1. The food – you are always fed ‘n’ watered well as a sponsor and attendee at Channeladvisor events. This year we had more time for the feeding process (which so happened to be in the room with all the sponsors) so as people eat they like to talk, so potential clients will wander round with their coffee chatting to other attendees and to the sponsors.

2. Other third party providers – Catalyst is always good to catch up with our fellow third party providers and competitors (Grrrrr…arrrrg) to see how they are fairing in business and exchange experiences.

In the Channeladvisor world the third party provider space is not that huge, so we all get to know one another. When you have a network of trusted service providers you can recommend to your existing clients, we all bounce off one another. Even companies who on the face of it are direct competitors, are not normally carbon copies of each other. They can offer and lend services so that the client gets what they need.

3. Other third party providers, that don’t sponsor also attend the event – I negotiated a nice deal and introduction to a newer marketplace (playtrade) that would suit the direction one of my clients is taking. He will be happy with this

4. Potential clients – it’s why us sponsors go really, to get business. The good thing with potential and current ChannelAdvisor clients is that they are pre qualified. When you are speaking to a potential they are interested in moving forward and contracting a company to make this happen.

5. Networking – Talking e-commerce with a few free alcoholic beverages in you is fun. You meet new friends and clients in a more relaxed atmosphere.

6. Ideas – potential clients are brimming with ideas, information and enthusiasm after all the seminars and speakers. They are in the MOOD, and ready to make waves with the help of us sponsors perhaps?

7. CA Staff – I spoke to lots of CA staff, to catch up with personally and to speak about clients. Lots of new introductions too. I had a demo of their new ‘salesforce’ offering which a client of mine wants us to integrate in his store and eBay design. I also got a pair of fresh eyes on a clients SearchAdvisor account because it is driving sales and traffic to a store designed by us. We want the store to be excellent in all things and we take conversion very seriously

Well that is what as a sponsor and eBay/E-commerce design company, CA catalyst means to me.

1. De-bunking the ChannelAdvisor Premium store set up process – a guide for those with little concentration.
2. Breaking down eBay’s changes for real people.
3. How to be the client in a web project (I like this one, no one ever tells the client what they need to do – and you are so important to the development process)

Thanks!

In fact next year I will have more time to devote to my crafty projects and this blog so you will be hearing more from me next year than the one just past.

Hairfreax – new site and restricting handmade hairpiece catalogue. Adding handmade rockabilly Yukata and Kanzashi, as well as funky obi and Japanese/Anime inspired fashion.

Hairfreax eBay – just a few pre-made hairpeices

Keirotech will be partnering with Createyourtemplate and be absorbed into CYT UK – eBay Design, Web Design inc ASPDNSF design, Flash programming, brick to bytes – on-line business integration and business consultancy. New site/info to come.

See you in 2010!

So I am adding two new ‘sides’ to the blog as such.

Reviews:

Just so you know what I am harking on about, this is where you can email me your reviews of any web related shop, service, software and it will be posted on this blog un-edited for all to see. People read this blog and sometimes the people who are responsible for said services. So they can sit back and smile to themselves for a job well done or jump too if they haven’t.
The only catch is your eBay shop/website will have to be included in the review. This is so said companies can address any issues with you and to avoid anonymous rants.

Reviews are so important to readers as it helps with customer confidence and also to avoid pitfalls in their own e-commerce adventures.

Support:

Have a question or quandary? Not quite sure what decision to make? We have done this on and off since the inception of the blog, but if you are stuck or confuzzled about something e-commerce, drop me a line and support will be blogged.

Ask about anything e-commerce related. Humour/comedy is permitted.

*Please note this is not a invitation for free consultancy, you can try your luck but as I am in charge I will select the questions and reviews (probably group the reviews) that appear.

Please email me:

and lets start sorting out the e-commerce world and make it accessible to all.

This technique is used in the UK by many larger banks that provide on-line banking for their business customers. This could well be the end of phishing for paypal users as even if you enter your username and password, they would need to physically come round and steal your security key to generate the number! This is a great new move for security from our friends at paypal and maybe eBay will adopt a similar system to protect its buyer and sellers from phishing. I would certainly pay £3 as it will probably be in the UK for that extra added security and peace of mind.

Tamebay had the heads up on this matter, which will greatly increase the security of paypal.

Check this old post from the CA blog.

I started shopping online in the summer of ’99 with Gothic Auctions which prompted signing up for paypal almost instantly as everything was in Dollars. My first purchase was from a Canadian seller.

By the winter I was actively selling on Gothic Auctions and a competitor Goth Auctionslater on in 2001, and set up my own very basic HTML e-commerce website in May 2000, making sales and taking orders via email with promotion on community based sites.

Both of these auction sites were community driven and the gothic community contributed to how the sites were run. eBay has strived to become what these sites had all along.

It was not long before I signed up and brought and sold a few things on eBay.com (before eBay.co.uk was born)

Unfortunately then the eBay boom started and I neglected these free auction sites as the dollar grew weaker with respect to the pound. I plan to relaunch the Hairfreax range back onto these community driven auction sites as I feel they have once again come into their own. They were the first social shopping sites, everyone knew everyone and who was buying what! When your products do reflect a specific culture you should not forget the smaller, community driven exposure you can get. I started out supplying the community with products, but now I provide shops and studios with my creations. They spawned an addiction to e-commerce.

