eCommerce and

So as most of you know BOTH Google and Bing have announced partnerships with Twitter to add tweets to search results in real time (as well as Bing stating they will add Facebook status updates). While Google’s integration of this is still a while off, Bing has created a beta page for it, but has yet to directly integrate. Bing’s exact description is below:

• “A real-time index of the Tweets that match your search queries in results. This feature makes it easier to follow what’s going on by reducing the amount of duplicates, spam, and adult content.
• Giving you the option to rank tweets either by most recent or by “best match,” where we consider a Tweeter’s popularity, interestingness of the tweet, and other indicators of quality and trustworthiness.
• Providing the top links shared on Twitter around your specific search query by showcasing a few of the most relevant tweets. Additionally, Bing automatically expands those small URLs (like bit.ly) to enable you to understand what people are tweeting about. Instead of showing standard search result captions, we select 2 top tweets to give users a glimpse of the sentiment around the shared link."

Below is an example of the Bing implementation of Twitter. You can see the search for faucets shows my most recent tweet about faucets as well as a shared link posted to the article that is from @SWNeilPlumbing as well.

This is really a cool idea as it somewhat implements a recent “comment” system for websites. Theoretically you can see social trends associated to the keyword you are searching for.  Then below the link you can see what people have been saying about the website that was socializing on the topic or keyword searched, on Twitter.  Google’s implementation of this will likely be integrated into universal search results and will likely feature the keyword searched in regular SERPs as well as any recent tweets with information on the websites.

Reinventing the Way We Search

So what does this mean for the SEO’s out there? Well in the short term, not much, but in the long run it could mean a complete redefinition of the way we do our jobs. As an example, right now having dedicated content that has garnered a lot of links and been well indexed by Google, directly improves the search results. But what happens if Google and Bing start to integrate Twitter posts in the universal search? Twitter posts are news as it is happening, and typically do not carry a long life span. So technically if they are integrated into Google and Bing they could theoretically out rank or draw attention away from websites that have been fighting for the main page for months, when they have only been posted for an hour and received five to ten retweets.

This change will directly affect SEO as you will battle for placement through the continuous posts of content that people deem “retweetable”, thus theoretically allowing your twitter post to be bumped higher on the universal search results. Now my ideas are guesses as to the actual implementation, but one way or another, this is the future. As people start to rely more on Twitter and Facebook (which Bing has confirmed they are adding) for their news, friend connections, and link sharing, we will have to adapt the way we do SEO to accompany that.

What do you think? Will these twitter posts make it into Google’s universal search results, or will they just be a stand alone search such as images and shopping?

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

At Gordian Project we use Google tools extensively.  Adwords, Analytics, Apps, Chrome, Website Optimizer, Webmaster tools, Checkout, YouTube, we use them all.  We’ve even got some nice press about our development of Google Checkout pixel tracking for affiliates and our utilization of Google Checkout combined with other Google products to improve overall marketing efforts.  We’ve had a good relationship with Google, have enjoyed several dinners with our Googlers, and have enjoyed the annual Christmas gift we receive from the Adwords team.  Unfortunately, that positive momentum has taken a severe blow.

A couple weeks ago Google Checkout’s finance team performed a review of our account and decided that a reserve would be required to “offset any refunds, chargebacks, or other claims against [our] balance.”  The notion in general was quite surprising since no other payment processor has ever set a reserve requirement on any of our accounts.  More surprising, though, are the amount of the reserve relative to our account activity, the lack of details as to how it was determined and what could be done to reduce/remove it.  This led to a fairly passionate phone conversation with a Google Checkout team member followed by a discussion with my management team as to how to proceed with Google Checkout on PlumberSurplus.com and OutdoorPros.com.

First, let’s tackle the sheer amount of the reserve.  Before sharing some numbers, for those unfamiliar, “Other Activity” is the bucket Google Checkout uses for refunds, chargebacks, claims, etc.  Each day a merchant has a starting balance, purchases, other activity, a payout, and an ending balance.  Starting Balance + Purchases – Other Activity – Payout = Ending Balance

For the Google Checkout account in question…

• When looking at “Other Activity” the reserve requirement represents:
  • 786% of our highest “Other Activity” on a given day in 2009
  • 4,561% of our average daily “Other Activity” over the last 12 months
• The reserve represents 670% of our average daily “Purchases” in 2009
• At our Q3 2009 average weekday payout, and the fill rate from Google, it would take over 5 months to fill the reserve.  This would be even longer if we reduce our promotion of Google Checkout as a payment option.
• When combined with our average “Ending Balance” Google will be holding over nine times our average daily “Purchases”.

