YouTube today introduced a suite of tools for business of all sizes to make video ads. At launch, YouTube Director includes three main tools that let’s businesses, especially small businesses, make video ads with a professional look and feel.
The first tool allows you to create a YouTube video ad right from your phone. To try it out simply download the free YouTube Director for Business app which is available on the iPhone in the U.S. and Canada with an Android version coming soon. The app is designed for the non-techie… so go for it! Another perk for small businesses is that they can use the app to create a video without any obligation to run paid ads on YouTube. Just make the video, upload it and promote it on your small business website, on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
To prove that anyone can make a professional looking video ad YouTube provided the example of Woody Lovell Jr., owner of The Barbershop Club in Los Angeles. Woody created his own video ad in less than 20 minutes and ran a campaign on YouTube promoting his business. Woody said that the campaign is already seeing positive results.
Youtube invited The Barbershop Club and four other businesses to take part in the YouTube Director Video Challenge. They asked each owner to make a video about their business, film it, edit it and put it on YouTube in 20 minutes or less!
First, they were asked to create a video ad without this new tool. They did it but it wasn’t easy. Using YouTube Director Video they were all able to create great videos in under 20 minutes using YouTube Director and couldn’t praise it enough.
“It’s perfect, a lot easier and so easy,” commented the business owners. “It’s like a big budget. It’s so much better and it walked you through it giving you tips. One, two, three, four… it was as easy as ABC! It was designed well. An instant commercial. The app worked as the director. It cost nothing and it’s so easy and you can just publish it.
Here’s the video made by the Pink Family of the world famous Pink’s Hot Dogs in Hollywood, California. I’ve been to this place and it’s great and you can get a vegan dog too. Keep your eyes open because this is a popular celebrity hangout!
Woody did a great job making The Barbershop Club video. It really has a professional feel. The Barbershop Club is based in Los Angeles at the Original Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, which opened in July 1934. As Woody says about his shop, “It is where young men come learn the ways of manhood, men come to talk with ease and both are made to look like true gentleman when they leave.” Couldn’t have said it better!
Chef Roberto Martin of eLOVate Kitchen produced the video below. eLOVate is a vegan restaurant in Santa Monica, California, one of my favorite cities, and as a vegan I’ll be trying this place out! I guarantee you, non-vegans will like it too.
Here’s the video ad made by Sarah Wolfgang of The Dog Cafe. Sarah started an interesting new concept of dog adoption making The Dog Cafe a gathering spot for dog lovers to meet and mingle with each other over a latte and with rescue dogs looking for loving homes. Way to go Sarah!
Nadia Geller of Nadia Geller Market created a nice video ad in just 20 minutes! Nadia Geller Market is located in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles that carries home products with a tongue in cheek vibe. It’s part of a larger business Nadia owns called Nadia Geller Designs which is an upscale interior design firm. Nadia is somewhat more sophisticated in marketing than the other businesses YouTube chose to highlight in this product launch.
YouTube also announced a service called YouTube Director Onsite, where YouTube actually will send a professional videographer to shoot and edit a video ad for any business that spends a minimum of $150 advertising. That is an incredible deal and a great way for small businesses to get started with video advertising. YouTube Director Onsite is launching in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.—and coming to more cities soon.
For businesses that are integrated in mobile apps, YouTube also announced YouTube Director Automated Video where YouTube will create a video ad from existing creative found in your business app such as logos and app screenshots already uploaded to the app store. This is available worldwide. YouTube is asking that you call one of their experts (1-855-500-2756) to try out this service.
“We have followed One Kings Lane and loved its site since its inception, and we are thrilled for the opportunity to provide them with additional support and exposure to promote and grow their brand,” noted Steven H. Temares, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. “At the same time, One Kings Lane will serve as a cornerstone for Bed Bath & Beyond’s growing offerings in furniture and home décor, and together we will be able to do even more for and with our collective customers wherever, whenever and however they wish to interact with us, and to further our mission to be viewed as the expert for the home.”
“We are excited to be part of the Bed Bath & Beyond family,” stated Dinesh Lathi, Chief Executive Officer of One Kings Lane. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our customers, as well as our employees and business partners, to benefit from additional support and resources and gain exposure to new customers. We look forward to being able to continue to differentiate our product offerings and refine our point of view to further delight our current and future customers.”
