Amazon.com Inc. on Tuesday launched hosted e-commerce payment services for merchants that want to outsource all or some of their online transaction processing tasks.It will be interesting to see if this new service will have an impact on eBay's PayPal system.
The two new offerings, called Checkout By Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay, are the latest services for businesses introduced by Amazon, which is best known for its massive online retailing operation.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Amazon.com Offers New Payment Method
According to the article Amazon payment services debut in ComputerWorld.com;
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Don't Break Up With Your Customers
This amusing video makes some points that I think the average online seller would do good to remember.
1. Communicate with your customer.
2. Understand their needs.
3. Listen when they talk to you.
4. Make sure they have good channels of access.
5. Be genuine.
The Break Up
1. Communicate with your customer.
2. Understand their needs.
3. Listen when they talk to you.
4. Make sure they have good channels of access.
5. Be genuine.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Book for Online Sellers; The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Here is a book with a long name, the full name of the book is; The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.
In this book the author argues that the old rules of marketing have changed with the new media. As can be seen with what is happening with old media like newspapers, magazines, radio, and even TV, there are new opportunities for the new media formats like blogs, online news releases, podcasting viral marketing and other online media
The book takes the position that the transition from old media to new media is a good thing for online sellers who know how to use it. The new media offers more integrity and information that helps to produce quality content for less, as opposed to to the one-sided expensive old media marketing methods.
The book provides the technical novice a thoughtful and accessible guide to cutting-edge media arenas and formats such as RSS, vodcasts and viral marketing, without neglecting the fact that technological wizardry can't substitute for a well-thought out marketing program. It emphasizes fundamentals like defining one's audience.
In this book the author argues that the old rules of marketing have changed with the new media. As can be seen with what is happening with old media like newspapers, magazines, radio, and even TV, there are new opportunities for the new media formats like blogs, online news releases, podcasting viral marketing and other online media
The book takes the position that the transition from old media to new media is a good thing for online sellers who know how to use it. The new media offers more integrity and information that helps to produce quality content for less, as opposed to to the one-sided expensive old media marketing methods.
The book provides the technical novice a thoughtful and accessible guide to cutting-edge media arenas and formats such as RSS, vodcasts and viral marketing, without neglecting the fact that technological wizardry can't substitute for a well-thought out marketing program. It emphasizes fundamentals like defining one's audience.
Friday, July 25, 2008
eBay Software Pirate Sentenced
In yesterdays post I gave suggestions on how all online sellers can go about increasing the trust that buyers have for us as a whole.
Today I want to point out a recent news story that shows what not to do to foster trust in online selling.
You can read PCMag.com's coverage of the story Software Pirate Sentenced to Four Years.
Today I want to point out a recent news story that shows what not to do to foster trust in online selling.
You can read PCMag.com's coverage of the story Software Pirate Sentenced to Four Years.
The Software and Information Industry Association said this week that a key seller of fraudulent software on eBay, Jeremiah Mondello, had been sentenced to 48 months in federal prison.
Mondello pled guilty in May to counts of copyright infringement, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was also sentenced to three years supervised release after the conclusion of his sentence, as well as 150 hours of community service.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Five Ways To Foster Trust From Online Customers
Eairlier today I wrote a post in my blog for parents called Baby Buggy Bumper about quality shopping online in response to a comment that a reader made.
Her comment was;
Many online buyers don't trust us, because we don't all do things to foster trust in our customers. And so mistrust of me, becomes mistrust of you.
The things that I do, can effect your business and vis versa. So I want to give a list of things that I think online sellers can do to build trust with their customers.
1. Identify yourself, post your picture, give your email address and a business phone number where you can be reached. This builds trust, it lets your buyer know who they are dealing with, and it gives them a way to communicate with you. Use the about page and or profile page of the selling site you use.
2. Communicate with the buyer. Acknowledge their payment, let them know when you have shipped their item. Let them know that you will answer all and any questions that they have. Answer your emails as quickly as possible.
