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Zazzle, a global trendsetter in e-commerce, now delivers out of the UK in addition to its US operations. After months of preparation, the English site was launched and with that its first international operation (press release): "The launch of Zazzle.co.uk further reinforces Zazzle's commitment to revolutionize e-commerce, and to empower buyers and sellers around the globe." "The Zazzle platform was built with global commerce in mind," said Michael Karns, Head of International Development for Zazzle."The new Zazzle is much more design and marketing oriented. Zazzle,…

OpenCandy Inc demonstrates that startups with proven ideas - particularly in the area of monetization - may very well weather the current financial crisis.  They announced a few days ago a Series A financing round in the order of $3.5 million. OpenCandy’s distribution engine technology is targeted particularly to application developers who don’t have huge marketing resources or distribution networks to grow their installed base. Originally developed to bundle software installs for DivX, OpenCandy’s technology opens up an association based recommendation network into your…

Etsy is growing from month to month and has doubled its trade volume this October with $8.4 million in relation to the January figures of $4.2 million: Nevertheless, with cumulative volumes at $64.6 million so far, it could be difficult for Etsy to achieve it’s 2008 target of $100 million of gross merchandise value. Related posts: Etsy Investor Gives an Inside Peek Sales Update: Etsy Rushes from Record to Record Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

Even a role model enterprise such as Zappos needs to cost cut. 8% of its workforce will be reduced. Zappos CEO wrote on Thursday in his blog:"Today has been a tough, emotional day for everyone at Zappos. We made the hard choice of laying off about 8% of our employees. The layoffs will affect almost every single department at Zappos. In addition, we are also looking at closing some of our brick and mortar outlet stores in Nevada and Kentucky.Fortunately for Zappos, we're in a much better position than many other companies. Unlike many other companies, we are still growing and already…

The social commerce platform Zlio may have in the past focused on sales of products from affiliate partners, but on the new marketplace “Zlio Suppliers”, dealers can also set up products which will be marketed across the Zlio sales network. Zlio would like in the future to profit from higher commission fees by bypassing the affiliate program structure.  In doing so, Zlio hopes to avoid bitter experiences such as with Amazon.com whereby Zlio was completely blocked out of the affiliate program. For Zlio it’s the third or fourth strategy change. With the exception of the user driven…

Computer and server maker Dell surprised Wall Street with better-than-expected profits Thursday. The company reported $727 million in earnings in the third quarter, down 5 percent from the $766 million it reported during the same period in 2007. Third-quarter revenue came in at $15.16 billion, a 3 percent decrease from the same period last year. Despite the decrease in year-over-year revenue, Dell was able to increase profits through a series of cost-cutting measures instituted more than a year ago.

In four years, driving a car in the San Francisco Bay area may involve a variation of the "plug and play" concept. Think "plug and drive," if the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose and start-up Better Place have their way. The company, founded by former SAP executive and Wired magazine cover subject Shai Agassi, announced a private-public partnership Thursday with the three mayors and regional entities to begin building the support infrastructure for electric car use in the Bay Area.

President-elect Barack Obama may not find it that hard to give up his BlackBerry after all. Verizon Wireless has announced that some of its employees accessed his personal cell phone account records. The wireless provider apologized to the president-elect and said it would discipline the employees involved. Verizon apparently realized this week that Obama's records had been breached. The account is linked to a flip phone that does not have e-mail or advanced data capabilities, and it has been inactive for several months.

TV shows like "The Hills" focus on the petty squabbles that go on in the world of spoiled, vapid socialites. I can't think of a program that gets into the catfights that go on in the IT world, and I don't know whether there'd really be a huge audience for something like that, but they do happen, and court documents in an ongoing lawsuit have revealed some juicy tidbits. The class-action suit concerns the promises made by some PC makers that their computers -- even some really weak-kneed models -- could shoulder the weight of Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista.

Two engineers from China who pleaded guilty to the rare charge of economic espionage against the U.S. are facing sentencing Friday, in a case that highlights national security threats surrounding sensitive technologies. Fei Ye, a U.S. citizen, and Ming Zhong, a permanent resident of the U.S., admitted in 2006 that they stole computer chip designs from their Silicon Valley employers and tried to smuggle the secrets to China to launch a government-backed startup there. The engineers each face a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Imagine being able to spend more than an hour — maybe even a full day or more — with a multi-millionaire business owner and pick their brains on what it really takes to build a super-successful business. If you could ask them anything you wanted about the specific mindset, tactics and strategies they used to go from zero to millions, sometimes in just a few years or less. I’m sure you agree that would be an amazing opportunity. Well, my friend Richard Parkes Cordock didn’t just sit in front of one… he’s interviewed fifty-one UK multi-millionaire business…

It looks like Jeff Walker just sold a million dollars of product in, what, a few hours? (I’m basing that on 500 copies of Product Launch Formula at $1,997 per course sold = $998,500. He won’t pocket all that cash - a percentage will go on expenses, and a large chunk will go to his Joint Venture partners. But even so — he’s just used his own web marketing methodology to have a very nice payday. There’s so much B.S. on the Internet these days it’s great to see someone walk their talk. And as someone who uses his technique to launch my own products, I’m…

If you’re NOT looking to make *big* money on the Internet please stop reading now. This post is only relevant if you want a high-income Internet business. Thanks. Today’s post is one of those rare exceptions where I very STRONGLY endorse a third party internet marketing product. How strongly? Well let me put put this way — if you want to make money on the Internet and DON’T watch this free video, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful revenue-generating techniques there is. (Rumour has it Apple used this technique to launch the iPhone.) Click here and…

