Retail Performance Marketing - The Mercent Blog

Evolution of the Data Feed Format: New Shopping.com Data Feed Specs

The foundation for a shopping comparison engine is product data. Anyone involved in the industry can explain how many dilemmas emerge when listing products derived from different sellers. Serving up relevant products is one challenge. Matching like products to each other comes next, and of course putting this together in an engaging and consumer friendly format is par for the course. Usually channels attempt to simplify the product feed to allow products to be easily digested and displayed by the engine’s infrastructure. However, recently there has been movement to a more detailed data feed format first pioneered by Amazon, and then later brought to comparison engines by GoogleBase’s innovative design. The latest company to courageously put forward a complex and intricate catalog feed format is Shopping.com.

Overview of the New File Format

Shopping is releasing the new data feed format so that it can be adopted by merchants by June 1st. The typical format options are all present such as SKU, Brand, UPC, Product Name, etc. These are all part of the 'Classification Attributes' group as detailed in the product feed specification. The feed can be delivered in the usual ways and in the usual formats, such as .CSV, .TXT, and .XML.

Product Attributes

What really makes this new e-commerce feed format stand out, is a section of the shopping feed specifications that Shopping refers to as 'Product Attributes’. Since this feed format is not in production yet, it’s only possible to speculate on how all these facets will come together. However, here are the highlights, and they are intriguing:

Product Bullet Points 1-5: This looks like it will operate in a similar method to Amazon's feature list, which gives an itemized, heads-up display to the consumer of short points about the product. This type of format should help in allowing consumers to easily browse through products for additional details, without having to read the entire description.

Product Type, Sub-type, Style, Gender, Department, Age Range, Material, Format, ...etc: And, it keeps going! There are numerous attributes, too many to mention here. All of these attributes are aimed at helping place products into subgroups existing below the category level taxonomy. These subgroups will appear as options in a navigational bar on the site, and allow for further drill down into relevant product assortments.

Color: It's still early to spell out exactly how this will operate, but on many items and searches, there should be a color search option. Shopping will display colors available based on items within the result range. Indications are that Shopping will match more granular color choices to more basic options (such as matching ‘maroon’ to the color red). Like.com has implemented a similar color attribute.

Custom Attributes 1-100: Yes, up to 100 separate product attributes. This is where things get really interesting, and kudos to Shopping for opening up this much ability for merchants. Each field name is to be assigned by the merchant and then populated with matching values. Only Google has opened up this much customization ability until now, by allowing merchants to choose what information is best suited for the consumer. As with some other components, there are many possibilities with this tool, so it’s hard to give advice or know with certainty the exact affect these variables will have.

New Possibilities

Ultimately this new catalog feed format will open up new opportunities on Shopping.com. To accommodate this feed format and the data points it offers, Shopping will be progressively updating their site. To get an idea on how this will play out, visit the Shoe category on Shopping.com: http://www.shopping.com/xDN-shoes. Ideally, this will give merchants a whole new range of options to better match their products to what consumers are searching for. This will allow for more detailed searches and results, which are needed when having an inventory of millions of items.

On the merchant side, this will also open up the door to more creative data construction, without the limits of only a few basic data points. With new possibilities, does come increased risk as well. If these data points are not completely filled out, then a merchant’s products could disappear as consumers click into progressively more detailed product groups. With proper product feed integration, this can be overcome. For example, in Mercent Retail, these additional data points could be populated via content rules to ensure a robust product feed even if the product data is not initially available. Overall, with proper testing and feed management, merchants will have the entire summer to get ready for Q4 2009.

Tagged: Data Feed Product Attributes, CSE Trends, Channel Marketing Management

GPS - Google Product Surge

Recently there has been a strong rise in the effectiveness of Google Product Search (GPS) as a source of traffic and sales.

Unfortunately, I can't post a nifty graph from a reliable third party source like Compete.com here, because the Google Product Search listings are an extension from the Google.com domain. So, any traffic evaluation will reflect Google.com as a whole and not just the GPS component.

My information is based on client data, where sales have been rising steadily since 2007. This is partly to do with data optimizations made within Mercent, but it also shows that recent changes by Google have been very helpful.