3. Sell only the best quality goods and services that you can. This is a no brainer, but it gets to the heart of the trust matter. There are too many sellers out there selling subpar goods and giving subpar service. If you do sell used or damaged items, then describe them accurately.
4. Stand behind the items that you sell. Mistakes happen, if it is your fault, live up to it. Be responsible. Give returns, refunds and other forms of compensation to your buyers who deserve it.
5. Make it easy for your customer to understand the terms of the sale. Shipping cost, and all other fees above the price should be clearly placed in your listing. Also let your customers know all your policies, when will you give a refund, when will you allow items to be returned. Who will pay for shipping when an item has to be returned.
Her comment was;
"You can't guarantee the origin of car seats on ebay nor can your be assured that these are brand new car seats. You should only buy a new car seat, unless you can guarantee that your car seat has NEVER been in an accident. Car seats also have expiration dates, and you can't confirm the manufacture dates of a car seat on ebay. Buy new from a reputable dealer. It's worth the extra cash for your child's safety."I tried to educate buyers on how to make their online shopping a more secure situation. But there is a lot of mistrust in the comment, and it got me to thinking about how online sellers are all in the same boat. When it comes to trust that is.
Many online buyers don't trust us, because we don't all do things to foster trust in our customers. And so mistrust of me, becomes mistrust of you.
The things that I do, can effect your business and vis versa. So I want to give a list of things that I think online sellers can do to build trust with their customers.
1. Identify yourself, post your picture, give your email address and a business phone number where you can be reached. This builds trust, it lets your buyer know who they are dealing with, and it gives them a way to communicate with you. Use the about page and or profile page of the selling site you use.
2. Communicate with the buyer. Acknowledge their payment, let them know when you have shipped their item. Let them know that you will answer all and any questions that they have. Answer your emails as quickly as possible.
3. Sell only the best quality goods and services that you can. This is a no brainer, but it gets to the heart of the trust matter. There are too many sellers out there selling subpar goods and giving subpar service. If you do sell used or damaged items, then describe them accurately.
4. Stand behind the items that you sell. Mistakes happen, if it is your fault, live up to it. Be responsible. Give returns, refunds and other forms of compensation to your buyers who deserve it.
5. Make it easy for your customer to understand the terms of the sale. Shipping cost, and all other fees above the price should be clearly placed in your listing. Also let your customers know all your policies, when will you give a refund, when will you allow items to be returned. Who will pay for shipping when an item has to be returned.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
How to Sell Anything on Amazon...and Make a Fortune! (Paperback)
From the Back Cover;
I have been selling on Amazon for about as long as I have been blogging, which is about a little over three years now. Over that time I could have used a guide to help me avoid some of the mistakes all newbie sellers go through.
This book is just such a guide, if you are new to Amazon, then it is a good guide to get you started an will teach you the ends and outs of online selling on Amazon.com.
Turn your goods into gold on the world’s #1 online retail site
Amazon makes it easy for customers to find and purchase exactly what they want quickly and securely. How to Sell Anything on Amazon…And Make a Fortune! makes it easy for you to sell your merchandise to millions of buyers all over the world. Whether you want to start your own online business or extend a retail business, you’ll learn, step-by-step, how to set up shop on Amazon--and start making money--right away.
Get expert advice on determining what to sell and how to categorize your products. Find out how to sell items on Amazon Marketplace, become a Pro Merchant, set up Paid Placements, use Amazon Auctions, establish an Amazon zShop, and more. Start selling on Amazon today and include your products among “Earth’s Greatest Selection.”
