This week in e-commerce news, PayPal offers a deferral payment plan, LinkShare begins testing a new protocol designed to improve search engine rankings, WebTrends rolls out a new metric to measure online engagement as opposed to just page views and Actinic launches a business division. Also in headlines this week: Global Sources announces plans for a sports equipment B2B Web site to debut this fall.
Shop Now, Pay Later
Paypal Pay Later is a new service that allows e-tailers to offer promotional financing. Buyers that choose the promotional offer can defer payments for purchases on participating merchant Web sites. The new plan allows online merchants to offer a transactional credit account with flexible financing options to buyers at check out — even if a buyer doesn't have a PayPal account. Financing options, such as no payments for 90 days, give Web shop owners another marketing method for attracting online shoppers.
According to a study conducted by Northstar Research Partners and commissioned by PayPal, 56 percent of PayPal users are more likely to purchase from a site if a PayPal deferred payment option is available.
The PayPal Pay Later service is issued by GE Money Bank, one of the world's leading providers of consumer credit. PayPal's new deferred payment option is currently available to consumers and select merchants in the U.S.
LinkShare Offering Direct Route
In affiliate marketing news, LinkShare, a pay-per-action marketing network, is now testing a new link structure with Overstock.com intended to give advertisers natural search benefits to enhance their ranking on Google and other search engines, according to the company.
LinkShare publishers are now able to change out their Overstock.com links that currently redirect through LinkShare's servers and link directly to Overstock.com. The new "Search Optimizer link structure" is designed to ensure advertisers that potential customers will find the right path to Overstock.com.
Search engines crawl the Web to find relevant Web sites and this "natural" approach uses the intrinsic link structure of the Web to rank Web sites according to relevance, according to the company. LinkShare says the new link architecture is structured to ensure that Google and other engines credit all client links to their domain.
Overstock.com first selected LinkShare as its affiliate service provider in 2002. LinkShare provides Overstock.com publishers with a single interface to check all sales statistics on a real-time basis. Overstock.com publishers also have access to monthly statements and reports that detail impressions, click-throughs, sales and commissions.
The new link structure is slated to be introduced to all other Linkshare clients in the fourth-quarter.
Trend Watch: Site Engagement Metrics
On the analytics front, WebTrends is releasing Marketing Lab 2, an upgrade that includes added features to help measure site engagement. In the new version of the company's year-old product suite for parsing visitor-level data, user behaviors are assigned points that can accrue to tabulate engagement using a WebTrends Score. For example, a visitor to a travel site will accrue points for conducting searches for particular destinations and visiting associated pages. Post-visit contact, including e-mail, can then target the user with an offer based on recent visits.
"It helps you look at engagement in a way not defined by some of the traditional parameters," Tim Kopp, chief marketing officer at WebTrends, said in a statement.
The new scoring system reflects a trend in metrics to measure user activity, rather than just page views. Nielsen//NetRatings recently pushed a metric based on time spent while comScore last week said it would separate heavy from medium and light Internet users. ComScore also plans to make active time-spent data available to clients. The advantage of WebTrends Score, says the company, is that online sellers can set their own criteria, creating a dynamic metric to guide communications with customers.
Another separate component, called WebTrends Visitor Intelligence, is a multi-dimensional reporting analysis tool. E-tailers can create customer segmentation to study visitor behavior across multiple channels and visits.
The two features, Score and Visitor Intelligence, are bundled into the ML2 interface, which hosts a customizable "My WebTrends" home page where users can access the reports, bookmarks and site reports they most often track. Web reporting can be tied to data from offline properties, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM. WebTrends plans to launch a partner program to provide bi-directional data and feeds from online and offline sources.
The Sporting Life: New B2B Site
In product sourcing developments, there's good news for B2B sellers. Global Sources plans to launch its Sports & Leisure B2B Web site in October, as well as a monthly sourcing magazine in November.
Global Sources' Chairman and CEO, Merle A. Hinrichs says in a statement: "This sector is strong and growing. Made in China sports products account for 65 percent of global demand, according to the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry. China Customs statistics show that China's exports of sports products were $10.9 billion in 2006, up 14 percent from 2005."
The Sports & Leisure online marketplace is scheduled to be available through Global Sources Online in October.
New Business Division from Actinic
Finally, in online sales news this week, e-commerce systems provider Actinic announced the formation of a new business unit, Business Services, to provide tailored sales, technical support and development resources to those looking to take their business to the next level. The company is also introducing Actinic Enterprise, Actinic's first multi-channel product integrating e-commerce, mail order, telephone order and electronic-point-of-sales systems.
Business Services provides the following:
- Pre-sales consultancy and needs analysis;
- Tailored Actinic solutions;
- Technical support with the option for an on-site service;
- Expertise in areas like system development and integration, site design and management, hosting and payment services and search engine optimization.
Actinic Enterprise is supported by a new underlying Microsoft SQL Server database platform, and offers e-tailers increased capacity and scalability, together with significant changes to the way offline orders are handled. According to the company, the main benefits Actinic Enterprise offers over existing Actinic solutions include the following:
- Saving time, improving efficiency and integrating sales from multiple channels with an integrated offline order entry screen for mail order and telephone ordering
- Order-processing improvements including a configurable summary screen and ability to display order information in a way that suits the back-office procedures
- Increased speed, capability and scalability of the system due to a database switch from Access to MS SQL Server
- Multiple user support that lets staff manage the catalogue, update customer details and process orders
- More accurate offline ordering through integration with Postcode Anywhere and YESpay, which provide real-time credit card processing;
- Streamlining and greater control of online and offline business areas, with Actinic Link integrating e-commerce and EPOS systems.
Phil Rothwell, director of Actinic Business Services explained the theory behind the restructuring move in this statement:
"Many of our customers have the same issue — success. They have built a thriving e-commerce or retail operation using Actinic solutions and have now reached a point where the next level can only be reached by making a significant investment in a new system they have no experience with. This is a big risk for a small business. By creating a dedicated division within Actinic and developing a more capable, faster and scaleable solution in Enterprise, we can give peace of mind to retailers that they can move their business forward with a (company) they already trust."
Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.
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