Promoting my old favourites:

I implemented a payzone service on my Hairfreax Website a month ago with no takers as yet, but this system of a voucher visa card number taking the onus off the retailers to integrate with any system.

The user registers the card, and then it costs £3.50 to buy a voucher between £20 and £200. These prepaid vouchers can be used like a real visa card. You can not use these on gambling sites but you only need the cash and to be over 16. Great for the Maestro card generation (which I am apart of) where a Visa card means a credit card.

Payzones are everywhere, once I had registered my card I was given a list of 10 locations near my postcode, once of which is 4 minutes walk.

Could this solve a problem with the rising number of insolvent British people and bad credit, who can’t get or don’t want to get a Visa credit card? If you stuck with just your Maestro card and some retailers don’t take it (talking overseas really) will this bridge that gap allowing more people to buy online? If you are worried about credit card fraud, this could be a solution for you as fraudsters could only take what you had left on your card and not max you out to that new £7000 credit limit you forgot to reduce last month!

Wonder if Paypal would accept such vouchers?

You can pay for goods or services on eBay and PayPal by registering your 3V Vouchers on these sites. As every 3V Voucher has a unique 16-digit VISA number, you need to use the “Add Credit Card or Debit Card” screen to attach each new 3V Voucher to your account.

Whenever you register a new VISA number from your 3V Voucher with eBay or PayPal, a small amount (the equivalent of one US dollar) is deducted to verify that the VISA number is valid. Until this amount is refunded automatically to your 3V Voucher (between 7 to 10 days), the available balance on your voucher will be reduced by this amount and therefore not available to spend.

Like other merchants, eBay and PayPal will only accept one VISA number for each transaction so you need to ensure that the cost of anything you buy (including delivery and any other charges) is less than the amount of money on the 3V voucher you have attached to your eBay account.

When a 3V Cardholder uses the 3V Voucher for the purchase of goods or services, the purchase will be subject to the terms and conditions applied by the retailer of such goods and services, and/or by any payment service provider or processor, including, by way of example, any age restriction or additional charges which might apply in respect of such purchase. 3V Cardholders must carefully review the terms and conditions of the retailer, or payment service provider or processor before attempting to make a purchase, including any terms affecting the 3V Cardholders eligibility to do so.

What is the EXPUSE number – Expanded Use Number?
If you ask PayPal to verify your PayPal account, then PayPal will charge a small amount to the 3V Voucher you have registered with them. The narrative for this charge is a 4-digit EXPUSE number which will be displayed in the description field for that transaction in the transaction history for that Voucher.

To see the available balance and transaction history for any Voucher, click on ‘View transaction history’ on the left hand side of this page

Can I use 3V Vouchers to register as a seller on eBay?
No, you cannot use 3V Vouchers to register as a seller on eBay.

Is there a limit to the number of Vouchers I can add to my PayPal account?
Yes. PayPal limits the number of credit card numbers that can be assigned to any PayPal account to a maximum of 16 over the lifetime of an account. If you have assigned 16 3V Vouchers to your PayPal account, you will have to open a new PayPal account to continue using 3V Vouchers with PayPal.

You could find at least 6 different types of online shopper within your own set of friends and family. A small sized start-up online business may not be able to afford professional customer modelling, but these techniques are still important, even to the smaller player.

New to the Net:

These buyers are still getting used to the internet and the idea of e-commerce. They use the web for research purchases and start will smaller value items in safer environments. A common start off point for these shoppers is eBay, where all the sellers are rated and they can proceed with caution. At this early stage this shopper can either become addicted to the life of e-commerce or be put off by a bad or fraudulent purchase.

This buyer needs a simple interface, and a way to verify the e-commerce site. Make sure you have clear precise pictures, a simple stream line jargon free checkout and display your returns policy clearly outlining your responsibility as an online retailer. You can invest in an eBay type feedback system such as FeeFo.com which is an independent customer feedback system and also feature customer testimonials. Make sure you use well known and simple payment processing for example Paypal, Lloyds Cardnet or HSBC.

Bargain Hunters

These shoppers rely heavily on marketplaces such as eBay and shopping comparison engines. They have no real brand loyalty and are just shopping for the lowest price. You need to convince these shoppers they are getting the best deal. Make sure you products are included in shopping comparison engines and have an RRP shown so they can see the great deal they are getting. Within this group you have the impulsive bargain hunter who wants to purchase now and a competitive bargain hunter willing to bid against other shoppers for the deal. EBay is a bargain hunter’s paradise; you can almost use eBay to cater primarily for these customers, letting them battle it out for bargains and also have fixed price items for your impulsive bargain hunters.

Precise Shoppers

These shoppers have a surgical approach to online shopping. They know exactly what they want and will research until they find the best fit to their criteria. These shoppers are hard to please as it is luck of the draw that you have the product they need. You need to make sure part numbers and the true name of your product is present in the product title to allow precise optimization. Product configuration tools like the ‘Build your Porsche’ cater for these types of shopper and are great for a multitude of shopper types.
These shoppers need customer opinions to make sure the product will fit it intended purpose and also great customer support so they can seek verification for the seller about the item.

