08.12.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing at 2:07 am by ethan
Zappos.com, one of the most successful ecommerce store in the planet (click here for zappos sales figure)selling apparels and shoes, we are pretty sure you can learn something from them. below are the top 10 list.
1) The e-commerce business is built upon repeat customers. Like most Web merchants in the early days of online, Zappos spend a fortune on high-profile ads to acquire customers. It’s since learned that it pays off to focus on repeat buyers.
2) Word-of-mouth really works online. Unfortunately, WOM can work against you as well as for you, as Zappos realized when customers would CC their friends on complaint e-mails to the merchant.
3) Don’t compete on price. Early on Zappos offered a $10 coupon to anyone who made a purchase. This worked wonders at increasing conversion rates, but did not attract loyal buyers. Once its competitors came out with $15 coupons these customers jumped ship.
4) Make sure your Website is 100% accurate. The company ran into trouble when it used to have the manufacturers drop-ship orders, because their inventory was often off and created backorders and unhappy customers. Even 99% is not good enough, Hsieh said, because that 1% out-of-stock rate can make a big difference when doing significant volumes.
5) Centrally locate your distribution. Originally based in San Francisco, Zappos started out with a California distribution center. But it took too long for customers on the East Coast to get their order, Hsieh said. Now headquartered in Las Vegas, Zappos fulfills out of a DC in Kentucky.
6) Customer service is an investment, not an expense. The goal is to create lifelong relationships with customers, Hsieh said. That’s why Zappos doesn’t measure call times; it’s also why the merchant will even refer customers to a competitor when it’s out of an item. Sounds risky, but when they need another pair of shoes, they will go to Zappos, he said.
7) Start small, stay focused. You’re never going to get a situation exactly right, Hsieh noted; lots of weird little things will come up. When Zappos made the move from shoes to selling apparel as well, we didn’t promote it heavily, we’re slowly learning over time how customers buy clothing online.
Don’t be secretive. Don’t worry about competitors. We believe in sharing as much information as possible with vendors, Hsieh said, including reports on sales, inventory, and profitability. There’s a benefit to having 1,200 pairs of eyes looking at our business trying to help it grow. What’s more, we don’t worry too much about what our competitors are doing. it takes the focus off our customers.
9) You need to actively manage your company culture. Hire people based on how they will fit into the culture, Hsieh said. Zappos is all about customer service, so employees need to understand that and be willing to do what it takes to provide excellent service. If you get the culture right, a lot of the other stuff will take care of itself, he said.
10) Be wary of so-called experts, including me, Hsieh said. Zappos spent a lot of money on CONsultants in the beginning only to find that we really should have trusted ourselves more.Remember, he told the audience: No one knows your customers better than you.
Check out original posting at
http://multichannelmerchant.com/news/zappos_08072007/
Update! Don’t miss out this great post about Zappos Fanatical Customer Services too.
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07.21.07
Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing at 10:17 pm by admin
Latest Update: after checking with WorldPay, apparently similar offer is available to some other countries like Malaysia as well!
Grab it Fast, All offer last until 31st August 2007 only – (The day Malaysia is 50 years old!)
To start applying for it, just click on this link – WorldPay Internet Merchant Account Application
Offer For UK Online Merchants
Set up Fee: £75 SAVING over 60%
Monthly Fee: £15 per month* SAVING 50%
Credit and Debit card charge:
3.35% per transaction + 15p per transaction
FREE Fraud Detection + Internet Terminal (WorldAccess)
Click here for WorldPay UK Merchant Promotion
Offer For Malaysia Online Merchants
Setup Fee : Free (worth MYR688) (MYR= Malaysian Ringgit)
Annual Fee: (MYR544 for the first year and MYR1088 or equivalent for the subsequent years) (50% discount for the first year)
Transaction Service Charge:3.95% + USD$0.16
Remittance Fee: USD$16 or equivalent
WorldAccess(Internet Terminal): Free
Click here for WorldPay Malaysia Merchant Promotion
Offer For Hong Kong Online Merchants
Setup Fee : Free (worth HKD$2200)
Annual Fee: HKD$3800
Transaction Service Charge:3.95%
Remittance Fee: HKD$32 or equivalent
WorldAccess(Internet Terminal): Free
Click here for WorldPay Hong Kong Merchant Promotion
Offer For Taiwan Online Merchants
Setup Fee : Free (worth TWD6600) (TWD=New Taiwan Dollar)
Annual Fee: (TWD5300 for the first year and TWD10600 or equivalent for the subsequent years) (50% discount for the first year)
Transaction Service Charge:3.95% + USD$0.16
Remittance Fee: USD$16 or equivalent
WorldAccess(Internet Terminal): Free
Click here for WorldPay Taiwan Merchant Promotion
Offer For Thailand Online Merchants
Setup Fee : Free (worth THB6500) (THB=Thai Baht)
Annual Fee: (THB5250 for the first year and THB10500 or equivalent for the subsequent years) (50% discount for the first year)
Transaction Service Charge:3.95% + USD$0.16
Remittance Fee: USD$16 or equivalent
WorldAccess(Internet Terminal): Free
Click here for WorldPay Thailand Merchant Promotion
Don’t forget WorldPay works best with WorldPay Accredited Storebuilder’s Shopping Cart Solution. 
