'Net Features : e-commerce express

Introducing Get.com

Michael Garrity — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Today at DEMO Fall 2011, we saw the launch of a product discovery service that helps users quickly find the best product to meet their needs.

Get.com claims to be the service that will considerably reduce the time spent online trying to figure out which particular product is the best one to meet a consumer's specific requirements.

In order to curtail all of that searching and guesswork, Get.com has users post a product question with requirements (for example, "What is the best electric toothbrush for sensitive gums under $100?"), which will then prompt a crowd-sourced answer based on the community's product suggestions and votes.

According to a press release by the company, this is the "big missing piece in e-commerce today."

"This is just one of those obvious services the Web needs," says co-founder Steven Fruchter. "Where people who are passionate and have experience in an area form communities around helping others figure out what is the best choice for their needs. It just makes sense: Tailored needs answered by smart, unbiased people."

Founders Fruchter and Jake Gold have worked on successful online projects in the past. Currently, they are the CEO and CTO, respectively, of the live streaming network Stickam.

7 Billion People Partners with Commission Junction UK

Allison Howen — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:00:00 GMT

Commission Junction UK has announced a partnership with 7 Billion People.

The partnership will allow Commission Junction UK to offer their clients 7 Billion People’s MarketMaestro software, which has provided clients conversion rate increases up to 50 percent.

The MarketMaestro software is designed to give e-commerce merchants insight into customer behavior. It displays buying behavior and recommends website changes such as modifying content, layout and design. The goal is to turn visitors into customers.

“In this challenging economic environment it is even more important for e-commerce retailers to maximize the opportunity to convert every customer they bring to their website,” says Daniel Powel, solutions and operations director for Commission Junction UK. “We are keen to provide our clients with the tools and capabilities that can help increase revenue, turning browsers into buyers.”

MarketMaestro is now available to all Commission Junction UK customers.

The Cost of Retargeting

Linc Wonham — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:30:00 GMT

With so much talk these days about privacy concerns on the Web, one of the biggest questions facing advertisers and retailers right now is, How much is too much? Specifically with regard to the rapidly developing field of personalized retargeting, at what point do Internet marketers start doing themselves more harm than good by clearly displaying their knowledge of consumers’ purchase histories, browsing habits, salary range, geographic location and shoe size?

Invasion of privacy?
More and more, consumers are noticing that online ads are becoming increasingly personal, and, some say, intrusive. Most seasoned Web shoppers have come to accept some degree of online tracking by marketers, as the practice of retargeting is by no means new. After users visit a retail or commercial Website to browse or shop, it has become commonplace to expect some form of customized advertising content as a result of the cookies that are enabled when the Web browser lands on the site.

But with more companies offering increasingly advanced solutions in a crowded and competitive field, retargeting is quickly becoming a precision-based science. Rather than simply seeing an influx of automobile ads while using the Internet to browse for a used car, now many consumers are finding that they cannot casually view a product without being followed everywhere on the Web by the same style, size and price point of the item – if not by ads for the exact product if they chose not to buy it initially. In addition, shoppers may find themselves inundated with ads from the retailers nearest to them that carry the product or similar items because of the emergence of geolocation technologies, as well as ads that make clever use of any other personal data that Internet users have divulged along the way.

A marketer's dream
This degree of personalization is considered a major development in the e-commerce industry and many retailers are clambering to adopt the latest solutions from providers such as Criteo, ChoiceStream, FetchBack/GSI Commerce, Strands Recommender, Venda and many others, eager to take advantage of this seemingly open passageway into the consumer data vault. But retailers and merchants must first determine if this kind of marketing will, in fact, help sell more product – because the answer is not quite so simple. Not yet, at least.

From a marketer’s standpoint, it’s easy to view today’s retargeting strategies as providing a service to consumers. Who in their right mind wouldn’t prefer advertisements that are relevant to items in which they have previously shown an interest, and relevant to other aspects of their lives, than to advertisements that have no relevance to their lives at all? From a seller’s perspective, it’s the no-brainer of all no-brainers. But what we are seeing right now is that consumers may not be quite ready to accept, much less adopt this particular service. And, at least for the near-term, merchants and advertisers have to be careful not to alienate consumers with too bold or too intrusive retargeting efforts.

