Smart People

"I think it's a good thing that there are bloggers out there watching very closely and holding people accountable. Everyone in the news should be able to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. I'm for as much transparency in the newsgathering process as possible."

Anderson Cooper
CNN anchorman of the Anderson Cooper 360 program

FitBase Provides Valuable Information For Ecommerce Merchants

Many of our ecommerce clients at MerchantAdvantage have asked for additonal information to our white papers and client-side Webinars to make better business and online marketing decisons.  We all know that there’s a lot of information out there – google search, MSN search, Yahoo! search, blogs, industry websites, white papers, even newsletters -- which MerchantAdvantage also sends out each month. 

Okay, all of this is good. After all, knowledge IS power.  But what about too much knowledge?  Having so much information that it is all white noise?  The real question is where do we find the "right" information easily that we can act on today.  Albeit, how do we make heads or tails of the abundance of data available to anyone with an internet connection?

Well, friends of eTaildTail at FitForCommerce have pondered those questions – and have come up with a great answer: FitBase.  

In addition to their core eCommerce consultancy business, they have launched an online knowledge base of all things eCommerce. Now before you become skeptical of "another" site claiming to be the "one-stop-shop" for ecommerce related informaton -- I hear what you’re probably saying now: "...just what we need Chip – MORE information!"  

Okay, point taken. 

However, FitBase provides information in an organized, structured and intuitive manner, with apples-to-apples comparisons, benchmarking data on 1,000s of eCommerce features, and easy to follow, categorized "Best Practices" advice and resources in one place.  This even includes surveys, statistics and provider and solution details for vendors in over 30 different categories.   And, it is all presented in an easy-to-use solution finder interface that finds information and resources that most likely to fit your business ecommerce needs.

There’s only one thing to say. Phew. 

And I am glad to point you in their direction. It has been a great help to me, so check it out here and I believe it will help you too.

Enjoy.

- Chip Arndt

Blogging and Site Search – They Go Together Like Root Beer and Ice Cream

eTaildTail friends at SLI Systems weigh in on how Blogging and Site Search go hand-in-hand; we hope the following commentary helps grow your ecommerce business.

Best -

Chip Arndt

SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY

Blogging and Site Search – They Go Together Like Root Beer and Ice Cream

By Geoff Brash, VP of Marketing at SLI Systems, specialists in Webstore Site Navigation and Search. Geoff can be reached with any questions at geoff.brash@sli-systems.com ...and let him know that eTaildTail sent you.

"Whether or not your company already has a blog, you probably know the benefits of blogging and how it will help your business.  As explained in this recent E-Commerce Guide article, a blog linked to your online storefront can help build visibility for your brand and educate customers about what you offer. 

So if you’re going to spend the time necessary to maintain a blog, then you want to do whatever you can to get your blog noticed – and bringing the blog content into the search results on your site is one way to do that.  Just like root beer and ice cream, which taste great individually – blogging and site search are each valuable tools for getting your online business and the products and services you offer more attention.  But when you put them together, even better!  You now have a much more powerful way to get your customers excited and educated about your offerings.

Now, you might be concerned that blog articles would be a distraction to your online shoppers – after all, aren’t they using your site search to find the things you’re selling, and not to catch up on your blog?

However, if you do your blog right and create informative, interesting posts that relate to your shoppers’ needs, then they should WANT to read your posts – and you should want to make the posts easy to find. Here are some approaches you can take to make blog content searchable:

• Show the blog content in a separate section of the search results – for example, on the left, or below the regular search results.  This ensures that products have prime position on the results page.
• Create refinement options so visitors can restrict the results to just blog articles, or just product listings.
• Allow product and blog content to appear based on highest click-throughs, showing the most popular (or relevant) items first – regardless of whether it’s from the blog or a product listing.  You can adjust your settings so that products generally show higher – although if you do this, I recommend allowing the blog articles to move higher if people click on them more often.
• Put a search box on your blog so that visitors can search just blog articles – and also show product listings in your blog search, perhaps along one side of the results.

