Everest Software Names MerchantAdvantage Top Data Feed Management Software Tool

I just wanted to thank Ryan Brown, Everest Software, for the accolade and recommendation from the recent Internet Retailer 2008 show in Chicago to utilize MerchantAdvantage and our cost-effective, Channel Management with Chanalytics Professional and Lite products.

We work hard at MerchantAdvatage to provide the best value for small to mid-sized businesses to manage their product catalog data feeds to ecommerce and mobile commerce comparison shopping engines, affiliate sites -- as Commission Junction and LinkShare -- and over 150 other shopping destination sites and marketplaces -- as Amazon, Become.com, buySAFE bonded shopping network, eBay!, FindGifts.com, Gifts.com, Google Product Search, JellyFish, Like.com, Microsoft Cashback, myCoupons.com, mPoria.com, mShopper.com, Pricegrabber, Pronto, Shop.com, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, theFind.com, Underbid, Yahoo!Shopping, and many, many others -- without charging any listing, set up or transaction fees or revenue share.

Here is the full review of MerchantAdvantage and other recommendations from Ryan Brown and Everest Software.

"MerchantAdvantage facilitates the marketing of your products through online shopping sites, coupon sites and mobile commerce sites..."

Chip Arndt
Co-Founder|EVP
MerchantAdvantage, LLC

Increase Conversion Rates When Using Comparison Shopping Engines

Emails have come into eTaildTail recently in reference to my recent commentary titled: Why Online Merchants Should List Their Product Catalog on Comparison Shopping Engines.

Most of those emails ask questions related to Return on Add Spend ("ROAS"), when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites, and how best to increase this very important business metric.

I defer to an excellent read over at Channel Advisor with Mark Vandegrift, who summarizes The Importance of Conversion Rate when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites.

Channel Advisor is indeed in the same business that I am and my company MerchantAdvantage, and, while some might consider them a competitor, I prefer to see them as colleagues in helping online retailers around the globe gain more success when executing their ecommerce and mobile commerce strategies.

The Importance of Conversion Rate is a nice complimentary commentary to my prior blog. Here is the beginning of that commentary:

"How can I improve the return I get from Comparison Shopping Engines?"

"This is by far the question I hear most from merchants using CSEs. The answer is pretty simple: Improve your conversion rate. Making that happen, however, isn't quite as easy.

First, let's look at why conversion rate is so critical..." <<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue that read.

I hope that both commentaries help small to mid-sized business increase sales, and ROAS (conversions from clicks to sales) when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites.

Welcome back from 4th of July weekend and onward we charge together.

Chip Arndt

Yahoo Shopping Adds Bid-Per-Click Option to Product Listings...Update

Online shopping is here to stay.

Now it is just of matter of finding out which comparison shopping engines, and shopping destination sites, can actually make a profitable business out of online shopping while Google Product Search, Microsoft Cash Back, Live Search, and theFind.com continue to provide their shopping destination sites free to both online merchants and shoppers alike.

Yahoo! Shopping is an excellent comparison shopping engine and certainly has a wonderful worldwide brand (yes, they still do, for all of you cynics out there) which, in turn, brings millions of buyers and comparison price shoppers to their online mall to purchase products.  How many do you ask?  Aprroximately 18-20 million unique visitors a month -- still an impressive number even if it has not grown much beyond that number.

So how does Yahoo! Shopping plan to upgrade, bring more shoppers, and keep online merchants happy when using them  -- as this is the group from which they make their money?

The following read is a follow up to my prior entry about Yahoo! and their additioinal bid supported marketplace I wrote about in May.

What WAS at Yahoo! Shopping

1. Yahoo ranked items based on keyword relevancy, categorization, click history, and customer feedback.

2. Listing has been difficult for merchants who struggle to get traffic to their products from Yahoo’s large database of products.

3. Set-fee-per-click format = merchants pay a flat rate for product listings in Yahoo! Shopping categories and have little control over positioning.

4. Yahoo! used to host the premier comparison engine but has lagged behind in the last couple of years in terms of traffic and interface.

5. "Innovations have been few and far between, traffic has been tepid, and retailers have seen flat sales overall"...states Kevin Packler, eTaildTail friend over at Channel Dollars, a wonderful blog that delves into more technical aspcects of working with comparison shopping engines than I often do! See I love experts, sometimes!

What IS NOW at Yahoo! Shopping

1. Online retailers have more options.

2. Bidding mechanism creates more competition among merchants and more flexibility in terms of how merchants may list their products and the bid-fee-per-click format positions those merchants highest who bid the most of key words, which is similar to keyword bidding using Yahoo!, Google, Ask, or MSN (Live Search) search.

3. A NEW Site redesign that compliments existing "set-fee-per-click" merchant product listings fees and new "bid-fee-per-" model. This additional bid feature means merchants can gain significant history within Yahoo! Shopping's algorithms, and thereby rankings, which will push their products to the top of result pages.

4. Product categories have increased from 64 categories to 1,200+, which allows merchants' products to appear in more places than they could under broader headings - but only if an online merchant maps the categories correctly, ergo try using a Web-based tool to help you.

5. "Category expansion allows merchants to bid on more granular product areas in addition to broad categories. For example, merchants now can bid on “bath towel,” instead of just “home & garden.” The added categories give merchants greater opportunities to improve their position in product rankings," stated Greg Hintz, General Manager of Yahoo!