The issue of privacy is foremost on the minds of most Internet users right now, and the prevalence of Web advertisements that basically state that a consumer’s online information is anything but private is fairly distressing for many people. Where this type of marketing crosses the line between ineffectual and potentially damaging is in the delivery of that statement, to the point where a marketer may not only lose a sale but also a customer if it is too brazen.

A losing combination
A 2010 study by two marketing professors, Ari Goldfarb of the University of Toronto and Catherine Tucker of MIT, found that tailoring plain text ads to the content of a website proved to be an effective strategy for increasing purchase intent. The same was found to be the case for increasingly visible but less targeted ads. So, a customer browsing a shoe retailer’s site would be positively influenced by a plain text ad pertaining to shoes in his or her size, for instance, and also by a more visually striking but less personalized ad for a different product altogether.

However, the study found that the purchase intent actually decreased when these two strategies were combined, meaning that a highly targeted, personalized and visually obtrusive ad had the opposite effect of its intention – it actually drove the consumer away. Goldfarb and Tucker attributed this result to the interpretation that the more visible targeted ad was an invasion of the privacy of the consumers in the study, boldly broadcasting the fact that their data was available to marketers all over the Web.

Drawing the line
This study shows that until consumers can become more comfortable with the concept of personalized retargeting, this is where marketers and retailers have to draw the line between personal and too personal. It seems that what the consumers in the study are saying is that relevant, personalized information might be helpful toward influencing a purchase, but it becomes an invasion of privacy the more visible advertisers are in their presentation. This mindset will likely fade away over time, but today’s merchants have to be cautious in the meantime.

One way of doing that is by looking very carefully at all of the methods and practices utilized by the different retargeting technology companies and advertising firms. It is still a developing field and there are no best practices to speak of, but by the same token, innovations are being made every day. Criteo, for instance, has a feature in which it explains to consumers why they are receiving certain ads if they click on a link. In today’s privacy-sensitive climate, it will be attempts at transparency such as this one that appeal the most to consumers – and have the most long-term benefits for marketers and merchants.

Overstock.com Enters Private Sales Market with New Site

Linc Wonham — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT

Overstock.com has announced the launch of its own private sale website, staking a claim to its own piece of potentially lucrative e-commerce real estate. The major online retailer joins a competitive and successful marketplace that includes private sales sites such as One Kings Lane, Gilt Groupe, Beyond the Rack and others.

Overstock's new Eziba.com will feature exclusive, members-only deals on home décor, furniture, accessories and more. New sales begin daily at 11 a.m. ET and will only last between 48 and 72 hours. As with Overstock.com orders, all Eziba orders will ship to customers for $2.95. Eziba costs nothing to join and is open for anyone to register, or shoppers can sign in using their Overstock.com login information.

Overstock president Jonathan Johnson called the launch a “natural progression” for his company, providing Overstock's many suppliers with new avenues to sell their products.

A Retailer’s Guide to Comparison Shopping Sites

Linc Wonham — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:30:00 GMT

Comparison shopping sites are nothing new to the e-commerce industry, the first ones having appeared on the scene several years ago. What is relatively new is the rapidly growing number of consumers that rely on these sites today, requiring merchants to implement them into their business strategies as soon as possible.

Online shoppers are becoming savvier and more social by the minute, using every tool at their disposal to seek out the best bargains and to vigilantly compare prices and products by every means possible. It is imperative that e-commerce merchants give their products as much visibility as they can throughout this research process, and knowing your way around the comparison shopping space is a significant part of that effort.

Plenty of these sites let you submit your products for free, but many others charge merchants on a modest cost-per-click (CPC) basis – meaning that you pay only when a shopper clicks on a link to your site. Paid or free, the service is a valuable one to merchants who will benefit from increased traffic, better search results and a quick and easy way to monitor the competition.

