Functionality and usability are two categories that have been driving the growth of Ecommerce development through the years, but what does that mean exactly? Well, everyone has his or her own interpretation on that answer, but we’re hoping to explain it in a way you have never seen or heard before. So without further ado, I give you the 4 “-abilities.”

1/ Experience-ability: Integrating Flash and JavaScript content into your Ecommerce site creates an interactive brand/product experience that helps engage users with what you are trying to communicate. Adding JavaScript into rollovers helps make your site fluid, creative, and convert better.

2/ Share-ability: The most widespread use of the Internet today is information searching. Also, a person is 50% more influenced by word of mouth than mass advertising. Enabling your Ecommerce with social bookmarking/sharing tools like Facebook/Digg/Delicious, or Comment & Rating tools lets ‘em spread the word.

3/ Suggest-ability: Ecommerce is a great tool to expose your visitors to new and/or complementary products that they may or may not have tried yet. You can either do it by product association (people who bought this also liked this...) or by building a customer profile (based on your previous interests, we believe you might like this...).

4/ Widget-ability: Widgets are micro programs that usually serve one purpose. They can be built for a wide array of uses depending on your marketing needs, especially for Ecommerce. How do your customers shop on your site? Do they wait for sales? Do they buy only the newest featured items? Develop widgets that alert your customers based on what drives their motivations to buy.

What do you think about the 4 "-abilities"? Share your thoughts on the Ninthlink Blog!

With Earth Day happening this month, I bet I’ve received over 1000 companies’ marketing communications claiming that they have become green. Their idea of green is a new brand, product, or just the same product but relabeled. This is a problem because buying green is not the answer to solving the issue that is causing us to think green in the first place. So we’re here to promote ways you can digitally change your daily activities and decrease consumption of goods, not increase it.

Use what Google gave you: Google has an amazing suite of products and services that are completely free. One that you should definitely try out is Google Documents. Google has built a replica of Microsoft Office programs online. The best part is that you can do real-time collaboration of creating and editing documents. So next time you’re about to push print think about Google Docs.

Digital Communications: Encourage your customers to receive digital versions of all your sales communications. Promote on-site PDF downloads of brochures, sales promotions, etc. If you have a storefront, ask to collect their email address so you can email them a link to download the brochure. Not only will this encourage them to interact with you beyond their initial store visit, but you will be decreasing paper and ink consumption.

Have additional green ideas? Add them to the Ninthlink blog and we'll include them in next month's newsletter!

Tell us what you think! We welcome whatever you have to say.