Archive for the ‘Ecommerce’ Category

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Bing decision engine good for online marketing

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine is quite an impressive tool for Web users and online marketers. I read an article in USA Today, entitled Bing it on: Microsoft overhauls search, again, which gives some excellent info about this new search engine.

Bing search engine homepage

Bing includes search suggestions on results pages to help people narrow their searches and find exactly what they’re looking for. This is what I talked about in my eHarbor Blog entry, “Paid search about to get complicated.” Web users want to find information, products and services faster, so they’re using an increasing number of keywords in their searches.

Including suggested search terms on a results page is nothing new. Google includes them on many of their results pages, as well.

I noticed there are no paid listings on Bing results pages. Maybe that is because the service is just getting started and has not yet had time to develop pricing and other metrics to charge for pay-per-click ads. This could present a challenge to ecommerce, but there is probably a solution, whether it is more investment in search engine optimization, social media or other marketing strategies.

Microsoft calls Bing a “decision engine” instead of a search engine. That has a nice ring to it. They call it that because it is supposed to help people make decisions, instead of just provide a whole slew of disorganized information.

I like the fact that Bing gives price comparisons and reviews of products, 30-second clips of videos on results pages, and its image results page is huge! You just scroll down to see all the images, instead of clicking on lots of pages in Google and waiting for them to show up.

What does Bing mean for ecommerce? It will probably reward companies that work hard on online marketing on SEO with high search ranking and quick access for consumers to their websites. We’ll need to continue to refine the search terms we target. It’ll be interesting to see everything that happens.

The photo of the Bing search engine is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Kimberly Saia.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines | 2 Comments »

Facebook’s $200 million boost a win for social media

Friday, June 5th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

As a follow-up to my eHarbor Blog entry on Facebook’s growing pains, I would like to talk about Facebook recently receiving $200 million. I read about it in a CNN article, entitled “Facebook scores $200 million.”

Pile of dollar bills

Facebook has certainly not had any trouble getting new subscribers during this recession. In April, it surpassed 200 million users, an amazing number considering the company started just four years ago.

However, Facebook has had a bit of trouble obtaining investment capital since the start of the recession. That’s understandable, since investors and consumers are trying to be extra careful about where they spend their money.

I found it particularly interesting that the article mentioned Facebook’s overall value fell from roughly $15 billion in October 2007 to about $10 billion in May 2009. That drop coincides with my blog entry “Marketers cut social media presence when they need it most.” As times get tough, companies cut back on things they consider to be nonessential, and social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter are being neglected a bit.

Social media is an important part of marketing strategies now that so many of our potential and current customers are using those services. It’s a great way to stay in contact with them. Facebook’s growth and success could affect the way we market products and services in the future so it is wise to be a part of it. Just remember that social media is not search engine optimization, and both should be used to effectively reach customers.

The Russian company that invested $200 million in Facebook said they think Facebook could become one of the largest Internet companies in the world some day. Seventy percent of their users are already outside the United States, so they’re on their way.

The photo of the pile of dollar bills is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of mmarchin.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 2 Comments »

Do you hate customer service?

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You’re not alone if you do. Customer service has gotten a bad name in recent years, but customers are trying to fight back. According to a CNN article, entitled “Customer service ‘vigilantes’ target executives,” customers who receive poor customer service from a company are turning to social media to vent their frustrations and get service.

"No Whining" customer service signThe CNN article includes several funny and interesting stories of people’s attempts to get the attention of companies’ management in order to solve a problem. One person tweeted an executive on Twitter, while another person made a YouTube video and sent it to a company to get a response. Some people taped conversations with customer-service representatives and posted them online. This could be good or bad, depending on your level of customer service.

Do you want to do business with a company that seems to ignore your service requests or that takes too long to respond to your messages? Customers want to be respected. Companies depend on happy customers to stay in business. Word of mouth is more powerful than almost any other form of persuasive communication, so it’s essential to cultivate positive feelings in customers so they will react positively to your brand when speaking with family members and friends.

This topic harkens back to my discussion of earning online shoppers trust. We must be vigilant if we want our customers to use our services or buy our products.

I think it’s strange that any company could forget to take care of its customers, since they ought to be their central focus. Perhaps stress, limited resources and other factors can lead to poor customer service, but companies that make an effort to please their customers and work out problems kindly often live longer than companies that don’t.

The extra effort is worth it.

So do you hate customer service? Hopefully, if you’re in the ecommerce industry, you love it. Even more than that, your customers should love your customer service.

eHarbor, Inc. prides itself on strong customer service. If you call us or any of our affiliates, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by our high level of care and attention.