In today’s E-commerce Express newsletter, we will examine some of the most important comparison search engines to have on your radar, and how to go about submitting your product catalogs to each. In the next newsletter, we will add some helpful tips about how to maximize your use of these and other comparison shopping sites.

Google, Bing and Yahoo!
Each of the three major search engines now have comparison shopping functionalities, and at this point it appears that Bing and Yahoo! will keep theirs operating independently after the two companies’ search alliance is implemented. Google Product Search is, not surprisingly, the most heavily-trafficked comparison shopping site at the moment. It is also free for merchants to submit their product catalogs, with no charges for uploading your items or for the additional traffic that you stand to gain by participating in the program.

Bing Shopping, which used to be MSN Shopping, is also a free service for merchants that are located in the U.S. and who deal with U.S. currency. Bing also has a list of restricted items on its merchants information page.

Yahoo! Shopping is Yahoo’s comparison search engine, and merchants submit their products through Yahoo! Product Submit. Yahoo charges CPC fees to participating merchants, but retailers with Yahoo! Store or Merchant Solutions accounts can save 20 percent.

With those three out of the way, let’s take a look at the best of the rest:

TheFind
With nearly 8 million unique monthly visitors in July, TheFind is the fastest-growing site in the comparison shopping space. The company, which has exhibited 175-percent growth in the past year, claims that merchants submitting their products to the site saw between 2.3 and 2.7 average visits per visitor, compared to a 1.9 average from their closest competitor. TheFind is free for merchants to submit product listings, with an additional service called UpFront that has a $299 value but is being offered for a free trial.

NexTag
NexTag saw more than 15 million unique visitors in July, making it one of the most sought-out comparison shopping sites on the Web. NexTag charges CPC fees to merchants, sorting their fees by product category, but to list items is free. NexTag routinely gets criticized for its simple design, but it hasn’t managed to keep consumers from flocking to the site looking for bargains.

BizRate
BizRate is one of several comparison shopping sites owned and managed by online shopping network Shopzilla http://www.shopzilla.com but attracts more than 13 million unique monthly visitors on its own accord. Merchants sign up through Shopzilla Business Services, and will pay CPC fees which are initially taken out of a $50 fully refundable deposit.

Become.com
A relative newcomer to the comparison shopping field, Become.com had about 3.5 million unique monthly visitors in July and continues to grow. The site recently added a mobile shopping component that contains editorial reviews of each participating merchant’s mobile compliance, a valuable tool for retailers already on board with the mobile commerce movement. The Merchant Account Center provides information on how to sign up, including a rate card for itemized CPC fees for participating retailers.

Pronto.com
Pronto’s traffic numbers in July were close to 8 million unique monthly visitors, and the site prides itself on its social shopping focus. Merchants who enroll in the program will pay a CPC fee on leads sent to their sites from Pronto, which also includes an exclusive partnership with search engine Ask.com and a local search deal with Citysearch.

5 Ways to Reboot Your E-commerce Business

Linc Wonham — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:30:00 GMT

IRCE 2010 wrapped up a couple of weeks ago after drawing nearly 6,500 e-commerce professionals to Chicago for the four-day event. The show’s official theme was “Time to Reboot”, and retailers and vendors alike left with shared optimism as e-commerce climbs out of a recession and into its next stage of development. Businesses large and small are now readying themselves for the industry’s next growth spurt, many of them focusing their energies on social media and mobile commerce.

Hundreds of companies were represented in these and countless other areas of interest, so we put our heads together and came up with the following suggestions for how you can reboot your e-commerce company based on what was seen and heard at this year’s IRCE.

Ratings and Reviews
Proponents of user ratings and reviews continue to bombard us with testimonials, calling the practice one of the simplest and most effective uses of social media available to online retailers. GoGreenSolar.com CEO Deep Patel shared his success story in a session co-hosted with Neal Creighton of RatePoint, the customer feedback and reputation management company that helped GoGreenSolar raise sales by 20 percent each month through product reviews. Bazaarvoice, PowerReviews and RateVoice are some of the other leading providers of ratings and reviews solutions in attendance at IRCE.