Keeping tabs on your competitors is important… and very easy to do online. One simple ‘trick’ (if I can call it that) is to sign up to your competitor’s email newsletters. Now this seems so obvious to me, I’ve never really bothered suggesting it. However I was recently reminded what a mistake it is to assume anything, so here’s the idea… 1) Create a ‘disposable’ email address, or at least one separate from your daily email. (NB: Use a free service like GMail.com to protect your identity. There’s no need for competitors to know…

With an effective web marketing strategy in place, your site can help you find more new customers and clients, faster and easier, and help you sell more to the ones you already have. STRATEGY is the key to creating a big money-making web site. Your website is just a small part of that. Unfortunately most of the small businesses websites I see don’t have a strategy. (And the kicker is that I didn’t have a web strategy for many years until I finally understood these principles.) And I still see it — so many small business websites are gathering virtual dust —…

I am out this week so intern Justin put together his favorite articles from the week, enjoy and see you in a few! This week in eCommerce Google has started two new ad options for its $1.65 billion purchase, Youtube. It's practically common knowledge that Youtube has videos of almost everything, however they are a little short on advertising. Now when users search on Youtube there will be "sponsored videos on the right side of the screen alongside unpaid results on the left." Youtube also announced that they have made deals with major studios, such as MGM and Lionsgate, to add…

We were lucky enough to catch up with Linda Bustos of Elastic Path Software and ask her a few questions that are likely on many retailers minds.  Both multi-channel and web only retailers face difficult challenges ahead, the holidays that are right around the corner, and the global economic downturn that has brought spending to a drastic halt.  The insight she provides may help many overcome this uphill battle. Tell us a little about your blog, company, and your role at Get Elastic: My official title is Ecommerce Analyst at Elastic Path Software, a role that involves keeping on top…

What a historic week we have had!  Our President Elect has a lot to do when he takes office, and while 48% of the voters may have been disappointed by the outcome, I think it’s important as citizens that we give him a chance.  I mean forgive my opinions but Schwarzenegger is trying to pass more taxes than California has seen since he took office and he is a so called “Republican”!  I start with these comments this week because these decisions and changes are affecting the workplace whether the workplace is eCommerce, an entrepreneur’s start up, or a more…

Vanessa wrote a great blog recently entitled "Ask Not What Your Company can do for You – Ask What You can do for Your Company" I thought this was a great blog and it prompted me to put together some similar thoughts I had recently while dealing with some employee issues. As a department head I constantly get bombarded for every request and issue imaginable, everything from why a certain food item is not in the kitchen, to schedules and work quality, interdepartmental communication, even the dreaded last roll of toilet paper panic attack. To top that all off, it also comes from…

Previous installments of our “Affiliate Watch” series have had a strong focus on improvements that can be made by the affiliates.  We have touched on design, functionality, best practices, content and more as it pertains to publisher improvements.  Last month ShareASale hosted the ShareASale Annual Think Tank, which proved to be valuable for both publishers and merchants.  Part of the conference was dedicated to merchant evaluations of their programs by handpicked affiliates.  Publishers that evaluated our program were forthcoming, thoughtful and…

Top Speakers Highlight Upcoming Conference Focusing on Multi-channel Innovation for E-Commerce Executives Wet Seal's CIO Jon Kubo and FAO Schwartz new SVP Direct to Consumer announced as Keynote speakers at eTail 2009 Phoenix. Brand New Retailer-Only Content Advisory Board introduced. Worldwide Business Research (WBR) is pleased to announce Keynote Speakers and the Content Advisory Board for

If you are an SEO novice, you should consider reading Google’s new Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This 22 page eBook covers SEO best practices, basic techniques, pitfalls to avoid, and few other important factors an SEOer should consider while optimizing any website. I strongly recommend small and medium online retailers to implement the strategies that are included in the guide

Social shopping engines have been gaining popularity and to add to the list is another UK social shopping site called Tribesmart. Though the site is in its infant stage, the homepage is well designed with the tango look. Tribesmart primarily focuses on six categories of products, ranging from home products to fashion and technology products. Among these six categories, the ones like “active” and

Selling items online is not about rocket science, it’s merely about coming up with creative ideas and strategies. The advent of internet and online tools and applications has definitely paved the way for smart marketers and sellers to market and sell their goods. These products could be anything from a common daily life product or service to something absolutely weird like the item mentioned

This holiday shopping season, the United States might experience a deep decline in growth rates of online sales as compared to the previous year. The projected E-Commerce sales this holiday season is 32.1 billion, up 10.1% over 2007 sales. This projected sale excludes travel sales i.e. online travel, event tickets and digital download sales. Though the economic slowdown will leave its impact on

Google's new initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of certain flu-related search terms to determine where in the United States flu outbreaks may be occurring.Internet attacks are getting more potent.YouTube may soon be offering full-length films for free.E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

"American Airlines is suing Yahoo Inc. for trademark infringement, a case similar to one that the nation's largest airline settled this summer against Google, Inc.  American filed its lawsuit last week in U.S. District court in Fort Worth for unspecified damages, legal costs and money to run a "corrective" advertising campaign"E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Google and Yahoo are in talks with the Department of Justice to avoid an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement.E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Google and Yahoo are delaying their controversial search advertising partnership.In a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Public Citizen seeks an injunction against John Dozier of Dozier Internet Law prohibiting Dozier from pursuing defamation and trademark claims against Ronald Riley, who runs the Web site CyberTrialLawyer-Sucks.com.  The suit also seeks attorney's fees and punitive damages.  "In the past month, three successive Internet hosting companies have taken down Riley’s Web site after each company received a warning…

