Looking for a fresh challenge? We are looking for a New Business Development Executive
Session Digital is the leading Magento partner in the UK. We specialise in providing eCommerce solutions to retailers and companies of all sizes and from all sectors, using the Worlds’ fastest growing eCommerce platform, Magento.
The spectacular growth of Magento and its rapid adoption across the retail sector means that we need a New Business Sales Executive to join our Sales Team and help us grow.
We pride ourselves on providing our clients with high converting and creatively compelling online stores. Our clients include Kurt Geiger, Nine West, Dreams PLC, Football League, Smythsons of Bond Street, ACNE Studios and Warner Music International.
About the role:
Operating as a New Business Sales Executive, your responsibilities will lie in demand generation and outbound sales activities, specifically targeting medium and large retailers. You’ll qualify prospects (including inbound leads), develop new business opportunities, as well as assisting in closing business according to mutually agreed targets. You will report into, and work closely with, the Business Development Director.
About you:
You are:
- A motivated, go-getting new business developer
- Someone who enjoys working for an exciting and dynamic company
- Enthusiastic, professional and driven
- An excellent communicator, both in writing and verbally
- Adept at relationship building
- Able to manage multiple opportunities at any one time
- Assertive and goal-orientated
- Organised and computer literate
- A graduate (or equivalent)
- Eligible to work in the UK
You’ll have:
- Experience in enterprise software sales (ideally within the eCommerce sector)
- Experience with communicating with retailers/eCommerce directors
- Experience in telemarketing / telesales / demand generation
What we offer
In addition to a competitive salary and commission, you will have the opportunity to work with some of the leading lights of the fast growing Magento industry. Working from our swanky offices in New Oxford Street, you will benefit from a professional ethos and ongoing career development. Our sales team receive regular, professional training and consultancy. We passionately believe in growing and developing our staff to help them and us, reach our full potential.
Applications: Please send your CV with details of your current salary/package, notice period and employment status to careers@sessiondigital.com. All communications will remain confidential. Due to the anticipated high volume of applications for this role, we may not be able to respond individually to unsuccessful applications.
Think your customers are happy to wait? Making the case for performance…
We’re pretty sure that most people in our industry understand that customers are turned off by poor site performance, but maybe the importance of site performance is not fully appreciated by everyone….Take a deep breath, take in the infographic below and prepare to re-assess.
Retailers!! Poor performance hits your bottom line….
One second delay in page load time = 7% loss in conversions and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction. That is why it’s so important that your website is optimised for performance. But help is at hand, the good news for any Magento store owners out there is that Session can make your site fly!
Recent Live Examples - Coping with peak demand
Two of our larger customers recently ran their sales, each anticipating greatly increased traffic levels for the duration of the activity.
The first customer uses email marketing as a key traffic generator; they sent out over 5million outbound marketing emails to their consumer base and due to the nature of their sale (very short term, focussed sale period) these emails couldn’t be staggered to drop over time. So, our technical team were faced with the prospect of several hundred thousand customers jumping onto the website within a very compressed time window.
Scaling infrastructure - without breaking the bank
One of the considerations in situations such as this is how to provide the additional support for these very short bursts of activity, without employing lots of expensive hardware and cost.
We worked with our partners at Rackspace to create a replica environment (application and infrastructure) in order to fully understand the current site performance limits. Using that data we then implemented several performance enhancing techniques, measuring their respective effects. We were then able to accurately assess the optimum setup for that customer for their increased load requirements.
Our recommendations included implementing our custom Varnish proxy caching server solution, peak demand servers (a combination of physical and cloud based servers), as well as a series of on-site optimisations.
Serving over 50,000 customers an hour
Once the sale went live the anticipated traffic levels and profile pretty much reflected our projections, and at peak the site was comfortably serving over to 50,000 unique users per hour (with an average concurrency of 1,000 users).
Processing over 900 orders an hour
The other customer in question had similar requirements; their sale traditionally attracts a significant interest in traffic and customers and during their peak our Magento infrastructure was comfortably taking over 900 orders per hour, exceeding their expectations.
Conclusions
Our Magento solutions are scalable, and with the appropriate planning, infrastructure and implementation we help our clients maximise their peak demand trading periods without breaking the bank or compromising customer experience. If you are interested, why not read our Magento performance paper or give us a call…
Session at eBay Innovate 2011 Conference
Session Digital were very honoured to be invited to present at PayPal’s global conference - Innovate 2011 - held in San Francisco in Oct. The conference was the first public event following the official acquisition of Magento by eBay Inc, and saw a number of high profile announcements, not least the launch of eBay’s vision for the future of commerce - X.commerce.
Session Director Dominic Feenan
As Magento is being positioned at the heart of this exciting new initiative, we were asked (and gladly) gave our thoughts on Magento in the UK - focusing on the role of brand within commerce.
Session Digital launch Dreams PLC online store
The UK’s largest retailer of beds and bedding products, Dreams PLC appointed Session Digital to replatform their UK online store. Launched pre-Xmas, the store aims to intelligently respond to customers’ different buying habits, recognising the impact of their location on decisions to purchase online or in-store.
A key part of the process required enhanced integration with Dreams’ back-office systems and alignment with Dreams’ ongoing social media strategy to provide increased merchandising opportunities across multiple channels.