Personalization
This is another up-and-coming aspect of e-commerce that is attracting a lot of attention thanks to innovations in social media. There were more than 15 exhibitors at IRCE offering creative products and services in the area of personalization, ranging from personalized recommendations to geographical targeting. ChoiceStream, Strands Recommender, Criteo and Nextopia are just some of the companies that can help you bring your e-commerce site up to speed with the latest personalization tools.

Video and Imaging
With each technological advance in imaging, the bar is raised a little bit higher as far as how consumers expect to view products online. Staying on the front end of the curve is essential for an e-commerce business to remain competitive, and there are numerous affordable options for merchants. Shotfarm is a startup that provides a free product-image sharing service, and Beyond 360 is a company on the cutting edge of product photography and image processing. Webmasters looking to take the leap into product video should look no further than e-commerce pro Invodo.

Payment Management and Processing
As consumers try to climb out of debt and retailers work to protect against fraud, e-commerce businesses are finding new and creative methods for shoppers to pay for items online. BSG Clearing Solutions is one company that offers an array of payment options, including the Bill2Phone service that enables customers to bill their digital purchases to their telephones. GlobalCollect, eBillme, JetPay and Kwedit are just some of the players that offer solutions for merchants looking to enhance their customers’ experience while also protecting their own interests.

Loyalty Programs
From subscription-based incentive programs to brand-awareness marketing campaigns, channels that lead to customer loyalty and retention are always going to be vital to a successful e-commerce operation. Software-maker Teleformix presented an intriguing loyalty platform called a Customer Loyalty Center at IRCE, a customized set of services designed to build and expand your brand online. FreeShipping.com helps retailers reach out to their customers with its free-shipping and cash-back programs, and Webloyalty.com and OrderGroove have similar solutions designed around increasing customer retention.

Sneak Preview of IRCE Chicago 2010

Linc Wonham — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:00:00 GMT

The Internet Retailer 2010 Conference & Exhibition (IRCE), by far one of the largest gatherings for e-commerce professionals, is being held this week in Chicago. Nearly 500 exhibitors are scheduled to attend, and Website Magazine will be there to see them all. We will provide full coverage of the event in the next E-commerce Express newsletter, as well as in subsequent blog posts over the next two weeks. Until then, here’s an alphabetical guide to some of the companies worth watching, whether you are able to attend the show or not:

Alibaba
A global trade platform for importers and exporters, Alibaba has a community of more than 50 million users in over 240 countries around the world. In April, 2010, the company launched AliExpress on the international marketplace for smaller e-commerce buyers looking for the fast shipment of small quantities of goods.

Bold Software
Providers of an affordable and flexible line of communications tools for e-commerce merchants, Bold Software is continuously making innovations to enhance online interactions. The company’s popular and intelligent brands include a live chat platform (BoldChat), a mobile selling solution (BoldCall) and a customer contact management tool (BoldCCM) for any size business.

ClickTale
An industry leader in Customer Experience Analytics (CEA), ClickTale’s products put instant information on website usability and conversion analytics into the hands of e-commerce business owners. Some of the tools used include heatmaps that report where a customer is looking, real-time monitoring and form analytics that show conversion rates.

Demandware
The global leader in on-demand e-commerce, Demandware is constantly looking to provide businesses new ways to deliver customized shopping experiences. The company’s on-demand platform is rated at the top of the industry, providing solutions for such big-name e-commerce clients as Crocs footwear, Columbia Sportswear and Barneys New York.

eBillme
With a growing number of online shoppers electing to pay with cash to keep their debt down, eBillme provides merchants with safe, secure and easy options to offer customers. Consumers using eBillme can check out online using their own bank account information, or visit one of more than 75,000 walk-in locations to pay cash for their online purchases.

FetchBack
This retargeting advertising technology provider was just acquired by GSI Commerce in a major move within the e-commerce industry. FetchBack brings with it a top-notch reputation in the retargeting space and a big list of blue-chip clients, and I won’t be the only one looking to hear some initial reactions just a week after the deal was announced.

