On Internet Business

Affiliate Marketing – caveat emptor?

Posted by Michael under Affiliate Marketing, Online Retail

The past two weeks have seen a small but hot war take place in the British travel marketing sector as affiliate marketers found out that one travel company had different pricing policies for consumers arriving direct or via an affiliate.

UK-based accommodation site VivaStay is offering cheaper rates per night for booking hotels to users arriving direct at site, with a price hike of up to £4 for those who land via an via an affiliate link. Fascinatingly, their own terms and conditions state: Lowest Price Guarantee: We at vivastay.com are committed to offer our customers the lowest possible price in the industry for the products and services we provide. For this purpose, we have contracted the industry’s most renowned land arrangement providers in order to pass the best prices on to you. Hmmm …

Lawrence Target of CheapBeach was testing links for his new site when he discovered that customers using affiliate links to get to VivaStay would pay a premium. He said ‘For Vivastay to sneek in the implementation of this added hidden charge to the customer from an affiliate link is outrageous. Thankfully not all merchants and travel providers are quite so underhanded. “It is an affront to the very fabric of Affiliate Marketing and I suspect that other affiliates will also be dropping them like a stone, how can you work with a merchant you just can’t trust, it only works if both parties are in synergy, a proper partnership, that is what achieves the best returns.’

Danny Gallo who is ‘Marketing and Sales’ at Viva Travel, VivaStay’s parent company, responded to the concerns at the A4U forum, used by many European affiliates. His comments are interesting: We at Viva Travel have looked in to the issue concerned and take your points seriously as no-one wants to damage brand integrity. After much discussion in the team it has been found that the issue raised is indeed occuring and as [forum name removed] pointed out, the issue is in regards to the commission paid out whereby if the prices were identical to the direct prices (users visiting our site without using an affiliate link) then we as a company would suffer a loss. However, when customers use the discount codes available to them the prices are much lower than going direct. I agree with [forum name removed] that this should perhaps be more transparent and we are looking in to ways that this can be enhanced to accommodate this. As to whether this is allowed, we are not sure as we have not been advised that this is against any rules and this is the first time that this has been brought to our attention. I’m not sure also as to whether it’s allowed that affiliates use coupon codes or make transactions via their own referring sites, as [name removed] has done which not only reduces the price of the purchase but also awards the very affiliate a commission for their own purchases, which we find in itself to be unfair and guilty of a similar “crime”. Again, as this is not stated in any rules per se, we are not to follow suit and make any accusations. Lastly, we would expect any affiliates to approach us first directly rather than posting a demeaning post with attempts to damage the brand. This would enable us to rectify the issue for all concerned in an amicable manner beforehand.

However, affiliates claim the practice definitely damages their own reputations. A disgruntled blogger said: How can you legitimately build up a loyal readership on your site once the readers realise they are going to get screwed every time they follow one of your recommendations? …. how is that fair to the affiliate who sent the traffic, when they get paid nothing for a converting customer?

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Verne Harnish Daily Meeting Agenda

Posted by Michael under Leadership

Following a fantastic workshop with Verne Harnish last week I was reminded of how to ensure communication and coordination in an organisation.

 What should you be asking your team everyday?

According to Verne it is the following 3 questions with no more than 2-5 minutes being spent answering each question.  

1. Whats Happening  ? This should cover specifics about activities, meetings, accomplishments, news from customers etc

2. Daily Measurements ? This should be from the day before and the goal for today. It is critical to focus on the current day rather than problems of the previous one.

3. Where are you stuck ? Is there an issue stopping progress or frustrating success. How can it be fixed ?

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Comment policies and businesses

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Leadership, Online Retail, Social Media

Since I raised the reputational issue it seems to have been flavour of the week all over the place. Mathew Ingram, a senior writer at GigaOm.com, a leading technology blog network in the United States and previously communities editor for the Toronto, got into a major twitter debate about the value, or otherwise, of anonymous comments.

Then econsultancy weighed in with a digest of the article and their top five tips on how to set a policy for comments and in the same week, Lisa Barone wrote an article at Small Biz Trends that unpicked which bad commentary it’s worth responding to, and which should be ignored.

So what does this tell us about the business world – is there a sudden rash of nasty (anonymous or otherwise) commentators out there? Not exactly, but there do seem to be two things going on that underline the relationship between business and social media:

1. Economic stringency seems to be creating a sub-group of consumers who are more active, and pro-active, in giving both good and bad feedback online – these are very social media savvy individuals who are comfortable using a wide range of online communication tools to express their feelings and there appears to be a developing behaviour in this group to buy, consume or experience and then to comment on what was obtained for their money, whether it’s a concert ticket, a coffee or a car service that they’ve purchased.
2. New social media users, usually between forties and their seventies, and being educated about social media by their children or grandchildren: these are consumers who’ve got a strong sense of community and customer service and may have spent years complaining fruitlessly about bad or no customer support. While they may be social media novices, they are experienced complainers, and they are mobilising around the failures of big business in particular, and commenting not just on business but on political and social issues that affect them.

