Exciting Commerce // Unlimited

eBay AdCommerce Program for USA and Germany

In the course of eBay's changing revenue stream – away from high setup fees towards alternative income sources – eBay recently revealed eBay AdCommerce for the American and German markets ("A Text Advertising Solution for Sellers").  The program is reminiscent of Amazon’s Clickriver:

"eBay AdCommerce is a pay-per-click advertising solution that will allow eBay sellers to advertise their listings and eBay Stores via a text ad on eBay search result pages."

Since the program stands in contradiction to eBay’s (up till now?) core competence – product sales - the reaction from the Powersellers was foreseeable:

"Once upon a time I would have been excited about a new ebay (PPC) Pay Per Click program, but now It makes no sense to pay ebay to sell your items and then on top of that pay them some more to not sell your items.

The program is highly susceptible to click fraud by your ebay competitors due to the close nature of customer and competitor being in the same arena, unlike ads targeted and spread across the net.

eBay AdCommerce only allows sellers to link to an eBay page. As you know, ebay does not mind profiting from fraud."

eBay will in the future juggle with three different adword programs:

"Depending on the keyword and the buyer's purchasing history we will either display eBay AdCommerce, Shopping.com or Yahoo! Ads."

More opinions from Pascal Finette and MyBlogUtopia

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

4 Stores, 1 Checkout (2): Gap Raves About New Shopping Cart

Many were surprised when Gap.com implemented an integrated shopping cart system for its four major brands (Gap, Old Navy, Piperlime and Banana Republic).  Prompted by the wishes of their customers, the integrated shopping cart offers a single flat-rate shipping fee and one package delivery for any articles purchased, irrespective of brand.

At the Shop.org annual conference Gap.com CEO Toby Lenk gave a positive summary ("Gap Inc Proves Brands Can Get Along") and addressed questions from the audience on the possibility of increased “trading down” effects where customers switch to cheaper brands.  Not at all:

"In fact, Lenk said, since combining Gap.com, OldNavy.com, BananaRepublic.com and Piperlime.com, the biggest winners have been Banana Republic and Piper Lime: the brands with the highest price points."

More reports from the Shop.org annual conference

Shop.org has this year cleverly deployed a blogger team on site, who have intensively reported on the other presentations.  Noteworthy reads:

• Mulpuru discusses the state of online retail today
• Endless.com: What’s Your Spin on Carousel Navigation?
• The Borders Cross-Channel Breakthrough (+ Interview)

Related posts:

• 4 Stores, 1 Checkout: Gap Implements Integrated Shopping Cart

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

PrivateOutlet Shopping Club Gets 7.3 M Euro Venture Capital

Made public last week, European shopping club PrivateOutlet.com has received 7.3 million Euros ($10m) in venture capital from a group of investors including Munich based BayTech Venture Capital:

"GP Bullhound, the European technology investment bank, today announces the completion of a €7.3 million financing round for PrivateOutlet.com, the Internet based private members designer clothing club.

The funding comes from lead investor BayTech Venture Capital, GP Bullhound Sidecar, Kreos Capital and the management team. It will be used for international expansion and sales and marketing."

France based PrivateOutlet, who sells European wide, claims one million registered users (a somewhat tenuous claim, given Google Trends data).

Key revenue data was released (German press release) by PrivateOutlet in March:

“With 30 percent, Private Outlet produced the most turnover in France. After that follows Italy and Spain with 20% each, then England and Germany with 15%.”

PrivateOutlet told us, that they had achieved 150,000 German members by the month of May.

Nowhere in e-commerce are institutional investors so loose with their cash as in the private shopping club arena.  Almost 30 million Euros have flowed during the last one and a half years alone into European clubs with German operations.

In Germany, Brands4Friends is pulling ahead as market leader.  According to BuyVIP, they have achieved their “Operational Break Even” in the first half year.

Related posts:

• US Media Discovers European Shopping Club Phenomenon
• French Online Travel Club Voyageprive Broke Even in 2007

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

Fast Company on Kayak.com and MySpace vs. Facebook

Even if the latest issue of Fast Company has already come out, we’re giving a recommendation to take a look back at the September issue – as a bit of weekend study.

In the September issue, Fast Company has a write-up on one of the most fascinating travel websites since Expedia, Kayak.com ("The Success of Kayak.com").

"The eureka moment was, What if we focused on giving the airlines leads instead of selling tickets?" Hafner says. They could collect money on a pay-per-click basis, the way Google does, and wouldn't have the customer-service expenses of Orbitz or Travelocity."

Also, more enlightening than many other reports on the MySpace vs Facebook rivalry is the article "MySpace - The Sequel".

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

Spotlight: MyCelebrityFashion in Guardian Elevator Pitch

MyCelebrityFashion presented itself recently in an elevator pitch on The Guardian ("mycelebrityfashion offers relief from high street monotony"):

MyCelebrityFashion tries to get users to participate in the search for celebrity clothing in regular shops.  Perhaps the most interesting feature is the ability to tag the clothing in celeb pics with information.