All of you merchants out there know nine days of cash is unprecedented and ridiculous.  Particularly for an account that has been with Google Checkout since inception, without a single issue with respect to meeting our refund, chargeback, and claim obligations.  We currently offer Visa, MasterCard, Discover, AMEX, PayPal, and PayPal Pay Later along side Google Checkout.  None of these other payment methods, through which we transact significantly higher gross dollars, have required a reserve, most make funds available in a day or two, and at competitive rates.  Google Checkout stands alone in this reserve requirement.

When we challenged Google Checkout on these points they responded with:

Once the reserve is filled, no more funds will be withheld from your future disbursements. Furthermore, your ending balance is not included in the reserve. It is highlighted on the Merchant Help Center that Google initiates payouts within two business days of charging an order; therefore, Google is not effectively holding money back from you and these funds are not included in the reserve.

They’re obviously missing the point, the fact that after the reserve is filled the money that is earned is paid out in two business days is irrelevant to a merchant.  You are still holding the pool of cash.  By their logic we wouldn't care if the reserve was $1.00 or $5M as long as after it was full we received new money in two days.  Heck, make it $10M.  Yes, every dollar that goes in is paid out in two days on a last-in-first-out basis but we in essence must give tens of thousands of dollars to do business with Google Checkout.  The only way we can compare this with their competitors is to compare how many days of cash each holds at any given time, for whatever reason.  Many hold less than one, a couple hold one to two, and Google Checkout now wants to hold nine.  Additionally, our merchant accounts allow us to keep transaction fees through the month for debit at the end, which is another cash flow plus over Google Checkout.

So Google is in left field in terms of understanding the language of the merchant, and the amount of our reserve is extremely high compared to our volume of business.  So, to the second point, how did they come up with it?  Maybe that will also shed some light on how we can work to have it reduced or eliminated.  After some prodding, our Google Checkout contact responded, “For clarification purposes, the way we determine whether an account should be placed on a reserve is based on a proprietary set of rules…  However, the way we calculate the reserve placed on your account is an industry standard formula that other processors use.”  So the obvious… how, for a given account, can an industry standard formula result in a reserve requirement for Google Checkout but not for any other major payment processor in the industry?

Our subsequent request for the “industry standard formula” returned the high level variables included, without their values or the formula.  The variables included are, “your chargeback exposure, your refund exposure, and your delivery exposure.”  Given the numbers above I’m pretty confident chargebacks and refunds aren’t the culprit, which leaves delivery.  Google wants to cover the dollars that have been ordered but not shipped.  In essence, by setting a reserve that covers dollars in open orders Google is deciding we can’t have our money until the point of shipment, rather than at the point of order.  On average, Google keeps the cash for our work in process.  The point at which to charge a customer should be a decision made by the merchant, not the payment processor.  Some merchants offer only fast moving products that are always in stock and opt to charge at the point of shipment while other merchants may offer special order or hard to find products with lead times and opt to charge at the point of order, possibly to procure the special order items.  For the latter group, Google holding a reserve to cover the open dollars is a de facto trump of the business decision to collect up front.  Whether the former or latter group, it’s a business decision and shouldn’t be under the purview of the payment processor.  Most payment processors don’t even have shipment data.  They don’t need it; they simply process transactions, which yields no exposure.  Even still, lumping our total open dollars on top of our average “Other Activity” I couldn’t get anywhere near the reserve requirement Google calculated.

Ultimately, in fact, no specific changes or improvements have been recommended and the rep in our call finally agreed that our best bet is to hold our breath, cross our fingers and hope that the magic Google machine makes a better decision next time.

At the least this issue highlights Google Checkout’s lack of maturity relative to the payment processing space they have entered.  At its worst, this issue represents a seemingly arbitrary, punitive move to support Google’s interest income goals.

This has led us to strongly reconsider our approach to promoting Google Checkout as a payment option.  This year, across our sites, Google Checkout was presented as the first option in our checkout flow.  In light of these events, we have moved Google Checkout to be the last option in our checkout flow and in the first couple days noticed a drastic drop in Google’s share of our payment processor pie, to about 1/3 the previous level.  Interestingly, overall daily sales have increased noticeably.