It is these two groups, converging on the ‘comment’ function from very different directions, that are driving the upsurge in user-response and that’s why businesses, everywhere, need to have a policy, because comments may only take a moment to create and send, but they can negatively affect a business for years.

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Business masterclass: dealing with online complaints and criticisms

Posted by Michael under Entrepreneur Resources, Search, Social Media

It can destroy a business – the moment when you realise that somebody, somewhere has something bad to say about you. For Arclid Transport, this week, it’s the emergence of a video on YouTube that appears to show one of their lorries pushing a car along a motorway at 60 mph. The video was taken in January and the police were informed at the time, but have reopened the enquiry as a result of public and media attention.

So what do you do if something bad turns up about you on the net, or on social media?

Be objective – Assess the situation. Has your organisation done anything to deserve the commentary, complaint or coverage that you’re getting? While it’s both easy and natural to leap to your own defence, it may be better to stop, think and redress any problems at the same time as reacting. If there’s any grounds to the complaint, deal with them using three simple stages:
• Accept – admit where there has been a problem
• Explain – if there is a reason for the problem that might change people’s view of the situation (serious illness in your call-handling team? A transport strike making import of components impossible and therefore slowing up your deliveries?) state it simply and honestly, without making excuses
• Act – say what you are doing to solve the problem, and thank people for bringing it to your attention.
Maybe you can’t say a great deal, but you can at least thank the poster for their comment and say that you’re getting in touch with them through other channels to find out more about their situation and how you can put things right.

Request removal – Unfair or defamatory commentary exists and you can contact the forum moderator or site owner and ask for its removal. Many will work with you on this, but some won’t and in those cases, and if the commentary is totally untrue, you may want to take legal advice. Remember that ‘ghost’ versions of internet pages can exist in caches and you may also need to ask search engines to implement Content Removal Request for you.

Ignore the problem – this seems insane, but it can happen that you can’t get rid of bad publicity. It might be that an internet site is owned by the friend of the complainant, for example and so they just won’t take bad material down. In this case you’re better off putting your energy into the process of smothering bad commentary in good. You can do this by asking your loyal customers to post good reviews on Facebook and LinkedIn and on trade-based directories like FreeIndex. This stops bad comments being at the top of the list when people search for information about you.

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Predictions for online retail delivery

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Online Retail

Snow Valley claims to be the UK’s leading provider of e-commerce services. In addition to working with clients to create e-commerce solutions, they undertake research into online retail. This year they’ve evaluated 166 UK retailers, ordering goods from 137 sites and creating data for 27 different parts of the delivery process, from charges, to acknowledgement, to speed of delivery.

Trends they predict include:

• Tiered delivery options from basic to deluxe, and including special weekend deliveries becoming more standard offering – at present only around a quarter of online retailers offer a Saturday delivery option.
• Later order deadlines – the old 5pm cutoff for next day delivery or for acknowledgement of receipt of order, is already fading from memory, but it’s expected to get pushed back and back. Ebuyer leads the field with an 11pm cutoff for next day delivery.
• Order checking will become more detailed and more mobile – individuals and businesses will expect to be able to track their delivery through every stage to imminent delivery, either via a dedicated tracking website or using a phone app.
• Multi-channel options such as collect from store, and reserve and collect instore are likely to become much more common.
• Loyalty schemes for delivery – Amazon Prime is well established as a leader in this field, more online retailers are likely to move into the territory of the customer paying an annual fee and then getting all their deliveries free for 12 months.

All these, and other, online retail innovations, rely on secure payment processing. Payment processing companies offer different secure systems for handling credit and debit care payments and other online payment methods.