If you’re not sure how to integrate blog content into your site search, you may want to ask your customers (perhaps through a blog post), try some options, and measure the impact on your conversion rate.  And of course, feel free to email me if you’d like any tips at geoff@sli-systems.com ."

- Geoff Brash

Smart People

"Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be a part of."

Geri Weitzman
contemporary San Francisco psychologist

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - TheFind.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with TheFind.com and its Senior Director of Business Development, Rob Ulveling.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact TheFind.com and Rob Ulveling you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – TheFind.com

TheFind.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Rob Ulveling by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

1. When was TheFind.com founded and by whom?

In February 2005, a little over four years ago, theFind got going with its first venture financing. Our CEO Siva Kumar is one of the two co-founders of the company.

2. What sets TheFind.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

TheFind is a vertical search engine for shopping that is designed to simply find it all. Our mission is to make every product, every store, every sale, coupon and discount, instantaneously accessible to shoppers.

Just like Google and Yahoo, TheFind crawls the entire Web and finds all of the store Web sites. TheFind also accepts feeds from qualified sources like Merchant Advantage. Then, with patented search technology TheFind helps shoppers discover everything that online shopping, local shopping, and now, green shopping have to offer, so that they can quickly find the lowest price, the best deal, or that hard-to-find item.

Over 320 million products from more than 500,000 stores and online merchants are currently universally accessible through TheFind.com, TheFind Mobile, and TheFind iPhone App, making TheFind the leading source for comprehensive product information in the US.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on TheFind.com?

The most successful merchants take advantage of the breadth and diversity of product searches on TheFind, by making sure that every product they sell is part of our index. To ensure that all their items are included merchants can help our crawler by following the best practices for SEO that are recommended for Google.

In addition, merchants can benefit by having robust and detailed product descriptions on their pages, showing clearly marked pricing and sale information, and making sure they have large product images. Merchants can also choose to augment our crawl by working through Merchant Advantage to supply a detailed and comprehensive data feed.

In the feed, they should add in any coupons and shipping offers that they may be currently running as we include those alongside relevant product search results to help drive more sales. In a typical month we send qualified consumer clicks to over 50,000 merchants. By advertising product listings on TheFind on a CPA basis, a merchant's relevant product matches will show up higher than other equivalent products,driving more qualified traffic and more sales within ROI metrics.

4. Who is using TheFind.com and why?

Last month over 11.5 million people visited TheFind, a growth of over 1,200% from a year ago. The feedback we consistently get from shoppers is that TheFind is able track down even the hardest-to-find items, which makes us a trusted and valued shopping destination.

Two-thirds of the searches on TheFind are in the following categories: apparel and accessories, health and beauty, jewelry, home and garden, and sports and outdoors. But with our large index (over 320 million products - over 20 times what is on most comparison shopping engines) we see consumer searches in every possible retail category - from auto parts and craft supplies to musical instruments and pet supplies! So no matter how small or how large you are and what kind of products you
sell, we have qualified shoppers looking for what you have to offer.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

What has been interesting during these tough economic times is that our traffic continues to grow every month. This we think reflects the trend that multi-channel retailers are seeing in that their growth coming from the online sector as opposed to offline sales. Shoppers are increasingly turning online in order to save time and money.

We are also seeing a strong demand for sale items, coupons, and free shipping offers and by including such information directly as part of our product search results, we deliver greater benefits to hard hit consumers in these recessionary times.
We see e-commerce only growing stronger as a channel, and are optimistic about what this will mean for the 2009 online Holiday Season.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with TheFind.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We probably already crawl your e-commerce site and we would encourage you to follow the set of guidelines in answer #3 above.

You should definitely talk to your Merchant Advantage representative and discuss the ways in which they can help you gain an advantage over your peers in benefiting from TheFind's breadth and diversity of product search traffic.

They can help you with advertising options to drive more qualified traffic to your site. Small and medium-sized merchants can especially gain from the many different categories in which our consumers are looking for great products to buy.