Why is the Internet like the Hotel California?  A Canadian newspaper points out some of the problems that arise because the Internet never forgets - "you can post to it anytime you like, but it never leaves."Outsourcing aids many data thefts.In separate actions, Microsoft Corporation and the State of Washington have initiated lawsuits against vendors of "scareware," which bombards "innocent PC users with fake messages detailing putative threats or infections."  E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each…

You might have noticed the big economic crisis that has the world down to its knees. It wouldn’t be a big surprise if you’ve missed it either, if you’re selling online, that is. The word is one market remaining untouched by the downfall, and even expanding in these hard times, is right here: eCommerce. A Forrester research interview with e-commerce companies states “the overall industry remains strong” in an article on The impact of the economic crisis on e-commerce technology investment . Also in Canada, there’s a new report in the news stating a “61% growth in online…

Have you always wanted to migrate to Shopify but never wanted to take the time to actually upload all of your products? Have you told friends on other e-commerce platforms they should switch to Shopify, only to hear that it’s too much work to change platforms? Well, now there’s no excuse, just use Importer Importer is an application that uses the Shopify API to import content from other platforms on the web into Shopify. Currently, you can import all of your products from an osCommerce shop into Shopify, and you can import all of your blog posts, comments, and pages from a WordPress blog…

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers. Did you miss this week’s webinar? Don’t miss our on-demand replay Multi-Store Retailing Online: Perks and Pitfalls or December’s webinar Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession. I want to start off with a link from John Audette. He doesn’t post too often but when he does, seriously, it’s good stuff. Audette…

In the first of what we hope to be a series of retailer interviews, I caught up with Zachary Applegate of PlumberSurplus and OutdoorPros: Tell us a little about yourself and your company: My name is Zachary Applegate, I am the Search and Marketing Manager for the Gordian Project which is currently the parent company for two ecommerce websites PlumberSurplus.com and OutdoorPros.com. PlumberSurplus.com has been live since August 2004 and offers tens of thousands of plumbing, home improvement, and building products in a range of categories including Kitchen and Bathroom, Water Heaters, Lighting,…

This is a recap of our webinar Multi-Store Retailing: Perks and Pitfalls with Elastic Path’s own VP of Innovation, Jason Billingsley. You can also catch up on all of our audio/visual webinar replays at ElasticPath.com/Events/ and blog summaries here. Though our webinars are not product-specific — we put these out there for all online retailers to access and enjoy whether you use our ecommerce software or not, this topic is near and dear to use as our most recent version of Elastic Path is really honed for multi-store retailing. If you’re interested in a product-specific…

The following is a guest post from Armando Roggio, a web developer, a marketer, the Contributing Editor of Practical eCommerce and a serial entrepreneur with many micro-businesses. The leading web standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recently announced new content accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.0) to help make the Internet easier for blind, deaf or otherwise disabled web-surfers to access and use. Such visitors require aids such as screen readers to follow content. Not only is adhering to web accessibility standards ethically and morally the right thing to do, there are 2…

Who cares about Twitter? The microblogging network has enjoyed impressive 343% Y-O-Y growth and is the fastest growing US social network according to Nielsen Online. Some claim Twitter attracts 2000 new users a day. Wouldn’t you like to know if people are “Tweeting” about you, your company or your products? What are they saying? A simple way to find out is to use Twitter’s own search engine. After you perform a search, you can subscribe to the search keyword through RSS: Or you can sign up with TweetBeep and get Google Alerts style updates every time your tracked…

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this, our “Cart Of The Week” feature, we’ll profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart and ask its management about its strengths and weaknesses. We’ll then ask a customer about the cart, too. In this installment, we’ve featured Actinic, a U.K.-based licensed shopping cart that is distributed in North America by Sure Solutions. Actinic is a Windows PC application for small and mid-size business owners who want control over their online store, but don’t want to keep a full-time designer or…

Having even one credit card number stolen from your site can tarnish your reputation and impact sales for years. It is important to be aware of potential security flaws and how to mitigate them to protect yourself. “A breach of cardholder data can be big money in fines and remediation efforts. If there isn’t a need to keep this data, it’s suggested that it’s not kept at all,” suggests John Carr, owner of Bluebird Consulting, a Detroit based security firm. “For many ecommerce sites, the best option is simply to work with a third-party processor that will not only process credit…

With the holidays ahead, and a new inflatable fruit cake product selling only sparsely, Seattle toy store Archie McPhee this week is setting out to drive online sales with an explanatory video. It’s apparently working. Within 12 hours of launching the video ad campaign, sales for the $6.95 blow-up novelty at ArchieMcPhee.com jumped 500 percent, said David Wahl, director of marketing and host of the viral instructional video. "I used a five-year-old digital video camera and movie editing software that came with my Macintosh; it’s definitely not state-of-the-art equipment," Wahl said. "Most…

Personal recommendations and coupons or flyers passed on by friends are key factors in how female shoppers select products, according to a survey of 2,000 women from SheSpeaks, a marketing agency and social network for women. “SheSpeaks members are representative of influential and engaged consumers nationwide, and they want to be able to pass along the ‘wealth’ of being in the know,” said Aliza Freud, CEO of SheSpeaks in a release from the company. “Brands and retailers really stand to benefit from making women feel like they have access to a unique offer. This year it is…

A newly released consumer survey from Harris Interactive, a research firm, and Volusion, a hosted shopping cart company, suggests that payment security is—not surprisingly—a top issue for online shoppers. The survey asked more than 2,400 online shoppers aged 18 or older what factors influenced them to buy from a particular online store initially. In response, 93 percent thought that a secure checkout process was important or very important. The survey also found that a variety of quality products and easy to use navigation and features are also important. Related Articles Do Security…

With prices on the rise and confidence down, online retailers face a harsh economic climate as they head into the all-important holiday season.

