My Personal Notes from the ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Ecommerce Conference

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

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.