I came upon an interesting new service for Online sellers the other day and I wanted to share it with all our readers as an eCommerce Idea article. It’s really unique, useful and right in line with current eCommerce trends.

Before we get into the new service I wanted to briefly mention our last eCommerce Ideas article on Using Creative Linkbait and Engaging Customers At The Same Time. It featured another really creative eCommerce idea that at least one merchant is using. This idea article has the same concept, in that it’s a unique or creative idea that eCommerce merchants can use to improve or enhance their stores, however it’s not related to linkbait and customer features as much as it is related to eCommerce video content and store usability. Same concept, different topic basically.

Finally, on to the new service by interactive video design company FlipSeek, who has recently released a very unique application which allows eCommerce store shoppers to click on items displayed within video content or catalog demos as a way to make product purchases directly from the interactive video. The product is called Live Link Video, it allows merchants to develop and implement videos in which users can click on hyperlink ‘hot spots’ to either get product information or buy certain items highlighted within the video content (sort of similar to the transactional banners and shopping gadgets article we published).

Here’s what Adam Marino, Flipseek President, had to say about Live Link Video…

They send us the electronic video and we convert it by layering over the hyperlinks and adding the captions to it, and then saving it as a Flash file so it’s compatible for everybody on the web to see it.

Flipseek apparently released Live Link Video on January 2nd after about two months in beta. Their specialty is not creating the videos, or implementing them into a merchants site, it is more about converting a typical Web video into an interactive video capable of displaying the hyperlink hot spots (although they will work with merchants either using their own in-house video specialist or another third party ad agency). Once the merchant has submitted their video content to be converted, whether it be for a commercial, video tour, product demo or any other video presentation, the converted files are then returned in order to be implement into the site design and content. Currently, the following video formats can be converted into a Live Link Video; mpeg, mpg, flv, mov, avi, or wmv. The videos will then be converted to a standard Flash SWF file. Their standard delivery time to convert files is about 3-5 business days, however more complex projects can take longer. Contact a representative to see if your project fits within the standard time frame.

Here are some other video uses suggested by Live Link Video…

• TV Show Product Placement
• Online Store Tours
• Commercials
• Online Infomercials
• New Product Showcases
• Movie Trailers
• Fashion Shows
• Cooking Shows
• Training Videos
• How-To Demonstrations
• Business Proposals

Here are some Live Link Video Samples (click images to watch)…

(Click image to watch, video is not embedded so you will be taken to a different site)

(Click image to watch, video is not embedded so you will be taken to a different site)

(Click image to watch, video is not embedded so you will be taken to a different site)

I am really impressed with how this feature works and all the potential uses it has within the eCommerce space, especially if video marketing on the Web is already part of your strategy and you already have the content developed on your end. Video is already being implemented by several Hot 100 retailers and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Unique ideas such as interactive shopping links are setting new trends and are sure to become a standard in eCommerce before too long.

Take an interactive video for a spin on your site, see how it converts and determine if there’s potential for it for your products, brand or store. You never know what will work and what won’t unless you try it out, but please, be sure to have the necessary tools in place to track ROI. That’s one thing I think a feature like this is lacking, a great way to track which videos are being clicked and how many purchases are coming from those clicks. Something to think about maybe. Let me know if anyone here knows of a good way to track these things through the checkout process, I am not very familiar with multi media files and the potential uses for them.

It’s always interesting to see the new and innovative ways that Online retailers are coming up with to generate buzz, links and customer interaction on their eCommerce sites in an attempt to boost rankings, visitors, conversions, average orders or sales. Recently, I came across a great example of one retailer who uses creative ideas to generate new links and engages customers at the same time.

May’s Lab, a clothing retailer, has recently added a feature to their site which allows shoppers or current customers to upload photos/videos of themselves wearing different items from the clothing manufacturers site. The new section, labeled Gallery, is a fun, innovate, creative way for May’s Lab to engage their current customers or shoppers and build brand buzz, which also helps to generate more inbound links to the site.

In addition to the new section and upload feature (as well as the promotional benefits), May’s Lab is also giving their customers a chance to be featured in the shop gallery, which wins them a swell prize from the retailer. The photo/video with the best rating will automatically be eligible to become a May’s Lab featured model.

You are the core of our company and we want you to be featured in our site. Submit a photo or video of you wearing any May’s Lab item and you will win a prize if chosen to appear in this gallery. The person in the photo/video with the best rating will become our next featured model.

How cool is that? Not only are they helping to boost their business, while engaging customers at the same time, they are also building a community of followers and even give several of them a chance to get modeling exposure on the site (which could even lead to other gigs for the featured models). This creative eCommerce idea is a perfect example of how to do it right. I had never heard of May’s Lab before finding out about the unique feature, but believe me, their name remains imprinted in my mind due to the fantastic branding and promotion move on their part.

Here’s one of the photos to give you an idea of what they are looking for…

Picture of Tanya taken during a photo shoot in San Diego, CA. (May’s Lab staff member)

Take a few notes from May’s Lab when brainstorming or thinking up new, fun and innovative ways to build brand buzz, generate more exposure, build community interaction, build customer relationships and appeal to the linkerati. If you can think of a unique and creative way to accomplish all of those things, that’s ideal. If not, keep trying, I am sure companies who use strategies like this regularly try many times before getting it right, so don’t be upset or get down if a few of your ideas flop, keep trying. It will be worth it when you finally think up the ones that are successfully or generate results beyond expectations.

If you’re like any other person on Earth you have probably subscribed to one or more print catalogs in the past and currently receive them via your mailbox each month. Personally, I receive about 3 -4 paper catalogs each month from companies including Cabelas, Land’s End, Victoria Secret, Business 2.0 and many even a few more like the Costco business catalog or my update catalogs from Dell, HP, T-Mobile and more.

Brief Overview & Article Motivation:

Recently, I was forced to rummage through my different catalog subscriptions in an attempt to slim down the junk mail I often receive. The reason I decided to slim down my mailing subscriptions was due to my 9 day vacation and having three post office bins of mostly junk mail (plus Holiday cards) to go through when I returned.

When I got Online and began researching different methods to unsubscribe from my catalogs, I accidentally discovered a site I had never seen before called Catalog Choice. It’s basically a way for individuals to unsubscribe from paper catalogs they receive in the mail at no cost. Catalog Choice takes the approach that their service can make your life easier, eliminate unwanted catalogs and helps to save and preserve our environment (sort of along the lines of a green initiative). Their main objective is to reduce the amount of unwanted catalogs sent to consumers each month.

The Catalog Choice community is presently 355,659 persons strong, having already opted out of 4,495,373 catalogs. Together, we are going to improve our lives, and conserve our planet’s natural resources!

Simply go to the Catalog Choice homepage and click the Get Started link to sign-up.

Catalog Choice Service Overview:

In a nut shell you use the site as follows…

• Find and opt-out of catalogs. Find your catalog, click decline and fill in the details. We will contact the merchant on your behalf and request that they no longer send you their catalog.
• Review and manage your declined catalogs. Add notes, report infractions, change your customer number, revoke your request on the My Choices screen.
• Manage your profile. Add additional names and addresses you need in the opt-out process, change your login, or delete your account on the My Profile page.
• Help spread the word. Tell your friends about this service on the Invite Friends screen.
• Questions? Check the FAQ screen first, then contact us if you need help.

Finding Catalogs:

Finding popular print catalogs using Catalog Choice is easy. Just navigate to the Find Catalogs tab after you’ve logged in and use the search or browse functions to find the catalogs you wish to unsubscribe from. Users can even suggest catalogs that do not currently appear within the catalogs database. In addition, you can navigate to catalogs using the alphabetical listings under the search and browse tabs. Once you have located a catalog, opting out or unsubscribing is easy.

Opting Out:

After the catalog you wish to unsubscribe from has been located just click the Decline button to the right of the catalog subscription you are planning to opt out of. I light box window will pop up with additional fields for information needed in order to opt out from the catalog you choose. In the window you will see the catalog you are declining, your name (along with choice for current resident or new name), your mailbox and an optionally, your customer number. If there is no customer number on record simply click not available and move to the next step. Once the appropriate information is included, just click the Decline Catalog button near the bottom (you can also cancel the form by clicking the appropriate link to the right of the button).

