Category: Featured News

Online sales expected to jump as Christmas draws near, according to eCommerce Websites

Online sales are expected to see a significant jump in the days leading up to Christmas, according to research from eCommerce Websites, an e-commerce website development firm. The firm notes that it has been seeing a spike in the number of consumers that are using online mediums to purchase products. eCommerce Website draws on information from a recent PayPal study that shows that online sales throughout the world accounted for more than $1.2 trillion during 2012.

Consumers show interest in online shopping

eCommerce Websites suggests that businesses, both large and small, prepare to see higher online traffic as the holidays draw closer. While many consumers have finished their holiday shopping, taking advantage of the major deals that were offered by retailers during the Thanksgiving shopping weekend, many more tend to wait until the very last minute in order to purchase gifts for their loved ones. Online mediums are perfectly suited to meet the needs of these consumers by providing them a way to get through the last of their holiday shopping without having to compete with crowds.

E-commerce platforms must be bolstered to meet consumer demands

In order to better accommodate consumers, eCommerce Websites suggests that businesses bolster their e-commerce sites. During the Thanksgiving shopping weekend, many e-commerce sites from some of the world’s largest retailers experienced problems because of the massive level of traffic they experienced. This traffic caused slow-downs on several e-commerce platforms, leading to complaints from consumers who were keen on buying products that they were interested in. eCommerce Websites notes that having a capable e-commerce platform is necessary for businesses to take advantage of the growing number of mobile consumers.

Mobile commerce may see further growth during Christmas

The holiday season is still in full swing and that could be good news for mobile commerce. Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday have all proven to be popular holidays for mobile commerce. Christmas is expected to see similar results, with a huge number of consumers expected to use their mobile devices to purchase gifts for themselves and for loved ones.

Tiny, microscopic particles make up invisible labels to track and prevent counterfeit products.

The spotlight has been on QR codes in terms of extreme sizes lately, as records are being broken both on the large and small ends of the scale.

Microscopic barcodes are being used as labels to protect against and track counterfeit goods.

The tiny labels are called microtaggants, and they cannot be seen by the naked eye. They are particles which are used for identification on a microscopic level, so that counterfeit goods can either be prevented or tracked. Though there are many different methods that have been used for this process, it now involves the use of QR codes that are small enough to fit in an area as wide as 80 microns – which is about half a human hair’s diameter.

These QR codes may be small, but they were not able to break the current size record.

Though these QR codes on microtaggants may be exceptionally tiny, and are among the smallest in the world, they have not broken the current record. Instead, Trinity College scientists in Dublin, Ireland were able to achieve that goal earlier this year.

Mircrotaggants, which are the labels that hold the tiny QR codes, are a Microtrace LLC registered trademark. This company specializes in technology to battle counterfeiting on a microscopic level. Using the quick response barcodes is only the latest among many innovations that the company has introduced.

QR codes are seen as beneficial for this purpose because they are capable of holding a great deal more information than other types of these microscopic labels. The barcode can be scanned so that this additional data can be provided.

This anti-counterfeiting development with microscopic QR codes were the result of the work of Korean University professors named S. Kwon and W. Park. They and their teams formed these particle based barcodes which were described in their recently published paper that outlined the process. The most recent edition of the journal Advanced Materials (volume 24) included the report, called “Lithographically Encoded Polymer Microtaggant Using High-Capacity and Error-Correctable QR Code for Anti-Counterfeiting of Drugs”, which received added recognition through a cover image.