Tommy Hilfiger Chooses First Scribe for Search Engine Marketing

The North America marketing division of Tommy Hilfiger online once again gave the nod to First Scribe to provide search engine marketing services for fall brand initiatives.

The two organizations first met in 2007 when Tommy Hilfiger marketing staff located the First Scribe site in organic Google search listings. The partnership began with First Scribe marketing team managing the 2007 Christmas pay per click campaigns for the Tommy Hilfiger online store.

This year First Scribe is providing the same search engine marketing support for the launch of the Tommy Hilfiger Intimates line of lingerie.

First Scribe Director of Search Engine Marketing, Ken Kralick says, "Things are looking good for this PPC effort. Interest in the product line is good and the Hilfiger folks have a lot of inventory on hand. We're already running about half the cost per conversion we were in 2007 and I'm thrilled with that."

About Tommy Hilfiger

With a premium lifestyle brand portfolio that includes Tommy Hilfiger and Hilfiger Denim, The Tommy Hilfiger Group of Companies is one of the world's most recognized designer apparel groups. The Group's focus is designing and marketing high-quality men's wear, women's wear, children's apparel and denim collections. Through select licensees, the Group offers complementary lifestyle products such as accessories, fragrances and home furnishings. Tommy Hilfiger Group merchandise is available to consumers worldwide through an extensive network of dedicated retail stores, leading specialty and department stores and other carefully controlled distribution channels. For additional information about the Tommy Hilfiger Group of Companies, please visit www.tommy.com.

First Scribe Completes Pro Bono Web Design For MADD MN

First Scribe is proud to announce the launch of the new website design for the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Minnesota Chapter - http://www.maddmn.org/ .

First Scribe Director of SEM, Ken Kralick says, "The old site had been hacked and really needed some help so I thought we could lend a hand with our services. I think MADD is a good cause and hopefully this site will help them in their mission."

The existing site was built on a Content Management System that wasn't ideal for in-house changes and additions. The new site design is modern, Search Engine friendly, easy for MADD staff to update, and best of all for MADD-MN it was pro bono.

About MADD:

Founded in 1980, MADD has helped save more than 300,000 lives since its founding. MADD's mission is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime and prevent underage drinking. For more information, visit http://www.maddmn.org/ or call the State Office at 651-523-0802. Twenty-four hour victim assistance is available by calling 1-877-MADD-HELP.

Opus Corporation Chooses First Scribe

First Scribe is proud to announce their latest search engine marketing partnership, this time with the internationally-recognized land developer Opus Corporation.

First Scribe's industry leading Search Engine Optimization services will avail the OpusCorp.com website to Google and the other search engines. The First Scribe project manager will work with Opus Marketing and IT personnel as well as the entire First Scribe web development staff in order to clear the way for search engines to spider the entire site - without affecting the existing OpusCorp.com design.

First Scribe Director of Search Engine Marketing, Ken Kralick says, "Our intention is to greatly increase the visibility of Opus in the organic search engines without affecting the visual branding of the site. Both companies like the existing design and Opus is heavily invested in collateral. We will re-work the underlying code. The end-user won't see a difference but Google will suddenly see 1,200 pages that they couldn't see before."

Both teams have high expectations and they will use Omniture SiteCatalyst analytics to measure the effectiveness of their efforts. First Scribe Owner & CEO, Jay Perrill is excited for the new business partnership saying, "Opus Corporation makes an amazing addition to our marketing portfolio. We are really excited to help their marketing staff reach their goals of increasing exposure in the search engines."

About Opus Group

The Opus Group, based in Minneapolis, is a $2.2 billion premier, full-service real estate development company with 55 years experience. Specializing in office, industrial, retail, multifamily, government and institutional development, the Opus Group has completed nearly 2,450 projects totaling 238 million square feet and currently has 35 million square feet in planning or development. Opus employs nearly 2,000 people in 26 offices in the United States and Canada. Committed to creating great real estate, Opus implements best practices in sustainable design and construction to maximize building performance and reduce environmental impact. A community steward since its inception, the Opus Group is committed to the long-term development of people and communities by contributing 10 percent of its pre-tax profits to community organizations. For more information, visit http://www.opuscorp.com/.