Guidance
A Web development, design and hosting company specializing in e-commerce, Guidance serves a broad range of clients such as Foot Locker, Z Gallerie and Disney. I’m interested in learning about their work for new client TOMS Shoes, which donates a pair of shoes to the needy for every pair sold, and what role Guidance played in creating this “socially conscious commerce” business model.

HookLogic
This company helps e-commerce retailers maximize the media value of their shopping audience. HookLogic’s software creates media programs that drive new non-transactional revenue streams while preserving the quality of the online shopping experience.

Invodo
I am personally very interested in seeing the latest innovations in e-commerce video, so Invodo is on my must-see list while I am at this show. A leader in the category, Invodo’s retail-focused video technology helps online retailers increase traffic and sales conversions while reducing returns.

Jagged Peak
This company provides order management software and multi-channel fulfillment services that enable e-commerce professionals the ability to quickly and effectively establish and operate direct-to-consumer online businesses. Jagged peak’s outsourced solution provides companies the benefit of owning the channel without the burden of managing it.

Keynote Systems
A leading provider of on-demand test and measurement products for mobile communications and the Internet, Keynote just recently launched a new self-service load-testing tool for e-commerce website owners. The revamped product is supposed to have three times the capacity as its predecessor so that merchants can see up to 30,000 virtual users on their site in real time as they watch for symptoms of system overload.

Listrak
E-mail marketing provider Listrak is a leader in the industry with clients such as Motorola, Waterford and Wolfgang Puck. Topics on the company’s radar right now include boosting sales through a shopping cart abandonment e-mail campaign, segmenting e-mail lists using traditional direct marketing RFM metrics, the latest behavioral and event-triggered e-mail tactics and trends regarding cross-channel convergence.

MyBuys
The leading provider of personalized recommendations, MyBuys builds deep profiles on shoppers’ behaviors and uses a portfolio of algorithms to deliver the best recommendations in real time. E-commerce retailers that partner with MyBuys are said to be experiencing increases in conversion rates by as much as 90 percent, and in overall revenues by as much as 30 percent.

National Eco Wholesale
The first specialty wholesale distributor of exclusively natural and sustainable products, National Eco Wholesale serves as a one-stop virtual warehouse for a wide variety of environmentally friendly products. NEW provides drop-ship services for e-commerce businesses and offers a cost-effective bulk purchase program.

OpinionLab Inc.
User-generated ratings and customer feedback are also on my hot list during this show, and OpinionLab gathers this kind of information for e-commerce companies so that they can analyze it and leverage it into providing a better experience for shoppers. I am interested in learning about the latest technologies involved in collecting and distributing this useful business intelligence.

Payvment
An e-commerce app for Facebook, Payvment allows users of the social network to sell products in a retail environment. Similar to other Facebook shopping apps such as Socialshop and 1-800-Flowers, Payvment should be able to give me a good insight into this particular trend in the industry.

Quova
Geotargeting is yet another aspect of the industry I hope to learn more about at this show, and Quova provides IP geolocation data to e-commerce businesses. Merchants can instantly identify where a visitor to their website is located geographically, which can be used to target advertising and content for consumers or to detect potential fraud.

RatePoint
A leading provider of customer reviews, testimonials and online reputation management services, RatePoint has been hard at work to stay fully integrated into all of the various social media channels. Helping e-commerce businesses protect and build their online reputations, this company usually has some innovative new tools and services to share.

Shotfarm
This is a startup that’s looking to make a splash with its product image management and rich media solutions for e-commerce merchants. Shotfarm will be unveiling its HTML5-based hosted viewer for businesses big and small, affordably priced but with the most up-to-date capabilities.

TurnTo Networks
A leader in on-site social shopping for e-commerce, TurnTo will be announcing its new social commerce suite that includes TurnTo Social Merchandising and TurnTo Social Purchase Sharing. TurnTo runs directly on a merchant’s site, showing shoppers what their friends have purchased there.

USI Technologies
Providing e-commerce businesses with sales and service chat solutions, USI introduced the industry to the first automated sales chat five years ago. The company continues to advance the live chat category as it comes up with new ways to increase conversions and improve customer experience.

