iMark Interactive

As we stated earlier, Bing Cashback is ending on July 31st, 2010.  It will be replaced by Bing Shopping, which will be just like the cashback program, but without cashback.  It looks like Microsoft will be providing Bing Shopping free to the merchants that want to list on the site.  According to Microsoft, all you have to do to participate is continue to send your feed to Bing.  They will automatically flip the switch on their side to input your products into the new shopping program.  Once piece of advise to anyone that is using Bing Cashback though, if you are not already sending all of your products, you should start doing it on July 31st.  This will be like Google Product Search, so send everything that you do to Google for the maximize opportunity for revenue.  Below are the FAQ’s that are directly from Microsoft’s site.

We are happy to announce a new and currently free Bing Shopping program for our existing Bing cashback advertisers that will begin on July 31, 2010. Now you can drive traffic to your sites for free with Bing Shopping, potentially displaying your online products to over 93.6 million unique searchers who are making decisions on Bing (comScore qSearch June 2010).

Bing Shopping should be an important part of your advertising mix for your back-to-school and holiday advertising efforts since the Bing audience is:

• 31 percent more likely to make online purchases than the average web user
• 11 percent more likely to make online purchases than Google searchers
• 15 percent more likely to make online purchases than Yahoo! searchers (comScore Media Metrix May 2010).

The new Bing Shopping program enables existing cashback advertisers to provide a broad set of products for inclusion in Bing Shopping with little to no extra work required.

How to get started
Shopping on Bing continues to be a key part of our overall search strategy at Microsoft and it should remain an important part of your advertising mix for 2010. With the new Bing Shopping program, you gain traffic to your site for free and it’s easier than ever to participate.

Getting started is easy—all you have to do is to keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically be added to the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include all your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. Contact your Microsoft Advertising representative today to learn more.

What’s next for Bing Shopping?

In addition to current Bing Shopping features like consumer reviews and ratings, and Visual Search, we’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products and compare offers. Future planned enhancements include a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience, improved shopping scenarios for expanded, targeted reach via social, mobile, and local, and more integration with Bing.com.

Frequently asked questions:

Q. Does the new Bing Shopping program replace the Bing cashback Shopping program?

A. This Bing Shopping program is a new alternative to Bing cashback Shopping. We recommend you display your products on Bing Shopping and also run search ads on Bing.com as an important part of your online mix.

Q. What is the cost to send my product catalog through the Bing Shopping program?
A. At this time we are offering you the opportunity to send your product catalog to Bing Shopping for free. In the future, if we charge for use of the Bing Shopping program or change the requirements to use that are free of charge, we will provide notice pursuant to the Bing Shopping program Terms of Use and you may elect to stop participating in the Bing Shopping program rather than incurring fees.

Q. What should I do to transition my Bing cashback Shopping data feed to this new free Bing Shopping program starting on July 31, 2010?

A. All you need to do is keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically go into the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.

Q. How can I optimize the performance of my existing Bing cashback Shopping data feed with this new program on Bing Shopping?

A.  The Bing Shopping relevance engine takes many factors into account when ranking the shopping results. The general rule of thumb is to send us feeds that are rich. For example, we have recently introduced a free shipping tag feature, because free shipping has proven to be extremely important to your potential customers. If you offer free shipping, make sure that your data feed reflects this information, which will help our ranking algorithm better decide the placement of your ad relative to your competition.

Q. How do I get started?
A. It is easy to onboard your products into the Bing Shopping program. If you are an existing Bing cashback Shopping advertiser, all you need to do is keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically go into the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. If you are currently working with an aggregator who is enabled with the Bing cashback program, you can submit your catalog through them if they choose to participate in the new Bing Shopping program.

Q. Will my existing Bing cashback Shopping data feeds automatically transition to the free Bing Shopping data feed on July 31, 2010?

A. Yes, if you continue to send your data feed to us on July 31, 2010 and thereafter. Bing cashback shopping datafeeds sent to us on July 31, 2010 and thereafter will be governed by the Bing Shopping program terms of use, which will be emailed to you prior to July 31, 2010.

Q. Can I send you my Google product feed for the new Bing Shopping program?

A. No, we are currently supporting only the same Bing cashback Shopping data feed format. Continue to send us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed starting July 31,2010, consistent with the Bing Shopping program Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. If we begin to support any new data feed format in the future, we will let you know.

Q. Do I need to modify my Bing cashback feed to remove any products?

A. No, we will accept your current Bing cashback Shopping data feed format subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.

Q. Where can I go to upload and maintain my product catalog on Bing Shopping?
A. At this time you can send your datafeeds to us for the Bing Shopping program as of July 31, 2010 in the same manner that you sent us your Bing cashback Shopping data feeds. For the future we are developing a portal where you can manage and maintain your product catalog on your own. In the meantime please continue to work with your Microsoft Advertising representative.

Q. Will consumers be able to search for my products by my store’s name? Will my store be listed in a directory?

A.Yes, at this time, we are not taking the store space away. There are planned development efforts to redesign and create a more search-oriented experience.