Finally Greg Hintz adds: "The effects of the fee change on pricing might depend on the merchant. Because we are adding more categories it’s hard to say whether there will be an up or down effect on pricing. Some [categories] will cost more, some less. We are giving merchants the ability to tailor their campaigns to the categories they make the most money on. ROI should go up”

If you would like to read more analysis about changes at Yahoo! Shopping and all of the new Yahoo! Product Submit features, check out eTaildTail friends over at CPC Strategy; they have a great write up, and you can read it for free, promise! :-)

Why Online Merchants Should List Their Product Catalog on Comparison Shopping Engines

I am asked everyday questions about why online merchants should list their product catalogs on comparison shopping engines.

It makes perfect sense that I am asked this question, because I am in the business of data feed management and helping small to mid-sized online merchants increase their return on ad spend when working with a variety of online shopping destination sites, comparison shopping engines, mobile commerce sites, and other marketing channels.

So What is The Answer?

Online merchants benefit from ANY marketing effort that gets their brand and storefront products in front of potential shoppers, wherever those shoppers may be. This includes traditional marketing efforts, as the yellow pages, emails, direct mail, catalogs, and modern marketing efforts as ecommerce, mcommerce (mobile commerce), blogs, bonded shopping networks, and social networking sites (we are still seeing if these work, but you get the point). This philosophy is intuitive, simple, and should be not an issue. 

Issues, however, do arise when an online merchant has to weigh the cost and time involved to market wherever a shopper might be using traditional or new marketing methods and strategies.  These marketing methods bring into play three main issues:

1. Where do I market?

2. Do I have the time to maximize these marketing efforts correctly? and

3. What will it cost me?

And then of course, after an online merchant asks these three aforementioned questions comes the most important issue/question:

"Did my marketing efforts work = Did my marketing efforts lead to sales and brand awareness?"

I am here to tell you that any small to mid-sized online merchant should experiment and try comparison shopping engines and other shopping destination sites, because they "can" work, if you find the right marketing channel for your products.

Not every marketing channel is right for your products -- that is why I say "can" work.  That's right. Online merchants have to test, often, numerous marketing channels to see which ones work for their online storefront/product catalog, as not every online shopping mall or comparison shopping engine may attract the right audience/shopper for your products.

[NOTE: Please do not let "experts" tell you that they know all of the right channels for your products, especially if they have not tested your products in a particular channel.]

The good news for online merchants is that there are a plethora of shopping destination sites and comparison shopping engines to pick from, each bringing millions of people each month to their online mall to find your products.   

Some of these channels include: Amazon, Become, buySAFE bonded shopping network, Cooking.com, eBay!, GourmetFoodMall.com, Google Product Search, Greenzer, Like.com, MachineTools.com, Microsoft Cashback, myCoupons.com, PriceGrabber, PriceRunner, Pronto, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, theFind, ToolCrib, Yahoo! Shopping, and many others.  I know of over 250 marketing channels, so don't think that only the bigger, well known comparison shopping engines are the only marketing channels available to you.  <<<CLICK HERE>>> for a more comprehensive list from MerchantAdvantage.

And the better news is that many comparison shopping engines have business models that ARE AFFORDABLE to work with right away.  Some comparison shopping engines only charge when a sale is made, others have a flat rate per month, and others are FREE, ergo, not all comparison shopping engines charge on a pay-per-click/pay-per-lead model.  Such examples are: Google Product Search; JellyFish, Microsoft Cash Back; MSN Shopping; myCoupons.com, and theFind.com.

I have many clients who are very selective to which comparison shopping engines they send their product catalog data.  For instance, some of my clients only use niche comparison shopping engines that specialize in selling machine tools, gourmet food, or golf related products. Other clients use over 60 comparison shopping engines in order to saturate the marketplace with their products and be wherever an online shopper might be to build brand awareness.  The strategy each client takes depends on budgets and time, but, in each case, comparison shopping engines work for them.

At all times, when working with comparison shopping engines, online merchants must ensure that the product catalog they send to a comparison shopping engine is perfect and up to date, so that the comparison shopping engine lists your product catalog in all of the appropriate places on their site. 

This can be done directly with each comparison shopping site, i.e. feeding them a file each day that follows their feed specification document, OR you can use a cost-effective, Web-based tool that takes care of these issues for you. But...

Before You Work with A Comparison Shopping Engine

Online merchants must ensure, before using any comparison shopping engine, that their online storefront is worthy of marketing in the first place.  What do I mean by this? 

As an example, I had a client two months ago who was frustrated. He was getting a lot of hits/clicks to his website from comparison shopping engines but these hits/clicks were not converting to sales.  This means that all of his fields were properly mapped to the feed spec document of each comparison shopping engine and he opitimized his data properly, but the clicks to his site were not converting to sales.

When we talked directly and both went to his online storefront, I was dismayed to find that his online storefront was a mess, was not professional looking, was hard to navigate, and the check out process was not easy.  I asked him:

"If you came to your storefront, the way it looked and functioned, would you buy a product from you?"

At that point we made an assumption that most of his problems might not be with his comparison shopping engine marketing strategies. Instead, we agreed that he had to clean up the look, feel, marketing language, pictures, special offers, logos, and functionality of his storefront website before marketing anywhere.

Over the next three weeks, he cleaned up his storefront and then started his comparison shopping engine marketing efforts over again.  I had him look at REI and ProFlowers, two websites/webstores that work very well and can show an online merchant what "not to do" when building your storefront, which is as important as what "to do." He could not afford all of the functionality of each of these sites, but looking at them and learning from them certainly helped.  The results -- sure enough, clicks from the comparison shopping engines started to lead to sales.

The point of this example is that often online merchants fail to recognize that leads from comparison shopping engines do not always equate to sales, for numerous reasons beyond the control of comparison shopping engines, and that their online storefront must be professional and "worthy" to complete a sale. 

Okay, now back to comparison shopping engines and what an online merchant can do right now to gain success on comparison shopping engines.