The photo of the whining sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of yummiec00kies.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO | 2 Comments »

Social media doesn’t equal SEO

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Social media is a great tool for businesses to communicate with customers. It gives marketers an opportunity to establish close contact with people in ways seemingly unthinkable until just a few years ago.

Winnie the Pooh and tiger too

Despite social media’s strengths, it should not be considered an end unto itself. Without other marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, advertising, etc. a company’s efforts in social media could fall flat. A Brafton article entitled “Does social media increase SEO?” caught my interest and inspired this blog entry.

This is not the first time I’ve talked about social media and its effects on ecommerce in the eHarbor Blog. In one of my blog entries, I noted companies are increasing their spending on search engine marketing, despite the recession. In another, I point out companies are also reducing their social media spending slightly this year, after greatly expanding it over the last few years.

It seems like many businesses have learned the virtues of social media, but they are also prudent in their decisions to try to maximize return on investment. By getting to the top of search engines, companies can reach a wider number of Internet users than by using social media. Both are useful tools and should not be considered superior to the other. But it appears businesses are choosing the broader tool than the more personal one to help them through this recession.

In the Brafton article I mentioned above, Warren Cohen, CEO of SEO-focused Greenlight, said social media would probably not have a noticeable effect on SEO for a company’s website. SEO is built slowly by creating a search engine-friendly website, populating it with relevant content and building connections with similar websites.

A presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites is great and it can add to search-engine rankings, but it probably won’t have a significant impact.

Tried-and-true principles are your best options for getting to the top of Google, MSN and Yahoo. If you would like a more in-depth explanation of SEO and how to use it to your advantage, check out my blog entry “Search engine optimization at the drugstore” or my seven-part series on SEO tactics.

The photo of Winnie the Pooh and “Tigger” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of JoshMcConnell.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines, eHarbor | 6 Comments »

Marketers cut social media presence when they need it most

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I have discussed the growth of ecommerce many times in the eHarbor Blog. You can find lots of information on marketers joining ecommerce in my blog entries, “Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing” and “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” I will continue my streak by talking about ecommerce, though in a slightly different way.

Scissors cutting ethernet cable

The main reason companies keep moving into ecommerce is the revenue growth this industry is experiencing each year. During this recession, consumers have cut back on most spending, but they continue to spend more online, making it a popular alternative for businesses to thrive in hard times.

However, according to an article in B to B, a magazine for online marketers, companies are starting to spend less money advertising their services and brands in social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The article I am referring to is entitled, “Social network ad spending projected to contract this year.”

The growth of advertisement spending on social-media sites has slowed in recent years, from a 129-percent increase in 2007 to 33 percent in 2008, and now an estimated 3-percent loss in 2009. To put it in real numbers, $1.18 billion was spent on social-media advertising in 2008.

Social media is an excellent way for businesses to interact with customers and even gain new ones, so it makes sense for them to jump into this arena. Maybe with all of the cuts businesses are making to compensate for the decline in consumer demand for many products, social media just doesn’t seem as important at the moment.

Ironically, it seems like social-media spending is one of the best investments a business can make, especially in a struggling economy. Consumers are shifting their time and money online, making social networks popular places to reach them. Companies that shy away from social media might be shooting themselves in the foot.

I discussed social media’s many strengths and weaknesses in my blog post, “Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media.” There are plenty of reasons to stay connected with your customers online. Keep trying and stay positive!

The photo of the scissors cutting an ethernet cable is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of nrkbeta.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 4 Comments »

6 tips to earn online shoppers’ trust

Monday, May 18th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

A large number of consumers need more than promises of good deals to get them to shop online. According to a report by the Office of Fair Trading, a third of Internet users don’t trust websites enough to buy products on them.

Credit card shoved into a computerI read this in a BBC News article, entitled “Fear holding back online shopping,” which gave empirical evidence of a fact I had suspected. Twenty percent of potential online consumers said they don’t use shop online because they might put themselves at risk for identity theft or other dangers. Another 15 percent said they don’t trust online retailers enough to do business with them.

This topic goes right along with my eHarbor Blog entry on the disadvantages of ecommerce, such as consumers’ inability to touch products they see online like they can at shopping centers.

Just because technology has improved our ability to market to consumers doesn’t mean we will always reach them. Identity theft has become quite sophisticated and prevalent in our digital age, putting smart consumers on the lookout and retailers on the defensive.

