If you ask that question in ten different places, you will most likely get a million different answers!

Ten Golden Rules for eCommerce

But not today at 12:30

Today Jay Berkowitz and I will discuss the Ten Golden Rules of eCommerce in a Internet Marketing Club Webinar

I am a member of the Internet Marketing Club but have known Jay for several years. I was and am honored that he selected me to co host this webinar which may eventually be morphed into a book. Lately I have been concentrating on many aspects of eCommerce development while creating my latest project BonanzleStore

In today's Webinar we will discuss Search Engine friendly eCommerce, how to choose the difference between selling on a large venue like eBay or Amazon or Bonanzle and your own website or both and much much more.

So join us TODAY at 12:30 PM EST at Go To Meeting!

It had to happen sooner or later... Google brings the power of Search to eCommerce!

Why oh Why eBay, did you not think of That!

Hmmmm - maybe eBay can sign up for Google Commerce Search and scrap this whole "finding" experiment... Maybe with Google Search installed on eBay.com, the term Best Match might actually mean that the best product matching the search terms entered will be presented.

Oh - what a novel idea - Actually allowing the person doing the search to determine what it is they are searching for...

But I Digress - eBay and Google burned bridges long ago and ever since that time, Google has grown stronger while eBay - well we all know where eBay's numbers are - in the hands of PayPal!

So... what is Google Commerce Search anyway? (Get most of the scoop at this link Google Support)

Evidently Google has a few tricks up their collective sleeves...

Google is making it easier than ever to improve search in your own online store

From Google:

How it Works

Once you've signed up for Google Commerce Search, your site administrator will follow these simple steps.

Step 1: Submit your product data to the Google Merchant Center and Google Product Search. Visit www.google.com/merchants to upload your items via data feeds, direct uploads, or use our API.

Step 2: Customize the look and feel of your on-site search engine. Log into the administrative console to manage product promotions, upload synonym dictionaries, and control parametric search options.

Step 3: Analyze your site's traffic and search effectiveness. View custom reports on top queries, special feature usage and more.

Benefits

Search is a critical part of the shopping experience; in fact, 71% of online shoppers use keyword searches to find products (eTailing Group). Google Commerce Search addresses this need by offering an easy-to-deploy solution with Google speed and relevancy.

Increase your website conversions -- and sales

The average conversion rates of retail sites is barely 3% (Forrester). Yet, with effective tactics, retailers can achieve a much higher conversion rate. For instance, the top 10 visitor-to-buyer conversion rates ranged from 16% to 45% (Nielsen Online). Effective search can bridge this gap considerably: customers who use the search box on e-commerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers (MarketingSherpa).

Increase customer lifetime value

Forrester projects that 47% of online retailer revenue comes from repeat shoppers. By enhancing shopper experience, Google Commerce Search can improve customer loyalty, and ultimately increase customer lifetime value.

Deploy within days

Google Commerce Search is an entirely hosted, software-as-a-service offering. You simply upload your product information to Google Merchant Center, and Google Commerce Search intelligently leverages the product feed and provides your website with search capabilities.

Easy to scale

With Google Commerce Search, you are leveraging the powerful Google platform: the speed, relevance, reliability, and certainly scalability. As your customer base grows, you can scale your search solution effortlessly - without adding any servers or other infrastructure.

Add features -- without upgrading

By deploying a Software-as-a-Service solution, you'll be able to enjoy the ever-growing number of Google features and updates automatically, without any sort of deployment or upgrade on your end.

Measure and streamline

Retailers who excel at understanding and responding to usage metrics are able to improve conversion rates by as much as 24%, while less responsive companies' conversions tend to stay flat (Jupiter Research). Google Commerce Search provides you advanced reporting tools to measure and streamline - so you can maximize the effectiveness of your website.

What it Wont Do:

Using Google Commerce Search will not improve your rankings within Google Product Search or in Google.com searches. Google Commerce Search will allow you to promote and order your product listings when users search for items on your website.

