Archive for May, 2009
May 30th, 2009
In my experience very few directories have the potential to drive any kind of traffic and this includes services like Yell and Scoot. (In fact, rather embarrissingly I once bought an entry on Scoot. The entry produced so little traffic (one hit per month) that I wrote to Michael Grade and got my money back). Scouring the web for links produces no end of sites that want £10 or so for a listing. It is rarely worth it. Most directories are also of very limited use to consumers, giving very limited informations about their entries (i.e. they are for SEO purposes only which is fine, as far as it goes). They are compiled without TLC.
One notable exception is Toy Shop UK. This excellent directory is not only free, but generates quite respectable traffic for my site. The directory allows retailers to add a comprehensive description of their business and categorises by useful categories such as brand of toys, toys sold and location. In short a rare example of a directory which is both useful to retailers and consumers. Good work! Check out the Hello Baby entry.
I caught up with Tim Hawkins from Toy Shop UK, to find out the secret of their success.
Please give us some history behind Toy Shop UK
As ex-independent toy retailers, we wanted to create a site that enabled smaller, independent shop owners to compete on more of a level playing field with the larger national stores.
We came from the basic principle that if you’re not even mentioned, you’ll never get found – so something that helps you to be found for free really is a no-brainer.
Whilst we’re not on any particular crusade to blindly promote independents over larger companies, at the heart of Toy Shop UK we do believe that a characterful and diverse High Street is something that is really special and worth championing. This is even more true online, where independents provide an invaluable service by being able to offer far more expertise and choice in the brands and ranges that they choose to stock.
Although we can’t ‘protect’ independent toy shops against the expansion of national chains, the fact is that we have helped many independent toy shops increase their online sales – and we’re very proud of that.
What do you think makes a good directory and how have you implemented this on your site?
Having submitted to hundreds of directories ourselves for previous businesses, we knew instantly what the main flaws of most directories are.
Slow turnaround times and the inability to speak directly with a real-life administrator were definitely high on our list of gripes. However, the cost of inclusion and the disappointing levels of resulting traffic were easily the two biggest criticisms that can be levelled at virtually every single directory we’ve submitted to.
The price was easy for us to sort out – we simply made it free and decided that we would generate an income from people other than our advertisers.
Generating real traffic for our visitors was a harder task. With the guidance of an online optimisation expert, we’ve worked really hard to create a great looking site with high-quality, original content that is not only found by people searching online for toy-related search terms but is genuinely useful for them too. That probably sounds really obvious, but if you look at most online directories – even the really famous ones like DMOZ they don’t actually provide visitors with any tangible traffic. Even Yahoo’s Directory which costs $299 to be considered for doesn’t achieve good traffic referrals – and that’s why we wanted to create something different.
Do you think consumers use directories instead of just googling?
Traffic stats for Toy Shop UK show that there is a definite place for directories. This is backed up by high page views and low bounce-rates which reassures us that people are genuinely browsing the site rather than simply finding a result and leaving straightaway.
There’s no doubt that the vast majority of online directories don’t perform any using searching/browsing function and I think that has tarred the reputation of directories in general. That certainly explains why many people just see directories as a necessary evil; something that you have to spend three days submitting to whenever you want to launch a new site.
Many of our listers submit their website simply to get that all important hyperlink – and whilst that is totally understandable, we make a big effort to try and change the perception that all directories are just there as a way to shift Page Rank around the web.
Many of our listers are pretty shocked when they realise that we actually send them a consistent flow of traffic. It might not be huge quantities of traffic but it’s of a good quality, and crucially, it’s targeted. It’s much more likely to have a higher conversion rate than traffic from search engines, simply because a human being that knows the industry inside has already filtered the results and removed all the garbage.
What is your business model?
We decided early on that the site would be free for toy shops to join on whatever level they felt comfortable with. The site has a light sprinkling of Google ads, and there are a few affiliate listers on the site that pay small commissions.
Advertising space will soon be available strictly for manufacturers and suppliers only, in order to maintain complete impartiality for our listers.
New developments are constantly in progress, and as the site becomes even better known we see it as the first website of choice for anyone wanting high quality information about toy shops, toy brands, toy reviews, toy categories or toy organisations.
Ideally we’d like to partner more with independent shops and maybe even work towards some kind of comparison system for just independent shops as most similar systems out there are well outside the budget of most small retailers.
Plans for the future?
Once we have the model perfected, Toy Shop UK is certainly something that could be rolled out to other industry sectors – but I can’t possibly tell you which ones that might be yet!
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May 30th, 2009
I recently received a copy of Raw Magazine which had a picture of Max Clifford on the cover. Is it just me, but I found myself rather reluctant to open the cover of a magazine who had such a famously unpleasant character on the front.