Discover the selling secrets of Amazon
- Develop listing and pricing strategies to beat the competition
- List and sell items on Amazon Marketplace easily
- Use Amazon Auctions to get the best prices for special items
- Establish your own virtual storefront—an Amazon zShop
- Promote your products by becoming an “Amazon Expert”
- Use Paid Placements for maximum exposure
- Develop targeted email marketing campaigns
- Become an Amazon Pro Merchant
- Distribute your own intellectual property through Amazon worldwide
- Sell worldwide through Amazon’s international sites
I have been selling on Amazon for about as long as I have been blogging, which is about a little over three years now. Over that time I could have used a guide to help me avoid some of the mistakes all newbie sellers go through.
This book is just such a guide, if you are new to Amazon, then it is a good guide to get you started an will teach you the ends and outs of online selling on Amazon.com.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Auction Sniping
According to Wikipedia;
Auction sniping is the process of watching a timed online auction (such as on eBay), and placing a winning bid at the last possible moment (often seconds before the end of the auction), giving the other bidders no time to outbid the sniper. Some bidders do this manually, and others use software designed for the purpose. A bid sniper is a person or software agent who performs auction sniping.Auction Sniping @ Amazon.com
There are also online sniping services, where the software agent is run from a website rather than the sniper's own computer. This decreases the failure rate of the snipe, because the website is expected to have more reliable servers that might be quicker to react.
Monday, July 21, 2008
3 easy ways to botch your online sales
Some online sellers go through the year waiting for their peak sales period. If something goes wrong during this time it could do a lot of damage to their online business if not end it all together.
There are some lessons that others have learned over the years that can help an online seller avoid some costly mistakes. Not just during their times of peak sales, but all through the year.
On of the biggest problems that online sellers can have is processing payments.
Mistake No. 1: Not knowing your limits.
Think about what will happen if you get more purchases than you planed for. Do you have credit card processing in place? Do you have enough stock? Do you have enough shipping material? What are the limits of your business? Know these, and you will be able to avoid trouble before it starts.
How long does it take you to restock items? How long does it take you to get shipments out. What is the max. number of shipments you can do in a day, a week, a month. These are limits that you need to know.
And also consider what you will do when you reach these limits. How will you limit the damage to your business. Reaching any of these limits does not have to mean the end. It just may mean that you go to plan "B". That is if you have a plan "B".
So the first lesson is to know you limits and have a back up plan. Constantly your sells so that you understand how close to you limits you are. If there is a problem you will want to know about it early so that you can put plan "B" into action.
Mistake No. 2: Not watching the home front.
It is good to have a plan "B" but to know when plan "B" is needed you have to be able to detect when there is a problem. You need to have in place some type of early warning system.
The best way to sure you have a good early warning system is to consistently monitor what is going on with your business. I can not tell you how ofter to monitor your online sales. It may be enough to do a weekly report, or in many cases you will want to look at things daily. Probably what will work best is to have a series of checks, dailies, weekly, and monthly checks that let you know when problems are popping up.
Never thing that everything is OK, check to make sure that it is. Because you have not had any problems recently does not mean that there are not some lurking just out of sight.
Keep an eye on your personnel, your hardware, and software. If your online sells operations is large enough that you have people working for you then build in a system of checks and balances. Always have people check each other, one person does a task and another one goes behind them and checks it.
Maintain your hardware systems and make sure they are being used properly and that you are maintaining them. You don't want to have hardware problems when your sales are at their highest point.
Also make sure that your software is used properly and that it is maintained current. Don't let the lack of an upgrade or patch stop you from preforming some critical function at a critical time.
Have all service contracts for repairs and support that you need, when you need it. That way your hardware, software and the home front of your business will be monitored and repaired when needed.
Mistake No. 3: Not keeping tabs on your online selling sites.
You would probably surprised how may times a site goes down or there are problems with the site and the online seller does not recognize that there is a problem until it is too late.
In this time of great change in the online selling world it kind of goes with saying that you need to monitor you site. But what I am really talking about is the working of the site. The way listings are done, how feedback is given, what are the fees for listing items, these kind of things change all the time.
You have to know how your site is operating and if some of the changes are affecting your sales, the amount of traffic and other factors that determine how successful you are.