More in the launch press release.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

TurnTo: Social Shopping Turned Upside Down

There were also some good offerings to be seen at Demofall 08, which was running parallel to the TechCrunch50 Conference.

Noteworthy from the e-commerce arena was TurnTo, a social shopping startup featuring a radical decentralized strategy.  This startup pulls in its users using a very personal and direct method from its partner shops.

Here for example, you see the TurnTo symbol near the product, "Find friends who have shopped Teavana".

As hanger-on for a decentralized sales channel, we’re very interested to see if such an extreme tactic will bear fruit.  Because while many other sites operate with the model “First the platform, then the reach”, TurnTo works the other way around: “First the reach, then the platform”.  The question of critical mass has been answered by founder George Eberstadt directly.

TurnTo is also one of those social shopping sites which have heavily borrowed (good) concepts from Facebook & Co.

The DEMO presentation is available as video online.  TurnTo is, like all the startups presented this week, fresh in the (open) beta phase.  Empirical ratings are therefore still lacking.

(via Internetretailer)

Related posts:

• TC50: What's Next for ThisNext in Social Shopping?
• TC50: Social Shopping Sites Bringing Joy to their Users
• The Future of Social Shopping

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

TC50: GoodGuide for Safe, Healthy and Green Products

One of the final highlights of the TechCrunch50 Conference was GoodGuide, a comprehensive directory of safe and healthy products, from both the personal and environmental perspectives.  The startup analyses and rates commonly used products on the basis of their sustainability and their usability for the general public (see profile):

"GoodGuide.com provides free and easy access to the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies."

Sometimes you wonder why companies of this sort haven’t popped up in the past.  GoodGuide intentionally doesn’t rely on User Generated Content for the product assessments, but rather a combination of scientific know-how with a comprehensive database.  Users can contribute by rating their satisfaction with a product.

Here is the presentation video and a short introduction from cnet.

Related posts:

• TC50 Spotlights: Stileit, MyJambi, OpenTrace, Fitbit
• TC50: Social Shopping Sites Bringing Joy to their Users

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

TC50: Is Product Placement THE Revenue Stream of the Future?

Many startups still can’t think of any better monetization options than (banner) ads.

So it’s even more worthwhile to note down the deliberate tip given at the TechCrunch50 Conference by Ron Conway, one of the most active angel investors in Silicon Valley:

"Product placement is another multi billion dollar market emerging right in front of our eyes."

His commentary was in reference to Hangout.net, a startup which has demonstrated quite strikingly how seamless product integration can be.

The team told us that besides (Threadless-)Shirts (for the Avatars) and AllPosters (for the wall decorations) there is also a cooperation with shoe house Zappos in place.

Amongst other things, the founders are currently fiddling with how partner products (in this case shoes) can be integrated in 3D into the site.

On the same topic, Hitwise has recently examined the product placement effectiveness on Stardoll.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

TC50 Spotlights: Stileit, MyJambi, OpenTrace, Fitbit

As if Amazon or eBay never existed, e-commerce seems to be no big deal in the official program of the TechCrunch50 Conference.

The “e-commerce” session itself was disappointing, although some interesting e-commerce startups were to be found in the other sessions.  Particularly noteworthy here is Hangout.net (see related article).

Markus Spath has an exceptional grasp of the conference highlights (German site) and has an intuitive feel for the ideas which will amaze the tech-masses.  Amongst his top recommendations: FitBit and OpenTrace. Techcrunch lists the winners of the competition.

There were also several notable e-commerce startups to be found in the DemoPit.  Besides the previously reported social shopping sites Apprema and MyFavz, MyJambi and Stileit are worth a look.

MyJambi can be perhaps best described as an “Etsy for services”.  While there are many marketplaces for (small) service providers to choose from, myJambi tries to connect customers and private service providers (eg. babysitters, tutors, assistants, etc.) together on a personal level.

Also worthwhile to check out is Stileit, although for now only with MS Explorer. Here’s a demo video which shows how Stileit assists with the visual search for patterns and outfit arrangements.

For example, it’s possible to upload a photo of a particular blouse and then search for matching and complementary products.  More in the corporate description.

Related posts:

• TC50: Social Shopping Sites Bringing Joy to their Users
• TechCrunch50: Hear the Ooh’s and Ahh’s (and Maybe Boo’s)

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.

Sales Update: Etsy Rushes from Record to Record

Etsy sellers broke new sales revenue records in the summer months with figures of $7.1 and $7.6 million in July and August.  They’re therefore in good position to reach their publicly announced 2008 yearly target of $100 million.

In the first eight months the gross sales volumes surpassed the $48 million mark.  The average sale price drifted to the $14.60 range.  Etsy takes for itself 3.5% commissions on sales revenue and a 20 cent set up fee per product.

Most recently, Maria Thomas was installed at Etsy as new CEO.  Two of the original founders left the company.

Related posts:

• Etsy Boss Rob Kalin Also to Take Back Seat
• Etsy Sales Update: $33.6 million in the First Half of 2008

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.