t wait.

It’s been just about 2 years since Tastefully Driven was launched in April 2008 and sadly to say it’s not working out for us and it will be closing down for good on March 1, 2010.

Why close down?

• Streamlines our warehouse and shipping processes
• Eliminates the cumbersome Amazon sales
• Lack of resources to make Tastefully Driven successful
• Focus on the growth of Detailed Image
• Opens up opportunities for new non ecommerce projects
• Amazon customers we get have no loyalty

The bottom line right now is that Tastefully Driven requires too many resources for a minimum profitability. There were big hopes for Tastefully Driven but unfortunately the resources just weren’t there to really do what we wanted to. Every time I go to the site I’m a little bit surprise on how great the site was developed but this is the best decision.

I personally like the decision to go less ecommerce because we’re in this vicious perpetual cycle of debt because of how retail works. As we grow we will need more inventory, which cost more money up front, which will continue to happen over and over till you max out your growth and profits are put towards debt and that’s not even including any expansion to new products. My view is that this cycle won’t stop for a while and this year we hope get more into self sustainable sites that make us money like a Sports Lizard or our new WoodyPaigeQuotes.com which should generate some ad money.

Overall this was a pretty simple decision for us to make as we always review what we do in our business and make the necessary changes. This is what I love about the business that my partners and I have created, is the fact that we have the flexibility to do what is needed and what we want to do.

Good bye Tastefully Driven! CLOSING SALE – 30% OFF EVERYTHING

Earlier this month I already noticed companies getting into the holiday spirit through newsletters and mailings. I recently reviewed our holiday marketing plan and tactics at the end of October and was surprised that it’s been a full 2 months since I put the plan together because I wrote “Happy Holidays in August” at the end of it. Time has passed with the swiftness and it’s time for implementation.

We have already started some of our holiday promotions with free ground shipping for US orders over $150 at Detailed Image. I designed a nice little header for our holiday free shipping promo (see below). This is a nice subtle way to transition into the holidays and feature our shipping promo.

We really kick things off today when we start our “Shop Early and Save Big” event. The primary goal of this sale is to get the customer shopping for the holidays a little bit early.

Competition starts to heat up with sales everywhere and inbox real estate is ever so more important as Thanksgiving nears.  We’re ready to get this holiday party started. I think we have a great plan heading forward and can’t wait to implement everything. As December comes near I’m also very excited to implement a little more festivity into the site design.

If you detail or are interested in detailing please take advantage of our Big Sale. Today through the 11/16/2009 11:59 PM EST save 20% at DetailedImage.com with coupon code EARLY09 and receive free shipping on orders over $150 (some restrictions apply).

Happy Pre-Holidays!