The magazine is affiliated with million impossible, a rather dubious social network for entrepreneurs who keep ringing me up to try and get me to join. My advice to entrepreneurs is to avoid networks like this as they are full of sellers and no buyers. Networks like Linkedin, Xing and even facebook are full of a much more varied group of people with whom to network.
May 30th, 2009
Following on from my post on online reputation services, I have interviewed Will Paterson, founder of Plebble. We talked about Plebble and the future of the online reputation business
Please give us some background on your product and company
Plebble was co-founded by me and my brother James. We launched Plebble.com in January 2008. Plebble.com is a website where consumers can rate and comment on the level of service and the value for money provided by every business in the UK. Consumer ratings are used to help other consumers find the businesses that give the best service/value and avoid the worst. Plebble also acts as an online meeting place between consumers and businesses, which helps businesses understand what their customers think of them and allows businesses to engage with their customers on a peer-to-peer level. Plebble has the dual benefit of helping consumers get better service and businesses gain stronger loyalty and reputation.
Who is your main target market?
Although Plebble.com is open to any business in the UK, our main targets are big consumer brands and brands that sell commoditized products such as broadband, mobile, utilities, banks, etc… These are sectors where consumers often receive the worst service but where service levels are a key distinction point for businesses.
Do you have any plans for integrating information from multiple sources e.g. eBay and amazon feedback
We are looking into integrating information from multiple sources. It is unlikely however that we will integrate eBay or amazon feedback. This is simply because of the complex nature of eBay feedback and amazon ratings principally being focused on products.
I notice that you charge for some services on your website. Whilst you are trying to boost users, won’t this put people off?
We operate a ‘freemium’ model whereby businesses can sign up for free and use many core features for free, however we charge on a simple credits based system for some features. We also gift new members free credits to encourage them to use the service. So the barriers to use our service is extremely low. This is simply to encourage business adoption. We think it would be a mistake to market the service as a completely free service to businesses and then try and implement payments at a later date.
How do you see the market for online reputation services evolving. How soon before all online retailers are using services like Plebble
Plebble is directly targeted at giving consumers a place to air their customer service experiences and designed to put consumers and businesses together. There are however a vast number of platforms where consumers can share their opinions about businesses for example other review sites, forums, social networks etc…. With a growing number of consumers posting their experiences online, retailers and other businesses won’t be able to pick one platform to engage with, they will have to engage with the platforms that their customers choose to go to. They will also have to know the rules of engagement on individual platforms. So I think we will see a much greater adoption of platforms like Plebble coupled with a rise in solutions that help businesses engage with multiple platforms.
Attitudes are changing and businesses are seeing services like Plebble as opportunity rather than a threat. As such adoption is growing. It’s difficult to predict when an industry standard will be achieved, but the market is heading in the right direction.
Plans for the future?
Our plan is continue to develop and improve Plebble.com. With reference to the approve question, we are also planning on helping businesses understand and engage with their customers through their own bespoke needs. We are doing this through Plebble Systems www.plebblesystems.com
May 30th, 2009
I want to give a quick plug for what I think is probably the best discount codes site on the market – www.promotionalcodes.org.uk. Unlike a lot of voucher sites out there promotional codes takes time to give each retailer a full profile and the site is really easy to navigate and has a simple effective design.
They also win tufty point by not ringing me up every week to try and sell me ridiculously overpriced advertising unlike myvouchercodes!
May 30th, 2009
In order to amuse myself whilst Mrs eBay, eCommerce, life was in mothercare in Stratford (I do wonder what people will think in 2012 when they come out of Stratford tube and are confronted by one of the most horrible shopping centres in London) I bought the launch edition of the UK version of Wired.
After reading the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss I decided to implement a trickle down theory of receiving news. I would not go looking for new information, but (the theory goes) the interesting stuff would find me, via friends and the limited number of news sources I do read (the economist, observer, the odd blog). Spotify is a success story of this theory. I heard about it from two different friends and then i downloaded it. Outstanding.
Whilst saving me a lot of time, I had recently been thinking that perhaps the baby had gone out with the bath water. Was I missing lots of interesting stuff, was my dinner party conversation suffering? So, anyway, in order to see what I was missing I bought Wired.
I am sorry to say that I was a bit disapointed. I think that wired can’t decided what it is. Yes there is a lot of stuff in there about technology, but overall the content is not that different from something like Esquire, or any other general interest magazine. All the usual stuff was here, fashion, gadgets, TV, film, novels which could be found just about anywhere.
£3.90 poorer, I found myself thinking that I should have known better than to stray from the one true path of the Economist (and occaisionally the weekend FT).
May 30th, 2009
I have come across several online reputation management systems recently, all of which seem to be missing a trick or two. This is sad as one day these systems will be to web in general what feedback is to eBay (hmmmmm, perhaps that is damning with faint praise).
