Suggested Shopping Comparison and Destination Sites to Use to Grow Revenues

For the next week, in addition to helpful advice, I will be posting information in regard to some shopping destination sites, marketplaces, affiliates sites, and other type of online shopping "malls" that you may want to list and send your product catalog feed. 

Some of these sites you know, some are new to the marketplace, and some you may want to ignore! In any of scenarios, I am sure of one thing -- try them.  Why?

3 of them are FREE, you are never committed long term, they can bring you leads, sales, and increase your branding.  And if you are having trouble to feeding to any of them let me know -- I can help!

Have a great Labor Day Weekend - Ed

I am listing over 50 sites the next few weeks in reverse alphabetical order -- I know of over 150, so if you want more suggestions please feel to contact me -- Ed

Yahoo Shopping:  pay per click
Yahoo! Product Submit gives you access to millions of potential customers across the Yahoo! Network and on Yahoo! Shopping - one of the premier, branded and most visited shopping destination sites. Yahoo! Shopping features professional buyer's guides, seasonal editorials, consumer ratings and reviews, and much more to help you sell your products.

Underbid.com: commission based marketplace
UnderBid has broken new ground by establishing a truly cost-effective Pay-Per-Sale marketing channel. Underbid is building a business based on professional and reputable merchants and genuinely partners with each merchant. There are NO listing fees, NO pay-per-click fees, NO cost per-impressions fees, NO pay-per-lead fees, NO monthly subscriptions fees, NO upfront setup costs, and NO hidden marketing costs. Underbid is at the other end of the spectrum from other marketing driven business models and delivers a NO RISK solution, eliminating click fraud to the merchant because only when a visitor completes their purchases is Underbid paid a small commission.

TheFind.com:  FREE
TheFind.com is a discovery shopping search engine that delivers a comprehensive, relevant and visually compelling shopping experience optimized for lifestyle products.

Unlike comparison shopping sites, TheFind.com returns results from more than 150 million products from over 500,000 stores, and allows users to filter results by leading styles, brands, and stores and the ability to browse and search for similar items.

TheFind.com strives to be a comprehensive and unbiased shopping experience, and does not charge merchants to be included in their product index, or for clicks on their organic product listings. For more information, visit http://www.thefind.com.

SortPrice.com: flat monthly fee
SortPrice provides online merchants with high-performance product listings. SortPrice delivers millions of quality shoppers directly to merchant product pages creating a fast and simple checkout process. There is no cost per click and no cost per transaction to list products on SortPrice. Merchants can list products at a low monthly flat rate and receive an unlimited amount of click-throughs. At Sortprice with the unlimited click-through business model, click fraud cannot harm your advertising budget. For more information visit: http://www.sortprice.com

Smarter.com: pay per click (owned by ValueClick)
Smarter.com is a leading online comparison shopping service. Our goal is to help consumers make smarter buying decisions by enabling them to research and compare products, as well as to compare prices on millions of products available at thousands of reputable online stores. We gather product and merchant data from across the Internet, organize and structure it into a comprehensive catalog which we publish on Smarter.com.

New eTaildTail Site Features!

Thank you all for helping grow the www.eTaildTail community. We have added many new features to www.eTaildTail.com that we hope helps you grow your online sales and improve your business practices.

We have been growing leaps and bounds and continue to reach out to great people, companies, and organizations to futher assist small to mid-sized online retailers in their efforts to grow their online business.

We have recently added a weekly case study, or other pertinent article, from industry experts that we trust you find helpful.  In addtion, we have added links to other gerat blogs (see left hand side of the this blog) which also give you vauable insights and tips to improving your online business.  As I always say, no one person or organization holds a monoploy on valuable information, so please check out these blogs weekly too.

Some new features on www.eTaildTail.com, in addition to listing the blogs, are listing shopping destination sites (please see lower left hand side of this blog). This list includes: affiliate marketing sites, comparison shopping sites (some free, some commission based, some a hybrid model), marketplaces (such as www.Amazon.com, www.Shop.com, and www.Underbid.com), mobile commerce sites (such as www.Mporia.com), and new sites that we are aware of to help you market your products online, such as "couparison shopping sites" as www.MyCoupons.com. We will list all of these 5 a time. We know of over 100 such sites so check back frequently to see all of them -- or you can go to www.MerchantAdvantage.com for a good list too.

In addition, we are very proud to associate ourselves with our friends across the pond in London at www.e-consultancy.com (please see lower left hand side of this blog under E-Business Information Sites).  We love working and hearing from experts, so if you know of any others we should list please let us know.

Online shopping is growing and we all have a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other so that we continue to service the consumer/online shopper better everyday -- and make online/e-commerce/mobile commerce shopping the best, most efficient, and user friendly way to communicate with our clients everyday!

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend holiday and if you have any tips or suggestions on how to improve www.eTaildTail.com, please send us an email -- see left hand side of blog and click on the link to send us your thoughts.

Besos,

Ed

Pumping Up Online Sales Through Potent Promotions

E-Commerce Times often have excellent articles and advice that all online merchants should read.  This is certainly one of them. – Enjoy and I hope it helps! -- Ed

By Stephan Schambach
E-Commerce Times
For full article and to comment please CLICK HERE

"Moving forward successfully into the future, today's retailers must vary the types of the promotions they offer, to maintain a high level of consumer satisfaction toward their brand. Success is a simple recipe: Learn about the most loyal shoppers, promote to a targeted audience, keep customers happy and loyal, and sell products.

Gone are the days of promotions strategies that begin and end with heavy discounting. Today's savvy retailers know their promotions strategies must be innovative, creative and customizable to specific consumer segments. Since the online channel often contains the most comprehensive set of retail products, it makes sense for retailers to use the Web as the channel of choice for overall promotions management.

