Thankfully, this isn’t as hard as one might think. Thanks to the proliferation of programs that let you build your own website without knowing code, many eBusiness owners are building websites that may look nice, but load slowly. All it takes is a businessperson with the willingness to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the basics of website performance to optimize their site and make it load faster than those competitors relying on computers to put their sites code together. And so, since you are one of those willing business owners, lets talk about -

Things to remember when making your website faster:

• Simplify, simplify
• Learn the Technology, and keep up with it
• Appearances count

Keeping It Simple.

It is an unassailable fact that websites take time to load, especially the first time someone visits it, before it has been cached in their system. And since some security-concerned consumers won’t even cache their websites, it make sense for an eBusiness owner to be sure their website loads fast, while still getting all the necessary information into their front end. While there are many ways to optimize your website, one of the simplest ways any owner can make their site load faster is to make sure that your page is simple, but effective.

I know you’ve spent a lot of time designing that alluring front end – after all, we already discussed the importance of User Experience, but a good business owner should remember that its easy to clutter up the storefront windows with too much stuff. If consumers have to wait to window shop, it won’t matter how nice the experience is. If you find your website is loading too slowly, consider cutting some big images, or just combining several image requests into one big image. Or, even better, remember to keep it simple when you design the user experience itself.

Keeping Up With Technology

“Once you’ve been coding for a while, you begin to take something for granted.”

-Jeffrey Way

Sadly, even those of us who don’t mind mucking about in coding can find ourselves falling prey to a much more difficult problem than keeping it simple. We can slip into patterns and habits that mean we lose track of how the world is moving around us, and therefore fall behind. This complacency can be costly in the world of technology, and even if you’re a small business owner who has hired someone to do your coding for you, it makes sense for you to know the technology, just to make sure your website is as fast as it could be. After all, there’s no guarantee that this business will be as important to your webmaster as it is to you, so you should make sure that you have a practical knowledge of things like HTML5 and CSS scripts (or even useful add ons), even if it isn’t a working knowledge, so that when you ask your webmaster why the page is loading slowly, your eyes won’t glaze over under an assault of technobabble. Knowledge is power, and while learning code may be too much to pile upon your other responsibilities, you should know when there are better ways to make nice windows for your storefront, since better windows give a better view of your product, which is what you want, right?

Keeping Up Appearances

And speaking of windows, there’s an important fact to remember about the internet – one that can’t be stressed enough. Appearances matter, and a page that looks like it’s loading faster can sometimes be every bit as effective as one that actually does load quickly. Clean windows are as good as really advanced windows when properly presented, and a consumer that feels like the site has improved will feel catered to. It shows them that you really care, which is good for business/consumer relations. So remember, if you really can’t part with your new, hard won UX design, a little reorganization of the HTML can make it appear to load faster without cutting anything. And be careful using automated webpage designers, as they rarely use efficient code.

All in all, it’s important to remember that, as a small business owner, your website is your responsibility. Having one that loads fast reflects well on you. Whether you code it yourself, hire a webmaster, or use an off the shelf program, you should know enough about emerging trends to keep up with the technology. Knowledge is power and will keep you from falling behind, getting fooled, or just having a slow website (no matter how well designed). So make sure to keep the windows clean, sweep the floors, and we’ll see you next time!

So here you are, the dedicated eCommerce operator, and after having invested a great deal of time into designing your online store, you notice that it still doesn’t look quite right. You can’t put your finger on it – after all, you designed a website that any consumer would want to visit, one that is open and honest and friendly, and still demonstrates to the customer why they should buy your products. If it feels like you have the general concepts of design down, but would like to get into the specifics, it may be time for some discussion about advanced user experience.

Psychology and User Experience Design
are by nature highly intertwined fields.

-Catriona Cornett

User experience experts know that connecting with your audience improves conversions. But one of the most difficult things about maintaining a storefront in the world of eCommerce is that the internet, by its nature, is an ever changing beast. After all, the world of the internet fifteen, ten, even five years ago is very different than the world of the internet today – not only because of drastically increased modem speeds, which allow websites to be designed with a lot more information, but also because common computer requirements like monitors have become bigger and better, allowing the clever eCommerce merchant to design a much more vibrant storefront than was previously possible. In order to keep conversions high, but costs low, eCommerce operators need to design compelling websites that don’t need to be updated often, striving for a sense of timelessness that can be easily adapted.

Towards that end, in this article we’re going to discuss:

• Simplicity
• Sliders (and Fly Out menus)
• Search

Simplicity:

As monitors have grown over the years, one of the things many website designers have overlooked is the switch from 4:3 and 5:4 aspect ratios to the more film-like 16:9 (those of you who understand fractions may be wondering how 4:3 is different from 16:9). The fact is, more than fifty percent of home computer owners have upgraded their monitors to wide-screen, a fact that an eCommerce website could use to eliminate one of the most common annoyances of the internet age – the scroll bar. While in many cases a scroll bar may be unavoidable (one of the major instances of this are in articles, or anything with a long list of comments), but if your goal is to get your storefront right up in front of the customer, designing for a rectangle instead of a square – and therefore avoiding the pillarbox look – can help make sure that nothing is hidden off page from the customer. And as we’ve discussed before, customers love the ability to take in as much information as possible at a glance.

Sliders (and Fly Out menus):

That being said, there is a constant war between presenting as much information as possible, and avoiding the clutter that comes when your website has more information than can be displayed on one page. Using fly out sidebars to replace the pillars that once dominated the sides of your website can allow you to present broad categories that slowly become more and more specific, allowing the customer to find exactly what they’re looking for, without losing that link to your main page. Sliders work in a similar fashion, allowing you to display a great deal of enticing information without having to cram the main page with pictures and details, especially when that space is better used making the page easier to navigate, instead of cluttered, since negative space is just as an important consideration of design as what you fill the pages with.

Search:

However, you can’t put everything into a slider or a fly out menu, or rather, you shouldn’t. An eternal list of drop down and fly out menus can become annoying in a completely different way than clutter, so there is a point of diminishing returns for your categories, before you just have to let them navigate to a new page. But there will always be a segment of consumers who know exactly what they want, and are only interested in checking your prices and comparing your deals against your competitors. For this sort of customer (whom it is every bit as important to keep happy as the browsers, maybe more so), your website needs the internet equivalent of an index – the search bar. Thankfully, you have many options for adding a search bar, all of which allow you to maintain website simplicity, without sacrificing product variety.

As you can see, despite the constant threat of Moore’s Law and it’s effects on computers, there are some ways you can adjust your website in order to remain timeless. Even if the technical aspects of these ideas change, a website that stays simple, avoids clutter, and allows people to search it will never go out of style, at least in its skeletal form. So get out there, and keep the people happy, so they keep coming back!

Over the years, as the world wide web has grown, it has come to encompass many aspects of a users life. While once it was used for nothing more than sending email between friends, making the rare purchase of an exotic, hard to find item, or venturing into a chat room, there are now billions of ways for people to spend their time online, including one of the more recent, but important, considerations for an eCommerce operator – social media.

Digg, Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feeds, Blogs, even YouTube, are just some of the sites people have used to turn what was once a sea of people looking for connections over the internet  into a community. It’s a paradigm shift in the way we view our social connections, which are no longer limited by geography, time zones, long distance phone costs, or even simultaneous interaction. This is a realm every eCommerce website owner should take some time to understand because, at its heart, it is the feeling you’ve been trying to cultivate – the trusted neighborhood businessperson who’s open 24/7. Making yourself a part of the communities customers already participate in can help with that. Doing so may include incorporating viral marketing, more hits, and occasionally conversions from demographics you may not have even considered. But be careful. Every strategy has its risks, and the last thing you want is for the community to turn on you.

To avoid unwanted scenarios, in addition to being careful, you should also:

• Be Coherent
• Be Consistent
• Be Considerate

Be Coherent:

Twitter, while an excellent source for posting quick snippets of information, has some severe limitations on word count (less than some texts in fact). If you plan on operating a Twitter feed, you must consider it from a very different perspective than your blog or Facebook entries. As always, text must be clear and engaging – make sure your Tweets say what need to be said, despite the word limitations. Also, remember that business blogs are different from personal blogs, even when that’s what they’re masquerading as. Unlike personal blogs, business blogs are not a place for the business owners to ramble on about the minutiae of their lives; they are a way to allow your customers to see what you’re like, as if they stood across a counter from you every day and chatted. The online presentation of your personal life should draw from reality, but shouldn’t be any more realistic than those 70′s sitcoms about 50′s lifestyle. Present an idealized view of the company owners and employees, in order to demonstrate to the internet why your eCommerce business should be their Arnold’s.

Be Consistent:

Once you’ve established a coherent and concise posting strategy, stick to it! Establish a pattern in your posting, and make sure that once you being to post regularly, you continue at that pace, since it does not take very long to establish an expectation in your fans. For some eCommerce merchants, especially the early days of entirely web based businesses, like web-comics, there was nothing more important than consistency. Consistency is what establishes loyalty. Unless you are offering some sort of radically creative method of engagement, it’s far more likely that people will keep coming back if they know when you’re posting and can set a schedule around it. Whether it be their coffee breaks at work, or when they get up in the morning on certain days, or even just when they check their RSS feeds, people like to fit certain activities into a routine.

However, also keep in mind that you should share some sort of consistency across channels. A company that has a philosophical disconnect within its own content sends out the wrong message to the global community, and should be avoided at all costs. When designing the initial stages of your social media push, make sure that they all share a voice, the “voice of the company“,  as it were. This can be the difference between presenting a company that feels like the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, and presenting a united front that inspires confidence.

Be Considerate:

Continuing on that thought (but taking it in a slightly different direction): if you’re going to start up a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, and a blog, remember that while consistency is important, it is possible to drive people away with an overabundance of posts. This is especially true if your post count isn’t proportionate to what you have to say. If you really want to start a blog, but don’t know if you can engage a worldwide audience three times a week, then don’t initially. Instead aim for twice a week, or once a week, or once a fortnight. Once you establish a schedule, fans will feel rewarded if you later increase your post rate. Keep in mind, though, if you decrease your post rate, you risk losing followers, each of which is a small potential source of word of mouth and viral marketing. Perhaps even more important than setting a schedule you can keep, is to avoid making people feel like you’re recycling content. People are far more willing to forgive late content that’s good, than content that feels like its wasting their time. So if you post something to your Twitter feed, make sure you don’t try to pass it off as new content in a Facebook status update. Your fans, followers, and customers will not appreciate this, especially if they subscribe to you in multiple locations, only to get repeats of the same news over and over again. And worse, they might find it insulting and wonder why you didn’t think they would notice. Insulting your fan base is the last thing an eCommerce merchant wants to do.

Don’t let these warnings scare you off. The world is growing closer, thanks to the community of social media, and all it takes is someone willing to put in the effort to turn this to their advantage. Maybe make some tests runs first – start a personal blog before you add one to your website. Read the popular Twitter feeds, check trending content, or look at the most popular fan pages on Facebook before you jump in. After all, there’s an entire world of socially connected people out there, just waiting to hear about your business. How are you going to bring it to them?

Yesterday, a new beta site launched offering social and tech-savvy consumers a chance to explore their city (starting in Seattle) in a fun and engaging way.