Just prior to completion of this post, Google Checkout reduced our reserve by about 29%, without sharing the new calculation.  At our new, lower sales volume through Google Checkout, this reserve, without including our average Ending Balance, is over 20 days of “Purchases” and will take over a year to fill.  Although I appreciate the reduced reserve, I’m not sure we’re making progress, or making sense.

If as the shimmer of “Google” begins to fade, and it inevitably will, this is how they begin treating customers, I’m betting on PayPal.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

As a follow up to Arianna’s blog highlighting the costs associated to inventory obsolescence, I’d like to provide a couple considerations for tackling this costly issue.   Arianna addresses the importance of first recognizing this as a problem, especially if all you’re doing is cleaning house, when you can no longer move around in your warehouse; then you’re not managing obsolescence.

Define what you consider obsolete inventory.  Here are some examples of what to look for when developing your definition of inventory obsolescence:

• A Product not directly supporting your company’s current and future branding, resulting in consumer demand turning less than “X” times in “Y” period of time. This can be a result of shifted marketing focus and resources, when the company shifts efforts other departments do as well.
• Customer demand turning less than “X” times in “Y” period of time despite focused marketing efforts.
• Seasonal product.
• Product directly or indirectly tied to changing technologies. Today’s must have camera is tomorrow’s hand-me-down.
• Inventory recording errors.
• Abandoned inventory resulting from policy changes.

Now that you have your definition of obsolete inventory, identify inventory that meets your definition of obsolete inventory:

• Perform a complete inventory.
• Identify each line item meeting your definition.
• Identify each line item by criteria met.
• Summarize each criterion’s total number of occurrences and associated product cost.
• Summarize the total number of occurrences and associated product cost to provide a clear scope of cost.

With inventory defined and identified, action steps can now be taken:

• Prioritize based on “occurrences” from a procedural perspective or “product cost” from a liquidation/cash perspective. If resources permit, both can be tackled simultaneously.
• Establish well defined performance metrics to identify and address “ageing” inventory proactively based on procedural perspectives and/or a liquidation/cash perspective rather than when you can no longer move in the warehouse.
• Liquidate obsolete inventory even with a product cost loss.
• Identify processes that end in inventory recording errors like receipts of goods, bin moves, and manual entry errors. Recommendations can then be made for process improvements.
• Review policies like: vendor performance and terms, customer cancellations and returns, and pricing.
  

Finally, to insure long term success, clearly identify the person/team responsible for your company’s inventory obsolescence management along with establishing an ongoing review process. With time you can expect ongoing process improvements such as improved inventory accuracy, reduced operating expenses, improved cash flow, and improved return on your investment.

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

• Amazon offers same day delivery.  Columns like the Consumerist ask questions like “Will you ever leave the house again?”


• You don’t have to love the Dallas Mavericks to appreciate Mark Cuban’s humor every once in a while.  For instance he mocks the FTC’s recent disclosure requirements placed on bloggers when he visits his local IHOP and posts about it, quite comical but point proven.


• When performing MVT or A/B tests it’s easy to make simple mistakes that can really skew the data, this article does a good job of outlining those areas so tests can be designed properly from the start.


• First they come out with these weird commercials that no one I have talked to has been able to relate to and then they hire lap dancers for Hack Day?  Is Yahoo! struggling to find their identity?
  

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The advent of the personal computer has given us incalculable advances in potential and the internet has opened wide the floodgates of productivity. It seems that anything is made easier when the young and ambitious prepend old-world issues with an “E” (or the Apple Corporation re-invents it and uses the prefix “I.”) Unfortunately, unlike commerce, tunes, movies or phones, there hasn’t been a tech-whiz out of Silicon Valley able to redesign focus. 

Industries are crawling their way out of a centuries-old reliance on paper and humans are struggling to find ways to adapt. Automation has done much to improve the quality and quantity of human life and the Internet has literally provided millions of pages of information at our fingertips. But in these advances, the potential for distraction has increased proportionally with the potential for success. For many of us, social media, instant-messaging, Wikipedia and the latest RSS feeds wage their war of distraction through two 22-inch cinema display monitors. All of this done through a personal computer loaded with nearly every available efficiency-promoting piece of high-technology.

The war must be fought and won, but contrary to every available piece of e-advice, the answer is not in higher-tech but in lower.

To increase my own productivity, I’ve adopted an old-world response to new-world issues. Each morning, I write down (physically- pen & paper style) my agenda. Simply, I create a to-do list, and each day, I “do” this list. Simple? Exactly. I make sure to include all necessary emails, calls and correspondence that need addressing throughout the day. Everything is written in my own handwriting using “working-titles” for each issue. I make sure to describe the necessary issue concisely - but clearly. There is little worse than attempting to translate your own 6:30am sleep-scribbles.