When building a comprehensive online promotions strategy it is important to create offers targeted at acquiring new customers, increasing average order size, moving excess inventory and satisfying customers to build strong loyalty. Without a well-thought-out strategy, and the tools to measure success, it is impossible to know whether or not the promotions are generating true return on investment.

Centralize to Strategize

To get a true measure of promotions success, retailers must centralize the management process. This could result in an organizational shift that empowers the online merchandisers and marketers with more control over promotions strategy.

Further, retailers must be sure the e-commerce  system/service provider they choose to run their promotions program allows both the merchandisers to set up catalog and price-based promotions and marketers to run customer acquisition-based promotions. Once this is in place, the company can be on its way to improving margins, increasing sales  and creating more loyal customers.

Five Steps of Successful Promotions

Using today's available tools and technology, multichannel retailers can create customized promotions plans that deliver offers to consumers based on the segmentation of their preferences and shopping behavior. One retailer who has embraced a new promotions strategy and reaped the benefits is Gardener's Supply.

The multichannel gardening supply retailer had its best year for revenue and profits in 2006 due to its fortified promotions efforts. Promotion-based search results delivered better conversion rates, more than two dozen types of promotions increased customer satisfaction, and promotions overlap created increased conversion rates.

To execute a winning promotions strategy, retailers should follow these five essential steps:

1. Customer segmentation. The first step of successful promotions execution is to segment customers into groups, particularly when a brand attracts a diverse group of shoppers. By collecting customer data, merchandisers can better understand the triggers that make a consumer react to a specific type of promotion. Tracking consumers by these behavior groups allows retailers to introduce specialized promotional programs and communicate to consumers with relevant offers.

Online capabilities facilitate the collection of information provided by consumers when they register on a site and by their shopping habits. Consumers can then be grouped by price sensitivity, product class, order size, number of visits and other relevant characteristics.

2. Get creative with promotions. The goal of promotions is to cut through the noise created by the market, and ultimately get a consumer to make purchase. For this reason, promotions must be creative and offer real value. Think beyond discounts. New promotional concepts -- such as shipping destination, shipping methods, "x" first customers, every "nth" customer, every "x" order, items per promotion, apply offer to "nth" item, returns-based, payment method, free product choice, rebates, multiple bonus products and many others -- are starting to be used by some of the most innovative retailers on the Web.

Some retailers are even starting to use stock-level based promotions to move excess inventory. Although there is a lot of flexibility with online promotions, one warning to the wise: Be sure to have rules in place for managing promotions to avoid pitfalls such as giving away double offers or unintentionally not providing a consumer with the best available promotion.

3. Test promotions. Once the customers are organized into relevant groups and the promotions have been created, retailers can better determine the effectiveness of certain promotions by performing A/B tests. A/B tests are a comparative form of testing that allow merchants to test several promotion types against a typical offer to determine which option will yield the best results.

For example, different promotions can be offered to a single group of consumers to find out which promotion is more effective. This can be as simple as offering a 20 percent discount versus a 30 percent one to determine discount thresholds. Since it delivers real-time results, A/B testing is the best vehicle for testing time-sensitive offers. Testing is an import measurement tool for protecting against over promotion, which unfortunately leads to reduced margins.

4. Use search to deliver relevant promotions. Over the years, consumers have been trained to react to promotions since they convey the sense of value. With more than 70 percent of shopping trips starting with the search key, online browsing is no longer a passive consumer activity. Since customers already share personal information when they hit the search key, retailers should be actively involved in tailoring search responses to deliver relevant promotions as part of the search results.
Many retailers today use search-based promotions to drive cross-selling and up-selling of products in order to increase basket size -- such as suggesting coordinating hand bags and jewelry that are discounted when purchased along with a specific dress.

5. Build an ongoing promotions strategy for loyalty. Deep discounting across the board used to be the norm in the retail industry. However retailers are getting savvy to the fact that offering deep discounts to all customers is serving only to lower margins and cheapen the value of the products among many customers who would probably have purchased anyway. Armed with more precise promotions technology to track effectiveness, today's retailing strategies are moving more towards loyalty-based promotions, such as a "surprise and delight" giveaway.

Time has shown that customers appreciate receiving something for free, especially when they are not expecting it. These customers are likely to return to purchase again. Small things can go a long way, such as sending the customer a thank-you message along with a percent-off coupon for their next purchase.

The Future Is Now

To help run a successful Web site and execute online promotions, make sure e-commerce providers offer the most up-to-date solutions available. Some of the latest promotions technology to look for include:

• Promotions rules engine -- attaching business rules to promotions to drive incremental sales
• Image-based promotions -- attaching images to promotions for greater visual appeal
• Promotions import/export -- bringing in/sending out promotions from/to other systems to manage from the system of record
• Promotions reporting -- tracking the success rate of promotions for better future decision-making

Moving forward successfully into the future, today's retailers must vary the types of the promotions they offer, to maintain a high level of consumer satisfaction toward their brand. Success is a simple recipe: Learn about the most loyal shoppers, promote to a targeted audience, keep customers happy and loyal, and sell products.

Of course, remember to be creative. The key is getting consumers to interact with the brand based on their typical shopping practices. Executing effective promotions combines using the best technology with the fine art of truly knowing individual customers."

Case Study: Single Email Led to the Best Product Launch Ever - Test Results

For this week, I will have 3 more posts (no one will be reading on Friday before a long weekend....right? LOL), besides this one, related to just shopping comparison sites.  So please feel free to come back as I will give you all a comprehensive list of sites (yes you do have choices and not just the 5-10 that most companies tell you to feed your to), which ones might perform better for you than others for various reasons, and some simple financial advice on how you CAN afford to try shopping comparison sites!  -- Ed

As the eTaildTail community is in the midst of the school season and is gearing up for the holiday season, I thought it might be a good idea to share new thoughts on product launch ideas. Nothing is better than reading a real case study from Marketing Sherpa, who I think do an excellent job! Check them out if you want to join to get excellent research: www.MarketingSherpa.com

A New Bicycle Launch (Trek Bike): Case Study #CS790:

SUMMARY:

Marketers at manufacturing firms face an email dilemma because they're often launching single products with months of downtime in between. It’s not only hard to build online relationships this way, but it’s difficult to come up with a truly targeted list that finds relevancy in a one-product offer.

