Turning Towards Two.Zero eCommerce The most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's and Web-services. Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

It's a very early stage, but innovative services on the horizon already leverage human intelligence filtering content by trusted friends and community features applying technologies such as the Semantic Web and FOAF which will enrich today's Web technologies and allow even better collaboration online and improved search results for products and services.

It's not the big guys who drive this evolution, it's smaller but smarter social commerce sites like Kaboodle, ThisNext, Wishpot and StyleHive that have triggered an unprecedented social commerce phenomenon 'customers communicating with customers' and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.

But also the big U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart, HomeDepot, Kroger, Costco and Target, expertise providers like iVillage and WebMD and of course the great online shopping portals like eBay, Amazon.com, BizRate.com, MySimon.com, YahooShopping, NexTag.com, Overstock.com, Shopping.com, Pricerunner.com, PricingCentral.com, MSN Shopping, Shop.com and Shopzilla and B2B eCommerce portals like the Chinese Globaby.com and Alibaba.com have started to apply Web 2.0 features and most of them are known in Germany and Europe, too.

Time for eCommerce to meet two.zero now.

• Targeting Well-defined Audience Segments
• Trends in Online Shopping

Labels: collaboration, ecommerce, markets, Semantic Web, web2.0

  ¶ 'Turning Towards Two.Zero eCommerce' posted by eA : 10:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Trends in Online Shopping Keeping myself informed about the American market the Pew Internet & American Life Project is an excellent independent resource to gather trusted, high-quality information. The key findings of a recent publication (PDF) were:

'American internet users have embraced online shopping because they say it is convenient and a time-saver.'
'At the same time, most online Americans have high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet.'
'More than half of internet users encounter frustrations and other frictions in the course of online shopping.'

So the most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information. However people's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months:

• Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

Labels: branding, ecommerce, markets, web2.0

  ¶ 'Trends in Online Shopping' posted by eA : 12:08 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever Trends and consumer reactions in terms of communications and marketing can best be monitored in blogs and other consumer-generated media like web pages, newsgroups, emails sent-to companies, chat lines, forums and message boards.

A recent study from eMarketer showed that consumer opinions are no longer a local phenomenon: Word-of-mouth works worldwide and is more effective than traditional forms of advertising.

'Yet more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising, according to a Nielsen study.'

Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

Here are some more significant success factors:

• Strong brand
• Highly automatized work flow
• Media-compatible staged content
• Low problem cases
• Mastering rapid changes in technology
  
• High stability at payment solutions and CMS

As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Putting increasing efforts into successful website operations with a focus on making consumer opinions an essential part of a website can result in making a profit, generating significant online revenues, developing online branding, creating successful online products or attracting subscriptions.

Labels: advertising, ecommerce, markets, web2.0

  ¶ 'Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever' posted by eA : 12:18 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months 3 Months after their UK launch the first success stories from happy customers are available now. Ebuyer.com which offers brand name computer technology and consumer electronics through both, Google Checkout and Paypal's Express Checkout, to it's customers reports in a featured case study:

'We’ve already seen more visitors to the site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for our AdWords spend.'

'Our customers just can’t get enough of Google Checkout! The launch promotion drove a lot of the traffic initially but we expect customers to continue to use Google Checkout because of the convenience that it offers.'

DiamondGeezer.com which offers high quality diamond jewellery online shopping including high ticket items far beyond £10.000 reports:

'Checkout has increased consumer trust in our brand and the service that we offer.'

UK stores, that accept GC include ProFilmGear (video and photo gear) partner of Channel Advisor’s ecommerce network, SportsHQ (golf equipment), iFlorist (flowers) and many other sellers in 17 categories.

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout in the US in terms of Checkout seller adoption and with the further progress of eCommerce Google is more and more tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers and business model and has shown that GC is a formidable competitor to Paypal's Express Checkout.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• More on Checkout

I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany. To benefit from the initial launch promotion it's recommended to be an early adopter of GC.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, uk

  ¶ 'Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months' posted by eA : 9:55 PM  0 comments links to this post

  eBay back to Google Advertising When Google announced two weeks ago it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spending and they did it, but for the purpose of an experiment and treatment to find out how dependent on Google Advertising they are. The timing was just a coincidence. Via internetnews.com:

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said 'that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the controversial "Freedom Party," the timing of its experiment was mere coincidence.'

Well, if eBay wouldn't need Google Advertising... eBay depends on the traffic from Google namly both, organic and non organic traffic, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace and I'm expecting Google to gain further market share in the search category. Via internetnews.com:

"We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told internetnews.com in an email.