Managing Catalogs:

In the My Choices section you can manage and view your declined catalogs. Actions in the My Choices section include the ability to see merchants online shopping alternative, view details of online shopping links, add individual catalog notes, report infractions if you continue receiving declined catalogs, revoke decline requests and modifying your custom numbers. So far the features in this section are very handy and useful to users who are attempting to unsubscribe from a particular catalog.

Profile Management:

The My Profile section allows you to manage personal information that is used when opting out of catalog subscriptions. Actions in the My profile section include the ability to manage your catalog names, change logins, manage, edit or delete addresses, manage email preferences and lastly you can even cancel your Catalog Choice membership. It’s an easy way, from one page, to manage all you account or personal information.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

Obviously, I only expect you to use a service like Catalog Choice if you do indeed WANT to unsubscribe from print catalogs you receive in the mail. During the demonstration above I listed some of the print catalogs I subscribe to, however I never ACTUALLY declined, opted out or unsubscribed from any of the catalogs I listed (who would unsubscribe from Victoria Secret anyway?). I am happy to receive the catalogs I currently get each month, so I didn’t really want to decline any of them, however I thought the tool, concept and application were worth posting about and mentioning for anyone who might possibly need a service like Catalog Choice offers.

So, is catalog marketing and concept behind print catalogs done for? Not in my opinion, although many younger generations probably will not see the need for print catalogs in the future, especially with the ever emerging technology, information and shopping that the Web has to offer. Do I think it’s a good idea for professional catalogers or catalog companies to consider environmental effects of their catalog campaigns? Absolutely. I also think that Online versions of print catalogs will become more common, but if these companies offered eCommerce, it could potentially kill two birds with one stone.

I personally think print catalogs could include less pages within them, but with advertising sales it’s probably not realistic to think they will skim down their own content to reduce the number of pages I have to thumb through. In the end, it’s about the company that is sending the catalog. Many of them have been around for years, do not bug the crap out of you and tend to follow the rules for opting out, but there are flaws in the current system. If companies continue to use direct mail and paper catalogs the way they currently do, it won’t be long before they are long forgotten and replaced by technology on the Web, or other.

Our regular blog readers know that I am quite fond of the comparison shopping engine known as TheFind.com. It’s one of the CSE’s I regularly post about and advocate for and continues to move up on my list as one of the best product search destinations with social shopping capabilities. Not too long ago, we posted about some of the things TheFind is doing to make their search service even better including their mini-malls, virtual shopping districts, improved product mouse hovers and even an advanced search and browsing history features.

Today, TheFind has launched yet another new and useful feature for shoppers and merchants which allows TheFind.com users to be able to search and discover local shopping destinations for products within a specific geographic area. Not only that, but the new local search sorting and refinement capability also includes an in-store availability feature and shows the user related maps, all from one page for quick and easy access to products close to a shoppers’ physical locations.

Local Search & Shopping Overview:

TheFind’s new local search capabilities allow shoppers to…

• Search for products available through local retail outlets. For example, a search for UGG boots in and around Miami would show store locations that are within 20 miles of the shopper’s location. Consumers can easily adjust the search area to comprise a 40- or 50-mile radius, if desired.
• Immediately identify local retail outlets near you that carry desired items. After searching for a product on TheFind, search results will display items from both online retailers and local retail outlets – with local stores clearly identified via a “Local” icon.
• Check in-store availability. For select outlets supporting this capability, TheFind enables shoppers to see which nearby stores have a particular item in-stock. Additionally, all listings for local retailers have phone numbers listed so busy shoppers can call to check in-stock status.
• Quickly and easily determine which retail outlets offering the desired items are closest in proximity. For every search, TheFind graphically maps all the local brick and mortar stores carrying the items of interest. Consumers can use the map to determine which location is the closest to them, saving time and resources. The site also provides street addresses and phone numbers for each store location.
• Compare each store’s offerings and obtain the very best deal. TheFind puts a wealth of information at users’ fingertips to enable shoppers to assess the total overall cost of goods. TheFind alerts shoppers to various considerations such as sale items and promotions and driving distance of retail outlets, so they can make purchasing decisions based on their individual preferences and criteria. Integration of online prices and local offers helps consumers determine the best possible options.

Here’s what Siva Kumar, TheFind’s Co-Founder and CEO, had to say about the launch…

While there are a number of shopping sites that offer local search capabilities to varying degrees, with this added capability, TheFind brings the most comprehensive and complete local shopping search to the market. We are responding to consumer demands by merging online shopping and offline shopping research all in one single website to most closely align with how consumers use the Internet. These new local features are an added bonus around the holidays, as shopping days begin to dwindle and consumers start to hurry to complete their gift lists. Leveraging TheFind.com, consumers can shop at home first and find products at stores nearby, so they can pick up the merchandise themselves, quickly and easily, avoiding costly rush shipping charges.

Setting A Geographic Location For Local Product/Merchant Results:

The local product and merchant search feature only works for your geographic location once the actual city, state and zip code are entered in by the shopper. In addition, TheFind users can set the distance (in miles) from their physical location in order to narrow down results and find the store or product that is closest to the city, state and zip code that have been entered by the user.

Currently, there are two places in which a shopper can enter their physical location and set the miles away distance. The most noticeable spot is right under the main search bar at the top of every search result page.

The second, less noticeable, is under TheFind logo on the left hand sidebar under the ‘refine by’ section. The refinement section now features sorting options for price, color, sale items, new items and now we can refine by local items too.

You can see from the screenshots that I searched for a ‘Cashmere Scarf‘ within 50 miles of Redmond, Wa 98052.

Browsing Local Product/Merchant Results:

Once the desired geographic location has been set and a search has been performed, TheFind will show you local results related to the item(s) you queried, including a map with the store locations, the store name, distance from your location, address, phone number and how to check availability at specific local shops. In addition, off the right side of the map and store information are additional local shops that match your search and location. These results can be sorted by relevance or distance from the set location and once clicked on will bring up that stores information next to the map.

Local Shopping Map Results:

A must have feature for local search engines, especially product comparison engines, is the ability to display a map of all the physical store locations surrounding the geographic area of interest which show shoppers locations in which they can find and buy the product they queried from the search function. Users can go down the list one by one to see availability of the item, they can sort results on the map by location or they can change locations or distance. TheFind.com uses Yahoo Powered Maps for their local search mapping locations.

Local Shopping Store Information & Product Availability:

Another must have for local search services would be the ability to see data about each store result such as brand, distance, address location, phone number and any other related information about the store that carries any items you have searched for. TheFind has done a good job of providing this data, which appears next to the maps on the right hand side. I can easily see which store I am looking at, how far away they are from my location, their address and information on how I can find out if the item(s) I searched for are available at that location or not. IN addition, shoppers can change the their searching location from the store information section by clicking on the ‘Change’ link, like we discussed previously.

Local Shopping Store Results & Sorting Shops:

An additional great feature to TheFind’s local search capability is the store results list that appears to the right of the store information sections. The list features names for shops that carry the item(s) that were searched for within a specific geographical location and allows shoppers to refine results according to relevance or distance. In addition, when users click on each store from the list, that store’s information will show up to the left of the list so it is clear to shoppers how far away the shop is, and all the other information which was covered in the section above. There’s also a magnifying glass icon next to the results that when clicked, will show shoppers that individual store on the map along with the information related to that shop.

Local Shopping Mouse-Hover Results:

Finally, there’s a new addition to the already improved product mouse-hovers that feature local shopping and stores near you data by simply hovering the mouse over a product on the local results pages. There’s so many ways to find the local shops it’s amazing, yet they keep the clean look and feel as well as the site usability intact and undisturbed. It’s a great way to see if the products you want can be picked up or purchased at stores near your geographic location or any specified location withing local search results.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

Wow, I am so surprised by this move, yet happy to see a CSE jumping into local search for products. I have said many times that the shopping sites that are able to blend comparisons, social and local will eventually be the leaders in years to come and now, finally, TheFind has shown us that they hope to be the first site to merge all three key aspects. Not only have they found a way to blend all of these useful shopping tools together, but they do it in a sleek, easy to use interface that is pleasant for shoppers and converts well for merchants.

This feature is great for holiday shopping, school shopping, last minute gift ideas and a whole bunch more that I can think of. I have said it before and will say it again, TheFind is doing a wonderful job with their venture capital, I hope they can continue to crank out features like this in the record time they have been able to so far. If they can, they will certainly prove that they are THE comparison, social and local search engine for products or shops.