Comparison Shopping Engines: 7 Steps to Success

1. Professional Look, Feel, and Functionality: Clean up your online storefront/website.  Ask your friends to go to your website and ask them this: "If you were a stranger and you came to my website would you buy from me?"  If they say no, ask them why and remember that you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

2. Start with 4 Free Comparison Shopping Engines: Send your entire product catalog to 4 FREE comparison shopping engines: Google Product Search, theFind.com, MSN LiveSearch, and Microsoft Cashback.  They are free, may lead to some sales, and will certainly help with organic SEO search.  Where else can you get FREE marketing and also learn how comparison shopping engines work before making a larger time and financial commitment?

3. Use a Cost-Effective, Web-based Tool to Handle Technical Issues with Analysis: There are solutions in the marketplace that, for as little as $145 a month and no transaction fees, no listing fees, no revenue share, and no set-up costs, can get you up and running in less than 48 hours on the 4 FREE sites mentioned above (and 21 others, if you choose for the same price), with analytics included. What other marketing methods are available to you for only $145 a month?

4. Test, Test, and Test Various Comparison Shopping Engines: Even after you "worked" a specific comparison shopping engine for 60-90 days, optimized your feeds properly, and used the SKU level bidding feature of some comparison shopping engines, sometimes a particular comparison shopping engine still may not lead to sales. Instead of getting upset, try another comparison shopping engine. There are a lot of comparison shopping engines out there that may have a more appropriate audience for you. And, since most comparison shopping engines charge on a month-to-month basis, can you afford not to try them?

5. Educate Yourself: There are many resources on the web about best practices when working with comparison shopping engines. As an example, as a client of MerchantAdvantage, MerchantAdvantage offers weekly client-side webinars directly from the technical staff of both MerchantAdvantage AND the technical staff of a comparison shopping engine to keep you up to speed on the best way to work with a particular comparison shopping engine, how to use SKU level bidding features where supported, what products sell best, how best to optimize a feed, and the like. You also can access several FREE webinars, whitepapers, and other sources of information, with no obligation, from the front of MerchantAdvantage's website.

6. Catalog Dipping: Not every product you sell will sell well on every comparison shopping engine: we all know that fact. Try adopting a strategy of only sending products that lead to sales and not just clicks. You can do this easily when using a Web-based tool, with robust analytics, to manage your product catalog feeds and start to have some fun when working with comparison shopping engines.

7. Choice: Make sure you have the option and choice to send your product catalog feed to any marketing channel available to you on the Internet.  That includes over 250+ comparison shopping sites I know of, affiliate sites as Commission Junction and Linkshare (that can get you to the smallest of sites where your products can be found), eBay! and Amazon. Why? Because you never know into which comparison shopping engine your product catalog will lead to the most sales. MerchantAdvantage offers the broadest possible choice in the marketplace and you can start with a pretty comprehensive list here. 

I hope this information helps friends of eTaildTail prepare your marketing strategies for the online holiday shopping season over the next few months.

Happy 4th of July weekend.

Chip Arndt

SHOP•COM ™ and MerchantAdvantage Deliver Online Innovative Comparison Shopping Solution to Maximize Sales

Okay I am a little bias...but proud nonetheless of MerchantAdvantage's progress to help small to mid-sized merchants reach potential shoppers where ever they shop. 

MerchantAdvantage's new strategic partnership with SHOP•COM alows online merchants now to work with SHOP•COM in either their cost-per-transaction marketplace or their traditional cost-per-click business model.

MerchantAdvantage continues to be a leader in the ecommerce and mcommerce (mobile commerce) industries helping online merchants optimize and feed their product catalog data to any online marketing channels easily and cost-effectively so that online merchants can reach their customers where ever they shop.

Thanks for the support and onward we charge!

Chip Arndt

SHOP•COM ™ Partners with MerchantAdvantage to Streamline and Push Product Data to Maximize SHOP•COM ™ Marketplace and Cost-Per-Click Platform.

"MerchantAdvantage, a leader in Web-based data feed management and analytic tools, today announced a preferred, strategic partnership with SHOP.COM, the destination comparison shopping site designed for women. With the click of a button, online merchants can cost-effectively send their product catalog to maximize sales opportunities at SHOP•COM.

MerchantAdvantage has been a fully integrated solution into SHOP•COM’s OneCart® cost-per-transaction marketplace since 2006 and has never charged its clients listing, transaction or revenue fees when working with SHOP•COM. Now, MerchantAdvantage is proud to support SHOP•COM’s new Cost-Per-Click (“CPC”) platform. Online merchants can work with SHOP•COM in the manner they desire, expand their marketing reach, increase sales, and manage, analyze and update product catalog feeds instantly within MerchantAdvantage’s Channel Management Professional tool-based offering."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to read full comments on the SHOP•COM ™ and MerchantAdvantage partnership.

Tips to Maximize Use of Comparison Shopping Engines with MerchantAdvantage CEO, Michael Lambert

At Internet Retailer 2008 in Chicago two weeks ago, MerchantAdvantage CEO, Michael Lambert, highlighted useful tips to using comparison shopping engines -- as Become, Ciao, FindGift.com, Gifts.com, Like.com, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, Yahoo! Shopping and coupon comparison shopping sites -- as myCoupons.com. If you want a comprehensive list of comparison shopping sites, affectionately known as CSE's, then check them out here.

Michael Lambert also provided numerous tips to online mercants to optimize product catalog feed to ensure higher lisiting on comparison shopping engines, which, in turn, can then lead to more sales.

I found the video interview to be informative and concise, so check it out.

Please <<<CLICK HERE>>> to view the full interview on maximizing the use of comparison shopping engines with Michael Lambert, CEO, MerchantAdvantage.

The inteview was conducted by eTaildTail good friend Jason Billingsley at GetElastic, an ecommerce blog which I love to read daily. 

