Shopping Comparison
eBay DESIGN WARS!
Ok, it is a dramatic title but it seems that eBay is at war with its store designers. It’s new store experience will put the wind up most.
The CSS on the Hairfreax shop from the blog series seems not too affected by the design, maybe those who have used it as a base for their own store design care to fill me in with how they are coping? (and any compliance issues?) I hope to have time to experiment with the new stores soon, but I am locked down developing a new joomla site.
I have 3 clients all with Frooition design, and I am not making judgements till I have had the pudding but this is what they have said on this issue “Phillip Molloy, President said, “We have a solution that is ready to go, easy to preview and easy to install. You will be able to install and uninstall at any time”
Deb from ASWAS has also been keeping us all informed of this issue and my main client was thankful for the info in his inbox this morning! She asks ‘Are you one of thousands of eBay sellers who paid an “eBay Store design specialist” for an eBay Store that now has to be replaced?‘
A good question, one that all ebayers with store design will need to ask themselves.
But I detract from the positive sides of the changes? The gallery display sure seems sweeter, and it has a Web 2.0 feel to the experience….not that the rest of us are looking towards Web 3.0 and eBay took its time to catch up!
Totally un-related but tomorrow is paper payments removal deadline for ebay listings. Its an ebay.com thing, but if you have visibilty on dotcom and you are a UK seller? I imagine it will still apply. Paper sucks anyway.
I will have lots of things to blog on this year, setting up a Channeladvisor premium store, designing it, then tendering for a better design, growing a retail arm of a sports retailer (Kooga anyone?) and doing some multi market magic….
I will be in eBay up to my ears, but its great!
Watch this space as the battle unfolds….
Edited to add: Update from the CA forums on Frooition design….
Thanks for your questions concerning the charge for the new upgrade.
As outlined in the FAQ area
Quote: Yes, this is an upgrade not a solution to a problem. We are providing many new features as well as reworking some graphics to fit in with the new storefront layout. The pricing will depend on your current layout and levels of custom work. Contact customer services at info@frooition.com Without repeating the above, we DO have a process in place for calculating whether there will be a charge, and what this quote would be. If you would like to find out more, please email info@frooition.com with your client reference number (if applicable), or your company name.
Opening this post up for comments if anyone needs any assistance or has any views!
Edit 2:
Ahhh…lots of emails…please see here for information on the Froo Store Upgrade FAQ’s
Truly I will get back onto this but on speaking to Frooition it is a case by case basis thing and I will report in full the cost to upgrade the stores I deal with but can not vouch for any others!
Christmas Marketing – What to do in November.
Follow on from:
Gearing up for Xmas 2007 – What to do in October…
Week 1:
You have done your research, you campaign has had 7-10 days. Pin point your successes and failures.
Ask yourself a few questions:
1. What campaigns are working?
2. Why are the successful campaigns working?
3. What campaigns are not working?
4. Why are they not working and what can we change you yield a positive result?
You need to look at your analytical data and see where your revenue stream is coming from on these campaigns, are the keywords you thought were relevant to the season and your product working for you?
Are to continuously testing the efficacy of your landing pages?
Week 2:
You need to analyse your purchase or lead generation process. You should have enough data now to see where your customers are either abandoning the shopping cart or being lost in your pages.
Check your error and web logs, has the site had a slow down due to the increased traffic? Have loading times been effected at all? Do you have any dead links on your site you forgot to get rid of in October?
These holes in your bucket need to be corked before the ‘Christmas Crunch Time’ which is typically 23rd of Nov to 16th Dec.
Crunch starts in week 3.
Week 3:
Check stock levels and product feeds for errors. Display and be realistic about your last posting days before Christmas. Evaluate your pay per click and other active return on investment advertising to increase quality of traffic. Re-evaluate your match types, campaign negative keywords, budget, position and bids to ensure the relevancy of your shoppers.
Don’t sell them something they are not looking for. If they don’t know what they are looking for make sure you are ‘suggesting ideas’ within your advertising i.e Gifts for Mum, Gifts for a music fan etc.
Make sure you campaigns are organised to separate such ‘Suggesting Campaigns’ from product specific or general campaigns. These campaigns are more specific to panic shoppers at Christmas with no idea what to buy their loved ones.
If you do run an affiliate program make sure the creative and promotions are seasonal, add Christmas bonuses.
Week 4:
Wash. Repeat.
Keep tweaking and checking your promotional presence. Keep and eye on your competitors.
Again this is not a complete guide, only suggestions to get you going for the Christmas period and hopefully be a little thought provoking when your are planning your marketing activities. Watch out for the December edition!
Gearing up for Xmas 2007 – What to do in October…
Right, its getting close so what do you need to do? You haven’t started yet? Thought so. So lets get cracking and here’s a few things to get on with or you can use it as a basic guide. It’s generic as every business is different and every product type moves differently. This post leans more towards your advertising and a little about inventory and website functionality. I am going to start my Christmas shopping this month, and I buy EVERYTHING on-line, and about 50% on eBay.
Week 1
Gather Data – Make sure you have the necessary data from last year October to December including your pay per click campaign statistics from last year. This has to include your website statistics, ROI, traffic sources, best keywords Google Analytics’s can provide this basic data if installed correctly, including basically what made your revenue.
Review Product Launch Dates – Many companies schedule launch of products in time for the Christmas season, especially consumer electronics. Make sure you advertising picks up on these trends if your product is relevant.
Gather Competitive Intelligence – know your enemy in the battle for Christmas! What paid campaigns did they use last year? What keywords are they ‘buying’ now? Does your paid search campaign match up?
Prepare a calendar of events – make sure you and your advertising/website team know what’s going to happen and when.
Week 2
Prepare your website for the new season – evaluate the ease of navigation, can your item be found in 3 clicks? Is your shipping information clear and above the fold? (above the bottom of your browser window, on initial viewing of the page)
Determine your up-sell opportunities, you will have related products to your main Christmas sellers.
Have you tried setting up on eBay to increase your reach?
Test your seasonal landing pages.
Re organise your product inventory, make sure there is room for your seasonal items. Taking off your lower selling items during this period to squeeze in more popular items is OK. Most catalogue companies do this to make way for Christmas. Put keywords like ‘Christmas gifts’ and ‘gifts for her’ within the HTML and keywords of your site. Remember gifts is what its all about now.
Week 3
Prepare for launch! Once Halloween is over its time for Christmas so you need to make sure you can flick on your advertising methods, be it standard advertising, marketplaces or pay per click quickly. Test your campaigns intensively and monitor your competitors for change. Test your website, and remove any dead links or fix broken pages. Set budgets wisely. You supposed to be making more money at Christmas not loosing it on excessive advertising!
Week 4
Launch your campaign. You will need to make sure the search engines know what’s going on so have you updated your sitemaps? Once November hits is all about Christmas, you need to make sure your Christmas and gift keywords have been indexed. Once your campaign has been running for a week you will be able to fine tune it in the first week of November.