Wrazz (wrazz.com) is a new site that blends social networking and social commerce allowing friends to connect and find the best deals in their local area.

Wrazz co-founders Bret Eickhoff and Ian Porter are preparing for the launch and building a large and loyal following on Facebook. In partnership with 15,000 local businesses, and offering deals up to 80% off, Wrazz will connect users and offer a new way to plan a night out with friends.

Bret Eickhoff, Co-Founder, Answers A Few Questions About Wrazz

How did you and co-founder Ian Porter come up with the idea for Wrazz.com?

We committed to a brainstorming session once per week about a year ago. Out of many whiteboard sessions, we realized that there were some very cool things happening online (directories, peer to peer social media, online buying, etc.), but we found a lot of inefficiencies in them so we decided to fill the voids.

What makes Wrazz.com different from other social sites?

We bring all business-fed social updates into a single location. Utilizing smart search technology, our users can ask “what do you want to do?” and we will put together the list of all the businesses that match their query and then the user can use the businesses social updates to make their decision on what they want to do.

When putting together a social commerce strategy, what were your biggest priorities?

Our biggest priority is trying to get to our critical mass as soon as possible. And building something that has a lot of relevance to a lot of people, both businesses and consumers.

What were some of the biggest challenges with launching this site? How were you able to overcome them?

We haven’t launched yet, but our biggest challenge will be acquiring users. But we have a sweet plan in place so we don’t think it will be difficult.

How do you plan to quickly acquire users?

We have a number of routes we’re taking for user acquisition. Standard ways such as SEO/CPC/SEM, etc. We have a couple of awesome viral utilities built into the site that will take off. We also have a couple of guerrilla tactics we will employ. We haven’t even launched and we already have 1000 friends on Facebook and over 1500 emails from the website.

How do you plan to keep Wrazz.com interesting and engaging (keep the customers coming back)?

We have already begun developing 2.0 and 3.0 ideas to keep the interest of our users. If we continue to add value, our customers will continue coming back.

What advice would you give to businesses hoping to get involved in social commerce?

Social commerce is in its infancy, but I think it is here to stay. There are so many cool things you can do with it and the growth potential is exponential. There does need to be differentiation, and no one company will be able to do everything.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

I want to thank Bret Eickhoff for answering my questions during what must be a very busy time. Anyone who has launched a website can attest to the challenges involved. With social commerce sites, one of the biggest priorities, as Eickhoff mentions, is getting users and consumers attention and keeping it. I hope the one thing readers can take away from this interview is the importance of planning, not only up to the launch, but well after.

Holistic: The treatment of whole entities as if they, as fundamental components of reality, have an existence other than as the mere sum of their parts.

As you can probably already tell, this post will be dealing with something a little more complicated than just raw data. As a small business owner breaking into eCommerce, you have many things to worry about: your product, your website design, and whether or not you’ll need to hire someone who understands this whole internet thing. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget one of the fundamental attributes about the internet, which is: for most people, the internet is a place to have fun.

So what does this mean for your online business? Well, it can be a potent source of word of mouth advertising, if properly tapped. Many of the people who spend a lot of time on the internet are not your run-of-the-mill folks, and are therefore very aware of traditional media and advertising. Things like adblock, flashblock, and other technologies allow the technologically savvy to only take in the ads they want, which becomes a problem when you’ve shelled out some of your hard earned money for advertising space. So how do you get through to this clever and jaded segment of your consumer base?

It’s not as hard as you think – make your advertising a game, and make your website seem exclusive. This isn’t rocket science, and in fact, the technologies and techniques for doing so are well past their infancy. For example, there are always things like:

Quick Response Codes & ARGs

Quick Response Codes

Quick Response (QR) Codes are a phenomenon that has potential for connecting the real world with your internet storefront in a clever way. What are they? Well, to put it simply, QR Codes are a way to encode a graphical hyperlink on a business card or piece of paper, without having to worry about that clunky “httpcolonslashslashwwwdotXdotcom” nonsense. Although popular in Japan and Europe, they haven’t really caught on in the United States. This may seem like a con, until you consider that your goal is to attract the technologically elite. These are the people who are aware of this trend, and may be frustrated that an idea like this hasn’t caught on among businesses in the U.S., especially when it’s so simple to implement. Sticking a QR Code in the corner of a document instantly signals to those “in the know” that you’re part of the club, which could be that little bit you need to make your company stand out among the crowd – especially if they tell their other technologically savvy friends. The best part is that you don’t need to create it as a special document, just append it to your business cards, brochures etc., or maybe even near your URL. Even if someone isn’t technologically savvy enough to understand, they may ask you what it means – and that will help make sure they’re thinking of your company.

Alternate Reality Games

If QR codes are a more passive way to attract the technologically savvy and perpetually curious, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are the active way. For those who don’t know, an ARG is usually a combination of real life and the web that creates a story. Usually the story is so odd that it sucks people in through sheer curiosity. Although they certainly take a lot more work than QR codes, they offer a much larger time investment for their followers. Additionally, they play into that most fascinating of all human drives, the lure of a payoff. Seeing that your company or product (or even free samples of a product) is the reward for fun and challenging work creates a positive mental link, and will attract customers who want to brag about the experience. Even better, they’ll want to brag about the experience but not the ending, forcing their friends to go through the ARG themselves just to see what’s up. Word of mouth is a very effective form of advertising, since it feels very natural, and while the technologically savvy often hate being pitched to, they usually love being rewarded.

Viral Videos

And speaking of pitching to the technology crowd, it seems prudent to put in a note about avoiding attempts to create your own viral marketing. While not impossible, this is a dangerous route to go on, and you’re much safer simply making normal commercials. The reason for this is that, while the technologically savvy can be great allies in terms of passing along word of mouth, they often have sharp tongues, and a bad attempt to push viral marketing on them can backfire. This creates bad word of mouth and may push customers away. While large companies can soak this cost, a small business might not be able to, so be very careful before you try to create viral video marketing. No one can know what will go viral – but you can know how to create a game.

Some Other Things To Keep In Mind

There’s no doubt that the internet elite are a power force in the online community, although its rare you will see them band together to do anything more than cause havoc. But while the news often prefers to report their more nefarious acts, the fact remains that they have their own forums, often far away from the mainstream, where they actively discuss what is interesting and creative. Now you have some suggestions of fun things that can draw in the technologically savvy consumer, and hopefully have him or her talking about your product long after they’ve been to your website and made a purchase. And while you’re creating these interesting QR Codes and ARGs, don’t forget the simple stuff, like the fact that Google ranks websites differently when they’re in stacks of 100 (which is often how busy searchers organize their pages), and the ease of adding a share button to your website, for those little boots when you get followed or favorited, which is another form of word of mouth. Now, go out there and start figuring out ways to pull in the top tiers of the technoliterate – you’ll be glad you did!

A/B testing, for those of you who aren’t sure, is when you offer the users of your website an option between Choice A and Choice B, and use their preference to help you decide which to use. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well, in some ways, it is. Often, even a simple change can make a drastic difference in how your customers perceive your website, and can lead to dramatic changes in your conversion rates – one of the most important metrics you should be keeping track of. However, one can’t always guarantee that A/B testing will yield such amazing results instantly, so it’s important that we keep a few things in mind when setting up your test:

What To Keep In Mind When A/B Testing:

• A Dramatic Change Is Not Always Necessary.
• Many Small Changes Can Be Made For Tailored Results.
• Don’t Rush The Test – Give It Time To Be Statistically Significant
• Don’t Test For Too Long, Either.

If you keep these simple ideas in mind, your A/B test should be significant, without forcing you to completely redesign your page. After all, if you already worked hard on your user experience, then you’re not necessarily going to need to rip out the whole thing and start over. Instead, you should focus on improving little bits at a time, and remember…

Small Changes Add Up:

Once you have chosen a page, decide on one element that you would like to use as your testing element. Be bold when it comes to your testing element.

- Mark Thompson, Pro Blog Design.

One of the things that every small business owner should remember is that, although change takes time, not every change has to be huge. You may have a great product, you may have a great website, but what separates the eternal small business owner from that future tycoon is the drive to improve. The nice thing about A/B testing is that, although it’s simple to set up, it allows you that most coveted of all business perspectives: the ability to “read the minds” of your customers.

But while A/B testing gives you access to this holy grail of business treasures, it is best to remember that the consumer pool is best absorbed in little bits. After all, if your product is already selling, then it makes little sense to completely rewrite your page copy. The old adage “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” is alive and well in eCommerce.  But, consider where we would be today if people took every chance they had to improve their good ideas. Instead of approaching changes as grand and sweeping, let the ease of A/B testing allow you to focus on making small changes – adding a word or two, tightening up your copy a bit, adding images, better describing features, or all of the above. Figure out which ones your customers really like, and let that drive sales. Bits and pieces add up. Knowing whether your customers prefer a streamlined interface to a page detailing every piece of information about your product or service, can lead to drastic increases. Often times, your personal information may disagree with what intuition, or the experts, say. Additionally, small changes can give you a wealth of information, especially when bolstered by well defined metrics.

It is important to remember, though, that customers can become burned out on A/B testing. While, generally, people like companies that are trying to improve their user experience, it is easy to focus so much on pleasing the “committee“, that you lose your own personal voice and style. There is something insincere about a website that sacrifices its own point of view for only what the consumer wants. You can’t please everyone, and it takes a certain level of confidence to have that defiant point of view. In the end, your personal tone is what separates your site and product from the imitators and what has come before.

So remember: A/B testing gives you a peek into the customers mind, but they’ve come to buy a piece of your mind. Use testing wisely, use it well, but don’t let the customers become burned out on it.

Now, go forth and test. You may be surprised what you discover lurking in your customers’ heads.

Conversion Rate Analytics

There are a couple of answers to this question, most of which are contingent on the goals you set while configuring your analytics. But some of the most important data you need to watch has to do with your conversion rates. What are conversion rates you ask? Well, the conversion rate is the percentage of people who, upon coming to your site, download or purchase your products. This makes conversion rate one of the most telling indicators of how well your website is working, since it is directly related to your ability to sell your ideas. Whether your intentions are to make a profit selling through your online store, or to sell visitors on an idea, getting them to download your brochure, attend your conference or subscribe to your newsletter, conversion rates can tell you how well you’re doing.

Although conversions are not the be all and end all of eCommerce, they are certainly essential data. This is because conversion rate provides you with concrete evidence that your campaign is working (or not), and a general idea of how well it’s doing. After all, knowing our conversion rates before and after you start buying ads on a certain site can allow you to calculate how effective your advertising budget is, and if they go down when you decide to switch your ads to a different site, you’ve acquired yet another bit of hard, useful data. And while there are several reasons why you shouldn’t obsess over conversion rate, with enough micromanagement, it can help you improve the website experience for those who prefer to do their buying on the internet, rather than just research or job hunting.

What Effects Conversions?