Yeah, why not... hmmmm Ok - here goes, this will be short and sweet...

My friend, Jay Berkowitz of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing consulting firm, has started a new NING community called the Internet Marketing Club.

If you don't know Jay Berkowitz you may think, "Oh - Great a new guy hawking his wares on Ning" - Think Again!

Ten Golden Rules Host - Jay Berkowitz

Jay is all about sharing and education when it comes to Internet Marketing and his podcast "The Ten Golden Rules" is one of the most widely respected Internet marketing audio podcasts in the world. I have written about Jay's delivery and insights before here

Excerpt:

"I appreciate his genuine awe struck and outgoing way of bringing his listeners sound bytes from some of the most powerful and cutting edge Internet marketers and pioneers in our World today. Jay rubs shoulders with and interviews the likes of Seth Godin and Jason Calacanis on a weekly basis. If you don't know who those people are, it's OK because Jay will share the highlights of the careers of these .com and Internet moguls with you when he reports on the Ten Golden Rules podcast. I say Awe Struck, not because I think Jay does not belong in the same room with these mega-tycoons of our industry but because he has a way of approaching these interviews with the kind of exuberance and giddiness of someone who may not belong, but is happy to be there, would bring. Jay belongs - one only needs to read his resume on the Ten Golden Rules website to know he has been playing in this sandbox for some time now. He simply has a style which brings the listener into the room as if we were flies on the wall and Jay is the only person who knows we are there".

More about the Internet Marketing Club:

Starting in October, we will run weekly webinars on topics such as Social Media including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC), Affiliate and Performance Marketing, Conversion Strategies and Analysis and Analytics.

Next on Today's Agenda is the Free 12 Week Internet Marketing Course - Provided by: Jeremy Shoemaker

If you are not aware of who Jeremy Shoemaker of "Shoemoney" is... Well, then I would wager that you may not have not been around the web 2.0 or blogosphere for very long. Jeremy Shoemaker helped put the spit shine on blogs as a a way to make money and he walks the walk and cashed the checks to prove it. I have been reading his Shoemoney blog for at least 3 years and it is full of good stuff.

Quote:

Google Adsense Check for $132,994.97

ShoeMoney.com, shares my ups and downs in the world of online marketing to a loyal daily readership of over 30,000 people. ShoeMoney.com has been named the Best Affiliate Marketing Blog and ranks in Technorati’s top 50 blogs for the past three years.

Of course Jeremy is selling an extensive Internet Marketing tools kit subscription at the end of this free 12 week course.  Even though Jeremy would like to continue to make money from his knowlege he is not just putting together some e-book and expecting to get rich. The tools he provides at ShoeMoney Tools have a great deal of value.

I have signed up and completed all 12 weeks of the Free Course and I must say that there is a great deal of valuable information in this Free version. I see no reason to avoid learning from a guy who has made a great deal of money online. All information is good information if you utilize it - right?

Hello, I'm Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker and for 13 years I've been building successful online businesses. For the past five years I've been working hard writing a book to help others get started online. I recently decided that there is just too much great information in my book to exclude people from reading it. I have now backed out of my major book deal and turned it into a completely FREE 12 week guide to Internet marketing. No strings attached. Enter your email and start receiving the weekly guides directly in your inbox!

Week 1 - The Beginner's Guide To Internet Marketing

Week 2 - Affiliate Marketing 101: Everything You Need To Know To Start Promoting Products

Week 3 - Market Research: How To Crush Your Competitors And Discover Hot Niches

Week 4 - Introduction to Pay Per Click

Week 5 - Advanced Pay Per Click

Week 6 - SEO Tips, Tricks, and Tactics

Week 7 - Content Creation: How To Create Articles That Attract Users And Increase Sales

Week 8 - Marketing: How To Use Social Media To Spread Your Brand

Week 9 - Make That Cash: 10 Ways To Monetize Your Site And Increase Profitability

Week 10 - Testing & Tracking: How To Optimize Your Site & Make Sense Of The Figures

Week 11 - Building Your Team: How To Network With Others And Find Long Term Partners

Week 12 - Launch Day: How To Kick Start Your Business And Manage Your Projects

Links are what makes the Internet work, and links are what make your website grow.