Hobby Shoppers

Shopping for these buyers is a past time. I fall straight into this category myself. It’s an addiction and I almost need to find something to buy online if I have a penny to spare. I often have to quell the urge. These shoppers purchase frequently and enthusiastically. These are the most adventurous shoppers and you need to grab their attentions by offering engaging tools to view the merchandise as well as product recommendations and incorporating social media into their purchase. These shoppers love community applications such as forums, bulletin boards and social shopping sites.

Direct Shoppers

These shoppers buy out of necessity. They do not shop around or waste time. They want the information now and to find the product within the 3 click recommended navigation. Excellent navigation and product organization is needed to cater for these shoppers. These shoppers need all the information at their finger tips in close proximity to the items, as well as quick access to customer support. Live chat appeals to these kind of shoppers, as they want answers quickly. These shoppers respond well to expert and customers opinions and testimonials.

Nervous Shoppers

My mother very much falls in this category, afraid to ‘put her credit card’ online or that she will be subject to fraud. Identity theft has risen to 1 in 4 in the UK so this is a valid concern. These shoppers start off by only using the internet to research products they mainly buy offline. To make these customers feel secure you need to clearly state your security /privacy policies and use a SSL certificate at checkout. These shoppers watch out for the little padlock at the bottom of the browser so make sure you have no non-secure items on your secure pages. Non-secure Google analytics tracking code is famous for this, they have a https version. You need to state that their information is secure and not sold or distributed. These customers also need customer support, with most of these shoppers wanting to hear from a human before they make their purchase. You need to make sure you include a phone number contact for these shoppers, and also an option that they can pay over the phone for their purchase. You might find these shoppers are only leads for your bricks and mortar or catalogue operations. These are still valid customers as most types of customers have a little bit of the nervous shopper in them.

You can not please or cater for every shopper that will land on your e-commerce site, but you do need to consider the information you need to give your customers and the shopping experience as a whole. Always consider your product type and match it with your typical customer profile. These are generalisations on shoppers, but as with the colour symbolism and psychology, every product type attracts a different set of customer profiles! You can even go as far as moulding your search engine optimisation to match what each shopper type is looking for. Intelligent search engines will deliver your products and message directly to these shopper types, Google personalised search will make this easier for you.

Channeladvisor has made my life easier today because:

1. You can get a full export of all of your inventory – all that hard work exported in excel.
2. You can export all customer information (and see if they have opted in to your newsletter or not) for email marketing campaigns.
3. PayPal payments pro and express integration done for you. I still can’t do the paypal payments pro integration on my own website, but I will! Roll on Cubecart 4
4. Automatic feeds to Google Base and Shopzilla
5. Integration with Google Analytics using the e-commerce functionality too (so you can see what leads actually generate complete sales)
6. Export of all sales, all in one go.

That is why I love ChannelAdvisor today.

One such email in response to : What functionality to make sure you have when investing in an e-commerce platform…

was:

Hi Liz,
I really enjoy your blog.
I read your post today on e commerce platforms and I wondered if you knew
anything about goecart.com? Is it a worthwhile option?

Thanks for taking the time to read this
Dave

and i said….

I have not heard of them but as there were a codie finalist they can’t be
half bad! It includes a one page shopping cart (marvellous, better for
reducing cart abandonment) and also CRM tools, which is a nice added
feature for customer support and after sales marketing. It all depends
whether you need all these nifty features for your business and whether it
justifies the price. As it has a 30 day trial you have nothing to loose
trying it out.
I took a look at http://www.bridestuff.com/ and they have SEF URLs (text
urls) and I had no loading problems either whilst accessing the site.

So what has http://goecart.com/ got that stands out to me?
- One page checkout ( the holy grail of all checkout formats, why would you want anything less?)
- CRM tools – The CRM tool Salesforce tracks everything in my work life, so it would be great for an e-commerce set up to track customer questions, website support and also drive marketing campaigns and track their success.
- They are thinking about SEO, with the text urls and the site mapping for Google and Yahoo.
- The ability to automate shopping comparison feeds and also set up your own affiliate schemes.
- Many payment integrations ( but no mention of paypal pro in the website? Surely not?)
- Using excel to manage your inventory

and many more features. They seem to be dotting every I an crossing every T with and ERP like coverage with regards to e-commerce. They also have a free trial available.

But go on…how much does all this cost?

$1799 (£906 at time of publishing) a year for the basic subscription of up to 1000 items, but bear in mind that does include the hosting, disk space,emails and support.

…..so for what £75.50 a month. Not a bad deal really. I would recommend this for existing businesses thinking of going global with e-commerce from about £2Kto £30K GMS (Gross Monthly Sales)

Now, onto the Design….

Design is extra, their design services are an extra $1250 (£630). They boast the system is fully customisable so design is what I would shop around for. You could probably save on the design element, or find a design team that suits your tastes more as everyone is different. No point putting all your eggs in one basket when the market is so large and fruitful!