Online unit struggling with softening advertising market, and looks to lure the kind of lucre Google and Yahoo are seeing.

J.P. Morgan analyst cuts online ad forecast as spending freezes in late third-quarter downturn.

New research finds that bloggers' links are gaining heft as trusted guides for finding useful content and product purchases.

Forrester revises its growth expectations for the holiday shopping season. Gas is still playing a role, along with economy.

According to the IMRG e-Retail Sales Index, British shoppers will spend £13.6 billion online in the approach to Christmas - an increase of 15% over 2007.

Online customers want more than just the best price, says new research. They also look for a good experience, and good customer service.

A new study by the Royal Mail found that shoppers who consulted a catalogue before purchasing online spent 13% more than those who did not.

Recent research by the IMRG found two-thirds of internet shoppers more likely to buy presents online this Christmas, and three quarters expecting to buy more than half their presents that way.

Actinic has prepared some quick tips to help online businesses have a cracker of a Christmas.

Detroit can’t stop advertising altogether, so it’s focusing on efficiency.

The search giant dips its toe in TV ads.

No, they are irrelevance-resistant.

Its users can’t even agree on what multicultural marketing is.

Market research firms such as comScore do not yet measure newly developed types of social networking ads.

Until the moment when LibertyReserve started thinking of its publicity the only thing the users knew about LR was that the system operated long enough and that had already changed several offshore shelter. Probably when the company changes its headquarter it manages to leave all the balances and multi-level money laundries in each Read more

Yesterday a well known online payment provider WebMoney Transfer has congratulated all the system users with anniversary of the payment processor. “3653 days of uninterrupted service have passed from the moment of the first transaction!” reports the official blog of the company. Read more

It does not matter you are new to investment game program playing because with proper strategies and a step-by-step guidance you can succeed too. Investment game program playing can be risky; it can make you lose money as easy as it can make you win. But if you stick to the rules of playing investment game program, you can be very profitable as the successful players. Read more

You must stay away from this investment game program scam which called eurofxtrade as not only this program does not pay you, the scammer is trying to hack your liberty reserve account by directing you to the phishing website. This program offers one type of plan which is 30% daily for 5 days and claimed to be a real offshore company known as Euro Forex Trade Ltd as stated on the website which as follow: Read more

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... but primarily helps small businesses in the industries of consumer products, health & beauty, hospitality, ... Album then designed and developed a custom e-commerce website, which won an award from iParenting ...

... of online fraud within the online retail industry. The partnership will introduce Merchant911s member-based community ... saw what iovation was doing to fight e-Commerce credit card fraud, I recognized it as ...

We at Artefact have found that the commoditization of e-commerce experiences is an industry-wide phenomenon, to the point where even the patriotic use of red, white and blue doesn’t make much difference. The sites miss obvious opportunities to articulate their brand values or provide deeply engaging user experiences, a sense of wonder and exploration. Perhaps retailers are hesitant to invest in a great user experience, given low stickiness of online users – after all, it is possible that in search for a better price users will abandon a no-matter-how-compelling online experience in favor…

Since June of 2008, all merchants accepting credit cards have been required to become PCI-DSS compliant. PCI-DSS is a security standard to help prevent and control loses from businesses losing card holder data, specifically credit card numbers. PCI-DSS compliance requires merchants to complete a self assessment security questionnaire, and complete quarterly vulnerability scanning of their servers and network connections. PCI for large businesses has been implemented over the past several years, but compliance is now required for all businesses. PCI-DSS is broken into four groups based on a…

On a recent trip to the movie theater my eyes were opened up to just how popular mobile technology really is. I’ve read the studies and the articles and I know that I should start thinking about making my site "mobile ready" but it hadn’t really hit me until I took my kids to the movies on a Friday night. It was opening night and the theater was packed. We arrived early so we could be sure to get our candy and get good seats. As we waited for the movie to start I was people watching, mainly a large group of teenagers. I couldn’t believe it. Each and every one of them had a phone in…

I know that a blog post about DNS, or Domain Name System, records is probably not the sexiest topic out there, but it is one that I think will help developers that are struggling to wrap their heads around what DNS records do. To start with the Domain Name System is what routes requests across the internet, and what allows us to type in pretty domain names to our browsers and have them resolve to the correct server. This is accomplished by DNS records that allow for the translation of a semantic domain name, such as "mydomain.com" into the IP address of the server that needs to receive these…

I have been told that I sound like I am about 12 years old on the phone. This can be a problem with some people who don’t want to take me serious as the CEO of my company. The reason I bring this up is because of what just happened to me. I just got off the phone with a sales representative that was hoping to sell me some advertising space on a very well known website. While talking to her she asked me if I needed help with the spelling of the website she was selling. Let’s just say this is a household name that every woman in America knows, not to mention the spelling isn’t tricky. She…

Try using Buddy Coupons to get friends talking about what they are buying and where they are buying it. If they are talking about your store, that is very good news.

The use of video in ecommerce sites is becoming increasingly popular. Merchants are using video to both increase conversion rates and to drive traffic to their sites. And video is affordable to produce, especially when a merchant does it himself. To explain all of this, including syndication and streaming options, Justin Foster, founder of The Video Commerce Consortium, joins Practical eCommerce's Kerry Murdock.

Consider making secret or exclusive offers to attract more business, and support those offers with special landing pages.

