eCommerce and

Recently a fellow coworker sent me a blog about multi channel selling which was basically a "pro niche" piece.

"A highly effective strategy in ecommerce is multiple channel selling. This involves having several niche websites targeting different demographics, displaying specific product ranges. This allows you to create completely focused websites with a high sales conversion rate."

While I understand the niche v. mega site argument (and I also may have my mind set on which I like best both from a customer and retailer perspective) I thought this was an interesting article which highlighted all of the great things about niche websites and none of the bad. I know people say they are great because of the niche SEO value, the ability to really hone in on your marketing campaigns and the ability to focus on a particular product niche. And I agree, those are some great reasons to sell via niche websites. However, I see even more reasons to avoid buying or selling via a niche website. Developing niche SEO campaigns and polishing marketing strategies can be done on a large scale, in a similar fashion to that of niche retailers, by focusing on categories and product types.

I would even go so far as to say that I think that SEO, in particular, can go much further for larger sites.  I say this because a larger site can draw more links, have more authority within an industry and create a community built around an entire market instead of a niche. My next step in the conversation or thought process then usually turns to the ability to cross sell, up sell and convert repeat buyers which is much harder and far less effective on a niche website.  Think about it, how much harder would it be to convince a consumer to buy just one more barstool on a website that only sells barstools, as opposed to a website that sells outdoor furniture who can then up sell on the matching tables, chairs, accessories, and more?

The next thing that goes through my mind, or the next thing I would bring up in a conversation regarding niche v. vertical is operating costs.  Depending on the retailer's level of technological prowess, I also like to bring up the level of overhead with operating several websites v. one. Don't let me convince you, though; several retailers are moving away from niche websites. The Gap recently combined their web properties so that shoppers can simply visit the gap website and shop at all of their stores by means of one shopping cart. There are also several mega sites like, Amazon, QVC, etc. which continue to do well. So, while I lean on the anti-niche selling side of the fence, I believe it can be done in a scalable and profitable fashion. However, both as a buyer and seller, I prefer the larger non-niche sites.

This also brings up a nomenclature issue. I would consider "multi-channel selling" to be either selling through different means (i.e. as a physical store, catalog and online) or through different marketing channels such as shopping engines, marketplaces, and search engine marketing. So the verbiage of the article is also confusing in and of itself. I might consider the means through which products are listed and categorized on a site a "selling channel", but I would probably classify niche websites as a "selling strategy" based upon how the business has decided to sell online.

I was pleasantly surprised today during my morning order audit process to see an order with http://www.google.com/shoppinglist as its referer information. I did not remember Google Product Search having a shopping list feature so I poked around to see if I could find a post on the Google Base Blog or someone else explaining when this feature appeared and how it worked. Disappointingly enough, I could find neither so decided to write a post of my own discussing this neat little feature.

As you can see by the screen shot below, all Google product Search listings now have the "Add to Shopping List" text underneath them which by clicking on it (assuming you have a Google account) lets you save it to a list of products which Google keeps track of for you.

On the upper right when using Google product search it now says "My Shopping List" which by clicking on it will take you to the list of products you saved to your list. At this point Shared Wish Lists can also be created and shared with friends or family, another neat, friendly, shopping feature.

All in all, this is a smart feature and one that I appreciate.  In an effort to keep my shopping list organized, keep a running tally of the great deals I find and a list of the products I might be interested in for the future, having the functionality via Google will save time and enable me to keep my list in one place rather than among multiple retail venues. At this point one of the only gripes I have is not being able to save non Google Product Search products to these lists (but Google Notebook is an alternative for that).  Another option would be to build a feature that allowed retailers who posted products on Google Product Search to let their users add products to the Shopping List directly from the retailer's site.

After talking with a Product Search Rep from Google I found out that these features previously existed in the Froogle search interface and were removed during the transition to Google Product Search. It has been slightly revamped and was relaunched late last week.