Basically, blog, site or profile shoppers select products or items from the widget to add into the shopping cart, then they checkout and pay using PayPal. The idea for storefront widgets was suggested by PayPal users as a way for them to sell easily from MySpace profiles, Facebook profiles and more (Note: At this time, the PayPal Storefront is not available for MySpace, you can get notified when it is by clicking here).

Create your own online store with the PayPal storefront. Upload products, set prices, and start selling on your website or blog. Features include quick store setup, fast browsing, fast checkout and simple payment processing.

Here’s a sample Storefront Widget, items cannot be added or checked out from this example…

Here’s a quick rundown of new Storefront Widget features…

• Viral storefront distribution – Fans of a seller’s products can click on the “Help sell these items” link on the badge to copy the storefront HTML code for hosting on their websites. The storefront is an exact replica of the original and all orders and funds are securely delivered to the owner of the original storefront widget.
• Storefront display – Sellers can display thumbnail images of all of the items for sale through the storefront widget. When a buyer hovers over an item with the mouse, an enlarged view of the item is shown.
• Item navigation – If a buyer pauses while viewing an item, the other items in the storefront will rotate into view.
• “Sold Out” items – When an item is sold out, sellers can define whether the item is suppressed in the storefront or appears with the “sold out” label.
• “Store Closed” display – When a seller is not able to process orders, for instance, due to a vacation, the “store closed” sign communicates to buyers that while they may shop at the storefront, they may experience delays in receiving items.

Creating a PayPal Storefront Widget:

Before You Begin: Login and click “Create New Storefront” button

Go to the Paypal Storefront Widgets Beta page and login to your PayPal account using the appropriate email address and password. You will get redirected back to the PayPal Widgets Beta page and you will see that the “create new storefront” button is now not grayed out, and should be showing a yellow button you can click to begin step 1.

Create Your Storefront (Themes & Colors)

Simply select 1 of the 25 available themes or 1 of the 23 available colors for you to use on your new storefront widget. You will see the sample widget to the right of the theme and color chooser change as you go through the different colors or themes and select one or the other to try out on the widget.

Create Your Storefront (Title & Logo)

Simply type your company name or title text into the appropriate box, called ‘Store title’. Then enter the path to your store logo on the Web to a file location where you have a logo uploaded that is 60 pixels wide by 35 pixels high. After that, you can choose the color to change the store title text to if you want, or you can just leave it to default, which is black. You will see the example widget to the right change as you add the title, logo and title text color options.

Create Your Storefront (Store Policies)

Simply type your company shipping, contact and any additional store information you wish shoppers to view while buying from your new widget. When you update the information in the shipping, contact and additional policy sections you will see the example widget to the right update as well.

Create Your Storefront (Products)

First, you will need to configure the product settings for the widget. Simply select to show all products, currently selected product and alternatively you can choose whether to rotate your widget products every 3 seconds. Next, set the inventory configuration by selecting one of the choices for instances when the product inventory runs out or reaches 0. Choose either to show the product as sold out or to hide the product until inventory is restocked.

Next, you will need to figure out how many products you wish to offer through this widget. Product are represented by the ‘Sample’ images near the top of the product details and inventory sections. To add more products simply click the plus button and another ‘Sample’ image will appear. Each image represents one product, so you will want to make sure the first image in the horizontal list is highlighted before entering in information for the first item in your widget. To remove products, simply use the minus button next to the plus icon that you clicked to add more products.

Once the number of products are selected, simply enter in your product information for the first item including its product title, price, description and image path. Images should be 188 X 168 for best results. After that, you will need to click on the inventory tab next to the details tab in order to set the inventory for the product you just added, along with any additional notes about that item. Once you have finished one, click the Sample image for the next product and fill in the information for that item. You will continue following the same steps until all the Sample images are changed to actual product images and have the corresponding information under each item.

Create Your Storefront (Open or Closed)

The last step for creating your storefront asks whether you want to display the storefront widget as ‘Open’ to shoppers or whether you want the storefront to appear ‘Closed’. The closed temporarily choice has two other options including the ability to type a custom message to shoppers and a feature that allows shoppers to shop and place orders when the store is closed. Once you have selected one of the two choices and any alternate options, the store widget will reflect the changes and show shoppers an open or closed message, depending on what option you chose.

After Storefront Is Created: Click “Step 2 Update Your Storefront” and “Update Storefront”

To publish your new widget simply click “step 2 update your storefront” followed by the “update storefront” button. If something happens during the update or your widget gets accidentally deleted, you can still re-publish your storefront by clicking the corresponding anchor text in italics.

That’s it, you’re done. Simply grab the HTML and embed it into your blog, site or profile pages!!

Recently, I discovered the newly launched PayPal Labs site (currently located at http://www.x.com). PayPal Labs is the new destination for the latest, greatest and hottest PayPal applications put out there by PayPal’s distributed payments team. It is meant to inspire engineers, product managers, and other employees at PayPal and to tap the creativity, innovation, and passion of their teams.

I also wanted to mention the new official PayPal Company/PayPal Labs blog, simply named, The PayPal Blog. The team of bloggers uses The PayPal Blog as a forum for their employees to engage other PayPal users, in order to connect them with company leaders and team members. In addition, the bloggers hope that users will share their feedback and discuss or comment on the latest happens at PayPal.

PayPal Labs is PayPal’s showcase site which allows you to take our experimental products for a spin. Many of these projects come from startup-like groups within PayPal, which is why the tubular design in this site pays tribute to the logo used in PayPal’s original Palm application.

Here’s a quick reference for applications currently available at PayPal Labs, so far…

• Facebook Request Money Application – Allows Facebook members to recoup lunchtime loans by requesting money from friends.
• Facebook Fundraising Application – Allows Facebook members to raise funds for just about any cause they’re passionate about.
• MySpace Fundraising Badge – Allows charitable organizations and political candidates to raise money through their MySpace page.
• Merchant Integration Wizard – Gives merchants a step-by-step guide for integrating PayPal’s payment services.

Facebook Request Money Application:

No longer will you have to pay Bruiser to run around and collect your old pizza debts for you. Use PayPal’s request money application to solicit repayment on Facebook through PayPal.

• Get the Facebook Request Money Application

Facebook Fundraising Application:

Whether your cause to is a camping trip with friends, or a triathalon for charity, the PayPal Fundraising Application for Facebook will help you reach out to your “friend-raising” network.

• Get the Facebook Fundraising Application

MySpace Fundraising Badge:

Look for PayPal fundraising badges on MySpace featuring charities like Kiva and The ONE Campaign, as well as political campaigns.

• Get the MySpace Fundraising Badge

Merchant Integration Wizard:

Integration Wizard includes Checkout Flow Overview: Typical Shopping Cart Checkout Flow, Express Checkout Shopping Cart Flow, Express Checkout Payment Option Page Flow. Integration Process: Integration Parameters, Integration on the Shopping Cart Page, Integration on the Billing Page, Integration on the Order Review Page, Integration on the Order Review page for Order Confirmation.

• Use the PayPal Merchant integration Wizard

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

I am excited to see so many of the larger companies launching these “Labs.” It is a great way to discover and test new features and applications like the ones mentioned in this article. It also helps to spark the creative side of a company’s development team or engineers and may even help talented new developers that hope to land a popular application for one of these large companies. I somewhat expected to see a PayPal Labs launch sometime, but thought it might tie in with the already available eBay Labs. Glad they separated the two though.

By the looks of things so far, the PayPal Labs site is already rocking, with the addition of 4 very popular and useful applications. Not only do they cater to PayPal users, but they also merge the world of social networks like MySpace and Facebook in with the payment processor for a match made in heaven. Think about it, payments on profile pages is the next logical step, now you can do it with PayPal.

Be looking for similar applications from Google in the next 6 months, once their Google Checkout for Mobile service is more ready for the mainstream market.

Recently, Amazon unveiled a new addition to their toy shopping section called, “The Holiday Toy List,” which is meant to make this holiday seasons toy shopping the easiest it has ever been. The Holiday Toy List features unique navigation tools on every product page for over 450 of this seasons top toys, video games and even sporting goods and allows shoppers to quickly narrow and expand search results by age, gender, price, category, favorite characters and preferred brands simultaneously. In addition, product pages will feature video content demonstrating the toys in action that shoppers can email to friends or family as well as, options for customers to upload their own video reviews.