Word of mouth marketing is the art of using promotion, advertising, or other means to create a positive buzz about your store.

As search engines have gotten better at discovering web content in many forms, manually submitting to them has become less of a focus. But content and distribution platforms continue to expand, and as they do so, the need for manual search engine submission remains an important, if changing, option.

We just had a meeting with our UPS rep today. Luckily we switched just before DHL decided to stop all US domestic operations. Ironically our UPS rep helped a DHL truck driver uninstall their drop-box from our office building. He also got a picture of him helping DHL on his cell phone which I can honestly say was was of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. Anyway, if you’re using DHL for your shipping, and you’re not looking for a new provider, you need to get moving. DHL stops all domestic US operations on January 30, but most of the drop-boxes are already gone. We…

I’m not sure if there is an authoritative guide on a website’s contact form, so here’s my take on the picture. A contact form is a seemingly simple feature, that most websites mess up. While a broken or poorly designed contact form may not be the end-all problem with a website, there’s no reason that it shouldn’t work correctly. What a contact for must contain: Name, email, (optional: phone), and message fields Shouldn’t Contain… A ridiculous captcha verification script Confirmation / feedback that the form was properly submitted An email response…

It looks like Google’s shopping cart got some upgrades this week. Google introduced their cart about 6 months ago and just added some new features this week. The cart quickly integrates into your website and allows your customers to checkout through Google checkout. The cart is now a little more advanced, and stays on your website. This should still be an easy means of adding a simple cart to a website. It is still limited by the fact Google Checkout is the only supported payment method, but it should suffice for smaller requirements and merchants that don’t want to use Paypal or…

When you look at businesses that are struggling, you generally see two reaction in attempt to get out of the slump. The first reaction which generally is seen when a company declares bankruptcy or just before, is the add more fees without adding any value solution. Airlines are currently guilty of this, as most are adding fees everywhere without adding any additional value to their customers. I recently took a trip and was charged for curbside check-in, for checking a single bag, and for a soda while on the flight. The flight attendants and check-in receptionists were rude, no doubt because…

Google rolled out their web browser today, Google Chrome, and I have to say that after trying it out for a little while I am completely surprised. Google Chrome is a very stripped down browser with the advantage of being about 2 million times faster than Internet Explorer or Firefox. After browsing for over an hour, I didn’t have to wait for a single page to load, at all! Not sure what Google does different from Firefox or IE, but the difference is amazing. I think that this could easily save me ten or twenty minutes a day from not waiting for web pages to load. As far as layout…

Kelkoo has been searching for a home for over a year (some great links in the comments).  According to TechCrunch, Kelkoo has sold to a UK Private Equity firm for less than 100mm Euro (where the heck is the Euro symbol, WordPress?).  In the TechCrunch post is the internal announcement from Kelkoo.  TechCrunch also points to a blog post by the (obviously not happy with Yahoo!) former Kelkoo CEO, Pierre Chappaz.  Here’s the babel fishd version of the post. Yahoo! originally bought Kelkoo for 475mm Euro.  Ouch.       

This economy is horrible, and I think it will get much worse next year. While I haven’t seen revisions of the rosy 10%+ growth predictions for online sales from a number of research firms, Piper Jaffray’s October Research report on ‘The Turbulent teen years of eCommerce’ explains the harsh reality of the current economic environment.  While Piper Jaffray expects “online sales to continue to take consumer wallet share from bricks and mortar stores, growing 5%-6% faster than total retail sales in the near term,” that doesn’t mean much when total retail…

From the press release: Revenue for the Interactive Services segment grew 14.7 percent to $62.6 million. Segment profit was $12.8 million compared with $8.7 million during the same period a year earlier. The growth at Interactive Services is attributable to increased user traffic and higher referral fee revenue at Shopzilla, and an increase in energy switching activity during the period in the United Kingdom for uSwitch. This compares with Q2 revenue of $66.9 million and segment profit of $15.1 million (PDF link). These results are a positive sign for the industry in the face of…

GSI Commerce (NASDAQ:GSIC) hit a 4 year low yesterday, closing below $10 for the first time since October 18, 2004.  My go to analysts at Deutsche Bank are still cautiously optimistic on GSI saying in yesterday’s brief: Net/Net, while we don’t think GSI is sheltered from a slowdown in consumer spending, the company is well positioned to succeed even in this environment, for two reasons. First, there is a shift towards results-oriented business, in our view, especially when times are tough. In this case, GSI’s services-based model, where it partakes on a commission basis, certainly…

via The Seattle Times, Mercent is laying off 6 of its 50 employees.  As the article states, this is a ‘prudent’ cut in staff. If you’re not a start up person in Silicon Valley, you might have missed the hooplah over Sequoia’s recent meeting with its portfolio companies.  You can ge the recap (including the deck) here. If you’re like me and are more than slightly pessimistic and believe that we’re in for a long financial winter (extending throughout all of 2009), then this slide is very important to pay attention to: The lesson - cut costs now and horde…

Varien, the Magento company, is continuing to grow and we are seeking a talented, motivated and entrepreneurial minded project manager. Our product, Magento, is the fastest growing eCommerce platform in the world with over 500,000+ downloads. If you enjoy working in a fast paced, innovative environment, this is the place for you. The individual will provide structure and overall vision on our projects. This includes interfacing heavily with our technical teams to assure that the solutions are understood and address the customer’s business requirements. Responsibilities: Act as the main…

As the Varien blog continues it’s short somewhat long hiatus, a Magento update post is in order. Here’s whats happening in the Magento world: Magento 1.1.x is now available for download. For this major release we focused on expanding Magento’s product configuration options, streamlining integration between strategic Magento modules and external applications (API), increasing the flexibility of the core tax module to allow for Canadian and EU tax rules and boosting the overall performance of the Magento Platform. Magento wins ‘Best New Open Source Project’ at the 2008…