There are many ways to collect links to your sites, some easy, some not so easy.

• Beg for links from everyone you know (how long is that list? people you know with ranked websites that are relevant to your own website?)
• Cruise the Internet chat rooms and discussion boards, posting messages and creating links back with your signature in these posts (Most likely marked No Follow by the discussion board webmaster)
• Offer a link exchange - Ok if you know the other website or blog owner, but not usually too effective with ranked sites with any real Google Juice and Google will actually deduct from your page rank score if you have too many reciprocal links on your site. One way links are best for you.
• Join a Web Link Echange Ring - alright, these have been around since Moby Dick was a minnow - some swear by them but I have heard that Google really frowns upon collecting links for your site this way, and if Google does not like it, I don't do it.
• - Sometimes this can get you in trouble, unless it is done right. and to do it right you need to have a strategy and you should know more than what is promoted in link exchange groups.
• - Offers education in the form of a free guide to link buying which explains more than just why you should buy your links through Text Link Ads.  I have read it and I was impressed with the amount of real education included in this guide which is offered with for trying the service.

I have tried the old fashioned methods of web rings and I have gone through all of the can't miss super affiliate long sales letter "Systems" for building links and page rank and ultimately traffic and I know there are very few easy or free ways to build up traffic to a site besides old fashioned content generation (some say free - I say valuable) and a well placed and yes - monetized link building plan.

Excerpt from the Link Buying Guide

Buying links through a service like is not all that expensive when you consider the time you will not have to waste on building these links through other means.  Do yourself a favor and check out this method of link building, it could just increase your sales and the effects of building up page rank are long term.

Forums Available to TAJ Forums Members in this Category

• Red Ink Diary - Henrietta
• My Blog Utopia - Randy Smythe
• The Savvy Seller - Marlene Gavens
• eBay & Beyond - Dave White
• Auction Wally - Walt Kolenda
• Who Else?

How did this lead to an Ass Hat?

This morning, I opened my email and was of course caught in the avalanche of electronic stress messages. (Why don't I listen to Tim Ferris of the 4 Hour Work Week?).

One of, well, several of these emails - 12 to be exact, was from LinkedIn. LinkedIn was informing me that I had 12 people who "had asked to be part of my network" - ahhh this is nice, lets do that for some easy mindless wakeup data processing...

As I worked through the invitations and replies (mostly from colleagues at the Examiner.com), I came across one particular invite that caught my eye.

And no... not just because this person is an attractive blonde...

First thing that caught my eye was the tag line...

"Creator and Owner of the Daily Blonde blog".

In today's world you must be unique and you must say something in a short flash of time to catch peoples ever crowded trains of thought. Cheryl Phillips says to the world that she is a blonde on a daily basis - not that there is anything wrong with that... (Paraphrasing Seinfeld).

To me this says Cheryl has a sense of humor and... the moxie to make something of it. I dug deeper, which in today's world is not a huge demand on journalistic resources... What I did was follow the link, on LinkedIn (get it) to the Daily Blonde Blog.

The first story on The Daily Blonde was a bit of a trend follower, a cynical view of the recent Sara Palin story (Sara Palin Leaves Office Early), but something else on the homepage caught my eye. What I saw was another story of interest, which of course lead me to click another link.

AssHat of the Week.

From the Daily Blonde

The Asshat of the week story leads in with:

...I realized that it was time to pay tribute to the irresponsible parents that seem to think I run a home daycare and restaurant for their children. So, this week’s AssHat award covers quite a few heads. It’s a big hat so there’s no problem making sure everyone fits under it.