However, in the process of not obsessing about it, it helps to remember that there are a number of concerns on your website that might effect conversion rate. It must be remembered that the internet is a land of misclicks and distractions, a factor which once computed in, can provide you with a great deal more confidence in that 2% conversion rate. Keep in mind that sometimes people click accidentally both to your site and away, that some people haven’t figured out tabbed browsing yet, and will use your window to check their back accounts before returning to buy, and that more than ninety percent of conversions happen offline. I know, this can be frustrating for those of you without brick and mortar retail stores, but don’t let it become discouraging. In the process of setting goals, remember to include micro conversions as well. If macro conversions are things like downloading your programs and purchasing your products, micro conversions can be used to measure how many times “contact us” was clicked, or “about us“, or jobs were applied for, or “print this page” was clicked, and the other signs that your site is being used for research, even if nothing was purchased. Someone interested in your site enough to research it is likely to come back, especially if you were convincing enough with your web copy, which will help you calculate your conversion ROI, which is every bit as helpful as the conversion data itself. After all, if you aren’t measuring the metrics that matter, you’re wasting time that could be used on more valuable metrics.

I’m sure at this point things are starting to feel a little complicated (and if they aren’t, congratulations!), but don’t worry. While tracking the various conversion rates can be difficult, it’s not any harder than following your favorite team. All it takes is a bit of time and practice before you’ll get it, and keep in mind that the web is a large, scary place, and if you keep in mind that even a 2% calculation can lead to a great deal of profit, depending on your average order value. But the obvious follow up question is, assuming I’m not obsessing, and have discarded extraneous metrics while incorporating necessary ones, how do I improve my conversion rates?

Improving Conversions With Web Analytics

Well, as we’ve already mentioned, web analytics is all about data. And now that you’ve got your conversion rate practices refined, you can start thinking about how you wield that data. Using this data, you can refine the processes on your websites, particularly when it comes to leads and the sales process. Consider that you check your data, and you find that an odd amount of people start the checkout process, but never finish (abandon the checkout). This could be a problem with your security loading speed, trust, your density of text, or even your safe words display being unreadable so they can’t checkout. Once someone has made the decision to buy, they’re close, but not roped in yet, so you need to make the checkout process as smooth as possible, and your analytics data should provide plenty of opportunities and insights towards improvement.

But if they’re not even getting to the sales page, then maybe the problem is with your sales copy. Thanks to your analytics and conversion rate, maybe your strategy for making a simple website with less professional copy, so as not to scare away the old ladies, is hurting your business, and it’s time to invest in someone to write better copy for you. Sometimes the right data can mean the difference between finding out whether you’re capable of being a one person band, or if what you really need is a slightly larger team. Checking the ROI of your analytics can tell you whether or not your investment in a copywriter will increase sales enough to cover the position.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

And after you’ve streamlined your checkout process, and written stellar copy thanks to a few late night courses on speech writing and psychology, if you still want to improve your conversion rates there are a few tips and tricks you can try. After all, you’ve found out that information is beautiful, and there’s no reason your customers won’t either. Show them how your products and ideas will improve their life, then assign them their own metrics, and study their conversion rates to see which charts, graphs, and graphics are the most effective. Save those, build more in their style, and use them in your advertising campaigns, where they can spread their impact across the entire internet. As you can see, the potential of an entrepreneur wielding a solid set of goals and data is limitless. And if you get stuck in the process, you can always come back to refresh your knowledge. Or just because you feel like there’s always more to learn, and places to improve.

New technologies allow consumers to freely explore seemingly endless amounts of products and information online. Because of this, consumers are becoming increasingly self-reliant. People check-in to flights and hotels with automated machines and purchase groceries through check-out stations. Consumers are responding positively to self-service systems and the need to interact with customer service employees is rapidly decreasing.

With this rise of self-service, more customers are buying products through online retailers and shopping sites are growing fast. Most consumers are pleased with the effortlessness of shopping online. However, when customers do encounter a problem, finding solutions can often be tedious and frustrating. Retailers work hard to constantly improve the online shopping experience but many are still using out-dated customer service techniques. Search engines and FAQ pages are not satisfying customers and businesses have to look for new ways to allow consumers to navigate themselves through potential issues.

In the past, many businesses thought their only solution to customer relationship management (CRM) was to create call centers with a large trained staff. Smaller businesses struggled with the cost of such an extensive increase in employees and larger business had too much traffic to adequately provide helpful service to every consumer. Companies are relentlessly creating new technologies and trends for online shopping and the old strategies of CRM no longer apply. Consumers will have questions and concerns and they expect to receive answers quickly and easily. According to Consumer Technographics, 57% of US online consumers report that they are very likely to abandon an online purchase if they cannot find quick answers to their questions. The dichotomy of online consumers is that they both demand guidance and self-reliance. For many businesses, virtual agents have proven to be the most effective way to help consumers help themselves.

What are Virtual Agents?

Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are programs that work as online customer service representatives. They have a human appearance and a conversational style of speaking. These agents interact directly with the customer to help with a variety of online services. Essentially, an IVA is the ideal customer service employee. They have an extensive knowledge of the business, can speak several languages, work 24 hours a day, and can personally help hundreds or thousands of customers all at once. The agent provides personal and direct guidance for consumers, making it more effective than search engines or FAQ pages. Many companies have successfully implemented an IVA program including Ikea, Ebay, and Paypal. Now, customers visiting these sites can ask “Anna“, or “Alex” or “Sarah” to help them find what they find what they are looking for or help get them the answers they need.

How Virtual Agents Can Benefit your Business

Using IVAs to help with customer service can help a company in many ways. They can converse and answer questions, giving customers personal and immediate assistance.

Consumers can chat with the representative in a way that feels familiar because it builds on the in-store customer service experience. The more self-reliant customers prefer an automated representative because they feel less inclined to rush and freely ask any and as many questions as they like.

The virtual agent has the unique ability to be everywhere at once. Human agents can only help a certain number of customers for a certain number of hours. As a company grows, maintaining a trained staff that can sufficiently respond to a growing number of buyers can be costly. AVIs can help customers find solutions without contacting customer service representatives.

Most of the information consumers are looking for is already available online. However, navigating through pages of information without help can be frustrating and potentially keep customers from returning to the eCommerce retailer. Mark Gaydos, VP of worldwide marketing for VirtuOZ explained that simply giving the customer a big repository of information and hoping they find what they need isn’t enough. “Virtual agents have the ability to instantly assist customers rather than leaving them to look for the information on their own.”

AVIs can also work as an information gatherer for the business to improve the customer’s experience when they need to speak with a human agent. Customer concerns can be transferred to the appropriate call center and provide personalized information to the customer representative making things easier and faster for both the representative and the consumer.

In Closing

As new technologies and trends develop in online shopping, AVIs allow customer services to adapt and improve along side these changes. Consumers are now able to shop with mobile devices and through social media. While many people are struggling with using search engines on new programs and devices, AVIs are making an easy transition to phone apps, Facebook, and even Second Life. As businesses experiment with new ways to reach customers, AVIs are effortlessly going along for the ride.

But when you recovered, as the serious eCommerce entrepreneur you are, you got online with the goal of looking the term up. And now you’re here, you’re interested, and you’re a little confused. What are web analytics? Are they really worth investing in? What are they going to cost me? How much time do they take?

Don’t worry, all these questions have answers. And I’ll make sure to direct you towards the experts capable of helping you have the best possible experience with analytics.

What are Web Analytics?

Web analytics are any system of taking the information about your website visitors and using it to improve your website. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, most people who own their own website are unaware of the tools and definitions that make this field useful. How many times have you sat down and wondered why your visitor count never goes up? Or wondered which pages on your website are visited the most?

Sound like exactly what you need to help improve your site? I thought so. But now the obvious question is, how do I use them?

Well, maybe you want to start simple, test this mysterious new system out before you really dedicate yourself to them. If this sounds like you, then I would suggest starting your own Facebook Analytics page, just to see what’s up. Even the website will give you a crash course on how to use their program and why it’s useful for those businesspeople trying to reach a larger audience via Facebook fan pages. For those of you more interested in taking a direct plunge into the deep end, you can try Google Analytics, or the Webtrends Data Extraction API.

But maybe you’re still nervous, checking your payroll to see if you can afford to add web analytics, and the personnel to manage it. This is understandable, after all, how can you be sure these programs will help you improve your traffic enough to help cover their costs.

The good news? They’re free. And you won’t even need to hire an extra webmaster to manage them. Like any other part of your business, so long as you know your goals, analytics will provide you with all the information you need.

However, like anything else, analytics has its dark side. Due to the nature of humans to misunderstand and underestimate things, some programs have gotten a bad reputation they’re still trying to overcome, often due more to mistakes made than any sort of deficiency in the program itself. However, since everyone reading this blog is interested in being informed consumers, that’s nothing you have to worry about.

It sounds time consuming, doesn’t it? Before you go leafing through your accounting book again, trying to figure out whether you can afford a second webmaster, or even a temp, just take a moment to breathe and gather your thoughts. You may find that it will take far less effort than you first thought, and in no time at all, you’ll be turning your website into a highly efficient, customer pleasing machine.

Well, that seems like enough for now. Even if you were all bright enough to find this site and read this article, we have to be careful, analytics are a powerful tool, and while even a beginner can use them, there are plenty of depths left to master, such as conversion rates and cross program compatibility, as well as plenty more experts willing to lend a hand. But for now, your best bet is to go out, get an analytics program, and plug it in to start gathering data. Take some time to really see how the innards of your website work. Then, you can come back here and learn some advanced methods for using the information you’ve gathered.

Set Your Goals

Mobile commerce should generate revenue either directly by allowing customers to purchase items or indirectly by creating a positive experience for consumers. A mobile presence can engage consumers and provide valuable information with a simple and unique design. Before deciding to move forward with mobile commerce, retailers have to clearly define what they hope to get out of it.

While many retailers are going mobile or developing a mobile strategy, others are simply choosing the “do nothing” approach. Mobile commerce is still in its infancy and the value of a mobile presence is still uncertain. While the number of mobile consumers is small it’s growing fast. According to ATG Commerce, “27% of all consumers used their mobiles to browse and research products at least four times over a 12 month period. For the 18-34 age group, this figure is 41%“. Potential buyers seem to be testing mobile commerce and if a company is willing to give mobile the time and resources required, their business could be at the forefront of a booming trend.

Website or Application?

Once a company sets their goals for going mobile, they’ll have a better idea of what approach to take. Retailers can create a mobile presence two different ways: optimizing the retailers site for mobile devices or creating a mobile application or “app“. The best option depends on the retailer’s goals for going mobile. Apps may be best if a company wants to create interactive features and keep loyal customers happy. However, a mobile website is a simpler design that could attract more potential buyers. Here are a few things to consider before deciding on which direction to go.

Not All Phones Are Created Equal

Once a business decides to go mobile with either a site or an app, the next and most complex step is the design. Retailers need to target the right devices and highlight the most important features in a simple and attractive way. A mobile site or app has to have a balance of providing enough information to satisfy consumers without overwhelming the connection. Mobile devices are still evolving and nothing will turn a potential buyer away faster than an overly-complicated or slow running site/feature. A simple layout with large text and easy-to-touch links and buttons will provide the best experience for consumers and regularly updated information will keep them coming back for more.

Conclusion

Going mobile is complicated business for any retailer. However, many leading retailers believe mobile commerce may be on the verge of taking over. Retailers that start planning now will most likely be the first to attract loyal, tech-savvy customers. Ryan Peterson, mobile strategist for Ubermind puts it best: “If nothing else, look ahead two years and assume everyone you care about – customers, suppliers, and employees – will have a powerful, always-connected, GPS-enabled mobile computer in their pocket… plan accordingly.”