Volusion, Inc.
The leader in innovative shopping cart software for e-commerce businesses, Volusion is the choice for over 100,000 online retailers. I am always interested to see and hear about the latest solutions and technologies that Volusion is working on.

WebLinc
For 15 years, WebLinc has been consulting and developing systems that drive sales and increase conversions for e-commerce companies such as Urban Outfitters, Deep Discount and AAA. The Philadelphia-based company provides an array of e-commerce solutions for some of the biggest names in the industry, so they’re always worth checking in with.

XPO
This company creates customized international and domestic mailing solutions tailored to each e-commerce customer’s own system. XPO has personalized programs for parcels and letters, including pre-payment of duties, delivery confirmation and return management programs.

YourAmigo
Makers of an award-winning artificial intelligence service called Spider Linker, YourAmigo’s product is responsible for e-commerce revenues increasing by as much as 25 percent for some companies. Spider Linker’s AI identifies gaps in an online business that most merchants are not able to find on their own.

Zoovy Inc.
Makers of the Zoovy Complete e-commerce platform, Zoovy provides tools and guidance for merchants to keep up with their rapidly growing online businesses. Zoovy’s features combine professional e-commerce expertise with a unique service platform that covers all the bases.

Privacy Seal Instills Trust, Increases Business for Merchants

Linc Wonham — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Small and mid-sized e-commerce businesses looking to gain valuable online brand trust can now do so through a new partnership between TRUSTe and Miva Merchant. Online stores running on Miva Merchant’s e-commerce software, presently more than 50,000 companies, can obtain TRUSTe Privacy Services for small and medium-sized businesses and display the distinctive TRUSTe Privacy Seal on their websites.

The seal can be obtained after undergoing privacy scanning and creating a custom privacy policy using TRUSTe’s new Privacy Policy Generator, ensuring shoppers that they are free to engage on a safe and trusted site. TRUSTe also provides merchants with free consumer privacy dispute resolution support, resolving thousands of privacy complaints each year for website owners.

A recent Consumer Reports survey found that 71 percent of online shoppers look for a trustmark before doing business with an e-commerce retailer, and TRUSTe’s own research has shown that consumers spend more time and money on websites with a TRUSTe seal. “The increase in consumer trust in our site coupled with the increase in average order volume has been incredible to watch as our customers respond to our commitment to safeguard their personal information,” said the founder of West Florida Components, Patricia Pepe, after obtaining the seal through Miva Merchant, which provides shopping cart software for her business.

Merchants Seeing Higher Conversions Through Price Comparisons

Linc Wonham — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:00:00 GMT

The use of online price comparisons is one of the most intriguing and compelling trends in e-commerce today. It is intriguing because the concept of displaying prices from competing businesses on your own website seems counterproductive to some merchants. But many retailers are attributing their rising conversion rates and increased revenues directly to the implementation of price-comparison tools, making for a very compelling argument in its favor.

This week’s newsletter will look at some of the latest information surrounding this hot topic, aimed at helping you decide whether a price-comparison platform is right for your e-commerce business.

There are two definitive facts about onsite comparative pricing: 1) consumers want it, and 2) a growing number of e-commerce retailers are providing it for them. Online shoppers are spending more time researching products and prices than ever before, and the use of price comparisons has become a successful tool for many retailers to keep customers from leaving their sites.

Giant e-tailers Amazon.com and Buy.com have implemented internally designed systems with proven success for several years now. Overstock.com, Tigerdirect.com, Backcountry.com, Hayneedle.com and hundreds of others are utilizing price-comparison platforms provided by companies like WinBuyer. In a recent case study performed on the sites of six users of its application, WinBuyer arrived at the following conclusions using a blind A/B test:

•    The average order value increased by 3.2 percent on pages utilizing the price comparisons
•    There was an average revenue lift of 4.9 percent on pages that applied onsite comparative pricing
•    Total site revenues increased by 2 percent after implementing the comparisons

The data suggests that providing price comparisons to customers does more in the way of building confidence and loyalty than in driving shoppers to competing sites. “Since implementing WinBuyer’s comparison shopping application, we’ve seen higher conversion rates and an increase in repeat shoppers due to the greater customer confidence our users gain from the comparative pricing,” said Chris Smith, President of Aqua Superstore. “Users online today are already comparison shopping, so including comparative pricing on a retail website only helps.”

