eCommerce and

Much of the news and economic issues lately has had me taking a hard look at our marketing budget, performance and department as a whole. One of the interesting things about our marketing department is that we don't have a hard set budget, we drive towards a spend amount that is calculated as a certain percentage of our overall sales by website. Some people call this ERS or effective revenue share but what it means is that we keep our marketing spend appropriate to the amount of dollars we are selling. This can also mean that our budget fluctuates and is never really the same or static. This has seemed to work well for us thus far but not without its issues. With that in mind we have been doing a fair amount of year end reviews and planning for the future. I’ve put together my top five list of things which I think can help companies, especially those like ours, weather the storm.

Review Performance

Review the performance of all of your marketing channels for 2008 and for just the past three to four months. Are there channels not meeting your goals? Perhaps it’s time to either reevaluate the channel or give it the axe.

Review Performance Goals

Now is certainly a good time (if not yesterday) to review your performance goals to make sure they set up both the company and or department for success. If a company’s goal is profitability then its department’s goals need to be able to support that. This goes hand in hand with point one, review performance; if company goals don't trickle down then are they really being supported?

Review Reporting

If you are doing the first two you might as well review how your reporting works. Make sure to include a review of what reports each person or department creates and what the top metrics are for determining success or failure. Even if it’s just a matter of streamlining the reporting process this can provide a lot of value to all in terms of visibility and expectations.

Review Partnerships

Work with your partners or vendors for mutually beneficial compromises. Many companies are having a hard time right now and it can be a good time to reevaluate partnerships, tools and vendors for those which may not be worth the money, especially right now. Sometimes it’s as simple as being honest with your expectations and honest about what’s happening in reality in terms of rates, contracts, sales, spend, etc.

Be Who You Are

Many of these items may seem like common sense, but until someone really steps back and does it they aren't being fully utilized. I recommend reviewing these periodically to make sure everything is still in line.

Recently, I've been trying to use eBay to sell some old electronics and other items I no longer have a need for (my new year's resolution this year).  However, I continue to ask myself why it seems like every facet of eBay has gone downhill?

Now, you have to understand, in my latter high school and early college days I was nursing an eBay addiction. The buying, the selling, finding great deals, and sniping were gripping.  It wasn't just me though, good times were had by all.  I got to sell items I didn't need and never had a problem finding buyers. Now however, I can barely sell an item on eBay, with most of my auctions being for used, in great condition electronics and accessories, I only seem to get a handful of bids. Not only that but it seems like the entire process has become more expensive and more complicated especially in terms of listing and selling items. No wonder it seems like people aren't buying from eBay, the process is an expensive convoluted one for sellers which directly affects potential customers. The purchasing process is cyclical. Sellers do better when they have more images, better quality data, a clean and user friendly interface, etc. eBay instead discourages sellers from implementing the above, if the seller wants to add an extra image, it's an additional charge, a cleaner template for listing is also an additional charge and so on.  A "good deal" only gets the purchaser interested, if you're lucky you will convert, but consumers are used to seeing high quality images from multiple angles, multiple checkout options, related products, product reviews, the list goes on and on. The lack of incentive for sellers to provide this information for consumers only furthers the lack of interest in purchasing through eBay.

The Gordian Project also has an eBay store which provides a different perspective (this one likely more negative). We used to have a very profitable eBay store, listing thousands of items in both auction format and buy it now. This however did not continue due to eBay's fee structure changes, store list changes, feedback changes and ranking algorithm changes. It's been a sad fact but we have watched our eBay store dwindle to a fraction of what it once was, where we list a handful of our products and constantly seem thwarted by the changes mentioned above. Even though we have tried our hardest to turn around our store performance, despite the changes, it seems as though we are swimming against a current which will not let up.

Having an intimate knowledge in both situations has caused me to not only think about but expect the imminent demise of eBay. Especially now when you think a site like eBay would thrive on these economic conditions, yet I still have a hard time buying and selling on eBay.

Recently we began moving our users to a full roll out of Google Apps, email, calendar, docs, sites, and the whole shebang. Needless to say, from the user perspective, it's been quite an interesting experience. Along the way I found a few items which I think would really improve the overall usability and experience of Google Apps for its users.