Email reminders (Google Apps lead the pack) and pre-set deadline notifications are helpful, but for me, it seems that the answer to convolution is not systematically adding more convolution, but systematically dismantling it. For me, it is more helpful to rid myself of distraction than it is to download another program to organize it.

While meticulously handwriting all of your impending obligations can get tiresome, there is little substitute for the satisfaction of physically drawing a hard-won strike through your daily tasks. And, while my archaic answer can be effective, it is not absolute; results depend largely on discipline and circumstances. Evidence: this blog has been on my “List” as of two days ago. The strike-through feels excellent.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

As I looked at our warehouse, I felt overwhelmed at the number of items we have in stock, and began to wonder how long these products have just been sitting here.  This made me contemplate, “Does it really matter that we have so much stock? We’re going to sell it one day, and if an order is placed, then at least we know we have it in stock and ready to ship.”  The question that I should be asking is: “Does it really matter that we have so much inventory obsolescence?” The answer to that issue is yes.  There are large costs that are incurred by carrying inventory that will become or has already become obsolete.

Inventory obsolescence happens when inventory is no longer salable; this tends to happen when we have too much inventory on hand, when products are out of season, or when demand is decreasing.

Warehouse and Supply Chain Managers need to be aware of the costs associated with inventory obsolescence so that they can properly manage their departments and budget accordingly.  I’ve put together a basic list of costs associated with stocking unsalable inventory.

Below are some of the costs that are associated with stocking inventory that is no longer salable:

Labor Costs- Labor spent on obsolete inventory is wasted labor. Employees have to spend time stocking products, picking, relocating, and taking inventory. The more inventory on hand, the more time is spent on performing these activities, thus the higher the costs.

Equipment Expenses- When inventory begins to grow, the need for racks, shelves, pallets, and maybe even a larger warehouse also grows. Not only are these costs fairly high, but these tools can also become damaged and worn.  When this happens these tools will need to be replaced. Equipment expenses are ongoing operating costs. 

Opportunity Costs- This affects us more than the others. When obsolete items are stored, the opportunity to stock more of the products that are in a higher demand is out of the question. Not only are customers not provided with the newest trends or “in” products, but the sales that could be acquired are essentially lost.

There are other types of costs that should be taken into consideration. Charles Atkinson’s article on When to Get Rid of Stock explains that when a company realizes that it is not profitable to keep such inventory, their best choice is to get rid of the stock they do have. Whatever the outcome maybe, the key is to develop some type of inventory obsolescence program that will save the company money in the long run.

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

If you look at the history of work we can see that the way wages were calculated has changed quite a bit. Before the invention of the assembly-line production people’s pay was determined by the amount of work done. After the great restructuring, pay was measured by the amount of time or hours it took to get work done. As of recent there has been talk about whether the End of Time-Based Management is near. Before we determine whether work environment will be going back to its roots, we need to understand what ROWE (Results-only Work Environment) is.

ROWE was developed by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, Best Buy HR Managers. ROWE is a management view which believes that trusting employees to manage their time will increase productivity in the workplace. Departments that have been using ROWE have reported increased amount of productivity, Best Buy alone had a 35 percent increase. Recently, Gap Outlet migrated 137 Corporate Headquarters employees to Results-Only Work Environment and their success has been amazing; according to Cali and Jody’s blog “voluntary turnover rate dropped by 50 percent and employee engagement rose by 13 percent”.

How it works:
“In a Results-Only Work Environment, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.” This isn’t just time flexibility, according to Cali and Jody a true ROWE has unlimited paid vacation time, no set schedules, no mandatory weekly meetings, and no judgments from co-workers or bosses about how employees spend their days. Trust is one of the key elements of ROWE, managers must trust employees to get their work done so that their performance and pay can be evaluated based on what they accomplished, not how many hours they spent looking “busy” at work.

Why it works:
ROWE forces all employees and managers to be clear about their job descriptions and expectations. Teams learn how to work together more effectively while motivating and retaining employees. Though ROWE can also expose underperformance, the end result provides a company with stronger teams that can make the company grow.

Who it works for:
ROWE would work for anyone whose work revolves around projects or tasks. However, in order for ROWE to be effective, there needs to be a strong goal-oriented manager that can provide employees with a clear understanding of what is expected of them. ROWE is a bit complicated when it comes to hourly employees or those whose jobs do not entail completion of projects; but the shifting from thinking about work in terms of time to thinking about work based on performance can still be effective.