UK Payment service providers

• Commidea – believes in utilising the latest technology to provide state of the art credit card payment processing solutions.
• CreditCall – specialise in the processing of credit and debit card payments for Card payments at unattended machines (eg parking, ticketing, vending, kiosks).
• DataCash – has a single interface that allows organisations to process secure, multi-channel payments anywhere in the world.
• Docdata Payments - provide innovative payment solutions that cover all financial elements of the order-to-cash process for online businesses.
• Elavon – an innovative company that securely and reliably manages payments business for a global roster of clients and partners
• Netbanx – processes Web or call centre captured global payments via credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid cards, and a range of other payment types.
• Ogone – delivers manual to fully integrated solutions for managing electronic payments in several domains including e-commerce, ticketing and travel.
• Pacnet – offers local currency pricing and payment options to customers in over 130 countries around the world
• Paypal - allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet.
• Paypoint.net – processes secure online payments for UK and European businesses.
• RBS Worldpay – provides payment services for mail order and internet retailers, as well as point of sale transactions
• SagePay – the union of Protx, (PSP) and Sage, one of the UK’s older business software brands.
• SecureHosting – offers an extremely versatile and customisable real-time online card processing payment gateway.
• ServeBase – a provider of card processing software solutions and services.
• Transaction Network Services (TNS) – global communications company that enables payments, money or voices to move around the world
• Yespay International - a global payments services company providing highly secure and scalable EMV Chip & PIN.

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Brands and Superbrands – why your brand matters

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Leadership

It’s been major business news that Microsoft has knocked Google off the top spot in the Business Superbrands poll – after two years, Google has ceded the #1 position and dropped to fifth. In the technology and new media worlds, this has been headline material, but the so-called Superbrands are rarely out of the news anyway: they’re household names and their activities affect all our lives, so what makes a brand into a superbrand and why does it matter?

Superbrands make more profit

At present it matters because the superbrands are being rewarded for their status – in what economists have dubbed a ‘flight to quality’, the tough new conditions for business have led to increased profitability for the superbrands, at the expense of their competitors.

Brand loyalty – the often emotional relationship that people have with a brand, has helped the superbrands to improve their positions to the detriment of their rivals, and America’s Greatest Brands calls this the Rule of Six:

Consumers who are loyal to a brand are six times more likely to

• Buy its products.
• Buy more of its products, buy more of its products more often, and/or trade up when buying (more of) its products.
• Recommend its products to friends, family, and colleagues.
• Invest in publicly traded companies.
• Rebuff competitive offers, especially those that are price-based.
• Give their preferred brand the benefit of the doubt in difficult circumstances or questionable situations.

Superbrands outstrip competition

In every case, a market leader, such as GlaxoSmithKline or Eddie Stobart, has managed to benefit from the economic downturn by improving its position over its rivals, as the rule of six has generated more sales, more upsales, more recommendations to purchase and more rejections of opposition offers.

Superbrands, therefore, engage with their loyal customer base in very specific ways, starting with a clear understanding of what place the brand occupies in the customer’s mind and where the place might be expanded or developed. In addition, superbrands keep engagement with the consumer at the centre of what they do – they don’t relax their focus on communication with their customer base. Finally, superbrands transmit their own values easily to their customers and build a shared base of values that deepens the emotional relationship between the brand and the individual buyer.

So who are the current superbrands? Full information can be found here, but brief highlights are that British Airways has made it back into the top ten after a year out of the coveted top spots, although BA’s pleasure may be limited by seeing Virgin a full four places ahead. British banks, unsurprisingly, have plummeted down the list, and RBS has actually fallen out of the top 500 for the first time but HSBC and Barclays have both improved their positions in the 500, perhaps because of consumer confidence in them because they didn’t need direct financial support from the government.

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LiveOps – the future’s bright, the future’s cloud computing?

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources

Cloud computing is a term that LiveOps believes will become one of the biggest buzzwords in business in the next few years – but right now, almost nobody really understands what it means.

Essentially, LiveOps is callcentre outsourcing made huge. Really huge. By using a virtual call centre with a massive platform, the LiveOps system picks the ‘best’ available call agent – based at home – to answer each individual call.

The difference scalability makes

Imagine you have a new product – something at the cutting edge of technology. Your customers want instant support for their investment in your product. Or maybe you offer an upscale service, and your customer base feels entitled to 24/7 interactivity with your organisation. Or perhaps yours is just an old-fashioned retail business that prides itself on giving excellent service when the customer needs it. Whatever your support scenario, it’s an expensive process to meet the expectations of a customer base.

On the other hand, using the LiveOps platform means that the best available operative picks up the call from your customer, or potential customer, at any time of day or night, whether it’s a public holiday where you’re based or not, and you only pay when the customer calls – no down time, no double rates for unsocial hours, no sick pay or lieu time to cover … you don’t have to do the scaling, LiveOps does it for you. So if you get national TV coverage for your cool new computer game, you might have fifty agents fielding calls, but if you get zip publicity, you don’t have fifty staff sitting by silent phones at your expense.