In a statement emailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: "Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership."

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models, search and auctions, on the Internet, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing competition in several other products and services (Rebranding into Google Product Search).

Google Base and Google Product Search compete with Craigslist, Kijiji, Shopping.com and of course eBay and the last year launched Google Checkout competes with PayPal, especially with the PayPal Express Checkout, where Google Checkout recently surpassed PayPal Express Checkout in terms of customer adoption, view interesting comments here.

More on Checkout:

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: advertising, checkout, ebay, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'eBay back to Google Advertising' posted by eA : 8:20 PM  0 comments links to this post

  FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants Nearly a year ago (June 2006) Google Checkout launched in the US, surpassed PayPal's Express Checkout already and announced already the next step: Google Checkout and FedEx teamed up to save Google Checkout merchants money through the FedEx Advantage program:

• Up to 21% off on FedEx Express® U.S. shipping
• Up to 13% off on FedEx Express® international
• Up to 12% off on FedEx Ground® shipping
• Up to 10% off on FedEx Home Delivery® shipments

From FedEx:

'You know you can count on FedEx to deliver expertise, great service and great value for all your shipping needs, virtually anytime, anywhere. And there are no enrollment fees and no minimum shipping-volume requirements, so you can start saving quickly with the FedEx Advantage program!'

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet and became market leader in their respective core markets, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models.

Google tapped into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model leveraging cost-effectiveness, checkout adoption and lots of room for further expansion.

Excellent market entry, just after one year Google is the winner on the checkout front!

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, fedex, google

  ¶ 'FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants' posted by eA : 11:36 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US) Checkout as a very integrated experience from initial advertising to final checkout targeting eCommerce platforms to advertise at Google both, consumers and eCommerce platforms can benefit, because it simplifies the checkout process, builds trust and tracks all orders and shipping in one place.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Recent analysis conducted by Cowen and featured by ZDNet has shown that GC has proven to be a formidable competitor to eBay's PayPal Express Checkout.

'Cowen surveyed the top 200 e-commerce Web sites and found that alternative payment platforms are catching on. Among the top e-commerce sites, Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, respectively.'

Google Checkout with 13 percent 'has surpassed PayPal Express Checkout, which was offered by 10.5 percent of the top 200 e-commerce sites,' Mr. Friedland from Cowen noted.

The major reason preventing Google Checkout from taking off is privacy concerns, but it's not really a show stopper it's more a delay.

'Negotiations between Google and the legal teams at large retailers have been protracted, resulting in delayed adoption.'

Places to shop with Google Checkout include major brands like BlueNile (diamonds), Toys R Us (toys), Starbucks (coffee), Dick's (sporting goods) partner of GSI eCommerce, a leading provider of outsourced e-commerce solutions having 25-30 partners live with Google Checkout and RitzCamera (electronics) which has repeatedly reported to benefit from GC. More stores:


With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout and with the progress of eCommerce the recent Google eBay collision could opt for Google now tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model.

• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)' posted by eA : 4:00 PM  2 comments links to this post

  Google eBay Collision after eBay Live! Both, Google and eBay the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet, created brand new business models leading to high cash flows (Google, eBay), a very strong market share in their respective core markets, Google US with 49.7% search queries (comScore) in April 2007 within the search category and 120.010.000 unique visits overall in May 2007 (comScore) and eBay US with 94% visits (Hitwise) within the Auctions category in May 2007 and 79,428.000 unique visits in May 2007 (comScore) with an excellent brand awareness in their respective field and overall Google is the No. 1 brand worldwide and eBay No. 43 worldwide according to the 2007 BRANDZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report.

It's nearly a year ago (June 2006) that Google Checkout launched in the US, recently Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany with the option to differentiate itself incorporating more payment methods respecting the local payments preferences. A clear collision course of Google and eBay.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy

Market	Google	eBay
Classifieds	Google Base	Craigslist, Kijiji
Product search	Google Product Search, Google Base	Shopping.com, eBay
Payments	Google Checkout	PayPal
Communications	Gmail/Talk	Skype

'According to Hitwise data, last week (week ending 2/3/07) the market share of visits to eBay was 844 times greater than the share of visits to Google Base.'

'Paypal's market share exceeded Google Checkout's by 71 to 1 in the same period.' (LeeAnn Prescott/Hitwise Feb 2007)

On the one hand Google and eBay have a business relation, Google drives traffic to eBay and eBay buys Google's AdWords, on the other hand expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models today. When Google last week announced it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spendings.

