Archive for June, 2009

Nextag Rolling Out Marketing Message Options

There’s only so much a merchant can do to separate themselves on the CSE’s from the masses in the eyes of potential customers.

The three main things that can catch a customer’s attention is generally a low price, high feedback ratings, and perhaps a logo from a recognizable brand such as Sears or Staples.

Nextag then is introducing a new way to allow merchants to separate themselves from others who list their products along theirs.

Merchants will now have the opportunity to highlight any price (similar to Shopzilla), shipping, or tax discounts, along with rebate information–as well as have the ability to convey any type of message they’d like about their products at a cost of $0.05 additional per click.

For example if a merchant is having a Father’s day sale in which they offer a 20% on items over $50, or if they’re willing to provide free shipping for all items, they can do it through the Nextag bidding system. All that needs to be filled out is the details of the deal, along with the dates that a merchant wants it to run through (see below for an example):

We’re also told that Nextag will also provide a method for merchants to do this through their feeds as well.

How much this will help out merchants on the CSE’s is something we plan on keeping an eye on, but studies have shown that consumers love to save money, and that free shipping is a particular great attention grabber:

In a 2008 survey conducted by PayPal and comScore, 43 percent of shoppers said they abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. Forrester Research reports that 61 percent of online shoppers prefer to shop with a retailer that offers free shipping than one that doesn’t.

Source: Ecommerce guide

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Microsoft’s Bing Cashback Helps Users Get Discount off Apple’s iPhone

It isn’t too often that you see the words “Microsoft”, “Apple”, and “help” bundled together in the same sentence–without the words “push off a boat” in it at least–but for the bargain hunters of the world it’s been a known thing that one of Live Bing Cashback’s biggest allure is the discount that they provide on the iPhone.

While most merchants and retailers listed on Cashback generally offer a 5-10% “discount” on their products, AT&T began offering the iPhone at a 35% discount rate compared to their online or in-store prices back late last year via Live Cashback. That promotion helped put Cashback on the map to other users looking for discount deals, albeit rarely as much as 35%.

A new deal that’s surfaced in the past few days then is Apple’s new iPhone, labeled the 3G S, will also be available with a 35% discount via Microsoft.

The deal is red-hot for bargain hunters and Apple fans , alikeand makes plenty of sense for Microsoft to promote since they don’t have a physical phone that directly competes with the iPhone.

Microsoft is the maker of Windows Mobile which is used in many smartphones out there, but based on their marketing budgets, their new search engine Bing, along with their shopping platform is where they would like to see the most growth.

Imagine that then, Apple and Microsoft teaming up, though very indirectly, to help take down Google. It’s quite the world we live in now.

For full details of how to get your 35% cashback, head on over to Fat Wallet.

Pronto Launches New Microsites

In an effort to help consumers who are looking for specific items, Pronto has launched three microsites, Pronto Home, Pronto Style, and Pronto Tech.

As their names would imply, the sites list only items for home decor goods, clothing, and tech products respectively.

The sites should help narrow the focus of consumers looking for specific products, and since most shopping engines are cumulative, it can make the experience slightly less intimidating since the crossover audience shopping online between say LCD TVs and couch cushions may be relatively low–not that we judge here

Pronto has yet to integrate the sites on their main home page yet, but since the sites are still in “beta” mode we should expect it to be promoted further in the coming weeks or months.

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CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.

Google Base to Require “Condition” Attribute in Feed

Not long after requiring merchants to accept their new terms of service, Google Base is now requiring merchants to specify the “condition” field by June 30, or again risk having their products be taken down.

The options for this field are “new”, “used”, and “refurbished”.

This should allow users to more easily find exactly what they’re looking for, particularly if they’re in the market for used/refurbished items. There are a good number of merchants listed on Google Base that sell refurbished merchandise such as electronics, and this should help them be found as well.

Right now a search for say refurbished ipod or refurbished LCD TV on Google Product Search, a majority of the top results don’t have anything to do with refurbished products at all, so hopefully this can be improved as well.

In other news, the astute Google Product Search user will notice that Google has updated their logo, as seen above.