Top 10 Online Stores By Volume

People in my work and social circles are often asking me who the top 10 online stores are (and how much they sell). That's a tough question to answer because the reported numbers are often voluntary. Furthermore, the Internet Retailer Guide has only been available for a few years - and it's not free.

Top 10 Online Stores By Volume

The top 10 online retailers, by revenue in 2007:

1. Amazon.com, $14.8 billion
2. Staples, $5.6 billion
3. Office Depot, $4.9 billion
4. Dell, $4.2 billion
5. HP, $3.36 billion
6. OfficeMax, $3.16 billion
7. Apple, $2.7 billion
8. Sears, $2.59 billion
9. CDW, $2.41 billion
10. Newegg.com, $1.9 billion

Source: Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide



Past Top 10 Online Stores By Volume

I worked hard to pull the next numbers together. I finally found the top 10 list from 2000 after a long, exhaustive, 5-minute Internet Search.

The top 10 online retailers, by revenue in 2000:

1. Wal-Mart - 193.3 billion
2. Kroger
3. Home Depot
4. Sears, Roebuck and Company
5. Kmart
6. Albertson's
7. Target
8. JCPenny
9. Costco
10. Safeway

Other Notable Mentions:

46. Barnes & Noble
66. Amazon.com


Online Revenue For The Top 100 Sites:

• 1999 - $963.2 Billion
• 2000 - $1.06 Trillion

Source: Cached Version of About.com Retail Industry News

Are Coupons Today's Key To Online Sales?

We at First Scribe don't claim to be economists but we know a tough market when we see one. Bloomberg.com reports the Dow Average's Drop into a bear market and many are feeling the pinch.

How is it affecting online sales?

High gas prices can actually be a boon to online revenue. Online retail studies are showing that nationwide, shoppers are increasingly looking at the Internet earlier in the buying process. Unfortunately, we are seeing numbers down on the Internet as well.

So, what to do about sinking online sales numbers?

If summer is your season and your numbers are down, we don't need to tell you that it's time to move. Here's a few quick ideas to turn some numbers:

1. Create a coupon with a limited-time offer. Put a big-old button that allows them to email it to a friend. Maybe you give them a better deal for each friend they email (up to a point, obviously). The idea is to get your site under as many noses as possible. A coupon is a tangible item they print/hold during an online purchase.
   
   
2. Offer free shipping or free in-store pickup. Gas prices are a quantifiable issue and free shipping speaks right to the problem. Ten percent off is a great idea but free shipping will save them a trip in the car.
   
   
3. Send 2 email blasts. Split your database in half; send a shipping offer to one half and a percentage off to the other half. Then, measure the results and hit the weak half with the opposite offer.
   
   
4. Make sure everything on your website is in stock and ready to go. People visit your website to buy - not to browse your stock issues. If it's out of stock, get it off the site.
   
   
5. Finally, put something on sale and make sure people know it's On Sale. Get the featured item on your home page change to another item if you don't sell any within 1-2 business days.
   

Most Popular Google Searches -- Part 2

In January we posted a reference to Google's Zeitgeist - a listing of the previous year's most popular Google searches.

This posting received a lot of search traffic so we decided it was time to add another tidbit.

Back By Popular Demand - Part 2!

It appears that Google has the kinks worked out of their new Google Hot Trends tool. This tool shows you the top 100 most searched terms in the Google search engine. You can even change the date to look at specific days - back to May 15, 2007.

Your Mileage May Vary

I don't know how useful this information is to the general public. I honestly doubt some of the keywords that it displays, such as this beauty ranked #65 on May15, 2007 -

"what clinton aide once felt compelled to explain that “i talked to the white house” meant he talked to some people and not to the building".

We look at the content for trends but I find it very hard to believe that phrase was among the top 100 for the day.

Estimating Online Sales

Nearly every eCommerce project that we bid on comes down to one final question:

How much will we sell online?

It's impossible to guarantee any sort of a projection but we have a formula that will get us in range. Our estimates are a combination of average conversion rates times current traffic levels and a bit of intuition. This estimate isn't possible without an honest traffic number.

Estimating Online Sales

We can make a solid estimate of online sales once we have a number for Avg. Monthly Unique visitors in hand. The more months we have to work from, the better - this gives us an idea of growth/decline rate and seasonality.