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07.14.07
Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing at 12:10 pm by admin
Updated. This is already closed. Thank you all for the blog posting and some insights on your valueable opinion.
We already have 3 lucky winners, they are:
www.albertlau.com
www.dannyfoo.com
www.blogjunkie.net
Just sit tight at your house and wait for the package to be delivered soon. This is only the very beginning. Hopefully more will come soon!
Tell us what you think about e-commerce and online shopping, and stand a chance to win some official Google Merchandizes.
3 Sets of Google Goodies worth USD$20 (inclusive of shipping) each will be given away!!!
See the real thing below
Prize list…
1. Google Notebook – USD10.50
2. Google Green Ballpen – USD 2.50
3. Google Handphone Stripe – USD 5.50
4. Nokia Phone – USD 200 (Display purpose only, This one not included!)
5. Having your kick-ass idea written in the Google notebook – Priceless.
Notice the Nokia Handphone Showing our Shopping Cart Mobile UI for one of our customer who’s an active ebay merchants! If you are into scrapbook stuffs, Check out their book scrapping store
How to participate and Win?
Fire-up one new blog post and answer these 3 simple questions
1) Do you shop online? If so, why? If not, why not?
2) What are your preferred payment methods for online shopping? (credit card, debit card, bank card, online banking, cheque etc) List 3 in accordance to preferences.
3) Do you use search for product pricing and information before you buy instore? which search engine you use the most?
Lastly, link back to www.neowave.com.my using the anchor text “SEO Shopping Cart”, “SEO Ecommerce Solution” or “Online Store Solution”.
After that, just leave a comment on this blog post and we will check out your blog soon!
Rules?
Open to all Genuine* Bloggers from anywhere,even from Mars. Closing end of July 2007. Have fun!
* Meaning no Porn / adult content / gambling / Spam / Syndicated blogs. It gotta be a ‘real blog’
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06.07.07
Posted in Google, Online Marketing, SEO, Web Technologies at 9:50 am by admin
Google secret is partly revealed in Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine
A must read in helping you to understand how Google works and how one its top secret department called “Search Quality” actually determine the fall or rise of your websites. and Yes, they are playing God – Internet God, period.
Do you know that the search-quality team actually makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the mathematical formulas that power the Google? (This is why nobody.. and we really mean NOBODY except those in the Google Search Quality Insider can guarantee you top ranking in Google organic results via whatever SEO whitehat optimization or blackhat tricks.)
This is the closest you ever got into Google search secrets…
Some interesting facts and quotes
Udi Manber, ex-Amazon search head, now overseas the Google Search-Quality Team.
If there’s some search-related problems, any of Google’s 10k plus employees can use its “Buganizer” system to report it to the Search Quality Team.
Google has preferred pages old enough to attract others to link to them. (comment: yes, history and age does matter, just like a business reputation, longer you stay in business, the more it says about you, generally.)
QDF – “Query Deserves Freshness” will actually determine whether a particular search should return “New and Current” content or not. If a topic is “HOT”, for eg a sudden burst of emerging topics carrying out the topic keywords in blogosphere, then most likely the users will want “current information” which Google will choose to return.