Here’s what Mark Randall, VP of Toy & Baby Stores at Amazon, had to say…

Amazon has made it easier than ever for customers to discover the perfect gifts for their kids, by creating the ultimate holiday toy destination that’s simple to use, convenient and fun. The Holiday Toy List is a place where parents can really engage and learn about the products their kids are asking for by watching interactive videos of the products and reading customer reviews and ratings from other parents.

Amazon’s Holiday Toy List displays toys and other items from top retailers including Hasbro, Disney, Nintendo, Leapfrog, LEGO, Fisher-Price, Mattel and Razor. Many of the products in The Holiday Toy List are eligible for Amazon’s Free Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime, shoppers have the ability to find great value and convenience while shopping with Amazon.

Some of the products Amazon expects to be among customer favorites include…

• EyeClops Bionic Eye by Jakks
• Brian the Brain by Mega Brands
• Hannah Montana: Music Jam (Nintendo DS) by Disney
• Barbie Girls by Mattel
• Razor Pocket Mod Miniature Euro Electric Scooter by Razor
• Smart Cycle by Fisher-Price
• Mongoose Fuzz 20-inch Freestyle Bike by Mongoose
• Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii) by Nintendo
• Air Hogs Battling Havoc R/C Helicopters by Spinmaster
• FurReal Friends Squawkers McCaw Parrot by Hasbro
• Transformers Optimus Prime Voice Changer Helmet by Hasbro
• ClickStart My First Computer by LeapFrog
• Kidizoom Digital Camera by Vtech

Additional favorite Holiday Toy List features include shopping reviews, product recommendations, user discussions and exclusive reviews from product experts who have interacted with the toys that are displayed. Another neat new feature allows parents and kids to create holiday wishlists, giftlists and also add items seamlessly from any product page.

ShopLocal recently bulked up their feature offering by adding in social community and networking capabilities for their users. The new social features include a profile page and the ability to search various product reviews, join community discussions on their Hot Deals and even track prices. The users profile can then be shared with the rest of the ShopLocal community.

Once a user has signed up for their free profile account, they simply login to begin personalizing their ShopLocal profile and personal shopping experience. Community members then use their account to share deals, promotions, rebates, coupons, reviews and more within the network of users. In addition, ShopLocal members can get Price Alerts that inform shoppers when products they are interested in are available at a price specified by the user.

Here’s what ShopLocal’s CMO, Bob Armour, had to say about the new social features:

Since consumers are the ones on the front lines of shopping, we are inviting them to use our site to share their experiences along with feedback on products and special deals. The beauty of this type of online sharing is that it is truly unbiased and creates a very friendly, interactive shopping network.

ShopLocal also added a new site section which displays all the most talked about and reviewed products. The page is designed to show shoppers which products are being reviewed most often and which items consumers are buzzing about most at the time.

In addition, you can even grab the ShopLocal Google gadget which can be added to iGoogle or Desktop and gives users the ability to enter their ZIP code and a search term allowing them to receive updates on local deals and product information straight from their iGoogle homepage or desktop (using Google Desktop).

(Note: I tried downloading and finding the gadget and although there is a page for it and Google once knew about it, I can’t seem to find and download it. It may be down for development, who knows. I will report back if I find out anything more on their gadget.)

ShopLocal is Featured as one of the bargain shopping portals on our Product Listing Guide!

We have posted about Pronto several times before. If you are not already familiar with who they are, a good place to start getting to know them would be the interview we conducted with John Foley of Pronto. They also recently announced a partnership with ScanAlert that we covered. Lots going on over at Pronto.com, their team must be exhausted.

Today, Pronto.com not only has a new tagline, “Shopping Gone Social,” and logo but they also announced that they are now the first comparison shopping engine to enter the social shopping space with the launch of new community features that allow users to rate products, interact with other users, write reviews and gain insight from trusted peers and other like-minded shoppers.

Pronto.com is approaching online shopping in an entirely new way – Already the Web’s fastest growing comparison shopping site with over 3.1 million unique monthly U.S. users, Pronto.com is changing the Online shopping model by becoming the first to fuse comparison shopping with a full range of social features.

Pronto already provides consumers with access to over 70 million products from over 65,000 merchants directly on Pronto. With the launch of new social tools, they have become the only comparison engine that helps shoppers weed through all of these product choices by allowing them to express themselves through the products they like, want and own, therefore helping others make better, more informed shopping decisions.

Here’s what Pronto CEO, Dan Marriott, had to say about the new social shopping features:

Traditional comparison shopping engines provide advice on WHERE to buy products, but do little to help users decide WHAT to buy. At the same time, existing social shopping sites fall short by relying on users to gather products from across the web for them – which dramatically reduces the number of products available to the community. The new Pronto.com combines the best of social software and product search into an online shopping community that has not existed until today so consumers can visit one destination for the most fully informed shopping experience.

Pronto.com’s new social shopping functionality includes:

• User Profiles – Users can create personal profiles consisting of their favorite products, brands and stores as well as personal pictures and answers to profile questions.
• Brand and Store Level “Likes” – Users can express their interest in particular brands and stores in addition to their favorite products, providing other shoppers greater insight into their tastes and style.
• Lists of Top Liked Products – Users can quickly see the most popular products in a category based on the number of people who noted that they “Like” the product.
• Social Networking – Registered users on Pronto.com can invite their friends to join their personal network so that they can share knowledge and opinions on products.
• Peer-to-Peer Messaging – Users can communicate with each other via private messages to discuss products, brands and stores.
• Local Filtering – Users can track the hottest trends in their city by searching the most “Liked” products by region.

Pronto has been testing some of these features for over a month now, but this is the first big announcement about the inclusion of social shopping features into the comparison shopping engine. I look forward to seeing what Pronto puts together in the future. For now, they have certainly made a mark and my guess is that this is just the beginning for them. Kudos for being the first comparison shopping engine to enter the social shopping space, job well done Pronto!

Pronto.com is Featured as one of the comparison shopping engines on our Product Listing Guide!

Lemonade’s eCommerce for everyone, is a social shopping network, product recommendation engine, Online merchant marketplace and shopping widget creator that launched today. The South Norwalk, Conn company just unveiled the official press release called Lemonade Inc. Launches First Application on Facebook that Allows Users to Make Money after many months of testing. Lemonade is bringing back the old time lemonade stand with their own eCommerce shopping widgets for blogs, MySpace pages, Facebook profiles and more.

Users can create their own shopping widgets to include on their sites. The widgets display items that users choose to recommend from their social network pages. Once a user has created their widget, added items to recommend and add it to their profiles, Lemonade will share a portion of the revenue with the Lemonade widget user. When visitors to your profile page, blog or site take advantage of products and offers featured in your stand you get a commission on the sales. As soon as your account reaches the minimum balance you receive a PayPal payment from Lemonade.

Beyond 35 million Facebook users, the Lemonade Stand application is available to an estimated 100 million people who have created their own blogs, social network profiles and other personal web pages or profiles across the Net.

In addition to Facebook, Lemonade Stand owners can add their stand as a widget to their social networking page, blog, or personal site. Users currently have set up Lemonade Stands on MySpace, AOL People Connect, Yahoo! 360, Blogger, TypePad and SixApart. Lemonade Inc. will also feature every Lemonade Stand in the Marketplace section on www.lemonade.com.

Here’s what Lemonade co-founder and CEO, Tom Zawacki, had to say about the recent launch:

For many of us, setting up a neighborhood lemonade stand was our introduction to entrepreneurship. In a similar way, Lemonade allows people to combine commerce and community in the digital neighborhood of their personal online space. Certainly we expect people to set up Lemonade Stands to make money for themselves. However, we’re very proud of those users who are setting up stands to raise funds for a local cause or to donate to their favorite non-profit organization. Time Magazine named 2006 the year of consumer-generated content on the Internet. We hope to make this the year of consumer-generated commerce.

Lemonade Stand owners can select from among 2 million products carried by more than 200 top-tier retailers including:

• Apple (iTunes & Mac)
• Macy’s
• Wal-Mart
• Nordstrom
• Zappos.com
• Land’s End
• EBGames
• The Sharper Image
• Hotwire Travel
• eLuxury
• Liz Claiborne
• TigerDirect Electronics
• MovieLink

Here’s what Lemonade Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Smith, had to say about the recent launch:

We’ve worked very hard to make sure we offer broad retail category coverage for Lemonade Stand owners. Our goal is for everyone to set up a Lemonade Stand featuring the products or brands they love. We’ve already seen a variety of stands promoting video games, downloadable music collections, urban fashion, and baby products recommended by new mothers.