See how a well-known bicycle maker combined a smartly designed email and directed traffic to a microsite to achieve the biggest product launch in their three-decade history.

CHALLENGE:

Until a few months ago, Casey Kohner, B-to-C Ecommerce Manager, Trek Bicycle Corp., was responsible for running the online store featuring bike-related accessories and using email to sign up repeat customers. But then his bosses decided it was time to see if email would work as a key driver in their high-end bike launches.

So, Kohner and his team sat down to put together a plan to transition from emails promoting low-to-medium-ticket apparel, shoes and other gear to bikes costing thousands of dollars. And since Trek doesn’t sell their bikes directly, the program had to drive prospects to local retail partners.

“We had done some lifestyle messaging that we thought could be applied,” Kohner says. “However, you are never sure how steep the learning curve will be until you start testing.” They wondered if email sending consumers to a microsite could translate click traffic into foot traffic for such a high-end niche product.

CAMPAIGN:

Kohner and his team tested email when they launched their new $580 Trek Lime line this spring, but the effort didn’t lift sales above their expectations. Still, he was confident that a similar strategy with a more targeted list would work. It needed to, because up next was a campaign for their Madone series bikes, which retails for anywhere from $2,000 up to $8,600.

Here are the five steps they took:

-> Step #1. Extract a relevant list

Knowing that avid biking aficionados like learning about emerging products, Kohner knew they could select more than just past bike purchasers from their permission-based database and still maintain relevancy. So, they extracted those who had opted in for Tour de France promotions in the past two years. This list ended up being around 100,000 names.

-> Step #2. Craft the message

For the design of the email, Kohner and his team wanted to avoid a busy look and feel (i.e., gobs of imagery), so they balanced the text around two photos. “The story needs more than pictures to be told. Also, if they don’t click through, we’ve at least provided some content that creates awareness for the Madone.”

Other differences:

- They paid more attention to placement and made sure to put an image, text and a call to action above the fold.
- Instead of “Click here” hyperlinked copy, they used “See the new Madone” toward the top of the design and in the middle section.
- Giving a strategic nod to where many of the list names originated, they used a hyperlinked photo of brand partner and Tour de France hero Lance Armstrong.
- To promote the brand name and the manufacturer’s rich tradition in the subject line, they went longer than normal: “The all-new Madone has arrived. Everything else is history.”

-> Step #3. Send traffic to a dedicated microsite

All emails were directed to a microsite that further told the story of the new bike. With a sleek and mostly black design, the microsite featured four sections:
o A New History
o Technology
o Madone Line-up
o Make History

Each of those four sections broke into smaller areas with content designed to appeal to the most-ardent bike enthusiast. For instance, people who clicked on Technology were taken to a section called “What’s Behind the Ride,” which included six subsections:
o Efficiency
o Components
o Integration
o Strength
o Performance
o Comfort

The microsite also included links to a FAQ page and a blog where consumers could sign up to receive the latest updates on deliveries, bike demos, events news and a video. In all, it contained more than 20 sections and subsections describing the new model, as well as various PDFs that contained even techier information for those who were truly interested.

-> Step #4. Encourage opt-ins on the microsite

One final piece to the microsite was including an opt-in link for consumers who found it through search engine queries. Growing their email list was secondary to the original goal, but the form was easy enough to add. Plus, the names collected would become valuable prospects for future campaigns.

They offered five ways to receive updates:
o Email
o Skype
o AOL Instant Messenger
o Twitter (your time line)
o Twitter (direct)

-> Step #5. Create buzz/ready the stores

Next, Kohner and his team kept the news of the product launch under wraps until the week before the launch. They did this to:
o Create a strong buzz among retailers and bloggers
o Keep the details on proprietary features, such as the Madone’s special frame, hush hush.

Three days before the product launch, they announced the bike at an exclusive corporate event for their top 100 national and international retailers. Then, they express-couriered marketing materials to retail partners and sent an email promotion that introduced the microsite as well as the steps they needed to follow to get the product in stock.

On the day of the product launch, they sent the consumer email message and launched the microsite.

RESULTS:

Kohner and his team’s efforts were rewarded in dramatic fashion, as the campaign for the Madone was instrumental in achieving two words every marketer loves to hear: sold out. Indeed, their retail partners have been buzzing with sales activity all summer long.

“Everything worked,” Kohner says. “In terms of marketing execution, planning and sales, we consider it to be the overall best product launch we have done in our company’s [31-year] history. Right now, you basically cannot get the new Madone. It’s back-ordered until October. The email campaign was a key component to that success.”

For the email itself, they had a 21% open rate and 43% clickthrough rate. Also, they saw a lift of 10% to their opt-in email and RSS programs.

In addition, Kohner was more than satisfied with changes to the email design:
- 41% clicked on the top “See the Madone” link.
- 26% clicked on the lower “See the Madone” link.
- 19% clicked on the main image.
- 14% clicked on the link to the online version of the email to view it in their Web browser.

“What’s interesting here is that the call-to-action links were number one and number two in terms of clicks, which indicates that this design engaged our customers,” Kohner says. “And it tells us that a significant percentage actually took the time to read the content.”