Jason is one of the few "industry experts" that I am very comfortable referring to as an expert. Click on his name above for an overview of what he has done with his life in a very short time = very impressive!

Have a great week!

Chip Arndt

Yahoo! Shopping Launches Bid Supported Marketplace and Updates Product Submit Features

eTaildTail always trys to alert small to mid-sized online merchants to updates and changes at comparison shopping engines and other shopping destination sites and marketplaces, as Amazon, Pronto, Shopzilla (which had some changes I talked about last week), and many others (see here for a comprehensive list) to ensure that online merchants are marketing their product catalog feeds properly to attain the highest return on investment/return on add spend.

So, please note that Yahoo! Shopping has some changes in the works and I suggest contacting your account rep and asking when these changes will occur. Headlines from an email I received yesterday are:

• Yahoo! Shopping Launching Bid Supported Marketplace (probably July 2008)
• Important Notification: Upcoming Changes to Product Submit (probably before June 2008)

My team at MerchantAdvantage received the following email, which I share with all of you to ensure that you are updated. 

If you are using MerchantAdvantage to manage your product data feeds to any marketing channel, we are keeping track of these new developments at Yahoo! and will be hosting a special, client-side webinar in the next few weeks to go over these changes. 

The Yahoo! changes probably will go into effect in July and new features as SKU level bidding, feed bidding, and hyperlinked ad placed logos will also available as a marketing option probably in June. Check in with your Yahoo! or MerchantAdvantage rep to help you stay one step ahead!

-- Chip Arndt

From Yahooo! Product Submit team:

"Dear Product Submit advertiser,

We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a bidded marketplace. With this change, there will be modifications to your Master Terms & Conditions and Program Terms, which will be detailed in a future email notice that you'll receive in the next 30 days.

We expect the bidded marketplace to have an impact on your day-to-day business. Therefore, we advise you and your team to begin planning for the transition to a bidded model.

As part of this launch, we are expanding the number of product categories and improving reporting within your Product Submit account.

These changes are designed to help you to:

1. Better influence the level of traffic you receive from Yahoo! Shopping
2. Gain more control over optimizing your product listings
3. Gain better visibility into your category performance

Stay tuned!

The Yahoo Product Submit team"

12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management

Every month I write a newsletter for MerchantAdvantage.  The topic covers information, tips and advice, and coverage of other excellent companies that help the small to mid-sized business with their marketing and technology strategies, when working with over 150 shopping destination sites, comparison shopping engines and marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, and Underbid.

This month I am very happy to co-write the April newsletter titled: 12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management with our good friend Rick Backus and his company CPC Strategy.  CPC Strategy offers excellent advice and will manage your marketing/channel feed campaigns for you, if you desire a managed solution rather than using Channel Management by MerchantAdvantage yourself.

All newsletters are archived on eTaildTail for all of you to read for free, just click on the link above or <<<here>>> for those newsletters.

Happy reading and I hope this helps.  If you have any questions please contact Rick at rick at cpcstrategy.com or find him at CPC Strategy.

From....April 22, MerchantAdvantage Newsletter, with guest Rick Backus and CPC Strategy

We are proud to co-author this month’s newsletter with our friends at CPC Strategy.

CPC Strategy is based out of San Diego, California and is a full service Comparison Shopping Management Solution. The team at CPC Strategy works directly with online merchants to develop data feed optimization strategies that fit their business model.

When online merchants don’t have the time or personnel available to implement marketing feed strategies on their own using Web-based tools by MerchantAdvantage, we recommend online merchants like CPC Strategy, who execute day-to-day management of comparison shopping engines and marketing campaigns to maximize ROI.

MerchantAdvantage and CPC Strategy speak with hundreds of online merchants everyday who understand the value of using comparison shopping engines (“CSEs”), but remain frustrated with the technical requirements to manage data feeds and struggle to realize higher return on investment when managing marketing channels available to them cost-effectively.

We hope that the following inside tips and our “12 Step Program” help online merchants:

• Understand better how to use CSE marketing campaigns efficiently
• Reduce the cost of working with CSEs, and
• Improve CSE ROI

So let’s get started and get some inside tips from industry experts at CPC Strategy, with comments from MerchantAdvantage.

1. Admit that you may have a Comparison Shopping Management Problem

Your sales are too low, your costs are too high, you're spending too much time on managing, optimizing, feeding and re-feeding data feeds, and overall performance using CSEs has fallen below expectations.

The very first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem, only then can we help to restructure your thinking for optimal CSE performance --so say it with us, "Hi, I'm ____, and I have a Comparison Shopping Management Problem." There that wasn’t too bad, now was it?

2. Focus more time and energy on Comparison Shopping Management

Just admitting that you have a problem doesn't mean that it's going to fix itself. We have always said that just feeding your product catalog data to a CSE does not necessarily lead to sales.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue to the other 10 steps....yes it is free to read, fun, and value-add!

:-)

-- Chip Arndt

NOTE to ONLINE MERCHANTS: Changes in Taxonomy Feed Structures at Shopzilla

A technology representative at MerchantAdvantage asked that I post some "reminder" information for the eTaildTail community so that any online merchant feeding to Shopzilla can ensure that they are feeding their product catalog data properly.  These changes to Shopzilla's feed taxonomy structure changed earlier last month, so, if you have not updated your taxonomies properly, please do so immediately so you can ensure that your product catalog feed is performing properly with Shopzilla.

If you need some help, please feel free to contact the technicians at MerchantAdvantage and/or also see this link at Shopzilla for a full overview of their changes.

