Archive for February, 2007

Web usability experts Webcredible have released a report that evaluates the websites of 20 of the leading Valentine’s ecommerce websites. Based on their experience of usability testing with over 1000 people on a variety of ecommerce sites, they devised 20 essential guidelines that all ecommerce websites should adhere to, evaluating each site against these guidelines.

With these statistics in mind, Webcredible decided to follow up their Christmas e-commerce usability report by investigating the usability of the websites of 20 of the UK’s well known online stores in the Chocolate, Flower, Jewellery and Lingerie sectors.
With Mother’s Day looming in the near future, in addition to regular birthdays and anniversaries, those websites with high usability are likely to have their Valentine’s Day shoppers return again and again throughout the year.
Increasing the usability of any ecommerce website will increase sales – it’s as simple as that – this sales increase could even be as high as 100%7. Improved usability will also lead to an increase in brand loyalty and return site visitors, and an improvement in the perception of your brand (both online and offline).
Evaluations of the 20 websites featured in this study were conducted throughout January 2007.

From: webcredible.co.uk
February 7th 2007

IT was just a matter of time. Online retailers have begun capitalizing on the YouTube craze, offering a video platform for product demonstrations, rants and raves, sentimental messages and just plain bizarre behavior.

At this point there is little question that the videos, on sites like 1-800-Flowers.com, Buy.com, Blendtec.com and many others soon to come, have novelty value. Whether they will help build customer traffic and sales over the long term, though, remains an open question.

“The scary thing is that we don’t know the financial implications of this,” said Jim McCann, the chief executive of 1-800-Flowers, which recently began two initiatives to post user-generated videos on the site. “Does it have any benefit for sales? I can’t answer that. We’re just going on a leap here.”

Mr. McCann said the company would announce today its “Video Valentine” service (at 1-800-Flowers.com/videovalentine), where users go to the site and upload photos, write messages and choose musical themes and graphics. The site then meshes the various elements into a 60-second clip that, while not strictly video, includes enough motion and sound to approximate the experience.

The site allows users to send the valentines for free, and, after employees review them for inappropriate content, they may post the valentines on the site for others to view and rate.

Users will be able to integrate full video files in the coming months, said Mr. McCann, who caught the video bug after a conversation last year with Chad Hurley, one of YouTube’s founders. In the meantime, the site is relying on YouTube to broadcast other video clips from customers, through its Reconnections initiative.

With that, 1-800-Flowers asks users to film testimonials about instances when a gift from the site has caused or highlighted a reunion in the customer’s life. One video the site is considering posting in the future features a man who had lost touch with his high school sweetheart after the Korean War. Through the Web site, the man sent the woman a replica of the prom corsage he gave her 50 years before. The happy ending: 1-800-Flowers supplied the bouquets for their wedding. The Reconnections clips, which carry the company’s logo and links, are carried on YouTube, but links to the videos will also appear on the 1-800-Flowers site. Mr. McCann said he would feature the most popular videos in television ads, and has begun training employees in video production techniques to help customers refine some of the more promising testimonials.

The effort, he said, falls in line with the company’s increased focus on soliciting customer involvement on the site — whether through suggested gift card phrases, or less formal interactions with customer service representatives, where the site’s employees solicit feedback from consumers on product variations they might like to see.

“The irony is that we’re using technology to be much more personal with our customers, and recreate the relationship I had 30 years ago, where I knew all the customers that came into my shop on First Avenue,” Mr. McCann said.

The business itself is on the upswing. Late last month 1-800-Flowers announced record revenues of $330 million for the most recent quarter, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the same period in 2005. The company’s stock jumped by more than 10 percent last month to top $7, after dropping below $4.50 in August.

For at least one company, user-generated videos have led to a measurable boom in business. Blendtec, a manufacturer and seller of blenders based in Orem, Utah, started late last year posting videos of the company’s chief executive, Tom Dixon, blending random objects, including wood, marbles and Mr. Dixon’s iPod.

The company posted the videos on its own site, WillItBlend.com, as well as on YouTube, and promoted them on various message boards and blogs. The marble video, which can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=3OmpnfL5PCw quickly rose to prominence on YouTube’s entertainment section, and since then, according to Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, the company’s 30 videos have been viewed more than 11 million times.

“We’ve seen wonderful improvements in sales,” Mr. Wright said. “Online, we’ve absolutely eclipsed our records, and it just continues to grow and grow.”