In contrast to other social shopping and recommendation services, like Kaboodle or ThisNext, which allow users to post images of favorite items on their profiles, Lemonade pays the user every time someone clicks through to the retailer’s page to buy an item.

Through this semi-affiliate approach, eTailers pay commissions of 5 percent to 15 percent of the sale price to anyone who delivers a paying customer. Lemonade will keep 20 percent of the commissions on behalf of people who create Lemonade widgets, and will pay users the rest of the money. Some eTailers also pay up to $10 for each new customer, while others may just pay Lemonade users each time visitors click on a link to see recommended products. (Users are still paid commissions if they buy from their own Lemonade stands but will not be paid for simply clicking on links.)

Lemonade has taken a fresh new approach to social shopping and product recommendations and looks to make a their mark by being one of the first to pay users for participating within the Lemonade Stand program. I think this type of service will get much use from younger generations and will have a harder time reaching out to older demographics and Internet oldies, but there is potential. If Lemonade can acquire new strategic partnerships with many more eTailers, there may be a wider use from both younger and older Online generations. This means a bigger user-base for Lemonade and a wider expansion of social network users. I look forward to watching Lemonade and seeing where they end up in the space. It appears as if they are off to a good start and certainly made a smart move by tapping into the huge Facebook user-base to begin with, but not leaving out blogs and other social places. Let me know what you all think, whether they should add anything or any other thoughts. Don’t forget to build a Lemonade Stand too!

Here’s a Video with the founders I found on WebProNews Video blog:

We will be adding Lemonade Marketplace to our Product Listing Guide, so keep an eye out for it over there in the future.

Bazaarvoice develops outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to encourage and harness word of mouth marketing and bring it closer to a company’s brand and customer experience. Clients include sites like QVC, Home Depot, Dell, Overstock, Macy’s. Sears, Petco and roughly 100 other top online retailers. Partners include companies related to shopping portals, site searching, navigation, email marketing, a/b split testing, Web analytics, eCommerce platforms and more including companies like Smarter, ShopWiki, Google, MSN, IBM, Mercado, Core Metrics and Channel Intelligence.

Visit the Bazaarblog for more information on Bazaarvoice and other Bazaar products. You can also gain valuable insight and knowledge from the Bazaarvoice bloggers surrounding the consumer product review and user generated content spaces.

Bazaarvoice Company Culture:

• Passion fuels us. It drives us to recruit and train the best members for our team, to relentlessly innovate for consumers and our customers, to execute with the highest expectations of ourselves, and to celebrate our achievements.
• Execution is our mantra. We are strong competitors; we take action quickly; and we meet our deadlines and beat our goals. We constantly reach with our vision.
• Excellence is our bar. We settle for nothing but the best for our clients and involve them in our decisions. We strive for excellence in our interactions with each other, partners, prospects, and investors.
• Teamwork is of the utmost importance. We trust each other and treat each other with integrity and respect as people. We focus on the success of the team to achieve our goals because we believe that the team can accomplish much more than the individual. We involve our family as our extended team.
• Openness is our standard. No matter how large we grow, we communicate openly and honestly with each other. All managers have an open-door policy and strive to never be blindsided by any issue. We give feedback frequently and forthrightly.

Bazaarvoice Products & Services:

SyndicateVoice – More Details

• Drive Qualified Leads
• Amplify Review Effectiveness
• Expand Search Footprint

Ask & Answer – More Details

• Fill Gaps in Product Copy
• Inline on Product Page
• Moderated, Focused Discussion

Ratings & Reviews – More Details

• Hosted and Easy to Deploy
• Integrated with Your Look and Feel
• Dedicated Account Management

Sam Decker Talks About UGC & Product Reviews Specifically:

eTailers have been using product reviews and user-generated content for quite some time. What, in your opinion, are some of the factors that have led up to the recent comeback and appeal of UGC on eCommerce sites?

The marketplace has us inundated with non-relevant and intrusive marketing messages. There is more choice than ever, and more difficult to filter that choice through marketing. So, customers turn to each other. Combine that with the 25% YOY growth in ecommerce and mainstream web adoption (ex: Walmart.com passing Amazon in traffic). Customers are looking for this advice online now, as they shop…according to Jupiter and Forrester, over 75% of online shoppers. One study showed 50% of shoppers would not even buy without reading reviews. Now, with solutions like ours, we make it easier and less expensive for online retailers and other businesses to enable user generated content, and further, to leverage the content in multiple ways for measurable impact. Bottom line, it works for customers and works for business…hence the comeback.

What eTail sites do you think get the most benefit out of using UGC and social reviews? Do you have any data on this from your industry research and experience?

Today we serve over 110 clients, large and small, in 12 different industries. Retail is a sweet spot, in fact it has become a must-have feature for retailers. But we also serve serve services, travel, apparel, manufacturers and B2B. The client needs to have some customer contact in order to solicit reviews and leverage them in multiple marketing channels. But we help them with that strategy.

How large do you recommend a customer base be before implementing things like product rating and reviews? Does it matter?

There’s no hard rule here. Passion of that customer base is a factor. You could have 10 incredibly loyal customers write a review on every product you have. However, we have seen more reviews drives higher conversion. We have community managers dedicated to clients to help them drive review volume, analyze impact, analyze the review data, and drive best practices in marketing so that whether the client has a handful of products or 100,000 skus, they will get benefit from this strategy.

What are your thoughts on fake or spammy customer ratings and content that is not actually written by a consumer, but rather a merchant, either opposing or in agreement?

First, the marketplace (and threat of bad press) limits this risk. It’s a short-lived career for the executive that gets caught endorsing schilling on behalf of their brand. Second, the community ferrets these out with our ‘review feedback’ feature…or the ‘community wins’ by writing enough reviews that the true sentiment gets across. Third, we integrate with client’s login system, so they have to be authenticated to write a review. Fourth, we read every review that comes through our system and have a series of proofing, QA, process and technologies that can sniff out reviews that are too positive or negative. We allow our clients to evaluate those before posting, and they can take action with potential violators. Bazaarvoice continues to invest in capabilities and technologies so that our clients have the most authentic reviews system possible…more to come.

Product reviews and content generated by users has come a long way over the years. Where do you see UGC and social reviews heading in the future?

Where it’s heading in the future is really in the use of reviews. Through our community managers we are pulling our clients into the future with marketing best practices, integration with key partners, multi-channel integration, natural search optimization and more. Most online businesses think of reviews too simplistically or too tactically. After about an hour, once we take them through our capabilities, case studies and roadmap, they realize that the customer’s voice will evolve their marketing strategy. We’ve added Ask & Answer as a new way, and the logical next step from reviews, to engage customers to interact in a way that helps shoppers make purchase decisions. With review content and Ask & Answer content leveraged across multiple marketing channels, there is a lot of opportunity to impact the business…and moreover, change the culture!

Sam Talks About SyndicateVoice Specifically:

What makes SyndicateVoice unique and different from other similar product rating and review platforms?

There’s nothing on the market like SyndicateVoice, as it is the only program that distributes reviews to top shopping portals and attracts natural search traffic without duplicating content. You might ask what makes our Ratings & Reviews solution unique. There’s a lot to go into there: customization, flexibility, service level, moderation process, partnership integration, analytics, alerts, roadmap, data flexibility / ownership, hosted/non-hosted integration options…etc. If someone has the question of what makes us difference, they should call us. Ultimately, we are the right solution for online businesses that believe UGC should be part of their overall marketing strategy and what higher overall ROI, not just looking a site feature or widget. That’s when these differentiators make the biggest difference!

How does SyndicateVoice help eTailers retain users and increase conversions?

We recently launched a whitepaper on Boosting Natural Search using User Generated Content. It explains the SEO strategy and results of how SyndicateVoice pulls in highly-considered purchasers through ‘long tail’ terms. For example, someone searching “Xbox 360 Platinum Reviews” in Google will see CompUSA come up as #1 out of over a million results. That searcher will find a landing page that we host, and that searcher (based on the term they searched for) is considering buying an Xbox. SEO is an important part of the reviews solution. We’ve hired a Fortune 500 search expert to manage SyndicateVoice strategy, and most clients get their money’s worth out of Bazaarvoice just from search revenue from our SearchVoice landing pages and SyndicateVoice program.

