Ecommerce user journeys contain many phases where retailers can inluence outcomes, corresponding to phases within the purchase decision cycle. The PIEPP purchase decision cycle model is great at helping to explain the complexities of human decision-making when we buy things.

PIEPP stands for:

Problem recognition - Identifying a need, whether “real” or not.

Information search - The more complicated the object, or the higher its ticket price, the more the information is needed to make a purchase.

Evaluation of criteria - Assessing whether the product meets your needs - a conscious and unconscious process.

Purchase decision - Are there any barriers to stop

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. You might not realise it but you are probably already using it…

Here is a quick run down we put together for those beginning their journey into HTML to quickly outline 10 of the most common tags and some info about them.

1. html

This is the key tag in html it wraps up all the other tags to create an HTML document. HTML actually stands for HyperText Markup Langauge. Tim Berners-Lee as part of his development of the world wide web is widely credited with inventing it (http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/book4/ch02.html). Even XHTML uses the HTML tag!

2. head

This tag defines the section of code where all meta tags go and where any other files required for

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. This is a file format that uses XML that allow websites to publish information and for other websites or software applications to read it. RSS is a standard but has come to signify a number of other formats such as the Atom file format. RSS is usually referred to as a feed or web feed and is normally indicated by this icon:

Over the last year we have witnessed some interesting developments in the wonderful world of web browsers. There have been a couple of new arrivals (Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome), one significant departure (Netscape Navigator) and ongoing updates to the usual suspects (Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and Firefox)…