According to Bed Bath & Beyond the price paid was not material to them and the company expects the transaction to be only slightly dilutive to its net earnings per diluted share for fiscal 2016. According to Dan Primack who covers deals for Fortune, “Bed Bath & Beyond has just $600 million in cash on hand, prior to One Kings Lane purchase.” So it couldn’t have had much of a valuation if its not material to their earnings.
According to Apple, it’s upcoming release of iOS 10 is the biggest release ever of iOS which it considers to be the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. It unveiled the updates Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. Included in the release are significant updates to Messages, New Home App, All-New Photos, Music and News & Opens Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages to Developers.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told the developers at the conference that Apple is investing in the next generation of app developers by awarding more than 150 scholarships this year. Cook said the youngest attendee at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is only 9 and that he met her yesterday and said, “She is going to make a great developer.”
Cook announced that Apple now has over 2 million apps in the app store. “Your 2 billion apps in the app store have been downloaded 130 billion times,” stated Cook. “As you know the app store is the best business opportunity for developers. We’re about to pass $50 billion paid directly to developers. This is absolutely amazing.”
“Of course, successful developers translates into us having the best platform for users and this is what really matters” Cook said. Apple is pleased to introduce iOS 10:
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, introduced iOS 10 to the audience by stating that the official name of the “world’s most advanced operating system is macOS.
The new iOS 10 features a huge update to Messages that delivers more expressive and animated ways to message such as stickers and full-screen effects.
iOS 10 introduces the ability for Siri® to do more by working with apps, beautifully redesigned Maps, Photos, Apple Music® and News apps, and the Home app, delivering a simple and secure way to manage home automation products in one place. iOS 10 opens up incredible opportunities to developers with Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages.
“iOS 10 is our biggest release ever, with delightful new ways to express yourself in Messages, a native app for Home automation, and beautifully redesigned apps for Music, Maps, and News that are more intuitive and more powerful, making everything you love about your iPhone and iPad even better,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
Federighi added, “iOS 10 adds Siri intelligence into QuickType and Photos, automates your home with the new Home app and opens up Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages to developers — while increasing security and privacy with powerful technologies like Differential Privacy.”
Here’s how the Apple news release explains the new features:
Personal & Expressive Messages
Messages is the most frequently used iOS app, and with iOS 10 it is more expressive and fun with animated and personalized ways to message friends and family. Messages includes powerful animations, such as balloons, confetti or fireworks that can take over an entire screen to celebrate a special occasion, invisible ink to send a message only revealed after a friend swipes over it, and for added personalization, handwritten notes. Automatic suggestions make it easy to replace words with emoji, Tapback creates a quick and simple way to respond with just a tap and rich links let you see content inline and play media without ever leaving your conversation.
iOS 10 brings the power of the App Store® to Messages, opening up new opportunities for developers to create fun new ways for users to communicate in a thread, including stickers to be peeled and pasted into conversations, the ability to quickly personalize GIFs or edit photos, send payments or schedule dinner or a movie, all from within Messages.
Siri Opens to Developers
In iOS 10, Siri can be extended into major new areas and do more than ever by working with the apps you love to use. For the first time, developers can build on the intelligence Siri offers and let users interact directly with apps using just their voice. SiriKit™ helps developers easily design their apps to work with Siri for messaging, phone calls, photo search, ride booking, personal payments and workouts, or use Siri to control CarPlay® apps, access climate controls or adjust radio settings within automakers’ apps.
Beautifully Redesigned Maps
Maps in iOS 10 gets a beautiful redesign that makes it even simpler and more intuitive to use. Now open to developers with new extensions, apps like OpenTable can integrate bookings right into Maps, and services like Uber and Lyft can make it easier for users to book a ride, without ever leaving the Maps app. Maps is even smarter with new intelligence that proactively delivers directions to where you most likely want to go next, based on your routine or appointments on your calendar. Once a route is planned, Maps can search along the route for gas stations, restaurants, coffee shops and more and provides an estimate of how the stop impacts the length of your trip.
Rediscover Memories in Photos
Photos in iOS 10 helps you rediscover favorite and forgotten occasions from your photo library by automatically surfacing them in Memories. Memories scans all your photos and videos and finds favorite and forgotten events, trips and people, and presents them in a beautiful collection. A Memory also contains the Memory Movie, an automatically edited movie with theme music, titles and cinematic transitions.
Memories uses advanced computer vision to group the people, places and things inside your images into albums with on-device facial, object and scene recognition. This intelligence brings Memories and related photos to life in a way that’s personal and meaningful to you, while maintaining your privacy.
Home App for Simpler Home Automation
The Home app is deeply integrated into iOS, delivering a simple and secure way to set up, manage and control your home in one place. Accessories can be managed individually or grouped into scenes so they work together with a single command and can be controlled by using Siri. They can be managed remotely or set up for home automation with Apple TV®, and can respond with automatic triggers set by time of day, location or action.
Support for HomeKit™ continues to expand globally with nearly 100 home automation products adopting HomeKit this year, bringing support for thermostats, lights, window shades, door locks, video cameras and more to the Home app. Later this year, leading home builders, including Brookfield Residential, KB Home, Lennar Homes and R&F Properties, will begin integrating many of these HomeKit devices into new homes.
All-New Design for Apple Music & News
Apple Music has an all-new design, bringing greater clarity and simplicity to every aspect of the experience. It uses a new design language that allows the music to become the hero and a new structure that makes it easy to navigate and discover new music. The Library, For You, Browse and Radio tabs have been completely redesigned to provide an even greater sense of place, and we’ve added a Search tab to make finding music even easier. All of these changes come together to create a design that is clear and intuitive. iOS 10 features a redesigned News app with a new For You, organized into distinct sections that make it easier to find stories, support for breaking news notifications and paid subscriptions.
iOS Experience
In iOS 10, accessing the information you need is easier and quicker than ever. Raise to Wake automatically wakes the screen as you raise your iPhone®, making it easier to view all your notifications at a glance, right from the Lock screen. Notifications, Today view and Control Center are accessible with just a swipe or a press, and deeper 3D Touch™ integration with iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus makes interacting with apps even easier.
Additional iOS 10 Features
Siri intelligence brings new QuickType® features, including contextual predictions to surface relevant information based on location, calendar availability or contacts; and predictive typing supports multiple languages without switching keyboards.
Phone adds integration for third-party VoIP calls, voicemail transcription and a new caller ID extension for spam alerts.
Built-in app updates include Safari® split-view for iPad®, Notes collaboration and Live Photos™ editing.
Apple Pay® can now be used to make easy, secure and private purchases on participating websites using Safari, in addition to paying in-stores and within apps.
Bedtime Alarm in the Clock app lets you set a regular sleep schedule and receive bedtime reminders.
Privacy in iOS 10
Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of Apple hardware, software and services. iMessage®, FaceTime® and HomeKit use end-to-end encryption to protect your data by making it unreadable by Apple and others. iOS 10 uses on-device intelligence to identify the people, objects and scenes in Photos, and power QuickType suggestions. Services like Siri, Maps and News send data to Apple’s servers, but this data is not used to build user profiles.
Starting with iOS 10, Apple is using technology called Differential Privacy to help discover the usage patterns of a large number of users without compromising individual privacy. In iOS 10, this technology will help improve QuickType and emoji suggestions, Spotlight® deep link suggestions and Lookup Hints in Notes.
Availability
The developer preview of iOS 10 is available to iOS Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta program will be available to iOS users in July at beta.apple.com. iOS 10 will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 5 and later, all iPad Air® and iPad Pro™ models, iPad 4th generation, iPad mini™ 2 and later, and iPod touch® 6th generation. For more information, visit apple.com/ios/ios10-preview. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.
Google launched a cool… and I think very useful feature to Android today called Nearby. Nearby uses Bluetooth to seek out nearby beacons that are connected to Android apps on your phone. Developers of ecommerce or in-store related apps are going to be staying up late working to incorporate Nearby because of its potential to bring in more sales.
Nearby was announced back in May:
Nearby can be used for any app that communicates provides the mobile phone user with real-time data. For instance:
New information and multi-media can open in a museums app as a person passes each exhibit. such as when a person at a museum getting further information and media related to the exhibit they are standing in front of.
As you walk down the aisle at Kroger’s a Kroger app can offer you app-only deals as you pass by items on the shelf.
As you stand in line at the DMV in California it could ask you to feel out certain forms in the app and then direct you to a line number that handles your type of need such as renewing your cars registration.