Do you personally shop Online? Which sites? Do you rate and review products you personally buy?

Yes, I shop all our clients: http://www.bazaarvoice.com/clients.html

What made you decide to pursue a career in eTail UGC and reviews in order to create Bazaar products like SyndicateVoice?

I’ve been in online since ’93 and ran Dell’s consumer web site for many years. Many years ago I started a blog. I saw marketing changing. Customers are in more control, they have more information, they believe marketing less. So how do marketers have to change? How can companies become more customer centric. I think UGC is a hub of this change. It is the raw, authentic, relevant and credible voice of the customer that not only can power more effective marketing, but change a company culture. I’m interested in both, and figured I’d learn more and invent more of this new strategy working with many of the Fortune 500 brands rather than just being inside of one.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Sam: I really appreciate you taking a moment to talk to me about user generated content and a few of the benefits to using consumer product rating and reviews as a way to increase rank, conversions, awareness and brand credibility. Thanks for shedding more light on SyndicateVoice, a product I have personally been interested in learning more about and information about Bazaar products our readers can use.

Feel free to use us in the future as a reporting tool for any new product or feature releases. Thanks again for the great insights.

About Sam Decker: Sam is a recognized expert in eCommerce, word of mouth, and direct marketing. A frequent speaker at marketing and eCommerce events and author of an award-winning marketing blog (www.deckermarketing.com), Decker brings 14 years of marketing and online retailing experience to Bazaarvoice. As Chief Marketing Officer he is responsible for leading Bazaarvoice corporate marketing, PR and product strategy.

PayPal’s School Shopping Portal:

PayPal’s new portal features special school shopping deals from a variety of brand name merchants including Dell, HP, Alienware, Newegg.com, Barnes & Noble Books, Northwest Airlines and many more. PayPal is targeting both boys and girls with products designed to appeal to students from all different grade levels ranging from elementary school, middle school, high school and college.

Instant Win Game:

PayPal is also offering students and users who visit the portal a chance to win thousands of prizes and even an opportunity to walk away with $10,000.00 in cash (other prizes include a PS3, MacBook Pro and two airline tickets). The instant win game is a flash style card flip where you enter your email address including security characters and follow the instructions on the screen to see if you won. If a prize is revealed you win, if there is no prize revealed it’s not a win. The official rules are on the PayPal Instant Win Game page.

The Promotion begins at 2:00:01 PM Pacific Time (PT) on August 7, 2007 and ends 11:59:59 PM PT on September 5, 2007 (the “Promotion Period”). There will be 2,437 Instant Win prizes (“Instant Win prizes”) awarded throughout the Promotion Period and one (1) prize (“Random Drawing Sweepstakes prize”) awarded in a random drawing at the end of the Promotion Period. Limit one (1) instant win prize per person.

Students Provide Feedback:

Another unique idea for PayPal’s campaign is their Meet the Students section, where students spoke via a survey with PayPal about shopping for back to school products. They surveyed 1500 college students, high school students and parents from June 27th, 2007 to July 10th, 2007. It’s basically testimonials and user-reviews from students about back-to-school shopping.

Here’s what some of them had to say…

Online is a great way to shop – 80% of college students and 43% of high school students say they will shop online for back to school. Popular items? Clothes, shoes electronics.

Everyone needs clothes – 74% of high-school students call clothing a back-to-school “must-have.” The boys like their clothes baggy, while the girls favor a form-fitting look.

Electronics are hot – 50% of college students and 30% of high-school students put electronics at the top of their shopping lists. iPods and laptops are the most popular items.

There’s no doubt that back-to-school shopping season is in full force now. Son it will end and eTailers will prepare for the holiday shopping season. Can’t wait to see what kind of unique ideas and different marketing promotioins some of the major eTailers come up for this years holiday season. If thee back-to-school shopping season is an indication of what’s to come, we will be in for a nice treat. Happy school shopping all, hope you like PayPal’s portal, powered by TheFind.com.

PayPal’s shopping list search results are powered by TheFind.com! Our discovery shopping engine lets you find products, and compare prices from the most comprehensive set of stores online. Our goal is to help shoppers find the best products online and to make online shopping easy.

ThisNext, a social shopping network, recently announced the release of their new shopping activity map powered by Google Maps, called ThisWorld. The Google Maps mashup is designed to show shoppers who’s looking at what Online worldwide, in real time, and hot items people are shopping for in the world.

I had a chance to play around with the new ThisWorld activity map for awhile last night and let me tell you, it is a really cool shopping tool.

As soon as you get to the map, it shows you what products someone just discovered and where in the world they are located. You can click on the map hover and it takes you into ThisNext so you can discover the same products as others from ThisWorld. For instance, I saw that “A visitor in San Lorenzo viewed a Development Leather Jacket 3 min ago.” Roughly every 3 or 4 seconds a different discovery across the world rotates through countries, states/provinces and cities in real time.

Along the bottom of the screen they display random products that have also been recently discovered by shoppers somewhere in the world. The only annoyance is that the map loads really slowly half of the time, so it’s not exactly fast to use, but it certainly makes impulse shopping visually appealing and fun.

The new shopping activity map is a great addition to the social shopping tools that ThisNext offers their users. I have been a fan of their Shopcasting widgets since the day they launched. They also run a social shopping blog.

On a side note, if anyone from ThisNext happens to read this, maybe you can clear something up for me about your blog url structuring?

I see you link to your blog from ThisNext.com and the url points to sub-domain http://blog.thisnext.com/. Once you land on the blog itself, there is another link, on the top left sidebar, where the url points to http://blog.thisnext.com/blog/. In addition, all the blog posts use the second /blog/ directory within the urls too. Why would you use a sub-domain and a sub-directory and name them the same? If it were me, and you wanted to keep a blog sub-directory, I would have named it something like /articles/, /guides/, /shopping/, anything other than the same as your sub-domain. Better yet, you could have just used one or the other (either a sub-domain and no sub-directory or vice versa). So, if anyone from ThisNext could clarify the blog url thing, that would be much appreciated, just wondering your thought process behind that structure.

ThisNext is Featured as one of the social shopping networks on our Product Listing Guide!

Walmart has started their own Facebook Group, called Roommate Style Match, for college students. The Facebook Group is meant to target college students for the upcoming back-to-school season. Walmart hopes that by promoting their products through Facebook’s social media site that it will help to bring in more business from younger consumers for this years school season and back-to-school shopping in the future.

According to a study conducted last year by the National Retail Federation, the average first-year college student spent $1,112.62, mainly on electronics and home furnishings.

The Roomate Style Match Group launched on Wednesday and is due to stay active through the end of October. Users who have joined the new group simply take a brief quiz to determine their decorating style, get a list of Walmart recommended products and then they can buy those items at Walmart to mesh their own unique style with their roommate’s style. Group members can also download a shopping list of dorm room products sold at Walmart stores or Walmart.com and link to Walmart’s earth-friendly items.

We realize that this is an audience that we need to be talking to, and that this is a channel we need to be on. Facebook has 34 million active users, which it defines as users who have logged on in the past month, and he said approximately 40 percent of its users are in college.

Back-to-school shopping begins in the summer months so retailers like Walmart are bulking up for this years school shopping season in BIG new ways. It has been reported that many eTailers fear that higher gas and grocery prices may affect this years school shopping season and cause students or parents to shop less locally and buy fewer items than in years past.

The new Facebook Group launches just a month after Walmart announced their new Site to Store program aimed at users who want to purchase Online and pick up their items in a Walmart store a no additional cost to the consumer. Walmart representatives expect to see a lot more students buy their back-to-school products in Walmart stores, on Walmart.com and through their Site to Store program due to the Roommate Style Match campaign and other marketing campaigns aimed at back-to-school students.

Makes me wonder when other major retailers will join in on the Facebook fun? Target, Dell, Macys, they could all learn a thing or two from Walmart.

Buy.com introduced it’s new Facebook application for auction based sellers called Garage Sale. The announcement came a few days ago via the Buy.com Press Release. The new auction application is designed to let Facebook users run auctions and sell products from their business and social networking Facebook pages.

Garage Sale allows consumers to become personal online retailers using the backing of a major Internet company like Buy.com. With this embedded e-commerce capability, we see tremendous growth opportunities in providing the millions of users on business and social networks with an alternative to eBay and the ability to transform their personal profile pages beyond information-sharing.