We must earn our customers’ trust. How do we do this? Here are six suggestions:

  1. Include testimonials of satisfied customers who can vouch for your products and services. You might be surprised how willing happy customers are to speak highly of you on your website.
  2. Provide secure payment methods, using credible sources. I’m not going to advertise any here, but do a Google search and you’ll find a number of good ones.
  3. Tell customers the actions you take to preserve their security. Don’t assume they know all the trouble you go through to make sure they’re not improperly charged. You can include a prominent link to this section on the billing page.
  4. Make sure your customer service is top-notch. If your service staff is readily available, knowledgeable and helpful, you’ll be able to resolve problems and help customers develop confidence that you have their best interests at heart.
  5. Put a face on your website. People tend to feel more comfortable doing business with a person rather than a faceless organization. If you can put yourself or a spokesman out front to build credibility, you might be able to win over more customers.
  6. Keep your promises. If you make bold claims, make sure you can back them up with impressive actions. Words are good, but they must be built on the truth to foster trust.

Those are my suggestions on how to build trust. Don’t be afraid to take a chance and do something inventive to earn your customers’ confidence and, thus, their business. Consumers are holding back a lot of their money as they weather the recession, so you’ll need to be creative and forthright to win them over.

By the way, some good news from the BBC news article is that the amount of online shoppers who feel just as comfortable shopping online as at a store increased from 26 percent in 2006 to 54 percent in 2009. This is a welcome trend.

The photo of a credit card in a computer is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of garethjmsaunders.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 3 Comments »

Will Kindle hurt book publishers?

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The Kindle DX’s launch last week brings up an interesting discussion on the value of content in the digital age. I couldn’t cover this whole discussion before, so now I’ll follow up on that discussion, as I promised to do in my first blog entry on Kindle.

Kindle atop a stack of books

I read another article on Kindle in Information Week, entitled “Amazon’s Kindle DX Poses Profitability Challenge To Publishers.” This article focused on a different effect Kindle DX can have on publishers. The publishers it discusses are not in the news media, but the textbook industry.

Apparently, a comparatively lightweight, digital copy of textbooks appeals to schools looking to save money for themselves and students. Textbooks can be expensive and heavy to carry from class to class, so Kindle’s new version offers a useful option. But the idea of turning their products into electronic copies doesn’t appeal to textbook publishers because of the negative impact that would likely have on their value and, thus, company profits.

The reason behind publishers’ hesitance to include their textbooks on Kindle is quite intriguing.

In the article, the author points out, “One fact that’s sure to keep shareholders up at night is the drop in the value of content once it becomes digital, sometimes as much as 50%, analysts have said.”

By publishing a written work in an electronic format, its value falls. The printing press, introduced centuries ago, made books much less expensive and time-consuming to create, lowering their value to a level attainable by more people. Perhaps the Internet is our new version of the printing press, allowing information to be shared cheaply and quickly, compared to traditional media forms.

By avoiding the costs of printing, binding and distributing books, these publishers could maintain their profits while lowering prices. But change is often scary, even if it has many positive points.

The article points out that the world is changing, and it’s becoming more difficult to ignore new technologies. I covered a similar topic on businesses that have yet to enter the ecommerce industry in my previous eHarbor Blog entry, called “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” We can look to the music industry to see the consequences of failing to take advantage of online services in a timely manner, the article also notes.

The photo of a Kindle atop textbooks is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of KNK.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 3 Comments »

Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce

Friday, May 8th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Let’s face it, consumers have cut back tremendously on their spending. Profits are down for many companies, and it doesn’t look like things are improving swiftly.

Water drop flips imageUnemployment is expected to keep increasing, even after the overall economy improves. We shouldn’t expect people to make a whole lot of purchases when they’re not sure if they’ll have enough income to pay for them.

Now is a good time to change our thinking on how to market to our customers.

I read an article on ZDNet, entitled “Forrester: e-commerce ‘better suited to withstand economic downturn’,” which gives some exciting information about the growth in the ecommerce industry, thanks, in part, to the economic downturn.

Ecommerce is a less-expensive way to do business because it doesn’t involve most of the usual costs of doing business in a mall or other shopping center. Plus, it’s cheaper to advertise online than in traditional media, as newspapers have painfully learned.

Most of their online spending is on email campaigns. Social media is also becoming a popular avenue for businesses, although search engine optimization is another way to reach targeted audiences. We had a seven-part series on search engine optimization that might be helpful in successfully implementing it on your website.

This topic is building on ideas I introduced back in March when I wrote back-to-back blog entries on the ecommerce industry: one about how retailers are investing in ecommerce and Web advertising, and the other on how consumers are spending more online.

