Topics will include:

• A quick introduction to website testing and why you should test
• How you can radically increase your conversion rate with Google Website Optimizer and Magento
• Top testing tips plus mistakes to avoid on your first test
• Live landing page critiques of eCommerce implementations
• Tips and Tricks on getting the most out of the Google Website Optimizer
• Questions and answers

Date: Wed., December 3rd 9:30 AM PST (17:30 GMT)
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/128534696

The individual will provide structure and overall vision on our projects. This includes interfacing heavily with our technical teams to assure that the solutions are understood and address the customer’s business requirements.

Responsibilities:

• Act as the main point of contact between Varien and the client.
• Develops technical specifications for web applications and feature upgrades.
• Oversees the launch of new features.
• Coordinates among cross-functional teams to identify challenges, recommend and implement solutions.
• Provides support, administration, and user training for web-based tools.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in engineering, communications, or information sciences, with two (2) plus years experience in Web/interactive/technical product or project management
• Solid understanding of web technologies, usability, and information architecture.
• Understanding of platform and browser compatibility issues.
• Knowledge of basic data management, database concepts, and database-driven Web applications.
• Excellent communication, project management, and expectation management.
• Ability to handle multiple, competing priorities, meet deadlines, manage risk, and troubleshoot problems.
• Detail-oriented approach to work.

This is a full-time position in our Los Angeles headquarters.

Interested in joining our team? Send an email to jobs@varien.com with your resume and salary expectation. We look forward to hearing from you!

• Magento 1.1.x is now available for download. For this major release we focused on expanding Magento’s product configuration options, streamlining integration between strategic Magento modules and external applications (API), increasing the flexibility of the core tax module to allow for Canadian and EU tax rules and boosting the overall performance of the Magento Platform.
• Magento wins ‘Best New Open Source Project’ at the 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards!
• Magento also wins ‘Best of Open Source Enterprise Applications’ at InfoWorld’s BOSSIE awards.
• Magento Developer Challenge #1 is announced, with the goal of integrating Magento and Google Spreadsheet.
• Varien’s Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner answer grueling questions by the Magento community via video.

The highlights above are a short sample of the exciting developments in the Magento world. Stay tuned and keep up to date at the Magento Blog.

You are probably tired of having a boatload of data and nothing much coming of it. Not any more. In this webinar, leading analytics author and evangelist Avinash Kaushik covers three specific areas you need to focus on to get the highest possible ROI from your Web Analytics investment. You’ll learn:

• The fun clickstream analysis you should do
• Interesting ways to listen to your customers
• Why you need to fall in love with experimentation (and all it takes to fall in love is six minutes)!

More info on the get elastic blog

We are extremely excited and proud to announce the production release of Magento 1.0 (Download | Release Notes). The new community site will be online later this week and feature additional functionality, highlighted by Magento Connect.

Use CSS ya page load quicker, make your client satisfied like they eatin on a Snicker

Zend launched a new Varien designed and coded Framework site today, you can check out the new design at zendframework.com. The redesign came about as Zend was releasing the biggest update to its Framework since the 1.0 version, and wanted the site to reflect the big update. Varien redesigned the site to match the occasion, while still keeping the navigation and layout of the site as people were used to. Varien also produced the HTML coding for the redesign.

This follows other work Varien has done for Zend, including the redesign of the main site, Zend.com, and more.

I really like this Abe Books advanced search page. Book ecommerce Web sites, as you will see, remain the last strong bastion of what are considered “advanced search pages.”

You can see all the great search options that allow you to narrow it down to exactly what you are looking for. No searching through pages of results of nothing more than vague keyword matches. Some other features of this advanced search page include:

• Fully navigable to the rest of the Web site.
• Ability to look at top search terms (for inspiration).
• Capability of sorting results how you want them (price, relevance, etc.)
• Various options uniquely applicable to the ecommerce business.