At the car dealership, an app from the dealer could offer you a deal that isn’t on the sticker, possibly timed by how long you stood close to a particular car.
Print photos directly from your phone at CVS Pharmacy.
Explore historical landmarks at the University of Notre Dame.
Download the audio tour when you’re at The Broad in LA.
Skip the customs line at select airports with Mobile Passport.
Download the United Airlines app for free in-flight entertainment while you wait at the gate, before you board your flight.
Google says that to use Nearby, just turn on Bluetooth and Location, and they’ll show you a notification if a nearby app or website is available. According to Google Nearby has started rolling out to users as part of the upcoming Google Play Services release and will work on Android 4.4 (KitKat) and above.
The Google Developers Blog also provided information for developers to incorporated Nearby within Android apps:
Getting started is simple. First, get some Eddystone Beacons- you can order these from any one of our Eddystone-certified manufacturers. Android devices and and other BLE-equipped smart devices can also be configured to broadcast in the Eddystone Format.
Second, configure your beacon to point to your desired experience. This can be a mobile web page using the Physical Web, or you can link directly to an experience in your app. For users who don’t have your app, you can either provide a mobile web fallback or request a direct app install.
Nearby has started rolling out to users as part of the upcoming Google Play Services release and will work on Android devices running 4.4 (KitKat) and above. Check out our developer documentation to get started. To learn more about Nearby Notifications in Android, also check out our I/O 2016 session, starting at 17:10.
Where are the Libertarians when you need them? Austin voters failed to approve Proposition 1, a proposal supported by Uber and Lyft which would have let the companies self-regulate their contract drivers. Instead, voters let stand an ordinance passed by the Austin City Council requiring third party fingerprint background checks and additional restrictions on the services.
Uber and Lyft pushed Proposition 1 and threatened to leave Austin if it wasn’t approved and both have now said they are suspending service in Austin as of Monday morning. At issue for the companies is not just more difficulty in getting part-time drivers which is the life blood of the services, but that in requiring drivers to get vigerous fingerprint background checks may move their IRS independent contractor classification closer to becoming an employee. This would substantially raise their costs and could eventually lead to dreaded unionization, which of course would kill both Uber and Lyft, making them more expensive than taxis.
I suspect that if only people who use Uber and Lyft in Austin voted, Proposition 1 would have passed, because users can clearly see that those services are cleaner, more convenient and safer than taxis ever have been.
Uber announced via TechCrunch that its app users will soon be presented with an Uber Offers option that will give users a rebate of $5 to $20 off their next ride if they make purchases via their Visa card on file with Uber at a local Shake Shack, Dunkin’ Donuts, or Whole Foods brick-and-mortar locations. They simply have to accept the offer in the app and then buy something at the retail location of the deal being offered within a few days.
In an earlier test Uber Offers were promoted with interstitial screens when users opened the app in selected cities including Boston, New York, Dallas, Miami and San Francisco. Apparently merchants saw good returns with this new form of app advertising.
Adblock Plus has partnered with Flattr to offer web surfers a way to compensate content publishers that they visit most often. Flattr, a service launched in 2010 by Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde, is a microdonation platform allowing users to create a monthly budget that is paid to the content providers they prefer and visit often. By partnering with Adblock Plus they will reach a huge audience of millions of users that have downloaded the plugin over 500 million times.
To use the service simply go over to Flattr and sign up. No fee is required to set up your account. When you are ready you can add your credit card and set a monthly donation budget which Flattr will use to pay the content providers you visit the most. You can customize the settings to pay certain publishers more than others. It’s designed as a way to give back to publishers who’s ads are being blocked by your use of Adblock Plus.
From a publishers perspective it might be seen as a feeble attempt to pay them peanuts while still blocking their ads which actually support the content production and employees which work at the online business. Publishers look at users with ad blockers as a sort of an online version of shoplifting, which they put up with and write off as a part of doing business with paying ad viewing visitors.
In 2011 AdBlock Plus introduced an “Acceptable Ads” program to allow what they deemed non-intrusive ads to be whitelisted under the extension’s default settings. Whitelisting is free for small websites while large sites must pay a fee. This has generated considerable controversy with publishers.