In the second blog post, I pointed out that ecommerce sales will likely dip slightly in 2009 before increasing again in 2010. However, in the ZDNet article, the author says they might grow by 11 percent to $156.1 billion. Whichever study you look at, it appears ecommerce is outperforming nearly every other retail industry.

Profit attracts competition, so be mindful of how you enter into this market. Be sure to put your best foot forward by using eHarbor, Inc.’s affiliates to guide you through your website design and other important steps.

The photo of the water drop is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Gaetan Lee.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 3 Comments »

New product Kindles hope for news publishers

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Technology might actually be a boon for traditional media providers, thanks to Amazon’s new version of Kindle, called Kindle DX.

Kindle displays the New York TimesIf you read my blog posts on the New York Times and news media in general, you know that traditional news providers seem to be in trouble. Their revenue keeps falling, readership is mostly in decline, and other factors point to a shift in the way people gather news.

This Kindle development is a welcome bit of good news.

I read about Kindle in an article in Computer World, entitled “New Kindle creates new challenges for publishers.” This sounds quite exciting. The previous Kindle version had a six-inch display, but the new one will have a 9.7-inch display, making it easier to read books, newspapers, magazines and other content.

Instead of facing the problem of providing news free of charge, news publishers might actually be able to pull in decent revenue with portable devices like this. The New York Times has already been offering its content to Kindle readers for a monthly fee, but it is expected to lower that fee for the new version.

This is certainly a good opportunity for news publishers, but it comes with a few question marks. Since the technology is so new, it might be difficult to tell what price consumers are willing to pay. Also, news websites and blogs are still popular, and it might be difficult to persuade people to give up their free news sources for a portable, paid service. Cell phones can be used to read news articles, but they are much smaller, so maybe this is a viable option.

Amazon is the first to delve into this new industry, but there will surely be competitors soon, and that could also help news providers by giving them more avenues to sell their content through.

I’m glad to share this positive story. I might write a follow-up blog entry about the Kindle product after it debuts. We’ll wait and see. Stay tuned for more ecommerce stories like this in the eHarbor Blog.

The photo of Kindle and the New York Times is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of jocke66.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 3 Comments »

Too much information is bad for you

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

In the digital age, information is not only plentiful, it’s downright endemic. We have Web analytics tools that can glean information on people who visit our websites.

Fat cat lies comfortably on chair

I will compare information gathering to eating. The more food we eat, the more weight we are likely to gain. If we eat everything we find, we’re not living a healthy lifestyle. It takes discipline and wisdom to choose the foods that our bodies need the most and then eat appropriate servings of them. A little variety doesn’t hurt either.

If we constantly eat and never do anything with that energy, even if the food we eat is good for us, we’ll probably become obese. People who become obese have a greater chance of premature death, just as ecommerce companies that become saturated with information and don’t do anything with it can die prematurely, as well. Not to mention suffer indigestion.

Information is a great thing, just like food. But we must use it wisely. We should gather information pertinent to our needs and then put it to good use in our online marketing decisions, product pricing, customer service, etc.

By the way, I got the idea for this blog entry from an article in Ecommerce Times, entitled, “Drowning in Data: Web Analytics and Information Overload.” That article has lots of insights into information gathering, and I took a piece and ran with it.

This leads me to some things I learned at a recent Webinar by Hubspot and Brent Leary, entitled “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.” I promised I would talk more about this Webinar in my blog entry on Facebook, and I’ll keep my word now.

I highly recommend clicking on the Webinar link above to watch the hour-long presentation. You can also download the presentation slides in a PDF file to save time.

In the Webinar, I learned about websites I can use to both gather and organize information from social-media sites like Twitter. Here are the ones Leary mentioned:

- TubeMogul – distribute online videos and analyze viewers and impact.

- CoTweet – organize your conversations in Twitter.

- Salesforce – measure results in Twitter, Google and other online media.

- Bit.ly – shorten links and keep track of who clicks them.

- Favotter – another Twitter measurement site.

- Twitalyzer – in-depth information on your Twitter account.

I find these sites helpful in my efforts to focus the social-media exposure of eHarbor, Inc. and its affiliates. In fact, eHarbor’s affiliates help not only to create a website for you, but track and gain more visitors through search engine optimization and other strategies.

These companies include: Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter, Submit Solution, and Direct Home Find.

Remember, you are what you eat – but it’s what you do with your time and energy that truly defines you.

The photo of the fat cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of brokinhrt2.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 2 Comments »

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