Now, Facebook users can sell products and consumers can buy goods directly from the users profile page. Buyers won’t ever have to leave the page to complete their purchase and payment transaction. Garage Sale consumers no longer need to pay listing charges associated with online auction sites, and they can take advantage of significantly lower individual transaction fees.

Current Facebook users can add the Garage Sale widget to their pages from Facebook’s application suite. Users then upload necessary product information, including photos and begin selling on their profile pages using Garage Sale’s secure transaction capability. Right now, the Garage Sale application is only available to Facebook users, however, Buy.com plans to expand the service to users on other social networks in the near future.

To help Garage Sale users promote product sales, Buy.com is adding a special tab which will provide a complete marketplace for independent sellers to utilize Buy.com’s shopping marketplace and product platform.

The Garage Sale platform is based on patent-pending, embedded, e-commerce technology that Buy.com acquired earlier this year from Shoperion Inc. Buy.com also will use the Shoperion technology to enhance Buy.com�s advertising on third-party sites with the addition of checkout functionality incorporated directly within the advertisement.

That’s why it didn’t surprise me one bit to hear that at least one savvy marketing company has now found a way to automate electronic billboards using Web-based software to create, upload and edit any of the billboard images, any time, giving full control to the advertiser. The marketing company and software creators also offer ongoing technical support and software assistance for around the same monthly cost as non-electronic billboards, that are not managed by software.

Many Online advertisers forget about more traditional forms of marketing like billboards and print ads and typical Offline advertisers are not used to harnessing the power of technology and the Web within their campaigns. So what happens when these two worlds collide? It means a whole new form of mixed Online and Offline advertising that utilizes the power of the Web and billboard advertising space.

The article I read reports that NY-based marketing agency, Advertising Advantage, is one of the first of it’s kind to launch this type of advertising program and it looks like to be going well for a number of the advertisers who have participated. One such advertiser, Dahlkemper’s Jewelry Connection, uses Advertising Advantage’s Web-based electronic billboard program to help promote their brick-and-mortar/website jewelry business. Dahlkemper’s has one retail location in Erie, PA which is managed and maintained by it’s two founders, Ed and Christine Dahlkemper.

The Dahlkempers use Advertising Advantage to help gather, create, and maintain all the necessary image files for the jewelry products, special announcements, sales and the store’s brand name. Once the image files are prepared, Advertising Advantage uploads all the files to a special Web-based software that manages ad content on Advertising Advantage’s leased electronic billboards.

People don’t view TV ads as much as they used to, and newspapers are going by the wayside, but when they’re driving in cars, we’re in front of them with billboard ads that change throughout the day.

Watchfire Digital Outdoor, the Web-based software creators, have managed a way to give each billboard it’s own unique IP address. The billboards typically scroll through electronic ads for roughly six advertisers at any given time. Each ad then rotates between the six advertisers and flashes each of the digital images for about 6 to 8 seconds before moving on to the next.

The delivery method and automated system aren’t the only benefits. The Watchfire Digital Outdoor software also gives advertisers total control of their campaigns and surprisingly costs around the same as traditional non-electronic billboard space. Advertisers can insert different ads throughout the course of each day to coincide with other promotions they are running. Either advertisers or their marketing firm has the ability to insert them on the fly through a web browser. The price is based on estimates of how many motorists view the billboards on any given day. The average cost for the advertiser is roughly from $2 to $4 per thousand ad impressions per month. The typical cost to advertise on a traditional non-electronic billboard is about $1,500 to create the image, plus $1,800 to $2,000 per month to rent the billboard space and doesn’t offer the same flexibility to change up campaigns as often. Advertising Advantage states that a typical web-based electronic billboard campaign, including several versions of an ad appearing at different times of day, can cost about $2,000 per month per billboard without any additional design costs.

Currently, there are about 450,000 billboards throughout the U.S. and about 600 to 700 are web-based. Watchfire Digital Outdoor expects to convert 500 or more non-electronic billboards to the web-based system this year alone. Although this is only one form of marketing campaign that has been put in place by Dahlkemper.com, it did help lead them to an increase in sales over the 18 months that they have been using electronic billboards.

We like to be on the cutting edge of advertising technology. The electronic billboard has become an important part of our marketing because of its flexibility and affordable cost.

TheFind is featured as one of the comparison shopping engines in our Product Listing Guide. They are a free shopping engine that lists a wide range of lifestyle products from a variety of Online merchants. Recently, TheFind announced they have officially launched 4, count em’, four new shopping widgets.

The new shopping widgets are designed to reach out and provide direct access to TheFind’s index of roughly 170 million products. Their new widgets, primarily for blog publishers, enable shoppers to perform several tasks using a simple and easy application.

TheFind.com widgets provide bloggers with a content-targeted, comprehensive shopping search tool for their blogs, and opens a whole new way of connecting actionable shopping to blog readers discovering new and innovative things. Because our search index is extremely comprehensive and our unbiased relevance ranking determines the best results, we believe that we are an ideal partner for bloggers wishing to maintain a reader-friendly, editorially unbiased and informative atmosphere. We are excited to offer a revenue earning opportunity that is much more fun, flexible and versatile than traditional banners or text advertisements and in fact, our widgets coexist with existing revenue options adding to the money that can be earned by the bloggers.

The 4 new widgets include …

• Shoplinks Widget: a real estate-neutral tool that enables bloggers to easily monetize all posts about products by linking directly to TheFind’s product search results.
• Search Widget: a shopping search box that sits on a blogger’s site, and allows readers to directly search for products on TheFind.
• FindIt Widget: a pre-populated search link that can be added by the blogger to posts, and is especially useful alongside product images.
• Marketplace Widget: an instant marketplace of category-specific product search links, which the bloggers themselves can customize.

All the blog widgets are meant to provide unique methods to quickly add ‘drop and go’ shopping search functionality to any site or blog. The revenue from ad placements is shared with site/blog publishers, based upon the number of page views and click-outs driven from the site.

Learn more about TheFind Partner Program or fill out this form to sign up.

Brief Overview & Article Motivation:

It’s no surprise that user generated content (UGC) sites are popping up all over the place within many different Online markets and sub-cultures. Currently we are even beginning to see some SEO/SEM communities jump on the UGC bandwagon, hoping to leverage the power it offers within their own reader communities.

Two such sites that come to mind right away are Rand’s UGC site YOUmoz (launched early Feb. 2007) and Danny’s UGC site Sphinn (launched early July 2007).

Normally, I would comment here on the current debate we are seeing over the launch of Sphinn, however this post is more about what UGC has to offer SEO/SEM site publishers and what those publishers can expect to gain and/or lose from creating a site section for their readers to contribute to.

I became motivated to write this based on my own experiences using UGC sites like YOUmoz and Sphinn and I wanted a chance to hear first hand from the founders what they thought and what others could potentially expect. I originally planned on making this a group interview with 5 influential members of the marketing community, but unfortunately I couldn’t get their answers back in time or they weren’t available to answer the questions at all (sucks, but life goes on).

I am pleased to announce though, that Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz was kind enough to share his insights about UGC and new social SEO communities, so for now this will be a one-on-one rather than group style interview. If Danny and the others I asked to contribute end up sending me their answers, I will post them on a completely new page dedicated to them (since Rand got his own page, I might as well offer it to the rest of you guys, hint hint).

Rand has successfully launched and managed YOUmoz, SEOmoz’s user generated content section, for nearly 6 months. Check out the interview below to see what he thinks about UGC and social SEO communities and the effects they have on our industry as a whole.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz Founder, Answers 10 Questions About UGC & Social SEO:

What, in your opinion, has led to the emerging trend of user generated content and it’s appeal to both search engines and readers?

UGC had a home on the web ever since it began – in the form of forum posts and usenet discussions, etc. The appeal to search engines comes from the massive diversity of content (and targeting of the long tail) as well as an inherent draw of links – people who are participators on the web are likely to link to the contributions they make, thus empowering the UGC portals.

What place, if any, does user generated content have within the SEO world today?

It occupies the same high position it always has – the content is free for the publisher to create (once the community is large enough), the targeting hits lots of keyword terms, particularly in the long tail and, as I noted above, it attracts natural links from many sources. It remains an SEO goldmine, and I suspect that trend will only continue over time.

What value do user generated SEO topic communities have for industry professionals?