Happy Friday readers.  Today is a special day for me, when I leave here today I am heading to the hospital to hold my new God Daughter and my best friend will be a mom.  It is surreal to me, but it was bound to happen sometime, so I thought I would share my excitement.  As you may have noticed I spent some time at Shop.org this week in Huntington Beach for their Merchandising Workshop, I hope my notations helped as I feel like I got a lot out of attending.  So let’s see what else went on this week….

• Tracking the influence of online shopping and research, and the effect it has on in store purchases is becoming a hotter topic.  Multi channel merchants have been trying to analyze this and it seems that ShopLocal has come up with a way to do so.  According to the CEO, Vikram Sharma “The results are clear and the index strongly supports analyst forecasts of the rapidly growing use of the internet for shopping in-store.”
• Pure play internet retailers beware:  “In one city (New York), a judge determines that an Internet retailer’s use of thumbnail product images, even those published by a manufacturer to sell its own products, is permissible “fair use” when used by the Internet retailer to sell that manufacturer’s own products, and hence dismisses a claim for copyright infringement by the manufacturer. In another city (Phoenix), that same fact pattern and the same statute results in a trial for copyright infringement!”  Read the full article here. 
• eBay is slumping while other internet retailers are succeeding, um can I say duh here?  A few months ago they totally change feedback and best match search, essentially killing longtime loyal sellers.  Now they have struck a deal with Buy.com, which seems to be infuriating individual sellers.  Now eBay’s general manager of North America says “Frankly, we are challenging some of the core assumptions that we have made about our business…Instead of focusing on being an auction business, we are looking at what it takes to create the best marketplace out there.”  Really eBay?  I seem to recall you ostracizing a whole lot of your core merchants when you tried to kill them with fees in 2006, and a few months ago with the changes to how seller’s products are returned in search results.  Honestly I am not surprised that eBay is floundering, we are still trying to make it a viable marketplace, but with their outdated UI, poor reporting, and constant changes how are sellers supposed to invest their time, effort and other resources and still make a profit? 
• If you are looking to hire a paid search marketer or agency make sure you familiarize yourself with this list of questions to ask before you sign anything. 
• Watch out Hollywood, there is a whole new breed of celebrities, and guess what, they are nerds just like us.  Techcult just released the Top 100 Web Celebrities.  I was a bit jealous at first thinking to myself, I can’t believe I didn’t get any of the fantastic people that I work with on this list, but then I saw who was number one, and I am not joking it’s Tila Tequila!  When people like Seth Godin are at number five and Jeff Bezos at number 21, and Tila and Perez Hilton get numbers 1 and 2 respectively, it scares me to think of what this world is coming to.

I can’t wait to let you all in on some of our new projects, but for now we must exercise patience.  Here’s this week in eCommerce.

• I know it is the middle of July and thoughts of Christmas and the Holiday season may seem far off to many, but marketers should have the season on their radar and on their schedules. Internet Retailer posted an article this week claiming that marketers should have holiday campaigns ready by October.  Read the full article with figures from MarketLive Inc.’s recent study here.
• The Small Business Mavericks have compiled a few lists that they believe can make or break a small internet retailer. 
• Affiliates have been getting a bad rap at recent conferences, so The Rimm-Kaufman Group has provided a video featuring Shop.org’s Larry Joseloff explaining how to balance affiliate programs. 
• Want your business teams to perform better?  According to this study one of the first things a company can do to increase performance is to not have one dominating team leader. 
• Andy Beal has announced the 2008 SEM scholarship winner. 
• Tell Marketing Pilgrim what you think the conversation went like for this picture….
  

This was my thought (hey it’s Friday, have some fun with it):
“Sergey: Jerry you gotta let loose a little bit man, you look like you are about to have a breakdown.
Larry: Yeah if you don’t have your sunglasses at least tossle your hair a bit so you don’t look so uptight.
Jerry: I know I know, it’s just, well you guys know what it’s like where I’m at, I mean I don’t even have a bean bag in my office.”

Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!  This weekend is normally blazing hot in sunny Southern California, but as you may have heard we were hit with hail, rain, and, no joke, tornadoes yesterday.  What’s great is the weather isn’t the only exciting thing going on.  Check out this week’s electrifying eCommerce events:

• This week Linda Bustos graced marketers with an entire series on PPC advertising.  I don’t normally put multiple links to one blog in the Variety but I think these posts are really valuable to both new and distinguished SEM marketers, so I will just list them:
  
  • PPC Advertising: Are You Selling Yourself In Your Ads?
  • PPC Copywriting: The Evolution of a PPC Split Test
  • PPC Split Testing: Reducing Risk When Testing New Ads Against Control
    
• For those of you who read Seth Godin’s blog, you already know that he can be quite insightful.  I found a post that he wrote this week to be quite interesting because I think it really pertains to the eCommerce retailer.  We know from experience that conferences can be beneficial; we have experience in being the presenters and the attendees.  Yet, as we grow we have realized that the time and resources given to these conferences can be far greater an expense than the value reciprocated.  Seth offers some ways in which conference organizers can improve on this issue. 
• If you read our blog, you know we love all that is Google, but even we can admit that Google has seen it’s fair share of, do I dare say, failures.  Tom Spring of PC World composed an article of the “Top 10 Google Flubs, Flops, and Failures”. 
• Growth can be scary, especially when you are growing too fast.  Frank Adante has quantified the cost of growth for his company, the equation: Optimized for Speed = 30% Waste. 
• According to Jackie Baker “Professional Looking Design Drives Conversions”.  She offers insights on color scheme, textual formatting and most of all explains that if you are going to want lasting results you are going to have to be in it for the long haul.  I happen to agree.  You may have seen the Internet Retailer article on our product detail page redesign, which explains how some simple improvements in design and functionality increased conversion, but I can tell you it didn’t happen overnight. 
• Microsoft launched their Live Search Cashback this week, and TechCrunch took the liberty of analyzing the move for us.
  

As you can tell I have been on a Google Webmaster Central kick lately. The Google Webmaster Central blog has collected some of their best and most informational posts and created the 7 must-read Webmaster Central blog posts. Seeing this collection has reminded me of some of the search engine optimization and search engine marketing hot issues, some of my favorites being...

Flash Best Practices 

While many were glad to see Google address this, flash has been something that many SEO's stay away from like the plague. While there are several acceptable methods for optimizing a flash website none are particularly easy and sometimes results are hard to glean. There were always questions as to whether the search engines would accept these optimization techniques or whether they would learn to read flash, both seem to have been addressed over time.

The Supplemental Index 

I remember several tools which could be used to see how many pages a website had in the Google supplemental index and I remember even more posts and discussions as to the use of the supplemental index and getting web pages out of it. I think many released a sigh of relief when Google disbanded its use so that website owners had one less thing to worry about. 

Duplicate Content 

The mention of duplicate content and penalties associated with it used to be a huge issue for many, especially those with larges websites which may have several overlapping pages. I was more than relieved when I learned that no penalties were actually associated with duplicate content but simply Google selecting which page to show for related searches. After many have spread the word about duplicate content this is still an issue that comes up and needs clarification. Many SEO's are still addressing duplicated content in that removing it or fixing the problem is great but getting Google to select the right version to show in searches may be more important. 

One of the more interesting adventures I have had at work recently has been setting up and managing our six (yes count them six) new interns. While we have had internship programs at our company in the past, it has never been at this scale.  Previous programs were simply for benefit of the students who wanted to learn and gain experience, and to support local universities.  This is by far the most interns we have had at one time. I am a big fan of internships, having completed two of them myself when I was in college.  I think they can provide a great deal of real world experience and they look good on a resume, not to mention they provide inexpensive labor to the company.

The first issue that will arise in putting together an internship program is actually getting interns. Sometimes posters around a college campus or a spot at the local job board is simply not enough. Lucky for us we have Tim, one of our managing partners, who happens to teach part time for a local University. This provides our company with a great avenue to spread the word and wrangle interns for our company.

