Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - SortPrice.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 SortPrice and its Founder, Doron Simovitch.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact SortPrice and Doron Simovitch 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 – SortPrice.com

SortPrice's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Doron Simovitch by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

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

Sortprice was founded in 2004 by Doron Simovitch and Asaf Klibansky, both of whom have backgrounds in technology and e-commerce.  The aim was to establish a shopping search engine that offered merchants a fairer, more cost-effective means of expanding their online advertising reach while giving shoppers a site that is fun, easy-to-use and provides real value.

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

We pride ourselves on building and maintaining very strong relationships with our merchants. We genuinely want them to succeed and everything we do, from sales to our tech support team, is geared towards establishing trust with them in a personal way.

Unlike most of our competitors, we do not use a pay-per-click pricing model for our merchant listings. Instead, we offer monthly flat-fee based pricing.  This model negates the possibility of click fraud, which we’ve seen can have a devastating impact on a retailer’s advertising budget and ultimately, their bottom line.  Merchants can list as many products as they want on Sortprice and not have to worry about paying for fraudulent clicks on particular product listings.  It’s a fairer, more transparent way of doing business and our merchants collectively love the peace of mind they get from us.

We also strive to give shoppers and merchants alike the best shopping technology and tools on the web.  We were the first to expand the online shopping experience to Facebook with our enormously popular Wishlist shopping application, which allows users to build gift lists directly from Sortprice.com and share them with friends and family on their Facebook pages.  Similarly, we built a Facebook Store application for merchants that gives them the ability to sell their products through a virtual store on their individual Facebook profile.  Both of these applications are not only one-of-a-kind, but free to use.

Sortprice is continuously searching for ways to improve the online shopping experience.  In the last year alone we’ve added a Shop-by-Color feature that makes it even easier for a shopper to find what they’re looking for on our site and we’ll be rolling out a few more new technologies as well in the immediate future.  Our commitment to being an industry leader on the technology side almost borders on an obsession but the results speak for themselves.

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

The Sortprice engine works by relevance and results are driven by what our shoppers are looking for. We use advanced algorithms to display the most relevant search results. Most successful merchants optimize their product data feeds by adding the relevant keywords such as model number/brand/manufacturer/product type and color in the name and description fields on their data feeds.

We strongly recommend that our merchants take advantage of all the benefits that working with Sortprice.com provides. This means finding a price package that best fits their budgets and online advertising goals.  Some merchants choose to list everything while others selectively target certain products, but either way, our pricing structure gives them the flexibility to figure out what works best.  It also means utilizing tools like the Facebook merchant store application, which is free to add and easy to set up with the help of our support team.

4. Who is using SortPrice.com and why?

Because we have thousands of product categories—everything from jewelry to medical supplies to even auto parts—anyone can (and does) utilize Sortprice.  We’ve designed Sortprice to be incredibly easy and even fun to use, so whether you’re a novice online shopper or a seasoned veteran, you will find exactly what you’re looking for.

Additionally, we have one of the most diverse client bases in the shopping search engine industry, encompassing merchants of literally every size and scope.  Of course, you will find the larger national established retail giants on Sortprice.  But we also host thousands of smaller, specialized “mom and pop” retailers that you won’t find anywhere else.  These merchants might otherwise not be able to expand to the internet if not for the value our flat-fee pricing structure provides.  By including them on Sortprice, we’re not only doing our part to level the playing field for merchants.  We believe we’re offering consumers the most choices to make an educated decision when shopping.

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?

On the merchant side, the obvious implication of a flailing economy is that many retailers are being forced to slash, or even cut entirely, their online advertising budgets.

We’ve stayed in close contact with many of our merchants throughout these troubled times and have tried to work with them to keep them in the fold while still respecting the financial hurdles they are facing, mostly through promotions or by changing the advertising packages they have with us.  We’re also strongly encouraging them to take advantage of the Facebook merchant store application, since it is provides free exposure to them and is something we assist them in setting up.  Additionally, by working with our partners such as MerchantAdvantage, we’re able to do most of the heavy lifting for merchants in maintaining their product listings and data feeds on Sortprice, giving them time to focus on other matters critical to their success.

The interesting thing about the current economic climate is that people are still shopping.  They’re just being smarter about it.  People are genuinely doing their research now and looking for every opportunity to save some money, which makes online shopping, and by extension Sortprice, an even more valuable resource for them.

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

Setting up an account on Sortprice.com is extremely simple.  Just visit this page to learn more and get started: http://www.sortprice.com/enhanced.html

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

Comments

[Will Johnston]

I have to strongly disagree with the statement from SortPrice that they are focused on making their merchants successful. I signed up with SortPrice two months ago and have had horrible results and nothing in the way of support from our rep. For comparison purposes, I'm also signed up with about 10 more CSE's all of which deliver traffic at variable ROI. The only big loss of ROI was SortPrice. Looking at today's traffic I once again had 0 traffic from SortPrice, while 100's of visits from the others CSE's I work with. I also have had numerous merchants tell me the same story. Don't waste time or money with SortPrice.

[David/Sortprice support]

Dear Mr. Johnston,

We’re very sorry to hear that your listings on Sortprice.com haven’t to date delivered the results you had hoped. Rest assured, we’re not happy knowing that you’re unsatisfied with your relationship with Sortprice and we would like to work with you to figure out together how to address the situation so that you’re getting the most return on your investment with us. Your account representative will contact you for a conversation on this matter shortly. Feel free to contact us directly at support @ sortprice.com if you have any questions or need help with your account.

David K
Sortprice.com – merchant support team

[Computer Consultant]

Does sortprice also deal with electronic products such as ebooks?

[Farhad]

I'm looking to join Sortprice, are they still giving away Facebook Stores?