In the case where you sell on multiple selling sites this even more important. There are times when these type of changes can make it better for you to place inventory on one site and not the other. And know the changes the various sites are going through will help you make these kinds of decisions.
This also ties into the other two items, by monitoring how your site is working you are kind of keeping your eyes on the other concerns as well. Monitoring will also allow you to catch glitches and other unexpected problems.
There are some lessons that others have learned over the years that can help an online seller avoid some costly mistakes. Not just during their times of peak sales, but all through the year.
On of the biggest problems that online sellers can have is processing payments.
Mistake No. 1: Not knowing your limits.
Think about what will happen if you get more purchases than you planed for. Do you have credit card processing in place? Do you have enough stock? Do you have enough shipping material? What are the limits of your business? Know these, and you will be able to avoid trouble before it starts.
How long does it take you to restock items? How long does it take you to get shipments out. What is the max. number of shipments you can do in a day, a week, a month. These are limits that you need to know.
And also consider what you will do when you reach these limits. How will you limit the damage to your business. Reaching any of these limits does not have to mean the end. It just may mean that you go to plan "B". That is if you have a plan "B".
So the first lesson is to know you limits and have a back up plan. Constantly your sells so that you understand how close to you limits you are. If there is a problem you will want to know about it early so that you can put plan "B" into action.
Mistake No. 2: Not watching the home front.
It is good to have a plan "B" but to know when plan "B" is needed you have to be able to detect when there is a problem. You need to have in place some type of early warning system.
The best way to sure you have a good early warning system is to consistently monitor what is going on with your business. I can not tell you how ofter to monitor your online sales. It may be enough to do a weekly report, or in many cases you will want to look at things daily. Probably what will work best is to have a series of checks, dailies, weekly, and monthly checks that let you know when problems are popping up.
Never thing that everything is OK, check to make sure that it is. Because you have not had any problems recently does not mean that there are not some lurking just out of sight.
Keep an eye on your personnel, your hardware, and software. If your online sells operations is large enough that you have people working for you then build in a system of checks and balances. Always have people check each other, one person does a task and another one goes behind them and checks it.
Maintain your hardware systems and make sure they are being used properly and that you are maintaining them. You don't want to have hardware problems when your sales are at their highest point.
Also make sure that your software is used properly and that it is maintained current. Don't let the lack of an upgrade or patch stop you from preforming some critical function at a critical time.
Have all service contracts for repairs and support that you need, when you need it. That way your hardware, software and the home front of your business will be monitored and repaired when needed.
Mistake No. 3: Not keeping tabs on your online selling sites.
You would probably surprised how may times a site goes down or there are problems with the site and the online seller does not recognize that there is a problem until it is too late.
In this time of great change in the online selling world it kind of goes with saying that you need to monitor you site. But what I am really talking about is the working of the site. The way listings are done, how feedback is given, what are the fees for listing items, these kind of things change all the time.
You have to know how your site is operating and if some of the changes are affecting your sales, the amount of traffic and other factors that determine how successful you are.
In the case where you sell on multiple selling sites this even more important. There are times when these type of changes can make it better for you to place inventory on one site and not the other. And know the changes the various sites are going through will help you make these kinds of decisions.
This also ties into the other two items, by monitoring how your site is working you are kind of keeping your eyes on the other concerns as well. Monitoring will also allow you to catch glitches and other unexpected problems.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
BloggingStocks reports: Overstock.com plummets on earnings
In an article titled Overstock.com plummets on earnings BloggingStocks' Zac Bissonnette describes the latest numbers from Overstock.com.
Shares of Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) are down nearly 30% after the company reported second quarter earnings. Revenue rose 27 percent to $188.8 but the company reported yet another big money-losing quarter, with $6.5 million, or 28 cents per share, flying out the door.Bissonnette also points out the difference in the stock performance and the press releases coming from the company.
Friday, July 18, 2008
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