Take this average number of visitors and multiply it by a conversion rate you feel comfortable with using. This will give you an estimate of the average number of people who will purchase from you because of your site. Call this number Total Buys.

Online conversion rates can easily vary from 1% to 7%. We rely heavily on Omniture SiteCatalyst for analytics and we feel comfortable with starting at 3% conversion for a new site with a solid design.

Remember That Some Products Don't Sell Online

Here's where you need to trust your intuition. There are products that simply don't sell online and these products may not be obvious. If the timeliness of the product is so immediate that next-day delivery is too late then you will have a tough time selling it online.

Average Order Size

Two more variables need to be added to the formula: Avg. Order Size and another conversion percentage based on the Avg. Order Size.

Ask your prospective client for their average order size at the brick and mortar store(s). This number is often spot-on for web orders. If you don't have this number, pull an average price of all products available from the site and adjust that number about 30% down. This adjustment will accommodate for a higher percentage of small items over the bigger-ticket units.

If this Avg. Order Size is over $500, multiply your Total Buys number by 10%. If the Avg. Order Size is less than $500, multiply Total Buys by 40%.

Multiple eCommerce studies have shown - Of the visitors who start shopping online and purchase from you, better than 60% will purchase offline. The number increases to 90% if the purchase is over $500. This number should be referred to as the Online Buys Percentage.

The Final Estimate Formula

Total Buys = (Avg. Monthly Unique * Conversion Rate)

Estimated Revenue = (Total Buys * Avg. Order Size) * Online Buys Percentage


Remember: This is an estimate!

Keep in mind, this is an estimate based upon current traffic numbers and a fairly low conversion rate. We often bracket the current traffic numbers with a 50 and 100% average traffic increase over the next year.

2nd Wind Exercise Equipment Chooses First Scribe

First Scribe is proud to announce their latest partnership with nationally recognized 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment.

First Scribe's industry leading Design and Internet Marketing services will allow 2nd Wind to combine their 4 existing websites into one singularly branded, eCommerce presence. First Scribe's programming team will also integrate the 2nd Wind online shopping cart to their existing NetSuite Accounting and CRM systems.

The 2nd Wind and First Scribe management teams agree that the sales projection for the new eCommerce presence will surpass the expected first-year revenue of a 2nd Wind brick and mortar store. Both teams have high expectations and they will use Omniture SiteCatalyst analytics to measure the effectiveness of their efforts.

First Scribe Owner & CEO, Jay Perrill is excited for the new business partnership saying, "The acquisition of the 2nd Wind Exercise account is a great move for us. This firmly establishes First Scribe's reputation as a premium web design firm."

About 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment
2nd Wind (http://www.2ndwindexercise.com) is passionate about fitness solutions for their clients and continually changes the way the world looks at exercise. Founded in Minneapolis in 1991 as a specialty used exercise equipment dealer, 2nd Wind grew rapidly and is now the premier specialty Fitness dealer in United States with 100 Midwest locations in 10 states. 2nd Wind has a philosophy of "Customized Fitness Solutions" and an environment that educates, motivates and develops individual programs to achieve and obtain measurable, realistic goals while optimizing their customer’s chance for a successful, life changing fitness experience. 2nd Wind is the exclusive dealer for many top brand manufacturers including; Life Fitness, Parabody, True, Hoist, PaceMaster, Vision, Octane, and a host of others. 2nd Wind also offers a free VIP program that provides personal training, healthy recipes, fitness articles and exclusive discounts on top home fitness equipment.

Firefox 3 - A Record Breaking Browser

Mozilla, the organization behind the popular FireFox browser, is attempting to secure a Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours. FireFox has gained market share on chief rival Internet Explorer over recent years and the newest version, FireFox 3, is packed with even more features. FireFox has historically provided a better user experience with such features as built in pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing (long before IE 7), and tighter security.

From a developer's standpoint FireFox is far more compliant with open web standards and far less buggy than Internet Explorer. The end result is web sites look like they were intended on a variety of operating systems, screen resolutions, and devices.

If you haven't used FireFox I encourage you to download and check it out. You won't go back to Internet Explorer. You can read more about the Guinness World Record and pledge to download the browser on Mozilla's Download Day site.

