» scot wingo

What’s up? I promise that you guys will get all the goodies, cause that is why I blog man. So here is some valuable stuff that I got from attending this year’s Channel Advisor conference. Presentations were given by eBay, Google and of course the Jedi Mind of Scot Wingo. Here are my personal notes I wanted to share with you guys, hope you like it.

NOTE: You can download all the slides from Catalyst HERE

Scott Wingo’s Presentation: eCommerce Landscape

Trends

Amazon vs. EBay

• New Amazon Product Ads are becoming interesting as a new way to get into Amazon traffic, which is now the fastest growing. It’s a CPC relationship that you can acquire from the Amazon customer without revealing any data to Amazon.
• EBay is worth $60 billion and Amazon $10 billion; Amazon growth is surpassing e-Commerce and retail growth.
• EBay is catching up with Amazon internationally but not so domestically; however, the US is lagging in innovation in contrast to the UK.
• Amazon is expected to be bigger than eBay by 2012, if things continue the way they are; eBay is set to lag as the number two player within two years.

More Trends

• By the end of the year, Smartphones are expected to outsell laptops, and that will begin to be reflected in site visits for ecommerce.
• Android OS is moving on iPhone quickly, they are within 10% of each other.
• Shopsavvy, Red Laser and Edocrab are some of the coolest next generation e-Commerce applications for shoppers.

Facebook

• Facebook is the runaway leader in social networking for unique views; however, Twitter is the one where we should keep an eye on.
• New ecommerce social models: GILT (private sales) Groupon, Ruelala, Gilt and social gaming like Farmville, Zynga, etc.
• Farmville has over 100 million users and is gaining around $600 millions anually.
• Facebook credits are going to have a large volume just in gaming credits on day one.
• In 5 years, social will be a big portion of ecommerce, keeping it as an early adopter is a good thing; so, make sure that your social links are on your pages, every email and any customer communications you do. Also, it’s important to recognize that SEO actually pays off.
• Case study is Shoe Metro using SortPrice.Com for a store in Facebook.
• If you have a Fan Page for your products, be sure your customer service people are watching it constantly in order to handle issues quickly.

Channel Advisor News

• Amazon repricer is a new feature which is in beta mode. Sync quantity, cross channel dash, premium stores version two.
• New features: iPhone/Android shopping application for Channel Advisor customers and CRM solution with Salesforce.com
• 85% of the people with smartphones are never more than 3 feet away from it, 24-hours a day.

Customer Panel (a panel of ecommerce shoppers randomly selected for the public)

• Of all the customers, none of them has used a comparison shopping engine.
• Shipping is very important to the customer, cost shouldn’t be hidden until the end and shipping cost is considered a deal breaker; particularly if there are too many fees involved.
• 4 out of 8 confirmed that they shopped on eBay in the last year; however, 8 out of 8 had purchased from Amazon.
• One panelist said: “eBay is more like Craigslist, but Amazon has a more retail-like experience”
• 7 of the 8 panelists knew that Amazon does not fulfill all the items on its site (third party sellers)
• One of the gentlemen who buys on eBay said that he never opens the junk mail from eBay or the eBay Bucks. He doesn’t “bother with that stuff”
• All of the panelists have Facebook account; however, not one of them pays attention to the ads on Facebook, since they claim “it’s never about shopping”
• None of the buyers would be willing to post a link on Facebook about a product to recommend it to a friend, even if they get a freebie.
• The panelists are not interested at all in “spamming” for brands or retailers in their Facebook streams.