Basic User Experience

Design Is Not Added Value, Design Is Value.
- Gui Bonsiepe

There are as many different theories to design as there are styles of art – all of which have their merits. However, as we discussed in Beginning UX Part 1, a website proprietor must never lose track of their customers. And although this sometimes comes at the expense of one’s own ego, the small business owner attempting to design their own website needs to remember that, it is more important to make a good website than to capture a “feel.” This is not to say a website can’t do both (in fact, the very best websites do exactly that – capture a feel while retaining functionality), but since most people don’t have the time to study art history, technique, and principles of advanced design on top of running their own business, but also can’t afford a full design firm, lets focus on what it takes to make a user experience pleasant enough to keep customers coming back.

Towards that goal, there are a few things every website should strive to do:

• Look Professional
• Be Easy To Navigate
• Give The Customer What They Want
• Be Honest With The Customer

Now, let’s take a look at how even the most basic business owner can accomplish these goals.

Designing your Website

Despite sounding difficult, creating a professional looking website and making it easy to navigate are almost identical issues. Simple things, like making menu bars visible without being obtrusive by choosing simple colors that stand out against the background, and using easy to read fonts instead of “cool” ones that may be illegible or ugly. In general, when first designing for usability, it is better to favor function over form. Think of building a website like building a car – the chassis has to be solid before you can add the fancy bodywork. And also, to keep with the car metaphor, remember to add a place for the customer to put gas in – so make your shopping cart obvious. While it seems like this might seem pushy or scare customers away, remember that the people who want to buy your product don’t want it to be a hassle, and they’re your customers.

And if you’ve gotten ambitious and feel like adding an element of social media, remember not to force someone to sign up for an account (even if it’s free), to browse or buy the goods. However, after they’ve paid, then ask them to join in order to leave comments, or for an easier shopping experience next time. Make joining a convenience, and many more people will choose to do it.

Thinking Of The Customers

Continuing on of this idea of convenience, the savvy eBusiness owner should always keep in mind that they aren’t running a brick-and-mortar store. To that end, remember to show pictures of the items, or even full panoramic rotations if you can. While it is always advisable to have a good copy and written descriptions, humans are very much visual beings. And while you can’t offer a tactile sensation of the product, it’s important to let the customer see what they’re buying. This creates a feeling of trust (remember how we talked about be you becoming their 24 hour “local” store), and establishes that you have nothing to hide. And who doesn’t want to trust their local businessperson?

And on the issue of honesty and transparency: If you’re asking someone to join your website, don’t hide the delete button after they do. While this seems illogical in the short term, you have to remember that you’re relying on a certain level of curiosity to draw them to your site in the first place. Ignoring the fact that many of your first customers with have an inquisitive nature, will lead to trouble, particularly if the lack of a delete button makes them search one out. It’s best to make them not think about the delete button any more than they have to, and to that end, we should all take a lesson from The Purloined Letter about hiding in plain sight. You don’t have to outline it in a flashing neon marquee, but make it visible enough they don’t have to hunt for it- and by doing so, display your confidence they won’t be clicking on it any time soon.

As you can see, it’s relatively simple to design a good user experience – and while basic attempts may not meet the level of the professionals (they have put a lot more time and thought into this after all), hopefully you can take these tips and build a website that is functional and easy to navigate without excessive discretionary funds. I look forward to seeing new, professional looking eCommerce sites springing up all over the web any day now, so good luck, and see you next week.

However, researching the best systems, software, tools and other resources for social commerce campaigns can be exhausting and investing in the wrong place can potentially hurt a retailer. Here are a few essential technologies and some successful/highly rated systems and tools for the best possible social commerce strategy.

Blogs

Movable Type (MT) allows you to blog, manage large amounts of content, and can be quickly changed or rearranged to meet the retailer’s needs. MT does require some knowledge of HTML but can be designed to match your website completely. This system is recommended as a no-nonsense tool for businesses wanting to create a quick and professional blog site.

• Movable Type

Typepad is a popular system among businesses and made by Sixapart, the same company that created Movable Type. Unlike the other systems listed here, this platform is not free, but the monthly fee is small ($4.95-$14.95). Typepad is most famous for its feature Photo Albums, which allows retailers to display products in their blogs. For users to take full advantage of Typepad’s design templates, they will need a general understanding of HTML.

• Typepad

WordPress is easy to install and use and can be listed in Google within days of starting. This system is built for businesses with a large or fast growing online community. Also, for retailers who want a more complex system, there are several plugins and widgets available to use with this software.

• WordPress

Blogger, a blogging platform created by Google in 2003, is probably one of the most well known systems available. Blogger has sometimes been credited with bringing blogs to the masses because it doesn’t require any knowledge of HTML. This is a simple and easy system best recommended to beginners.

• Blogger

Social Networking

Facebook’s appearance on this list (as well as the next network) won’t come as a surprise to most retailers. With over 400 million users, retailers can’t ignore the potential for building a large and dedicated community. Businesses involved in Facebook can engage with consumers, make announcements, and get instant feedback from a committed fan base.

• Facebook

Twitter is considered a micro-blogging service as well as a social network and boasts over a 100 million users with 300,000 new users joining per day. On Twitter, customers can easily connect and companies can easily provide information about products and services.

• Twitter

Delicious makes bookmarking social and allows members to share their favorite sites with one another. Businesses can find loyal customers who will act as brand ambassadors. This site is a good way for retailers to connect with their customers and spread the word about products.

• Delicious

Ning is quickly growing as an alternative to other social networks that sometimes feel too overcrowded. This site allows users to create their own social network (or niche community) and create a unique space to bring customers, potential buyers, and vendors together. Retailers will have more control over the design of their network and can create the best space possible for visitors.

• Ning

Badoo, the European answer to social networking, is perfect for online retailers hoping to go global. Badoo has nearly 70 million users. This network offers many of the same features as Facebook and Myspace but reaches an entirely different audience that could potential expand business.

• Badoo

Ask and Answers

Bazzarvoice, a leader in social commerce, offers several tools to help companies engage with their customers. With Ask and Answer, customers can get the information they’re looking for directly from the company website. Also, the business can collect and use customer feedback to provide better service and decrease potential returns.

• Bazzarvoice

PowerReviews provides social commerce solutions to hundreds of companies and brands both big and small. Their popular tool AnswerBox lets consumers view popular and informative questions and answers along with the product. Potential buyers can get the information they need and the purchase process is uninterrupted. For more information you might also consider reading our recent interview on social commerce with Andy Chen of PowerReviews.

• PowerReviews

RateVoice allows customers to post reviews and comments on products and respond to other shopper’s feedback. This system promotes the sharing of opinions between consumers. The information also helps potential buyers.

• RateVoice

Social Recommendations

Loomia is a leader in recommendations and provides easy and personal solutions to businesses of any size. This system provides two types of recommendations. One gives shoppers a list of similar products while they shop, and the other tracks what the customer is looking at or buying and creates a more personalized experience.

• Loomia

Aggregate Knowledge offers “Discovery Platform” which gives retailers the ability to manage and personalize advertising through consumer data. The system gathers information from web users to help customers find products that will most interest them.

• Aggregate Knowledge

Choice Stream uses shopping data to create targeted product recommendations and advertisements and provide a unique experience for each customer. The goal of the Choice Stream system is to increase profitability and increase the number of returning customers.

• Choice Stream

Baynote is a recommendation system that prides itself on real time user behavior. They emphasize tracking referrals, questions, and the amount of time spent on pages to better understand the latest trends and patterns of consumers visiting a retailers site.

• Baynote

Social Shopping

Turnto lets consumers share ideas and opinions with each other about products and services and allows visitors to view these comments while exploring the retailer’s website. With this system, potential buyers are getting the right information from people they trust.

• Turnto

KickApps gives retailers the ability to engage consumers with user-generated content including video sharing, message boards, widgets, and much more. All of these features keep consumers engaging with and talking about the retailer’s brand.

• Kickapps

JS-Kit, also known as Echo, uses several features to gather and share what people are saying all over the web. Consumers can converse across social networks in real-time without leaving the retailer’s site. This is useful system for companies just beginning to build an online community.

• JS-Kit

Small World Labs provides several social commerce services including community building. This feature gives retailers the power to guide and moderate their online communities. Small World Labs can best help businesses managing larger online communities.

• Small World Labs

Conclusion

Preparation is essential with social commerce and having the best systems in place is the best way to get the most beneficial results. Businesses need carefully dig through information, contradicting opinions, and veiled advertisements to find what best works for them. Hopefully, if nothing else, this guide shows the complexity of preparing a social commerce strategy and encourages retailers to take thier time and find the best options.

User experience, also known as UX, is the art of creating a website that makes your customers want to come back. It’s that simple. Although misunderstood today, the old adage “the customer is always right” was the brick-and-mortar equivalent of good user experience – in that by creating an atmosphere wherein the customer felt like they were in control, they would return to your business. The customer felt empowered, you got paid, and it all worked out fine for everyone, since you had the best products on the market anyway, whether you ran a restaurant, a hotel or a general store.

Enter the internet; and with it, the world of eCommerce.

Benefits of a Well-Crafted User Experience

What kind of subtle changes could you make to your product/website/application/service/business that would discretely help your customers succeed, thereby feeling better about themselves, and in turn, your brand?
- Alex Rainert (everyday UX)

There are many benefits to a well crafted user experience:

• Easier site navigation
• Viral marketing potential
• Happier customers

These are all key points, especially when you remember that, while eCommerce is a wonderful thing, it has an essential problem that brick-and-mortar stores don’t have – double blind anonymity. When you sell things online, you will meet almost none of your customers, and will get only the barest glimpse of those who contact you through email and such. This is a far cry from the days where you could know the name of your local butcher, baker, and curio seller, and while the novelty of being able to shop 24/7 was enough to sustain eCommerce in the early days, the market has become so flooded that customers can choose to shop where ever they want.

Why is UX Important?

This is where UX comes in. After all, if the customer is looking for something that sets your product above the rest, a website that makes them feel like they’re buying from more than an anonymous person on the internet can help a great deal. In particular, those who have managed to work the principles of social media into their websites are doing rather well, by allowing their customers to create an online word of mouth through Facebook and Google. A well crafted UX can turn your website (and by extension, your ad campaign, all of your hard SEO work, etc) from the traveling salesman hawking his wares on the street corner, into that village shop that all of a person’s friends like, and they just haven’t gotten around to visiting yet.

Except your store is open all day, every day – so the odds are much greater they’re going to make it in eventually.

“But,” you may wonder, “I already have a good product. Better than anyone else’s on the market in fact. Why do I need to worry about UX? Won’t a good product sell itself?”

And you’re absolutely right. Good products do sell themselves, but being the logical businessperson you are, can you deny the free advertising that comes with winning something like The FWA, or having millions of fans on Facebook? If you already have a good product, isn’t it worth the effort of putting in that time to make sure the website selling it looks as good as the product works? First impressions can be important, especially with the double edged sword that is the internet. All the metrics and web analytics in the world won’t save a website that is hard to navigate – especially if you make it hard for customers to buy your products.

