GSI Introduces Web 2.0 Enhancements to E-Commerce Platform

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Wednesday, July 5, 2006; 07:43 AM

Designed to remove purchase barriers and provide online consumers with a more convenient, efficient and faster shopping experience, GSI Commerce Inc. has added two new features to its e-commerce platform - express shop(SM) and mini-cart(SM). Built with Ajax technology, the Web 2.0-based features allow online consumers to view additional product detail, purchase multiple quantities and colors of a product, add products to the shopping cart and view the products added to the cart - dynamically, all without leaving the Web page on which they are shopping.

The Ajax express shop on aeropostale.com

GSI Commerce launched both the express shop and mini-cart features earlier this month for its e-commerce partner, Aeropostale (http://www.aeropostale.com). Aeropostale is a leading mall-based, specialty retailer of casual and active apparel for young men and women.

"Partnering with GSI Commerce provides our online store with advanced features, functions and services to provide our customers with a very high- quality online shopping experience. They give us a competitive advantage and help to grow our business. The addition of express shop and mini-cart are the two most recent examples of how GSI Commerce consistently delivers best-in- class technologies and features to our online business," said Marc Miller, group vice president, new business development and strategic planning for Aeropostale.

"GSI Commerce continues to invest aggressively in technologies that remove barriers to purchasing products online and that provide a premium shopping experience for our partners' brands and their customers," said Steve Davis, senior vice president of partner services for GSI Commerce. "The express shop and mini-cart features closely mirror the natural browsing and discovery experience of shopping a physical store."

Express Shop

Express shop is a feature that streamlines the shopping process within a particular category or family of products; for example, when a consumer shops a selection of men's shirts. As an online shopper glides the mouse over a product's image, an express shop logo is superimposed over the product. If a shopper is interested in gathering more detail on the selected product, the shopper clicks on the express shop icon and a window opens with information specific to that product. The shopper can then select the product's color, size, and click on tabs to get detailed product information and sizing charts.

Additionally, while in the express shop window, a shopper can click to add multiple sizes and colors of the same product to their cart. A shopper can also continue to review the product category while in the express shop window using the "next" and "previous" item buttons.

To exit express shopping and view all product images in the category, a shopper can simply click on the larger category page, which had been "grayed out," but remained visible in the background behind the express shop window. With traditional online shopping, when a shopper clicks on a product, that shopper is directed away from the product category page to a new page specific to that product. Express shop allows the online shopper to stay in the product category while shopping a selected product.

Mini-Cart

Once a shopper adds an item to the checkout cart, a mini-cart appears in the upper right corner of the main product category page allowing the shopper to view the items selected for purchase. The mini-cart feature displays the products added, the quantities, colors, sizes and cost. Without leaving the category product page, the mini-cart automatically provides the shopper with a quick and convenient verification of the items added to the shopping cart. The mini-cart feature was designed with the assumption that an online shopper may not be done shopping after adding an item to the shopping cart.

Based on Ajax

Both the express shop and mini-cart features were developed by GSI Commerce using Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technology tools, which are used in combinations to create interactive Web applications. Ajax-based technologies allow for information and data exchanges to take place behind the scenes between the user's screen and the server, which cuts down on the number of full, HTML-based Web pages that have to be loaded thereby increasing interactivity and speed. Through the use of Ajax technologies, the express shop and mini-cart features make the online shopping experience more responsive and intuitive for consumers as pages are modified dynamically based on a shopper's interaction with a page.

"By taking advantage of efficiencies inherent in Ajax technologies, we created dynamic, interactive features that make it more convenient for our partners' customers to shop online," said Sameer Shamsuddin, vice president of product management for GSI Commerce. "New technologies and the high penetration of broadband are driving the excitement and innovation known as Web 2.0 and are enabling us to build new features and functions and deliver new experiences that were previously not possible. Express shop and mini-cart represent the first of many enhancements that will leverage these new possibilities."