One of the largest gaping holes in Google Apps is any kind of task or project management solution to increase collaboration between their products. They have e-mail, calendaring, docs, chat, web pages and sites, though there is really no service to tie that all together to gain extra value from collaboration and management. I can see overwhelming opportunity here; the user’s ability to manage and share documents, calendar items, resources, web pages, sites, with the ease of one collective tool could help streamline department activities as well as interdepartmental activities throughout the organization.  By adding this function it would, in my opinion, take the product that extra mile and make it much more valuable to the small, medium and large businesses or groups of people collectively using Google Apps. But all hope is not lost, I have recently heard from a trusted source that Google is looking to break into this arena and round out their Google Apps offering.  Hopefully that solution will be pushed out soon so that we are able to reap the benefits of a more well rounded office and collaboration application.

The storage of other files and document types is my next issue. Since I already use Google for my e-mail, calendar, documents, web pages, sites and homepage, it would make sense to have the ability to store files that I may need (especially for work), which are not documents or formats Google apps uses or other items which I deem important. Having access to an online storage application that is built into the solutions I already use would be great.  If this was the case, I then care little about the computer I am using or location, everything I need is online in one location, ready for me to use. I understand the email and Google sites can, to a certain degree, handle this functionality; however, let's face it, it's no Amazon S3.

A transition from Microsoft Office is still not as smooth as it could be. I transferred my mail, calendar, contacts and many docs to Google Apps, I had issues with all of them except my documents. With email I had issues importing my folders and creating labels (I am still not happy with how that is working for me, I had hundreds of folders in Outlook).  I was also unable to get my contacts imported with all information and in the groups I had in Outlook. My entire calendar appointments were imported but all information regarding reoccurring appointments and attendees was not present. Those are just a few of the issues I had so, needless to say, I have had much smoother transitions to and from other platforms.

Finally, while these are not main features I would like to see or think would complete the product; these are some minor issues that continue to bug me that I think should be looked into.

Pasting into a Google doc without formatting: Nothing aggravates me more than trying to copy text or information from a website and have the formatting such as text size, color and spacing carried over into my Google Doc with no easy way to remove it. Typically I end up opening note pad, pasting the text there and then copying and pasting the text into a Google Doc.

Calendar notifications are not turned on by default. When rolling this out in my department we had a heck of a time trying to figure out why no one was getting notifications for new calendar appointments, we finally realized that notifications at least for us were turned off by default so appointments were being created and no one realized it! More than once, I ended up in a conference room by myself!

The Google Chat App sucks (even the online version is not much better).  Again, don't get me wrong I like Google Chat, but their chat client is just not up to snuff. I know that the online Google gadget has been upgraded but in all reality why isn't chatting with multiple people available in the client and why does the gadget pop out functionality duplicate my instant message conversations?

If you can answer any of these questions or have found ways to work around these issues your comments are welcomed and appreciated.  For now I think there are quite a few improvements that could be made to round out my cloud computing experience.

I keep tabs on many of our organic results rankings for certain keywords and the amount of traffic we receive from organic search. I know that customized results have been coming down the pipe in varying forms for a long time now, but was surprised to see them while logged out of my Google account.  The images below show that a search for "faucets" and then "moen", that a "Customized based on recent search activity. More details" is displayed.

Google then goes on to explain, "When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you're signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history. The following information was used to improve your search results for faucets: Recent Searches You or someone else recently searched for moen using this browser. Learn more"

While performing a little research I came across something which both amazed and shocked me. Apparently there is at least one internet retailer out there who can afford to turn away customers in an effort to provide a better user experience for those already on their website. It’s very red carpet. Like a bouncer in front of a gated entrance, with clipboard in hand referencing a list that you may or may not have gotten on.  I am talking about Macy's site governor (pictured below).  The feature keeps new visitors to the website at a temporary holding page until current users finish what they are doing and leave the website. Apparently they have some kind of user or performance based cap that kicks into effect to control the traffic and/or load time on their other pages. I am not sure if they simply don't have the capacity to handle all of the traffic they would normally receive or if there are other reasons to throttle users on their website but I found the solution both annoying and frustrating. If I was a “normal user” I would simply go to another website to find what I was looking for (who has time to wait around?). Since I was interested in this practice I held on to see when I would be let in. After waiting more than 10 minutes I was finally let in and forwarded to the normal Macy's homepage and was able to continue with normal use of the website.

While I am not sure what the reasons or results of such a feature on an eCommerce website might be, I also can't imagine what it might do for their bottom line and conversion rate. I started thinking about it, but was unable to test if the feature restricts visitors to non homepage pages, users from paid marketing channels, organic traffic or just direct traffic like myself? Regardless, it’s hard for me to grasp why an eCommerce website would enable a feature which deliberately turns away shoppers?  Comments are welcomed and encouraged, I would love to hear what others have to say about the subject.