This sort of page makes online ecommerce shopping much easier and more enjoyable.

Barnes and Noble also offers a good advanced search page. I especially like the tabbed advanced search, allowing you to search different types of media.

I like that Chapters.indigo.ca offers tips for more effective search on its advanced search page.

One thing that I’ve been finding in terms of advanced search pages is that they are becoming rare among ecommerce Web sites. Out of the top Web sites for usability, very few had the advanced search option. Instead, the “refine search” option is taking its place. This PC Connection page is a good example of how “refined search” is taking over.

You can see, above, how off to the side all of the fields that might be included on advanced search pages to narrow things down a bit are included. You can choose categories, and you can choose how to sort the search results from a sidebar. Of course, this means that you have to type in broad keywords to get to a starting point, and then narrow it down.

Coach offers search that I am not terribly fond of. It just flops of pictures of everything that matches, with no attempt to refine further. I do like all the images, which make it easy to instantly see whether you like something, but it is hard to narrow the results.

Below, see more examples of advanced search pages, and “refined search” options. Which do you prefer? Would you rather start broad and work from there? Or would you rather narrow the search immediately? With too much narrowing, I think, there is the possibility that you could miss something that you would otherwise find when you start broad.

Abt

Ace Hardware

Amazon

Apple

Art.com

Audible

Brooks Brothers

Bulbs

Drugstore.com

FYE

Gap

Home Depot

HP Shopping

Kohls

Oneida

I’ve found a few ecommerce Web sites that really make a big deal of offering gift registries — especially for weddings and babies. But other events — birthdays, housewarming parties, anniversaries — are getting play as well in terms of gift registries.

One of the more interesting experiences is signing up for gift registries. I did this when I got married (don’t be fooled by the false information you’ll see later), but I didn’t do it online. You’ll see several of the sign up pages included on this post as well.

My first example is from the Kohl’s ecommerce Web site:

You can see above that it is possible to choose what kind of event the registry is for. It is also possible to leave a message for your guests. I’m not sure what sort of message I’d leave, but I guess some people find this feature useful.

Many ecommerce Web sites that offer multiple gift registries allow you to manage your registries, offering a page that gives you access to your options. I like this idea, since it gives you an overall view of what you have, and makes it easier to keep track of your gift registries by event.

Finally, the list above shows some features that a good gift registry should have:

• Clearly states who the gift registry is for.
• Provides visuals of the items.
• Gives pricing information.
• Offers the option to order from the gift registry (to shop to recipient).
• Provides information as to how many of each item has been requested.
• Keeps track of what has been bought already for the recipient.
• Option for a printer-friendly version of the gift registry.

Amazon also provides a good examples of gift registries. One thing I like about Amazon’s registry is that when you sign up, you can choose a “ship-to” address from your account information. Many of the other ecommerce gift registries made me fill this information in all over again, even though it was already in my account.

JC Penney offers a great example of a value-added gift registry. As you can see, this particular gift registry allows you to choose free “event cards” when you sign up. Additionally, the barcode at the top of the registry makes it easy to keep track of items that are purchased in the store — provided the gift-giver brings the list for scanning, of course.

Viva Terra is one of those sites that requires a new gift registry account. As you can see, a pop-up was involved. I don’t really like the idea of a separate gift registry account, since it adds yet another online shopping item to sign up for. However, I do find it interesting that Viva Terra offers the option to require a guest password to see the registry.

Macy’s gift registry sort turned me off. I do like the gift registry manager that the store has, but I thought that the sign up was a bit long. Indeed, the sign up page was so long and involved that it was impossible to get a screenshot of the entire thing. And it seems to me that asking how many guests are coming seems a little superfluous.

Here are some more ecommerce gift registries. On those that offer interesting sign up features, I’ve included those screenshots as well.

Anthropologie

Buy.com

Crate and Barrel

Lillian Vernon

Moosejaw

Oneida

REI

Wal-Mart