eBiz News: Hot Trends, Bling Bobbleheads, PayPal Tools

This week in e-commerce news is a "new toy" from Google called Hot Trends, a product resource for those who sell to the teen and urban markets, PayPal partnerships, the launch of free Webinars from Infopia and a shipping-and-ordering service that streamlines operations.

Google this week introduced Hot Trends, a listing of the most popular query phrases and topics capturing the attention of the masses as they search the Web.

Sizzling Searches
Corey Vickrey, Google software engineer, described it in a post at the official Google Blog: "What's on our collective mind as we search for information? What's interesting to people right now? Hot Trends will tell you. At a glance, you'll see the huge variety of topics capturing our attention. Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often — those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games] or perhaps [myspace]. Yes, [sex] too.

"Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that are deviating the most relative to their past traffic. And the outcome is the Hot Trends list. For each Hot Trend, you will see results from Google News, Google Blog Search and Web search, which helps explain why the search is hot."

Hip Hop Bobbleheads: Dancin' in the streets.

Vickery also says Google Trends is now updated, so that in addition to viewing the top search terms by country and city, you can also view sub-regions in more than 70 countries, as well as individual states in the U.S. Meanwhile, the weekly Google Zeitgeist list is being scrapped, though the monthly and year-end reports will still be issued.

This is How We Shake, Rattle and Roll
For Web shop owners who sell to the teen, Gen X and Y and urban markets, Grapevine Star Entertainment, Inc. is a distributor worth considering. After all, where else can you get Hip Hop Bobbleheads? This particular brand shakes both at the head and the waist. Grapevine is also selling Hip Hop Bobblehead branded t-shirts, skateboards, graphic designs, toys and gift products and much more merchandise aimed at the hip crowd. For more information on wholesale prices, visit the company Web site.

PayPal Partners Up
In secure payment news, Actinic and PayPal announced the integration between version 8 of Actinic's desktop e-commerce software and PayPal Website Payments Pro, which is already folded into the company's hosted solution called Actinic Express. Now businesses selling online with Actinic can process credit card payments through PayPal, as well as taking orders from customers using their PayPal accounts.

Website Payments Pro features three distinct functions: Express Checkout, Direct Payment API and Virtual Terminal. Together they let merchants offer the following payment methods: credit or debit cards through PayPal, directly on their Web sites, or by phone, fax or mail.

The Direct Payment API lets merchants accept credit or debit card payments just as they would with traditional merchant accounts. Buyers simply enter their card details directly on the vendor Web site. Payments are processed through PayPal.

Customers who choose to pay with PayPal Express Checkout can move from shopping cart to payment completion in three clicks, according to the company, because customers don't have to re-enter billing or delivery information with every purchase. The customer initiates and approves a PayPal payment earlier in the checkout process after which billing and delivery information are sent immediately from PayPal to the merchant's online store.

Website Payments Pro also includes Virtual Terminal, a new feature that allows Web shop owners to accept orders "offline" via phone, fax and mail. Vendors use an online interface to manually enter card details, which are then processed by PayPal. There are no set up or cancellation fees, reporting or gateway costs.

In other financial transaction news, IP Commerce, Inc., a software company enabling open payments services between businesses, is now offering an e-mail invoicing service that works with PayPal. This service will be included in the company's PASS Commerce Center, along with a Sales Ticker, as part of the PASS Gadget, which can be placed in the Windows Vista sidebar.

The invoices include an encrypted payment button that is embedded into the invoice, allowing small businesses to accept payment through their PayPal accounts. The Sales Ticker allows PayPal small business users to add an active desktop icon that receives and alerts them to incoming PayPal payments in real-time, without the need to login to their PayPal accounts.PASS Commerce Center is available now for free by visiting the product page.

Get a Free Education
For e-tailers who want help staying up-to-date on strategies for multiple channels, consumer-generated content, social networking and shopping sites, niche marketing, mash-ups and complex analytics, Infopia is hosting a series of free Webinars featuring experts from Google, salesforce.com and others.

Here are the topics coming up: SEO for e-commerce, May 30; Google Checkout Through Infopia, June 27; CRM for e-commerce, July 18; Driving Web Site Sales, Aug. 1; Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Aug. 22; Comparison Shopping Feeds, Sept. 12; and E-Mail Marketing, Oct. 3. Online sellers can register here. Infopia also plans to make recorded versions of these Webinars available following the initial live dates.

Automated Ordering and Shipping Service
Finally, on the day-to-day operations front, Stone Edge Technologies, Inc. and Shipwire.com partnered up to help small businesses streamline their ordering-and-shipping tasks by using Stone Edge Order Manager Version Five.

Version Five, which imports orders and prints invoices and packing slips, includes a new POS system that acts as a virtual cash register for merchants who sell to walk-in customers. This system pulls products from the same inventory that the Order Manager uses for Web and phone sales, and with some shopping cart systems can also automatically update the quantity-on-hand in Web stores when POS sales are made. It also works with POS hardware such as touch-screens and pole displays, and supports store credits, layaway and credit card transactions.

Shipwire.com, a fulfillment service for small businesses, handles the entire process of receiving, warehousing and shipping merchandise. Once an account is set up, which the company says takes less than 15 minutes, you send merchandise in bulk to Shipwire.com the company packs and ships each order.

With the new partnership, Order Manager will now automatically send fulfillment orders to Shipwire.com, as well as import shipment tracking data for e-mails and customer lookups and automatically synchronize inventory information. Other new features in Stone Edge's Order Manager Version Five include support for more shopping cart systems, including 3DCart, Modular Merchant, eBay ProStores and PDG Cart.

It also supports additional credit card gateways, including CyberSource, LinkPoint and QuickBooks Merchant Services. There is also an enhanced RMA system for managing returns and exchanges, and numerous improvements in the "Manual Orders" screen where phone, fax and mail orders are entered. Order Manager Version Five is $1,500 for the Standard Version, including five workstation licenses and extended support.

Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.

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