Still, the runaway success of the program has included some potentially troubling side effects. Users have taken to posting their own “extreme blending” videos, with about 600 such clips last week featured on YouTube.

Other sites, like the golf and tennis retailer Golfsmith.com, are employing user videos for reviews. According to Matthew Corey, the company’s vice president of marketing, Golfsmith.com will soon allow users to post clips talking about products for sale on the site.

Mr. Corey said this year’s new golf clubs include even bigger drivers than before, some with square heads. “It’s going to take people some time to understand the features of these,” he said. “What better way to do that than with videos?”

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Sites may need to offer incentives to entice users to post videos, according to some executives, because users are less willing to do the extra work to post videos than photos or text reviews. Mr. Corey said Golfsmith is considering rewarding users who create popular videos.

Videos also help increase Internet traffic. The more Golfsmith offers videos and reviews of its products, Mr. Corey said, the better the chances Google and other search engines will point users to Golfsmith when they type a product name into a search box.

Mr. Corey will still have to brace himself for the possibility of users posting mock video reviews on YouTube showing, say, the destructive capabilities of a club. But on Golfsmith.com, all reviews will be screened by BazaarVoice, an Austin-based technology vendor that helps Web sites post user reviews and screen them for offensive or inappropriate content.

Brett Hurt, the chief executive of BazaarVoice, said his company would start helping three of its 60 clients solicit, review and post video reviews.

“I’d expect a majority of our customers to adopt this,” Mr. Hurt said. “It’s just a matter of time before it becomes the norm online.”

From: New York Times
February 6th 2007

Payment gateways and merchant accounts are always hot topics in our forums, as is offering potential customers the flexibility to pay by credit card and debit card. To help e-tailers who aren’t sure exactly what they need when setting up shop, or for those who are considering switching or adding services, we’ve outlined the basics you need to know.

There are many options for both merchant accounts and payment gateways, but they do differ greatly from one to the next. Before we lunge headlong into a search for either, though, we need to understand what they both do.

What A Payment Gateway Does
When a consumer clicks on the “pay now” button and submits his or her personal and financial information, these details are passed through your secure server to a payment gateway. Essentially this is the same as a till, or POS (point-of-sale) system in a brick-and-mortar store and acts like a middleman between banks. The transaction details are encrypted and passed from the payment gateway through to the merchant account bank.

What A Merchant Account Does
Your merchant account bank then requests authorization from the issuing bank to complete the payment. The issuing bank responds via the payment gateway outlining whether the payment was successful or not along with any reasons why the payment was not successful. The payment gateway then processes this response and sends the relevant information back to your Web site and to your customer.

Hybrid Solutions
While this may seem complex, the entire process takes just a couple of seconds and requires no intervention from you or your customers. Both aspects of this transaction process are essential, although hybrids exist that combine both. For instance, PayPal integrates a payment gateway system and a merchant account making the process much easier and more fluent, but the costs are a little higher than when using two separate accounts.

Always do your homework and research to ensure you are getting the best deal for features you require. Some of the more important features to consider include:
Shopping cart compatibility

Whether a separate merchant account is required

Fees and payments

Hidden costs

Chargeback or refund costs

Fraud prevention and security measures

Reporting and account management

Shopping Cart Compatibility
One of the most crucial aspects of choosing a payment gateway is ensuring that it is fully compatible with your choice of shopping cart. Many payment gateways and shopping carts can be configured to integrate with one another, but you want to be sure yours will work together. Most payment gateway services also provide extensive fraud prevention systems that can, in the long run, save you time and heartache.

Full Payment Gateway And Merchant Account Features
If you are setting up a new online business then it is unlikely that your business will have a positive credit history. Under these circumstances it can prove difficult to gain access to a merchant account. If this is the case, you should attempt to find a payment gateway that includes some merchant account features. 2CheckOut and PayPal enable you to process and accept credit card payments without the need for a separate merchant account. The fees are comparatively higher, but ignoring the credit card section of the market will cost a lot more in lost revenue.

Fees And Payments
The fees you will have to pay should obviously play an important factor in your decision. The first thing to note is the difference in price between using separate payment gateway and merchant account when compared to using a fully integrated service like PayPal.

Payment Gateway Fees
Unfortunately, fees can be complicated with some accounts. It may be necessary to pay a setup fee, and you will also be required to pay a percentage of any transactions, generally equivalent to between 1.5 percent and 2 percent. A fixed fee per transaction that’s usually less than 50 cents may also be required as well as a monthly management and administration fee, which could be anywhere up to $100.