The workforce wins too

And while that all sounds fantastic from the entrepreneur’s perspective, the agents are beneficiaries from the system too. Individuals can schedule their work to suit themselves; they are not stressed by commuting and workplace relationships such as bullying and favouritism, love affairs and other personal situations that develop between individuals trapped in the same building for long hours; and above all, their career is more secure because they are not at risk of the form of redundancy that follows from a business finding that premises costs are one of the biggest drains on cashflow and therefore having to decide whether to close a call centre, making many people redundant.

The way LiveOps puts it is that companies can choose to ‘lay off the buildings and keep the employees’ by using a cloud computing model. And it must work, because recent research suggests that employees on the ‘work at home’ call centre system are nine times less likely to quit than those travelling to work in a physical call centre. Not only that, but many people for whom working outside the home is problematic, such as those with health issues, stay-at-home parents with young children or adults caring for an elderly and demanding relative, can all benefit from employment in cloud computing, giving them a career and providing clients with a dedicated, high-calibre workforce.

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How to increase online enquiries by 25-40%

Posted by Michael under Online Retail

Converting click interest to enquiries is a key part of running a successful online business and LukeW recently reviewed a new way of creating an enquiry registration form, designed by Jeremy Keith.

The key difference between the form, which can be found at Keith’s own site, Huffduffer, and the traditional sign-up for more information form, is the narrative format it uses to ask for information. While classic forms uses boxes – often with a pull down menu offering a choice of pre-set options – the input system on Keith’s form is sentence-based, it allows people to write a phrase in the box.

In all other respects the form operates in the classic way: you can tab between boxes, you can start entering information by select any text box, and if the data that’s entered is in an unacceptable format the form handles the error by posting up an error message with an indicator of where the error needs to be created.

It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that a form that requires more work from the individual (choosing a selection of words and entering them) would increase response rates, but it does. And the evidence comes from Vast – a leading vertical search platform for cars, travel, and house purchase in the USA. Vast ran some online testing, using a ‘contact this dealer form’ that measured the response to a traditional form and a narrative based one. The results were fascinating – narrative-style forms increased conversion by 25-40%.

Standard forms look like the one on the left: classic boxes and lots of pull-down menu items with a three part box for entering a telephone number. It’s the kind of form that most of us see on the internet almost every time we visit a retail- or service- based site.

On the other hand, the narrative based form offers less information about ‘what to put’ and more scope about ‘personalising’ the form according to the viewer’s own wishes. The three telephone number boxes have shrunk to just one field too.

There isn’t enough data yet to work out why the narrative form seems more appealing – but it seems likely that there are two reasons: the first is that we naturally think in sentences, not information bytes, so that language logic of narrative seems more comfortable to us, the second is that having scope to supply information in the form we want seems less intrusive than being told we have to give that information in the form that is acceptable to the recipient – we’re happier to give exactly the same information, if we have the scope to decide the words we supply it in.

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We are up for another award ! Quayside are finalist in Online Business of Year Award

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Online Retail

I’m delighted to discover that we  are a finalist in the Online Business of the Year category of the Fast Growth Business Awards. It’s thanks to an excellent team that supports the company that we’ve got this far, and the national recognition that this delivers to Quayside is definitely their reward for exceptional levels of dedication and ingenuity at a time when the business environment has been tough and the economy has made it tough for any organisation to thrive.

Our short-listing is an exciting acknowledgment of the quality of Quayside’s teamwork, and the Fast Growth Business Awards London awards dinner in April will be a highlight of the year for me, not least because last year’s winners, Seatwave.com are a truly innovative online marketplace where fans can buy and sell tickets for concerts, sporting events, shows and almost any other kind of live event imaginable.

Being in such good company is a fantastic incentive to continue our growth and development.

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Google – the short history of a global revolution

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Search

1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin who overturned the conventional search engine procedure of ranking results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page in favour of a system that analysed the relationships between websites.

2000 – it’s already the world’s largest search engine, having indexed a billion web pages

2002 – the new cost-per-click advertising model that Google introduces becomes its greatest revenue generator

2004 – floated. As Google shares hit the NY Stock Exchange, and investors see the historical income jump from $85 in 2001 to $1.5 billion in 2003, they make nearly a thousand Google employees into overnight millionaires.

2006 – the YouTube generation: Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion, dwarfing the $580m that News Corporation paid for rival social networking website MySpace in 2005. The combined power of Google with YouTube, which shows more than 140 million videos daily, makes Google the biggest media giant the world has ever seen.

2007 – Google Street View premiers in five US cities but soon runs into protest in other parts of the world – such as being told by European Union data privacy regulators to warn people before it sends cameras out to take pictures for its maps and to shorten the time it keeps those uncensored photographs from one year to six months.

2010 – Google Buzz, the challenge to Facebook, is launched – will it become the future of social networking?

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