Useful links related to this article

Creative samples from Trek's product launch:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/trekmadone/study.html

Bronto Software Inc. - email service provider who executed the campaigns on the back end:
http://bronto.com/

Hanson Dodge Creative - agency who developed the microsite:
http://www.hansondodge.com/

Madone microsite:
http://www2.trekbikes.com/madone/

Trek Bicycles Corp.:
http://trekbikes.com

Helpful August Reading for eTaildTail Community

Just a quick note to the www.eTaildTail.com community to thank all of you for coming to this site and participating on a weekly basis. 

We have reached over 15,000 page views after launching three months ago and your questions are great. 

May I encourage all online merchants to come weekly to eTaildTail for helpful information, insights, and to have your questions answered to help your business grow.

For this week starting August 20, I encourage all readers to check on "back blogs" from prior months, by clicking on a category button on the left hand side of this blog. There is a lot of helpful information pertaining to updating your online storefront functionality and tips and tricks on using Google Product Base and over 100 shopping destination engines.

If you are wondering about all of the various shopping destination sites to which you can list your product catalog, please check out this link at MerchantAdvantage, which gives you a nice summary of over 50 of these sites, which can help you grow online revenues.

Have a wonderful week -- Ed

PS Special thanks to the www.MerchantAdvantage.com technical team who continue to provide valuable technical insights into online comparison shopping engines.

Yahoo Shopping! Adds Trust Mark to Shopping Listings

This just in about Yahoo! Shopping. For full story please click here. -- Ed

By Giselle Abramovich, DM News

"Yahoo Shopping has expanded its comparison-shopping listings criteria beyond pricing and merchant ratings. Through an agreement with ScanAlert, retailers currently certified to the Hacker Safe security standard will have the security company’s branded seal displayed on Yahoo.

“With safety and security issues affecting the buying decisions of 50 percent to 70 percent of all online shoppers, retailers win because they can merchandize their certified security credentials, rather than chiefly relying on low prices to stand out,” said Nigel Ravenhill, director of marketing communications at ScanAlert Inc.

“Consumers win because the combination of security information with price, user ratings, and merchant reviews helps them make more informed and trusted buying decisions,” he continued. “Comparison engines win, too, because they gain a new revenue stream and more shopping clicks.”

Industry research suggests security is one of three key criteria that consumers evaluate before purchasing. In addition to pricing and product availability, safety and security concerns strongly influence many online decisions – whether it is using a shopping engine to find products or going directly to a retailer's site.

“This is the first of three deals in which the Hacker Safe seal will be integrated into CSE product/service listings,” Ravenhill said.

He said that the other agreements would be announced later this month."

10 steps to Successfully Selecting Software

This entry for today is critical to all online retailers who are looking to upgrade and/or adopt new technology -- which buy the way can reallly help you grow your online business.  The folllowing is from Internet Retailer  and is a really good oveview for the etaildtail community. -- Ed

"Although retailers are notoriously slow to adopt new technology, most already possess the basic skills needed to select the right e-commerce and other business software to run their operations, says software advisor Dan Fornes, founder and president of Retail Software Advice, which operates on the web at SoftwareAdvice.com.

He offers 10 steps to IT project success:

1. Assemble the Right Team. Start with an executive-level project sponsor to ensure the project gets the right funding and attention. Next, assemble a team of a store manager responsible for all details of the project, an IT staff if available, and end-users that will contribute their requirements and ideas.

2. Establish Clear Goals for the Project. All choices throughout the project should be weighed according to how well they help achieve goals such as: "Speed up the checkout process;" or "Improve inventory planning and purchasing.”

3. Build a Detailed Project Schedule. The next step is to create a project schedule that outlines all the major activities and their sub-tasks. Be sure to assign an owner to each activity and task, and to monitor progress with an Excel spreadsheet.

4. Create a Budget for the Project. For a successful project, it is critical to have an accurate budget to work against. Be sure to account for costs outside of the software itself, such as touch screens, printers, barcode scanners and credit card processing terminals.

5. Define Your Requirements. As the most important step in the entire process, define your functional and technical requirements for the new system. Consider a simple list of features, as well as a thoughtful analysis of "current" versus "optimal" business processes.

6. Draft a Request for Proposal (RFP) and Evaluation Framework. The RFP will take the form of a list of questions, critical features, and technical requirements that can be sent to software vendors for their response. The evaluation framework spreadsheet should track each product`s capabilities relative to your unique requirements.

7. Develop a Short List of Products. Create a "short list" of software products - three to five - by answering questions such as:
• Does the company serve your specific trade and business size?
• Do they meet your technology requirements and present a professional image?

8. Evaluate Short List Products. Using the feature-by-feature scores and the weightings for each requirement, rule out any product that falls short of your most critical requirements. After prioritizing the others according to their performance across all of your criteria, select one that you feel is best, and one runner-up.

9. Check Customer References. Do your due diligence by checking the winning vendor`s customer references. To offset "cherry picking" of their happiest customers, require at least three references and prepare a detailed list of questions that require specific answers.

10. Negotiate the Deal. In determining the final price, consider key areas such as: what type of license does the vendor offer; how is the software priced; and what are the maintenance and support policies. As a rule of thumb, the larger the check you write, the more room for negotiation."

Best Practices Approach: Categorization and Taxonomy on Shopping Comparison Engines

When submitting products to shopping comparison engines, taxonomy and categorization can be a big concern, and rightfully so.

Each compariosn shopping engine has their own type of taxonomy and standards when taking a merchant’s items, and assigning those items to categories. There is no easy method, but here are a few quick points to be aware of:

1. No, you can’t assign an item to multiple categories

Only a few companies have this principle in place, but most do not. The reason is because a merchant could potentially flood an engine with only a few products spread out in many places.

The consumer will quickly tire of seeing the same products over and over, abandoning the engine to shop elsewhere. This same principle means options are not typically allowed to be listed as multiple items, because a single item could then take up an entire page of results.