Putting the Shopping Back Into Google

One change has been adding the 'Shopping' link back onto the Google home page on the upper left hand navigation. This quickly allows shoppers to route to the Google Product Listings and began a browse session.

A second route also is now provided when a search matching GPS listings is made. The first natural listing result is a quick summary of a few products, as shown below:

This brings quick attention to the GPS listings and helps route qualified traffic through the site. Not having a main domain, a la 'Froogle', may hurt a little bit but the surge in new shoppers has certainly brought Google back on track to becoming a top ranked CSE. Additionally, in combination with Google checkout, this surge may well eventually challenge Amazon, as many have predicted.

Taking Advantage of The Traffic

To harness the increased traffic, several steps can be taken to increase effectiveness. As a small disclaimer, Google does not release specific information on their algorithms, but the basics still apply just as with other comparison shopping engines.

1. Descriptive Product Title: Make sure to include a detailed synopsis of the product being sold. So if you are selling a widget, make it an "Acme Aluminum Plus Size Widget". Don't go overboard with a exceedingly long title, but make it quick, readable, and hopefully stocked with a few well chosen keywords. Which brings us to point #2...

2. Use Relevant Keywords: Don't worry about trying to repeat the same word over and over, just once in the title and a couple of times in the description will probably do. Also, use keywords which are relevant and make sense. Don't use a heavily trafficked keyword if it doesn't really apply to the product. Lastly, be careful on spelling. Some engines correct for hyphens or plural/singular nouns. However, Google does not, so do your research.

3. Description: This will also contribute to content, so make sure the description is well built. I would suggest adding the most important script at the beginning of the description (the rest will be truncated and hidden from view)

4. Reviews, reviews, reviews: Work on getting product/merchant reviews in place. This appears to aid in ranking and also lets consumers know you can be trusted. Google does not have their own survey code yet, but you can use survey code from other engines which will then be crawled and placed into Google's results. For more information on Google ratings, see another Mercent Post Here.

5. Categorization: Always make sure to categorize items properly. This is not quite as crucial as some engines which automatically divert to a set category based on search terms, but none the less is good advice.

So now that Google is paying attention again to Google Product Search, and so are consumers, there is only one question left. Are you?

Exploring Amazon Product Ads

If you are a retailer looking for new places to merchandise your products or just looking for new opportunities in traditional places, then Amazon Product Ads may be the fit.

Amazon has traditionally only sold items in a marketplace style format. Amazon has their own shopping cart mechanism which processes the orders for registered merchants and these merchants submit their products to be sold. However, looking to grant new opportunities to merchants, Amazon has created the ability for merchants to list their products like a traditional comparison shopping engine, offering a pay per click style of listing service.

How Amazon Product Ads Works

Listings with Amazon Product Ads appear in the same way traditional listings do. You can see an example of a listing at the base of this article. The product displays just as other products already integrated with Amazon's platform. The difference is that Amazon indicates these are redirect advertisements by inserting the phrase "Available at external website". Clicking on the product listing will take the consumer to a familiar product page, but instead of the usual "Add to Shopping Cart" button, the consumer will see "Visit this site".

Using the smart of approach of never completely taking the consumer off of the Amazon site, clicking on the "Visit this site" button will open a new window, taking the consumer to the product on the merchant's own site.

Advantages to Ads

A few advantages are immediately apparent when considering Amazon Product Ads. First, there is an advanced level integration process needed with a traditional Amazon integration. Since no orders are being transmitted, much less stringent data and integration requirements are needed for Product Ads. Second, bidding is offered as an option. This gives a merchant much more control over listings without having to be limited by content edits and efforts to build product history. Lastly, Amazon's enormous traffic can now be used to bring consumers directly to a merchant's website. This can potentially bring a new windfall of repeat customers directly to the merchant.

Quick Tips

When posting products to Amazon's Product Ads network, a merchant needs to keep a close eye on their data. Amazon has been able to build a functional system housing millions of products by being strict about the type of product data they will accept. Amazon Product Ads is still less stringent than the marketplace version, but Product Ads has higher standards than a typical comparison shopping engine would. Pay close attention to providing correct manufacturer part number information and UPC codes whenever possible. Also, be careful about providing correct product links, images, and full content with no unusual characters or the products will be rejected.