Multi-channel commerce platform Shopify announced the launch of Shopify Capital, a new merchant cash advance offering to help entrepreneurs get financing to accelerate business growth.
It’s in pilot for now, giving some merchants advances to buy equipment and inventory as well as launch new products, hire, and add new channels and products.
Product manager Saad Atieque says, “For many merchants, securing capital is a frustrating and time-consuming process. With Shopify Capital, we’re giving entrepreneurs a simple, fast, and convenient way to secure financing to invest in their business. Similar to our payments and shipping solutions, Shopify Capital represents one more way Shopify can help entrepreneurs strengthen their business operations.”
Shopify Capital tailors cash advances to the needs of each particular merchant based on data processed through the Shopify platform.
“Accessing this financing is designed to be as simple as a few clicks, with money in the merchant’s account within a few days of acceptance,” the company says.
For now, the offering is only available to eligible merchants in the U.S. There’s no application, however. Right now, it’s basically basically on a “we’ll let you know” basis. If you’re eligible, you’ll get an email and notification in Shopify. It’s only limited to a small number of merchants for now, but the company intends to expand it in the coming months.
FAQs and example remittance rates are available here.
Google announced the launch of a new tool for Merchant Center called Feed Rules, which lets you convert your existing data from inventory management systems to the format Google Shopping uses.
The tool enables merchants to to export and submit product data in their own format, and use different rules to turn the data into product attributes and values that meet Google’s feed specification. Google says:
Map your column headers to the attribute names supported by Google Shopping. For example, if you have an existing feed with the unsupported column header “main title”, you can set up a rule in Merchant Center to have it recognized as the supported attribute name, “title”.
Transform the values in your feed to values supported by Google Shopping. For example, to submit gender specifications for your products, you can transform the unsupported value “for women” in your existing feed to the supported value “female”.
Populate missing attribute values with a fixed value, or with different values based on conditional criteria. For example, if the “condition” attribute is missing and you’re only selling new products, you can set up a rule to have this attribute automatically set to “new”.
After you specify rules, all uploads in the future will be processed accordingly. Feed Rules can also be used to organize data by implementing rules for custom labels or tagging products with shipping labels.
Google makes it clear that this is just an early version of Feed Rules, and that it will make improvements based on user feedback.
Receiptful has some interesting new research out based on data from 2,687 ecommerce sites, 1.34 million monthly orders, and $848 million in annual sales. It found that the average product page conversion rate (PCR) among ecommerce stores is 7.91%.
The firm also found that ecommerce “unicorns” convert nearly half of their product page traffic into sales and that at the low end of the spectrum, ecommerce brands only convert 0.10% of the traffic that hits their product pages.
“When we cross-tabulated the data, we found a positive correlation between store revenues and product conversion rates,” Receiptful’s Danny Wong tells us in an email. “On average, eCommerce brands with higher sales, up to $500,000 annually, had a better PCR than smaller-sized stores.”
“In eCommerce, one of the most crucial yet underappreciated hurdles to sales is driving visitors to click and view products,” he says in the report. “Unfortunately, the data reveals that, on average, eCommerce stores have a 33.9% bounce rate. This suggests that approximately a third of all of the visitors that hit your homepage abandon the site without ever browsing through your inventory of products. On the bright side though, once a shopper clicks to view a product, you increase the likelihood of closing the sale.”
Last year, eBay launched Promoted Listings, an ad format that enables sellers to get multi-quantity items in front of potential buyers in search results and only pay when the ad is clicked and the item is purchased.
The format has been available for the following categories: Health & Beauty, Musical Instruments & Gear, Toys & Hobbies, Home & Garden, Baby, Sporting Goods, Jewelry & Watches, Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Cameras & Photo, Video Games & Consoles, Computers/Tablets & Networking, Consumer Electronics, and Cell Phones & Accessories.
The company just announced the addition of seven more categories that can now take advantage of Promoted Listings to boost visibility. These include: Antiques, Collectibles, Dolls & Bears, Pottery & Glass, Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop, Stamps, and Travel.
Sellers can have up to 500 listings per campaign, and can promote up to a third of their eligible inventory in the categories listed.
Starting on May 1, eBay is giving Anchor Stores subscribers $25 per quarter in credit to use toward Promoted Listings. The credits expire at the end of each quarter.
eBay made a quick announcement regarding USPS package pickups in light of recent changes made by the Postal Service. In a brief post, the company said:
Sellers can now schedule a pickup on First-Class Package Service without having to choose at least one Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Returns or International package.