For example, some engines like GoogleBase and NexTag only allow one item per product url or link page.

2. Picking a category

There is no perfect category!

Yes, an item could conceivably fit into multiple categories so it is up to the merchant many times to pick the best category (A-B testing anyone?).

Now, many engines will actually recognize a product by SKU or UPC, and have a predetermined place for that item. So, this issue could be rendered moot.

However, most times a merchant is forced to pick a category assignment so it’s best to pick a few items from a given group and search for them. See where those items come up.

Then, decide if you want your items directly competing with similar items from other merchants, or if you would prefer your items elsewhere in seclusion. This is a competitive analysis that could help greatly with conversions if not total click count.

3. Try sending your categories first

Many merchants get caught running in circles and drowning in the possibilities of where to place items within a compariosn shoping engine.

Try sending your categories first.

That is, send the category assignments from the home website and see how the CSEs handle those. In the CSE back office, you should then be able to get a listing of products and category assignments.

Based on those results, then see what alteration is necessary. First send what you have, and then make adjustments as needed. The leasson hre is that you should not get caught up in unnecessary work.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. Take a systemtic approach to lisiting products on shopping comparison sites.

2. Most shopping comparions frown on, and punish, the online merchant trying to send the same product SKU under different names, categories, or sub catrgories = list the prodcut properly once and move on!

3. Read the above advice on categorization and taximony, it is quick, short and wil save you lots of time and angst!

Marketing Channel Integration

One of the biggest issues from a managerial perspective is how to integrate different marketing channels for a company.

In most cases this will include catalog distribution, e-commerce, etc. For the purposes of this article, lets look at this dilemma as an e-commerce integration. That is how to integrate strategy and design from separate channels including email marketing, use of shopping comparison engines, marketplaces like Amazon, search engine marketing, and site optimization.

The problem is, when a tactic is proven to work, is this tactic understood and used on the other marketing channels? If the person running a search engine marketing campaign with Google AdWords stumbles across a valuable keyword or phrase, is this also being integrated into site optimization? Is this integrated in comparison engines so it stands out in the product name or description?

For example, imagine one person finds that ‘Britanica Encyclopedia Set’ is incredibly more effective than the manufacturer name alone, or encyclopedia in tandem with set for example, then why not create an optimized landing page with this information? Why not try including this phrase in product titles on a comparison engine and perhaps as a subject line in email or newsletter correspondence.

Communication is key…and let me say this again…communication is key when building a truly integrated e-commerce campaign. Logistically it is impossible to run all of these initiatives by a single person. This creates even more havoc when a company may be using several third party vendors to operate different portions of the campaigns.

There needs to be a node or an integrated network to ensure information travels freely within the company and necessarily outside between different technology vendors if being utilized. In this case, a good e-commerce director will make sure to create a flow of information between different units to encourage the growth and optimization of all marketing initiatives.

Valuable information can be rendered only partially effective if there is not enough information available.  For large scale retailers, even a small advantage spread across many channels can make a million dollar difference in a short time.

Using Video: A Waste of Time, a Fad or Mandatory Feature for Successful Online Shopping?

YouTube certainly has hit on the next “in thing” when it comes to going online and having some fun.  The fact that any computer can stream video pretty darn quick also makes it hard to ignore using video in some way to enhance the fun, functionality and creativity of your website, regardless what your website’s purpose might be.  And there are so many uses of video: fun, advertainment, fund raising, educational message, product demo, and many others.

For online merchants, the use of video may not be top of mind, as many of you are just trying to make your website functional and pleasant to look at, but don’t wait too long. 

The use of video may just be the best way to engage your customers, keep their attention, and help you eventually sell them your products better than any other method you are trying to implement.

The key thing to remember about video is that it is far more engaging than most forms of advertising -- except maybe for a lovely female or model walking down a runaway with your product in hand or on their body.

Text and static images are old school.  People today expect to see something sexy and fun to grab their attention. 

Yes, the quality of your product is always important, as is price, and excellent customer follow up is key.  Also, making your website easy to navigate is essential, but if you want to attract consumers to your website or portal, jump on the visual trend.

Why? Because visual components, in combination with doing the other things mentioned above well, generate more interest, leads, stickiness on your website, branding, and eventual sales.

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) published "Frames of Reference: Online Video Advertising, Content, and Consumer Behavior" in June of 2007 cited the following:

"Of 80% of viewers who had watched an online video ad, just over half had taken some sort of action. Nearly a third had checked out a website, while 22 percent had searched for more information, 15 percent had gone into a store and 12 percent had actually made a purchase."

Hello?!?! If those statistics don’t stir your marketing manager’s creative juices, you might want to hire a new marketing director.

It is hard to know where to start but let’s take some simple steps to deciding how and when to use video to enhance your customer’s online shopping experience.

Here are some questions to ask:

1. What message am I trying to convey?
a. How to use product?
b. Display product?
c. Educational?
d. Fun and gimmicky?
e. General sales and marketing message?

2. Do I have a product line that merits selling via video?
a. Cars = great and obvious yes!
b. Clothing = could be cool, works for Victoria’s Secret
c. Toys = fun to film some cute kid playing with you products
d. Food and Beverage Related = of course, don’t we all make purchases based on association, for instance, eating a hot dog at a baseball game, an ice cold beer after a day in the hot sun
e. Jewelry = yes, makes much more of an impression seeing a piece of jewelry on a beautiful hand and or model in a smashing outfit!
f. Furniture = why not, 360 views are important
g. Stationary Supplies = probably not
h. You get the point!

3. Do I have the budget to embark on this venture?
a. I would ask: Can you risk, with the way technology is today and the cost effective methods that are available to experiment, not doing video at some level?
b. Start small and once you have mastered your first onsite video marketing campaign I am sure you will fall in love with it and become very, very creative.