But most importantly, keep this in mind as you ponder redesigning that website you made ten years ago: The internet is in constant evolution. A decade ago there was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Myspace. File sharing was in its infancy, and download rates measured in MBPs were astonishing to contemplate, much less hard drive space in terabytes. The world of computers simply moves faster than the world of brick-and-mortar, and businesses that fall too far behind are in danger of dropping out of the race. Even slow and steady progress is still progress – and remember, the hare didn’t lose because he moved too fast, he lost because he fell asleep. So ask yourself: Is your business’s website moving forward with the times? Or are you napping by the side of the information highway, letting all of those UX wielding tortoises pass you by.

Either way, it never hurts to learn a few ways to improve your website – which is why you should tune in next time for “Beginning UX (Part 2): Crafting Your User Experience” where we’ll explore improving your UX. See you then!

PowerReviews was founded in 2005 by Andrew Chen and Robert Chea and is now considered to be a leading provider of social commerce solutions. The company has helped hundreds of retailers engage customers and build communities online. Internet Retailer included the company in 2009’s Top 500 Solutions Winner. Sites such as RadioShack, Diapers.com, TicketsNow, and Orbitz and many more are using customer reviews systems provided by PowerReviews.

PowerReviews AnswerBox Overview

42% of online shoppers have left a site without purchasing multiple products because they couldn’t get a question answered about just one of the products in their shopping cart.

AnswerBox connects potential buyers with customers and staff while they’re browsing products. This solution streamlines the shopping experience by giving consumers the answers they need without leaving the retailer’s website.

AnswerBox Benefits

• Credible answers from experienced customers and expert staff
• Creates a sense of community between new and loyal customers
• Increase conversion

AnswerBox Features

• Full Moderation: 100% control of content
• Multi-Pronged Response: a variety of informed answers
• Virtual FAQ: common questions of a specific product displayed directly on product page

PowerReviews Blog

InSite is a blog by PowerReviews where they share experiences and insights from the industry with anyone interested in emerging technologies and social commerce.

• Official PowerReviews InSite Blog

Andy Chen, PowerReviews Co-Founder, Answers 5 Questions About Social Commerce

I think a lot of small businesses are interested in social commerce but unsure how to put it into practice. What advise would you give to these eCommerce retailers?

First of all, get started. Social commerce is rapidly evolving, so it’s important that small businesses learn how to learn from, listen to and empower their customers in a meaningful way. The two social commerce tools that intersect both (a) proven and consistent ROI to the merchant; and (b) demanded and desired by the consumer; are Ratings&Reviews and Q&A (we call this AnswerBox), so this is where we would start. Building a “Community” (ala Yelp/Facebook) is further away and not yet a practical application for most businesses.

Are there any common mistakes or misconceptions businesses make when they first engage their consumers?

The “Build it and they will come” approach is a big mistake. Consumer engagement is difficult to create, and it’s important to put the right mechanisms in place to drive engagement. Therefore, PowerReviews always recommends a series of best practices to create awareness and engagement in starting a social commerce program… most importantly to focus on the merchant’s “recent purchasers“, who have the highest propensity to participate.

Reviews and ratings are one of the most popular methods of social commerce. What makes this method so effective? Why do you think people are drawn to reviews and ratings?

There are several trends driving the need and desire by consumers for ratings and reviews. Firstly, consumers have been trained for almost 15 years to seek out ratings and reviews when shopping online by the major eCommerce sites such as Amazon, Ebay, and Zappos.  Therefore, they EXPECT reviews as part of a complete shopping experience.

Secondly, consumers are smart, and understand that no products are right for all people, and that they cannot solely depend on manufacturer or retailer supplied product information. The voices that they trust to guide them to the RIGHT product are their friends and “people like them” (e.g. people with similar needs and lifestyles). Ratings and reviews fill that need exactly.

How can a reviews and ratings system help a small eCommerce business?

Surprisingly, we see that the impact of ratings and reviews are HIGHER for PowerRevews’ small business clients than they are for the larger, well-known companies. There are several factors, in my opinion, that drive this:

Firstly, small businesses typically have more of a specialty/niche vs. a big box feel. One of our clients, for example is Alpaca Direct, which only sells products made from Alpaca. This means that consumers on those sites are naturally more enthusiastic about the products, and often have very specific needs. Reviews from other enthusiasts help other shoppers become more confident that they are buying the “right product“.

Secondly, since small businesses are not as well known as the larger chains, reviews serve as endorsements for the merchant overall, in addition to the specific product. The message that the merchant can send by posting reviews is that “yes, lots of customers have put down their money, received a product, and were asked about their experience“, which is a tremendous confidence building tool that clearly separates the fly-by-night operations from the legitimate small businesses.

Allowing consumers to share ideas is not only valuable to potential buyers but it can also be valuable feedback for the merchant. How can a business best use and gather this information?

This is a fairly broad area, and perhaps one of the largest opportunities for manufacturers and retailers to get value from their social commerce programs. There is an adage in the usability or consumer research world use — “measure what they do, not what they say“. Therefore, PowerReviews takes the approach that the content within the reviews, or AnswerBox, content is where the most useful insights and ideas live vs. creating a separate solution to solicit ideas from customers.

Many of our clients are already using their data to drive powerful business value such as:

• Optimizing their inventory by returning low rated products to the vendors
• Driving their merchandising by highlighting top-rated products
• Understanding specific product flaws or gaps in their inventory
• Improving their product content based on feedback from customers

We support these insights in several ways:

• Our tag-based reviews allow our clients to quantitatively understand the customer feedback (e.g. we can easily understand the consensus around the pros, cons, uses, and buyer-types for each product… and compare them across the category). This is something that we had previously done by hand, or by unreliable natural language processing techniques…or not at all.
• We provide a “Product Suggestions” module (for free) as part of our ratings and reviews solution. This allows customers to provide their own ideas to improve the product after they’ve tried it for themselves. This is much more effective than a regular focus group, because these reviewers have recently purchased the product and are in the best position to provide thoughtful feedback.
• We moderate 100% of the content and flag any reviews that might be interesting to a merchant’s customer service, product, and/or merchandising teams.
• We provide detailed reports back to our clients that allow them to route the data to the appropriate category or brand-level business owner.

In a nutshell, we absolutely see how the underlying data from consumers can dramatically improve core retail and manufacturing processes in the near future.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

A big thanks to Andy Chen of PowerReviews for taking to time to give some good advice to our readers.

I also want to thank Lisa Tarter of Tidal Wave PR for helping me put this interview together. Like many of our readers, I’m still learning about social commerce and I hope they found Andrew’s answers as beneficial as I did. A common theme that Chen and many others emphasize is the importance of retailers to listen to their customers. The value of the feedback from customers can often be overlooked. However, using it to evolve your business is one of the most important parts of social commerce. We’ll be posting a few other articles exploring social commerce soon so stay tuned.

Back in September 07′ we covered Lemonade’s launch, and business model in detail so I won’t be going into too much about the company here as with some of our other comparison shopping interviews. I have enjoyed watching the growth of Lemonade’s application, brand and user base. They seem to have found a perfect fit in between the eCommerce and affiliate spaces.

Basically, Lemonade offers merchants or entrepreneurs the ability to create and publish their own personal “lemonade stand” packed with products or items from the Internet’s top online retailers. Merchants can pick and choose from over 2 million products from roughly 200,000 top eCommerce sellers including retails such as Macy’s, Nordstrom, Zappos and TigerDirect.

Users can then place their personal lemonade stand widget in a number of places including Blogger, Vox, Facebook, Yahoo! 360 and more. Once the user has created their stand and has the products they wish to recommend loaded, they have the opportunity to earn revenue each time a shopper clicks through to the retailer’s page to buy an item. Commissions range from 5 to 15 percent of the sale price to anyone who delivers a paying customer. Certain online retailers will pay up to $10 for each new customer, while others may just pay Lemonade merchants each time a visitor clicks on a link to see recommended products.

Add your favorite stuff to a lemonade stand and put it on your personal profile, website, blog, wherever. It’s free and when someone purchases from your stand you get paid.

Lemonade Marketplace:

Lemonade’s merchant marketplace is a collection of individual stands/widgets that have been created using Lemonade’s application. Shoppers are able to browse different stands including best performing, most viewed and top rated or featured stands. Shoppers are also able to view stands by creation date (new stands) and they can even rate or review the stands they like the most.

Tom Zawacki, CEO, Answers 10 Questions About Lemonade Marketplace:

Roughly how many merchants are included within Lemonade?

There are more than 200 retailer partners of Lemonade, including Apple, Sony, Estee Lauder, The Gap, Lands’ End, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Old Navy and Wal-Mart.

Roughly how many products are included within Lemonade?

Right now we have a selection of over 2 million products from some of the best companies in the world. We have access to over ten million products and brands, and we will continue to add to Lemonade based on our users requests.

Roughly how many individuals currently work on Lemonade support and coding teams?

Lemonade currently has 3 full-time employees with a team of up to 15 contract resources.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

Lemonade enables individuals to make money by setting up a digital lemonade stand, distributing it on their social networking profile, blog or personal website, effectively starting their own e-business. Users currently have set up Lemonade Stands on Facebook, MySpace, AOL People Connect, Yahoo! 360, Blogger, SixApart, and many others.

Lemonade Inc. will also feature every Lemonade Stand in the Lemonade Marketplace section.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features Lemonade offers it’s users?

• In under 5 minutes, a user can set up a personalize e-business, their Lemonade Stand
• Users add personal reviews and recommendations of the brands/products they promote in their stand
• Forrester reports that word of mouth recommendations are the #1 driver of online purchases
• The ability to earn extra money by referring products & services to shoppers, and via online advertising on their stand
• The ability to learn about starting and running a business
• The ability to add the Lemonade stand to social networking profiles, blogs or individual websites
• The opportunity to shop from the Lemonade Community – to connect with people like them who are finding great deals or the best brands/products for a particular need

What, in your opinion are the highlight features Lemonade offers merchants?

There are currently approximately 150 million individuals who have set up a social networking profile, blog or personal website. According to Internet research company comScore, these social networking websites and blogs receive an estimated 170 million unique visitors per month. Partnership with Lemonade.com enables companies to extend their brand presence, e-commerce footprint and loyalty programs onto the personal pages of these individual authors.

Lemonade’s Enterprise Solution allows merchants to private label the platform to offer the Lemonade experience within their own branded context. The Lemonade Enterprise Solution enables merchants to activate their most loyal brand advocates as an extension of their sales staff (e.g., the Avon Lady, Tupperware Parties, etc.)

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

We launched in October 2007. An upgrade of the entire experience, Lemonade 2.0, will be live in September 2008. We have given our users a full-page e-commerce experience for when they set up a stand, enhanced our search engine and shopping experience, and upgraded the functionality of our widget. We continue to add new retailers and products every month. We expect to release new features every 4 months.

How does Lemonade plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Amazon and eBay are not competitors, in fact they are partners. We have a completed contract with Amazon to offer their products in Lemonade Stands, and we hope to work with eBay in 2009 in the same way. In addition, we are enabling individuals to start-up their own e-business by recommending products/brands/services from leading merchants vs. eBay which enables individuals to sell their own things in an auction environment. We think we will have a very strong relationship with both Amazon and eBay.

Where do you see Lemonade in the next 3-5 years?

