Posts from — April 2009

For those using Wordpress blogs, a plugin called “Tweet Suite”  should post from one to the other. Here’s for trying. If you found this post on my twitter account, then you got there from a tweet suite plugin. You can find the plugin here:

http://danzarrella.com/beyond-tweetbacks-introducing-tweetsuite.html

The only small issues I have with tweetsuite is that it uses tinyurl instead of my blog url to post to twitter, and I’m not finding a way to keep this or that post from being posted to twitter. Other than that, it’s sweet!

A few people have posed the question of twitter profit. What good is twitter anyway. You go online, put up a few lines and then what? What exactly is twitter good for in the ecommerce field.

E-commerce, it’s marketing. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times. It’s about having someone know you exist so they can buy from you. With twitter the object is to get your message out with links. Let’s try a real life example.

Here are some tweets that do next to nothing:

1. I’m wondering how to promote my business.
2. I’m selling great stuff at my website so visit me.

Here are the alternatives:

1. I’m learning to promote my business, read about it on my blog at http://www.agenius-marketing.com/wp/
2. $59.99 : Thermor BIOS Wireless Weather Station For PC http://www.woot.com

The difference between these tweets are inherent in SEO (search optimization) work. First of all you need a keyword in your tweet, and a link where those who were attracted by the keyword can go to find out more. In addition, you should include daily updates on “what are you doing”  with things that are of interest to others. While some of your best friends will appreciate the warm fuzzies of saying “I’m drinking coffee” it isn’t much for those who aren’t your real friends. Perhaps a mention of a good book, or a little known idea in your field of expertise would be better. Most people do drink coffee, fruit juice, put on shoes, wear jeans, etc. So if you are doing twitter for business you’ll be better off saying things more like “The Supreme Court made a decision  to reverse the unconstitutional authority of police to search vehicles at will.” which is so much more informative for your readers giving insight and knowledge to them. The object is to give informative content and drive traffic to your website.

Not that a little birdie or two didn’t mention it, but as I travel the net today I noticed that one of the founding fathers of the Internet Merchants Association has gone wild with a new post, and a domain redirect to cancunbeachresort.com… what a shame. The post details some kind of a treasury money grubbing thing, and a disclaimer, of course.

I thought I made it abundantly clear some months ago when as Chair of the Moderation committee, that Steve was a wildcard, ah, but alas, it’s true!

I’m still waiting for the apology I’m owed by the rest of the supposedly sane folks over there but pray tell if it ever happens.

Meanwhile a visit to the Internet Sellers Group is sure to provide those without a home, a place to shout out with no strings attached. We were planning to take those down but refugees are welcome to visit and discuss the current drama.

I hate to say “I told ya so” but I told you so. Ahhhh, see you around.

ProStores has sent a note around a couple of days ago advising ProStore owners that the checkout redirect that they can now have with eBay will not be there after 2010… and the nice news is that ProStores has “chosen” not to support the requirements of checkout redirect until then so it will go away much sooner. “As of June 15, 2009, they will only allow Third-Party Checkout through vendors who have updated their checkout pages to meet specific design and functionality requirements. Among the required changes, eBay has eliminated the ability to cross-sell and up-sell items from your own Web store in the checkout flow. ”

Therefore folks, until June 15 when checkout redirect will no longer be used , unless you’re on another system (other than ProStores) who will abide by the difficult to maintain API piece that eBay is now requiring. ProStores will sign off of checkout redirect on July 15.
This tells me either eBay’s requirements are too difficult for anyone to consider, even eBay’s own ProStores platform, or that eBay doesn’t consider it an important item, (which of course they don’t since they are going to put it to bed).

This frankly means that eBay merchants who use any platform for an off-eBay store, I mean a website, will need to realize that eBay if a fantastic traffic generator and a couple of things will need to be in place to help you cross-sell from eBay.

1. a userid on eBay that matches a domain name

2. an “About me” page with links to your website

The first being of the utmost importance because we don’t know how long eBay will allow off-site linking to assist eBay sellers in saving money on fees.