Update 6/18/08: Congratulations to the Mozilla Team on over 8 million downloads in 24 hours.

First Scribe is Omniture Support Certified

Our staff recently spent a week in training at Omniture University in their headquarters in Orem, UT. At the end of the week we passed the certification process to attain the Omniture Partners-only designation Omniture Certified Professional: Support.

Omniture Agency Partner

First Scribe is the only certified Omniture Agency in the Minneapolis or Minnesota. We hold the highest level of agency certifications available from Omniture.

Our SiteCatalyst Support and Implementation certifications means that we are a full-service Omniture provider.

Yahoo Looking For Love

Yahoo is stuck right between a rock and the hard place. Their stock prices, market share and respect are sinking. Meanwhile Microsoft stopped courting the princess...

Floundering In The Search Pool

The First Scribe team has been unhappy with Yahoo search for a few years. We feel their search technology is weak and ROI from Yahoo falls well behind other traffic sources.

Obviously, we were happy to watch as Microsoft made moves to acquire Yahoo in late 2007 and early 2008. Those efforts failed so now Microsoft appears to be standing by, waiting for Yahoo to drown before they swoop in for a last-minute, white-knight maneuver.

Venture capitalist Todd Dagres of Spark Capital likened this approach to that of a crocodile. "Rather than try to eat its prey while it's warm and tough, (Microsoft is) dragging it down to the bottom of the river, sticking it under a rock and eating it later when it's cold and soft," he said.

What does this all mean to us?

All we can do is speculate but we've heard a few rumors that could greatly change the picture if they bear fruit:

• Yahoo to hand over ad space to Google
• While this will probably equate to better PPC ROI, it will certainly harm Yahoo's already poor standing with advertisers.
  
• Yahoo to merge with AOL
• AOL is also facing difficult times. A merger between Yahoo and AOL could create a significant force.
• A healthy merger creates a new way to target demographics missed by Google.

Does Yahoo Prefer Yahoo Cart Sites?

Does Yahoo prefer shopping carts in the Yahoo store environment?

We've heard this issue in quite a few circles for 2 specific arguments:

· The Yahoo engine prefers the Yahoo cart.

· A Yahoo cart won’t work in Google SEO.

While both of these points may have an amount of truth to them, neither of these arguments appear to us to be *true enough* for concern. That is to say, we aren’t concerned with the Yahoo search engine, per se. And we have Yahoo carts that perform nicely in Google.

Google is the engine of choice

Google holds the Lion's share of market value and that trend grows every year. For our clients’ sites, across product vertical, Average revenue per visitor is higher for visits from Google vs. Yahoo.

We will work through the Yahoo cart as if it’s just another website. However, we migrate people off the Yahoo cart at every opportunity. The cart is difficult to use; it is a quantifiable hindrance to Google SEO; and the backend admin area is difficult.

Does Yahoo Prefer Yahoo Cart Sites?

Not necessarily. The Cart seems to have nothing to do with this question. The answer boils down to how well the site is optimized in general. Here is a Yahoo cart site that we are watching. Their site ranks better in Google than it does in Yahoo:

	Google	Yahoo	Change
Name	1	1	0
	2	2	0
Keyword 1	5	Not in first 30.	26
Keyword 2	10	Not in first 30.	21
	14	Not in first 30.	17
Keyword 3	18	2	(16)
	23		7
Keyword 4	1	Not in first 30.	30
	2	Not in first 30.	29
Keyword 5	4	Not in first 30.	26
Keyword 6	Not in first 30.	21	(9)
Primary Keyword	1	14	13
Keyword 7	23	11	(12)
Keyword 8	12	8	(4)
	13		17
Keyword 9	11	4	(7)
Keyword 10	6	3	(3)
	15		15
Keyword 11	2	3	1
Keyword 12	6	2	(4)
			147

Summary:

This client is concerned about moving from the Yahoo cart to an eCommerce Platform but they are worried that their revenue will suffer. Yahoo is their number 2 source of revenue and they don't want to lose that share.

We don’t in any way doubt that a large portion of their business is derived from Yahoo visitors. The Yahoo demographic matches nicely with people who would go out and buy their product line.

What is the real question?

The real question is different than they think…

It would be really nice to know if revenue per visitor is higher from Yahoo versus Google. If the average is the same, then open up Google traffic and forget about Yahoo.