And when you finally decide to try video as part of you online marketing efforts, make sure that you create wonderful digital images, experiment with streaming video links on various strategic places on your site, and create a strategic 6 month plan to making your entire site a visual shopping experience using video strategically and logically along with wonderful pictures and colors.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. Using video to enhance the fun, interest, and interactivity on your online storefront is here to stay = learn how to use it!

2. You don't have to completely change what you are doing on your website to see the benefits of using online video.  Start small with a simple product demonstration and then let your creative juices flow.

3. Creating video for your website is not as hard as you might think and we recommend doing it yourself so that you can control how you really want your message to be look, feel, and sound.

4. If you still think you can't do it, visit your local Radio Shack or computer store and have them walk you through it and once you master it you will be far ahead of your competition.

 

The Future of Shopping Comparison and the Problem with UPC

Thought this post from my friend Kevin over at www.ChannelDollars.com was interesting and helpful.

Enjoy - Ed

By Kevin Packler, www.ChannelDollars.com

"As comparison engines and marketplaces evolve, these companies are looking for new ways to deal with millions of products from sellers, and then properly display them against items from other sellers. One of the possible solutions is to display products based on UPC code. So some may ask, what’s a UPC?

UPC stands for Universal Product Code. The product code is meant to consist of 12 digits that give a unique identifier for  every individual product. UPC is a push to standardize product information in a way that can be applied to all products, and in theory making life easier. Some engines and marketplaces are turning toward UPC as an answer to placing products in the right place, but there is a problem for vendors…many do not have UPC in their product data.

One of the main issues for standardizing data is not only resolving a set format, but then making sure sellers have the information needed. UPC presents an issue because while it seems to be a great way to integrate products, many distributors and manufacturers do not provide this information to sellers. 

The seller is then stuck trying to integrate a UPC code, possibly for all variations of products including products with size, color, or other options. This creates a huge challenge as even a mid-level business can be looking at trying to add UPC values across thousands of options. Amazon is one of the leading proponents of UPC integration based on their own datafeed requirements, and other companies are following on this same path.

This creates a big dilemma for sellers: How to get a UPC value, and then how to add this to the data. The first question is hard, the next is slightly better. Depending on the data structure, the best scenario is to have a way to integrate UPC number with the option value of a product (if needed). 

The best way to integrate…well, that all depends on the seller’s products, shopping cart, database, third party marketplaces…etc. Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer here. The creative burst that led to different sites and different ways of selling has led back to next challenge: How to put all this back together?"

Marketing Tools to Selling Online: Use One, Use All, and See Sales Grow!

Many online merchants in the eTaildTail community have asked me about the many marketing tools available to them to market their product catalog, brand, and storefront online.   Below I summarize 6 obvious ones that when used in concert together can be very effective in driving traffic, and hopeful sales, to your website. 

This does not include email marketing,which is a "science" unto itself...and something no one has really mastered!  But if you want a very cool (inexpensive) new rich, media, video email application that has back-end tracking and is very cool, ad works, check out www.FLIMP.net.  Tell them eTaildTail sent you.

I realize that unlimited marketing budgets are a scarcity, LOL, so may I suggest that you draw a pie chart, determine how much money you have to allocate for marketing for 6 moths and 12 months and then allocate appropriate funds to do AT LEAST 3 of the below effectively and continually. 

Ideally you should do all 6, but again budgets are probably a constraint.   The reason I say do at least 3 is that they work in concert with each other and search engines will pick up each campaign, thus increasing your relevancy in organic search by Google, Yahoo and others.

Happy marketing!

1. Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a relationship between web site owners, storefronts, merchants, and any body who sells online.  It is basically an inter related partnership where we all try and drive traffic to each other’s sites by appealing to a “similar” customer base from one site to another.  Websites will put merchants’ advertisement (usually text link or banner) on their page and then a merchant pays commission from each revenue deal. Sometimes these relationships revolve around leads and not necessarily sales, so be creative when you create an affiliate program. 

The advantage of pure revenue based promotions is that everyone only makes money from an actual sale =  you don’t lose money just time setting the program up.

If you want to start your own affiliate program you can buy one of many available scripts or use some of affiliate networks like Link Share or Commission Junction – but before these please understand the all in costs associated with working them, as they do charge a commission for leads.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Search engine optimization is one of the most effective (and one of the hardest) ways to reach targeted customers. If you are a search engine optimization specialist, optimize your web site for effective keywords that relate to your product line = think like a consumer = what would they type in a search engine to try and find your product?

If you know nothing about SEO, find some basic information on Internet and optimize for easy keywords or hire an SEO company – they can be expensive but they do work. The advantage of SEO is that you can target visitors who want to buy products you offer. The disadvantage is the long time necessary for successful optimization = 12 months campaigns work, anything less you are probably wasting your time.

3. Pay Per Click (PPC) on Organic/General Search Engines:
There are several search engines offering pay per click programs and they can be very effective and there are companies that also will manage this for you. Simply what PPC advertising on search engines is that an online merchant chooses keywords they like and then bid on them. 

It sounds easy but many online merchants get caught in a bidding war and they lose site of the cost of the click in relation to the effectiveness of that keyword. 

One friend of mine noted the following:  “If consumers search for a specific keyword, the advertisements targeted for this keyword are displayed. If more advertisers select the same keyword the advertisements are sorted by the bid (except google AdWords, there the advertisement position depends on the bid and click rate). The big advantage of pay per click system is the fact that you can start your campaign in a few minutes.”

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)/Revenue Share on Shopping Comparison Sites/Destinations/Marketplaces:
There are over 100 shopping comparison sites and marketplaces. Think of them as virtual online malls. These include Amazon, Shop.com, eBay, Shopzilla, GolfPricer.com and many, many more.  www.MerchantAdvantage.com feeds to over 125 channels, so ask them about all of them.