In 2007, eCommerce in the U.S. is a $150 billion marketplace. U.S. Online advertising is a $20 billion marketplace – That is $170 billion today – Forrester projects these numbers to grow to almost $350 billion in 5 years. Today, 0% of eCommerce and Online Advertising in the U.S. is driven from the Social Economy. We believe that in 5 years at least 10% of U.S. eCommerce and Online Advertising will be driven by the Social Economy, which is a $35 billion marketplace. Lemonade Inc. is in position to be a leader in the Social Economy, and if we can capture just 1% of this new marketplace we will be a $350 million company.

In addition, Lemonade Inc. will expand internationally over the next 2 years. We will look at very large online populations with high growth rates such as China, the greater Asia Pacific Region, India and South America.

What Online product marketplaces, other than Lemonade, do you personally use to shop from?

iTunes, Amazon, Sephora (for my wife), eLuxury.com (for my wife), EastBay Sports (for my baseball team), Netflix

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Tom: I really appreciate the detailed thought and attention that you were able to provide in the QandA answers, it sounds like some exciting things are happening on the Lemonade front. It’s great to see you guys nearly through your first year! I love being able to cover a launch and come back to see where the company is after a bit of time in the space, it’s been interesting and fun watching your brand and application grow. I hope you are able to find as much success in the international arena as you’ve seen here in the U.S. I can’t wait to see Lemonade 2.0 in September!! Please consider sending me an update when you’re ready to launch, I’d be happy to cover it on the blog. Thanks again Tom (and all Lemonade.com staff) for providing such a cool concept application and for the support you’ve shown the online selling industry.

To our readers: I certainly hope you’ve all enjoyed this latest comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with Tom Zawacki from Lemonade.com as much as I have. As always we have several more interviews out there and in the works for the future, so check back regularly. If you’re lazy and want us to deliver the content to you, simply grab our feed or subscribe to email updates and we’ll send the good stuff to you directly. You may also wish to read back in our archives at some of the ecommerce interviews that have already been published.

Lemonade Marketplace is Featured as one of the shopping marketplaces on our Product Listing Guide!

Shopping.com is an eBay company as of August 2005 and is considered to be one of the original pioneers of comparison shopping and online product search. Since launching, Shopping.com has grown beyond expectations and continues to remain among the fastest growing, most visited eCommerce shopping engines available today. Shopping.com offers services for both consumers and merchants including powerful search tools, technology and unbiased reviews for millions of products, thousands of brands and several top online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

Shopping.com has expanded their operations globally and are now able to offer their innovative shopping services and tools in several different languages and countries worldwide including the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Ireland and more to come.

Shopping.com’s mission is to help consumers anywhere use the power of information to easily find, compare and buy anything online – in less time and for the best price!

Shopping.com’s What’s In Store Blog:

• Official Shopping.com Blog

The Shopping.com What’s In Store Blog is the place for all things Shopping.com. Merchants and consumers will find information and insights related to online shopping, buying and review trends, merchant seller tips, favorite staff product picks or finds and even information from industry professionals, experts and other blog contributors. Be sure to drop by the official Shopping.com blog, there’s sure to be something there for everyone whether you’re a merchant or shopper.

Shopping.com’s WorkShop:

• Shopping.com WorkShop

I thought this was an interesting concept and something I hadn’t really seen offered by a comparison shopping engine. It’s called the Shopping.com WorkShop. Basically, it’s a special section on their website where Shopping.com features some of their innovative projects, new shopping tools or technology and new site features that they wish to test and receive feedback about.

The WorkShop is pretty bare right now so don’t expect much today, but I for one will be keeping the link in a handy place so that I can revisit it on occasion and provide feedback if I have any.

Linda Snow, Marketing Director, Answers 10 Questions About Shopping.com:

Roughly how many merchants are included within Shopping.com?

5,000 active U.S. merchants.

Roughly how many products are included within Shopping.com?

More than 16,000 brands, 340 categories and Shopping.com includes 65% of the Internet’s top 100 retailers.

Roughly how many individuals currently work on Shopping.com support and coding teams?

We do not disclose the number of employees at Shopping.com.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

By using Shopping.com’s powerful API program, which allows third-party access to our highly structured and comprehensive product catalog, Shopping.com powers the shopping experience for hundreds of Web sites including Answers.com, DigitalAdvisor, HowStuffWorks.com, Surprise.com and Ziff Davis’ PCMag.com. Other partners include MySimon, ProductWiki, Reseller Ratings and Wize.com.

Our API users can customize and reconfigure the Shopping.com catalog and search tools as needed, tailoring them to their preference and extending the reach of the platform.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features Shopping.com offers it’s users?

We aim for a site that is designed for ease of use and simple navigation. We’ve constructed our site with special features including the What’s Hot, Shop by Brand and Top 5 sections. Additionally, we launched a gift cards page during the 2007 holiday season; within the category, users can easily sort and shop for cards from a variety of vendors – all in one place. All of these features make it easy for consumers to shop for great deals.

What, in your opinion are the highlight features Shopping.com offers merchants?

In Shopping.com’s recent eCommerce Pulse Index survey, we found that 45 percent of our merchants are adjusting their sales and/or marketing strategy because of the stagnant economy. Our most recent offerings for merchants are designed to help them generate additional revenue on Shopping.com and increase conversion to sale. This includes an innovative Value Based Pricing model, which automatically adjusts the charges per click to merchants based on the publisher’s overall traffic performance. Also, Product Performance Reporting helps merchants quickly and easily identify important sales data to optimize and improve their product feeds and overall campaign. Additionally, a key part of the Shopping.com experience is the Distributed Commerce API that allows merchants to recreate a comparison shopping experience on their own site to monetize more traffic and improve buyer experience.

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

We constantly solicit feedback from our merchants to determine what changes need to be made in order to maintain the best experience on Shopping.com.

How does Shopping.com plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Shopping.com is an eBay company under the marketplaces umbrella. The synergies between eBay and Shopping.com provide consumers with unique shopping experiences as well as provide a mechanism by which merchants can reach their target audiences. Regarding search engines, our Distributed Commerce model provides flexibility to how merchants reach their customers.

Where do you see Shopping.com in the next 3-5 years?

Our focus has always been and will continue to be delivering the best shopping experience.

What Online product marketplaces, other than Shopping.com, do you personally use to shop from?

Actually, with the thousands of merchants and brands on Shopping.com I always find what I am looking for.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Linda: This is fantastic Linda. I greatly appreciate the time you took from your busy schedule to take part in our little QandA about Shopping.com. I have always liked your company’s vision and CSE service, so it’s great to finally have caught up with you all. By the looks of things you’ve been busy, I love the concept of the WorkShop beta testing and feedback section, that’s very creative and helps to engage your users/merchants which is always great in my opinion, so bravo to you and your team for that idea. I also like the fact that you conduct surveys regularly so that you are always able to improve your service and meet the expectations and demand of your users, that is really important these days. Thanks again for being available and for offering such quality answers to our CSE questions, I look forward to seeing your continued growth within the industry, keep up the good work.

To our readers: I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading our most recent comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with Linda Snow from Shopping.com. As always we have several more interviews out there and in the works for the future, so check back regularly or grab our feed or email updates and we’ll send the good stuff to you directly. You may also wish to read back in our archives at some of the ecommerce interviews that have already been published.

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

GoDataFeed specializes in the automated delivery of product data feeds to over 40 major comparison shopping engines for merchants interested in saving time and effectively sending, optimizing and analyzing their feed content. GoDataFeed works together with merchant sellers, search engine marketing and optimization firms, hosting companies and a variety of other service providers, many of which are attracted to GoDataFeed’s affordable, efficient model designed to increase visitors and product/brand reach within the individual shopping channels.

In addition to the data feed automation, optimization and tracking processes, GoDataFeed truly cares about their clients success and always aims to exceed their expectations by offering the support and resources needed to meet the demands of their individual client needs.

GoDataFeed Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Promote products on more than 40 comparison shopping sites & affiliate networks
• Enhance product placement with built-in shopping engine categorization and validation
• Customize feed campaigns for sale, holiday, free-shipping, brand-name promotions and more

Data Feed Automation

• Easy one-time setup process
• Feed fresh product data
• Full integration with Yahoo! Store, ShopSite and Volusion 5.0

Data Feed Optimization

• Accurate product placement
• Robust field and category mapping
• Built-in categorizations and validation for all shopping engines

Data Feed Tracking

• Engine and product-level performance
• Real time data on clicks, conversions and revenue
• Determine your best products and shopping channels

GoDataFeed Features:

• Automate your data imports via FTP or instantly import your fully-integrated ShopSite, Volusion 5.0 or Yahoo! Stores
• Ensure your product data is always fresh with nightly FTP updates
• Submit your feeds automatically- daily, weekly or monthly
• Enhance product placement with robust category & filter rules that let you customize feeds and merchandise products where customers expect to find them
• Validate feeds against each shopping engine’s requirements to ensure your product data is accurate and complete
• Customize feed campaigns by adding or modifying values to your feed- like adding tracking tags to your URLs or creating targeted promotional initiatives for sale items, free-shipping, brand name and more
• Real-Time feedback on your clicks, orders and revenue
• Monitor your best performing engines and products
• Determine the best shopping sites for your store

GoDataFeed $.99 Trial:

GoDataFeed offers a 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. The cost for the trial is only $.99. That’s right, only 99 cents to try GoDataFeed for a whole month. Visit the GoDataFeed trial page and fill out the brief form to sign-up for your $.99 thirty day trial offer.

GoDataFeed Pricing:

All GoDataFeed plans include: Two FREE Feed Setups, FREE Analytics Module & FREE Support

• Starter – 3 Feeds, 5,000 Products, $50/month
• Self-Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5, 000 Products, $75/month
• Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5,000 Products, $250/month

* Note: Each plan charges $5.00 extra per each additional 1,000 products

GoDataFeed Blog:

GoDataFeed also has a blog running where anyone can go to get the latest CSE and GDF news along with tips and resources from the experts at GoDataFeed. Simply visit their main page and look for the link to their blog in the top right corner.

• Official GoDataFeed Blog

To get an idea of the type of content to expect, be sure to read the latest post: Maximizing Comparison Shopping Site Marketing. It’s a great article full of tips to help merchants or pros effectively use CSE strategies. It’s a must read for anyone in the current CSE space.

Lin Grosman, Marketing/Integration, Answers 10 Questions About GoDataFeed:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

GoDataFeed’s software engineers and marketing specialists have developed ecommerce solutions for online businesses since 2000. Responding to the popularity of comparison shopping channels, GoDataFeed’s team combined its collective knowledge of best ecommerce and shopping channel marketing practices to create a single, user-friendly application to manage the product feed process.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

‘All of the above’ GoDataFeed data feed management service automates, optimizes and analyzes product data feeds to more than 40 comparison engines and affiliate networks:

• Automation: The software simplifies and automates the data feed management process through FTP updates as well as automatic integration for Yahoo! Stores, ShopSite, Volusion (5.0) stores, and AmeriCommerce.
• Optimization: Merchants can optimize their product feeds through built-in categorization and feed validation tools that help them make their product data more accurate and complete.
• Analytics: GoDataFeed’s analytics module helps merchants track product-level and engine performance, which helps determine best-performing shopping channels for their store.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

GoDataFeed supports more than 40 comparison shopping sites and affiliate networks including:

Amazon.com, Become.com, BuyersEdge, Ciao.com, FindGift.com, Gifts.com, Like.com, NexTag.com, Oodle.com, MyCoupons.com, PriceComparison.com, PriceforSure.com, PriceGrabber.com, PriceLeap.com, PriceRunner.com, PriceWatch.com, Pronto.com, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, Smarter.com, Sortprice.com, Streetprices.com, Yahoo Shopping, Google Product Search, MSN Live Product, TheFind.com, Dealio, Share-A-Sale, Commission Junction and Performics.

