eCommerce Articles, Industry News & Trends | eCommerce, Marketing, Design Articles » Latest Trends

eCommerce Ideas: Using Live Product Links Within Videos & Product Demos

eCopt — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:20:56 +0000

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.
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eCommerce Ideas: Using Creative Linkbait & Engaging Customers At The Same Time

eCopt — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:48:53 +0000

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.
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Applications Make Unsubscribing From Catalogs Easier: Is Catalog Marketing Done For?

eCopt — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:20:42 +0000

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.
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TheFind Launches Local Search Capability With In-Store Availibility & Maps

eCopt — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:21:38 +0000

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.
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New PayPal Storefront Widget Beta by PayPal Labs

eCopt — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:55:21 +0000

A few weeks ago we posted about the new PayPal Labs program and widgets for Facebook and MySpace. Yesterday, PayPal officially launched their Storefront Widget Beta. These widgets allow users to embed virtual PayPal storefronts into blogs, sites, social profiles and anywhere else where HTML can be embedded in the code.

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).
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PayPal Labs: Facebook, MySpace & Merchant Integration Wizard

eCopt — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:49:57 +0000

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.

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The Holiday Toy List by Amazon Makes Toy Shopping Easy This Holiday Season

eCopt — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:16:02 +0000

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.
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ShopLocal Goes Social By Adding Networking Capabilities

eCopt — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:20:37 +0000

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.
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Pronto.com Becomes First Comparison Engine to Offer Social Shopping

eCopt — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:06:34 +0000

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.
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Lemonade Social Shopping & eCommerce for Everyone Goes Live

eCopt — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:32:27 +0000

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.
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Interview: Sam Decker of Bazaarvoice Talks About UGC & SyndicateVoice

eCopt — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:01:14 +0000

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.
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PayPal’s Back to School Shopping Promo Powered by TheFind

eCopt — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:54:43 +0000

This time of year many eTailers begin preparing for the school shopping season. We posted about Walmart’s back-to-school promotion using their Facebook Group a few days ago, however Walmart isn’t the only major eCommerce entity who realizes the potential for Online sales during the school shopping season. Paypal is also getting ready for the back-to-school shopping season and recently announced the launch of a their new back-to-school shopping portal, powered by TheFind.com.

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ThisWorld by ThisNext: Shopping Activity Map Powered by Google Maps

eCopt — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:50:50 +0000

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.
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Walmart Uses Facebook For Back to School Shopping Promotion

eCopt — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:54:04 +0000

We have been seeing quite a bit lately surrounding Walmart’s new marketing efforts both Online and off (Consumer reviews and Site to Store program).

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.

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Buy.com’s New Facebook Auction Application: Garage Sale

eCopt — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:29:28 +0000

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.

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Offline Marketing Using Web Based Electronic Billboards

eCopt — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:46:07 +0000

It always amazes me to see some of the creative ideas companies come up with to make better use of technology and the Web within their Offline or traditional advertising campaigns. Streamlining or automating any of your company processes, whether Online or Off, can save any business owner big bucks over time (allows for less employees on the payroll, saves time, easier to use, etc).

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.
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TheFind Launches Blog Monetization & Four New Shopping Widgets

eCopt — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:07:42 +0000

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.
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Interview: Rand Fishkin About UGC & Social SEO Communities

eCopt — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:43:12 +0000

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).
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Walmart Implements Number One Requested Feature: Consumer Ratings & Reviews

eCopt — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:18:54 +0000

Due to high customer demand and repeated requests, Walmart recently announced that they would be implementing a new Online shopping feature for their customers and other consumers to rate and review products sold through Walmart.com. This move comes as no surprise to those of us who keep tabs on these new eCommerce trends as they become more used and more requested by consumers who shop Online and merchants who hope to create a better user experience.
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Shopping Gadgets & Transactional Banners: Is This The End Of Traditional Carts?

eCopt — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:11:58 +0000

The age of Web 2.0 and social media has really begun to take full effect in the eCommerce realm lately, especially with the many releases of new applications, widgets, gadgets and other unique tools that are helping to shape the new world of eCommerce and shopping Online. As we take a deeper look into two of these new shopping applications, we will attempt to find answers to the following three questions …

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.
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eCommerce Articles, Industry News & Trends | eCommerce, Marketing, Design Articles » Latest Trends

eCommerce Ideas: Using Live Product Links Within Videos & Product Demos

eCommerce Ideas: Using Creative Linkbait & Engaging Customers At The Same Time

Applications Make Unsubscribing From Catalogs Easier: Is Catalog Marketing Done For?

TheFind Launches Local Search Capability With In-Store Availibility & Maps

New PayPal Storefront Widget Beta by PayPal Labs

PayPal Labs: Facebook, MySpace & Merchant Integration Wizard

The Holiday Toy List by Amazon Makes Toy Shopping Easy This Holiday Season

ShopLocal Goes Social By Adding Networking Capabilities

Pronto.com Becomes First Comparison Engine to Offer Social Shopping

Lemonade Social Shopping & eCommerce for Everyone Goes Live

Interview: Sam Decker of Bazaarvoice Talks About UGC & SyndicateVoice

PayPal’s Back to School Shopping Promo Powered by TheFind

ThisWorld by ThisNext: Shopping Activity Map Powered by Google Maps

Walmart Uses Facebook For Back to School Shopping Promotion

Buy.com’s New Facebook Auction Application: Garage Sale

Offline Marketing Using Web Based Electronic Billboards

TheFind Launches Blog Monetization & Four New Shopping Widgets

Interview: Rand Fishkin About UGC & Social SEO Communities

Brief Overview & Article Motivation:

Walmart Implements Number One Requested Feature: Consumer Ratings & Reviews

Shopping Gadgets & Transactional Banners: Is This The End Of Traditional Carts?