WinBuyer’s comparison suite can be implemented within just a few minutes to give customers the pricing information they desire, but it is essential to ensure that the information is always accurate and up to date. The trust a merchant hopes to gain by providing price comparisons can be lost immediately by posting false or inaccurate data.

Time to Get Positive About Reviews

Linc Wonham — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:26:00 GMT

One of the most popular posts to our blog last week reported on Google’s plans to display product ratings and reviews in its search results and through its advertising programs. The new program is rolling out as a partnership with industry leader Bazaarvoice, which will provide Google with the user-generated ratings and reviews the company gathers on behalf of its clients.

Google said in last week’s announcement that the program would likely be adding other vendors in addition to Bazaarvoice, and that a model for merchants to submit their own reviews was also a strong possibility. The gist for e-commerce professionals is that ratings and reviews have become an increasingly important part of the online selling environment, and this latest news from Google represents an opportunity that should not be missed.

To ensure that your business gets the visibility it deserves, we recommend that you closely follow the latest trends in user ratings and reviews. As Google’s newest partner, Bazaarvoice is an excellent place to start, and today’s newsletter looks at some of the other players who could figure into the mix.

PowerReviews, like Bazaarvoice, offers a full set of ratings and review solutions for its e-commerce clients. The company’s “tag-based” system is designed to direct consumers toward reviews written by users with similar lifestyles and experience levels with a particular product or service. This Affinity Reviews system is based on years of psychographic consumer segmentation to match reviewers and consumer lifestyles for numerous product categories. PowerReviews asserts that this research and technology has resulted in statistically higher conversion rates for clients who use their services, as they provide “more engaging, more personalized reviews” than what’s available today. There is also a platform specifically designed and priced for smaller e-commerce retailers, called PowerReviews Express.

While Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews provide ratings and reviews solutions for e-commerce professionals, there is a plethora of consumer-targeted review sites worth keeping an eye on. Epinions is just one destination for consumers to find reviews of specific products before making a purchase. If shoppers are satisfied with the reviews they find on Epinions, they can click on a “latest prices” button that will list the online retailers carrying the product.

RateItAll is a social destination for consumers to share their opinions of items and services found online. More than just products, this site has user-generated ratings and reviews about restaurants, people, places, movies, music, etc. Growing fast, RateItAll had nearly 15 million visitors in 2009, and it has about five million reviews currently in its database.

Sazze is smaller than RateItAll in terms of number of reviews available, but it’s growing and claims to operate on the philosophy that “quality is better than quantity” anyway. Sazze is another social destination for users to voice their likes and dislikes about products they’ve purchased online, and users gain higher status by having their reviews rated favorably by other users. Quality is based on the number of “helpful” votes that a certain user receives.

Wize.com is a site that gathers ratings and reviews from other sources and consolidates them for easier navigation by consumers. Wize gathers user reviews of certain products from retail outlets like Amazon, Walmart and Circuit City, then analyzes the reviews and gives consumers their determination of a product’s pros, cons, best uses, and features that matter the most.

Crowdstorm is a U.K. review site with the similar goal of streamlining the process for shoppers, particularly when they come across conflicting reviews. Crowdstorm attempts to aggregate content from experts and blend it with advice in a question/answer forum. The company’s vision is to provide a single point of contact in helping consumers research products.

5 Upgrades for your E-commerce Website

Linc Wonham — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:05:00 GMT

To succeed in the competitive e-commerce marketplace, merchandisers have to fill their own shopping carts from time to time. To help you do just that, we’ve highlighted some of the recently released professional tools, software solutions and discount deals that caught our collective eye here at Website Magazine:

The Endeca Commerce Suite
From search applications company Endeca Technologies, Inc., this new platform includes over 50 enhancements designed to help e-commerce teams more easily integrate rich content and third-party technologies into the customer experience. The Endeca Commerce Suite of software delivers improved data integration, merchandiser usability and partner extensibility for greater control over how content is displayed to customers.