We also provide custom feeds for merchants who submit to specialty sites, such as wine specialty sites, gourmet and affiliate sites, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We cater to retail clients, hosting firms companies and search engine optimization and search engine marketing firms. Some of our clients include: StuffedAnimals.com, Puppet.com, CoffeeCakes.com, FootwearEtc.com, AffiliateTraction, Lexiconn Internet Services, WebDex Media Group.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Data feed management firms should give merchants the right tools to make their product information as accurate and complete as possible prior to submission to shopping engines, tools like feed validation and built-in categorization and customization options.

Data feed management firms should inform and educate merchants — through a transparent process– about the steps involved in optimizing and submitting their products to multiple shopping sites, acting as merchant advocates, and keeping them abreast of industry developments.

Shopping feed software should:

• Automate the data feed management process
• Optimize product information for each individual engine
• Monitor shopping site and product performance

Data feed management firms should provide responsive, unlimited support — GoDataFeed provides unparalleled turnaround time with support requests, live help with feed setups and live chat — all in an effort to simplify the feed management process, get their stores up and running and save merchants time and resources.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

The biggest mistake merchants can make is to look for “set it and forget it” or cookie-cutter solutions—merchants should be involved in the process of preparing their product data, as they know their product information best, and monitor their performance on the shopping sites.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Each shopping site has its own data feed template, system and resources. We think the most commonly overlooked aspect–which can have the biggest impact– is merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources—i.e. account manager assistance, shopping site user review programs and shopping site optimization tips.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

The comparison shopping world is definitely becoming more social as shoppers are not only buying, but researching products and looking for ratings, reviews and user experiences. In addition, we think that more shopping sites will adopt a Cost-per-Action model—which is popular with many merchants.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Our goal is promote a “Power to the Merchant” movement that empowers merchants and SEO firms to understand and take control of their data feed management to unlimited engines—at an affordable rate. We have just launched GoDataFeed’s v2.0—which has an extremely user-friendly interface and appeals to many users, making it easy to customize feed campaigns to more than 40 shopping sites. We aim to grow our business by helping merchants grow theirs.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It is impossible to generalize on the best performing comparison shopping engine, because each store and industry are different and perform differently on the shopping sites—however, the most popular shopping sites we currently support are Google Base, Shopzilla, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber and Jellyfish—now known as CashBack.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Lin: Wow Lin, thanks so much for taking the time and effort to participate in our QandA style interview about GoDataFeed. I really appreciate all the thought and information that went into your responses, well done. I love the fact that you are all about empowering the merchant for success, it can be easily overlooked in this fast paced industry. My favorite part, that is so true, is about the commonly overlooked aspects. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources.” I can’t count the times I’ve worked with businesses who fail to utilize ALL their resources. The rating and reviews are the biggest, as you said. Optimization of feeds is also a big one. Thanks again Lin. I hope you continue to drop by. Please don’t hesitate to send us updates about your service so we can all stay informed about the progress GoDataFeed is making!!

To our readers: Well, that pretty much wraps up our latest data feed company interview. I hope you all enjoyed our time with Lin Grosman from GoDataFeed. It always amazes me to see how companies such as this are revolutionizing the CSE industry. I hope it was as informative for all of you as it was for me. If you liked this article and interview, be sure and subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you. If you just can’t wait for more like this, and haven’t already, you may also want to check out some of our past ecommerce interviews.

GoDataFeed is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

FeedPerfect, a Solid Cactus company, offers professional comparison shopping engine and data feed solutions to eCommerce sellers interested in getting their product information imported, optimized and published within popular shopping portals and destinations. FeedPerfect’s data feed solutions are designed with ease of use and efficiency in mind. Merchants who use FeedPerfect are able to utilize all of the categorization methods and data requirements for each CSE directly from the merchant application dashboard. Once store products are imported into the app., a variety of tools can be used to mass categorize product groups, pre-validate product data and automatically submit products directly into each supported shopping engine.

In addition, FeedPerfect takes the process a step further by providing useful tools to help merchants optimize their individual data feeds, track product performance and analyze product and engine statistics, making it much easier to adjust data or make changes to improve performance.

FeedPerfect Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Import – FeedPerfect’s global database will give you the tools to mass categorize groups of products saving you A LOT of time.
• Publish – FeedPerfect will automatically submit products on the schedule you determine to ensure your products’ data remains up-to-date.
• Analyze – FeedPerfect’s analytics provides merchants with powerful decision making tools and the ability to act on these decisions right inside of the application.
• Optimize – FeedPerfect allows you to review product performance across multiple channels and optimize each feed for maximum performance.

FeedPerfect Benefits:

• Completely Web-based Application
• Detailed Analytics Tools
• Easy To Use, Comes Supported
• Feature Rich Interface
• Validation And Categorization
• 17 Major CSE’s Supported

Try FeedPerfect FREE For 30 Days:

FeedPerfect offers a complimentary 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. Visit the FeedPerfect homepage and fill out the brief form on the right to sign-up for your FREE 30 day trial of their popular data feed application.

FeedPerfect Pricing:

• Starter – 1 Store, 1,000 Products, 3 Engines, $89/month
• Professional – 1 Store, 20,000 Products, All Engines, $179/month
• Enterprise – 4 Stores, 100,000 Products, All Engines, $279/month

About Solid Cactus:

Solid Cactus, a total e-commerce solutions provider, has designed or redesigned more than 2,500 e-commerce sites using the Yahoo! Store platform. Our team of world-class designers and experienced programmers know what makes e-commerce sites successful and strive for excellence in each project we undertake.

Kurt Illian, Solid Cactus, Answers 10 Questions About FeedPerfect:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

After working with online merchants everyday since 2001, we saw the need for a product to help them manage their feeds early on. We originally had a simple feed service that allowed merchants to send their products to each of the engines from one centralized place. As time went on we realized our customers were blindly sending feeds to the engines without watching their spend or optimizing their data feeds accordingly. Basically we saw a lot of customers wasting money. We decided to meet this need by introducing FeedPerfect in early 2007.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

FeedPerfect provides one centralized location to manage products available to be sent to the Comparison Shopping Engines. We then provide a way for the merchant to select which engine they would like to advertise in, as well as a walk-through simplified setup wizard. Not only will you find the ability to select which products you would like to advertise but also a comprehensive list of the different categories available within the engine. Once the feed has been sent out to the engine, FeedPerfect provides analytics to track the conversion down to the product level allowing the merchant to take action (change or remove that product from a feed) from one interface without having to learn each engine’s unique admin.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

• Google Product Search
• Price Grabber
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla
• Yahoo! Shopping
• MySimon
• NexTag
• Smarter
• PriceLeap
• PriceSaving
• Jellyfish
• Become.com
• StreetPrices.com
• Live.com
• SortPrice
• Pronto.com
• Amazon Product Ads

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have a large variety of customers ranging from small “Mom and Pop” companies with small advertising budgets who are only advertising in a few engines, to large e-commerce businesses with a dedicated marketing manager watching the spend on a daily basis. FeedPerfect also caters to agencies with multiple accounts/stores by making it possible to manage their customers from one easy-to-use interface.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Time and money. We’ve seen too many merchants simply set up their feeds and “walk away.” Your CSE advertising is an important part of your business. If you are not going to take the time to manage it properly, you should look for a solution that can help. Find a solution that will save you time through the automation of data feeds, and money by telling you where your money is being spent. If that is still too much for you, consider using a firm to manage your CSE feeds for you.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

I have found some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data. Many people send their products to Google Product Search but are not aware of which items are performing well. In fact, many of them do not even have access to such valuable statistics. This is a great way to test new product offerings in the world of Comparison Shopping Engines, and at the same time provide valuable statistics to use across other advertising channels.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

People often overlook how much data they are providing a CSE. Conventional wisdom says the more a customer is informed (by product information), the easier the sale. The CSEs have required fields, but not many people look beyond those fields and populate the fields that are optional. Consider updating your feeds to include as much information as possible.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

Technology changes everyday so the possibilities are endless. With social media being so new I can see more CSE adding in social components into their engines allowing shoppers to communicate with each other. One trend that we have noticed is larger e-commerce stores are starting to compete in CSEs which is making it harder for smaller merchants to compete.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

We continue to add more CSE’s into FeedPerfect. More importantly, however, we are adding new tools that will make it easier to manage your data feeds and see which products are producing the best results, and which items are not producing desirable results for your bottom line.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

Due to the various demographics that each merchant targets, it varies across each store. However, one feed that continues to not only have the best ROI (since it’s free), but drives traffic and sales, is Google Product Search. The sales many of our merchants get from Google Product Search compare to other CSE’s that you are paying for. Outside of Google Product Search, our merchants have been able to find success within all of the engines we support, depending on the merchants target demographic.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Kurt: I want to personally express my thanks for your participation in the QandA Kurt. I appreciate the time, thought and effort that went into your answers, such detailed responses! I love the fact that you’ve put so much emphasis on technology and tools to make everything so simple and easy. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data.” I find this to be true in nearly one in five people I discuss current CSE strategy with. Analyzing performance and drilling content down to the product level is so overlooked it’s not even funny. Glad you brought it up and reinforced that it is NOT OK! Again, thank you for taking the time to participate. Love what you’re doing with FeedPerfect and at Solid Cactus, it seems like you’ve got a quality team. Keep up the good work.

To our readers: It’s great to get this kind of information directly from the professionals, isn’t it? I hope you all enjoyed this, and past interviews, as much as I have. We’re almost out of data feed providers to interview, so it won’t be long now before we begin some new QandA series’ and expand on some we’ve already begun conducting. If you liked this structure and the interview content, be sure you subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you.

FeedPerfect is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

ShopWiki is one of the most creative, intuitive concepts I have ever seen spun from the comparison shopping engine business model. Their crawler based CSE is smart, powerful and capable of including products from nearly every merchant seller online (given the site is crawler friendly). ShopWiki is also currently the most recognized shopping engine in existence that utilizes the power of user generated content through their built-in wiki platform.

ShopWiki was originally founded by two ex-DoubleClick execs, Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, and Eliot Horowitz in 2005. Since launch, ShopWiki has continued on their goal to find and index every possible offer by a merchant that can be purchased online. ShopWiki is an advanced shopping crawler, product engine, wiki or gift guide, social community and much more. They currently even offer user submitted shopping video content and product reviews.

ShopWiki is the ultimate shopping search engine, combining powerful Web-crawling technology with wiki buying and gift guides. ShopWiki doesn’t sell any products and doesn’t charge retailers to include their products in your search results.

ShopWiki’s Overlooked Blog:

• Official ShopWiki Blog

The ShopWiki Overlooked Blog gives the people behind the ShopWiki concept a new place where they can share daily product finds, sites and other unusual offers from around the Web with users. Anyone interested in finding new creative products and merchant shops from industry professionals who know their stuff should certainly save and tune in to the Overlooked Blog by ShopWiki.