From MerchantAdvantage's technical team:

Shopzilla's taxonomy has changed. The categories with the most changes are:

• Office Supplies,
• Home & Garden,
• Sports Equipment & Outdoor Gear,
• Clothing & Accessories,
• Babies & Kids.

There are also some categories that have been broken down into sub categories.  <<<Click Here>>> for all the details on the latest changes to Shopzilla's taxonomy.

Having the correct taxonomy helps your marketing and also ensures that your products get placed in the category you deem most appropriate.  -- MerchantAdvantage Technical Team

-- Chip Arndt

Online Merchants Can Afford to Work with Comparison Shopping Engines and Shopping Sites

I wanted to thank so many of you in the eTaildTail community for attending the webinar I gave last week and also give special thanks to Joe Schaefer, MSN Product Specialist at JellyFish.com, and Rob Ulveling, Sr. Director of Business Deveopment at theFind.com who hosted the webinar with me.

If you missed it, you can download the webinar presentation for free by clicking on this link. <<<CLICK HERE>>> to download webinar...there are no obligations! Promise!

I think the webinar proved usual in helping online merchants forumulate a good marketing strategy to use shopping destination sites, begin to use comparison shopping engines to market their storefont products cost effectively and start, basically for free, by using theFind.com and JellyFish.com immediately.

Please feel free to download the entire webinar, slides and audio or either/or.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to download the webinar for free...there are no obligations! Promise!

Have a great week.

-- Chip

Comparison Shopping Engines Continue to Satisfy Customer Demand: HealthPricer Leading the Way

This morning I read with some joy that comparison shopping engines continue to figure out better methods to work for, and with, online consumers through better site navigation.  The article I read was about a niche comparison shopping engine called HealthPricer, which many of you may know about already.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for that article, written by Kristina Knight at BizReport, which is excellent and short and to-the-point.

Basically, HealthPricer is improving how customers can find products using their shopping portal by creating a more robust search feature that matches "general search terms" with products as opposed to just hoping that consumers type in the product name correctly.

I indentified this as an issue in a prior blog on how comparison shopping engines will compete with general search engines as Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search to show their value add to online consumers in order to gain loyal customers and differentiate themselves from just "general search engines."  I am happy that HealthPricer.com is leading the way by implementing more intuitive search methods. 

Comparison shopping engines can be valuable to the consumer, as these marketing channels focus on products rather than just listing "any information" related to a product.  But in order to continue to keep and grow market share -- and move customers to use their portals to find products rather than just looking for a product on Google, MSN or Yahoo! general search engines -- the comparison shopping engines have to be fun and easy to work with to help find the products customers want with "very few" clicks, albeit the CSEs have to think more like an online shopper.

I like what HealthPricer.com has done.  Check their site out. I typed in the word "diabetic" and loved their sub menu that came up to help me find what type of "diabetic" product I was looking for within the general category of "diabetic health needs".

I think if the comparison shopping engines ("CSEs") keep on improving how they interact with their potential customers, to make it easier and fun to find the products they are looking for, they will maintain their value-add in the marketplace to consumers and continue to be a good place for online merchants to market their products into the future. 

It is a crowded CSE landscape out their but as I have always said: "Why not list your product catalog on sites that may have customers you are unable to reach through other marketing strategies?"

I went to some other CSEs and did some similar searches as I did on HealthPricer.com, but none were as intuitive as HealthPricers' new methods.  You can bet that other CSEs will follow.

When they do, CSEs should continue to attract online consumers to their site and build marketshare, as it will always be more comprehensive and easy to navigate and find the best products you want from a site focused just on products rather than a general search on Google, or the other general search engines.

Oh, and if you sell medical related products, HealthPricer is a nice CSE to consider listing your product catalog.  Check them out at HealthPricer.com, and if you need any help, let me know!

-- Chip

 

Improve Results and Increase Sales and ROI in Comparison Shopping Engines

Hello eTaildTail community.  First of all thank you all for your emails and questions. I hope that I have been able to answer some of your questions in a manner that helps you better utilize comparison shopping engines and other marketing shopping destinations. 

Going into the weekend, I thought I would leave you with 5 tips to improve performance, and ROI, when using these marketing channels.

1. There are over 150 shopping destination channels that I know of which you can use to market your storefront.  Some are large, general, and well known channels, as Amazon.com, eBay, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Shop.com, Pront.com, and PriceGrabber while others are smaller, general players, such as SortPrice.com, Become.com, myCoupons.com, Smarter.com, and PriceForSure.com and others are niche sites as Healthpricer.com, BobVila.com, HGTV.com, Cooking.com, GolfPricer.com, GourmetFoodMall.com, ToolCrib.com and many others. 

They all can lead to sales and many of them can work for you but you need to test which channels work best for your product catalog and manage each channel as you would separate marketing campaigns.  I recommend testing several channels and, after 3-6 months, compare each channel against the other and then only work with those that perform best for you. (Q: How? A: Use an analytic tool)

2. Improve the quality of each feed to each shopping channel by filling in all of the required fields that the shopping comparison engine requires. Then, update those fields weekely to ensure that these marketing feeds reflect the data that resides in your shopping cart technology.  This means cleaning up fields, especially where possible redundancy occurs, and defining new items accurately and thoroughly. In other words, make sure you map each shopping channel competely to the comparison shopping engines required taxonomy so that they can list your products accurately throughout their shopping comparison engine.

3. Make sure that the data feeds your are managing to each comaprison shopping engine, or shopping marketplace, reflect exactly the inventory and products that you are selling online. If you delete a product on your shopping cart, or run out of inventory, ensure you have a system in place that will "automatically" update these changes in the data feeds you are managing for each shopping channel. DON'T rely on doing it manually, as you will make mistakes and probably forget to make the "global" changes needed in each product catalog data feed file you are sending to multiple comparison shopping engines.