Different accounts offer different options and your sales figures will determine the right choice for you. If you sell a small number of higher value items then you should try to find a payment gateway that charges a fixed fee. In contrast, if you sell large amounts of items for minimal cost, then you should avoid this fixed fee and concentrate on accounts that offer fees based on a percentage of transactions.

Combined Account Fees
Payment gateways that do not require a merchant account do generally incur greater costs, because they combine the two required aspects of processing a payment. While some services charge as much as 50 cents per transaction plus a 4 percent to 5 percentfee, PayPal is one of the cheapest available options with a 30-cent and 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent fee on all transactions. With no set-up fee and no gateway fees. this makes PayPal genuine value for money. Similar services like NoChex offer similar rates. Another point worth noting is that services like these do not tend to charge refund fees, monthly or annual fees or regular administration fees.

Merchant Account Fees
Individual merchant accounts have similar fees to PayPal but they also generally require a set-up fee and a monthly payment. Ultimately the choice is yours and while PayPal does offer good overall value, it is more difficult to integrate into a Web site despite recent additions to its merchant tools section.

Hidden Fees
Always check the terms and conditions before you sign up for any account. Hidden fees may exist in the form of extra monthly administration costs. Some merchant accounts charge fees for withdrawals or for currency conversions. They will almost certainly levy a fee for chargebacks (refunds to your customer’s credit card) so extra care should be taken when choosing an account.

Fraud Prevention
Fraud prevention and security are important considerations. Some payment gateways do offer fraud prevention measures and all should provide a level of online security. Risk management tools are much more commonly found with merchant accounts and hybrid solutions although some services may seem like they are leaving you in the wilderness to decide for yourself.

Reporting And Account Managing
Finally, we should look at the reporting and account management features that are offered. Hybrid solutions like PayPal tend to offer a reasonable range of reporting with details of all transactions including withdrawals to your bank account, credits, debits and any refunds. Always attempt to check the extent of reporting available to you before opting for a particular account. In general, all account management options should be accessible through the Internet and easy to change.

Hybrids Generally Best Route
For convenience and affordability, hybrid solutions tend to offer the best option. They work out much cheaper because the payments are combined and with competition heating up in this area, things are only likely to improve in the future. PayPal is one of the most widely used of the hybrid solutions because its rates are among the cheapest available. Look around before opting for the first available account, though, because every business and every e-commerce venture has its own different requirements.

Every new operating system, no matter the vendor, will always have quirks. Most often, those quirks come in the form of driver issues. The inability to run certain programs or applications on the new system until a patch is released. This is the situation currently with users of Apple’s iTunes on the recently released Windows Vista.

Apple is aware of several issues, most of them minor, that stem from drivers and codec’s in iTunes 7.0.2. The problems reported result in the loss of the ability to play video files ordered and downloaded from the iTunes store, address, and contact synchronization. Another issue is the loss of the calendar functions, and a seriously slowed down runtime. Most users are complaining of the slow systems, and program response than the other two on several forums and public support groups. One other issue Apple reports is corruption of an iPod if it is plodded into a system running Vista.

Apple said not all Vista systems are affected, but asks users not to upgrade to Vista until they release a patch for iTunes that corrects these bugs. The patch from Apple is still a few weeks off. They have provided some advice and created a repair tool for users to download. This tool will fix some of the permission issues, but Apple maintains the best fix is to wait until iTunes is patched before the update to Vista.

The nature of the DRM used in iTunes, and the complex nature of drivers, and kernel patching inside Vista, makes this issue a serious one for users who simply can’t live without their iPod or the iTunes store. Apple’s iTunes is the largest online retailer of DRM media, and has several million members worldwide. Users of iTunes will get an auto update notice when the patch to correct issues in Vista is released.

Monstersandcritics.com
February 6th 2007

Highlighting that the UK is a nation of car-boot sale lovers (and eBay sellers and buyers), Yell.com is testing classified ads on its site. The directory company has teamed up with oodle.co.uk which trawls hundreds of classified adverts sites including Reed and Jobsgroup, Look4aproperty and Hotproperty, eBay and Preloved in order to populate the Yell.com site.

It wasn’t very long ago that Yell added price comparison and product reviews to its site and then followed on with a food and drink listing. Visitors can now search for retailers’ details, find specific products to buy new or secondhand as well as to sell their own items. How long will it be before yell.com becomes a retailer instead of a portal for other people’s goods?

from:InternetRetailing.net
Tuesday January 30 2007