There are a lot of products out there which allows customers to give businesses reviews. Sites like Qype and trusted places are built around local business reviews and are primarly offline in focus. From a directory point of view, with their richer content I can see local search services like these giving slow moving monsters like Yell.com a run for their money, however their review service are pretty basic. For example they do not pull information in from any other sources (e.g. RSS feeds) or in any way ensure that the customer are genuine.
Plebble is a site totally based on giving rating of businesses. It is more interesting in that it provides more information on a business and greater opportunity for the business owner to customise their profiles. However, where Plebble is going wrong is in trying to charge for parts of this service too early. Consumers are not yet using these services en masses, and until their do, there is no way that anyone is going to bother to pay. Niggle.co.uk is a similar service.
A more interesting, if slightly bland service is eKomi. This service claims to give a feedback experience like eBay and amazon. Certainly it does have the advantage over those mentioned above in that it contains reviews from genuine customers, and not just anyone with an opinion. Where I think it fails is in having none of the search facilities of sites like Qype. it would be nice to bring some search functionality to allow users to find businesses with the best profiles.
What I would do…
- Integration with established reputation management systems. I am very surprised that no reputation management system has integrated in with eBay and amazon feedback to provide an overall view of the feedback on a business.
- Pull in other sources of information. A really good system would pull in information such as company registration details from companies house.
- Rich profiles. A company should be able to sell themselves by creating a compelling profile
- Search. Finally, customer should be able to find the company with the best reputation.
May 30th, 2009
I have recently bought a typewriter (on eBay of course), to try out my new theory of mine. I have opined before about letters being a successful medium for getting things done*. To recap, I think that in this world of cheap electronic information, letters are rare and subsequently their impact is greater. Also, a letter can not be deleted with the touch of a button like an email.
So as an extension to this theory I am going to see if the type written letter will produce an even greater response. Alternatively the receiver may just think I am mad!
*Incidentially I did eventually get all my money back from eBay, but I had to resort to drastic measures. After being repeatedly ignored, I wrote a letter to the MD of eBay UK at his home address which got the ball rolling.
May 30th, 2009
I recently went out for Lunch with George Bevis from SpeedSell. As well as having some excellent food at the Pavillion in Victoria park, I got to know something about his exciting new business
Please give us an outline of your service and some history
SpeedSell is an online rag-and-bone business. We give an instant online price for unwanted items, and (if desired) send a van to your home or work to collection. The concept is well established in the States (Gazelle.com is the most prominent such business) but we are the first in Europe. Currently we trade games consoles and games – later this year we will trade a wider variety of consumer electronics, sports equipment, DIY equipment, baby gear etc. We performed test trades for most of 2008 and launched a fully scalable infrastructure, with a bespoke CRM system, in January. We’ve recently launched an affiliate programme and our volumes are now growing well.
Like dropshops (which have broadly failed) your business model requires customer to change their behaviour. What makes you so sure they will use your service
We don’t consider that SpeedSell’s proposition requires a big change in attitudes/behaviour. Customers understand the concept of offline rag-and-bone shops (like CashConverters) and may well have used an online mobile phone recycling businesses like EnviroFone as well. The only difference is that SpeedSell trades different types of items. SpeedSell’s customer proposition is much closer to those businesses than it is to the dropshops. With dropshops, customers don’t know when they will be paid, how much they will be paid, and perceive (rightly or wrongly) significant hassle in getting items to the dropshops etc.
What is your competitive advantage?
Three advantages:
- Our analytics are best-in-class, taking account of lots of factors to predict resale pricing. That stuff is difficult to do well.
- Operationally a biz like SpeedSell is very complex to manage because customers don’t always send us what they say they will, when they say they will. We’ve built some fairly advanced (and expensive) IT to manage that process and make it straightforward for everyone.
- Most importantly, SpeedSell is obsessed with simplicity of customer experience. The process is completely streamlined and a million times easier to use than an auction site. One example of this obsession was the decision not to create customer ‘accounts’ with logins etc. Simplicity is in the company’s DNA.
What are your plans for the future. Will you be moving into other product types?
see above – yes we’ll be trading other product types. Also we’re talking with major retailers about helping their customers resell unwanted items for retailer credit instead of cash – effectively an outsourced trade-in programme with all the work done by us, not by the retailer.
May 30th, 2009
Skype’s new TV adverts can’t hid the fact the some aspects of their service are pretty shoddy. As a man who like to do things cheaply, when I have been using skype-In to run my business phones. This seemed like a pretty good solution to me, much cheaper than installing a conventional phone line.