Q. Where will the Bing Shopping program product catalogs display?

A. The Bing Shopping program product catalogs will display within the Bing Shopping experience similar to how Bing shopping cashback product catalogs displayed. This is where consumers make online purchasing decisions with tools to compare products, opinions, and prices. We also have plans to broaden the display of Bing Shopping program product catalogs within Bing.

Q. Are you going to continue to innovate the Bing Shopping experience for consumers?
A. In addition to current Bing Shopping features like consumer reviews and ratings, and Visual Search, we’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products and compare offers. These efforts include plans for a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience and better shopping integration with Bing.com.

Q. Do I need to remove the cashback percentage column from my feed?
A.  No, just keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed format as you do today. We will ignore this column in the free program so you do not need to alter your current cashback feed in any way. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.

Q. Can we have screen shots as to what Bing Shopping will look like after July 30, 2010?
A. Screen shots are not available at this time. The Bing Shopping experience will look similar to how it does today without Bing cashback.

Q. Are we still going to show featured stores on Bing Shopping?
A. Yes, as of July 31, 2010, the name of the Featured cashback Stores section on the Bing Shopping homepage will change to Featured Stores, which will allow users an easy way to navigate to your particular store.

Q. When are we going to have terms of use for the new Bing Shopping program?
A. The terms of use that will govern the new Bing Shopping program will be available and emailed to cashback advertisers prior to July 31,2010.

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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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If you run a company either online or off, have you thought about using custom apparel as a way to promote your business?  If you have employees and they are just wearing whatever shirt they have, then think about getting them some custom shirts with your company logo on it.  If you have employees or anyone in your company out in public places, then think about all the people that might actually see the apparel.  You never know who might need your services out there and every little bit of promotion helps.

Some might say that apparel is tacky and doesn’t work as a good promotion, but I would say that they are wrong.  While you can have some tacky apparel pieces out there, if you take the time to create your shirts or whatever, then it will be a great way to get your name and brand out there.  One of the best pieces of apparel is the shirt.  Either a nice, quality polo shirt, or a t-shirt depending on the industry you are in, can be a great way to catch the eye of a passerby.  There are many companies out there that provides services for custom apparel, but there is only one that I have used that I would recommend.

Queensboro is an apparel customization company with a low minimum quantity of only 4 pieces.  That is right, only 4.  There are many other companies out there that do the same thing that require 50-100 pieces.  Their apparel is quality and runs in different sizes and shapes.  From hats to windbreakers and everything else in between.  If you have a nice looking logo and want to start building your brand, then have Queensboro put it on a nice shirt for you, or a hat if you like.  You can upload your logo to their website and they will then allow you to pick the thread color based on the shirt color.  Once you do that, it will go to Queensboro for approval.  If you need to fix it, then they will let you know.  If it is approved, then they will start your order.

While it can take some time to get your products, they do offer a great tracking system to see where your products are in their customization pipeline.  If you need your products quickly, then they can expedite your order, but it will cost you, same as any other place.  Once you get it, I am sure that you will be happy with the quality.  Just remember that your employees and yourself should be proud enough of the brand in order to wear it.  Consider it very low cost marketing, which every company is looking for.

A good tip about brand promotion with apparel is that if you have satisfied customers, then send them a simple t-shirt with your logo on it.  You will be surprised about the number of people that are actually willing to wear shirts from brands that they enjoy.  People love free things and free shirts are no exception.  Think about the amount of people that actually wear random shirts when the do their weekend errands.  Think about the number of eyes seeing your brand.  Custom Apparel is a great way to promote your brand, so get started today!

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If you run or own an ecommerce site, have you thought about adding a price comparison tool on your site?  Many large retailers have started to add this functionality in order to show that their price is better than their competitors.  This is a great way to improve sales and conversion rate.  When this trend started, it would cost the retailer development cost to build such a script to add to their site.  Most would take API’s from Shopping.com or Shopzilla and create special calls to display on their site.  That was then and this is now.

A company called Winbuyer Corp has created a widget that can be installed in less than 5 minutes to any website that displays pricing and uniform model numbers such as electronics, toys, games, etc.  The company has been providing this widget to retailers for some time, so they now have made it easier for retailers to sign up.  Once signed up, they provide simple fill in forms to change the look and feel of the widget.  Once the widget is created, they provide the code that will need to be entered into your site template.

Once the code is entered into your website template, the winbuyer software will read your website and look for a unique identifier such as an UPC or manufacturer model number and the price.  It will then compare it to other retailers price based on the UPC or manufacturer model number.  You can set up your widget to show only companies that have prices that are higher than yours or you can create it to show any prices.  You would only want to do it this way if your product is a loss leader.

This software is great because it enables you to provide customers with an intuitive price comparison tool on your website.  This now keeps the visitor on your site to make their decision based on price.  This has the ability to increase your conversion rate on your website, which is something that every ecommerce business wants to do.  If your visitor wants to go to another retailer that is listed in the widget, then you get paid for that click and any click that comes from the widget.  This is a great way to subsidize the traffic that doesn’t convert.  If you cannot keep them, then why not make money off of them.  Thanks to Winbuyer, retailers of any size are now able to provide great price comparison tools on their website.  If you are looking for a way to increase your conversion rate, then try out this widget and see if it can boost your conversion rate.  Register with Winbuyer today.

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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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