Yahoo traffic and revenue might well suffer with a push in Google. But the net gain should be a significant increase in revenue.

Google Crawling Past HTML Forms

Regular readers of our blog will probably attest to the idea that we are big proponents of the Google search engine. Let's face it, we abide by Google's suggested rules of engagements and our efforts result in quality listings for our clients.

It is rare that we speak negatively of the Google "system" outside of rising Pay Per Click costs and a general lack of competition.

We have a new gripe.

Google Is Crawling Past HTML Forms

A recent post to the Google Webmaster Central Blog tells all about how Google is programming their spider to explore content behind HTML forms. The main reason for this work is to "discover new web pages and URLs that we otherwise couldn't find and index..."

They go on to speak about adhering to good Internet citizenry practices such as following noindex, nofollow, and robots.txt directives. They obviously won't get past a login form but they will quickly bypass a GET form pointing to database results.

This is an SEO nightmare.

Optimized Your Post-Form Pages Much?

If you've done your homework, your database site has a navigational flow to the deep content that you want indexed. Your .php and .asp form results are undoubtedly pure user functionality with little care to metatags and headers.

The forms are just a way for your visitors to get right to the goods, right?

Well, now your non-optimized, form-result pages with non-specific metatags (if they exist) are available to the Googlebot.

Don't build pages for Google!

How many times have you heard that statement? Don't build content for Google. Don't optimize content for Google. Yeah, right.

By definition their search engine looks for, and appropriately ranks, relevant content. The only way that content gets relevant is if someone makes it relevant. They're about to climb through some forms and find a wealth of unoptimized, irrelevant trash.

In their own words, "This experiment is part of Google's broader effort to increase its coverage of the web."

Unfortunately this effort will uncover some real garbage. I have a feeling most of that garbage is titled "Search Results".

Ken Spends Time With Babe Winkelman!

I had the chance of a lifetime this week when prominent Rochester Goose Guide and friend, Dean Tlougan, invited me to hunt with his group in De Smet, SD. Tlougan is the owner of Premier Flight Guide Service out of Rochester, MN.

Tlougan's guides were charged with taking Babe Winkelman to South Dakota to film a program about Snow Geese.

Snow Geese

Snow Geese are heavily over-populated in Canada and they are destroying large areas of the tundra. Spring hunting is encouraged as wildlife biologists attempt to lower the population.

A Rare Chance To Meet A Celebrity

I am an avid hunter and I grew up watching all the hunting and fishing shows on TV. I especially like the format by Babe Winkelman and company.

Winkelman's programs are much more about conservation and enjoying the outdoors with your family versus the classic "kill" shows on cable TV. His wife Kris is often present in his shows, as is his 11-year-old daughter Karlee.

The Winkelmans really seem to be having fun enjoying the outdoors.

Truth In Advertising

The Winkelmans are downright good people. They have fun and genuinely enjoy what they do.

Over 3 days we hunted hard, ate a lot of junk food and we had a lot to fun. We tried hard but we didn't have an affect on the population of snow geese.

Nate and James, our camera crew, filmed a great deal and they hopefully have enough to make a show of our adventure!

Kudos

Great kudos to Dean Tlougan and his staff at Premier Flight for a great weekend.

Thanks to the developers of Reel Wings and Flagman decoys for giving us the opportunity to field test their latest products. Maybe they can send Ken some more products to "test"!!!

And a special note to Kris and Karlee Winkelman. I can't believe they put up with the weather, boredom, and locker-room talk for 3 days. They complained less than Nate the cameraman!

A Web Application Developer Joins First Scribe

My name is John Malone. I’ve just come on board here at First Scribe as a web application developer and I am stoked to be at such a dynamic and energetic company. I will be leading the wave of new web application development for our company.

I received my BS in Computer Science from the University of San Francisco right when the Dot.com bubble burst. It was brutal to watch, but I learned a lot about how the web works, or doesn’t in that case. After a stint with a non-profit publishing company, I joined up with the US Peace Corps. I served almost two years in the beautiful country of Samoa teaching computer studies in various secondary schools. It was a crazy, hot, exhausting experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I can tell you from first had experience that you can in fact get tired of hanging out on the beach.