The story goes on to describe -in letter form - to the irresponsible parents in this single mothers neighborhood, not only that she is not the summer day care provider, but more so, that these other parents should be responsible for their own kids. Parents should feed, bathe, and make sure that their own children are safe, not pawn them off on another parent for 10-12 hours without a care.  It is an article that any responsible parent in any neighborhood in America can relate to these days.

Why am I writing about this Asshat Award thing?

• It is a unique article with humor and touches on a subject many of us parents have wanted to say out loud, but never had the moxie to do ourselves.
• The entire idea of the blog has originality and style, coupled with humor and caring.  It is a recipe people obviously like.
• I only found this blog through Social Networking and LinkedIn, now I am writing about it - This is how the Internet of Today works!

The last point is what I wish to stress in this article.

People are searching the world we call the Internet for information.

No matter what business you are in, no matter what you sell, no matter who you work for or if you are an attorney or a broker or a architect or a ditch digger - there are people out there that want to know what you know and they will find the information you publish - if you leave enough "clues" to follow.

Clues in the form on links, links in the form of: LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts (with active tweets), Facebook profiles, forum posts and more...

People will follow these clues, bread crumbs, links, Tweets, opinions... all back to you.

These are the people you are looking for as an audience, they will find you and see you as a leader if you publish the information they are searching for.  Without an audience, there are no leaders, without leaders the audience continues to search...  Find your audience and help them to make you a leader, let them stop searching for your information, give them what they want no matter what that is.

Just Do IT!

Get out in the world and write something, post a video or take a picture - people will find and admire what you have to say or share, if you make an effort to share good things and if you spend some time contributing to other peoples lives by sharing and recognizing others that share as I am doing today.

I had never even heard of Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde before, even though she is a blogger of note and one who should be followed:

With an Alexa rating of approximately 150,000, over 1600 email subscribers and an average “stay” on The Daily Blonde by readers of over 3 minutes. She also spreads the word about her blog to over 16,000+ Twitter followers every day. Cheryl is currently ranked in the top 50 Twitter users and was written up as one of the Top 10 Women on Twitter in the world.

Cheryl is a stay at home mom with more kids than she should be able to deal with and she is cranking out quality blog article posts that bring her an every increasing audience - is there really any reason why you can not do this for yourself or your business?  Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde are not just one isolated story of the power of Internet self publishing, she is but one of millions of people who have found notoriety and possible success with social media and blogging.

With the tools available to everyone in today's world of CMS publishing on the net, using platforms like WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal to name a few, there is no reason why any business or professional person should not have the ability to share and inform on a daily basis, just as the Daily Blonde does.

Pick your topic, fulfill your niche, find your audience and you will create a market that never existed before for your business.

While his interview of the powers that be at Vendio was not exactly from the perspective of a well informed ecommerce specialist or writer, (He refers or defers to his ex-wife's experiences with eBay) this video does offer some insight into how the platform Vendio has assembled works. Scoble does not venture into our world of eCommerce often so I find it interesting that this interview even occurred. Good job Vendio!

For more information about the Vendio Platform, read my review on the All Business Auctions Blog

From the very first day of my involvement within the eCommerce world, the holy grail of selling online included offering product on multiple venues yet managing that inventory from one central location or software package. Personally I have worked towards that goal for several years, working with developers and designers who had greater resources than my own and trying to convince them of the need for an entry level multi- channel solution. It's always nice to know you had the right idea all along, even if someone else implements it before you do.

What the company has to say about it's new eCommerce solution:

The Vendio Platform is a complete eCommerce solution that includes a robust, feature-rich online store as well as item, order and customer management – all for free. It doesn’t matter whether a merchant sells 10 or 10,000 items in their Vendio store – they pay no web hosting fees, imaging hosting fees, listing fees or success fees. There is no catch. No gimmicks.

Vendio doesn’t even require a credit card to sign up for the Platform.