4. Manage each comparison shopping engine and marketplace differently.  They are unique channels that perform differently which requires that you create a separate data feed for each channel from which to market from on a weekly, if not daily basis.

5. Understand the economics of each comparison shopping engine and the options they offer to ensure that you manage to the highest ROI possible when using that channel.  Shop.com now givs the online merchant options to work on a commission or cost-per-click basis, JellyFish allows the merchants to set the "cash-back discount" they want to give a consumer for each product, SortPrice gives you a flat fee option per month, myCoupons.com gives you a flat "cost-per-redemption" model, theFind.com is free all around and now has introduced a CPC pricing model and Amazon.com is incredible but can charge large commissions for credited sales, so ensure that you are feeding products to them that are in line with the margins you can afford to give up.

Working with comparison shopping engines can be incredibly lucrative but you will need to do some work.  I think it is fun, especially when you see the sales roll in!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

Bonus Help: FEED IMMEDIATELY to 3 free comparison shopping engines: Google Shopping, theFind.com, and MSN LIve Search. You can only win and pay nothing, ever!

Have a great weekend.

-- Chip

How Online Merchants Can Afford to Work with Comparison Shopping Engines: A Webinar and Education to Saving Time and Money

Okay, you ask and I "try" and listen.  A request came to me via email to eTaildTail yesterday simply stating:

"Chip, I know I want to work with comparison shopping engines, I think I can afford to work with some of them, and I think I have some time to devote to this form of online marketing, but I don't know if I have the technical skills to do it, can you help?"

I am going to try and answer this question, and address much more, in a webinar discussion with my friends over at theFind.com (a free CSE) and JellyFish.com (an easy and fun pay-per-transaction CSE). It is a free webinar and you will get some really great tips on how to increase your storefront's exposure and increase sales in a very short period of time.

Rob Ulveling, Senior Director of Business Development at theFind.com, Joe Schaeffer, MSN Product Specialist with JellyFish.com and I will cover:

• Leveraging Marketing Channels that List for Free
• New Online Marketing Opportunities:
  a. Case Study: Free Marketing by theFind.com
  b. Case Study: Intelligent Pay-Par-Transaction Marketing by JellyFish.com
• Feeding Your Product Catalog Today to Marketing Channels That Matter to You

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to sign up for the webinar on April 10 with MerchantAdvantage, theFind.com and Jellyfish.com. It is free and only 30 minutes. You can also call 800.550.9466 for more information about this event.

In this webinar we will arm you with the information you need to make smart marketing decisions in the online retail and mobile commerce world.

Don't miss the opportunity to attend this complimentary Webinar. I look forward to seeing you there!

-- Chip

Using Your Storefront Data For All Marketing Efforts

Many online merchants have sent me emails recently regarding confusion over what product catalog data they should be using when marketing to CSEs and other marketing channels, i.e. can they use the data directly as it exists within their shopping cart technology or do they need to create another file based off of this data? 

Since you will be marketing your product catalog differently to each marketing channel you are using, it is important that you have a separate file, as it relates to each channel, so you can establish unique business rules and marketing strategies per channel.....BUT....this does not mean that that file cannot be updated automatically from its original destination - it can and SHOULD BE!!!

I contend that many problems of keeping accurate and up to date data, that mirrors exactly what is on your storefront on a daily basis, will occur if an online merchant creates a separate marketing file "based off of orginal product catalog data" and then tries to update that file directly manually to keep it accurate. 

Why not simply have these unique files mirror your product catalog data on a daily basis automatically, while retaining the business rules you have established for each marketing channel?

Merchants were also frustrated over technical process "hitches/issues" involved when using this data to market their storefront using CSEs and were looking for advice as to the easiest process to work with their product catalog data correctly and, most importantly, without having to jump through a lot of technical hoops!

I wrote about much of this in 2007 and wanted to bring some of thoughts back to you today, as they still apply!.

Let's begin... :-)

Many online merchants do not have an effective data management system to market their most up to date product catalog through the various marketing channels. These channels include affiliate sites, comparison shopping engines, mobile commerce and other shopping destination sites available to them online.

Or, if they do have a "data management system" in place, this system relies on methods that often lead to marketing outdated products that are not consistent with the most up to date product catalog information residing within the shopping cart. The result is "outdated" product catalog data marketed into marketing channels which leads to a myriad of issues.

In either scenario, it is essential that:

A. The online merchant understand how critical it is to market data that is functionally the same as the data that is on their online storefront, and

B. That online merchants are provided a methodology and a process to ensure that the data they market is consistent with what appears on their online site.

In the following writings, I will try and answer these questions:

• Why using your storefront data should be the "initial" access point to use when marketing your online storefront, anywhere and anytime?
• What key elements of the data you use for marketing needs to be consistent with what you have on your online storefront "right now", and which should not be consistent (there are times for this too)? and
• How often does your marketing information need to be updated to maintain concurrency?
  Why Using Storefront Data Should Be The "Initial" Access Point For All Marketing Feeds

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to see the full piece I wrote --- I think it is pretty helpful and thorough, so check it out.

(Yes, it is free -- you don't have to enter any information to read it all, PROMISE!!!)

Happy Reading!

-- Chip

You Can Afford to Work With Comparison Shopping Engines: Tips and Tricks

Several emails came in this week to eTaildTail with similar calls for help. They went something like this:

"Chip, I am not having success with some comparison shopping engines and I don't know what to do. Some cost me a lot and the ROI is not worth it. Help. Is there any way to use these sites cost effectively, even when I have limited resources and money?"

The short answer is YES! YOU DO!....ergo...please read onward.

