Posted by Mark Thompson in EcommerceDec 23rd, 2009 | View Comments
With Christmas right around the corner, retailers are trying to tailor every marketing message on their site to compel holiday shoppers to buy some last minute gifts.
Here are a number of call to action graphics and headlines the top retailers are using to stimulate shoppers to spend! I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Best BuyGuaranteed Christmas Delivery: Ensure Gifts Arrive By December 24th
No Shipping. No Waiting. Buy Online. Pick Up In-Store
Give the Gift of Endless Entertainment
Shipping Countdown Sale. 3 Days Only. Online Only.REIOrder by 8 p.m. PT 12/21...

Posted by Mark Thompson in Ecommerce, NewsNov 30th, 2009 | View Comments
Today is Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year. This is the day where online retailers slash prices in order to start the holiday shopping season off with a bang. According to Shop.org and Forrester Research, online retailers are optimistic about Cyber Monday.
By The Numbers
It is estimated that 84% of major online retailers will offer some kind of promotion for cyber monday. You will also see the majority of deals on particular items (42.9%), for specific days (32.9%), along with free shipping on all purchases (15.7%). Almost 69 million workers will be shopping at the...

Posted by Mark Thompson in Ecommerce, SEONov 16th, 2009 | View Comments
Forrester estimates that online retail sales will reach $44.7 billion this holiday season. That is a 8% increase year over year. The contributing factor is the increase in buyers doing more of their shopping online, as well as retailers focusing a larger portion of their marketing dollars on internet sales. Here are some important stats to take from their report.39% of consumers plan to wait and see if the product they want to buy will go on sale
24% of consumers plan on purchasing lower-cost alternatives to brand they normally purchase
Retailers plan on keeping smaller inventories, increase...

Posted by Mark Thompson in EcommerceNov 9th, 2009 | View Comments
Just in time for the 2009 holiday season, Google has announced its new eCommerce service called Google Commerce Search. Google has created an shopping cart for online retailers that is meant to improve site search and usability. The new cart comes equipped with a number of customizations and leverages Google’s search technology. All shopping carts will also be hosted on Google’s servers.
To get started users will have to contact a Google representative. Once they are signed up, users will upload their product database to Google Merchant Center and choose a number of customizations...

Posted by Mark Thompson in EcommerceJul 22nd, 2008 | View Comments For people who are not familiar with vFlyer, they are a classified ad creation, management, and submission platform, allowing sellers to quickly reach consumers in multiple marketplaces by creating attractive “virtual flyers”.I am not a real estate professional by any means; however we have helped a bunch of real estate brokers and agents with the marketing of their properties and listings online. We use to post their listings on sites like Trulia, Zillow, and Google Base individually. This took some time because we were manually adding their listings to each of these real estate...

Posted by Mark Thompson in EcommerceJun 17th, 2008 | View Comments When looking to setup a merchant account, both Paypal and Google Checkout are great solutions. They both have pros and cons but I wanted to give a brief overview of the two merchant solutions.
SolutionsPaypalPaypal offers both a personal and business account.
Google CheckoutOne type of account. Requires a Google Account to sign up.
Buttons AvailablePaypalGoogle CheckoutIntegrationPaypalBasic: Allows you to create simple “buy now” buttons. Perfect for someone selling only a few items.
Shopping Cart: This option will integrate Paypal into some of the most popular...