Stephanie Telenius. VP of Commerce for Google.com: Presentation

Overview:

• Talked about why she joined Google after being at eBay for 7 years.
• HTML5 will bring more change and interaction within customers and buyers.
• Mobile adoption – 4.6 billion users; two thirds of the globe now have some form of mobile access.
• Half of the internet interactions are not from mobile and growth of mobile is eight times that of PC adaptation when it was starting.
• There’s a thirty times growth in mobile shopping queries right now; mobile is the number one platform for Google, nowadays.
• In one year www.polyvore.com grew to 6 million users a month as people are personalizing their shopping experience.
• 97% of people use online media to research locally, 1 in 5 Google searches are now local.
• Tips on how to get found on Google: Product pages with a new partnership with Bazaarvoice and Mobile shopping is in PVT beta right now.
• 25% of commercial search queries are ones that Google hasn’t seen before, so stay up on your keyword buys.
• New tools from Google:  Ad Planner is now in Beta for retailers.
• Google just launched remarketing, which is retargeting ad tool.
• The web integrated with mobile is now the new commerce, not just “e-commerce” anymore.
• There is a CPA ads in pilot right now, so they are testing it.
• They are looking to bring the price point down for Google Commerce Search for smaller sellers in the future. Right now it’s $50K.

Dineshi Lathi from eBay: eBay’s Evolution, What’s different? Delivering, listening, innovating.

Overview:

• Last year, they have delivered when it comes to trust value selection and velocity, efficiency, reliable business partners.
• Top rated seller grew 13%, while ecommerce built at 11%.
• Daily Deals are driving large inventory for sellers
• Tracking information is easy to post for sellers, no matter what carrier you are using.
• Member to member communication is in pilot, you will be able to see threaded conversations.
• EBay has lowered insertion fees over 99% for selling in fixed price. For example, it used to be $4.80 to sell an iPad and today it’s just a few pennies.
• Top-rated eBay sellers are 32% of eBay GMV today.
• EBay Bucks is being funded by eBay itself and applies to the entire selection of inventory of eBay
• Feature fees have been removed. It has cost nearly half a billion in eBay revenue to accomplish.
• Fixed-price listings have improved selection for buyers and they are actively recruiting big brand names on eBay, which keeps buyers coming.
• EBay-On-Location is not for the crowd that was present at this conference, but for smaller sellers who are also top buyers on the platform.
• 2010 is already showing some brand names in the search. For example, if you search for Disney, you would see a logo taking you to the Disney Outlet.
• Pilot coming soon to eBay: Split screen of auctions and buy-it-now for search results.
• Coming soon to eBay: Excel spreadsheet uploads of product listings to eBay.
• They are working to eliminate completely the problem of UPI from eBay.
• “We are committed to delivering a great ‘search experience’ for eBay sellers and buyers’.
• “We will compete fiercely in 2010 for your business” – Dinesh Lathi of eBay.
• They are working with ChannelAdvisor for a shopping cart solution; and that’s something that they know buyers want on eBay
• Variation listings should be rolling out more and more as they will continue to do so in a more controlled way.

Today the rubber meets the road as sessions kick off at 8:45 am. I actually stayed out too late the night before, thanks to being sponsored by the CEO of TheFind.com, he keep buying the brewskies….Thanks Mr. Kumar

Got up a little late, and had to rush to get showered and dressed, but made it for today’s keynote from Crocks, yep the shoe company. Jay Custard, Global Online Marketing Director for Crocs, who refered to his shoes as “ugly clown shoes” began to detail the rollercoaster ride that has been this company.

After riding a wave up, once the darling shoe fad of a nation. Crocs is now having to fight the battle of being a “fad” and pull themselves out of a bad economy and a slump in sales. He charted the many challenges the company faced and ended with candor, of a company looking for new digital sales opportunities and how they are partnering with e-tail distributers and dabbling in social strategies.

One great takeaway for me was when he said “Crocs has no online ad “budget” Why stop spending if there is ROI? If I give you $1 and you give me $5, why stop?” That my friends, is always a good way to look at marketing opportunities. I hear so many sellers complain about how much it cost to market on sales channels, yet no acknoledment that for every dollar they spend, they STILL get huge retuns. Some days, I just wish they would STFU and move on, hey we all go issues with marketing spend but it is part of the game we signed up for.

The other big sessions were from the two search giants Google and Bing. I dunno, but just about everything they said, I could have found out by reading the help pages for Bing or Google, WTF?!? Although Google did give away 10 Nexus One phones to lucky people sitting in seats with a note taped to the bottom. But other than that, it was pretty uneventful for me, IMHO.