Once I got off the island, I worked as a web application developer and software engineer on various projects from brochure sites, large scale e-commerce sites, and foreign currency arbitrage. I come to First Scribe from MoCo, Inc where I was a web developer and project manager.

I will be assisting Jason Barney with the numerous development projects in First Scribe’s hopper, always with an eye on creating bigger, better, faster, and leaner web applications. I bring with me intimate knowledge of PHP, Agile Development, Test-Drive Development and the Symfony framework. Now I just hope I can keep up with these guys.

First Scribe is Omniture Certified

We have spent the last 4 months training on the Omniture platform and migrating our NetTracker clients to Omniture SiteCatalyst.

Our efforts paid off this week with the official stamp of Omniture Certified Professional: Implementation.


Omniture SiteCatalyst v13.5 (Traffic Analysis Software) –

The official word:

Omniture is the worlds leading analytics provider and provides analytics solutions to premier companies such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Sears, PayPal, Major League Baseball, GAP, etc.

Omniture SiteCatalyst™ provides organizations with actionable, real-time intelligence regarding their online strategies and marketing initiatives. Omniture SiteCatalyst helps organizations quickly identify and understand the most profitable paths through their Web sites, where visitors are dropping off, what's driving critical success events, and how different segments of visitors interact with the Web site.

What does it mean for First Scribe -

Omniture SiteCatalyst takes a revolutionary approach to traffic analysis – It collects everything. We administer the software to track all data relevant to the website audience. In most cases we zoom in on all points between entry to the website and eventual action resulting in a purchase or booking.

Omniture SearchCenter V3 –

Omniture SearchCenter is unlike any other product we have reviewed. The software ties Pay Per Click(PPC) efforts to website performance like no other we have ever seen. Simply stated –

If something positive happens on the website, SearchCenter is able to take action in PPC. We create a business rule in SearchCenter and the software automatically controls our Pay Per Click efforts as the rule fits. We over-see the process but SearchCenter automates the daily efforts.

For instance – We tell SearchCenter to decrease the ad spend of each keyword that does not directly lead to contacts or orders.

The Old Way -
Many types of software exists to control PPC terms based upon click-through. But does a high click-through rate actually show profitability?

SearchCenter will control PPC based upon the highest Return On Ad Spend. No other tools are so complete.

We can assure you - there will be much more to come.

Another Search Engine Gives Up

What is it about the "Winter Blues" that causes search engines to give up the race with Google?

Yahoo Gives Up

January, 2006 - Yahoo concedes 2nd place:

“We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.” (Story)

As it turns out they lost significant market share in 2006 and 2007. Now they're fending off takeover attempts by MSN and others.

Ask.com Gives Up

March, 2008 - Ask.com Abandons Chase

We were excited to see Ask.com abandon the old "Ask Jeeves" look and feel in 2007. They shifted their aim to become a quality all-purpose search engine with relevant results. Their efforts were noticeable in the search engine rankings and we shifted efforts to their engine.

That is no longer the case. Yesterday they announced they have shifted gears. The new target is on "finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children's homework, entertainment and health." (CNN.com Story)

We are very disappointed with this turn of events.

Disappointment

Google is a good search engine and we rely on their relevant results. Unfortunately they have a monopoly within the search industry and it has (and will) stifle innovation through competition.

Cost per click rates continue to sky-rocket as competition falls to the way-side.

First Scribe Designs AJAX Drag and Drop Application for Suttle

Suttle teamed up again with First Scribe to create a unique online application which allows users to virtually drag and drop Suttle’s SOHO Access™ structured wiring modules and position them in an enclosure of their choosing. The application allows users to then purchase their entire configuration online or print/email a bill of materials.

"The intuitive design of this exciting new resource makes it almost effortless for designers or installers to plan and layout their structured wiring system," remarked Jay Kilby, Director of Marketing. "This creates value for the installer by not only saving them time and money, but also simplifying the buying process."

The configuration tools is entirely AJAX based and built using a combination of JavaScript Frameworks from several sources, including Prototype and script.aculo.us. It’s powered by a custom PHP back-end and interfaces with an OSCommerce based cart installation. AJAX based web applications allow for a plug-in free interactive user experience that is at the heart of Web 2.0.