I'm not sure whether this was a good idea, although eBay partnered with Yahoo! promoting PayPal. Google is the absolute leader in search and both Yahoo! and Microsoft admitted some weeks ago, that they lost the battle against Google. I'm expecting that Google will gain further market share in the search category, I think eBay depends on the traffic from Google, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace, not just the US. Google redesigned its product search experience - Rebranding into Google Product Search - just add a few more products...

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Google's market entry strategy always starts like that, but as they a gain better understanding of the markets they act more savvy.

Digital business is quickly becoming the method of choice for any enterprise to offer products and services on-demand to their market. Competition is the natural evolution in the way we will interact with, share and purchase products and services within the fastest moving market in the world today.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Communications, content, commerce and search are the challenging activities today, simplicity is the most compelling competitive advantage and different business models associated with them lead to a natural segmentation of the marketplace.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, markets

  ¶ 'Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!' posted by eA : 8:12 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Current and Future eCommerce Challenges People's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months. Their favorite methods include researching buying related price comparison sites, RSS-feeds, review sites, blogs and travel sites, while consumer generated content and peer-reviews have a huge impact on their decision making.

• Easy Structure to Strategy 2.0 Evaluation
  

eCommerce is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. However directing the creation of new marketing tools and steering the execution of marketing and technology programs, successfully driving growth in targeted markets through implementation of key projects, building and guiding top-performing teams means to embrace the Web's unique strength, interaction and participation. Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention and easy to use tools have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Here some challenges:

• Leveraging network effects (ratings, peer-reviews): Making interaction commercially successful requires users to create wonderful things. An active creator today can enhance brand visibility and credibility, achieve customer intimacy or just simplify the process to find the latest information about new products and services allowing visitors to subscribe via RSS and be notified when posting something new. While traditional media have content embedded making it only consumable at a certain time new media enhance the customer experience unfurling channels, formats and devices. Customers communicating with customers has triggered an unprecedented social networking phenomenon and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.
• Reducing shopping cart & checkout abandonment (RIAs): Building the case, AJAX Web-applications provide enormous advantages compared to conventional Web-applications, they avoid slow response times and scrolling after the page has reloaded thus improve end-user productivity, lower bandwidth consumption and costs by partial page updates and reduce the time to wait for the next page. Applied to eCommerce systems AJAX even increases revenues making new applications easy and intuitive reducing the amount of friction for end-users.
• Reducing the barriers to purchase across sites (payments): Customers like to buy what they want wherever they are and a single personal checkout like Google Checkout provides an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers and showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the checkout process, leads to more sales and returns customers thus Google Checkout is a wonderful new thing that really can improve one's digital lifestyle. Incorporating more popular payment methods respecting local payments preferences beyond the credit card would be a good differentiator especially in smaller countries where it's competitor PayPal does not.
• Focusing on core competencies (software as a service): The Web has quickly morphed into a giant global operating system which allows to remix the Web via mash ups resulting in improved social networking technologies fostering creativity and self-expression, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's and require new ways of thinking and skills, including strategy, creative and technology for a successful approach. It's no longer necessary to build all eCommerce software inhouse.
  
• Productivity (wikis, web-apps): In an enterprise employees usually are organized in different roles around issues and it's always been messy to collaborate on projects created with MS Office products and to share them with co-workers. The better that there is applications like Google Apps Premier Edition with new administration APIs aimed at businesses for the next-generation communication and collaboration. The rapid adoption of broadband has made it possible to move more and more applications to the Web and it's a step further to a Web-based collaboration-suite with drastically reduced maintenance costs with an option to buy further premium services. Blogs and wikis are inevitable requirements for a modern work group.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, web2.0

  ¶ 'Current and Future eCommerce Challenges' posted by eA : 9:20 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Dealing on Twitter a Product a Day Improved social networking technologies fostering creativity...

• Woot.com on Twitter
• Amazon.com on Twitter

I've seen already the first airlines twittering.

• eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband
• Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry
  
• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company
• Global Brand Awareness: YouTube and Wikipedia among Top 5 Now

Labels: ecommerce, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Dealing on Twitter a Product a Day' posted by eA : 10:18 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform The Web has quickly morphed into a giant global operating system which allows to remix the Web via mash ups resulting in improved social networking technologies fostering creativity and self-expression, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Being the second largest social networking site on the Web Facebook announced at their F8 event a new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals: Facebook as an Open Platform.