I think there’s a great opportunity to learn a lot about the dynamics of the industry at the major SEO forums. I sometimes lament the lack of true insight at those portals – there’s a lot of misinformation that floats around them and it can be tough to sort the wheat from the chaffe.

What value do these SEO topic communities have for non-industry professionals or novice readers?

It’s a chance to at least get started in the industry – find some folks you respect and learn from them. You can also post lots of questions, but don’t always expect to get a straight answer – you need to think very critically and judge the information you receive carefully.

How popular do you think these types of niche social communities will become in the future?

In SEO specifically? Probably the same as they have been for the last few years – communities will come and go, rise and fall, and a few will remain relevant and valuable over the long haul.

Do you see user generated SEO topic sites like YOUMoz and Sphinn replacing traditional discussion forums like SEW and SERoundtable?

Potentially… But neither of those are true replacements for a community-style discussion forum.

What are some of the ways these sites can reach out to more users and gain additional exposure beyond already having a reader community established?

If you can build a small group of very passionate users and encourage them to contribute frequently, you can build up a very good community that will attract others. Having just 10-15 people who are constantly adding new, valuable material can spark something exciting.

Do you expect to see user generated SEO topic video and streaming media sites emerge any time soon?

I expect to see someone try it, but I think the subject matter is too niche to make it valuable.

What benefits could an owner of one of these sites expect to see by launching one in their own reader community?

I assume you mean video/streaming media? As I noted above, I don’t feel that you could attract great value with it.

What topics are the most interesting for you to read on user generated SEO sites, or which ones would you like to see more articles about?

I love to read about spam, penalties, black hat tactics and anything that gives a deeper look into how the engines deal with manipulative practices.

YOUmoz User Generated Content:

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out YOUmoz over at SEOmoz.org. It’s a great place to gain exposure in the blogosphere and among other industry professionals. Rand and the Superhuman SEOmoz Staff (SSS) have done a wonderful job of keeping the content clean and making sure users have all the nifty little tools in place to help them write and create informative, attractive looking posts.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

I am really excited to start using more UGC and social SEO communities now that we have some solid choices from top-notch search marketers. It already feels like many hours throughout my days are spent watching for new posts on YOUmoz or scouting the front page of Sphinn. By the way, I didn’t ask Rand to share too much about Sphinn in the interview since he already wrote about it. To see Rand’s thoughts on Sphinn specifically, visit his post … Sphinn – The Social News Site Every Search Marketer Should Be Using.

To Rand: I wanted to personally thank you for the interview and all the insights you have shared with our industry over the years. I have learned so much from you and others by just being a part of this wonderful world of search marketing!

To the readers: Thanks for taking the time to read this interview. We will try to bring you more unique interviews like it in the future.

It is the No. 1 customer-requested feature. We are not planning any specific sales acceleration as a result of launching this feature. But one could expect that providing our customers with the No. 1 requested feature and something that connects 130 million people to each other has got to accrue benefits.

Walmart hopes that the new rating and reviews will help to increase customer loyalty and encourage shoppers to visit Walmart.com more often. Another interesting unique idea they have is to allow interaction between customers and use the review data to help make decisions on which products Walmart sells in it’s many retail stores. To me, that would be a great idea. Get more of what the CUSTOMERS want, not what manufacturers are pushing towards the shelves.

How to Rate a Product on Walmart.com:

• Go to any product page and click “rate or review this product.”
• Sign in or create and account if you haven’t already done so.
• Rate the product, write your review and submit it for inclusion.

All Walmart reviews are screened and will post on the site with 5-7 days from the time it’s submitted.

Walmart Site to Store Feature:

Walmart has really been rolling out the features lately. The customer ratings and reviews is the second major feature Walmart has released within the past three weeks. Recently, they also launched their long awaited Site to Store feature, which allows customers to order products on Walmart.com and have them shipped to any local Walmart store for free.

Are these new applications and tools the wave of the future and buying Online?

Will shopping gadgets and transactional banners soon be replacing traditional carts?

What effect will shopping applications and social networking tools have on eCommerce?

Today we are going to talk about two new shopping services that are quickly creating tons of buzz and raising many questions in the industry. The first is a completely new way to shop Online straight from third party banner advertisements (yeah, you don’t even have to visit the site that sells the actual item you are buying) and the second is a new shopping gadget by Google that allows you to buy from Google Checkout stores.

We will start by introducing the new services and then go into answering the three questions above.

Tailgate Transactional Banners

Tailgate has recently released their new Transactional Banners at Gettailgate.com/en/. The banners allow shoppers to browse and buy products directly from third party sites which the banners are displayed. It basically lets any customer buy from you without having to visit the site itself, they simply browse and buy straight from the banner ad itself or any other advertisement in your campaign. The feature is a great way to extend your customer reach and branch out to allow your customers to buy from you in more places on the Web.

The example below outlines the transactional banner purchase process in 5 steps. There are multiple ad layouts and advertisers have quite a bit of control over the look and feel, content and buying process. Let’s take a look shall we?

Step #1 – Product or Service Advertisement

Step #2 – Add Item To Buy

Step #3 – Enter Payment Details

Step #4 – Enter Personal Details

Step #5 – Confirm Order

Google Shopping Gadget

Google has recently released a new iGoogle shopping Gadget called Shop With Google Checkout. The new Gadget allows users to shop for items from stores that offer Google Checkout as a payment option. It features top 10 product lists and displays the items for users to browse and potentially buy. Shop With Google Checkout is updated daily with new lists of items for shoppers to browse and make purchases from.

If you would like to offer feedback to Google about the new gadget simply email: checkout-gadget-feedback@google.com

Are these new applications and tools the wave of the future and buying Online?

It would certainly appear that services like the transactional banners and shopping widgets could give traditional eCommerce a run for it’s money in the future, but there are many hurdles that still have to be overcome by the developers who create and distribute these new shopping apps. For one, people are used to buying in a certain way Online and to all of a sudden upset that comfortable feeling they have when shopping from sites would be a difficult habit to break. eCommerce has been around long enough for users to get used to certain constants when shopping Online. If we were to interrupt that process now it may set us back in the long run. I think that there will be more releases of these types of tools in the future, but we are still a long way from shopping solely on applications like the two discussed above.

Will shopping gadgets and transactional banners soon be replacing traditional carts?

It is safe to say that it would be highly unlikely for us to see transactional banners and shopping gadgets replacing traditional checkout processes soon. Other than the reasons mentioned above, it would be hard for these applications to catch on fast enough to replace our current shopping and checkout processes. Out of the two, I would say Widgets have the best chance of replacing traditional carts, but I wouldn’t even go as far as saying, “replace.” It will be more like how we use CSE’s rather than an entire replacement, meaning that widgets will be a part of Online selling strategy rather than the entire strategy. I would be willing to bet that merchants could make a fair penny off selling through widgets, however it shouldn’t be something you consider as a replacement at this time.

I have a hard time believing that transactional banners will have a solid place in the industry as far as customers making purchases. The age of the banner is long gone, in my opinion, and I can’t see it making a come back anytime soon. There is kind of a stigma associated with banners and I don’t think users will be able to trust entering in their personal information over a third party sites banner for another product or service. This may be something that gets more popular as security measures improve, but as far as replacing traditional carts, we will not see it happen in the near future.

What effect will shopping applications and social networking tools have on eCommerce?

As I stated above, I believe that shopping widgets and transactional banners should be used more as an alternative listing environment rather than be your whole strategy. Merchants interesting in selling through these applications should consider using Google Checkout as a payment method to take advantage of all the places Google puts those stores and all the ways they help to cross-promote Checkout enabled products.

Merchants interested in using transactional banners should consider how much revenue they have made of banner impressions in the past for the products they offer for purchase. If you have used banners as a large part of your strategy before, and it has been successful, you may want to consider trying transactional banners within your strategy. Remember, whether you are considering one, the other or both, just be sure you do not rely solely on those types of selling environments to generate you millions in revenue over a year (at least not at this time). In the future, we may see this trend become more of an important aspect of selling Online, however now I think it’s just too early to make a HUGE impact on the industry like some have speculated.

Further insights and reading on these two new services can be found below …

• Google to Shake up SEO with eCommerce Gadget
• Google Launches Gadget Featuring Checkout Listings
• Tailgate: Fully Transactional Web 2.0 Banners
• Tailgate to Offer Fully Interactive Banners