Taking all of this information together, most merchants should see excellent opportunities as Amazon expands their reach.

View of item search featuring Product Ads:

CSE News: PriceRunner Adding Bidding Interface

In keeping up with industry trends, one change during the week has been PriceRunner.com adding a bidding mechanism to their offering.

PriceRunner's bidding tool allows a merchant to bid by category on items being listed. For a competitive analysis, PriceRunner lists the top 3 bids in each product category, as well as a 4th listing showing the current amount bid amount of the user and the rank of the bid. By using a drop down, bids can be quickly and easily adjusted. For a in depth review on why bidding is so crucial, check out 'CSE Best Practices : Bid or let die'.

PriceRunnner has seen steady growth throughout 2008. According to Compete.com, PriceRunner's traffic has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year to nearly 1 million visitors per month. Typically, PriceRunner is overlooked by merchants only using a few select channels, but with a bidding mechanism in place and increased traffic coming through the virtual door, merchants should now be able to see better results with proper management.

When Search Engines and Comparison Shopping Engines Combine

For years, search engines and comparison shopping engines have co-existed peacefully and have not overlapped in many respects. Search engines continue to dominate main stream online marketing with text based advertising. Comparison shopping engines have developed intricate methods to display products in a format which consumers can readily search through. Surprisingly, these have stayed  pretty separate, but I do not think they will be for long.

CSE Basics

A comparison shopping engine functions primarily by showing products in comparison with similar products, all based on text based summaries and small preview images. To see more, a consumer must click on the displayed item to travel to the item page on the merchant's website. This page usually includes more detailed information, higher quality images, and the ability to actually purchase the item.

A search engine functions in primarily the same way. Titles of similar pages are shown with a summary description, and then linking to the actual pages. The one glaring difference in search engines and comparison shopping engines are the images.

The Visual Link

To put things in perspective, writing is rightfully one of the great human achievements. The ability to communicate information with arranged letters underlies all great societies. However, letters themselves, are only images which have an agreed upon structure. Taking a holistic view, as images moved from cave paintings to understood symbols, to hieroglyphs, and finally to phonetic based writing, the power of images has steadily increased.

Through this evolution, traditional pictures have always been used as a compliment to their text based brethren. Carvings or statues accompanied engravings in ancient times. In medieval times, writers illuminated texts with intricate script to hold a reader's attention, and included images to help show the actions of a story.

This type of accompaniment continues today. Look in any phone book or classified ad and see how images still play a huge role in advertising. Images are fundamental devices used to draw attention to an ad and help illustrate a point. Whether a simple image of an item, or logo, images are used to impact a person on a fundamental level of perception along side the higher cognitive levels that words play to.

Merging A Search Engine and Comparison Shopping Engine Together

To evolve beyond simply textual display, search engines will begin adopting visual displays to highlight listings. This step is next phase in further developing search engines in what I see as the synergy of a search engine and a comparison shopping engine which most differs by offering the ability to display images along side results. An example of what a merged version of Google would look like, is shown below.

Google is already showing their blended local search and mapping features prominently on the top of the page for specific searches. I think this will eventually give in to a less prominent position when more local results are available. Here, the local results are placed in the upper right hand corner, with of course, sponsored local listings.

Other sponsored listings are displayed along the right side of the page in traditional order. The exception is the ability to display images. Here a consumer has done a search for 'plasma tv'. Being a logical match to many product offerings, merchants have loaded images associated with a 'plasma tv' search. These visual cues help to quickly draw a consumer into individual advertisements. Perhaps a logo would be just as effective here, presumably most effective for branded merchants. Each advertisement featuring an image would be able to draw an higher cpc charge, helping the search engine collect revenue as much as helping the merchant collect clicks.

Finally, the banner space across the top, uses a mix of text and visual advertising. The true synergy happens here as the uppermost ad is actually a video link for a plasma tv buying guide. In this case, the progressive marketer has embedded YouTube into their site and ad to show a buying guide. Using this video, a consumer can learn more about their product in an easy manner, and instantly purchase an item if they are pushed over the edge of curiosity and into buying certainty.

Will the Google of the future actually look like this? I'm not sure, but if history is a good teacher, I think it will be pretty close.