The second issue is making sure potential interns understand the value proposition and what kind of internship your company offers. This starts with the company itself and the development of the program. It's important for interns to gain something besides a note on their resume. Interns can be integrated into many aspects of a businesses and provide cheap or free labor in return for real world experience, industry knowledge and sometimes college credit. All of which can be leveraged as great value propositions when trying to attract interns.

It's important to also give some thought as to what jobs or projects might be best suited for interns in your business. Some jobs might require too much experience, knowledge or training and others might be to simple or mundane. In our latest internship program, we are training our interns in several aspects of search, marketing, data, content creation and management. We then let them create content for our websites learning centers while teaching them why content creation is important.  Finally, we are tracking their progress. They will also be helping with other SEO, marketing and product data related projects as the need arises and as they express interest in different areas of our business. They have already begun some of their work on both the PlumberSurplus.com Learning Center and the OutdoorPros.com Learning Center with work on our Knife Buying Guide and BlackHawk Videos.  They have also started on manufacturer descriptions such as Gerber Knives and Moen and they will continue to fill out both of those content rich areas of our websites.

A couple of areas to be mindful of for an internship program is management and se tup. If possible it can be a good idea to spread out your interns throughout multiple departments making it so that one person does not bear the brunt of the management or organization. If that is not something that you want to do, getting them to come in at the same time or on the same days can also help. Getting everything setup for the interns ahead of time, such as the list of projects, any paperwork, training and computers can be key so that time is not wasted and your interns can start off on a good foot at your business.

While the interns still have several weeks to go, everything seems to be going well and they are expressing interest and getting excited about many aspects of our business. In closing, remember to never forget that an internship program can also be a great recruiting tool, not only are they great for all of the items mentioned above but they go far beyond the standard interview so that the company gets a better idea of a persons work ethic and personality for potential future hire.

Yesterday was April Fools Day and websites across the globe participated in the event by creating hilarious hoax after hilarious hoax.  While there are more than I can mention in this post I have chosen my favorites to share.  If you are interested in getting the full scoop, check out AprilFoolsDayOnTheWeb.com; they have submissions from the last five years of April Fools jokes on the web.  While I am only providing the briefest synopsis, I encourage you to check out some of these links for yourself as the comments left by those who have been fooled are almost as priceless as the jokes themselves!

Have you ever wanted to go back in time and send that email that you forgot about?  Maybe Mom’s birthday?  Well Gmail offered that option on April Fools.

Google didn’t limit their tall tales to just Earth.  They provided would be gullible users with a way to travel to Mars via a partnership with Virgin Media.  The partnership was appropriately named Vir-gle.

In keeping with my favorite Google jokes, I wanted to share one more by the mega company.  Google Australia will allow users to search the web for content that has not yet been created!

It is an election year, and April Fools wouldn’t be the same without an Election Deathmatch.  ESPN  provided us with the Clinton v. Obama winner take all tournament where they could compete against one another in events such as “The Dick Cheney skeet shooting contest”.

An online dating blog broke the story that the founder of eHarmony found love on Match.com.

ThinkGeek had so many April Fools products listed that I couldn’t just choose one.  I mean, could you choose between: The World's First USB Pregnancy Test Kit, The YouTube Tazeer, and Capp’n Buzz Spazztoids?

InfoWorld released story after unbelievable story: Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price, Hewlett-Packard unveils new green server partnership, Steve Jobs "miracle" in the valley…and my personal favorite... 

Marketers have to worry no more.  TrustBanners has found the proven way to increase the desire to purchase by 87.9% in consumers by stimulating the visual cortex.  Results for a banner about apples states: “92% of test subjects viewing this banner reported an unprompted compulsion to purchase apples”.

My final pick for this post is for my fellow blogger, Ryan, a known car racing aficionado around the office.  Njection.com has come up with a way to provide would be racers with real time tracking of police officers.