Of course I am a tough crowd, you need to deliver more than fluff to a guys like us who are nuts for conferences. Bing showed me how to use their search engine to plan my travel trips…BUT I am at an eCommerce conference?!? And Google talked about how cool their search looks for cameras…Zzzzzzz.

No mention about how they were going to make it easier for retailers, no talk about Google CheckouteBay Getting More Serious About Advertising | WebProNews and not a peep about retail analytics. But hey, in case you lived on Mars and have no kids, you may not be aware that many people use their cellphones to do searches, that was the “hot news” LMAO!

So remember this one guys, if you got nothing big to speak to ecommerce sellers, you can speak about how I can get more data to help us sell. That is a great topic for search guys to cover. But you also can giveaway free stuff and the crowd will love it.

After today’s activities, I need a drink! But that was not a problem, because they had the HOTTEST party on the patio last night sponsored by eBay (can you name the eBay exec pictured below?)

ChannelAdvisor threw a “Quatro” de Mayo (4th of May) because we would not be there on the 5th . They had killer margaritas an open bar and a mariachi band. Food was authentic mexican style and the fun was on. They even had a photo booth to take crazy shots of you. This was a primo time!

Man, I really do not know how to adequately describe my arrival…hmmm SO MUCH was going on. So check this out, I was awaken by some heavy rains in Atlanta about 7:00 am. Could not get that last hour of sleep cause the rain was record heavy. But we had to drive nearly 7 hours in it. Wake up, time to go to work.

We hoped in the car for the annual trip to Raleigh/Durham area for ChannelAdvisor conference. Dude is it time to rock baby! Now the cherry on top is that it marks about 1 month since we moved fulfillment to Fulfillment by George. So now, what in the past was so fulfilling, has been amplified.

This is my 4th conference, WOW that freaks me out. Actually the first time I came it was called Marathon, not Catalyst LMAO. But any who…When I drove into the entrance for our hotel, GAME ON! This place is freakin PLUSH dude, love it. The location is the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Resort.

The sessions were scheduled to start at 4:30 pm with the CEO of ChannelAdvisor Scot Wingo giving his session on the State of Multichannel Retailing. The session was informative and outlined many interesting points. You get all my notes by checking out our live thread from the Catalyst conference (the hash tag I am using is #CACatalyst…

After this session it was time to eat and do a meet and greet. Got to see so many folks in ecommerce retail. The crews from TheFind.com, Buy.com, Fulfillment by George, eBay and others. This is going to be a great conference. Stay tuned for more soon….

On Monday, John Donahoe the CEO of eBay declined to give out much information on eBay sales for the holiday season. At the investors conference, Donahoe was giving most of the hype to PayPal which has seemed to be the song and dance of 2009. You talk about the moving ball to keep all eyes off the one that is sitting and not moving. I have noticed this a lot from the CEO in his most recent appearances, eBay does seem to be second to PayPal on the hype meter right now.

Donahoe is quoted in a Wall Street Journal article saying, “There’s no killer item this year. There’s no Xbox or item that’s out of stock that everyone has to have,” he said. Zhu Zhu pets, the stuffed hamsters that have become intensely popular in recent months, are an exception and are doing brisk business on the site.

We do know that Amazon reportedly topping the list as the most visited retail website on Cyber Monday, seeing a 44% increase in visits compared to 2008. Amazon received 15.53% of the visits among the top 500 online retail sites.

On the flip side, eBay released a eBay “heat map” for Black Friday on its website and that caused many to ask well how much was sold for real? The visuals are cute and all, but why all the techno crap? What were the NUMBERS? That was my question.

With Donahoe’s continued interest in luxury brands and the new out-of-season mentality of eBay 2009, I want to know if it is WORKING? Do the numbers show that eBay is more successful than in the past? Is the number moving the needle to the left or right? Guess we will not know?!?

However on Monday, Scot Wingo (CEO, ChannelAdvisor.com) decided to break out a calculator and do some "Fun eBay Math" and concluded that…

If that math is correct, Black Friday’s 1m transactions were actually 25% below average and Cyber Monday was a paltry 3% above average.  Of course our assumptions could be off here, but they’d have to be off pretty significantly to change these results.  Also they are based off of real-world data points so they are far from guesses.