Click to enlarge

SEO and SEM Marketing Using Comparison Shopping Engines and Marketplaces

In talking about the effectiveness and benefits of using comparison shopping engines and marketplaces like Amazon, there is one aspect that often is overlooked. Discussion is usually centered on the ability to give consumers choice and visibility into products. This is true from a costumer’s point of view, but there is another big plus I think goes overlooked, and that is getting the costumer through the door in the first place.

As the prime decision maker or business owner, it’s vital to get people into the store before they buy, and a website is no different. Many tactics are available including search engine marketing (SEM) and laborious search engine optimization (SEO) work. The extraordinary thing about comparison shopping engines and marketplaces is in many ways, they do this work for the merchant. These channels spend a large amount of time drawing in traffic similar to site owners and getting those consumers the choices and information they are looking for. One interesting off-shoot of this competitive niche is just how well comparison shopping engines and marketplaces have gotten at their own SEO and SEM work.

To illustrate, I took a quick survey using heavily trafficked searches that most merchants would kill for (well, hopefully not literally). I then ran a quick search on Google, and scanned the promised land for any SEO and SEM guru, the coveted ‘Page 1’ Google results. Most businesses would need to invest a large amount of time and money to be ranked in these spots. The beauty here, is that these spots have been filled out nicely by the comparison shopping engines and marketplaces.

To test how effective these channels are, I performed a test by making searches on Google. This is not quite scientific because paid results will vary by search, natural results will vary by day, and I have purposely omitted sites which offer an advertising solution, but a slightly different model than the focus of this article (eBay, Overstock).

Below are the results of high traffic product related keywords searches on Google in both organic and paid placements:

Keyword Search	SEO on Page 1	Channels Present	SEM on Page 1	Channels Present
baby stroller	1	Amazon	1	Bizrate
digital camera	1	Cnet	3	Amazon, Bizrate, PriceGrabber
olympus digital camera	2	Amazon, Bizrate	1	Bizrate
ipod	2	Amazon, Cnet	1	Amazon
laptop	2	Cnet, Yahoo	1	NexTag
office chair	0	None	0	None
wii	1	CNet	1	MSN Shopping
psp	1	CNet	1	Amazon
lcd tv	0	None	4	Amazon, NexTag, PriceGrabber, PriceScan
iphone	1	CNet	2	Amazon, ComparisonSearches
ink cartridge	1	Bizrate	0	None
sony plasma	1	Amazon	2	Amazon, NexTag
7 jeans	2	Bizrate, Yahoo	0	None
hollister clothing	2	Bizrate, Shopping	1	Become
xbox	1	Amazon	1	Amazon
hd dvd	0	None	2	Amazon, SHOP.COM
gold necklace	4	Amazon (2), Bizrate, Yahoo	0	None
fleece jacket	2	Amazon, Yahoo	0	None
ray ban sunglasses	2	Amazon, Shopping	0	None
boots	2	PriceGrabber, Yahoo	2	Amazon, Bizrate
Total Hits	28		23
Average Per Page	1.4		1.15

The interesting thing in looking over the results, is the relative stability in the findings. With the exceptions of 'gold necklace' and 'lcd tv', the searches are fairly consistent in terms of coverage. You can expect to find about 3 results on the page, evenly divided between paid and natural listings.

The additional benefit to a merchant, besides not having to compete for these listings on their own, is the relative optimization work done by the channels. For example, if a paid listing is pulling in a lot of non-converting traffic, the engine will turn off the listing. This sort of trickle down optimization, works to the benefit of the merchant by making sure the right traffic is being pulled in initially, before a consumer even clicks on an item resulting in an expenditure.

Google Integrating Shopping Comparison Engine Customer Reviews

A recent AuctionByte article was making the rounds last week here at Mercent, detailing Google’s customer review system which has been put into place for Goolge Product Search. It is no secret customer reviews significantly impact a buyer’s decision in making purchases online. The interesting part here, is how Google is putting this information together.