Vanessa wrote a great blog recently entitled "Ask Not What Your Company can do for You – Ask What You can do for Your Company" I thought this was a great blog and it prompted me to put together some similar thoughts I had recently while dealing with some employee issues. As a department head I constantly get bombarded for every request and issue imaginable, everything from why a certain food item is not in the kitchen, to schedules and work quality, interdepartmental communication, even the dreaded last roll of toilet paper panic attack. To top that all off, it also comes from employees that aren’t even in my department. Honestly I don't really mind dealing with most of these issues because I enjoy helping people and want to see both them and the business succeed. The terms "the business" or "the company" can be real stumbling blocks for people depending on the size of the company and the organization structure, because I don’t think that some understand that they are a part of what makes “the company”. I think sayings like "Is this Good for the Company?" from the movie Office Space are both funny, cliché and, for small businesses, oh so true.

At the Gordian Project we only have a handful of departments and just enough employees to support each department, except for the 3 managing partners, no one else has ownership of the company; but, because of our company's small size, relationship and organization everyone is "the company". Let me explain, we are not some gigantic company, with hundreds of offices, thousands of employees and an endless management structure. If that were the case "the company" would mean something entirely different (depending on your position I suppose) and that's something that personally I did not want in a career. At the Gordian Project I can honestly say that I am part of and have ownership in "the company". I and every other employee play a huge role, regardless of title, in how the company operates and or how successful or unsuccessful it is. As much as I believe in our managing partners, they can't do everything and the success of the company is not hinged upon their every decision. Success will only come with all of us working together, following our goals and objectives and caring about "the company". I know that my decisions, success and compensation as an individual are closely tied to that of the company. While I may not technically own part of the company, because of how the owners have set things up and decided to run their business I feel as though I do.  I know that they fairly and realistically divvy out compensation, and their overall goals are for both all of their employees and the company to succeed. What this also means is that most of my decisions also effect more than just me or my department, they affect "the company" which at this point is everyone. Like I mentioned above, I think this is a hard concept for some people to grasp. They continue their attitude from past jobs of not liking to work for "the man", or that we are some huge faceless corporation which does not care, and should meet some unrealistic expectations. Having employees with those attitudes in a small business can be both unproductive and destructive.

This is where I have to side with Vanessa wholeheartedly (and be excited that she is part of my department).  At some point depending on what "the company" means to you, many of those entitlements could melt away and or have another level of meaningfulness so that, hopefully, the larger company objectives and goals can be focused on. If you truly care, at least about your own well being and/or that of your coworkers, then perhaps it's time to understand what "the company" means to you, and act accordingly.

One of our latest projects, which I have been a part of, is optimizing our Amazon store both for dollars and seller metrics to make it a better channel for us to sell through. Our account has been upgraded a few times and we are in a prime spot to really take advantage of the Amazon Marketplace. As part of that journey I continue to be amazed at two things.  The first is how many sellers, buyers and products Amazon has on its website.  It’s amazing that such a site can exist. The second thing that has baffled me is how hard it can be to integrate with Amazon and the amount of support and partnership that can sometimes be lacking or completely unavailable.

I understand that Amazon is the 10 ton gorilla in this arena but at the same time it seems like there might be some issues and limitations with their merchant model. Just to note a few of the areas we have had issues with are: Their entire integration process (although much of it was finally worked out), product normalization (Amazon has an extreme reliance on UPCs), the feedback system (which in some cases I am still unsure if it is calculating right), and customer metrics (we found out the hard way that these metrics play an extremely important role in how Amazon treats your account.  Not only do they play an extremely important role in how your account is measured and judged by their “Seller Performance Team”, but they just started giving sellers access to this information a couple of months ago.  You would think, and maybe this is just me, that if these metrics are so important to the seller’s account status that Amazon would make the reporting on these metrics readily available to sellers… from the get go).

The highlight of one of my frustrations with Amazon was over the phone with a contact that was helping us with our account. After I explained that the first person who had worked with us to upgrade our account (you know during the courting phase of the account upgrade process) was really helpful and talked up partnership, and a better relationship and process with Amazon.  He proceeded to tell me that there was little he could do with the issues I was asking about and mentioned that Amazon was simply too big to help us in that regard. This made me think, “Is Amazon too big to effectively help merchants and will merchants continue to deal with that?”