Features of the Vendio Platform with free online store:

• Fast and easy setup: Be up and running in minutes. Create your items and store without any development work or technical knowledge.
• Customized look-and-feel: Customize your store with your logo, custom categories, featured items, external links and more. You have complete control when you use our easy-to-use Store Builder to see exactly how your store will look as you build it.
• Professional designs: Dozens of free templates to choose from to make your store stand out.
• Simplified sales: All customers, items, and orders managed from one location. No need to worry about tracking transactions across different channels - it's all in one spot.
• SEO & Analytics: Add meta keywords and descriptions quickly and easily in order to help buyers find your store via search engines. Google Analytics integration assists you in monitoring and understanding your store traffic.
• Custom URL: Get a free Vendio domain or create your own custom domain name to keep your brand intact.
• Item Search: Buyers can search both your item titles and descriptions.
• Widget: Promote items anywhere online such as your website or blog with a cool widget that shows off your items.

Again, Vendio offers all these store features as well as the sales management, for free. Just because the Vendio store is free, doesn’t mean that it’s subpar to existing paid store offerings on the market such a Pro Store or a Yahoo Store. Here is a helpful feature matrix that differentiates the Vendio store from just some of its competitors.

What’s most unique and powerful about the Vendio Platform is that all items uploaded into the Platform are automatically placed in the store, immediately available for sale.

If a merchant wants to reach more buyers in places where they shop, such as eBay, Amazon or Google, then they can easily extend the Platform to multiple marketplaces for a small monthly fee plus percentage of sales. Extending the Platform means that the merchant uses just one set of inventory details for as many marketplaces as they’d like to sell on – all managed from one, single interface. This results in countless saved hours and inventory management control mix-ups.

Screenshots from the Vendio Platform Website and from the Application itself:

The pricing plan is here: Vendio Pricing Page

For merchants who are interested in extending the Vendio Platform to marketplaces, Vendio is currently offering a 60 Day Trial. Along with the trial comes a great bonus – Vendio is waiving its Amazon fees for the rest of 2009.

What "Others" are saying - Robert Scoble interview with the Vendio Founders

My Take on the Vendio Platform eCommerce /software solution:

Scott's Take

Vendio has a long history as a third party software and applications developer and is a familiar company to eBay sellers. The work that has obviously gone into this multi-channel solution is very apparent and indicates a long standing understanding about how merchants, especially eBay merchants, work to get product online.

Usability: I give it a 8 on a scale of 10

Functionality: I say 9 on a scale of 10

Intimidation Factor: 3 on a scale of 10

The Vendio platform may indeed be the light at the end of a long tunnel for many eBay merchants, especially if they have not yet expanded beyond eBay to sell on other channels or on their own web store.

If you are an experienced eBay seller, this Vendio Platform solution will give you the confidence to go forth and find new markets, to boldly go into the ecommerce world - feet first, while knowing that you will have familiar surroundings and procedures available at all times. No need to leave the comfortable blanket that is eBay or the traffic the megasite produces, yet with the Vendio Platform tools, new markets await that may help you to see beyond the eBay safety net. Expanding into multi-channel ecommerce is the next logical step for any eBay merchant.

The software has been extremely well thought out, it is apparent that years of development work went into this package. And the prior experience with an eBay focused offering shows through here.

Importing existing eBay listings is an easy proceedure and once complete all can be converted to free web store listings.

Importing eBay Listings

The control panel is well laid out and the instructions are comprehensive as can be seen by reviewing this extensive create listings PDF found in the help section. Or you can read it here before you sign up for your free account.

Keep in mind this is just one of the 23 extensive help manuals available for download on the site:

Cons:

While the platform has had a great deal of sweat equity poured into it prior to launch in March of 2009, this does not mean that the new platform is completely finished.

