Pod1 has been enlisted by Value Retail to completely overhaul it's online offering from site design to build and online marketing strategy. Value Retail specialises exclusively in the operation of high end outlet shopping Villages serving some of Europe’s largest cities.

Each Village is positioned as an exceptional shopping destination through exclusive partnerships with leading travel industry and media groups including Relais & Châteaux, Orient Express and Condé Nast, and through premium credit card issuers.

Value Retail’s Chic Outlet Shopping® campaign promotes the nine Villages to over 100 million targeted international visitors. Chic Outlet Shopping® targets the travel trade industry worldwide, introducing the Villages as a day out destination and delivering aspirational customers to the brands from as far afield as the United States, Russia, India, the Middle East, China, Japan and South East Asia

Pod1s brief is to capitalise on the existing reach of the current 9 Village sites while bringing the online marketing together under the Chic Outlet Shopping banner, to increase footfall to the individual villages.

This will be a truly international and multilingual project.

This week Drapers has launched their ‘Ask the Expert’ online forum, which not surprisingly does exactly what it says on the tin. Readers have the opportunity to put their questions to a panel of experts from across the industry, including Pod1’s very own Fadi Shuman. A selection of e-commerce questions currently on the site cover topics from whether online sales will go up or down, how much should you pay for online photography to how do you go about selling ad space on Facebook and MySpace applications.

If you have a question you would like to put to the panel just ‘Ask the Expert’

You can read the article in full on the Drapers website

Pod1 has been commissioned to design, build and SEO a ground up online art gallery website for new client Murmur Art.

The aim of Murmur ART is to provide an online platform for new and emerging artists to display and sell their work and increase their individual online exposure. Murmur Art will provide the opportunity for prospective art buyers to view and buy the work of some of the most exciting emerging artists from around the world without leaving home.

The concept is that the artwork will be displayed on a well designed, highly consumer centric website with a sophisticated on site search facility to enable visitors to browse or buy the pieces by artist, colour, materials, style, price etc. Professional art copy text will accompany each picture, coupled with a detailed bio of each artist, which will allow first time and seasoned art buyers alike to make an informed decision on each piece.

SEO will prove to be an essential part of the marketing plan in attracting visitors to the finished Murmur Art site. To aid this process the Murmur Art blog is destined to go live any day soon, this will keep potential artist and buyers up to date on developments while starting to build the first stage of an online presence for this new domain.