From Fortune:

'"We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so you can run full applications," Zuckerberg told me. He said Facebook is becoming a "platform," meaning a software environment where others can create their own services...'

People's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months. Their favorite methods include researching buying related price comparison sites, RSS-feeds, review sites, blogs and travel sites, while consumer generated content and peer-reviews have a huge impact on their decision making.

Currently Facebook is monetized by advertising. Introducing new applications might lead to intensified usage without leaving the site and a richer experience for its users leveraging content and commerce.

'Facebook will impose no limitations on how they make money. Says Zuckerberg: "They can sell sponsorships, they can have ads, they can sell things, they can link off to another site - we are just agnostic."'

It's a step further to better compete against MySpace and since Facebook resisted a $900 mio. acquisition offer from Yahoo! I think they will even resist further mergers and acquisition offers, do it alone and potentially go public one day. While Google is the exclusive provider of text-based advertising and keyword targeted ads for MySpace Facebook's main business partner is Microsoft.

'Last year it contracted to broker banner ads for Facebook, reportedly guaranteeing a minimum of $100 million per year through 2011.'

To take advantage of new business opportunities it's recommended to hook in some of the best community-empowered sites.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, facebook, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform' posted by eA : 11:11 AM  2 comments links to this post

  Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail After a quick look into the online travel industry and a quick summary of the German online travel market I'm looking at the European travel market. Europe has a total of 219 mio. European people online >= 15 years, a global broadband market share of ~31% (Eastern and Western Europe, PointTopic 2006) and a broadband penetration rate of ~14% (ECTA, broadband connections/population in Q10/06).

According to ComScore European travel sites experienced 108 mio. visitors in March 2007, a traffic plus of 6% compared to March 2006 spending 37 minutes browsing travel-related content online, where online travel agencies got 19 minutes on average, followed by airline sites (17 minutes) and hotel sites (15 minutes).

'Expedia Inc. led the European travel category with 18.5 million European unique visitors aged 15 and older during March. The second most-visited European travel site was ViaMichelin, with 13.5 million European unique visitors, followed by the TUI Group’s 12.5 million European unique visitors, then Lastminute.com sites with 9.8 million European unique visitors and Priceline.com Incorporated with 8.9 million European unique visitors.'

The main revenue still comes from commissions, but advertising generates a significant revenue stream, too. The European online travel market is predicted to experience a further double-digit growth during the coming years.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23%, then Germany with 20%, Scandinavia with 10% and Spain with 5% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer. European online leisure/unmanaged business travel as a percentage of the total travel market will approach 25% in 2007 according to PhoCusWright.

'Planning and purchasing behavior is undergoing significant change, evidenced by travelers who are now taking control and finding/creating the perfect trip, not just the cheapest trip. Customers communicating with customers has triggered an unprecedented social networking phenomenon and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.'

• eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail' posted by eA : 3:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband Actually I discovered this trend already more than two years ago, but it's always a pleasure to publish good news. Current broadband statistics from the OECD show that 'the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD increased 26% from 157 million in December 2005 to 197 million in December 2006', ergo there must also have been substantial growth in online sales.

An actual study from Forrester published by Yahoo! shows that in the US 'E-commerce is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years'.

Unfortunately an other study published by CNET reports that 'sites that sell movies and TV shows such as Apple's iTunes will likely peak this year and then lose popularity as more content becomes available on free outlets supported by ads', eMarketer reports that 'between 2007 and 2011, US ad spending on social networks is expected to increase 180%, to $2.5 billion'.

Participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today. No matter wether sites like MySpace or Facebook, targeted niche sites or video sites, free and easy interaction, staying in touch with friends, finding long lost friends, and meeting new people encourages users as well as visitors to share comments, photos and videos, read and write blogs or just hang out.

In brief: further double digit growth for retail sales, but maturing in the US, content sales go down, ad spending on social networks up!

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry

Labels: ecommerce, markets

  ¶ 'eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband' posted by eA : 9:33 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Booming German Online Travel Market After a Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry on a global level here a quick summary of the German online travel market. With more than 40 mio. people online, a share of 59% of broadband connections and with an average of more than 30 vacation days per year Germany has excellent premises for further growth.

According to the annual trend study Web-Tourismus 2007 presenting the state of the eCommerce in on-line tourism (leisure trips) in Germany, Germans love to travel and it turns out that further growth will mainly come from online-sales and the online-distribution channel has won and will win further market share from offline channels over the next few years.

'The whole branch achieved 40.57 bn. euros (2006) in the same period and shone once more with a growth, which was based almost without exception on the Internet tourism. Compared with 2005 the gained on-line turnovers grew about 36%.'

