eBiz Profile: Wine Enthusiast Companies

For Wine Enthusiast Companies, the catalog is still king. And it’s the driving force behind its e-commerce site traffic.

Thirty years ago Wine Enthusiast started out as a catalog company, selling wine accessories by mail. While the company has an e-commerce Web site, Glenn Edelman, the vice president of marketing for Wine Enthusiast Companies, says that the catalog business is still the driving force behind the business.

“The catalog business is not dead,” he said, “We see our e-commerce site as another order channel, and we try not to compete between the catalog and Web site.  Still, our catalog drives more people to our Web site than any other means, including Google.”

While Google is effective at acquiring new customers, you have to wait for a customer to search for you or the type of wine products you sell. With a catalog, people browse and learn of new products and accessories, and then go on to your Web site or call for details and information.

eBiz Profile: Wine Enthusiast Companies
By Vangie Beal, December 23, 2009

Ebay Watch: New IMshopping Widget for Sellers

IMshopping offers eBay sellers human-powered assistance to answer your buyer’s burning questions.

IMshopping, a human-assisted shopping assistance platform has recently announced an eBay-certified Merchant Answers service to all eBay sellers. The new widget provides merchants with a new channel from which they can create a community and offer shopping assistance.

When people browse an eBay listing, there is a quick link to “Ask Seller a Question.”  Potential buyers can ask for details on the product, shipping, payment and returns, or they can choose other. When a seller integrates the IMshopping Merchant Answers platform product questions are answered by the service.

Ebay Watch: New IMshopping Widget for Sellers
By Vangie Beal, December 17, 2009

How to Find an E-Mail Marketing Service Provider

From e-mail marketing lingo to templates and open rates, this buyers’ guide will tell you everything you need to know when shopping for an e-mail marketing service provider.

For e-commerce site owners, online marketing can be an intimidating part of running your online business. The phrase “e-mail marketing” itself is enough to send shivers down your spine — especially for small businesses that need to find in-house talent to handle the campaigns.

There are many reasons why you need to invest in e-mail marketing, one of which is the high return on investment, or ROI. According to the Direct Marketing Association, e-mail marketing yields, on average, $ 43.62 for every dollar spent, so it makes sense to invest.

How to Find an E-Mail Marketing Service Provider
By Vangie Beal, Friday December 21, 2009

Free Office Productivity Software

Free Security Software: From firewalls to anti-virus software, you could spend a fortune keeping their Internet-connected PC safe. Thankfully, there are a number of free antivirus programs that you can use to ward of malicious attacks and key loggers.

Free Conference Calling: As the old saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But doesn’t any meal taste better when someone else pays the bill? In this case, the meal is conference calling, and the company picking up the check is Long Beach, Calif.-based Free Conferencing Corporation of America, which offers, as its name indicates, free audio conferencing through its online service, FreeConferenceCall.com.

Check out Webopedia’s Free Office Productivity Software guide to help you manage common computing tasks for details on free software for accounting, conference calling, image editors, and more.

Free Office Productivity Software
By Vangie Beal, Friday December 18, 2009

Why Do Customers Leave? Get Answers with Feedback Analytics

Kampyle’s feedback-analytics service helps e-tailers find out why customers abandon carts and leave their Web site.

It is virtually unheard of to operate an e-commerce Web site and to not use some type of analytics to better understand how your customers find you and browse your online shop. One thing Web site analytics lacks, however, is the ability to tell you where customers have problems on your site.

For example, if you see a high bounce rate on your check-out page, you can assume there is a problem, but you don’t know if it is because of buggy or hard-to-maneuver cart pages, or if customers simply do not like your shipping prices.

To help e-tailers better understand their customers, Kampyle offers on-demand (SaaS) feedback-form analytics — which are designed to encourage customers to open the lines of communication and tell you exactly why they did not convert from a visitor to a buyer on your site.

Why Do Customers Leave? Get Answers with Feedback Analytics
By Vangie Beal, December 10, 2009

Ring Up Holiday Sales with eBay AdCommerce

We chat with eBay’s Director of Advertising to find out the latest on the eBay AdCommerce program, and how sellers can use it to boost holiday sales.

Launched a little more than a year ago, eBay AdCommerce is an advertising tool that eBay sellers can use to advertise specific products or their eBay Store in eBay search results. These ads are different than typical eBay listings. They look more like a text and image ad — somewhat similar in nature to Google Sponsored Links — and are displayed on eBay under a “Sponsored Results” heading.

Any eBay seller can enroll in the eBay AdCommerce program. After you create an account, AdCommerce will prompt you to set-up a recurring payment method in order to activate your ads. The program, which is similar in format to most cost per click (CPC) ad campaigns, lets you bid on keywords or on an eBay category. You can also set a daily budget, depending on how much money you want to invest in advertising.

Ring Up Holiday Sales with eBay AdCommerce
By Vangie Beal, December 9, 2009

Retweet Tips for Maximum Twitter Exposure

Use Twitter hashtags, retweets (RT) and a quality twitter following to boost word-of-mouth marketing.

One of the many ways that people use Twitter is for word-of-mouth marketing. If you want to spread the word about your product, service, brand or Web content, than Twitter can be a good place to start spreading the word. Twitter takes time to get used to, and it will also take time to learn how to use the service effectively. Here are Twitter tips to help you maximize your Twitter exposure and increase your retweets.

Retweet Tips for Maximum Twitter Exposure
By Vangie Beal, December 4, 2009

BoldChat Basic Offers Pro Chat for Small Businesses

The recently enhanced live chat solution lets you invite site visitors to chat in encrypted windows and stores your chat history. Plus it won’t break a small biz budget.

A simplified version of the company’s robust live chat support software, the new BoldChat Basic was designed specifically for small online businesses and retailers, said Shea Sylvia, marketing retention manger for Bold Software. The software is to implement into any small business Web site, and Sylvia also noted that the new version is ideal for one-person shops and small businesses that don’t have immediate access to an IT support staff. 

BoldChat Basic Offers Pro Chat for Small Businesses
By Vangie Beal, November 30, 2009