One example of need for improvement comes when users begin to list a new item. The list new item screen (which is a one page piece of organized well thought out web engineering) unfortunately does not have an integrated image upload function. A user must first go to Images -> upload images and then create a folder to then upload images one at a time to the site. Then come back to create a new item and choose the folder where the images reside to include those images in a new listing. Obviously this process needs to be refined to allow for a faster method of uploading image files directly from the listing form. I contacted my Vendio contacts about this issue to find out if there were any way to speed up the process? I had an answer back within 1/2 hour - the entire image upload process is being re-worked and should be complete in a few weeks.

It seems that not only does this company listen to their users, but they also act on the needs of the users to improve the product.

Overall Impression: I say give Vendio a try, the ecommerce webstore is free forever and with an eBay import you can easily see how the system works for you. Having the ability to test products and control inventory on Amazon and eBay as well as in other search driven marketing and a stand alone ecommerce store from one control panel is the ideal solution that I have been looking for ages. Vendio as a company has been working with eBay sellers for a long time and they know the business. One does need to keep in mind that optional features incur monthly charges but the base online webstore is completely free. Why not give it a test drive?

Additional Tid Bit: One feature that Vendio does not tout regarding this free hosted webstore that I find most intriguing is that the eCommerce webstore package can be added to any existing domain. In other words if you have a business with an existing brochure style website and you would like to add an ecommerce shopping cart to that site without all the expense or hassel of starting over from scratch, give Vendio a hard look. By following a few simple instructions and simply creating a folder on your server with a single FTP upload a small piece of code your website can almost instantly become and eCommerce website. http://mywebsite.com becomes http://mywebsite.com/store with a fully functional ecommerce shopping cart that is secure and can accept multiple forms of payment. How cool is that? And it is Free!

Here is a table of existing Vendio Webstores for your review:

[This article is re-published here from the Examiner.com]

No one would argue that as a civilization we as humans have evolved. From pre-historic times when humans huddled together in small groups to survive the rigors of the natural elements they lived within, to the days of vast nation states that massed the will of their people into one awe inspiring force.

Social networks of all kinds have been at the core of the human experience.

In the world of today we all seem to have grown more insular.  Many times we look out at the world from behind a computer screen and from within the walls of small cubicles.  Email, chat, discussion forums, twitter friends and online dating all tend to keep us from make the most basic of all human connections - the face to face handshake.

As a person who is wrapped up in the Internet and all of the possibilities it affords and opportunity it offers I have seen and experienced the effects of being immersed in a world where friendships and connections are made from behind a keyboard.  The people you chat with online are mostly all real, but the Internet social experience can never match the tried and true old fashioned world of face to face networking.

This is why groups have sprung up around the world in an effort to climb out from the cubicle lives we have all been leading and actually schedule times to meet one another face to face.

One of these organizations is called Meetup.  The concept is simple at Meetup.com, they provide the tools needed to organize a meetup event and the home base website which allows local meetup organizers to offer a social networking group in thier area based on any interest or dicipline the group organizer wants to bring together.

The numbers of meetups are growing with 5.7 Million members scheduling 179,000 meetups each month in 11,507 cities around the world and covering 8,340 different topics.  There is certainly an interest or topic out there that you can find to fit your personality.

Here in Tampa Bay there are numerous local business and Internet related meetups scheduled each and every week.  There is usually no cost to join a group, although sometimes the organizer ask for donations to help cover the costs of the meetup group fees ($20.00 a month) and the meetup location costs.  Most groups meet at local restaurants or businesses but a meetup could be scheduled anywhere, even in a public park.

The idea is clearly to meet like minded people, no matter what your inclinations or interests are, there are certainly others who enjoy or want to learn more about the same topics.  From getting together to discuss bird watching to photography or small business networking, the idea is a sound and somewhat nostalgic premise.  Our parents joined the Elks or the Moose or the Rotary clubs and still do.  Somewhere along the line the majority of Americans gravitated away from these time honored groups and became more secular.  Now we are gravitating back to the social networking that our parents and grandparents knew was essential to personal and business growth.