ShopWiki Mobile Search:

• Official ShopWiki Mobile

ShopWiki also offers a mobile version of their comparison shopping search. As far as I know, they were one of the first CSE’s to release a mobile version of their product shopping engine and have certainly gained many more users by offering their technology and tools through mobile devices. Now shoppers can find and buy their favorite products “on the go” with ShopWiki’s official mobile shopping site.

James Keating Answers 10 Questions About ShopWiki:

Roughly how many merchants are included within ShopWiki?

ShopWiki.com includes products from over 200,000 merchants in the US, plus another 50,0000 in the international markets we’re entering, such as the UK (ShopWiki.co.uk), Australia (ShopWiki.com.au), and even France (ShopWiki.fr).

ShopWiki.com crawls ecommerce stores to actively pull in products from any store we find on the Internet. This is very different than a typical shopping comparison engine which waits for a merchant to send them a data feed. We will present products from merchants even if they don’t opt in for premier placement, which makes it the most comprehensive shopping search engine on the web.

Roughly how many products are included within ShopWiki?

There are over 250 million offers in ShopWiki.com!

Roughly how many individuals currently work on ShopWiki support and coding teams?

There are 7 people writing code at ShopWiki.com, and since we use crawlers, there is minimal need for support, with two people available for merchants to work with. The automation and self service we designed in from the beginning makes it possible to run ShopWiki.com with a modest size team. As we expand into more countries, we will bring on staff with native language skills for those markets. We even manage to squeeze in some fun with our blog (blog.shopwiki.com) to comment on the wonderful diversity of product ideas and ponder their potential usage.

What other places across the Internet, if any, are merchants and products included?

We have done co-branded shopping solutions for MensHealth, and have been speaking with several other sites about working together. As those distribution deals are launched, we will announce them.

What, in your opinion, are the highlight features ShopWiki offers it’s users?

The completeness of shopping search is ShopWiki.com’s core strength. Our shopping search engine will find anything and everything for sale on the Internet. We also make sifting through all of those options a breeze by using natural language in our search, such as “burnt orange strapless dress for under $100″.

What, in your opinion are the highlight features ShopWiki offers merchants?

Ease of participation: We’re probably already crawling your site, so include us in your CPA affiliate program, and we will do all the rest to give you preferred placement in the search results.

Are new features being added and updated often? How often would you say?

Every week we make improvements to the site and the infrastructure, some major, some minor. All updates are aimed at improving our ability to find stores with new features, better layouts for shoppers, etc. to make it easier for visitors to find the products at the stores they know and discover stores they didn’t know. We also continuously improve the crawling technology to find more stores and more products.

How does ShopWiki plan to stay competitive with sites like Amazon and eBay marketplaces?

Due to the nature of our crawling technology, we can easily foresee having greater selection than Amazon, and become the de-facto standard to start shopping.

Where do you see ShopWiki in the next 3-5 years?

ShopWiki.com has been designed from the ground up to roll out to just any country in the world, especially smaller countries that would have a hard time supporting a traditional shopping comparison engine relying on data feeds. You’ll see our presence in the US increase, as well as establish a global presence. Any country with even a modest ecommerce market is prime for ShopWiki.com to help shoppers and merchants come together.

What Online product marketplaces, other than ShopWiki, do you personally use to shop from?

Of course, Amazon is a favorite of mine, and I enjoy reading shopper’s opinions on stores at Reseller Ratings before I try a new store. Epinions has been a treasure trove of product information, to which I’ve even contributed.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To James: I would like to personally express my thanks for your participation in this interview style QandA, despite your demanding schedule and responsibilities. Myself and our readers sure appreciate the detailed thought and effort you have put into each of your answers, allowing for all of us to get to know your CSE a bit better. I like the fact that you have started with your goal and stuck to it over the years by building up your crawler technology to the point it’s at now. I love the crawler approach as opposed to the “submission of data” model. It’s great that merchants can get products included within ShopWiki without paying or going through the trouble of generating and submitting a data feed. Another wise move, in my opinion, has been your recent jump into the international shopping-scape. Hopefully that continues to help you grow beyond expectations!! Thanks again James, and please don’t hesitiate to send us any feature releases, updates or announcements in the future.

To our readers: I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading our most recent comparison shopping engine (CSE) QandA with James from ShopWiki.com. I have several more interviews in the works with other comparison engines, data feed companies and top 100 retailers in the future. You may also wish to read back in the archives at some of the ecommerce interviews we have already conducted.

ShopWiki is Featured as one of the comparison shopping wikis on our Product Listing Guide!

Awhile back we kicked off a new interview series with top comparison shopping engine and data feed management companies in an effort to introduce our readers to some of the industry players and to inform merchants about the types of services offered by the different providers. This interview is roughly the fourth CSE services one we’ve conducted and I am happy to report that it appears as though we’ve got a few more in store due to be released within the month.

CPC Strategy is a provider of comparison shopping engine and data feed marketing services for merchants interested in leveraging the power of online shopping engines in an effort to increase shopper, buyer and brand awareness in the world of online retail. CPC Strategy’s solution is meant to take an individual approach to CSE selling taking into consideration that different sellers may have separate goals when it comes to marketing through comparison shopping.

CPC Strategy Comparison Shopping Solution Overview:

CPC Strategy understands that each merchant is different and has unique goals for their Comparison Shopping Campaigns. We strive to work with each of our clients individually to ensure that we fully understand and meet your expectations.

A few of the data feed services offered by CPC Strategy include adding custom product attributes, optimizing individual data feeds, automation of data feed submission, proper feed categorization and even micro-management of each campaign. The overall goal of CPC Strategy is to boost merchant ROI by lowering costs associated with CSE marketing and by increasing shopper conversion rates.

CPC Strategy Data Feed Service Details:

Data Feed Optimization

CPC Strategy will create, optimize, and manage data feeds in an effort to take advantage of the individual unique opportunities offered by each of the most popular comparison shopping engines.

Automatic Data Feed Submission

CPC Strategy will automatically upload the most recent data feed as a way to ensure that each CSE will have access to the most recent, up-to-date and accurate information for the entire product line or catalog.

Product Level Bidding

CPC Strategy will use their precise in-house ROI tracking system to determine and help estimate the most appropriate bids for the entire product line or catalog.

Custom Attributes

CPC Strategy will add any custom attributes to merchant data feeds in an effort to increase product relevancy and shopper conversion rates for the entire product line or catalog.

CPC Strategy Case Studies:

• Online Diamond Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of diamond merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Garden Decor Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of garden decor merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Hand Bag Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of hand bag merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

CPC Strategy Blog:

• Official CPC Strategy Blog

CPC Strategy now has an official blog. Some of the blog topics include topics ranging from product bidding, click fraud, tracking and landing pages to specific engines such as Google Base, Shopping.com and more.

We strive to provide busy merchants with a Comparison Shopping Campaign Management Solution freeing them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

Rick Backus, VP New Accounts, Answers 10 Questions About CPC Strategy:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

CPC Strategy was founded in January 2007 by former employees of the comparison shopping engines. We saw firsthand how merchants were struggling to manage their spend and achieve their target ROI. It was frustrating seeing merchants making the same mistakes repeatedly again without even realizing what they were doing wrong. The lack of uniformity between CSEs makes managing multiple campaigns in-house very difficult and thus ineffective for most merchants.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We do all of the above as we are a true Full Service Data Feed Management Solution. We provide each merchant with an ftp for data feed updates and then we take care of the rest.

New feeds are generated based on the specifications of each CSE, and our system is set-up for daily deliveries and to track the results. A weekly report is also sent out to each merchant which breaks down ROI at the product level for each CSE Campaign.

In terms of specialty services, we pride ourselves on keeping up with the constantly evolving algorithms of each CSE via regular A/B testing. This helps us in understanding what each engine is looking for and enables us to manipulate our client’s data feeds accordingly.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

If the engine accepts a data feed, we can work with them. A few examples include Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, Google Product Search, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We’ll let our merchants speak for themselves: http://www.cpcstrategy.com/testimonials.html

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Merchants should understand the difference between companies that provide data feed submission tools and full service firms which handle all aspects of data feed management. There are plenty of excellent tools that help merchants manage their own campaigns in-house but we are not one of them. Our goal is to provide our clients a comparison shopping management solution that frees them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Underestimating the time and resources needed to build successful long term campaigns. CSEs are not like those rotisserie grills that you see advertised on late night TV, in which you can simply “set it and forget it.”

They also tend to overestimate the similarities between comparison shopping and traditional PPC. While the two share certain similarities, there exists many differences between the two, and requires true niche experts within the field to run effective campaigns.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

A/B testing! Should you alter your titles and descriptions? Should you implement a price floor and/or price ceiling? Should you run all or some of your inventory?

Data feed management is often times more art than it is science, and different merchants may yield different results–even among those within the same industry–so experimentation is a must. Without A/B testing you’ll never truly know what the right marketing mix is for your products on the CSEs.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

We believe that as time goes on CSEs are going to be thought of as less of a stand-alone destination and more as part of an integrated buying experience.

As it stands, a consumer making a purchase must first research a product, decide on a make and model, as well as where/how to buy it. We believe that in the future CSEs consolidate the buying process, allowing the consumer to make a decision without having to first visit a stand-alone destination.

Social networking will also have a major impact in comparison shopping, as applications are currently available for people to learn the buying habits of their friends, and receive recommendations via that route. Facebook already has an application that has reached the million user mark that attempts to recommend its users products that they may be interested in.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Hopefully we will stay true to our roots and stay focused on comparison shopping exclusively. Most of our competitors were SEO or PPC agencies that decided to offer a comparison shopping branch to their host of services. As far as I know, we are the only full service firm that focuses exclusively on comparison shopping and I think gives us a competitive advantage.

Also hopefully our new blog – http://blog.cpcstrategy.com – will be as popular as yours

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It’s very hard to make a generalization like this. Performances will range considerably for different types of merchants depending on the engines, and each use different metrics to measure “success”, whether it be on profit margins, or total exposure, etc.

That being said, Nextag has been converting pretty well lately.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Rick: First, terribly sorry for any delays in getting your interview answers published Rick!! I am extremely grateful for your contribution and for you taking the time to provide such detailed, informative, entertaining answers for our readers. The thing I like most about your company and mission is the fact that CPC Strategy was started by ex-CSE employees who saw a need that wasn’t necessarily being fulfilled by competing comparison shopping engine service providers. It shows that your company representatives really do care about the success of your clients and that there is real passion behind the services you offer. It’s a pleasure to advocate for such a firm and quite refreshing to see in this world of “passion for greed” providers. On a side note, glad to see you guys went the blog route, looks like your authors are off to a tremendous start, so keep that up! I look forward to working with you again in the future on more project collaborations such as this interview and wish you a successful future as a leading CSE service provider.

To our readers: We hope you’ve all enjoyed this interview with Rick Backus about CPC Strategy’s data feed and comparison shopping engine services. Remember, we conduct interviews like this one and similar topics on a regular basis so be sure to grab our articles feed or subscribe to email updates so you’re never out of the eCommerce news loop. If you enjoyed this interview you may wish to read additional QandA’s we’ve conducted by visiting our eCommerce interviews category. Thanks again for tuning in everyone, see you next time.

CPC Strategy is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!