MerchantCircle Relaunch Offers Enhanced Local Features

Linc Wonham — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Reply! Inc., a marketplace for the acquisition of locally targeted consumer traffic, has announced the relaunch of its MerchantCircle.com property as a destination that gives merchants more effective tools for servicing their local markets.

The new MerchantCircle allows consumers to find and engage with qualified providers in their local areas while giving merchants the ability to cost-effectively market their businesses and acquire new customers. Key features for merchants include the following:

•    LeadStore: a Twitter-like feed for leads, LeadsStore allows merchants to pick and choose leads from a real-time list of relevant consumers directly from their merchant dashboard.
•    DealStore: a new service that increases the visibility of merchants’ deals, coupons and other promotions with premium placement on City pages, emails and the MerchantCircle.com category page.
•    Local sponsorships: offers merchants premium placement of their listing in city/category-specific search results.
•    Preferred badges: provides an exclusive opportunity to post an official MerchantCircle Preferred business badge to merchant listing pages to provide transparency to searching customers.
•    Lead management: allows merchants to review and manage all customers via the dashboard, or set up the system to deliver new customer leads directly to their inbox or mobile device.

MerchantCircle complements these features by allowing consumers to seamlessly move from search to transaction. For example, consumers searching for "roof repair" in their local area will be presented with the option to connect to the best local roofers and/or "request quotes" from multiple local providers.

These inquiries are serviced by the relevant subset of member service providers within the extended Reply! network. MerchantCircle will also introduce new functionality in the coming months that will let consumers see which vendors have received their requests and manage their responses.

eBay's New Focus About Keeping it Local

Linc Wonham — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:59:00 GMT

We weren't kidding when we said all eyes should be on eBay, especially those of local merchants. With inventory powered by the recent acquisition of local shopping search engine Milo, the site now offers consumers a one-stop destination for deals both online and in local stores.

The new features allow shoppers to check product and merchandise availability at local retailers via real-time searches on eBay. Through Milo integration, consumers have greater choices with access to millions of products from approximately 50,000 stores across all 50 U.S. states.

In addition, eBay is providing retailers who use QuickBooks a way to easily upload their inventory onto Milo and eBay through a new inventory management plug-in.

“eBay is uniquely positioned to help retailers, large and small, compete globally in new ways and to help consumers shop for whatever they want – anytime, anywhere,” says Dane Glasgow, the company’s vice president of global product management. “By integrating Milo search into eBay.com, we are exposing the inventory of small entrepreneurs who may be invisible on the Web right now to more than 94 million active users of the eBay marketplace. Our local capabilities are enabling a new kind of commerce, connecting eBay shoppers to local merchants.”

By opting in, eBay shoppers can now use a new local shopping tab to check a product’s local or in-store availability directly from the eBay search results page. Product pages now also include a local shopping tab so shoppers can find the exact product they want whether it’s online e at a local retailer near them.

The company is also introducing new software from Milo that helps small- to mid-size retailers easily integrate their offline merchandise onto Milo and eBay. Beginning with retailers who use QuickBooks point-of-sale systems, this software will allow independent retailers to upload their local inventory through a one-time, simple installation and will automatically share the real-time availability of their products with eBay’s 94 million active users globally, whether on eBay.com, eBay’s RedLaser mobile barcode-scanning application or Milo’s affiliate partner sites.

Combined with this week's $2.4 billion acquisition of GSI Commerce, the heightened focus on local commerce gives eBay some real ammunition against Amazon for the first time in recent memory.

'Net Features : local commerce

MerchantCircle Relaunch Offers Enhanced Local Features

eBay's New Focus About Keeping it Local