So, with Smarter, you can add your coupons and special offers right into your feed or add them manually thru your SAM (Smarter Account Management) account – whichever way is most convenient for you! This will give your products more prominence on our results pages for the shoppers that are looking to find them!

Also, check out the percentage of people planning on using Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE’s) Like Smarter.com for their holiday ‘good deals’ shopping!

But here’s the graphic I really like the best from the Marketing Charts site:

Click Here to view the whole article!

If you don’t already have an account with Smarter, please let me know if I can offer you my support for a Smarter account set-up in time for the holiday traffic rush! You can also register online here:

Register Now for Smarter.com!

Smarter.com is looking forward to working with you for the holidays! In fact, I want to remind you of our little pre-holiday gift I am offering as an incentive to any account that signs up before noon on Oct. 31st! Smarter will be having our office Halloween party that day, so make sure your account is in-place before noon and I’ll credit it with $50 in bonus clicks!

(speaking of Halloween Party, here’s a photo of some of us from last year : )

To make it easy, here is our account sign-up link!:

Official Smarter Sign-Up!

I have to tell you, we are still having temperatures here in the mid-80’s, so it still doesn’t feel quite like fall! But the truth of the matter is that it is that the first day of autumn did come quite a few weeks ago and NEXT WEEK is (finally!) election day! So, we are actually clipping along thru Q4!

Okay, I saw this article and just had to share (never fear, I’ll tie it back to comparison shopping at the end):

Read the full Recessionista New York Times article!

The New York Times Fashion & Style headline reads, “A Label for a Pleather Economy” I love it! So now I can really be on the cutting edge of style with my ‘boutique-Target’ (pronounced “TAR-shea” for those not in the know!) purchases!? The truth of the matter is that in a down-turn economy, budget and value is at the top of most shoppers minds!

Here’s the circle back!

At Smarter.com, we give every opportunity for our merchants to let shoppers know about all their special offers, coupons and discounts! We have a place for coupons in our data-feeds, and there is also a mechanism for adding them to products thru our back-end SAM (Smarter Account Management) accounts! Also, something new that we’re adding is the ability to list both the regular price of a product along-side the sale or discounted price of a product! This will serve to visually reinforce the great value that purchasing the product from your store over your competitors store offers!

E or ring me and I will be happy to explain these benefits to you further or walk you thru your Smarter account set-up.

Happy haunting until next week!  For more Recession Chic, visit Mary Hall’s blog at:

therecessionista.blogspot.com

1. Lower expectations – everyone from large publicly-traded companies to online marketing experts in the blogosphere have been lowering their expectations for Q4 of this year. Even our friends at the National Retail Federation have recently lowered their Holiday Season forecast to an over-all Holiday Sales gain of just 2.2 percent, that is the slowest growth-rate since 2002. So - focusing creatively on spending strategies is key right now! But this doesn’t mean stopping all spending on advertising, it means to pay more attention to being strategic! See the following link on the NRF Holiday Forecast:

Read the NRF Holiday Forecast here!

2. Be careful, but don’t stand-still – shoppers are going to continue to purchase holiday gifts this season, and they are going to need to find your store to do it! Carefully checking-off all the major “to-do list items” for the season, like making sure that your product landing pages and over-all site pages are completely up-to-date, your inventory & shipping systems glitch-free, that you are effectively touting any sales, price-discounts and special offers both on-site and within any data-feed marketing you are participating with and etc. are fundamental. Here is a link to the most practical resource I have found for retailers regarding strategic holiday selling:

Read more about strategic holiday selling here!

Also key is proceeding with a carefully planned holiday marketing campaign spend for your site! So where does it make the most sense to place your allocated online marketing dollars? I’d like to suggest placing a portion of those dollars with the site like Smarter.com! Smarter.com and other comparison shopping sites (CSE’s) like ours give you access to great ‘shopping-targeted’ shelf-space and generate solid sales leads at a fair cost to you! Following is the link to register your Smarter.com account today:

Sign up for your new Smarter account here today!

Smarter.com has created a fun, new Facebook application designed to allow you to share your love of shopping (and your love for finding just the right products) with your ever-growing list of Facebook friends!  Here’s a screen-shot of what our new application looks like, or you can just follow the link for it here: 

Click here to see Smarter’s new Facebook application!