Recently, one of the SEO tools I use to track SERP's (Search Engines Results Pages) placement has raised its pricing to what, I feel, is an outrageous level. It's quite sad, really; I like the product. I got in on its beta when it was free and truly fell in love with its ease of use and convenience.  When the product went from free to a paid service, I anted up and paid the fee to continue my use of the service.  I am a pretty big fan of free web services, but I paid the fee because I felt the price was reasonable and I really liked the product.  Everything seemed like it was going well, the company was automatically charging me the appropriate amount per month, the service worked great and I continued to enjoy its ease of use and convenience.  I say everything “was” going well because a couple of days ago I received an e-mail from the service with "new pricing" in the title and was horrified with what it contained.  Not only would the service be doing away with its current pricing structure but the cheapest level of service would be four times what I had been paying per month (they were nice enough to offer me a 30% discount but still, the ratio between what I am currently paying per month and what I would be paying per month is ridiculous).  I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Are they serious”?  To my dismay, and what I considered to be an additional slap in the face, they mentioned that they would also be offering a "free" account. I was excited, at first.  I then quickly realized that the free service was of no use to me considering how jank and crippled they made it. 

After reading the e-mail, I downloaded all of the data I could from the account and will most likely discontinue its use and search for a new service.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not against people making money, or charging for web services, (even though, as I mentioned, I am a pretty big fan of free web services) but at some point I have to draw the line.  I consider a 400% price increase ridiculous, especially without a 400% increase in the value of the product.  You would think with the enormous success Google has seen with releasing free products, and their ability to capitalize on them, would make other web services take notes and follow in their footsteps.  Can someone throw me (or them) a bone here?

Below, is the better part of the e-mail, I blurred the name because I don't want to bash them too hard but the service seemed to be working fine!

On PlumberSurplus.com we sell an awful lot of Delta Faucets and from time to time we need to gather images or research product data to make sure that our information is correct and up to date.  This means that we occasionally have to resort to using the manufacturer's website, if one is available, and that's where this story begins.

My Database Team Leader was telling me about an issue he was having in using the Delta Faucet Company website and I offered my assistance to see if I might be able to help figure out the problem. While using their search, I ran into the same issue he did, a screen full of gibberish with no search results or useful information in sight.

Recently a fellow coworker sent me a blog about multi channel selling which was basically a "pro niche" piece.

"A highly effective strategy in ecommerce is multiple channel selling. This involves having several niche websites targeting different demographics, displaying specific product ranges. This allows you to create completely focused websites with a high sales conversion rate."

While I understand the niche v. mega site argument (and I also may have my mind set on which I like best both from a customer and retailer perspective) I thought this was an interesting article which highlighted all of the great things about niche websites and none of the bad. I know people say they are great because of the niche SEO value, the ability to really hone in on your marketing campaigns and the ability to focus on a particular product niche. And I agree, those are some great reasons to sell via niche websites. However, I see even more reasons to avoid buying or selling via a niche website. Developing niche SEO campaigns and polishing marketing strategies can be done on a large scale, in a similar fashion to that of niche retailers, by focusing on categories and product types.

I would even go so far as to say that I think that SEO, in particular, can go much further for larger sites.  I say this because a larger site can draw more links, have more authority within an industry and create a community built around an entire market instead of a niche. My next step in the conversation or thought process then usually turns to the ability to cross sell, up sell and convert repeat buyers which is much harder and far less effective on a niche website.  Think about it, how much harder would it be to convince a consumer to buy just one more barstool on a website that only sells barstools, as opposed to a website that sells outdoor furniture who can then up sell on the matching tables, chairs, accessories, and more?

The next thing that goes through my mind, or the next thing I would bring up in a conversation regarding niche v. vertical is operating costs.  Depending on the retailer's level of technological prowess, I also like to bring up the level of overhead with operating several websites v. one. Don't let me convince you, though; several retailers are moving away from niche websites. The Gap recently combined their web properties so that shoppers can simply visit the gap website and shop at all of their stores by means of one shopping cart. There are also several mega sites like, Amazon, QVC, etc. which continue to do well. So, while I lean on the anti-niche selling side of the fence, I believe it can be done in a scalable and profitable fashion. However, both as a buyer and seller, I prefer the larger non-niche sites.

This also brings up a nomenclature issue. I would consider "multi-channel selling" to be either selling through different means (i.e. as a physical store, catalog and online) or through different marketing channels such as shopping engines, marketplaces, and search engine marketing. So the verbiage of the article is also confusing in and of itself. I might consider the means through which products are listed and categorized on a site a "selling channel", but I would probably classify niche websites as a "selling strategy" based upon how the business has decided to sell online.