Recently I started a meetup group based in Western Pinellas County.  The Pinellas Suncoast Business Strategy Networking Workshop the premise of this group is to get together like minded small business people centered along the beach corridor of Pinellas County to discuss business ideas and challenges in an effort to share ideas and grow as a group of entrepaneurs and business managers.

As an organizer of a group like this it can be a bit stressful when the time comes to actually hold the first meeting but in our case all went well.

The PSBSNW meets every other Wednesday at the Holiday Inn Harborside Jimmy Guana's Restaurant at 3PM.  The group consists of only 12 members so far but as one of the members, Tammy Taylor, said at the first meeting "It only takes two people to have an effective mastermind group" Tammy Taylor is an established podcast journalist and spirtual show host.

While the group may be small, the first meeting was more than any one member expected with an open atmosphere of sharing and brainstorming for each members business ideas and goals.

Another member, Irit is a fine art and estate jewelery specialist originally from Israel and she was impressed with the great tips she learned about getting her fine estate jewlery online faster and more effectively through the use of new and exciting tools and software that she was unaware of before.

Sheri Strykowski is a writer and has been published in national magazines and has worked on television productions. Sheri is just trying to refine her life long goal of building a sustainable internet business under her White Pineapple name and concept.  She shared an incredible networking contact tip with Tammy at the meeting, giving Tammy a possible entry into the voice over marketplace doing commercials for a nationally known marketing company.

The point to coming face to face with your peers highlights the fact that not all knowlege and certainly not all social networking occurs on the Internet.  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Friendfeed are all great places to spend a little time each day. Face to face networking still may be the most productive and rewarding social networking anyone can do - even today. Try organizing or attending a meetup in your area - based upon your interests.  You may be pleasantly surprised that old fashioned social interaction is still the number one way to expand your own horizons.

Twitter

I have been aware of the Vzaar video embed service for eBay sellers and Internet merchants since they started back in 2007.  Not being a big user of video though I really did not spend a lot of time checking the company out. To tell the truth, this could be one of my biggest mistakes in the last 2 years!

Video ENGAGE!

(I apologize to Captain Jean-Luc Picard - I couldn't resist!)

Everyone is now aware of the power of video for product presentations, for engagement of the audience and to more effectively present any service on a website (or in this case any eBay listing) in a fashion that is accepted worldwide. Viewers may not speak your language but a video can explain your product or service to them - it is that effective.

A picture may be worth a 1000 words! What is the extrapolation for video? - a Billion words?

Yet I have not paid as much attention to video as I should have. Frankly I was blithely wandering through life with my own little writers mentality enjoying ignorant bliss.  Wow, did I miss the boat on this one!

Jamie Parkins

Jamie Parkins of Vzaar tried to show me the way at eBay Live in Chicago 2008.  We met on the solutions floor about, oh... a dozen times it seems. Jamie was actively trying to get my attention for his product and to be honest he had a great story to tell.  I listened, I watched and I found it all very interesting but I have to admit something...  In the back of my head was what I thought was a huge question about this paid video embed service...

What about YouTube or Viddler?

...or any of the other free services out there allowing people to upload and share videos on websites or even eBay?

Vzaar at eBay Live 2008

This was the dreaded objection never heard by the marketer, never expressed objections are one of the biggest killers of sales in any trade show atmosphere.  I did not give Jamie the chance to answer my objection, which was somewhat unfair to him and his company.

I thought I had the answer to what about YouTube and Viddler and that answer would be that they would be the services of choice - free is always good... right?

Free is Not Necessarily Good

Jamie Parkins has diligently stayed in contact with me since eBay Live and eventually after much delay and several conversations... I presented my objection to him.  Wow, what was I thinking?

Jamie's answer to "why use Vzaar when free video services like YouTube and Viddler are out there" was as true to basic principles of business as is my answer to prospective website clients for "why not use a free website builder"?