Google use over 200 variables (or so called “signals”) to determine the ranking of your web pages. PageRank (PR) is only one of the signal.
Google has a technology called “Classifiers” – it can tell, for example, whether someone is searching for a product to buy, or for information about a place, a company or a person.
Read on…
Want to know more from Amit Singhal? Download his slide below:
Below is the simplified process showing you how the search results are retrieved:
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05.31.07
Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing at 11:10 am by admin
You know it well that every website is an isolated island, if you just starting off with your new website, what would you do if you have only $100 to market your website? Worst, what if the below is the only one you got?
Check out what the experts have to say, always remember, be creative – like Steve Wozniak (Apple cofounder) quoted:
“All the best things I did at Apple came from (a) not having money, (b) not having done it before ever. Every single thing that we came out with was really great, I’d never once done that thing in my life.”
Like the USD 100 with your face on it? Check out this very neat money maker. Special thanks to liewcf for teaching us how to print money with your pretty face on it
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05.11.07
Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing at 5:59 pm by admin
“Yellow Page(s) usage among people below 50 will drop to near ZERO in the next five years,” Bill Gates told a crowd of more than 1,000 people from the advertising, publishing and tech industries at recently held Microsoft’s Strategic Account Summit.
Will Bill Gates get it right? Well, ask yourself a question, when was the last time you flipped through your clunky Yellow Pages looking for products or services? Or you just simply “Google” for the stuff you are looking for ?? Heck, I even Google using my mobile looking for the book title i couldn’t seem to recall during my recent visit to popular *sorry gates, Google equals search now. NOT live or MSN.
Now you shouldn’t wondered why Malaysia Yellow Pages (Own and operated by the monopolistic TM) is looking for a buyer and asking for a merely RM25 Million “only”. Better sell it fast before it actually worth nothing more than a junk bond in few years time – if Bill Gates were proven right.
Well again, Bill Gates might be wrong, he actually quoted this back in 1981: “640K of memory should be enough for anybody.” But i won’t bet against it this time. Because I myself believe, if they (traditional yellow pages or directory companies) don’t transform fast enough, they will end-up in HELL.
Internet is already taking over. Search is the king. Think you can hide? Google already have a regional presence in Singapore and they will come and whack your a** soon.
Also, Blog no doubt will be one of major advertising channel as advertisers like its loyalty readers and “high trust”. That’s why services like reviewme, text-link-ad, adbrite etc are blossoming. As for Malaysia context wise, let’s watch and see whether Nuffnang or Advertlets will swamp the market.
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04.15.07
Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing at 8:57 pm by admin
[update 13/1/2008]: King of e-commerce – Amazon just invested USD 4 million in woot.com, that tells you how good they are.
Did you get me wrong? No!
Recently just bump into a very cool online store – www.woot.com
It really really sells only one item per day; until it’s sold out. Merchandizes typically takes 2 to 3 business days to ship out. Once the items are sold out, they will no longer be available.
Read the rest of this entry »
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03.25.07
Posted in Online Marketing, web2.0 productivity at 12:47 am by finn
To all the programmers out there >> All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
One good excuse to justify for some slacking time, isn’t it?
Read the rest of this entry »
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02.04.07
Posted in Events, Online Marketing at 9:43 pm by admin
Miss out the previous Google Talk by Hanson Toh in MIRC?
Check out some photos during the MIRC events. It’s jam packed with about 200 over peoples. Good Crowd Overall.
 [top]Neowave got the honorable highlight by Google for the Mashup work we done on webShaper e-commerce which add more values to our clients.[right] We have a confession to make, we are tempted to steal this banner. [More photos here] |
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Well, you can do a catch up for this one which is going to be held at MIM (Malaysia Institute of Management). If you are not MIM members, expect to fork out RM45 to attend this. Busy? You can choose to pay online!
More details on the events at http://www.mim.org.my/MA1326.htm
Have fun!
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01.19.07
Posted in E-commerce, Events, Online Marketing, Web Technologies at 4:55 pm by admin
After ebay, here comes Google! What’s next?? Yahoo anyone??
Online Search-Engine Advertising (SEA)
Find out why and how is it the most effective online-marketing channel today!
Read the rest of this entry »
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