Moving a department to ROWE is a drastic change that companies might not be willing to make. However, though the complete program might not be a feasible option, adopting new habits that can refocus your team on results instead of time-based, can be of a great benefit as well. Whether you decide to make the big change or not, I suggest that you first read Cali and Jody’s list of 10 ways to get ROWE working for your team.

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

• Does your website need a television series?  Some have figured out how to do it right, meaning profitably, but it’s not easy.


• A few more reasons why your website sucks debuted today.  One point that really caught my attention was the connection made between where site search filters are placed relative to the content that the filters affect.  The author, Jack Aaronson, makes an obvious point, but one that we need to keep in mind as we design for users.  He states, “Visual design does more to enforce the notion of "this thing goes with that thing" than anything else on the page. If there is a content block (like search results) and a box that shows filterable attributes for that content, make sure they're visually connected in some way. Otherwise, an incredibly useful feature won't be used or understood.”


• Want great employees?  Try the Zappos strategy and offer them $2,000.00 to quit.


• Predictions still say growth in 2010 for eCommerce.


• The holidays are coming.  It’s time to get prepared and lay out marketing strategies.  Search Engine Land posted a great article with five tips for doing so.  Five tips may not sound like a lot but they have packed a ton of information within each tip to help marketers get prepared.
  

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Today Google rolled out more filters to their ever expanding Google Search Options category. While past roll outs have not had as much of an impact on eCommerce websites today’s new updates may change that greatly. Today they launched a past hour filter, search within a specific date range, websites visited filter and show more or less shopping websites filters.  Along with these filters Google also included refinements for search so that users can review results by only book, blog, and news.  Of the changes, websites visited and show more or less shopping websites, create the biggest potential impact from an internet retailer’s point of view. 

Filter by Visited or Not

Google now gives customers, potential customers and searchers the option to only view results from websites that they have visited previously, as well as websites they have never previously visited.  This can have varying affects on a merchant. First, if someone stumbles onto a website and decides to purchase something, Google remembers that the customer went to that website. What this means is that if the customer had an enjoyable experience and wants to buy the same product again or similar type of product (but doesn’t remember who they got it from) they can simply go to Google type the same or similar search and narrow results through only visited sites, and “Viola!” the website appears, the customer remembers and they get the repeat business. The same thing can also work in a negative way, if the customer has a bad experience, an item gets broken in transit out of your control, or some other problem happens they now have the option to filter you out of their Web search life.

View More or Less Shopping Websites

The second and one of the more important new feature’s for eCommerce websites is Google giving the customer the ability to filter based on whether they want to view more or less shopping websites. This could be really good for up and coming e-retailers who aren’t currently ranking on the first page in SERPs, because when someone filters with “more shopping sites” this can actually take other results out of the top ten and push other websites from the second page to the first page. The new search filters can also help e-retailers take over top placements from non shopping related websites such as Wikipedia and others information related websites. On the negative side however, if someone selects “less shopping sites”, the filtering can potentially remove valuable content retailers have created because it has been flagged as a shopping website.

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

• With the $100 million in funds that Twitter is reported to be receiving in venture capital funds the company’s valuation has nearly quadrupled this year to an astonishing $1 billion.


• The Harvard Business Review has put together five rules that have decoded what it truly means to identify leadership.  Their research concluded that 60-70% of effective leaders share these common traits:

-Rule 1: Shape the future.

-Rule 2: Make things happen.

-Rule 3: Engage today's talent.

-Rule 4: Build the next generation.

-Rule 5: Invest in yourself.

• Interested in what’s going on with one of the most exclusive online shopping clubs?  Shop.org interviewed Susan Lyne, CEO of the Gilt Groupe, who reveals their 104 job openings, plans for the future and more.


• Getting Retweeted is scientific.


• Can your search share help your customers?


• Since this article came out Lisa Barone has had to defend her position, on Seth Godin’s Brands in Public release.  The crappy thing is I think most people agree with her it’s just no one has ever said anything bad about Seth Godin before.  Someone had to call him out on this and her points are all valid.  Yet when you are Seth you are going to have a faithful following regardless of what you do or how you do it.  If people didn’t call others out just because of previous reputations than where would we be giving former President Jimmy Carter the time of day?  Asking Milli Vanilli for singing lessons?

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.