Managing (some) Shopping Comparison Sites to Ensure Excellent Return on Investment

I have 1,000 reasons to work with marketing destination sites, as www.Amazon.com , www.eBay.com , www.Shop.com, and other shopping destination sites as www.Ciao.com, www.PriceGrabber.com, www.NexTag.com, www.Shopzilla.com, www.Shopping.com, www.PriceRunner.com, www.Smarter.com, www.PriceForSure.com, and over 50 others.  The main issue to making these sites "work for you" is that they require daily upkeep and work by the online merchant -- just listing to these sites won't work very well.

When I looked further into who was sending me these email calls for help, I found out that many of the online merchants were smaller merchants who simply don't have the time, resources, or money to work with many shopping destination sites properly and, for lack of a better term, "figure them out."

No one ever said that just listing your products to marketplaces and comparison shopping engines will lead to sales and greater return on investment -- and whoeever did tell you that, disown them! LOL

Remember that dozens, if not hundreds, of other companies that sell similar products to you are also listing products to these shopping sites. So to ensure that these aforementioned shopping destination sites work well for you requires work and basic knowledge of their "taxonomies" and how these sites can work more efficiently for the online merchant (confused yet?)

At the end of the day, many comparison shopping engines/sites have made many, many online merchants a lot of money, but this usually only occurs when the merchant is willing to "work at" and "understand" the nuances of each comparison shopping engine/sites internal workings.

Most of my successful clients, as Carols Candy Corner (very small and very successful), Calloway Golf or ProFlowers, optimize their data, manage SKU level bidding on sites that support it, and monitor their shopping comparison sites every day to take advanatge of their internal methods to ensure that products get listed higher on their sites than their competitors.  So what next?

After reading all of the above many small merchants say to me that they simply cannot justify the time or money it takes to manage their product catalog data feeds to ensure proper ROI and compete and they stop using any comparison shopping engine. 

This is not the answer and let me tell you why.

[Special Note: Please keep reading, but if you want to understand my more in-depth thinking about this (beyond this blog) check out a free webinar I did a few weeks ago.]

you can <<<Down Load it Free Here>>>...okay back to my thoughts.

Start Small, Work Intelligently

I have a better solution for small to mid-sized businesses, start small and work with FREE shopping sites.

There are five shopping comparison sites that can help a small to mid-sized business without costing you a dime. They are either FREE or only charge you when a commission is made. To make things even better they are all easy to use and manage.  So there is no reason not to list your entire product catalog to these sites.  They include:

Free:
Google Product Search
MSN Live Search for products
theFind.com

Pay Per Sale/Pay Per Coupon Redemption (and really, really easy to use):
www.myCoupons.com and
www.JellyFish.com

The first group above are free to list to and any (yes any) leads or sale that comes to your site doesn't cost you a penny!  So why not work with them?

 

If setting up a feed is complicated for you, use a tool based software to help you. www.MerchantAdvantage.com is one choice and only costs $145 per month all in. MerchantAdvantage does not charge the merchant any revenue share, transaction cost, or set up charge, so basically for $145 a month you get marketing on these three sites that have combined unique visitors of 85+ million a month....yes, 85+ million. You may not reach them all, but you will reach some!

Even if you get one sale a month, listing your products on these sites is cost-effective, as you also get branding (customers see your brand and can click over to your site), and you will eventually be found by general search engines, as Google and Yahoo!, thus helping your overall seearch engine optimization.

Basically there is no reason not to use these channels.  The best part of all of this is that the online merchant also learns how comparison shopping sites work and can "experiment" with these free channels before using pay-per-click shopping sites or the more complicated marketplaces as Amazon or eBay.

The second group above are also easy to use and must use sites because you only pay when a transaction is made -- and the commission is small and controlled by YOU!

When working with www.JellyFish.com (owned now by MicroSoft, which is determined to drive traffic to their site) the merchant controls the amount of money you want to "give back" to the customer by changing the field that controls the amount "cash back" you would like a customer to recieve from you.

Since you are in complete control of the margin, how can you lose? 

Furthermore, you can change this field whenever you want in order to reduce your price as compared to your competitor's or increase it if you feel that you are giving too much of your margin away. So do you see any reason not to work with JellyFish?

I see three great reasons to work with them:

1. Exposure (FREE)
2. Potential Sales (and only pay the commisson back to the customer you want), and
3. Complete control over your margin and subsequent ranking on their site.

www.myCoupons.com works in a different and equallly effective manner and has many loyal customers. 

With www.myCoupons.com you can list your entire product catalog and never create a coupon OR create a "general coupon" for your entire site, let's say $5 off any purchase, or 10% off purchases totaling over $50.00, or, better yet, create individual coupons for each SKU/product all for FREE.

Basically you choose the method of marketing and subsequent coupon offer and myCoupons then charges a flat rate of $3.00 per redeemed coupon only. That means, they charge nothing to list, nothing if a potential customer clicks to your site and decides not to buy, and nothing for all of the exposure you could get by just being on their site.

Moral of Story

1. Don't be afraid to work with shopping comparison sites, there are ones that are free and you have no excuse not to be listed with them.

2. You can start small and work with free sites and easy to use Pay Per Sale/Pay Per Coupon Redemption sites, without sepnding a lot time and virtually no money.

3. Online marketing does not have to cost you an arm or a leg. You can list to any of these sites directly (I can put you you in touch with them directly) or, for as little as $145 per month, list to all of them and have an easy to use web-based, tool to manage and analyze these marketing campaigns for you (see www.MerchantAdvantage.com ). It is really that simple.

So the question is: Can you afford not to work with some comparison shopping engines? 

Where else can you reach potentially 100+ million unique visitors per month easily and cost-effectively?

Have a great weekend!

