As all of the buzz about social media reaches new heights, GoECart received a “Strateg-e” Award at the Hartford Business Journal’s annual e-Marketing & Technology Summit for our use of social media in our ecommerce platform.

The e-Marketing & Technology Summit serves to educate the business community on topics such as web design, search engine optimization, e-newsletter and social media through workshops led by the region’s marketing and technology leaders. The content is focused on leveraging e-solutions to positively impact business profits.

This year’s summit was held on February 18th at the Hilton Hotel in Hartford, CT.

GoECart’s CEO Manish Chowdhary along with marketing team members were on hand to receive a runner-up award for “Best Use of Social Media.” GoECart was one of four companies awarded for their use of social media and design at the summit. Connecticut Governor Mr. Dan Malloy was personally present to deliver the awards to the winners.

“The award is testament to GoECart’s dedication to provide online merchants with the latest and greatest social media tools that can help them to succeed with their ecommerce businesses. It was a thrill to be present at this year’s event to receive this award,” said Chowdhary.

The GoECart ecommerce platform integrates a wide variety of social media techniques, technologies, and viral marketing features that help merchants “go social” with their ecommerce endeavors. These include:

• Integration with FaceBook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Blogger, and others
• Customer product reviews and ratings
• The ability to easily add a blog (like this one!) to the storefront
• Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news feeds
• Social bookmarks
• Integration with social media sites like YouTube, Hulu, and MySpace TV
• Tell-A-Friend functionality
• Gift certificates, wish lists and favorites
• Much, much more

For more information about GoECart’s ecommerce platform and integrated social media features, see http://www.goecart.com/mm/ecommerce-social-networking-computing.aspx.

The Strateg-e Awards recognize companies currently utilizing technology in their businesses to produce more revenue. More information about the event is available on the event’s website at: http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/event/emarktech.

Last week, GoECart submitted its application for the 15th annual Connecticut Quality Improvement Award competition.

From the CQIA’s website: “The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award, Inc., America’s first state-level quality award, was founded in 1987 utilizing the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence criteria in an effort to advance innovative programs that improve quality, performance, and marketplace competitiveness.”

Last year and in previous years, GoECart has won CQIA’s coveted Innovation Prize. The CQIA prize is a great prize for outstanding innovation leadership in Connecticut. For those of you who are unaware, GoECart’s headquarters are strategically located in downtown Bridgeport, CT right across the train and bus stations. This year, we have submitted a nomination application highlighting the innovative new features in GoECart 8.1 Ecommerce Platform. Notable new features include:

• An updated discount and promotion engine that enables online retailers to offer highly customizable and focused discounts. Some examples of discounts include: buy one product and get a second product at half off, get free shoes with purchase of a dress, receive 10% off all products in Toys category only, get free ground shipping on orders over $50, and many others
• Enhanced supply chain automation functionality via multi-vendor drop ship module enhancements. Updates include the ability to source and manage products from multiple vendors at the SKU level, intelligent routing of orders based on customer proximity, and improved vendor self-service and automation
• Amazing rich media capabilities through its advanced integration with Adobe® Scene7
• An enhanced rich transactional email module
• Robust and advanced integration has been added for FedEx® shipping services
• Improved integration with third party solutions that include PayPal® payment services, Avalara® sales tax solutions, and Omniture® web analytics.

GoECart regularly receives awards for product innovation and ecommerce leadership, which are a testiment to the tireless work of our team and their dedication to continuously updating the GoECart software platform and advancing ecommerce. For example, GoECart is also a four-time finalist in the prestigious annual CODiE Awards completion for “Best Ecommerce Solution” and expects to be nominated again this year

We will be sure to keep you posted on the results of the application and on the status of others awards, news and events via this blog. Check back often for updates!