The problem has been that the quality of the incoming calls has been shocking. Just about every caller would comment on the poor quality of the line. Other problems include:
- If you have more than one skype-in number it is impossible to tell which one is calling you
- It is not possible to turn off a skype in number without turning off the whole of skype
May 30th, 2009
I recently caught up with Jamie Parkins from eBay and eCommerce video provider Vzaar. Read on for an update on their business and Jamie’s through on the future.
Could you give us some background for Vzaar?
In April of 2007 founders Ken Moss and Ian Snead approached Adrian Sevitz an ex-eBay employee with an idea of creating a marketplace where the hook was that items were sold with video. Adrian was quick to suggest that given eBay’s market size this was a tough ask and that they would be better off building a video solution that met the needs of the thousands of businesses that sold on eBay on a daily basis. Essentially a plug-in for eBay and so the service http://vzaar.com went live in September 2007.
A little over 18 months later, vzaar is now the second largest provider of video on eBay, powering around 75,000 video listings a month and have expanded their services to enable simple video posting on any website on the Internet.
Why should merchants use video?
The beauty is that video allows the merchant to really sell the item. You can show a motor car, a diamond ring, a disco laser or a robotic dinosaur in all its moving or shiny glory with video or even its imperfections if you are selling rare and vintage collectables and in part that inspires the buyer to have confidence in the seller and the item.
Helped by a greater penetration of broadband access and a growing confidence in buying online, buyers are consuming online video rapidly. This means there is a really exciting opportunity for commerce to embrace a technology that can help booster sales. Business websites and sellers on eBay often need to think about how they are going to meet ever growing buyer expectations and in doing so differentiate themselves from the competition. Video allows them to do just that.
From day one the ethos behind vzaar was that the video content was the asset that we would sell to businesses. To that end we’ve built a non-branded player that means commercial sellers don’t have to carry someone else’s brand like they do on YouTube. Furthermore, we want the content to be king and so we don’t link to other videos by competing sellers. We want to help convert the buyer. If we do that successfully for the seller then we’ll be happy.
Longer term, the value businesses will associate with video will come in a variety of ways from the ease and cost-effectiveness of having a guaranteed video provider, to the reduction in costly and time-consuming questions from concerned or curious buyers who want to know more about products. Video, when served well, can add real value to a page.
Why should merchants use vzaar?
Put simply we are easy to use. That for me is the key. Business, SMEs, PowerSellers and the like want a simple, easy to use solution that means they can serve video without the fear of coding or bandwidth streaming. So with vzaar it really is a case of shooting your video, uploading it and then adding it to a listing or a webpage.
vzaar user Jack Fitzgerald of Industry Recycles has seen videos “attracting 43% more visitors, and as a result are gaining us more bids, and more sales” whilst seller kurtkiefer was kind enough to say that ”I can tell you without hesitation that the prices our auctions brought with videos are much higher than those without. Much higher.”
In addition one of eBay UK’s largest car dealers, CarGiant told us that their video allows them to ”talk directly to people who are about to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds with us. Making them feel confident enough to buy and trust us as good sellers is vital. So we use our video to show off our business, premises and staff. Buyers know we’re a bona fide firm from our video and they buy with confidence.”
When it comes to cost we are also extremely competitive. For as little as $10 a month a business can stream up to 2GB of video a month free of worry about how the bandwidth will impact their site or their service. vzaar takes the strain there and in return we give you a professional looking video player and a suite of features that make distributing video easy.
How do we differentiate ourselves from YouTube?
The core difference is rooted in our business models. YouTube don’t charge their users to use the service and at vzaar we do. Remember though, nothing is ever really free. vzaar’s founding principle is to provide ecommerce merchants with a service that enables them to use video to merchandise their product or service. We are not a destination site for people to come and watch video, we are a tool for businesses to use to power video on their site.
Vzaar users own their video and their video player. They have control over who sees it and where its published. They also have an unbranded video player so it looks smart and a seamless part of their site. YouTube sell advertising space on their site and video player, so a clients potential buyers will be exposed to anything YouTube decide to display and the “owner” of that video has no control. Not ideal if you are selling let’s say a vacuum cleaner from Hoover and YouTube sell advertising to Dyson.
Our integration into eBay through their API also makes us stand out as we are the only approved video provider that allows eBay sellers of any skill set upload and add video to their listings quickly and easily in a matter of clicks. We’re very proud of that service and it continues to be a popular one with our users.
What does the future hold for vzaar
“There are some really exciting opportunities lined up in 2009 both on eBay and across the online retail space. We are constantly having to redesign our player and the features that compliment it so that we keep up with changes in the video industry. Viewer tracking and search engine optimisation for user videos are just two of the areas we are focusing on. In addition widescreen and High Definition players are coming soon and we have something really exciting in the eBay space bubbling away nicely that we look forward to sharing more on soon.