Company continues to add key Internet Retailer 500 customers including Blue Bay andTool King, launches next-generation Amazon solution

Research Triangle Park, NC– November 3, 2009 – ChannelAdvisor, a solution provider that enables online retailers to improve efficiency and increase revenue, today announced another strong quarter with $2.6 million in bookings and 229 new customer additions.  Further, for the 12 months ending September, 2009, ChannelAdvisor achieved for the first time in company history a full year of positive EBIDTA (earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortization).  New customers are driving this growth by signing on for multiple e-commerce channel solutions to maximize their revenue potential.  Notable new customers include Foot Shop Limited, Green Cartridge Company Europe BV, Solaris Sport S.L.R. and Tory Burch.

“While our third quarter brought us continued growth across all channels, there was significant escalation among apparel, consumer electronics and media, which are in many cases necessities for consumers,” said Scot Wingo, ChannelAdvisor CEO.  “Whether shopping for essentials or luxuries, more than ever we are seeing consumers using comparison shopping sites and bargain hunting across multiple websites, leading our customers to embrace a multi-channel selling approach to maximize visibility.” 

The third quarter also saw the release of ChannelAdvisor’s next-generation Amazon solution.  The solution has been well-received due to its ability to provide online retailers control over the Amazon sales channel with actionable information, eliminating the need for online retailers to involve their IT department in every minor change.

“Within one week of implementing ChannelAdvisor’s new Amazon solution our sales increased 34 percent,” said Steve McCarty, president of Ultimate Paintball.  “We’re anticipating continued growth and a successful holiday season with ChannelAdvisor’s support of the Fulfillment by Amazon program.” 

Highlights of the next-generation Amazon solution include:

• Product Match technology that discovers which Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) to select for products based on the listing’s title, price, sales rank, whether or not Amazon is a competitor and more – folding all the variables needed to make a decision into a sleek, simple-to-use interface
• Categorizer technology that offers intelligent recommendations and dynamically populates Amazon’s complex item classification keyword requirements, categorizing each product as accurately as possible and saving hours of manual data entry
• A revised dashboard that, for the first time, presents a simple, dynamic, birds-eye view of the status of listings to ensure that all products are live and that all listings are fully optimized for maximum visibility and sales
• Full integration with the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program to create, track and modify products, shipments and orders, which are then fulfilled by Amazon’s shipping service

Additional third-quarter product updates include the following:

• Comparison Shopping
  • Full support for Bing Shopping Cashback, including transaction reports

• Paid Search
  • Advanced network targeting for Google campaigns
  • Negative keyword support for Google ad groups
  • Bing Search Cashback support including transaction reports

• Rich Image
  • URL-based commands to easily resize and apply filters such as image quality, sharpen and contrast
  • Watermarking and dynamic text overlaying for merchandising
  • Automated cropping for image files
  • Ability to summarize workflow actions into a single URL-based command

• RichCatalog
  • New message panel allowing images text and external links to be inserted anywhere in the book; the text and links are used to display instructions, highlighted products, vendor offers and signup fields

Wow man, I just got myself back together after this weeks Ecommerce Summit in Atlanta. I had a really good time, seriously. This whole event from start to finish was 1000x better than I  could have ever expected. From signing eBay execs (Usher Lieberman) doing karaoke at Joe’s College Park Tavern to the great presentations that I attended and the poker tournament that I sucked at.

What made this year so much fun and valuable was the networking. Sure the presentations were TOP NOTCH, the vendors were informative and the staff very friendly…but the members and the guest were ALL here to network and share with each other. That had a lot of power and always does at these events. This was NOT about exclusivity, it was ALL ACCESS inclusivity.

After the presentations were done, you could find all the presenters and attendees mixing it up TOGETHER throughout the hotel, restaurants and bars. You got to meet, greet, shake hands, ask questions and pass out cards to everyone. It really was a chilled out atmosphere. There was a poker tournament and casino tables set up for some after hours activities. So a good time was guaranteed by all.