Importance of Customer Reviews

As a quick overview, a large portion of the retail Web 2.0 phenomenon consists of the consumer’s ability to interact, in this case using costumer reviews. Typically a review is solicited after an online purchase either through a pop up window or follow up email. In some cases, review forums will gather this information without being part of the transaction process, but instead based on submitted comments. Aggregating and displaying all of this data is becoming hugely important for both buyers and retailers. One of many studies documenting this was done by consulting firm E-Tailing Group. Their study indicates 81% of consumers use costumer reviews to choose between items, and a large portion of consumers even use online reviews for offline purchases.

What Makes Google's CSE Reviews Unique

To harness that potential, Google Product Search (perhaps soon to be known as Google Shopping) is doing something new. Google Product Search is reaching out to other shopping comparison engines for this data. To instantly be able to display relevant results, Google is crawling external sources and aggregating the data. Currently, Google is taking in reviews from shopping comparison engines Shopzilla/Bizrate, Shopping.com/Dealtime, and NexTag. In addition, Google is acknowledging drawing from ResellerRatings.com, and by taking a closer look, Google ratings can also be found from RateItAll.com. Pooling this information together with reviews Google is already able to generate from their own Google Checkout survey information, Google can now display a robust selection of reviews labeled as 'seller ratings'.

Google does not publicly release how their algorithms work for search results or customer review metrics, but using an example, a good theory can be put forward. For example, let us take Target.com, which has a 3 of 5 star rating on Google, with 1,155 seller reviews. By taking a look at the following sources, a quick summary can be put together for Target's customer reviews and seller ratings (as of 01/16/2008):

Source	Total Ratings	Avg. Score
Shopzilla	935	3 of 4
PriceGrabber	16	2.5 of 5
NexTag	38	2.1 of 5
ResellerRatings	56	3.5 of 10
RateItAll	190	3.81 of 5
Shopping	172	2.5 of 5
Total	1407

It’s difficult to rate the significance attached to each source that Google uses, so I have not estimated the average score of the seller ratings. Also, the total number of ratings doesn't quite add up to Google’s 1,155 total. Initially, it seems like Google may be missing some of the ratings in crawling these sites. However, that is not the whole story. In looking through Google’s index, older ratings can be found than what is currently displayed online. For example, Shopzilla only displays ratings going back 90 days, but for Target.com, Google lists Shopzilla ratings going all the way back to April 30^th, 2005.

Impact

So, what is the significance to all this?

Firstly, and this should be a glaring point for merchants, customer reviews for shopping comparison engines are even more important now than ever before. For the first time, a review from NexTag or Shopzilla carries weight outside of that engine. Google’s new system only increases the importance placed on adding survey codes when possible.

Secondly, and more important in the long run, is the staying power of customer opinion. With indexing going back to a customer’s Shopzilla review from April 2005, it is more important than ever to keep costumers satisfied. It would be hard to imagine that a purchase made nearly 3 years ago would significantly impact what happens tomorrow on a shopping comparison engine, but now that is most definitely the case.

Holiday Shopping with Shopping Comparison Engines

Looking through InternetRetailer this week, Hitwise released some interesting information showing that a lot of people were scrambling through shopping comparison engines during their holiday rush. However most interestingly, are the trends behind the data.

The following information takes a look at 2007 results from the weeks of December 9-15, and the following week, December 16-22. According to this research, traffic to the top 100 retail sites was actually down 15% in the first week to a comparable period a year ago, and up 16% the following week compared to the same period in 2006.

At first this seems counterintuitive, because we all know traffic does not go down for online shopping! Especially to be followed by a surge the following week. When looking at the figures below, I believe the picture becomes a little clearer, and actually very good for savvy retailers.

Overall decrease in traffic to the top 100 sites and strong traffic for branded retailers in the first week indicates experienced, and choosy shoppers. Instead of making a strong rush to stores, consumers were checking out what is online. Perhaps they go to a branded store they know about (as shown in strong first week rates below), or perhaps they just browse around any online store, as indicated by less traffic to the top 100. This theory is supported by comScore Networks, which reported overall web sales were still extremely strong, up 22% year to year, to $4.70 Billion for approximately this time period (12/10/07-12/16/07). So overall sales and traffic were there, but the top 100 was not capturing quite as much of it.

However, something happens in the next week. When consumers are running down to the wire, they begin to do quick searches online where they can find the item they want immediately. Since they were casually browsing the week before, perhaps already visiting the usual branded websites, they are now looking for a quick buy, and what better place to go...than a shopping comparison engine! Aggressively marketed companies like Shopping.com and Smarter.com saw a huge up tick in finding these last minute shoppers.

