Archive for November, 2009

Yahoo Shopping Introduces iPhone App

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - November 17, 2009 at 3:55 pm

It was inevitable that comparison shopping would eventually reach mobile devices.

Amazon currently has an app out where consumers can shop for products on their iPhones, and it’s been reported that an eBay user purchased a Lamborghini as well as a boat on his iPhone as well.

Yahoo then has just announced that they’re introducing their own iPhone app for the Yahoo Shopping platform:

We are pleased to announce the launch of a Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app, which will be downloadable by iPhone users. Because mobile shopping is fairly new to most users, all clicks on your product listings delivered through the Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app will be free of charge until further notice.

We’re not sure how well this will work though, because unlike the marketplaces and eBay, the purchases will be made on the merchant’s webpage which may not be quite as well optimized for mobile browsing–while a customer will never have to leave eBay or Amazon when making a purchase.

Plus, consumers may be more leery making purchases via their mobile devices on a site they’ve never been to compared to more trusted names such as Amazon/eBay.

At least with the latter two, a user’s purchasing information is usually stored/linked to their login, while on a 3rd party site they would have to register for a new account or enter a credit card on their phone, which presents another barrier to purchase.

That may perhaps be why this traffic will be free, but as consumers begin to further adopt mobile technology it may eventually become just second nature.

Update: PriceGrabber follows Yahoo! Shopping’s lead by launching their own iPhone App today – http://www.pricegrabber.com/iphone_promo.php

Smarter Introduces Featured Merchant Program

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - November 11, 2009 at 3:59 pm

With Q4 shopping either right around the corner, or having already launched in full force depending on how you ask, now is just as important a time to take advantage of all the shopping engines have to offer right now.

Smarter.com is introducing a featured merchant program then, which at an additional rate of $0.20/click features:

- Premium placement on product page – a sure fire way to stand out amongst your competitors!
- Smarter.com Featured Merchant Logo
- Merchant Logo listed alongside all of your listings – excellent branding opportunity!
- Highlighted on category and search result landing page
- with the ability to opt-in at the account and category level

In essence then, merchants who participate in the program will be more prominently listed in search results, making consumers more likely to click through.

Normally for the larger engines inflating one’s traffic isn’t always the best idea since the costs will iust increase significantly, but as a smaller engine getting more traffic is generally a greater challenge.

Listing Promotional Messages on the CSEs

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - November 4, 2009 at 3:58 pm

One of the unique aspects of CSE management is figuring out how all the shopping engines’ unique features differentiate themselves from each other.

While columns such as product URLs, product names, descriptions, etc. are generally universal among them all, there are many discrepancies among them that a merchant should know about in order to maximize their listings on the engines.

Below we provide details on practices that will help best promote your products specifically for each engine:

Listing Nextag Sales Price:

- Include MSRP or regular price in feed

Nextag Free Shipping:

- If everything has free shipping, select “Always Free for All Items” in the “Manage Shipping Rules” section
- Otherwise include shipping costs in feed

Nextag Promotional Message:

- For a single message, bid at least $0.05 on the “Message” under “Manage Bids by Category”, then click “Set Marketing Message” and choose from the available templates
- To select different marketing messages by product, include a “Marketing Message” column in the feed and be sure to bid at least $0.05 on the “Message” for all products under “Manage Bids by Category”

Listing Free Shipping:

- Set column “Shipping Rate” to 0 in feed

Shopping.com Promotional Message:

- Include message in “Stock Description” column in feed.
- Free
- 100 character limit

Shopzilla Free Shipping:

- If shipping is free for all products, select “Free shipping for all products” under shipping information.
- If not, set rules through feed, column: “Shipping Cost”

Shopzilla Sales Price:

- Include “Original Price” & “Sale Price” columns in feed
- Be sure to select Contact Us in your Shopzilla login and notify your account manager that you’re adding a column; your listings will temporarily come down while they re-process your feed.

Shopzilla Coupon:

- Go to “Manage Listings”
- “Special Offers”
- Select from the available options

PriceGrabber Free Shipping:


- Set it under the column “shipping costs” within the feed
- In the login under “Your Account” it can be modified in “Shipping and Tax Info” (not available for all accounts)

PriceGrabber Coupon:

- All the info can be included in the feed using their coupon spec sheet.

Google Products Search Tax and Shipping:

-Add a column called “tax” in the format–Country:State:Percent: y/n shipping

So for example if a merchant is based in the United States, California, charges 8% tax, and offers free shipping, that column would read– US:CA:8:y

More info can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160162

Become Promotional Message:

- Include desired text in feed
- Bid on desired categories in “Bids” tab

Become Sales Price:

- Include the following columns: “MSRP” and “Price”

Smarter Promotional Message:

- Have the two columns: “Regular Price” and “Sale Price”
- Go to “Extras” tab
- Select “Submit Coupons” and fill in appropriate fields

Yahoo Shopping Sales Price:

- Have the two columns: “price” and “sale-price”

Yahoo Shopping Free Shipping:

- Fill in the appropriate SKU with “0” in the column “shipping-price”

Pronto Sales Price:

- Include the columns: “Retail Price” and “Price”

Become.com Rolling out Black Friday Deal Portal

 Posted by Nii Ahene - November 3, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Become.com has just launched a new Black Friday portal to point savvy bargain hunters in the direction of the hottest product deals this shopping season. Unlike some of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday highlight sites we’ve seen in the past from the CSEs,  Become.com will list deals from both online and offline retailers. Here’s a snippet from the consumer facing launch site:

Welcome to Black Friday @ Become.com! You’re now one of the lucky shoppers to have that special edge on great deals in the upcoming holiday season. On November 27th 2009, stores all over the country will open early to offer extraordinary door buster savings to early rising shoppers. If you’re one of those shoppers that enjoys the 4 A.M wake up call and the thrill of large crowds then you’ll enjoy our up to date information on all major stores and their 2009 Black Friday offerings. If, however, you require a bit more sleep after a festive Thanksgiving then you’ll appreciate our extensive online listings that enable you to skip the stores and still get incredible savings.

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become increasingly important for retailers looking for an early signal on how retail sales will trend for the rest of the holiday season. The New York Times reported  last year that “spending on Cyber Monday was $846 million, up 15 percent from a year ago. For the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday spending jumped 13 percent” for online retailers compared to the year before.

In the spirit of season it also looks like clicks from Become.com’s Black Friday portal will be free for merchants.  Interested merchants can take advantage of the offer by contacting Become.com directly at MerchantHelp@become.com