Most business models on these sites are PPC, where you pay a fee for a click through lead to your site and others are commission based, where you only pay on an actual sale.  The fees related to both types of marketing efforts vary from site to site and product category to product category.
 
These marketing channels act in a similar way to Point 3 above, but they are specific for shopping.  Rather than buying associated keywords for general search to get folks to find your products, you send a product catalog feed to these marketing channels for them to “display” your products for their customers.

When a customer comes to the “virtual online mall” they see your product and click to buy.  And you either pay for the lead (PPC) or a commission on the revenue/sale.

5. Banner Exchanges:
You include a HTML code to your web site and each time somebody visits the site where the HTML code is placed a banner will be displayed and you receive credits (usually 1/2 - 1 credit depending on the exchange ratio). For each credit you "earn" your banner will be displayed on another banner exchange member’s page. This type of promotion is good for branding but it will increase your traffic very little – industry average is 0.5 - 1 % only (depending on click rate of your banner). 

It is wise to combine this method with other strategies listed here.

6. Promotional Coupon Codes:
Everybody is happy with a free gift or some discount. Right?  A lot of online marketers take advantage of this fact. There are many promotional coupon code directories on Internet – just google one.  Or try www.mycoupons.com or www.couponmountain.com and away you go.

To do execute this all correctly, just list your coupon code to “coupon”  web sites. The best ting to do, if you have the time, is to try a combination of promotional coupon codes strategy and affiliate marketing. Give your publishers promo codes or special affiliate links. If the visitor clicks this link, s/he gets a discount, a free gift, free shipping or other benefits = every one is happy.  These can be very effective and very easy to manage once you have it all set up!

HELPFUL HINTS FOR THE DAY:

There are many online marketing methods that can help you get traffic, leads, branding, and sales.  Some work well along but by implementing 3 or more you should start to see some great benefits to building your business.  Some methods, which are explained above, include:

1. Affiliate Marketing
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3. Pay Per Click (PPC) on Organic/General Search Engine
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)/Revenue Share on Shopping Comparison Sites/Destinations/Marketplaces
5. Banner Exchanges
6. Promotional Coupon Codes

Visuals…Fun Interactive Functions…Taking Your Online Storefront Shopping Experience To The Next Level

Not all of us has the money, time or proper/qualifying "product catalog" to do the following, but I share it with all of the www.eTaildTail.com community because it shows that online shopping is here to stay and that people are coming up with wonderful innovative ways to leverage a behavior pattern that is also here to stay, namely using their hand held devices to do all sorts of thing ,including shopping!!!!

Case Study for Using New Technologies and Methods for Shopping for Clothes Online:

“Anyone who shops knows crushing disappointment: You love those shoes — if only the heels were a little lower. Or, you want that handbag — but in a different color. These jeans are so cool — if only they fit your zaftig behind.

Sure, you can hire your own dressmaker, tailor and shoemaker — if you've got the bucks and the time. The rest of us turn to the Internet, where online customization and personalization of apparel and accessories is growing. Sport-shoe retailers such as Nike and Converse have offered customized shoes for years, but now you can design your own high-fashion high heels at SteveMadden.com and build your own handbag at FreddyandMa.com. Zafu.com will take your measurements and steer you to retailers selling jeans that will fit you. Last month, Zafu added bras to its menu; coming soon are casual and dress pants.

"It's a growing niche in the market (because) it's an incredible new asset for shoppers," says Eva Yusa, the Shopping Diva blogger on ShopLocal.com, the comparison-shopping site.

MORE: Check out Cafepress for more customizing

It's an asset for retailers, too, says Marshal Cohen, retail analyst at the NPD Group marketing research firm, because it encourages consumers to get over their reluctance to buy online.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: NPD Group | Online shopping | Zafu

If a consumer is involved in the design or fitting of a product, 72% of the time they will buy, compared with 23% of the time for the fashion business in general, Cohen says. "In other words, you can grow your business threefold," he says. "When the consumer realizes the retailer is offering something that has me in mind, that's the key."
Overall, Internet retail continues to grow. Online sales of apparel (not including shoes) now tops $10.5 billion annually as of May, according to NPD Group. That's an 8.5% increase over 2006, which in turn showed a 9.3% increase over 2005.

"This is one of those times when touching and feeling (a product) is less important because being able to design clothing that fits you or to design something the way you want it trumps that," Cohen says.

It's a natural outgrowth of everyone's desire to "put their own stamp on the world," says Yusa. "The more we use the Internet to get our own views and opinions out there, whether it's through our own blog, or our MySpace pages or our websites, the more demand there is for putting our own stamp on what we shop for."

Here are some sites where you can design your own fashions or get a personalized fit:

The site	The features
	SpreadShirt.com Product : Shirts, sweatshirts, caps, bags, sneakers, underwear, baby clothes customized with site designs or own designs using "plot printing" process that produces long-lasting results and better quality than an iron-on. How it works: Pick among 70 products, select a design or text from samples or upload your own. Also, register your designs on the site and sell to others. Cost: $10-$50 depending on shirt, designs and text. Example: women's T-shirt decorated with arabesque design, $31.30, plus $4.99 shipping. Boast: From CEO Jana Eggers: "I had on a Spreadshirt T-shirt that said, 'Fear less, hope more,' which is part of Swedish proverb. A guy approached me and said my shirt made him realize it was OK to think about changing jobs. That made me feel great. I don't get that kind of response when I'm wearing an Ann Taylor blouse."
	LandsEnd.com Product: Customized jeans, chinos, blouses, swimsuits for women, shirts and pants for men. Also, Virtual Model for non-customized apparel. How it works: For example, to customize chinos for women, pick among such details as low or high waist, flat or pleated front, belt loops and pockets or not, tapered or straight legs, plus your measurements and a detailed body description including everything from shoe size to bra size to overall body shape. Cost: For women's chinos, $70-$80, plus $12.95 shipping, compared with $39.50 for non-customized women's chinos. Boast: From spokeswoman Amanda Broderick: "Custom clothing has traditionally been exclusively aimed at the highest end of the market, but Lands' End offers old-world tailoring with new-world technology 24 hours a day for made-to-order shirts, chinos and jeans."
	FreddyandMa.com Product: Factory-made leather-and-fabric handbags. How it works: Click on "Design Your Handbag," pick among seven shapes (clutch, tote, hobo, bowler), then pick among hundreds of fabric patterns, then select color of leather trim and color of hardware. Cost: $85-$350, plus $12 shipping, comparable to similar mid-priced handbags in department stores. Boast: From co-founder Amy Pigliacampo : "Luxury is becoming increasingly accessible, but it's not as unique anymore, so we thought it would be really cool to offer a one-off handmade product that isn't cheap but isn't nearly as expensive as (high-end bags), where customization is available only at an expensive price point."
	SteveMadden.com Product: High-fashion footwear. How it works: Click on "Design Your Own," pick among a half-dozen styles (ballet flats, pumps, sandals), then select the heel height (kitten, high, wedges), then pick among two dozen leather colors for the shoe and for decorative details. Cost: $89.95-$149.95, plus $8.95 shipping, about 25%-30% more than for similar, non-customized shoes on site. Boast: From company president Jeff Silverman: "First and only fashion shoe website to offer it. More sizes available, 4-12, plus half-sizes. "It comes down to individualization -- when our customers look at fashion magazines, they want to be in fashion, but they don't want to look like everyone else."
	MyShape.com Product: Apparel assembled based on body shape. How it works: Click on "Your Personal Shop," answer questions about your shape, style and fit preferences and measurements, then pick among seven body shapes and shop according to your shape. Cost: $40-$320, depending on item; free shipping for members. Boast: From CEO/founder Louise Wannier: "You can't go by size because size is all over the board, which makes Internet shopping really difficult. Shape is important in how clothes fit you because you can have the same weight and it will be distributed in different ways for different shapes. We style outfits, put together separates and show you how they work for your shape. We have patents on our shape-match technology. This is the future -- Web 3.0 will be all about how to make the (Internet) easier to use."
	Zafu.com Mission: Guided navigation to jeans, bras on Internet that fit your measurements. How it works: Enter your measurements. Zafu selects online retailers that sell items that will fit you. You order from the retailer. Cost: Free Boast: From CEO Rob Holloway: "A woman goes online to a search engine and types 'jeans' and she gets 7,000 to 15,000 results. The Internet is great for getting you anything but it's awful for getting what you need. If you spend three minutes answering a few questions, we'll steer you to the perfect product."

Feeding Product Catalog Data to Shopping Comparison Engines: Feeding Data Is Only The First Step...

…If you Don’t Have The Other Elements You Are Wasting Money and Time.

Company Profile: www.MerchantAdvantage.com

MerchantAdvantage helps small to mid-sized online merchants manage, feed, optimize and analyze their product catalog feeds to shopping comparison sites, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, PriceRunner and marketplaces as Amazon, Shop.com, and Underbid, (and over 100 other channels) themselves.

Some new companies have popped since we pioneered this “tool” based, do-it-yourself technology”, but none of them actually have the two most important applications/processes of data feed management – analytics and choice.

Just feeding correctly optimized product catalog data is only 10% of what it takes to use over 100 shopping destination sites and marketing channels effectively.

Many companies might have you think that just feeding your data correctly each time is the most important aspect of successful marketing campaigns using these many channels, they are wrong.  Many, many, many online merchants get burned and waste a lot of money on pay per click campaigns using shopping destination sites without increased sales.

Why? Because they think that just feeding data to a channel is sufficient.

Actually, to be successful using these channels you must do the following and have an application that can do the following:

1. create perfectly formatted data to send to ANY marketing channel

2. have choice to where you can send your product catalog data – just sending data to Shopzilla or Yahoo! Shopping is nice, but they might not be the best performing channel for your products.  You should test, experiment and find those channels that sell your product well.  Thus, work with companies that can help you send your data to over 100 marketing channels that are available to any online merchant. they work with over 125 marketing channels.

3. Analyze how your feeds are performing in real time to save money, increase ROI, and increase sales.  You should have a tool that helps you monitor how your product catalog feeds are performing within each shopping destination site and marketing channel, and across each channel.  This tool should measure individual SKU, category and sub category, and click cost performance….daily!

Check out the marketplace for a cost effective tool based solution that feeds and analyzes product catalog feeds to ANY channel you want to feed to and that also does not charge a transaction fee, revenue fee, or set up cost. 

Once you have scanned the landscape, check out www.MerchantAdvantage.com, they are the only ones who can offer all of this to you in the marketplace that is very, very affordable and are adding on new features in 4Q 2007 that will enhance and make your other marketing efforts more efficient into general search engines, as Yahoo!, Google, and others.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. Create perfectly formatted data to send to ANY marketing channel

2. Have choice to where you can send your product catalog data – just sending data to Shopzilla or Yahoo! Shopping is nice, but they might not be the best performing channel for your products.  You should test, experiment and find those channels that sell your product well.  Thus, work with companies that can help you send your data to over 100 marketing channels that are available to any online merchant. There are more than you think....I count over 125 marketing and shopping destination site channels.

3. Analyze how your feeds are performing in real time to save money, increase ROI, and increase sales.  You should have a tool that helps you monitor how your product catalog feeds are performing within each shopping destination site and marketing channel, and across each channel.  This tool should measure individual SKU, category and sub category, and click cost performance….daily!

</