Gary Robinson, e-commerce director, Dreams, explains: “Our new website is an extension of our in-store experience, reflecting our brand values of expertise, customer service and professional advice. The key to achieving this didn’t just lie in clever design but in providing a user experience that treats customers as truly individual. Session Digital has the proven track record and the Magento expertise we needed to make this a reality.”
The site is supported by an on-going program of TV/Online advertising, direct marketing, press and social campaigns, and can be seen at http://www.dreams.co.uk
Homepage: includes filtered navigation in top level drop down menus and personalised product recommendations
Category pages: Personalised product recommendations and flexible product filters
Product pages: Clean, simple and directional. Integration with delivery systems to provide real-time delivery date estimations
Store locator: Google maps integration with additional filters
Session shortlisted for Agency of the Year 2011
As part of their annual HOT 100 special, Web Designer magazine have shortlisted Session Digital for their Agency of the Year 2011 award.
This is where you step in - please vote for us!
Nominees are listed here. This is us:
Now, go to the voting page. Scroll down the page until you see this:
Select Session Digital from the dropdown menu (ignore the misspelling) - then click Submit. Then, tell all your friends, colleagues, random people you meet in the street to vote for Session - basically spread the word and perhaps we can end the year on an even higher high than before!!
Session launch ACNE Studios
Session is delighted to announce the launch of a new improved pan-European Magento Enterprise store for one of Europe’s true fashion innovators - ACNE Studios.
Trading this iconic Swedish trend setting fashion brand across eight European territories, ACNE turned to Session for technical support and enhancements to deliver a stable, robust and effective ecommerce platform for the brand to extend its reach across Europe.
A brand held in the highest regard by both consumers and the fashion industry alike, Session is delighted to be working with ACNE Studios. For more information, contact Berkeley PR on 0118 909 0909 or see www.acnestudios.com
Session staff appointed to Magento Certification Board
Further to the official launch by Magento of the Official Developer Certification Program, Session is happy to announce our contribution to the creation of the official Developer Certification program.
Two team members (Director Richard Jackson and Technical Team Lead Alistair Stead) have been appointed as Magento Developer Board members. To help in the creation of the official Certification Program, the developer board was hand picked by Magento from a small selection of highly experienced specialists and partners - the following summary is taken from the Magento website:
“The Magento Developer Certification was created by Magento using a team of both in-house and external board members gathered from around the globe. The board members were selected from business leaders, partners, community members and professional developers.
Magento and the Advisory Board experience included deep architectural knowledge of Magento as well as real-life, hands-on experience with implementing the platform. Together with Magento, the Advisory Board established the criteria necessary to demonstrate expertise in Magento implementations, and participated in activities leading to the development and validation of exam questions.”
Read more: http://www.magentocommerce.com/services/certification-board
This announcement is a further demonstration of Session Digital’s commitment to promoting and delivering excellence within the Magento EcoSystem.
Session Director Richard Jackson states “Session has always been primarily concerned with delivering quality and bringing the highest possible standards to our Magento deployments. To be invited by Magento to help shape and define the official Certification Program is a clear recognition from Magento that we are leading the commitment to quality within the UK market. Our goal now is to continue to promote quality within the Magento Community, and to encourage anyone within the developer community to become certified”.
Smythson appoint Session
Smythson the luxury stationers has appointed Session Digital to manage and develop their online commerce operations both for the UK and overseas markets.
A truly World renowned brand, Smythson has an unrivalled reputation for quality, craftsmanship, style and design - qualities that set them apart in the luxury market from their competitors. Session is delighted to be working with Smythson.
London Magento Meetup
Yesterday’s London Magento Meetup gathered a whopping 20 attendees last night at Session Towers.
The evening kicked off with general introductions, after which Mike Whitby shared some of his experiences about how his team at Made.com uses Magento.
We also had a ‘lightning talks’ forum of quick topics, including hosting, caching on the Community Edition and migrating from Community to Enterprise, plus brainstorming on setting up products that are considered sub-components (e.g. products sold by the metre).
Thanks to everyone who joined us and shared their Magento stories!
The next Meetup will be held on Wednesday 7th December, sponsored by our friends at WebShopApps. Don’t miss out - keep an eye on the Meetup page to sign up.
Meet Magento UK
Well, it’s strange to think that Magento had yet to host a “Meet Magento” event in the UK, especially as this side of the pond represents the second largest market for them in terms of sales and platform adoption, but there we have it.
So it was long overdue, but this Oct saw the first (and judging by the success of the event, definitely not the last) “Meet Magento” event here in London. A full day of everything Magento, Session’s performance Guru Alistair Stead presenting a seminar on Magento Scalability and Performance, lots of friends, customers and partners and a great party afterwards, it was a huge success. Here’s some of our highlights.
Roy’s keynote speech
Main presentation area - demand was high and the event sold out
Session’s Alistair Stead delivering his seminar on scalability and performance
And then came the party…..
I believe that this is called “Dancing”
More fun and games….Session’s answer to Evel (Eddi) Knievel…..
Plenty of socialising was done
And even some business…..Yair (Session CEO) and Kristel from Magento get to know each other.
