Like.com is the first true visual comparison shopping engine, where the contents of photos are used to search and retrieve similar products or items. Like.com utilizes their patented Likeness Technology to create a digital signature that describes any photo’s contents and enables a more accurate query for similar looking products. Initially, Like.com focused on handbags, jewelry, shoes, and watches, now they feature mens and womens apparel, kids clothing and even holiday costumes. Shoppers have the ability to search for a number of items and purchase them from over 2000 leading brand names. Like.com continues to add other aesthetically oriented product categories into their visual comparison engine.

Just noticed this, not sure if it’s been brought up or if anyone cares, but it appears that there are some new ads in place of the premium member advertisements that have previously been displayed on SEOmoz’s blog and Youmoz under each first post. I can’t see this being a permanent change, Rand must be doing a favor for Danny, or something like that. I don’t expect to see these new ads replacing SEOmoz’s second main stream of revenue advertisements for good though, do you? Feel free to chime in anytime Mozzers, I don’t recall seeing anything about this and you we usually get a hint when something like this happens or is about to happen.

The holidays always remind me of all the unique marketing strategies eCommerce companies come up with for their specific holiday or event promotions, seasonal linkbait and other cool holiday specific ideas. We often report on eTail promotional efforts specifically related to seasons, holidays or events surrounding a time of celebration or remembrance. In September, for instance, we posted about how Walmart used Facebook and how PayPal used TheFind.com for their unique back-to-school promotional efforts.

Back-to-school season is over and it’s Halloween time now, so what better way to get into the spirit than to point out some of the trendy and unique ideas that other companies and eTailers are using to leverage linkers, social media and site traffic towards their seasonal campaigns or holiday promotions.

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing Autumn Looijen about StreetPrices, a comparison shopping engine that is featured on our Product Listing Guide. During that interview, Autumn mentioned that StreetPrices was working on several new upgrades including a brand new site design and features to provide shoppers with better product information and a more organized shopping experience.

Well, today is the day that StreetPrices launches their new features and site design. The differences include a wider range of product information, links to manufacturers sites, product reviews/articles, price comparison charts from one page, improved wishlist feature, pawprints for favorite products and even sticky notes that can be placed on any product and searched for at a later time. Oh, and they also changed their favicon from the puppy one to a blue “SP” icon. StreetPrices hopes these new changes will help separate them from other CSE’s in the space and that it will allow for a better shopping experience all around for consumers.

Why eCommerce & Shopping Cart Usability Matter:

eCommerce and shopping cart usability matter mostly due to the fact that if a store is not easy to use, and simple to buy from, it can greatly affect it’s ability to generate regular sales or increase those sales over time, which makes it more difficult for merchants to grow their stores to the next level. Many of the most successful merchants got that way by following strict usability guidelines, search engines guidelines and by abiding by other Online selling best practices. It’s no accident that the best eTailers got where they are by doing what works and continuing to try to improve, although little bits of luck here and there certainly help and may sometimes also contribute to many of the big named companies success.

Online store usability and eCommerce shopping cart usability are extremely important factors for all online sellers, especially for the ones who hope to improve over time and are serious about increasing online sales to their potential. Many merchants forget that even the most simple changes can dramatically effect how their stores perform, both for users and search engines. In this article I will be mentioning 21 different factors that can dramatically increase results for nearly any type of Online store, especially ones that focus on an industry niche or cater to mass amounts of shoppers.

This week we have three blogs/authors to mention for our BIG Thanks post. BIG Thanks is a weekly post we do on Fridays to reach out and personally thank our site supporters and sites that link to our content. Each of the following blogs/authors have mentioned us in a post on their blog. We appreciate these links so much that we want to personally thank each and every one of you. Without the support of readers, other bloggers and fans, we wouldn’t be where we are today. So, lets get into the BIG thanks for this week.

Part of my job requires that be up to speed on newer technologies and that I thoroughly research cutting edge eCommerce shopping carts so that when I am asked about them by my clients, I actually have some understanding of what they are talking about. Recently, I have been looking into the Channel Intelligence Solution and was really impressed with what I saw. They are making some big announcements and have a lot of insights into the world of selling online, not to mention they offer solutions for nearly any type of eTailer.

I had a chance to get some of my questions answered when CI graciously accepted my invitation for an interview. Vik Murty, Vice President of SellPath Manufacturer Solutions, at CI was kind enough to spend a few moments going through my question in order to provide answers to our readers and myself.

Today NetShops, Inc announced that Carter Cast, former Walmart.com CEO, is due to join the company’s management team as NetShops new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Doug Nielsen, co-founder and former CEO of NetShops, will assume the new title of company Chairman.

Cast brings over 20 years of marketing, executive management and eTailing experience to NetShops. Cast was formerly the CEO of Walmart.com, which he helped launch in 2000 and develop into one of the highest volume e-commerce sites in the world. He decided to make the move to NetShops in spring 2007. Prior to Walmart.com, he was a member of the start-up team for Blue Nile, where he served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising. In this role, Cast led the naming and development of the brand, the design of the site, marketing communications and product assortment strategy.

US Airways announced a new partnership with PayPal today to begin accepting PayPal as a payment method for ticket purchases made off of their website, UsAirways.com. US Airways joins PayPal much as other airlines in the past have including Northwest, Southwest and AirTran Airways.

Network Solutions recently released a new whitepaper with information about how merchants can better plan and prepare their sites for the upcoming holiday season. The whitepaper is called, “7 Steps to Improve Your Online Holiday Sales” (link goes to the form you need to fill out in order to download the PDF). The paper uses data and statistics from other trusted industry sources such as Internet Retailer, eMarketer, Vertical Web Media and Practical eCommerce.

The whitepaper provides pretty good insights into eCommerce holiday shopping preparedness and also includes some hidden gems of information within it, however I thought they could have done a lot better job on the document length, topics covered and release date timing. Overall, I still enjoyed reading the PDF and recommend others read it, but in my opinion the topics and tips they provided were things that all merchants should practice, not only before the holidays, but year round.