The answer goes beyond "You get what you pay for" in ways which make a great deal of sense for anyone thinking of using video to market any product or service online and even more so for marketing on eBay.

I will let Jamie Parkins speak for himself and Vzaar on this question:

So many businesses and eBay sellers we speak with are well aware of YouTube and ask, why don’t I simply use them? It is a fair question but one that we are confident in answering when you look at the ways that businesses want to represent themselves and their brand online.

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.

We also offer our users access to:

• an unbranded video player
• use of our Search Enhancer tool that submits users videos into Google search
• the ability to add video to hundreds of eBay listings in a few clicks of a button
• multi sized video players (coming soon)

Vzaar users own their video and their video player. They have control over who sees it and where it’s 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 client’s potential buyer 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.

Pretty darn good answer - right?

So... Now I am thinking, yeah but .... is it expensive?

The Vzaar Pricing page on their website answers that question.

Upon reviewing the pricing page on Vzaar.com I did some digging around the internet and I found  the competitors seem to charge a great deal more than Vzaar for branded video players and embed capabilities.  Some charge as much as a $500.00 setup and a minimum of $100 - $1500 per month for the same service Vzaar is providing for $0 - $200 per month with no setup fees!

Yes I said $0.00 dollars - As In Free!

Anyone can use Vzaar for Free! - It is a modest amount of bandwidth at 2GB included on the free account and the player is branded by Vzaar but this is a great option for merchants to try out the service on their website, blog or in eBay listings (I think it will even work in Bonanzle or Etsy listings - but you have to use the embed code - this could be real easy with the Bonanzle Bulk editor).

The next step up from FREE is only $10.00 a month, which gives the user a clean video player without Vzaar branding and 5GB of bandwidth.  Check out the Vzaar pricing page link to see more about the other more advanced packages.

Branding Smanding Whats the Difference?

When I have a website client ask me to place YouTube videos in his/her site I sometime cringe. Why do I cringe?

Well, it depends on the situation really but if the client is selling a product or service which has competition, that competition may be found on YouTube. (if they are not there when you send your video up to you tube, they will be soon after - especially if you announce your YouTube videos to your competition by placing them on your own site).

In addition, when embedding a YouTube video in a website project I am in effect helping my client to send traffic off his or her site (or suggesting to the surfer to look for more information on YouTube). This does not make a lot of business sense in my mind.

Of course, if your goal is to bring viewers from YouTube to your site, uploading videos to this destination site with specific website branding is a good idea. Just when these new surfers from YouTube do land on your website or eBay listing - it is a better idea to keep them there with a different set of branded videos which cannot be found on YouTube. Vzaar recognized this strategy a long time ago and they have built the tool to allow merchants to keep customers engaged longer. Keeping your audience engaged with fresh and exciting content - this is the holy grail of Internet marketing.

What if I don't want to star in my business videos?

Vzaar has teamed up with video spokesperson agencies and production companies all around the world. Vzaar offers this service to help merchants produce professional branded and produced ad spots they can insert anywhere offering products or services presented by a professional spokesmodel (men and women) for a fraction of the cost of normal video production. (click image below to learn more).

No Model

No Pretty Face

My readers are aware that I have a face made for radio and sitting behind a computer screen banging on keys... So this kind of spokeperson service is perfect for me. Besides, everyone knows how shy I can be <sic>....

So what is the verdict on Vzaar?

Vzaar is an easy to use, easy to utilize and effective video embed marketing tool. A tool that allows any merchant the ability to keep his/her viewer interested in in his or her product and not go wandering off into the video surfing darkness.

Vzaar is cost effective, easy to setup and allows eBay sellers to embed videos in hundreds of live eBay listings with a click of a button.

Vzaar is worth a try - take a look at the videos in the sidebar here on the Trading Assistant Journal to see how people use Vzaar to sell things like used Guitars or to see how easy Vzaar is to setup.  What have you got to lose when the initial cost is zero and the upside is you could start engaging your customers like never before!