We deployed Tiny 2.2 to production a few days past schedule. As usual IE 7 presented some last minute quirks – always fun.

2.2 includes

6 Bug fixes including products that ‘go offline’ from the Shopzilla.com API, causing lists to produce error messages when a product is no longer displayed on them and an error that prevents comments being added to product bundles. This was a big one as promoting bundles is part of our marketing efforts.

UI improvement to product page

User profile makeover including the addition of birthday, location and ajax to the edit form

Change the default setting to user notifications to daily

Confirmation that prices include taxes and shipping for the specific zip code input by a user

SEO improvements (ongoing)

Friday saw Tiny 2.1 released to production. The release included bug fixes from 2.0 and significant improvements to the homepage including live site activity. The plan is to re-introduce the former What’s Happening area that displays shoppers and members activity on TinyMassive using the Google Map API and our product pods. This is currently scheduled for release as part of Tiny 2.6.

Tiny 2.2 is currently scheduled for Friday, Jan 23rd.

According to Kim Hart at the Washington Post, online retail giant Amazon.com said yesterday it recorded its “best ever” holiday season this year with a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day, bucking the generally grim news coming from retailers, including other e-commerce sites.

Amazon said more than 6.3 million products were ordered during its peak day on Dec. 15, compared with about 5.4 million on its peak day last year. The company shipped more than 5.6 million items on its busiest day, a 44 percent increase over its best day last year, when it shipped about 3.9 million items. Holiday sales typically make up 30 to 50 percent of a retailer’s annual revenue, but the economic downturn has caused many consumers to shorten shopping lists this year. Online retailers are not immune to the tightening budgets.

SpendingPulse, a division of MasterCard Advisors that tracks spending, said its preliminary data show that online sales fell 2.3 percent compared with last year’s holiday season. Overall retail sales fell 5.5 percent to 8 percent. Excluding auto and gas sales, the decline was 2 percent to 4 percent.

Read the full article.

Whew.. its been pretty busy around here with the big jump in online shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday (we had alot of fun looking at Akamai’s web traffic metrics for retail) and last week’s release of TinyMassive 2.0. The release proved to be a big one on the user experience side with lists, reviews, questions, sharing and a whole host of other bells and whistles having been added. We’re in the process of slotting together the final touches to the homepage and expect to roll this out in the days to come.

A big thank you as always to our families (both personal and investor), friends and our goofy but very talented bunch of RoR engineers who are working hard to make TinyMassive the first singing and dancing Rails based CSE.

We have some exciting news coming in the New Year so with that.. have a safe, blessed and happy holiday. Bring on 2009!

Alex Pham at the Chicago Tribune had the following to say. “For more than a decade, online retailers could count on big growth no matter the economic climate. But this holiday season, the e-commerce sector is at risk of its first slowdown since the Web was invented.”

Has it been a decade already?! During the past couple of weeks, I’ve chatted to a few fellow store owners and we’ve discussed the new phenomenon. The Pirhanna. “Traffic is up but these people smell deals from a hub (virtual mile) away.” Aggressive, discount hungry online shopping, the like of which we haven’t seen before.

“In the past, my customers would go out and shop on a weekend, do some research on a big ticket item then come home and order online on a Sunday evening or during Monday at the first web store that offered a saving. That’s changed. With the economy, shoppers have gotten hungry and gotten smart. They’re using the comparison sites, picking up the phone, using live chat to make sure they’re not only getting the best deal but it better include shipping.”

We saw big declines on Black Friday.  But I suspect – and the stats I am seeing support this, there are going to be big gains today but the deals will be aggressive. Read the Tribune article here.

Forrester Research reported that while half of U.S. online consumers say they shop online to find the best value during the holiday shopping season, more than three-quarters of online consumers say free shipping makes them more likely to buy from any particular online merchant.

Forrester Research principal retail analyst Sucharita Mulpuru with analysts Carrie Johnson and Peter Hult, also notes that shipping can be a detriment to online shopping. 58% of consumers say shipping prices often deter them from buying online, and 55% complain it’s a hassle to return items ordered online.