This is due to a recent update made by the USPS, in which the First-Class Package Service selection was separated from the “Other” category (see screenshot below). The previously communicated workaround is no longer necessary.
In related news, eBay has fixed a major bug in its mobile apps that told consumers there was free shipping on items that didn’t actually offer it.
Earlier this month, we reported on a glitch in eBay’s mobile apps that was telling buyers that some items had free shipping even when the seller had not indicated that they did. This, according to some, had been happening for over a year, but gained more attention in recent weeks.
I had a customer make a Best Offer using their cell phone that showed Free Shipping at the time it was viewed, but this was not a free shipping item. I accepted the offer, but there was no mention of free shipping in the Message section of the offer.
The customer is pretty upset with me. I am aware from the message boards that this is a glitch, but how do I convince the customer of this? … and hopefully doing this without making them even more upset.
Other sellers in the forum acknowledged the issue as well. One responded, “OMG- Ebay keeps saying that this glitch is fixed, but obviously it is not!I had the same thing happen & I was very grateful that I had an understanding buyer.”
Eventually, eBay addressed the issue, saying it was working on a fix. Now, the company claims to have actually fixed it.
In the latest “Weekly chat with eBay staff,” the company says, “The Incorrectly Showing Free Shipping In Accepted Offers in Mobile issue has fixed across all mobile apps.”
Some other issues were fixed as well. These include the shipping amount not showing in sent invoices, missing item titles in billing invoices, random thumbnail images not appearing in search or categories, and USPS international tracking numbers not displaying all info.
Earlier this month, we reported on a glitch in the eBay mobile app that displays free shipping on items that don’t actually include that on their listings. Understandably, this has led to a bunch of frustrated buyers who are presented with unexpected shipping costs and frustrated sellers who have to deal with said buyers and who are worried about how it makes them look as sellers.
It’s a lose-lose for everybody involved, and some buyers are just going ahead and paying the shipping costs to keep customers happy. No seller wants to piss off buyers as things can quickly spiral out of control from there.
The issue has apparently been going on for quite some time without eBay’s acknowledgment. According to Consumerist, its’ been happening for at least a year to some degree.
The publication points to an announcement where eBay finally addresses the issue and says it’s working on a fix. It was brought up at the end of a broader post in the “Weekly Chat with eBay Staff” section of eBay’s forums. There, an eBay employee says:
The Incorrectly Showing Free Shipping In Accepted Offers in Mobile issue has been reported. The mobile team is testing the fix today. If all goes well, the fix should be released within the week.
eBay announced new browsing modules for shoppers, leverage its structured data better and help users surface listings with savings, best-selling products, etc. The modules include “shop by brand” options and other ways to look at category pages without using keyword searches.
“Many users want to click to browse through items that they are interested in rather than rely on keyword searches,” said Dominique Bouchon, eBay’s Director of Search Front-End Product Management. “If we only surface a long list of listings, we miss the opportunity to surface the most interesting products and listings. We now have an algorithm that can instantly and intelligently surface them to our users.”
A new “save on” module is populated with best-priced listings via an algorithm that leverages the structured data to instantly identify listings where the price is lower than trending prices.
A “best selling” module surfaces relevant products rather than just listings. It can take a product category, such as digital cameras or guitars and surface the most popular models.
“Notably, the ‘Shop by’ guidance module at the top of many of our new results pages offer a ‘guided tour’ type of experience,” eBay says. “It helps navigate our very large selection of items by highlighting the key aspects we’ve learned that most people use to drill down from tens of thousands of results to the most relevant results.”
The company says one goal of the modules is to better serve users coming to eBay from Google results. The new experience will provide these visitors with better guidance on products.
The company says it has more browse module and search news in the pipeline for the coming months, so stay tuned for that.
Earlier this week, eBay made improvements for users searching for product identifiers. Last week, it revealed its big Spring Seller Update, which has a lot of changes for sellers.
Google announced that it has rolled out new defenses to protect advertisers against clickjacking, which it has identified as an emerging threat to CPC display ads.