Built on the Endeca Information Access Platform, the Endeca Commerce suite is designed to present customers with a variety of content such as product data, videos, articles and reviews in one integrated view. The Merchandising Workbench tools suite makes it easier for marketers to control how site content is presented through Page Builder cartridge editors built with the new Software Development Kit. Simplified data integration enables point-and-click configuration of partner data sources, and extension point expansion allows customers and Endeca Extend technology partners to seamlessly integrate data from site analytics packages, user reviews and profiles, and any other source into Page Builder and Endeca’s Content Acquisitions System. To learn more about the Endeca Commerce suite, visit www.endeca.com/products-endeca-commerce-suite.htm.

AnswerBox by PowerReviews
AnswerBox is a question-and-answer solution that has been proven to enhance customer satisfaction by enabling e-commerce shoppers to post questions on the site to be answered by staff members, experts or other customers. Designed to resolve purchase-blocking questions at the critical time of decision, AnswerBox improves sales conversions by shortening the length of customer-response time.

From customer-review and social commerce solutions provider PowerReviews, AnswerBox was recently adopted by multichannel retailer Sierra Trading Post. Within one month of implementing AnswerBox, more than 1,000 answers to questions submitted by the public were posted to the website for other visitors to see. As soon as a question is answered, the person who submitted the question is notified via E-mail. In these emails, Sierra Trading Post experienced a 300-percent higher click-through rate and a 50 percent increase in conversion over traditional email campaigns. Visit www.stp.me/answers for more information on Sierra Trading Post’s AnswerBox service.

The Gate2Shop E-Commerce Suite
The highlight of this new software package is the One Click Up-Sale feature that allows end-users to add another product to their shopping carts with a single click of the button, using the information that was previously entered. One Click Up-Sale is supported by all of Gate2Shop’s payment options and can be deployed to any payment page. The One Click Up-Sale feature enables vendors to sell a supplementary product at no additional cost and without having to undergo an extensive integration procedure.

E-commerce solutions provider Gate2Shop monitored sales results upon the software’s release the first part of this year and has found that the One Click Up-Sale led to a 10-percent increase in revenues. The case study also noted an upward trend between the length of time that the feature stays switched on and the sharp increase in sales. In addition, customers who have used the feature while shopping online once have continued to use it for their subsequent purchases. You can obtain more information on the Gate2Shop E-Commerce Suite at www.G2S.com.

Codero Offering 50-percent Savings
As companies feel the pinch from the approaching Tax Day on April 15, dedicated hosting and managed services company Codero is taking measures to assist small- to medium-sized businesses who need more powerful dedicated servers. The company is reducing prices on its entire server inventory by 50 percent in order to help organizations purchase the computing infrastructure their businesses need most to remain competitive.

The price-cutting campaign is being offered for a limited time in an effort to give something back to businesses as they make their tax payments. All new servers purchased are included in the price-break. The company recently expanded its server portfolio to include Webmaster Class, Professional Class, Enterprise Class models and Dell. For more information, visit www.codero.com.

Device Identification From ThreatMetrix
The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network enables e-commerce companies to customize a collection of fraud rules to instantly review and analyze transactions. Based on criteria set forth by the company, every transaction is given a fraud score every time an online order is entered into the processing system. When an order hits a pre-determined score, it will automatically go into a fraud review queue. It is then up to the company to review it and gather additional data by contacting the customer. If upon closer examination it is determined to be fraudulent, the order is manually rejected. The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network can then automatically add transaction and device identifiers to blacklists. If the order is determined to be legitimate, it is released from the fraud review queue for order processing and added to a whitelist for future reference. ThreatMetrix device profiling goes beyond browser fingerprinting to identify the device, bypass proxies and detect the use of botnets. For more information, visit www.threatmetrix.com