I got SO MUCH footage to comb through and some cool information to share with our readers, as ColderICE has some exclusive nugget to dispense for you guys. But right now, please enjoy these photos that Joe Cortez (PeSA Founder) made available.

Dave White of eBay and Beyond with Melinda and Kat too!!!

Peggy Duncan presents on time management for business owners

Brandon Dupsky Executive Director of Ecommerce Merchants

(From left to right) Brent Leary, Jay Berkowitz, Chuck Hester and James Wong

Joe Cortez (PeSA Founder) Jonathan Garriss (Executive Director)

Richard Brewer Hay and Usher Lieberman of eBay.com

Scot Wingo, Jonathan Garriss, Michael Levit

Randy Smythe helps sellers get familiar with Buy.com

"Your Boy ColderICE" was in da house too

Mr. Scot Wingo just launched new blog the other day at www.amazonstrategies.com   So if you are  looking for someone to cover many of the interesting strategies being developed for sellers on Amazon, look no futher!

As this 3rd party platform from Amazon begins to really take hold in our ecommerce circles it is GREAT to see a new place for Wingo to post and evolve his thought and insight on this growth marketplace.

On this blog we’ll be covering news, analysis and most importantly – selling strategies – all around Amazon’s seller business and related services.

We’ll be spending the bulk of our time talking about Amazon’s ProMerchant service (also known as Merchants@ or Amazon’s 3P) business and all of the strategies that have developed for that platform.  We’ll talk about how to own the buy-box, advanced pricing strategies, merchandising on Amazon and of course how the Amazon search engine works and how retailers can optimize for increased exposure.

But also, retailers are increasingly interested in Amazon services such as:

• Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) – While you may have heard of FBA from the outsourced fulfilment angle, at ChannelAdvisor, we’re finding the killer app that is driving FBA adoption in reality is access to the Amazon Primecustomers as well as SuperSaver free/discounted shipping promotions.
• Product Ads -  With the ProductAds platform you can essentially treat Amazon like a comparison shopping engine.  This PPC program allows you to send a feed of products to Amazon where they are seen by buyers and then traffic is sent to your website.  This program is really getting traction and we have some case studies and best practices to share here.
• Checkout By Amazon (CBA)-  While still a relatively new addition, retailers are watching this service and wondering where it fits in with options out there like PayPal, Google Checkout and of course credit-card merchant services.
• Webstore and ecommerce – Amazon’s webstore offering is an interesting way to leverage what you may already be doing on Amazon into an ecommerce platform.  The primary use-case is for those smaller merchants without an existing ecommerce site. 
• Vitamin C -  Forrester’s Brian Walker has tweeting and tellilng the press about an Amazon effort he’s been briefedon called Vitamin C evidently internally at Amazon.  Brian suggests this is a mid-market ecommerce offering that is more independent of amazon than Webstore.

Phew, that’s a lot to cover, but if I missed anything – please let me know in comments and I’ll make sure it is on our radar.

Scot Wingo CEO ChannelAdvisor

So I am kicking it around in the hallway and then guess who walks by? OMG, it is Scot Wingo the CEO of ChannelAdvisor. He just got off the stage and my eyes are still burning from the SMOKE!

Dude, his presentation was seriously smoking. He brought out all the charts and graphs and laid out the landscape of the ecommerce platform for 2009. It is always the #1 reason that I will make the trip simply to get this direction from Scot Wingo. Year after year he delivers.

Sure, I am in the "fan club" so what, I know I make good choices, LMAO. But seriously, numbers tell stories and Scot is real good at bringing those number to the forefront. So here is a quick interview I was able to grab with him right after his keynote presentation at Catalyst 2009…sweet!

The first session out at CA Catalyst last week was probably one of my favorites from last year and I am SO HAPPY that they brought it back again this year.

They have a panel of 10 randomly selected internet shoppers brought out on stage to answer audience questions. Some people will poll them and get them to respond on how they shop, what they look for in a online shopping experience and what is most important.

This is some of the most insightful information you can get to make your site experience POP, in the customers eye. What makes a buyer buy? How do they find your sites? Are coupons important? All this and more was address and the the results are MORE than shocking on a few of the responses.