Clickjacking is where the appearance of a site is changed so a victim doesn’t realize they’re taking an action like clicking an ad. A users could click on a play button or menu item which actually clicks on an invisible ad unit, for example.
“Earlier this year when our operations team identified Clickjacking activity on our display network, they moved swiftly to terminate accounts, removing entities involved in or attempting to use this technique to trick users,” says Andres Ferrate, Chief Advocate of Ad Traffic Quality at Google. “Our engineering team worked in parallel to quickly release a filter to automatically exclude this type of invalid traffic across display ads.”
“This approach delivered a one-two punch to publishers who violated our policies: our operations team, which forms an early line of defense against invalid traffic, cleaned out publishers from our ad systems, while engineers built a new filter as a durable defense to protect against Clickjacking traffic,” he adds.
When Google detects a clickjacking attempt, it finds the traffic attributed to the ad placement and removes it from upcoming payment reports so advertisers are not charged for clicks.
eBay announced improvements to its product identifier search experience in an effort to help sellers make it easier for buyers to find the right items.
Now, buyers can search for items by entering their GTIN, UPC, EAN, ISBN, or MPN directly in the search bar. Listings that include these identifiers will of course get better search visibility.
eBay is telling sellers to make sure and add this info to any listings that are missing them ASAP.
“Now, when buyers use a product identifier to search for an item, their results will include all the listings matching that item,” eBay says in an announcement. “To better streamline the search experience, we’re also changing the way eBay item number search works. Now, when you search for an item by its unique eBay item number, only active items that match will show up in the results.”
It adds, “To search for sold or completed items that are no longer active, you can:
Search for the item number and then click on Completed Listings in the left hand pane; Or look up your items in My eBay (or the Seller Hub when it becomes available later this summer); Or you can navigate to any eBay item by going directly to this URL by putting your eBay item number at the end of it.”
Facebook Messenger lead David Marcus made some new announcements for the product on Thursday. First off is a new milestone with Messenger achieving over 900 million monthly active users. That’s an addition of about 100 million in about three months. In January, Facebook released an infographic showing 800 million.
Marcus also announced that there are now over a billion messages sent per month between people and businesses/pages. That number is destined to see rapid growth itself as Facebook puts more of a business focus on Messenger. Recent revelations from the app’s code include a potential payment feature, and some are even seeing a suggested businesses feature right in the app itself. It’s unclear if this is just a limited test or if it will become a full-fledged feature.
Other new announcements from Marcus include the roll-out of Messenger Codes, Usernames, and Links with a m.me[youusername] URL for people and businesses. These, Marcus said, will make it easier than ever to connect. The roll-out will be gradual, he said, but that it “shouldn’t be too long.”
Both the codes (which will presumably be scannable with phone cameras) and the links should be particularly helpful for businesses hoping to connect with people through Messenger more. They can potentially be included anywhere a brand wants them to be seen and interacted with. There’s a lot of marketing potential here.
Facebook’s F8 conference is coming up next week, and there will no doubt be plenty of focus on Messenger, what can be done with it now, and at least hints of of what’s on the horizon.
The Information recently discovered code in Facebook Messenger pointing to how Facebook intends to turn the app into a marketplace, including an unreleased feature which would let people use the app to purchase items in stores and pay directly in Messenger when they pick up an item, effectively turning Messenger into a Wallet service. It’s likely that it would integrate with other payment services such as Apple Pay.
Also found in the code was a reference to “suggested businesses,” and now Business Insider’s Biz Carson has spotted this very feature right in the app. As many as 20 businesses reportedly show up under the search bar for people and groups.
Facebook has added an extra line of 20 suggested businesses that you could chat with as well — although it’s hard to tell why those businesses are ones you’d want to talk to at all.
When I tried talking to ride-hailing service Lyft, the company told me chat wasn’t an option. ClassPass did say “hi there” back to me, and Chase told me they could handle any requests I have. The rest of the companies on my list of 20 were a mix of small town newspapers that I have no connection to or organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
She notes that it could be just a test rather than a new feature that’s rolling out. I’ve been unable to replicate it myself.
It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see this become a feature as Facebook is obviously hoping to turn Messenger into a tool for B2C (and C2B) communication. This began at F8 last year when Facebook announced related features. This year’s event is around the corner, so we’ll see what they have to say about business use of Messenger.
