Continuing our web design trends for 2010 blog series here are a few more predictions:

Eighties comeback:

Well, it happens every so often in the fashion world – and now we reckon it’s the turn of web designs. You’ll see reds, blacks and greys,  diagonal lines, simple shapes and patterns. Go on, you know you’ll love that eighties revival.

Go bespoke:

Web designs are breaking out of the mould with a lot more organic and bespoke layouts. Designers are going all creative and it’s likely that clients will love the new, freer look of these less traditional-looking websites.

It’s simple:

Minimalist design is already showing signs of growing in 2010. The focus for these websites is on the content rather than flashy colours and graphics. But just because the websites are simply doesn’t mean they aren’t sophisticated. It’s all about balancing content and white space. Many examples of this can be seen in many of the WebCreationUK portfolio.

Does anyone else want to make any more web design trends suggestions?

There seems to be no stopping department store giant John Lewis as this week it announced sales at its Direct division increased by £60.6 million to £393.5 million in the year to January 2010. That’s a growth of 18.2%.

This sales increase has been great news for staff with each of the 70,000 employees receiving bonus payouts totaling £151.3 million, or the equivalent of 15% of their annual salaries.

Charlie Mayfield, chairman of John Lewis Partnership, is reported on e-retail site IMRG as saying: “This has been a successful year. We have continued to invest, innovate and grow, emerging from the recession in a stronger competitive position.”

We’re predicting that John Lewis will not be the only business to see large sales gains thanks to a strengthening e-retail market.

There is good news for the future of e-commerce websites as new figures reveal that internet card-use fraud fell for the first time last year. The report from the UK Cards Association showed that card fraud on the internet, over the phone and via mail order decreased by a total of 19% to £266million.
Since 2004, card fraud losses have fallen 67%.

While any fraud is bad news – and certainly £266million still sounds like a huge amount – the fact that it is going down will help to increase the trust of shoppers who use on-line stores.

It’s believed that chip and pin technology and more secure e-retail websites have contributed to the fall in card fraud.

David Cooper, chairman of the Fraud Control Steering Group, is reported as saying: “The reasons behind the decrease in this type of fraud include the increasing use of sophisticated fraud screening detection tools by retailers and banks, as well as the continuing growth in the use of MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa, by both online retailers and cardholders.”

While our last blog revealed a dominance at the top of the latest Hot Shops List by some of the world’s biggest on-line brands, as well as a few remarkable climbs up the list, there were also some brands that didn’t fare so well this last quarter.

Here we bring you some of the “fallers”:

*Ticketmaster fell 21 places to position 37
* Sainsbury’s fell 12 places to 41
* O2 Shop fell 12 places to 47
* Travelodge fell nine places to 46

Carphone Warehouse, HP, QVCUK.com and Toys ‘R’ Us UK all fell out of the top 50 this quarter.

As with all these lists there are always going to be the winners and the losers but it shows that competition is fierce in the e-retail marketplace.

The latest Hot Shops List compiled by 
IMRG, reveals that the story is “steady dominance” for the big on-line shopping brands, while the biggest movers this time are holiday and travel companies.

The UK on-line shopping top 10 lines up like this with the top four brands retaining their places,
1: Amazon.co.uk
2: Argos
3: Play
4: Apple Computer

Three more moved up one place compared to the previous quarterly report:
5: Amazon.com
6: Tesco
8: John Lewis

While M&S fell two places to position 7, Next dropped one place to position nine and Easyjet entered the top 10 at number 10.

Meanwhile some of the biggest movers in the latest Hot Shops List are
15: Thomas Cook, which moved up 31 places
31: British Airways, which moved up 11 places
11: Thomson Holidays, which moved up 10 places
24: The Trainline, which moved up 10 places

There was only one new entrant in the list this quarter: the new Littlewoods brand, Very.co.uk, which came in at position 34.

As every business is aware, on-line networking and marketing are big just now and if you want to get ahead of your rivals then you need to be working these potentially highly effective tools.

We have blogged a lot recently about how to get started with your on-line marketing strategy and here we bring you two more important tips:

On-line networking/directory websites

Having your profile/account/portfolio on any of the free networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin will help to get your name out into the social networking arena.

Twitter is one of the best places for building connections and relationships with brands and other people, even some people who are considered really important in your field. You just wouldn’t get the same opportunity to connect with such people in the off-line world.

It’s also worth attending Meetups, Tweetups and Conferences, where you actually meet In Real Life (IRL).

Post in forums

Spend some time posting on forums on websites that are relevant to your field. This will help to build relations and trust that may bring you new clients or customers.