Our friends at the Get Elastic blog will be conducting a Web Analytics webinar (details below) on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 9 am Pacific. You are probably tired of having a boatload of data and nothing much coming of it. Not any more. In this webinar, leading analytics author and evangelist Avinash Kaushik covers three specific areas you need to focus on to get the highest possible ROI from your Web Analytics investment. You’ll learn: The fun clickstream analysis you should do Interesting ways to listen to your customers Why you need to fall in love with experimentation (and all it…

We are extremely excited and proud to announce the production release of Magento 1.0 (Download | Release Notes). The new community site will be online later this week and feature additional functionality, highlighted by Magento Connect.

We're happy to announce the recent launch of a redesign for automotive internet sales website, DealerRefresh.com! With a wider, more open layout, new colors, standards-based code, and a search engine-friendly design, Dealer Refresh has further solidified its position as one of the premiere automotive sales websites on the internet. Take ...

It seems Google will soon be making yet another change to their AdWords Algorithm. On their Inside AdWords blog they detail the changes, and make one somewhat surprising comment. CTR based on Ad Rank The quality score. It is the bane of the search engine marketer's existence. ...

It's Friday again, so before I get a free lunch, you get a few free links. In the spirit of Halloween, Google has temporarily re-worked their logo, as they do on most holidays. They've also made sure they're safe from zombies. That's right, they've blocked zombies from accessing their brains this ...

Guaranteed number one ranking is a farce. If you don't know that by now, its time to learn. A caveat: I write this post out of frustration. I'm struggling to understand why Google does what it does with its rankings. As an online marketing specialist here at ...

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. With the election growing nearer, you may still be undecided. Let me do my part to help you decide. May I present, the John McCain vs. Barack Obama eCommerce Website Analysis. Read on to find out if our US presidential candidates have their ...

I’m making the list, be sure to check it twice to ensure success for your e-commerce website this holiday season. Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Your site will be flooded with traffic this holiday season. How can you harness that traffic to create year long business? Consider offering a good discount incentive for customers to come back and shop in January. You can automatically email them a coupon after each order, or send one along with the package. Don’t forget to email and remind customers to come back and use their discounts. Loosen Up & Emphasize Your Return Policy: While…

There’s a very good chance you won’t finish reading this blog post. Why? Because you’re constantly bombarded with distractions and options. You have plenty of other blog posts to read or emails in your inbox beckoning for your attention. Even if you commit to reading this you may be distracted by a ringing cellphone or a text message. Or maybe your brain will suddenly remember that proposal you had promised to send out 3 hours ago. Just as you may abandon this post, at this very moment, dozens of visitors may be leaving your website for similar reasons. When optimizing our…

Stop for a moment and consider the goals of your website. Regardless of whether it’s a purchase through a shopping cart, a lead generation, white paper download, or a email opt, I’m going to bet every one of these actions requires a customer to use a web form. With web forms playing such an important role in the completing goals, it goes without saying that we should optimize the heck out of them. Below are 25 tips for doing just that. Ditch the Captchas: Captcha’s are great for blocking spam, but some evidence suggests they are just as good at blocking conversions. A little…

What’s one thing that all successful e-commerce sites have in common, regardless of their industry, technology, or experience? Their customers trust them. E-commerce in particular lends itself to a low trust environment. After all, when you make a purchase online, you’re giving money to someone you can’t see, for a products that you can’t touch. Needless to say, trust is a crucial aspect of transacting business online. Duct Tape Marketing recently interviewed Steven M.R. Covey on his book The Speed of Trust. Covey speaks of a “low-trust tax” which makes all…

What’s possibly the #1 problem preventing you from improving your website? You. As much as we want to believe website optimization is all about tactics and strategy, often the key to success lies in our own behavior. In order for optimization to occur, we first have to properly collect and interpret data about our websites. However, if the daily processes which we use to collect data are overly systematic and rigid, inevitably out of the box thinking will cease to exist. Let face it, we all get into ruts by doing things in the same old way. So how can we change perspectives and see our…

I receceived the email below from Peet’s this week with the subject line, “Thank you for being a customer.”  (You can see a full-size version of it here.) I was impressed with this email.  It provides strong reasons to buy Peet’s coffee while making a genuine connection with customers during “difficult economic times.”  I had two reactions to it.  First, Peet’s can offer me an affordable luxury without the guilt.  And, second, there are ways to manage my order to save money on shipping.  Nice job, Peet’s!  (Is there anyone from…

If you have a few minutes, check out Eric Peterson’s open letter to President-Elect Obama.  It’s a thoughtful letter with some interesting user comments.  Eric is a frequent Shop.org speaker.  While the gist of the letter is a call for the Federal Governnment to make better use of persistent cookies, it also raises some important issues about cookies that will surely be the center of an online privacy debate expected in Congress in early 2009.

Shop.org annually puts on an event called Shop@Lunch - a celebration of CyberMonday.  If you happen to be in the Washington, DC area on 12/1 you’re welcome to attend.  There’s a Facebook page with details, and feel free to forward the invite to friends in DC even if you’re not going to be able to make it.