'The good development once more was driven by the web-sales of flights. Furthermore, tour operators had a tremendous on-line growth in sales - with a growth of almost 54% compared to 2005.'

The forecasts into 2009 are positive as well, 2007 43.38 bn. Euros and 2008 45.47 bn. Euros driven by online sales.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23% and then Germany with 20% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer.

Interesting is that due to longer established supplier brands Germans and French prefer to book directly at online travel suppliers including low-cost airline online bookings while the other citizens prefer online travel agencies.

• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

As of PhoCusWright the top 5 European online travel agencies are lastminute.com, Expedia, ebookers, Opodo and Travelocity representing 60% of the entire online travel agency market in Europe.

Tour operators such as TUI, Thomas Cook, MyTravel and Rewe are challenged by the low-cost carriers and online travel agencies offering dynamic packaging.

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Booming German Online Travel Market' posted by eA : 7:11 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy It's nearly a year ago (May 2006) that I asked myself 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?'. That time far and wide there was no Google Checkout on the horizon, but suddenly GC launched first in the US, then Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany.

Time to look at Google's Integrated Checkout strategy presented at the Pindar retail event:



I personally think that Google Checkout is a healthy thing for the eCommerce market and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms of user friendliness. Besides financial incentives incorporating more popular payment methods respecting local payments preferences beyond the credit card would be a good differentiator especially in smaller countries where it's competitor PayPal does not.

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Heather Hopkins from Hitwise shares some statistics about GC:

'PayPal received a 67x larger share of US Internet visits last week compared with Google Checkout.'

'PayPal attracted a 53x larger share of UK visits last week than Google Checkout.'

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments

  ¶ 'Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy' posted by eA : 1:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Rebranding into Google Product Search To get a better understanding what it is, it's Google Product Search now, no longer Froogle and can be found as a vertical search option under the 'more' link on Google.com.

The results page initially sorted by relevance got a more user friendly outfit moving the products and the filter for Google Checkout to the top of the page and the other refinements to the bottom, thus Google Product Search promotes Google Checkout.


Since people tend to start their web search from the main Google site the newly branded Google Product Search got a prominent position on top of the web results page:


Overall it's a step into a more serious product strategy. Of course, there is also competition from other comparison engines like Yahoo Shopping & PayPal, who might follow this strategy pushing the paypal checkout button and Shopzilla, Shopping.com (eBay), Dealio...
From Google:

• Back to basics

Labels: branding, ecommerce, google, markets

  ¶ 'Rebranding into Google Product Search' posted by eA : 11:18 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today 9 and 1/2 months after initial launch in the US and 3 weeks after being certified for e-money by the UK-based FSA Google Checkout launched as expected within Europe of course first in the UK.

• Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA
• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout (US)
• More on Checkout
  

From initial advertising to final checkout it's an experience that reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives providing free transaction processing until 2008. It's also a good base for strategic partnerships.

• Releasing My Current Skill Set

Centralization into a single online payment method provides many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling, buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of e-commerce it is a big step forward in user friendliness.

Main Competitor is PayPal.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today' posted by eA : 11:56 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Betting and Gambling Safe Online with eCOGRA As the field of e-commerce and online gaming begins to mature eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) has set a standard for the online gaming industry approving sites with the 'eCOGRA Play It Safe' seal. An accredited site ensures eCOGRA compliance providing player protection, fair gaming and responsible conduct. View their Generally Accepted Practices (eGAP) for Casinos and Poker.

• Approved quality online casinos and poker rooms
• Portals offering integrity and quality of gambling related content

As betting and gambling online has hit the headlines during the last months the eCOGRA global online gambler report provides excellent insights and knowledge about the attitude and behavior of gamblers. Here some extracts:

'The best things about Internet gambling are ‘convenience and accessibility’ and ‘fun and excitement’, while ‘losing’ and ‘financial implications’ came top of the worst things.'

'The average player is male (73.8%), aged 26-35 (26.9%), play 2-3 times per week (26.8%), played for 2-3 years (23.6%), plays for between 1-2 hours per session (33.3%)...'

• Press release
• Full Report

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, entertainment

  ¶ 'Betting and Gambling Safe Online with eCOGRA' posted by eA : 6:45 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but it's also a very innovative way to differentiate one's business by new payments models. Customers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it is just a question of time that Google will expand into the European payments market.