Smarter’s application called, “What Would You Buy?” helps you poll your friends for their opinions on things like, “Should I try wide leg jeans or stick to skinny?” to “What movie should we watch tonight?” or “Which digital camera is best for me?” - it’s like spending time at the local mall with a couple of your best friends! 

Products to compare are pulled from the millions listed on Smarter.com or you can pull them in from your online store of choice, it’s up to you!  Also, there is a privacy setting that can keep your polls and wishlist exclusive to just your designated circle of friends!

Why not start first with getting your friends to weigh-in on just the right costume to wear for this year’s Halloween party?  Download Smarter’s new Facebook application today and let the fun begin : )

Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Click here to read the full Marketwatch Story!

You can actually download Smarter’s Facebook application here:

Download Smarter’s Facebook application now!

In other news, yours truly had a profitable time at Online Market World (www.onlinemarketworld.com) today, taking in 3 different panels:

• Keynote: Why Now is the Best Time to Sell Online
• Search Engine Optimization – Get Found Online or Get Left Behind!
• Improving Social Media Marketing Effectiveness – Adding Social Media to Your Marketing Mix

Check back in this space next week for Online Market World photos : )

And last but not least, the bell has rung, it’s FOURTH QUARTER! Let us help you to achieve the results you need to return in this tough year-end selling climate! Sign-up now for your Smarter.com account here:

Register here for a Smarter.com account today!

I’m pretty excited to let you know that I will be attending the Online Marketing World ‘08 conference next week in San Francisco, (Oct. 1-3). For those of you that aren’t familiar with the event, here is a blurb from their site:

“The constantly changing face of the Internet presents the foremost marketing challenge and opportunity for today’s business marketers.

Online Market World is the premier event for online sellers and marketers dedicated to taking their businesses to the next level. For companies that market and sell on the web, Online Market World 2008 brings together the best innovative minds in the industry, to help people learn how to market products better; how to exploit the growing list of online markets (such as Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Facebook, Shopping.com, etc.) while implementing successful multi-channel sales and service strategies.”

For the daily program preview, please visit the link below:

Online Marketing World ‘08 Schedule Preview

I’d love to meet up with you there! If you are planning on being in attendance, please bounce me back an email and let me know!

One more thing, fourth quarter officially starts next week! Are all your ‘ducks’ in a row? In advance of what some retail experts are saying may be a tough holiday season, allowing for a depth and breadth of availability for your products just makes sense! Smarter can definitely help you achieve that extra ‘shelve’ online! And don’t forget that I am still offering our $50 in bonus clicks to new accounts that sign-up before end-of-day on the 30th!

E -me if you’ll be at Online Marketing World!

Ps/

BTW – Let me know if you are planning on taking in the My Bloody Valentine show in San Francisco on the 30th, - I’m sorely tempted, even with the $47 price tag (!):

MBV Sept 30th, San Francisco Design Center

Shoeline.com’s Conversion Rate Up 44% Using On-Site Videos!

If you’re not going to click on the link above, then please check out the following quote taken from the Internet Retailer article posted 8.22.08:

Shoeline.com last year tested adding 10 videos highlighting different shoes on some of its product pages. The videos showed the feet of models sporting the various styles. The items that had videos experienced a 44% increase in conversions. Now, the company is expanding the number of videos to 100.

“With such positive results on our existing videos, the goal right now is to add video to as many of our products as possible,” says Frank Malsbenden, vice president and general manager of Vision Retailing Inc., the parent company of Shoeline.com.

So how are your video plans coming along? At Smarter we currently offer more than 62,000(!) product video reviews. What that means for our merchants is that if we have a video review on-file for a product that you offer in your feed, we will link it up to your product (at no-extra cost) and indicate it’s availability with our video review icon right next to your product! What is means for our shoppers is that we offer one more way for them to become better educated before actually making a decision to purchase! Check out the Apple iPod listings here showing the video review icon here for an example:

Click on the “tv” icon next to the product to watch the consumer review video(s)!

