Virtual Merchant Today

May 1, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Amazon.com is suing New York State for a new law which requires the online merchant to collect New York State sales tax. 

A Supreme Court decision says states can't collect sales tax unless the store has a physical presence in the state. New York claims Amazon’s affiliate program is enough, because some of the affiliates are in-state. But the e-tailer argues that it has no physical presence in New York and no in-state representatives soliciting sales. According to book trade e-newsletter Shelf Awareness, Amazon classifies its affiliates program as “advertisers” because they post ads and are compensated for them (confusing terminology for those of us in ...Read More
Industries: Retailing

April 22, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

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Sometimes a simple change makes a big difference. According to new research by NeuroFocus, Berkeley, CA, text and numbers should go on the left, images and logos on the right, for optimal viewer engagement.

That’s because each side is picked up mostly by the opposite lobe of the brain (right by the left, left by the right), and each lobe has a different processing specialty.

The company tested it on all kinds ...Read More

April 2, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Amazon.com just launched TextBuyIt , a new text-message shopping service. Do people really do this?

Maybe I’m just showing my age — Virtual Merchant Today is becoming Virtual Merchant Yesterday — but given the phenomenal number of results I get from even quite specific Amazon searches, I cannot imagine wanting to wade through them two at a time (according to the Associated Press) on a screen the size of, at most, a business card. How much can the few hours before I get to a real computer possibly matter when the product is going to take at least a day to be delivered? 

I suppose there’s s...Read More
Industries: Retailing

March 20, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Internet shopping may not seem like a personal experience, but it is at La Ti Da boutique. The clothing store offers an online questionnaire that lets the store act as a personal shopper, no matter how near or far the customer might be. In addition to standards like sizes and skin tones, questions include the shopper’s goals, attitudes towards shopping, sense of style, self-definition, and lifestyle factors like clothes and children. And they’re all optional, so no shopper gets turned off by having to provide Too Much Information or delays because they don’t have all the answers (and may never make it back).

For virtual merchants who don’t have a big budget for online recommendation software based on previous views and orders, or those who haven’t been very impresse...Read More
Industries: Retailing

March 7, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Tracking who clicked where doesn’t tell you why they did it, or if it worked. Want to know why people come to your website, if they got what they wanted, (and if not, why not) and if they like the site? Now it is easy and free to find out, thanks to 4Q.

Developed by Web analytics consultant Avinash Kaushik and implemented by iPerceptions, 4Q is a quick and simple survey, offered to visitors, with their permission, at the end of their visit. And did I mention it’s free?