[Editors note - from time to time, we'll publish guest blog posts.  This one is from Kevin Hillstrom, President, MineThatData.  If you're interested in publishing a guest blog, or becoming a blogger, contact Josh Greene ] A New KPI:The Net Google Score I recently met with two executives, an EVP of Merchandising for a traditional catalog brand, and a CEO of an online pure-play.Both made interesting comments about traditional advertising and direct marketing. The EVP of Merchandising lamented the fact that as he improved his ability to execute catalog advertising, his competitors benefitted…

We are very excited to have the self-proclaimed analytics guru, top-notch speaker, and overall great guy Avinash Kaushik kicking off our 2009 Strategy and Innovation Forum.   He spoke a few years back at a Shop.org merchandising workshop and received record breaking feedback.   For all retailers analytics and measurement are crucial topics and at the Strategy and Innovation Forum, Avinash will discuss how to build a data driven organization that is creates a culture that promotes innovation. Avinash recently sat down with the Head of Retail at Google and Shop.org Board of Directors…

After being acquired by Yahoo in 2004 for €475 million, Jamplant took the French CSE off of the purple giant's hands for less than €100 million earlier today.  Kelkoo will continue to power Y! Shopping, Cars and Travel.Sellers on Kelkoo today received the following email outlining the Yahoo's sale and Jamplant's acquisition of Kelkoo:Dear merchant,Today, I am extremely excited to inform you that Kelkoo has been acquired by a newly formed private equity company called "Jamplant". Kelkoo will no longer be a subsidiary of Yahoo! and will continue to trade as an independent entity. Going…

Kelkoo is no longer part of the Yahoo! family. It was announced today that Kelkoo has been acquired by a UK firm called Jamplant, which sounds more like a band than a private equity company. Below is the email sent to merchants this morning. Dear merchant, Today, I am extremely excited to inform you that Kelkoo has been acquired by a newly formed private equity company called “Jamplant”. Kelkoo will no longer be a subsidiary of Yahoo! and will continue to trade as an independent entity. Going forward – your trading relationship with Kelkoo will be unaffected. Kelkoo will continue to…

Well, it appears that November 1st has come and gone and Shopping.com is the only Comparison Shopping Engine daring to drop their rates for the Holiday Season.  Other major players still plan to increase their rates (per usual) for the holiday season.  However, Shopzilla is offering a small concession by postponing the rate increase from Nov 1st to Nov 20th - a few extra days is always appreciated.Regardless I am still interested in how Shopping.com's rate decrease will work for them over the coming 2 months.  Specifically as retailers have come to realize Shopping Engines are a "must…

As the holidays approach there are many things we all look forward to –  holiday decorations, parties, and gifts (which hopefully means traffic to our retail websites) – but with it comes many things that we usually do not look forward to – long lines, traffic, air travel, and higher marketing CPC rates… or do we? This year, in a departure from the norm, Shopping.com released their holiday rate card with lower rates for some traditional gift categories… lower rates?, that’s new! Don’t worry the sky is not falling and Shopping.com is not completely losing it, instead they…

(This post is from Jennifer who is the Product Manager for ShoppingAdvisor and attending Shop.org's annual summit today) Blogging live from the Shop.org Annual Summit 08 in Las Vegas.  Today the Shop.org conference opened with a keynote from Borders President & CEO George Jones speaking to the strategies his company has taken on relaunching and expanding their presence online.  While Borders new site strategy is interesting and appropriate in our current “social media marketing” online society, I was more intrigued by how Shop.org kicked off the conference.  Prior to…

Hunger isn’t something most people think about every day. Sure, it's mid-morning and I skipped breakfast so my tummy is growling up a storm, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is this … I don’t think every day about how long it will be before I can afford my next meal. I don’t think every day about the millions of people living in this country who go to bed hungry every night. With Thanksgiving a week away, I'm not worried that my family won't have dinner on the table.According to a recent USDA report, 36.2 million Americans, and that…

 We refer to this title as WOW and WOW it is... check out these fans that lined up in our Bentonville store to get a copy of Lich King!  It is ironic that the fans are lined up next to milk, because this game will out sell 2% milk today!  This is not my type of game, so I am interested to hear what the gamers are saying.

 Well, it is that time of year. Speculation grows as to the plans of retailers and the jolly fat man from the North Pole. Yes, while everyone is getting ready for the holiday, it appears that a few mischievous elves are also at work with plans to disappoint folks this year. As most of you already know, Santa is a Sam's Club Member. How else did you think he gets all of the Skittles and toilet paper the good elves need to run the workshop? Santa pays well, but in a down economy, he also has to watch his expenses. Anyway,  he called me to ask about some websites that mention deals…

 On October 13th, Sony announced a firmware update for the PS3. It is version 2.5 and was sent out without a ton of fanfare. It is actually pretty significant from a few perspectives. Here is why: 1) The new official headset for the PS3 is now supported. I got mine when I purchased SOCOM Confrontation (the version with the headset). Yes it works, and does so quite well.  2) Now we can grab screen shots in game with upcoming titles. I have not tried this yet as I am not sure which titles are supported. Sounds like a cool idea though. 3) The Trophy interface has…

**Update: 11/11/08**The G1 store tracking is now up on Walmart.com.  Type in your Zip Code and see which stores are in-stock.  You can access the page directly here or head to Walmart.com and Search for G1.  As an added benefit you can also review this product via the aforementioned link.**End Update Transmission** I wanted to give all of our readers an update on the T-Mobile G1 (aka Google Phone).  Last week we announced that we would have this phone in all of our 3G locations (roughly 550 stores) after a brief ramp period.  This week we began to ramp…