-- Chip

Market America's James Ridinger Announces Strategic Partnership with MerchantAdvantage to Create Comparison Shopping Solution

Well, it continues to be a wonderful 2008 and I am proud to announce another major strategic partnership for MerchantAdvantage, which I co-founded.  The below annoucement follows our recent strategic partnership with Everest Software, please click here for that story.

I am particularly proud of this announcement, as it shows that our technology is one of the best in the industry, that it can be used by a diverse group of online retailers with little online retailing experience and a lot of online retailing experience, and that we are staying ahead of the curve on strategic thinking about providing the most cost-effective, tool-based marketing solutions to ALL online retailers.

If you have any questions on how I can help you with your online business don't hestitate to email me at chip@eTaildTail.com - we are all in this together.

-- Chip

Market America's James Ridinger Announces Strategic Partnership with MerchantAdvantage to Create Comparison Shopping Solution

<<<CLICK HERE>> for full press release, or read below.

Market America Partners with MerchantAdvantage to Streamline and Push Product Data to Comparison Shopping Engines and Marketplaces

Greensboro, NC (PRWEB) February 26, 2008 -- James (JR) Ridinger, president and CEO of Market America, Inc., announced today the company has reached a strategic partner agreement with MerchantAdvantage, LLC. The agreement allows Market America, its distributors and Webstore division to work closely with over 100 comparison shopping engines and marketplaces as well as enable any online merchant to list their product catalog into the Market America Mall Without Walls® marketplace at www.marketamerica.com.

MerchantAdvantage's superior, tool based Channel Management products allow Market America and its partners to seamlessly feed, optimize and analyze the performance of their product catalog data to any online marketing channel, reaching a consumer anytime they shop online or via their mobile device. Additionally, MerchantAdvantage technology will be used to enable any online merchant to list their product catalog directly with Market America and bring more vendors' products into Market America's Mall Without Walls® and to over 160,000 Market America Distributors.

The strategic partnership allows users on www.marketamerica.com, to make purchases from any of Market America's over 2,000 partner stores and return customers to Market America's website to complete their transaction. The robust all-in-one solution from Market America and MerchantAdvantage also empowers online merchants to analyze sales and respond to marketing campaigns in real-time, ensuring the highest return on marketing investment.

Each Comparison Shopping Engine ("CSE") aggregates a list of products from many sellers into a single portal, delivering an efficient shopping experience for the Internet shopper. While the CSE is an essential marketing channel for the online merchant, working with CSEs can overload the SMB, as each CSE requires a different process for merchants to publish their product details.

"Now, Market America gives our online merchants an easy way to manage their CSE feeds and simultaneously increase sales and reach," said James Ridinger. "Market America and online merchants leverage their Market America web store with MerchantAdvantage to push their product catalog data to those marketing channels that bring the greatest sales and leads. Having this type of advanced and easy to use feed management capability permits Market America to more effectively match products with people, leading to greater sales for Market America partners, our webstores and our own exclusive products."

Market America and MerchantAdvantage affords partners the ability to:

- Push product information to over 100 online marketing channels including CSEs such as Ciao, CNet.com, JellyFish, Market America, MSN Live Search, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Shopzilla, Google Product Search, and Yahoo! Shopping

- Discover which marketing channels, product categories and individual products are meeting expected return on ad-spend and adjust accordingly

- Manage SKU level bidding at supported shopping CSE sites

- Expand market reach while maintaining current marketing budget

- Sell Market America products across the internet and mobile devices

"Effective CSE strategies focusing on channel, category, subcategory, and individual SKU performance can increase ROI sometimes five fold," stated Michael Lambert, CEO of MerchantAdvantage. "MerchantAdvantage products give Market America and their Webstore owners the tools to manage profit-margins on marketing campaigns at the product level and the power to reach millions of potential new customers through a user friendly Web-based tool. We are honored to be an integral part of the Market America group of products to help partners grow their online business efficiently, intelligently and cost-effectively."

About Market America, Inc.

Market America is a product brokerage and Internet marketing company that specializes in One-One-Marketing. With more than three million customers and 160,000 Distributors worldwide, the company has generated over $2.4 billion in accumulated retail sales. Headquartered in Greensboro, NC - the company was founded by James Ridinger in 1992 and employs over 500 people globally with international operations in the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia. Through its revolutionary One-to-One Marketing concept, Market America combines the Internet with the power of people - creating the ultimate online shopping destination. More information is available at www.marketamerica.com.

About MerchantAdvantage, LLC

MerchantAdvantage (MerchantAdvantage.com) is an ecommerce software solutions company committed to championing and helping the small to mid sized online merchant address complicated online and mobile commerce issues. MerchantAdvantage takes a systematic, controlled and proactive approach to online product marketing by providing long-term, cost effective, web-based software tools that enable an online business to grow by reaching the widest audience possible via online, broadband, and wireless devices.

MerchantAdvantage's applications are designed to connect the online retailer to their marketplace partners in a seamless motion of communication, allowing online merchants to take control of their e-Commerce and m-Commerce channels, marketing strategies and IT solutions. MerchantAdvantage currently markets over $1 billion worth of product value daily, representing over 600 online storefronts and is changing the macrocosm of ecommerce by staying ahead of the curve in providing business solutions to the growing online retail marketplace. We are here because our commerce future is online and wireless. For more information, please visit www.MerchantAdvantage.com, e-mail us at sales@Merchantdvantage.com or call us at 1.800.550.9466.

Internet Shopping is The Future: So Says Study of Under 30 Year Olds

eTaildTaiI friends, I like to go into this weekend with a short and sweet article that includes some interesting statistics. Namely, and I quote:

"...62 percent of Web users under age 30 consider the Internet to best place to find good deals..."

So for all of you online merchants out there wondering if online shopping is here to stay.

It is....and