Lastly, but certainly not least, did you know that our merchants now have the ability to submit their own product videos for inclusion in Smarter’s video review feature? I can send you the detailed specs if you are interested – and if you’ve read the article/quote above, I hope that I’ll be hearing from you soon!

Please check out the following links:

Nielsen Forecasts Back To School Spending at a 2.6% Growth for ‘08 and Sales of Nearly $1.6B

Mom’s Predict Spending Up 8% Overall, One-Stop Stores & Footwear Retailers Take Note!

So, if you’re an online retailer (and most of you are), there are dozens of questions that are coming to mind regarding your Back-to-School, rake-in-the-dough scenarios : ) Here are just a few:

1. Are you listing your products on CSE’s like Smarter.com? Breadth & Depth!
2. Are you advertising a Back-to-School ‘Special Offer’ on your site and in your feed with Smarter?
3. If you are a Footwear retailer, are you listing with Smarter.com? Great time of year for footwear buys!
4. Are you talking front and center on your site about “saving gas” and the convenience of shopping online (- combined with your “free shipping on orders over $50” special offer above - ) and featuring loads of adorable photos of little school boys & girls in back-packs and brand-new tennis shoes??
5. If not, why not? The other news item to take note of (check the following link) is that Online Advertising spending is NOT going down! So, what are your competitors up to for BTS? I think we know:

LA Times: Online Ad Spending Doesn’t Stop for “R” - Word : )

If you are not this prepared for Back-to-School, what are your plans for Holiday and Q4?? You’d better call me quick!

The first one is from our friends at Marketing Charts with information supplied by National Retail Federation:

K-12 Back-to-School Spending to Remain High

Even with economic factors being what they are right now, the dollar-amount families are planning on spending is still up, $594.24 over $563.40 reported last year! Good news! This is in categories like clothing, computer & cell phones, shoes and school supplies – staples of Smarter merchants right? One other thing to note is that purchasing online is expected to come up over last year as well, 24.8% vs. 21.4% from last year – are you ready??

The second is from PromoMagazine.com:

Back to School Holiday Spending Projected to Increase 7%

“A random phone sample of 7,500 households indicated the average household spend by category would be: clothing, $265; computers, $230, up 10% over last year; supplies, $100 (+5%), books, $25 (+14%) and shoes, $115 (+15%). The increase in shoe spending is due to shifts in footwear styles every few years, Passikoff said.”

Here’s the key; if you’re already a Smarter merchant, please don’t forget to add all your coupons, special rebates and discounts into your feed with us – this is a critical time of year for special offers! And…if you’re not a Smarter merchant, there is no better time to sign-up and ‘get settled’ in with us ….

…..because you know the big Q4 in just right around the corner!!

Happy August!

PS/

Don’t forget that Smarter.com now offers many additional ways for you to market your store and products to our over 24 million visitors each month! Drop me a line if you’d like additional details about our site-sponsorships or display advertising opportunities!

We all know that every day can’t be your birthday, so today it’s back to the practical! One thing that always pays is to listen to people in the same field that are experiencing the type of success we desire!

Here are four recent articles that all exemplify the idea of following a good example:

From The New York Times (7.19.08)

From CNNMoney.com (7.21.08)

From USA Today (7.21.08)

From the Indianapolis Star (7.22.08)

There are tips and pointers in these articles that cover many of the important aspects of online retailing! From tips like this one from the USA Today article, “Jeff Zimmerman also pointed me to an interesting study which found that the average cost per acquisition for search engine advertising was $8.50 per customer, as opposed to $20 each for Yellow Page advertising, $60 for email and $70 for Direct Mail. (Source: Piper Jaffray & Co.: “The New eCommerce Decade: The Age of Micro Targeting” 2006.)” to information cited by The New York Times article such as the chart below showing the recent increase in online sales vs. walk-in sales for the Gap:

There are also general tips regarding boosting your traffic using SEO and other online marketing found in the CNN & IndyStar article. It is my hope that by a little reading you will find useful, current information to help you maximize your site and bolster your online marketing efforts!

As always, please let me know if I can be of any support to you with opening an account with Smarter.com! (And yes, the $50 in Smarter ‘birthday bonus’ clicks is still in play for accounts that sign-up between now and the 31st : )

Image Source: Gap, The New York Times