The market on eBay for all-things-Modern continues to generate interest among collectors and designers as indicated by several recent successful listings for mid century designer furniture. In the last two weeks alone, several choice examples of Eames / Herman Miller chairs and lounge / ottoman sets have sold on eBay. What follows are a few examples of those as well as some other Mid Century Modern items of interest. (click any photo for a larger image). This set of Four Original Charles Eames designed Dining Chairs, manufactured by the Evan s Products Company Molded Plywood Division, sold…

eBay lost a beloved Community member this week -- our dear friend Bobal. If you've been to an eBay Live (any of them but the very last one in Chicago), or if you've ever sought expert help on the Photos/HTML Discussion forum, then Bobal needs no introduction to you. From his ubiquitous "bull" icon signature -- to his one-of-a-kind eBay uniform which he wore proudly as he wheeled around his favorite eBay Live conferences -- to his dedication to helping others, Bobal was a stand-out. He epitomized the barn-raising type of generosity that made eBay's Community so special. It's been…

Good news for sellers who sell low cost items on eBay (typically, $10 and below). PayPal has launched a special pricing solution called Micropayments that can save you money if you regularly accept payments with small total dollar amounts. The Micropayments account pricing is 5% plus 5 cents per transaction (for USD accounts). Compared with our usual 2.9% plus 30 cents, micropayments pricing will cost you less if the total transaction amount is under $12. You can only either have micropayments or "regular" pricing on any given single PayPal account, so PayPal suggests maintaining two accounts…

Last week, eBay seller and Education Specialist Joyce Banbury (danse on eBay) hosted a special event in Hays, Kansas titled, "Kansas Jubilee eBayer Convention for eBay/eCommerce Sellers and Buyers." The two-day convention was held at the Memorial Union hall of the Fort Hays State University campus and was sponsored by the Fort Hays State University College of Business and Leadership. How did eBay become involved in a member-sponsored event? Joyce approached us several months ago with news of the upcoming Jubilee and asked if we in Community Development might send a few employees to instruct…

The Community Development team says goodbye to one of our own this week. After 7 years, Jeff, who many know from this blog, from Voices gatherings, and all eBay Lives but the very first, is moving on. Our team has a long history together, and for this reason, we've always been close like family (you know, that kind where everyone is always in everyone's business). We've watched and supported Jeff during many of his important life milestones over the years. Oh, the memories... Jeff's always been a free spirit.  He came to work each day with a smile on his face and music in his heart,…

[Paul Makin] I recently got hold of my very own contactless card, and I've been keen to try it out - but I haven't seen that many suitably-equipped terminals, and those I tried at unattended POS just ignored me. But last week, I was at Heathrow Airport, desperate for a coffee. So I joined the (long) queue at Caffe Nero, which was taking an age to edge its way along the counter. Watching what was going on, it was obvious that the main reason for the delay was the payment process - at least half of the customers were paying with cards, all Chip & PIN, and each transaction involved the…

“How can you rob a bank in a world without money?” wonders science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, one of the collaborators of the new foresight project KashKlash KashKlash is a lively platform where you can debate future scenarios for economic and cultural exchange. Beyond today’s financial turmoil, what new systems might appear? Global/local, tangible/intangible, digital/physical? On the KashKlash site, you can explore potential worlds where traditional financial transactions have disappeared, blended, or mutated into unexpected forms. Understand the near future, and help shape it!

[Dave Birch] Anthony Cavill coins a neat acronym. He says that money is a Generally-Accepted Medium of Exchange (GAME). That works for me on so many levels, but it also flatters one of my pet theories, which is that we can learn more about the future of money by looking at the World of Warcraft than the World. This is because it's so much easier to experiment with different technologies in the virtual world. It certainly seems to me that innovation and experimentation is alive and well in virtual finance even if it is an abeyance in actual finance. NetDragon has launched an affinity credit…

[Dave Birch] Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which defined the cyberpunk genre. In 2003 he was appointed Professor at the European Graduate School where he is teaching Summer Intensive Courses on media and design. In 2005, he became "visionary in residence" at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In this podcast, he reflects on money, electronic money and the place of money in science fiction. This is part two of a two part series. You can download this and other podcasts in…

[Dave Birch] I went to a seminar on financial crime the other today. Not, as you might think, to look into the possibility of an alternative career if the whole consulting thing doesn't pan out, but because I'm always looking for ways to help our customers to develop new propositions that have a chance working because they solve genuine problems, perhaps in new and innovative ways. So, I thought, why not brush up on the key financial crimes and get an idea of where some of our clients might useful focus their efforts, while at the same time getting a sense on the priorities of law enforcement…

I gave a keynote presentation at the Rochester Professional Consultant’s Network last week.  For those looking for my Powerpoint, you can find it here:  DOWNLOAD PPT 2mb.  (Please note that some may find the opening slides a bit risque.)

Notwithstanding the gimmicky and highly irritating slide-intro, here’s a video showing off Firefox Ubiquity — an interesting concept which continues to blur the lines between user needs and user actions.  These types of services help users share online experiences — and that sort of shared participation is a key to branding today. Take a look.  This is edgy and futuristic, but it’s a great thought-starter: Ubiquity for Firefox on Vimeo

This VERY interesting video was posted to the IA TV Blog and it shows some truly impactful new features in Google, but I have yet to see these features from Google in the wild.  Has anyone else?  Check it out: Google Video - The Future of Search?

In a moment of convenience induced shame, I drove through Tim Horton’s this morning instead of drinking my own.  Truth is, I wanted a bagel with Peanut Butter.  Motoring away, I opened my bagel to find it un-peanut-buttered.  Instead, there was a little tub of peanut butter in the bag. I drove back through and asked for a bit more attention.   I was told that the “can’t spread peanut butter because of allergy concerns.” So we’ve finally reached the level of restaurants being afraid to make peanut butter sandwiches. While this is a good lesson in how our…