April Fools existed before the Internet and MuseumofHoaxes.com has a list of “The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time”, it’s a fun read.  Until next year…

If you’re a sports fan this is one of the greatest times of the year.  March Madness is in full effect, NBA and NHL playoffs are approaching, and baseball season has started.  To top it all off, as a SoCal fan, my teams are looking good…mostly.  With that in mind, if you are anything like my fellow co-workers and I you may have been watching basketball at your lunch instead of reading the latest eCommerce news; that’s what I’m here for!

• Want to improve sales and marketing?  Check out the “Powerful Sales & Marketing Ideas of $100 Million Dollar Companies”. 
• Commission Junction is experiencing a bug, some merchants are unable to see affiliate applications and it’s been going on for a week! 
• Curious about where you stand in the world of search marketing?  SEOmoz published results to their SEO Industry Survey that may help you find out if you are at the beginning, middle or end of the pack 
• Sick of the major search engines?  Here are five alternatives. 
• Not everyone is happy about Google’s “Search-Within-Search”.
  

Let’s face it, there are necessities in life. We need reliable transportation, food, shelter and social interaction. There are also needs at your job in order to perform the tasks required of you. As a search engine marketer, coming from a young internet retail company, I have humble roots. As we continue to grow, we are able to finally afford many of the more costly solutions we once dreamed of using. I’ll go back to my roots for this post.  To help those just starting out, here are some free, or relatively inexpensive, tools and resources to get you on your way.

1. A high speed internet connection - Cost: Free.  At most locations. When navigating through thousands of keywords, in several ad accounts, waiting for pages to load will definitely eat up a good portion of your day. Also, that time spent downloading and uploading CSE data feeds on a regular basis is better spent with a caramel latte.  Find your nearest local coffee shop and connect! 
2. Your own dedicated phone number – Cost: Free. When a team member at “X” company needs to call you, but you don’t have a dedicated phone line it can be difficult to conduct business, one easy and free solution is to have your own “business direct” line.  This is easy using Google’s GrandCentral. With the ability to setup custom greetings, screen calls and more, it’s an economical way to use an existing phone (like your cell) for multiple uses. 
3. AdWords Editor - Cost: Free. The only sane way to handle 10’s of thousands of keywords in Google AdWords. 
4. The Permutator – Free to try. In my opinion every SEM marketer needs a keyword permutation generator tool that helps save time when creating long tail keyword lists. 
5. Data feed management/optimization tool - If you submit products to multiple shopping engines then you should consider such a tool. SingleFeed offers one month free for Google Product Search accounts. ChannelAdvisor, and competitors, can run a few hundred to few thousand dollars per month but add many additional services. 
6. An Analytics solution - Cost: Free. You are paying money to bring traffic to your site right? Then you need to know what that traffic is doing once they get there. A solution like this sounds expensive but Google Analytics is free with any Google AdWords account. 
7. Internet Retailer - Cost: Free. If you don’t already subscribe to this publication, you can get 12 free issues and/or daily email newsletters, just by signing up on their website (also free). Stay up to speed on upcoming industry events, and get the latest ecommerce news at your fingertips or email inbox. 
8. Business cards - Cost: Free. You likely won’t need this item until you have #2. You can get cards printed for free at Vistaprint.com. Handy for cocktail conversations at conventions and industry events. Business cards really complete you as a professional; showing that you have an actual address, phone and email give validity to you and your organization. Also consider having different cards made for all the different specialties and ‘hats’ you wear. 
9. Large supply of heavily caffeinated beverages - Cost: Free. Thank you PlumberSurplus.com for providing this.  I don’t know how we all would have gotten this far without Folgers, Diet Coke and Mountain Dew. When your boss’ instant messaging moniker is “I coffee coffee” and there’s a coffee pot and stocked refrigerator in every building, you know you’re at an online company. 
10. USB missile launcher - Cost: Free (thanks to my significant other). Used to thwart off any belligerent coworkers in the next cubicle (or across the coffee shop if you are utilizing #1).