A December report found that Messenger is the fastest growing of the top apps in the U.S. It has 800 million people using it each month.
Etsy made two major announcements on Tuesday aimed at improving the selling experience. These are a new paid site-building tool called Pattern and a new redesigned landing page for Etsy shops called Shop Home.
Pattern appears to be Etsy’s answer to ecommerce shop platforms like Shopify and site-building services like Squarespace. The main differentiator is that it’s all powered by Etsy and is integrated with the Etsy features sellers are familiar with.
Pattern shops leverage the seller’s existing Etsy shop and the work they’ve already put into it on their own custom website on their own domain. It includes all shop listings and content, syncs orders and inventory between sites, and provides analytics integrated with Etsy shop stats. It also uses the same checkout and shipping tools sellers are already using.
“The setup is quick and easy—for most shops, it will take only a few minutes—and offers five thoughtfully designed themes that sellers can choose from to personalize their sites,” explains Etsy’s Mike Grishaver. “Sellers can choose from themes that highlight their listings or ones that more prominently feature their brand assets, and they can customize each with shop logos and brand colors. Sellers with Direct Checkout enabled can try Pattern for free with a 30-day trial, after which Pattern is only $15/month.”
“We believe Pattern will deliver a special shopping experience as well—a high-quality, modern and professional-looking ecommerce site with branding unique to that shop,” he says. “Pattern sites feature responsive webpages so they look great at any size, on any device. And, with co-branded Etsy checkout, buyers will be reassured that their purchase is secure and trustworthy.”
The Shop Home landing pages are more customizable than the previous version. They’re mobile-friendly and give more sellers more creative control according to the company. They allow sellers to highlight their brands within the Etsy Marketplace.
The design includes a prominent cover photo and the ability to rearrange listings in the desired order. Here’s the before and after:
This is rolling out to all sellers over the coming week.
eBay just announced its Spring Seller Update, and there are a lot of changes this time. Some of these may not sit well with sellers though the company says the changes will drive conversion across its entire platform.
Some of the changes are specifically in relation to the mobile experience (which has already had a reported shipping display issue).
With the update, eBay will automatically generate shortened descriptions for products for display on mobile.
As Ina Steiner from eCommerceBytes says, “Sellers are already concerned that mobile shoppers are not reading descriptions carefully enough, leading to increased dissatisfaction and returns.”
eBay thinks people will like the change, however, claiming it will help users make faster and informed decisions.
In a blog post, the company says, “This simplifies the buying experience and helps to optimize for SEO – which can ultimately improve your conversion rates…with minimal work by you, since the summaries are auto-generated. However, we’re also adding the ability for you to customize exactly what shows in the mobile summary – I expect you’ll like having this level of control to help increase your chances for mobile conversion.”
eBay is also making changes to how sellers can use active content (like Javascript or Flash). As Steiner points out, many sellers use these things to personalize their stores and/or cross-merchandise items. The company says it’s been resulting in a bad mobile experience, slowing page load times and posing threats. This will go into effect early next year.
Some sellers will also face new or higher fees. Anchor Stores will see a $360 increase per quarter, while Basic Stores will go up $12 per quarter and Premium Stores will go up $30 per quarter. That’s on annual plans for Basic and Premium. Both Premium and Basic Stores will also see increases in zero insertion fee listing allotments for fixed-price and auction listings. All new fee information is available here.
eBay is expanding product reviews to make them easier to read, expanding them to more products, and including a cleaner design with “easy-to-identify ratings” and follow-up emails to those requesting reviews. eBay says supplying review info keeps people on site and increases sales by 18% on average. More on new review features here.
Seller Hub was announced in the Fall Seller Update, but now it’s coming to all sellers as the default way to manage listings beginning in the summer. According to the company, 25,000 sellers are already using it.
There are new category and item-specific updates coming in May, which you can peruse here.
There’s a new user agreement update, which goes into effect immediately for new users and on May 19 for everyone else. One update is the inclusion of indication that sellers who fail to meet minimum performance standards may have their accounts limited, suspended, or downgraded.
Another update states that for new sellers in all listings where returns are accepted, eBay will set a default rule that automates the return process. There are also “minor” changes to the dispute resolution policy. More on user agreement changes here.
If you’re a seller, be sure to take a few minutes and examine the full 2016 Spring Seller Update here.
