Hickey Freeman is a brand that’s rich in American history. Two young entrepreneurs named Jacob Freeman and Jeremiah Hickey started the company with the goal of  ”bringing high-quality hand-tailoring to men from coast to coast.” As they envisioned it, a Hickey Freeman suit would be a testament to both the delicate artistry of hand-craftsmanship and the steady consistency of modern technology. The new eCommerce site provides an online showcase for their craft, with high-resolution image zooms, multiple product shots and an overall graphic design that matches the elegance of the brand.

Hickey Freeman is one of several sites WebLinc developed for HMX LLC, formerly known as Hartmarx. Other sites include Bobby Jones and Exclusively Misook.

“We looked at the next three years and said, ‘There’s no way it’s going to be able to support the growth we’re seeing in our company and the growth that we expect to see online, so it’s time to make an investment in a new architecture and a new way.’”

Brooklyn Industry’s investment is already paying off – site traffic is up roughly 30 percent year-over-year since its launch, and units per transaction and average order value have grown, too.

WebLinc just launched the brand new mobile commerce site for Free People, a division of Urban Outfitters Inc. The new site fully replicates the experience customers have come to expect from Free People, and now with the aid of their smartphones, shoppers can access the site from just about anywhere.

A few things make this site and WebLinc’s capabilities different from other mobile development companies. For starters, there’s a shared cart. This means if customers log in from their phone and place items in their cart, then go to any other computer and log in, those items will still be in their cart.

There’s no product or content syncing needed between the mobile site and the non-mobile site. All the product data is exactly the same. Using the WebLinc Direct admin area, administrators can also choose to “hide” products and/or categories from the mobile site if they want. And all of the site’s discounts and promotions work on the mobile site, too.

On the front-end, customers are able to browse and purchase products, place and track orders, sign up for the email newsletter, sign up for an account, manage their wish list, search for a friend’s wish list and much more.

The site debuts a collection of beautiful apparel, displayed simply and attractively, allowing for the clothes to be the star of the site experience. A Look Book lets shoppers leaf through the online catalog, with links to product pages for each of the showcased fashions. Within each product page are multiple views and zooms of the high-end clothes. The site’s Share functionality lets shoppers share their discoveries using email, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and more, ensuring maximum exposure for the young brand.

Says Megan Koons, web marketing analyst at Free People:

“I have noticed that the reviews are a bit more creative. Customers seem to be excited at the thought of possibly becoming a ‘Top Featured Reviewer’ in the future.”

The blog post went on to say that Free People saw a staggering 93% increase in review volume in the first week of launch.

The WebLinc Direct eCommerce platform is flexible enough to allow clients like Free People to take advantage of marketing innovations with little or no ongoing technical assistance.  To learn how WebLinc can help your business capitalize on emerging trends, contact us here.

…[We] wanted something that was also… We could be self reliant, but also scalable as well. So, we actually ended up choosing a platform and partnering with a company called WebLinc out of Philadelphia. We have been really happy with that relationship, actually.

Thanks, Bliss! We feel the same way.

If you’d like to learn more about WebLinc eCommerce and the ways that we’ve worked with trusted partners like SLI Systems, contact us here.

The day before the download was released; we all got an email saying this:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING ‘IN RAINBOWS’.
THE LINK BELOW IS YOUR UNIQUE DOWNLOAD ACTIVATION CODE.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK OR CUT AND PASTE INTO YOUR BROWSER TO OBTAIN YOUR DOWNLOAD.
IF YOUR LINK APPEARS AS TWO SEPARATE LINES, PLEASE CUT AND PASTE THEM CAREFULLY INTO YOUR BROWSER.
THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.
MOST COMPUTERS NOW HAVE ZIP SOFTWARE AS PART OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM; IF YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT,
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE
PC: http://www.winzip.com/
MAC: http://www.maczipit.com/
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS DOWNLOADING YOUR FILE, PLEASE CONTACT OUR DOWNLOAD CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM: downloadinrainbows@waste.uk.com
WE HOPE YOU ENJOY ‘IN RAINBOWS’.
http://cdn1.inrainbows.co.uk/inrainbows.zip?ON=328520-316855-0&
UN=info@weblinc.com&AC=c43c7b9e87089bf4148f5931c33f01f7

Now, most of the listening public doesn’t care one way or the other about the specifics of download quality, but for sound-sensitive Radiohead fans and tech savvy music downloaders, a download at 160 kbps is extremely sub-par, even for a promo, especially when the rest of their catalog is available at 320 kbps. They did give the option of paying nothing, so I guess the idea that it’s no more than a promotional release for the CD and vinyl shouldn’t be too hard to swallow.

Blogs around the world have been having mixed reactions to the bit rate quality, with most saying they are disappointed in the quality, but happy with the album itself (it really is quite good). Many of us are just going to listen to this download until the discbox comes out when we will get the higher quality sound whilst the majority will wait for the discbox to come out and steal the better rated rip from a torrent site. But in the end, how is this feedback affecting Radiohead as a band?

They have revolutionized the way music is distributed, that’s for sure. But by using the aforementioned shady tactics to get people to use this new system and almost forcing those of us who love the depth and richness of Radiohead to buy the CD, it seems in poor taste to release it for any money at all. As most of us know, nearly every album released is leaked beforehand on torrent sites, so Radiohead is essentially subverting this process and making folks pay a buck for it.

Radiohead knows it is a bankable entity. Their fan base, while being passionate about the sound quality, is even more passionate about the band. So we all got the download and most of us will get the CD. But the bigger factor that affects those outside of the art-rock scene and the crowd that is willing to pay $80 for a band’s release is the manner in which the music was distributed. They created a huge buzz not just for the album, which is their first in 4 years, but mainly for the manner they are selling it in. It really shows the power of a creative online selling strategy coupled with a strong brand. For example, if a small time act tried this, it would pass completely unnoticed but the fact that Radiohead was in this particular place and time (sans label and with a new album to release) and with their particular status among music fans, it was like a perfect storm coming together. They seized an opportunity that presented itself and have pulled it off quite well, even if they somewhat underhandedly “sold” a low quality download as a promo for the real deal later in the year. Just think how much less attention this would have gotten if they hadn’t used the online market to first, create a fervor about an upcoming album, then allowed fans to choose their own price, which no band has ever done before.

So now they are the talk of the music world with more than a million downloads since the 10th, turning the music world on its head by using their remarkable branding power to give notoriously hard to please fans a low quality recording and still getting kudos for it. I’m not sure if it’s just how good the music is, the fact that the disc comes out in December and all the angry fans will just steal it or whether the practice was innovative enough to let it all slide, but there is certainly a lesson about branding and ecommerce here, I’m just too busy dissecting every second of the album to think about it.

So with the Phils on fire, the Mets sunk, the beer flowing like wine downstairs and our iPhones hopefully not turning into bricks with all of our third party apps, I guess you can say things are going well for Weblinc and Philadelphia at large.

Now for the end-of-Scarface-Tony-Montana-with-coke-all-over-his-face style pile of tickets…

Microsoft has taken a step forward here with Surface’s ability to recognize other digital devices, such as your PDA or digital camera. This hopes to transform the way people interact with everyday devices. Simply place your device on the Surface table, and it instantly connects and begins communicating with it; most likely through an upcoming Bluetooth release which will carry more data, faster.

Of course, these puppies won’t be for the general consumer population just yet. Surface will debut this Winter in the $10,000 neighborhood, making this a great idea for casinos gaming, hotel reservations, airline kiosks, and retail presentations. Say goodbye to the keyboard and mouse!

Improvements include:

• Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.
• Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.
• Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.
• Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.