I haven't heard yet an official statement from Google, but on a blog post from Linkdump on Payments I found a quotation of an FSA register search:

• Google - 462517 - Google Payment Limited, authorised, also for issuing electronic money (Mar/19/2007)
  
• Paypal - 226056 - Paypal (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/13/2004)
  

where PayPal has about 35 mio. customers across Europe. I did a bit of research out of my head and searched for German-based Click&Buy (~7 mio. customers ww) and UK-based Moneybookers (~2.8 mio. customers ww):

• 454127 - ClickandBuy (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Nov/29/2006)
• 214225 - Moneybookers Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/05/2003)

Both are authorized for e-money, too. The e-money license allows to offer a variety of financial services online including to send money worldwide to anyone with an email address, which has a very strong viral character and international transactions can be offered cheaper than by banks and traditional money transfer companies.

UK is the best place to acquire the e-money license across Europe and being certified by the FSA means to meet the highest standards in the financial world online.

More on Google Checkout

Labels: bizdev, checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA' posted by eA : 6:15 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Building Trust with Google Checkout To get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life a payment technology should address fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment.

From Google Checkout Blog quoting a happy customer:

'We've never seen one product or promotion have the tremendous positive impact that Google Checkout had for Ritz Interactive in the fourth quarter of 2006, helping us grow over 30 percent during that period of time.'

Checking out with Google Checkout eCommerce and online shopping became an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout.

The newly styled checkout button makes eCommerce AdWords campaigns even more visible and helps a potential customer to better find a store that accepts Google Checkout.

More about Google Checkout:

• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• New Revenues through Google Checkout
• No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Building Trust with Google Checkout' posted by eA : 10:52 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Quick Look at the Q4 2006 American CSI, eCommerce Sector The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a highly respected economic indicator developed to show how satisfied consumers are with products and services. For the sector eCommerce, that contains the following industries: auctions, brokerage, retail, travel it's released once a year in February. Here some excerpts from Q4 2006:

'The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) continues its upward climb. For the fourth quarter of 2006, the Index reaches a new record high of 74.9 - an improvement of 0.7% over the previous quarter.'

'American consumers continue to spend money as if there is no tomorrow.'

'Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com continue to be among the highest scoring companies in the ACSI, regardless of industry, at 87 and 88 respectively.'

'eBay continues to lead among auction websites, although the company drops (insignificantly) this quarter, down 1% to 80.'

'Brokerage is up 3% from a year ago to 78.'

'Travel websites lose ground this quarter, dropping 1% to 76.'

Q4 2004:

• Dramatical Fall of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Labels: ecommerce, markets, trend

  ¶ 'Quick Look at the Q4 2006 American CSI, eCommerce Sector' posted by eA : 10:19 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Europe's Top eCommerce Sites Dec. 2006 From Europe's key markets U.K., France and Germany during holiday shopping season week ending Dec/03/2006: Unfortunately Ebay is excluded, but I would put it somewhere on top in all 3 countries (-:
From ComScore:

France: Groupe PPR CDISCOUNT.COM Amazon Sites 3 Suisses Apple Computer, Inc. ALAPAGE.COM QUELLE.FR Yves Rocher AmericanGreetings Property Hewlett Packard

UK: Argos Amazon Sites Tesco Stores Littlewoods Shop Direct Group Play.com Sites Apple Computer, Inc. NEXT Group Ticketmaster Groupe PPR The Carphone Warehouse Group

Germany: Amazon Sites Otto Gruppe O2ONLINE.DE NECKERMANN.DE QUELLE.DE Apple Computer, Inc. Tchibo T-MOBILE.DE WELTBILD.DE Medion Shop

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, europe

  ¶ 'Europe's Top eCommerce Sites Dec. 2006' posted by eA : 9:41 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Continued Growth in UK eCommerce Markets, Ikea's Coming Running eCommerce operations in Germany, Sweden, France and the US, Ikea quietly added a checkout to it's UK website for the instant restricted to certain shipping areas and entered the newly released Top 50 list of UK online retailers. From InternetRetailing:

1. Amazon UK
2. Argos
3. Tesco.com
4. Play.com
5. easyJet
6. Expedia.co.uk
7. Amazon.com
8. Thomson Holidays
9. British Airways
10. Apple Computer
...
49. Ikea

Nothing new in the top rank..., more than 50% are existing bricks-and-mortar retailers, half of the UK top 50 companies sell travel and tickets to their audience.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, europe, markets, uk

  ¶ 'Continued Growth in UK eCommerce Markets, Ikea's Coming' posted by eA : 8:28 PM  0 comments links to this post