Steve Woda's Blog

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-21

• Report: Paid Search Top Acquisition Tool for Retailers - Adotas
  In a year of dismal retail sales projections, a recent report says Americans will continue to snap up clothes, computers and cars online. A Shop.org conducted by Forrester Research found that online retail sales should climb 17% this year to $204 billion.


• TheFind powers commerce in Elle's content community - Comparison Shopping Engine Strategies
  It's been said that content, community and commerce is the holy grail to Internet success, and that's just what TheFind is now doing. The partnership effectively creates a destination shopping site on Elle.com, leveraging TheFind's competency in lifestyle goods, piping in products from merchants that match ELLE's audience.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-16

• Does Your Company Need a Chief Blogger? - Advertising Age
  It's a question marketers are still grappling with years after the first waves of corporate blogging flooded the web. But for better or worse, it seems corporate blogging -- and the title of chief blogger -- is beginning to hit its stride. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak all have recently recruited chief bloggers, with or without the actual title, to tell their stories and engage consumers.


• Brands Partner With Consumers Online - eMarketer
  These days, online consumers and companies are collaborating on a range of activities, including R&D, marketing and after-sales support.  Here are a few examples of how brands and consumers are working together online.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-08

• Just What We Needed, Google on Speed - Google Everflux
  Is it just me or has Google gone into overdrive? As a professional full-time online marketer I have to keep my mind firmly placed on what Google is doing. As much as I try not to because Google has probably driven more people around the bend than Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz put together. Like any professional marketer, I monitor my numerous keywords on a daily basis - especially my major targeted keyword phrases that bring in the most sales and subscribers. For years now, I have had top rankings in Google for my chosen phrases; they move up and down, but mostly they don't leave the first page.


• Beam it up: Tiny projectors to magnify cell-phone cinema - Technology Review
  Recognizing that it is not much fun to watch movies on a tiny cell phone, a number of companies are racing to develop gadgets that project what's playing on the small screen onto walls, table cloths and other handy surfaces. ''Pico projectors'' that are small enough to carry around in a shirt pocket are expected on the market later this year. Eventually, the technology will be tiny enough to be built into phones and portable media players, the companies say.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-04

• Google's Gamble
  Can fewer clicks on its search ads lead to more revenue for Google? That is the question investors, analysts, and the company itself are trying to answer. The debate was launched after a Mar. 26 report from researcher comScore (SCOR) showed a decline in the number of clicks from the prior month on Google's search-related ads. According to the research firm, clicks on ads declined 3% in February from the prior month and were up just 3% compared to last year. Some analysts cautioned investors against buying additional Google (GOOG) shares; Google's stock declined 3% on Mar. 27, to $444.


• Mashup Security - Technology Review
  Mashups--online applications that combine data and tools from different websites--are becoming increasingly useful. Although they started out as simple consumer programs, such as a tool that placed housing listings from Craigslist onto Google Maps, mashups have grown in complexity and are becoming popular with corporations, too. As a growing number of tools are released to help people easily build mashups, experts are also taking a look at how to head off the security risks.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-25

• Region's Venture Capital Rank Slips - washingtonpost.com
  Regions of the West Coast and Midwest moved ahead of Washington as top destinations for venture capital in recent years, as the local venture economy grew more slowly than the national average, a Washington Post analysis shows. In 2001, the year the technology bubble popped, Washington ranked sixth among top destinations for venture capital, after Silicon Valley, New England, the New York metro area, Texas and the Southeast. Last year, it was ranked 10th, overtaken by the Northwest, San Diego, the Midwest and Los Angeles/Orange County.


• Hammering out Wikipedia's financial future, argument by argument - Technology Review
  Scroll the list of the 10 most popular Web sites in the U.S., and you'll encounter the Internet's richest corporate players -- names like Yahoo, Amazon.com, News Corp., Microsoft and Google. Except for No. 7: Wikipedia. And there lies a delicate situation. With 2 million articles in English alone, the Internet encyclopedia ''anyone can edit'' stormed the Web's top ranks through the work of unpaid volunteers and the assistance of donors. But that gives Wikipedia far less financial clout than its Web peers, and doing almost anything to improve that situation invites scrutiny from the same community that proudly generates the content.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-19

• Woman to record industry: Stop spying
  A woman who claims the recording industry's anti-music piracy campaign threatens and intimidates innocent people has filed a new complaint accusing record companies of racketeering, fraud and illegal spying.


• Startup RatePoint bets that people want user reviews refereed - Technology Review
  One of the great things about the Internet is the way people post reviews on just about anything you are considering trying, whether it is a movie, a new restaurant or the local florist.  This also introduces one of the worst things about the Internet: trying to figure out which reviews to trust. Was that effusive praise written surreptitiously by the merchant? Was that anonymous online slam posted by a devious competitor?  The dilemma might be unavoidable in this age of abundant user-generated content, when we have to be smarter about separating signals from noise. But a startup called RatePoint Inc. begs to differ. It wants to play referee, giving consumers more clarity into a business' reputation and protecting the business from unwarranted blights on its credibility.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-07

• Sites With Anti-Fraud Sign Still Flawed - The Associated Press
  When a small padlock appears in the corner of your Web browser's address bar or the entire bar turns green, it seems like a powerful signal you're safe to proceed.  But experts say the SSL certificates those green lights signify — digital stamps of approval that Web sites buy to prove they're running a legitimate business and can send and receive encrypted data safely — don't provide the safety they seem to.  "They instill some sense of security, but that could be a dangerously false sense of security," said Paul Mutton, a researcher with UK-based security firm Netcraft Ltd.  The site itself could still be riddled with security holes for hackers to exploit. And the certificate could simply be bogus: Criminals have been forging them to get the padlock icon and dress up fraudulent sites.


• Web 2.0's Long Road to IPOs
  During the Web's heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that's hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some.  Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy's new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010,

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-03

• Lessons in building a better widget
  By giving an audience widgets that provide a service and make their lives more interesting or convenient your brand will be on its way to far more free real estate than you ever expected.  In helping brands develop widget presences, I can say that for brand managers and agencies alike, the first time through can be an emotional roller coaster. Early in the process, brainstorming sessions are filled with far-flung, fantastic ways to bring enterprise information into the everyday lives of the audience.


• Comparison shopping engines more important for some products than others - InternetRetailer.com
  Comparison shopping engines are an important part of the e-commerce channel marketing mix, Scot Wingo, CEO of e-commerce channel management services vendor ChannelAdvisor Corp., tells Internet Retailer. But they’re a better spend for some categories than for others, he adds.  Wingo says, for example, that comparison shopping engines are strong in categories such as consumer electronics, less so with products such as apparel and jewelry. That disparity is partially a function of how matching on the engines works. Consumer electronics products have a multitude of hard attributes that lend themselves to point-to-point comparison, for example, while jewelry and apparel selection relies more on a shopper’s subjective opinion.  That said, ChannelAdvisor customers spend anywhere from 15% to as much as 40% of their online marketing dollars on comparison shopping engines

Scam of the Month - Judge Judy Punishes an Idiotic eBay Fraudster!

In this "scam of the month", Judge Judy takes on an eBay fraudster and ultimately hands out the maximum punishment.  In spite of the fact that this scam seems audaciously ridiculous, it is actually quite common online.  Bottom-line, there are a lot of folks out there that lack any semblance of a moral compass.

My inspiration for starting buySAFE was a similar scam that I fell victim to on eBay during the summer of 2000.  The only major differences that I can point to are that I purchased a $400 PDA, and instead of taking the scammer to court with Judge Judy, I decided to instead start a company dedicated to making every online transaction trusted, reliable and risk-free... buySAFE!

Next time, I hope these two innocent victims limit their purchases to buySAFE merchants.  It will save them a whole lot of anguish and effort!

Watch this video.  It is quite enlightening.

Related articles:
"Judge Judy Episode on eBay Trust & Safety" on Psychohistory blog

Important eCommerce Trust and Safety Statistics

At the PESA Summit this past week, there was a lot of talk about how to improve e-commerce conversion rates. I believe there are three critical drivers for conversion: product selection, price, and trust. Each of these issues would provide substantial content for an article, but I thought I would dedicate today's post to a number of very important trust-related statistics.

If you have any doubt about the role of trust and buyer confidence in your e-commerce business success, please take a quick look at these stats.

• 55% of online shoppers say trustworthiness of the merchant is most important (vs. price, convenience, pleasure, other)
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, August 2006)
  

• 65% of online shoppers buy only from sites they know and trust
  (Source: VeriSign Secured Seal Research Review 08/06)
  

• 72% of online shoppers are becoming more cautious when buying online
  (Source: Gartner Research, 5000 respondents, May 2005 survey)
  

• 73% of online shoppers are concerned about the item being misrepresented (inaccurately described, counterfeit)
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 76% of online shoppers are worried about never getting their purchase
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 81% of online shoppers are concerned about merchant return/refund policies not being honored
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 84% of online shoppers are concerned about merchants not treating them fairly
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 85% of online shoppers are concerned about identity theft
  (Source: TNS Research, 08/06) 
  

• And, amazingly, over 50% of all U.S. internet users still don’t buy online (even from Amazon.com!).
  (Source: Bear Stearns, September 2006)
  

With respect to this last statistic, "trust" issues are the primary driver of e-commerce non-participation. Amazingly, more than 50% of your potential customers will not buy online because they are nervous! Are you kidding me? That is a huge number, and obviously, the time has come for the e-commerce industry to take this issue seriously.