So why did this trend happen in 2007, instead of 2006? This is the best indicator of increasing confidence by online shoppers. Where in years past, consumers did not trust a merchant and their shipping practices to get an item on time, this year, consumers have increased confidence in online retailers to deliver the goods.

Here is the actual data from Hitwise, showing companies and their market share of traffic compared to the other 99 retailers composing the top 100. The first figure shows market share of the top 100, and then the subsequent change in traffic from week 1 (12/9-12/15) to week 2 (12/16-12/22).

*Amazon.com	12.03%	-5%
Wal-Mart	7.94%	-2%
Target	5.06%	-6%
Best Buy	3.96%	13%
Half.com	3.90%	-4%
*Yahoo Shopping	3.21%	4%
Circuit City	3.07%	5%
Sears.com	2.38%	0%
*BizRate.com	2.37%	1%
JC Penney	2.03%	-18%
Overstock.com	2.01%	-19%
Dell USA	2.01%	18%
Toys ‘R’ Us USA	1.97%	-20%
*Smarter.com	1.81%	17%
*Shopzilla	1.69%	3%
QVC.com	1.55%	-8%
Macy’s	1.43%	18%
Kmart.com	1.34%	-3%
Kohls.com	1.30%	-5%
*Shopping.com	1.21%	34%

The message for online retailers is that the industry while still growing at a significant pace, is showing increased competitiveness. The opportunities are increasing, partly from growth in consumer confidence. However, to take advantage of changing trends, companies need to be increasingly sophisticated in how they go about their business, even if their name is a known commodity.

* - Indicates Mercent supported channels.

CSE Past, Present and Future

When reviewing best practices in using shopping comparison engines, it is helpful to be able to see what best practices you should be learning for the future. As 2007 comes to a close, and 2008 appears on the horizon, many online marketing professionals will spend the next couple of weeks setting expectations for what lies ahead. Taking this same view, it is important to recognize dominant trends.

Product Level Bidding

One strong trend to be aware of in working with CSE best practices this year was the effective use of product level bidding mechanisms offered by shopping comparison engines. At the time of this writing, Shopzilla - Bizrate, NexTag, Smarter, and Pronto all have product level bidding mechanisms in place. Shopping is rolling theirs out, and this will become a standard feature for shopping comparison engines in 2008.

Shopping Comparison 2.0: The Rise of Social Shopping

Many Web 2.0 articles have been written, and many more will be, as online users increasingly create the internet rather than just surfing it. The same holds true for social shopping, where customer feedback, opinion, and recommendations will play an increasingly prominent role in CSE best practices for 2008.

While some engines have feedback mechanisms in place, other engines like Pronto are pushing to create a shopping experience completely based on social interaction and recommendations. Become is also pushing in this direction and you can expect other comparison engines to do so as well. With creative pushes by Facebook worthy of a note, marketers and online merchants will need to be more attentive than ever to customer feedback and opinion. As a merchant, I would be focusing heavily on my shipping speed, customer service level, and return policies. As the power further shifts to the consumer, shopping comparison engines will be less dominated by the simple price of an item than ever before.

CSE Best Practices Beyond 2008

As the post-feasting, holiday drowsiness sets in, and the online marketer dazes off into dreamland, perhaps images of 2009 and beyond will begin to form. Looking this far ahead, I would expect shopping comparison engines to become increasingly integrated with search engine marketing campaigns. Just as bidding strategies have been transposed to product level bidding, more integration will occur. Future options will include bidding based on time of day or week (aka day trending). Services from companies like Google, Yahoo, and MSN will find ways to include their SEM and shopping comparison engine services into a single user interface. Also look for the ability to include high performing phrases directly into product content with the push of a button.

Looking this far ahead means some of these distant options seem unimportant, however there are some things which are clear. With the proliferation of shopping comparison engines, the market will only become more competitive and better attuned to shoppers. This will require every merchant to stay at the forefront of innovation and adjust responsiveness to the wants and needs of the consumer. Somehow, I think this would make Adam Smith and Sam Walton smile at how much the future just stays the same.