The study also provides a look into consumers’ expectations of shipping policies, and how well online retailers delivered during the holiday shopping season last year. It notes that 24% of survey respondents said they experienced late holiday deliveries last year, and that the largest group of respondents, or 67%, expect standard shipping to deliver within 3-5 days. 27% expect standard shipping to deliver within 6-7 days; 3% within two days. 1% of consumers expect standard shipping to deliver the day after placing an order, but another 1% expect delivery within 10 days.

The 67% figure surprised me and proves that merchants are doing a better job of educating shoppers about ground shipping. With our stores, we found that visual tools worked well when demonstrating ship times from your location to your customers (not so helpful if you drop ship unless your manufacturers are in one area of the country). UPS provide a decent map that allows you to input a zipcode and produce a colored map. A quick cut and paste to your site and you’re good to go. Pick up your map here.

We launched the 1.0 version of the TinyMassive.com shopping experience on Friday. For those that have been watching, you will have noticed our migration from .NET to RoR and we are thrilled with the results. You’ll notice a light set of features that we’ll be turning on and adding to over the coming weeks. Right now, pardon our dust as we unveil the site. Its all about feedback so get clicking on the big black button. We’re listening hard.

(We love agile development!)

Thanks to: Rein, Lark, Wes, Carmelyne, Tim, Sandro, Sal and the groovy rest.

TinyEverywhere – Status

Where did the dancing widgets go? Our beta widget network, TinyEverywhere, is a key element of our project here at TinyMassive and of late its performance hasn’t been meeting the standards we require for our publishers and shopper experience. So, its being rolled back into the lab for an overhaul including a close look at TinyMassive’s role within the publisher arena both now and in the future. TinyEverywhere will be brought back to TinyMassive.com when its shined up, roaring and rails friendly.

The WSJ amongst others (no, I didn’t subscribe to read the article, I went to CNET and read it for free) reported that PayPal had finally gone down the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ path. It surprises me that they took so long to get there as they have been pitched by just about every major lender to do this but the lucky winner is GE Finance. PayPal members will be able to open and use their PayPal ‘credit line’ on eBay and any website that accepts PayPal.

It will be interesting to see if Bill Me Later ease up their adoption criteria (online stores need to gross $1 million+ per year) Grossing over $1 million isn’t a requirement for accepting PayPal at your online store. Food for thought.. hope Bill Me Later have a Plan B.. C, D.. for both merchant and customer acquisiton.

Time caught up with Anders Dahlvig, the CEO of Ikea for the past ten years and talked free breakfasts, a 12 month downturn and how this is a great time for those big blue and yellow stores we head for when we need a bag of 50 wine corks and a wicker toilet seat.

Here’s a few choice excerpts from Mr Dahlvig. (50% of his home is furnished with Ikea products compared with my 97%)

TIME: How is Ikea faring amid the current economic turmoil?

This is a really good time for us. The way we’ve set up our business, we’re planning for a climate like this all the time. We have a very conservative policy when it comes to borrowing money. We basically only use our retained earnings and don’t borrow very much. We also have a very conservative policy when it comes to how we place our cash and our liquidity. We don’t place anything in equities, so we haven’t lost a dime so far. And the way we position our brand is as good value for the money. People know when they have less money what Ikea stands for. We’re seeing new customers in our stores and it’s a good time for us to take market share. In the U.S., we were 16th among furniture-only retailers a few years ago, and now we’re number two.

Aren’t people spending less in your stores?

The average check is going down a little bit, and the number of visitors is reduced. People are coming less often to the stores. During these times we have to be more creative when it comes to promotions and price reductions. For example, we’re running promotions where we reduce prices on top-selling products to attract people to the stores. We’re also using our restaurant to attract visitors with things like free breakfast. It’s strange that people will go all the way to Ikea for $5 or however much a free breakfast is, but the reality is that people actually do that.

Has the U.S. market been weaker than the European markets lately?

The sales decline here [in the U.S.] has been stronger than in most European countries, but the downward trend in Europe is worsening. What we are seeing here is coming to Europe as well. It will last at least 12 months. It will get worse before it gets better. A lot of jobs are going to be lost in the next few months. People are scared and that will keep them from shopping. We haven’t reached the worst yet.

More.. much more..