Simplx Blog

Have you ever considered using digital video to promote your product or online store? It might seem a little weird at first, but quality video content can do a lot to help your e-business reach its potential.

In the first place, video is a great way to inform visitors to your store about your products. It also adds “spice” to your store, setting you apart from competitors and giving visitors something new and interesting to check out. Humorous videos can give potential customers a chuckle, while instructional ones can demonstrate the virtues of your products. But there is more to videos than simply the direct effect they have on people who visit your site and watch them….

The Advantages of Video Content
Video Content, if used properly, can improve your ranking on a search engine and help potential customers to find your site. Google, for example, uses a universal search technique that searches (and shows results for) video and websites separately. That means that a site with video content can turn up twice on a Google search: once for its own keywords, content, and meta tags, and then a second time for its video content.

Video can also help you point customers to your site from other, unrelated sites. Many video archives (such as YouTube) allow users to post videos for free and provide search engines for users to find videos about things they are interested in, essentially giving you access to free advertizing. Humorous or interesting videos can receive thousands of hits, all potentially pointing viewers back to your webstore.

Maximizing the Advantage
In order for videos to be useful to search engines, they need to be named properly. Always use good keywords in the title and filename of your video files; that filename is basically all the search engines have to determine and rank a video’s content. If you post something on an online video archive (such as YouTube), remember to use specific keywords in the title and description there as well. That way people who are browsing the archive are more likely to find your video.

Speaking of video archives and their descriptions, don’t forget to put a link back to your store in your video description. Not only will this direct viewers who like what they see to your store, it is also seen by search engines as a one-way external link, which can help to boost your ranking. Also: most online video archives provide users with an About Me page. You should also mention and provide a link to your online store here as well.

Finally, it can also be useful to include a transcript of your video’s content on your home site, usually directly below the video image. If the video was well put together in the first place, a transcript will be extra content when search engines “spider” your site. It can also help visitors who were unable to watch the video because of technical problems with their web browser; they will still be able to see what the video contained, even if they can’t watch it themselves.

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Last week we talked about some of the ways eBay can benefit an established web store simply by adding to your sales without having to dramatically change your marketing efforts. Selling on eBay doesn’t just have to be about increasing short-term sales, however. If done properly, it can also be a tool for leading customers to your website.

A note of caution before we go on, though: eBay has very specific policies about how sellers conduct their auctions. All of the suggestions that we give you here are fair and legal according to those policies, but if you want to adjust these techniques in any way we strongly advise you to review the Rules and Policies section on the eBay website beforehand. Getting an eBay account suspended, even temporarily, is a huge hassle.

Do Not Include Links from your Auction to your Web Store
You might be tempted to simply put a link to your online store in your auction listing. “Like what you see? Visit my store here!” YOU CAN NOT DO THIS. Such a link is a violation of eBay seller’s policies, and will probably get your account a warning or suspension. However, there are a couple of things you can do:

Informational Link
eBay allows sellers to link to outside websites that provide more information about the product they are selling. That can be an information page on your web store, as long as there aren’t any purchasing links on it. The page must provide additional information (like pictures or text) about the product.

About Me Link
Every auction you run will have a link to your eBay “About Me” page. You can use your About Me page freely to promote your online business and the products you specialize in. An upcoming snippet will be addressing how to create a good About Me page.

After-Sale Contacting
Once someone has won an auction from you, you have the opportunity to gently steer your new customer toward your web store for future purchases as long as you follow two simple rules. First: you cannot initiate contact with an eBay buyer unless they have either won an auction from you or contacted you first for some other reason. Second: When you do contact them, it can not be with an attempt to sell then any other products directly. The purpose of an after-auction contact is to thank them and verify information for shipping. There are two things that you CAN do however….

Thank You Notes
Sending a Thank You note to someone who has won an auction from you is just plain classy. A customer who feels appreciated will always be more likely to come back than one who doesn’t, especially if the note includes a small, courteous invitation to your web store.

Coupons
In the same thank you note, you could include a coupon that emphasizes what a valuable customer they are to you. This will encourage your eBay customer to not only visit your store, but also to buy from you again in the future.

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Why Sell on eBay? (Part 1)
We talk a lot about new web-based businesses using eBay to springboard them into early success, but what about more mature businesses? If your website is already bringing you sales, is there really any sense diverting time and effort to auctioning things on eBay?

To answer that question fairly, we can start by looking at what the largest advantages are that eBay offers to a new business. Do those advantages carry over to an established one?

Advantage #1: eBay is a Huge Marketplace
One of the nicest things about the eBay marketplace is that it doesn’t care whether a seller represents a multi-million dollar company with divisions all over the world, or a single person selling something out of their garage. Whether big or small, everyone selling products on eBay starts on an even footing. This means that every eBay seller has a fair shot at one of the largest markets in the world.

And what a market it is! eBay’s Third Quarter Financial Report for 2007 indicates that there are over 257 million registered users on eBay and that sellers on eBay made more than 14.3 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2007 alone. That’s a lot of commerce by any standard, but it’s even more impressive when you consider how easy it is to participate in. Selling on eBay is as easy as creating an account and posting an auction, and it’s easy for new businesses as well as more seasoned ones.

Advantage #2: eBay brings Its Own Customers
Marketing is the biggest challenge of any online entrepreneur. Competition is fierce, and getting potential customers to even know about your online store takes skill and hard work. No matter how good your product is, how competitive your prices are, or how well your website is put together, no one will ever buy from you if they don’t find your store.

With eBay, a lot of this problem is avoided up front. eBay is the most recognized name in the world of online shopping; it’s the first (and last) stop for literally millions of shoppers. If you create your eBay auction properly, potential customers will come straight to you, already looking for the product you are selling.

Advantage #3: Sales through eBay Can Help Point Potential Customers Toward your Online Store
Selling a product on eBay doesn’t have to just be about a single auction. Although eBay does have specific rules about how you can advertise your web store, it is still possible to point your eBay customers to your store and comply with all of the regulations. Although we’ll discuss the specifics of this more next week, it’s important to realize now that many successful online entrepreneurs find customers through eBay sales they are conducting at the same time they are running their web store.

Mature Online Businesses and the eBay Potential
All three of these advantages can be applicable to online entrepreneurs, whether their web store is three weeks old or three years old. Selling on eBay can increase your sales without a huge investment of time and energy and without altering your web store’s marketing strategy. Next week we’ll talk more specifically about ways to magnify these advantages by also using your eBay sales to direct additional traffic to your web store.

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Due to a high number of fraudulent orders being placed on the Internet recently, we are decided to post this information to help you avoid some unnecessary pitfalls in your business. While fraud does exist, you can reduce your risk against fraud. The information contained below will increase your awareness of what to look for and what to do if you suspect fraud.

Unfortunately, fraud is an issue that affects nearly all businesses on the Internet. As a merchant you must always be aware of fraud. It is your responsibility to avoid fulfilling fraudulent orders. Although we have had very few reports recently of problems with fraud from our customers, a report of one of our customers has prompted this posting.

How to detect fraudulent orders
Any of the following STRONGLY indicate a fraudulent order:

• An order originating from Nigeria, Malaysia, or Indonesia. If you receive an order from one of these areas there is a 99.99% chance that the order is fraudulent. The order will be placed using a stolen credit card or otherwise.

• An order requesting a very large quantity of an item (for example, an order for 400 Jerzees t-shirts).

• Multiple orders from the same address with different payment methods or multiple orders with the same email address to different shipping addresses.

• Multiple declines with different credit cards. In your order manager, if you see the same customer being declined several times with different credit cards before successfully charging a card, the customer likely has a list of stolen credit cards that is being used.

Any of the following MAY indicate a fraudulent order:

• An order from high-crime areas such as inner-city Los Angeles.

• The name of the customer entered in lower-case letters. A legitimate customer is more likely to enter his/her name using capitals while a thief is very likely to enter a name in lower-case letters.

• An address verification failure. This means that if the address on the credit card does not match the address entered during checkout, you will receive a message on your order confirmation email indicating that the address did not match.

• A PayPal payment from an Unconfirmed Address.

How to reduce your likelihood of receiving a fraudulent order

• Turn the Address Verification Prompt option on in your merchant account settings. Please note that this will not stop a fraudulent order from being placed, but it will help in two ways. First, it will deter fraud. Those who place fraudulent orders generally avoid sites that have address verification. Second, your copy of the order will warn you that the address verification failed, allowing you to detect fraudulent orders.

• Turn the Collect CID/CVV2 option on in your merchant account settings. Please note that this will not stop a fraudulent order from being placed, but it will help to deter fraud. Those who place fraudulent orders generally avoid sites that collect the CID/CVV2.

• Do not fulfill orders to Unconfirmed PayPal Addresses.

Our customers have reported a great reduction but not a complete elimination of fraudulent orders when using these measures.

What to do if you receive/suspect a fraudulent order

• Refund the credit card or PayPal transaction.

• Do not ship the product.

• Email the person making the suspected fraudulent order and ask that they pay by money order or cashier´s check.

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Top Dollar Days: An Internet Marketing Calendar
Has a holiday ever snuck right up on you and left you frantically searching a convenience store looking for “just the right thing” for your loved one? In the end, you buy that cheap felt stocking stuffed with waxy chocolates because that´s all there is left.

That´s the same feeling you get when you hit a top-dollar Internet day and realize that you didn´t think of starting your marketing efforts until it was a little too late to attract traffic to your site.

If you´re like me and you´re not yet familiar with the rhythm of Internet marketing and sales, I´ve got great news! Our marketing experts have come up with a calendar to help you know when to begin marketing efforts in order to take advantage of top-dollar days. The Top-Dollar Day calendar tells you when to begin marketing efforts for holidays, as well as for ten other days that are typically high-sales days on the Internet.

Following the Calendar
As you follow the calendar, please keep in mind two considerations:

Review/Optimization Dates: Days that suggest an analysis or review should take considerably longer than one day. We´ve only pointed out a good starting date.