Chip: Thank you so much Rob for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with TheFind.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Smart People

"Before a painter puts a brush to his canvas he sees his picture mentally.  It is the mental concept that he externalizes with the help of paint and canvas.  If you think of yourself in terms of a painting, what do you see?  How do you appear to yourself?  Is the picture one you think worth painting?  You are what you think you are.  You create yourself in the image you hold in your mind.  What you are advertises what you think."

Thomas Dreier - Twentieth Century journalist and crusader

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - Become.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with Become.com and its Director of Business Development & Sales, Lee Cohen.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact Become.com and Lee Cohen you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

 

  Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – Become.com

Become.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Lee Cohen by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author... and check out the photo below of the very helpful and "cool" team at Become.com! We love them!

1. When was Become.com founded and by whom?

Become.com was founded in 2004 by Michael Yang, former founder of mySimon – the web’s first comparison search engine.

2. What sets Become.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

Become.com is a site that combines product research and comparison shopping, allowing shoppers to access product information and make better buying decisions.

Users can take advantage of Become.com’s research engine to search over 5 billion web pages of information—buying guides, product reviews, discussion forums and more—and then comparison shop on the same site to find the right product for their lifestyle and budget.

Whether online shoppers are looking for an ATV part or a home theater system , Become.com’s research and comparison shopping engine helps them get the information they need to make the best buying decision. With over 25 million products and over 5,000 stores, we’ve made it easy for users to find everything they need to shop on one site.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on Become.com?

There are no real secrets to success, just a simple 3-prong approach –

1. Relevant titles & descriptions
2. ROI Tracker Integration and
3. Use of our marketing vehicles

 Here is a brief explanation of each of these:

1. Relevant Titles and Descriptions – Adding descriptive keyword information to your titles and descriptions helps your products appear for the right user queries. When consumers find what they are looking for, they buy which means higher conversions for our retailers.

2. ROI Tracker Integration – integrating our state-of-the-art ROI Tracker gives us visibility into which products are selling best for our retailers on Become.com. How does this help you sell more? Let’s say you are a jewelry retailer and you list 50 pearl bracelets with Become.com, our algorithm has no visibility into which of these bracelets is a popular, top seller. Integrating the ROI Tracker allows our algorithm to identify the best selling bracelet for a particular query and display it.

3. Marketing Tools – Become.com offers retailers multiple marketing tools to best showcase your products on our site. Here are is list of our most popular marketing vehicles:

Bidding – Become.com is a dynamic bidding system where retailers can bid for preferred placement both on a category level (in the dashboard) or on a product level (in the feed)

Free Logo Placement with a $0.10+ Bid – Retailers can bid $0.10 or more to receive not only better placement on the page but also free logo placement

Promo Text – An additional $0.05 (for soft goods) and $0.10 (for tech products) allows our retailers to place promotional language alongside their listings. Some popular uses of this are “3-Day Sale” and “Free Shipping” . 

Free %-Off Sticker – When retailers provide us the MSRP as well as the selling price in the feed, our system will automatically calculate the % off and display that saving free of charge to the users. This is a great way for retailers to showcase great deals and low prices!

4. Who is using Become.com and why?

Become.com has over 10 Million unique monthly visitors. 60% of our visitors are women searching for great deals on the latest shoes, clothing and household items. Our male users tend to search for discounted gps systems, HDTV and computers. 

Here are some success stories of shoppers on Become.com: http://www.become.com/success_story.html 

Become.com’s shopping blog is frequented by online shoppers looking for the latest in fashion, gadgets, gift ideas for events and product reviews.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

Consumers are more deal focused than ever before and retailers need to use every vehicle available to showcase these deals. One of Become.com’s newest features is % Off – this is a FREE tools retailers can use to showcase their low prices and great deals. Additionally, even in this down economy, retailers still need to make sales.

At Become.com we are committed to driving the highest quality, most qualified traffic to our retail partners to ensure that ROI and conversion metrics are met.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with Become.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We are happy to answer any questions you have about listing your products on Become.com. We can even set you up right over the phone! You can give us a call at 408-215-4700 ext. 2 for Sales or email us at sales@become.com and if you mention “etaildtail” we’ll give you $50 in FREE CLICKS!

Chip: Thank you so much Lee for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with Become.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt