iMark Interactive

If you are currently a merchant that is advertising on Pricegrabber, then you should take advantage of this deal.  Pricegrabber has partnered up with Fedex to provide some substantial discounts for Ground, Express, and International Shipping.  You could receive up to 26% off your shipping rates just for using Pricegrabber and Fedex to ship to your customers.  I received an email from Pricegrabber, but for some reason they thought that is would be a great idea to just use a picture to describe the promotion, instead of text.  In order to receive these discounts, you need to log into your Pricegrabber merchant account and click on the Learn More link under the Fedex logo, which is near the bottom left of the home page.  I do not see an end date on this promotion, so start today and see if you can stretch it into the 4th quarter.  Hopefully this discount will last for a long time, so merchants can bring some more money into their pockets.

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If your online business is looking for a way to expand to other markets, you need to come up with the best way to handle payments.  Most payment providers will only capture and process payments from the country you reside in.  While this will work for most small and medium sized businesses, it will not for those looking to expand outside of the borders.

When looking for international providers, you need to put International Checkout on the radar and possibly on the forefront.  This company was created with international customers in mind.  There are many great websites out there, but with so many purchasing restrictions, we cannot get the great things that we want.  With International Checkout, you can provide your items to any country you wish with payments and shipping handled by International Checkout.

In order to implement International Checkout, you have to contact them in order to get an account setup with them.  Once you do, it is pretty easy and quick to implement their payment system.  While you do not want to use this as your main payment system, it will be great for a second or third option.  This system can be added like a Paypal or Google Checkout.  When a customer comes to your website from another country, they will add items to their cart just like any other visitor, but when going through checkout, they would pick International Checkout instead of your normal payment system.

Once they pick IC as their payment system, they will be redirected to a hosted page by International Checkout.  Here they will put in their billing and shipping information and pick the type of currency that they use.  Your company doesn’t have to worry about anything, because it is being taken care of over at International Checkout.  Your system will not see the order from the international customer as it has been given to IC.  International Checkout is the one that will handle the payment processing and the fraud checks for each order.  After they verify the order, then they will go to your website and place the order.  The best part is that you still only have to ship the item to International Checkout’s warehouse, which is in the US or other country that may be close to you.

The order will then go into your system with the IC’s information and shipping address.  All you have to do is fulfill the order and ship it to IC.  This makes it very easy as you do not have to worry about fraud or payment refunds to international customers.  When IC receives the items, they will arrange shipment to the international customer and handle all of the customs issues that may come about.  The only time you have to deal with the order is if it is damaged when it arrives at IC or if the customer wants to return it.  They still have to follow your return policy, but they will contact IC for customer service.

If you want your products in the hands of international customers, but don’t want the stresses of international shipping, then International Checkout could be a good option.  International shipping and order handling can be a daunting task for any online business, so let International Checkout help expand your business and your brand.

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Last week Microsoft said that they planned on ending Bing Cashback.  It has been a year since its launch, but Microsoft just never saw the potential in it.  It is most likely due to the fact that most customers did not realize that they could receive up to 15% cash back from certain retailers.  As of July 30th, Bing Cashback will be shut down for good, hopefully to be replaced by an even better program.  Here is the letter that Microsoft sent to all of its advertisers.

Microsoft Advertising
Dear Merchant,

We are writing to let you know that Microsoft has decided to discontinue the Bing cashback program. After 9:00 P.M. PST on July 30, 2010, we will no longer offer this program on the Bing search results or Bing Shopping pages. This will also be the last day consumers will be able to buy through the Bing cashback program.

What this means for you
As we continue to evolve both the consumer and advertiser experiences for Bing, we will pursue different avenues in order to offer great shopping experiences to consumers and great advertising experiences for our advertisers. We’ve prepared some frequently asked questions about the program closure. Please keep these key points in mind in the coming months:

• This is a great time to spend your cashback budget to drive mid-summer sales. You can increase sales payout rates to the maximum outlined in your merchant agreement to help use up the funds in your piggybank before July 30, 2010. Microsoft will continue to contribute to your piggybank until that date.
• After July 30, Bing Shopping will continue to operate as it does today, but without the presence of cashback. We’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products, compare offers, and buy seamlessly online. In addition to current features like consumer reviews and ratings and Visual Search, we’ll also offer a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience and better shopping integration with Bing.com.
• We are developing a new shopping program that will offer greater flexibility than you experienced with cashback. You’ll be able to provide a broader set of products in Bing Shopping searches, with little or no extra work. The program is scheduled to begin later in 2010, and we’ll provide more details soon.

What this means for your customers
Bing cashback consumers can continue to shop and earn cashback through 9:00 P.M. PST on July 30. They can redeem all of their acquired cashback earnings consistent with the cashback terms and conditions, as well as access the Bing cashback customer support system through July 30, 2011—a full 12 months after the program ends. Consumers can learn more about the discontinuation of cashback on the Bing web page.

Thank you
We would like to thank the more than 1200 cashback advertisers who joined us for this two-year journey. With over 82 million Bing searchers,* we are still strongly committed to being the destination for all commerce-related searches. Please stay tuned for more online shopping innovations from Microsoft, and again, check out the frequently asked questions to learn more about these changes.

Sincerely,

Microsoft Advertising Bing cashback Team

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As we have talked about the transition for Pricegrabber and Yahoo Shopping, we noticed that ChannelAdvisor has created some good tips for making the transition easier and hopefully smoother.  Please remember that if you are a Yahoo Shopping client, then today (1/19/2010) is the last day to sign up for a Pricegrabber account without any fee.  You will want to do this if you have not done so.  ChannelAdvisor has created a simple video that discusses the traffic to both shopping engines and any implications that might come from the partnership.  Please remember that Yahoo Shopping is still going to be around, but it will just be powered by Pricegrabber.

We have also included a video of how to signup for Pricegrabber/Yahoo Shopping if you have a Yahoo store.  There have been many people that were upset when they heard about the partnership.  Yahoo Store owners have always received a discount on their Yahoo Shopping Listings.  There are many yahoo store owners out there, so Pricegrabber will need to work with them to make them happy.  There are many options to sign up for the new Yahoo Shopping, so take the time to look at this video and it will show you in detail in order to sign up properly.

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This is going to be the year of mobile ecommerce and if you have an internet ecommerce business, then you need to jump on board.  Each year the number of smartphone users increases and we become more reliant on our blackberries and iphones.  There are many times when people are not in front of their computers in order to make purchases online and you want to be in front of them at all times.  With a mobile commerce store, you can do this and still capture sales from every potential customer.

With mobile commerce being so new, there are not too many providers to assist retailers with creating a reasonably priced mobile store, at least until now.  A company called App Publishing Group has created Mobile Store Maker, which enables retailers or anyone that wants a mobile store to create a storefront with ease.  They provide this for a simple fee of $20 per month, but provides you with 30 days to test out the product.  This is a great deal for anyone that wants to get into mobile ecommerce.

You can have your retail mobile store setup within a few minutes after downloading their start up kit.  This provides you with tips and tricks in order to maximize your mobile store.  All you have to do is import your products and then change the design features to make it look original.  It is wise that you try to keep the colors consistent with your website.  They have a good amount of features that are not included with many other service providers, so you are getting a great deal for only $2o per month.  Their feature set is as follows:

• Simple To Use
• Create Actual Internet Store in Minutes!
• Sell Products or Services From Any Smartphone
• No Technical Knowledge Required
• Easy to Customize Store With Your Company Info
• Load Products Manually or Use a Spreadsheet
• Load Product Images Manually or Use a Spreadsheet
• Automatically Creates Thumbnails
• Use Authorize.net, Google Checkout or PayPal
• Increase Sales
• WYSIWYG Page Editing
• No Long Term Contract Required
• No Software to Download

If you are in the market for an ecommerce mobile store, then check out Mobile Store Maker and test out the features to see if they fit your needs.  If you are on the fence, then I would suggest that you try it out for 30 days to see if it can increase your sales.  Even if you do not get the desired results within the 30 days, maybe you should allocate some funds to keep it running for about 6 months.  This should give you time to properly market the mobile store and test out different product mixes.  If you have tried this software, what do you think about it?  What are the pros and cons and does it work for your store?  We would like to know your opinion on mobile commerce.

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Neweggmall.com was created by NewEgg.com, which is one of the best consumer electronics retailers on the web. The marketplace was first created to add a different product assortment because NewEgg doesn’t sell anything not related to consumer electronics and computers. This marketplace has been around for over a year now and is gaining some momentum, but slowly. They have a lot of categories to choose from such as apparel, sporting goods, and more. They have finally opened it up to other electronics retailers as well.

NewEgg Mall plans on putting some of the listings for electronics products on their newegg.com domain. This could really push up the traffic levels to neweggmall.com and make it more of a player in the marketplace game. There are many retailers out there that are constantly looking for new places to sell their products and diversification is key to succeeding online. While NewEgg Mall may look nice, we have dug a little deeper into what they are actually providing and how it may affect you as a retailer.

They setup the marketplace much like Amazon, where consumers come in and find your products, purchase, and you ship them the merchandise. This is where it stops being like Amazon. In order to be in NewEgg Mall, a retailer has to either have or get a credit card processing account from Chase Paymentech. If you have this provider, then it should be fine, but if you do not, then you will need to get it. Where we found issue with this is that many small and medium sized retailers use Authorize.Net or Paypal to process their credit cards on their websites. They are already charged per month for this, so in order to get on NewEggMall.com, you would need to pay per month for Chase Paymentech as well, plus a per transaction fee, like any other credit card processor. So instead of NewEgg Mall creating a payment system that retailers can use without having to setup another one, they make you do it. They don’t even allow you to use your own payment provider like PriceGrabber Stores does.  This also takes the risk away from NewEgg Mall and puts it on you. You are responsible for processing the credit cards, checking for fraud, and every other aspect that comes with taking credit cards over the internet. We spoke to quite a few retailers about this and they think it is a joke.  If NewEgg Mall wants to compete in the marketplace arena, then they need to be setup like a marketplace. We are sure to hear more retailers complain about this.

NewEgg Mall charges you per month, the same amount as Amazon to use their services. They also charge a commission when a product sells, much like Amazon. Their commissions seem to be pretty fair at this time. The issue that comes to attention is that they are charging the same monthly fee as Amazon is, but are not providing anywhere near the same services. This just seems ludicrous to think that retailers are actually going to get on board with this if they look at all the figures. NewEgg Mall might be able to score some smaller retailers and maybe ones that want to try it out, but if they really want to grab more of the marketshare and build a successful marketplace, then they need to revamp the whole system. It looks like it was thrown together quickly without thinking of many aspects. We know that NewEgg has a great reputation and they do things well, so it is surprising that they allowed this marketplace to go live without covering all the basis of a great marketplace.

Have you checked out NewEggMall.com? If so, what do you think and how would you change it for the better?

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As the new year begins, so does the onslaught of online fraud.  Fraudsters are continually trying to find new ways to steal personal information and use it for their own good.  This is particularly an issue with Internet Retailers and their ecommerce stores.  Online Fraud is a billion dollar industry and it affects online retailers every day of the year.  There are quite a few ways out there to help retailers combat fraud such as IP geolocation,  address verification, verified by Visa/Mastercard, fraud scoring models, and much more.  One method that is fairly new to the online world is Device Fingerprinting.  This method works kind of like human fingerprints, where the machine you are on it identifiable by the online merchants servers.

There are a few ways to fingerprint a device, either by passive techniques or active.  A study was done with online purchasers asking them if they would tolerate an executable file given to them by retailers in order to identify their machine.  Most said that they would be willing to do so in order to make the ordering process and verification process much smoother.  There are a few groups out there that say this is a breach of privacy as the retailer will know certain aspects of your computer and if it has committed fraudulent acts in the past.  Most actual consumers do not think the same as they want their information secure and not have to risk fraud.

The best part of Device Fingerprinting is that there are a few companies out there that have a massive collection of identifiable computers and networks, so when a retailer signs up, they have all those computers identities to verify orders.  This could save a lot of order processing time along with money spent on combating fraud.  If the retailer knows that the machine you are one has committed fraud before, they are able to either block the order or review it more closely.  With the rampant use of proxies, IP geolocation and address verification has become useless in some cases.  Using fingerprinting will be able to get around that and identify the computer the fraudster is actually on.  This is a huge leap from how retailers used to fight fraud and we can only expect it to get better.  Keeping your customers safe should be a priority and making sure that your company takes the necessary steps to squash fraud should be at the top of any to do list.

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