Website Marketing Start Dates: Days that suggest a starting date for marketing for a sale is the date that you should have the marketing complete and implemented. For example, we suggest Jan 13 as the day to begin marketing on your website. This means that your marketing efforts should be full force on your website on this date. You should begin preparing to launch days or weeks in advance.
Top Dollar Day Calendar

* Starred items will take more than one day to complete.

January
Jan 8: Begin Back to School Campaign on eBay
Jan 10: *Conduct an analysis of the competition (websites, marketing efforts, etc.)
Jan 13: Begin Valentine´s marketing on website
Jan 28: Start Valentine´s PPC (pay per click) promotion

Februrary

Feb 1: Send Super Bowl email with special offer
Feb 7: *Optimize/Review your home page and landing pages
Feb 9: Valentine´s promotional email
Feb 11: Last day to ship for Valentine´s Day
Feb 13: Begin Presidents Day sale
Feb 14: Valentine´s Day
Feb 15: End Valentine´s Day promotion
Feb 16: Send Presidents Day promotion email
Feb 18: President´s Day
Feb 21: Begin Spring shopping season on eBay

March
March 1: *Optimize/Review your website copy
March 7: Begin St. Patrick´s Day Sale on website
March 8: Send St. Patrick´s Day promotional email
March 11: Begin Easter sale on website
March 17: St. Patrick´s Day
March 18: Send Easter promotional email
March 23: Easter Sunday March 31: Begin Summer PPC campaign (for summer product retailers)

April

April 1: April Fool´s Day
April 4: *Optimize/Review your order process
April 5: Send Spring promotional email
April 18: *Optimize/Review your email capture process and how it relates to your contact list
April 25: Begin Mother´s Day sale on website
April 26: Send Mother´s Day promotional email

May
May 2: *Review/Optimize product pricing
May 8: Last day to order for Mother´s Day
May 11: Mother´s Day
May 13: Begin Summer PPC Campaign (for traditional retailers)
May 16: Begin Memorial Day sale on website
May 17: Send Memorial Day promotional email
May 26: Memorial Day

June

June 3: *Review PPC campaigns
June 7: Begin Father´s Day sale on website
June 11: Send Father´s Day promotional email
June 15: Father´s Day
June 20: *Review/Optimize natural search engine strategy
June 27: Begin Independence Day sale
June 28: Send Independence Day promotional email
June 30: End Summer PPC program (for summer product retailers)

July
July 4: Independence Day
July 11: *Begin implementing a linking campaign
July 18: *Pursue site credibility indicators
July 25: *Optimize/Review email campaign

August

August 1: *Begin planning Holiday marketing
August 2: *Review 2004 sales data (in prep for Holidays)
August 5: Start Back-to-School PPC promotion
August 9: *Explore alternative marketing channels
August 10: Start Back to School sale
August 12: Send Back to School promotion email
August 22: End Summer PPC campaign (for traditional retailers)
August 24: Begin Labor Day sale on website
August 26: Send Labor Day promotional email

September
September 1: Labor Day
September 6: *Review/Optimize customer service & fulfillment
September 23: End Back-to-School PPC promotion
September 30: Begin Halloween PPC campaign

October

October 3: Begin Columbus Day sale
October 4: Send Columbus Day email
October 13: Columbus Day
October 31: Halloween

November
November 1: End Halloween PPC promotion
November 7: *Review Holiday promotions
November 11: Veterans Day
November 14: Begin Holiday Theme on website
November 17: Start Holiday PPC campaign
November 22: Send early bird Holiday shopping email
November 23: Increase PPC bids for Christmas (Thanksgiving Day)
November 25: #1 Top Dollar Day
November 26: #9 Top Dollar Day

December
December 13: #5 Top Dollar Day
December 16: Send holiday promotion email
December 19: #8 Top Dollar Day
December 20: Lower PPC bids for Christmas, #2 Top Dollar Day
December 21: #7 Top Dollar Day
December 22: Last day to order for Christmas, #6 Top Dollar Day
December 23: #4 Top Dollar Day
December 24: Christmas Eve promotion on website.
December 25: Christmas
December 26: #3 Top Dollar Day
December 27: Send End-of-Year sale email; #10 Top Dollar Day

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Welcome to the new Simplx Blog. It is somewhat curious when I think about Simplx as a high tech company on the leading edge in many ways of pioneering new technologies and concepts, yet, we just now are getting into the seasoned technology of blogging. I will be the first to admit when I see something of value in the high tech world, even if we are slow to fully harness its advantages within our own organization, but for now I will have to rely on the old refrain, “better late than never.” We are excited to utilize the new Simplx blog as a functional tool to help us make the Simplx product better.

Here is a short list of what we are hoping to accomplish with the new Simplx Blog:

• Introduce new ideas and concepts to our customers before we develop them
• Get feedback from our customers regarding newly launched features
• Provide an open forum for discussion of Simplx.com between customers and management
• Create more transparency for the public into the internal operations of Simplx
• Communicate to customers newly added and removed merchants and changes in merchant commissions
• Give Simplx management the opportunity to speak directly to Simplx clients, resolve concerns and highlight successes

We are planning on providing fresh content on a regular basis to the new Simplx blog so in effort to be concise and not completely bore you with our first post I conclude my remarks.

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