A little-used customization feature of the ChannelAdvisor eCommerce store is the Add To Cart button. Even one of my new favorite CA Stores, Cozykid in the U.K., is using the default image on their product detail pages. The GetElastic blog recently posted 107 shopping cart icons from top online retailers (in addition to a few good tips on design and usability).

It’s pretty easy to replicate one of these buttons (tweak it to your needs) and use it in your ChannelAdvisor Store. Simply go to “Store > Store Design Center > Customize Theme > Buttons & Icons” and then point to your new image.

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Last week, Google announced a brand new version of their free website Analytics software, Google Analytics.

Jam-packed with many new features, the initial feedback from the online community has been very positive. But, what are the most important changes and how can you, as an online retailer, really make the most of the new functionality?

To help answer that question, ChannelAdvisor will be co-hosting a free web seminar (webinar) with Phil Walford from the Google Analytics team. During this 45 minute webinar, Phil will guide you through some of the most exciting and useful new functionality and give you flavour for what is possible with this upgraded version. There will also be the chance to ask your own questions to Phil at the end of the webinar.

Please join us at 2pm GMT / 9am EST on Friday 25th May by registering here and be among the first in the UK to harness the power of Google Analytics v2.

p.s. if you use ChannelAdvisor Stores website solution then the new version of Analytics is already integrated and ready to go……!

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I’m suspecting that most people reading this will be aware of the big news from Google just over a week ago - Google Checkout is now available in the UK.

If you are an online retailer then we recommend you take a look at how Google Checkout could benefit your business. Check out my blog post from last week for the details - but the simple fact that payment processing is completely free for the rest of 2007 should a good enough reason to give it a go. Over the last week we’ve seen a significant portion of our clients’ customers opting to use Google Checkout to complete their online purchases (probably due to the £10 off £30 promo) which means these buyers now have Google Checkout accounts and will be looking for more places to shop with Google Checkout online. Make sure you’re one of the places they can shop by offering the Google Checkout payment option on your website as soon as possible.

For those of you who came along to our Catalyst conference in central London this past week, you will have witnessed the first live public demonstration of Google Checkout by Rob Swerling of Google. Rob has kindly agreed to join ChannelAdvisor on Monday at 2pm for a live online webinar, demonstrating the Google Checkout technology with a specific focus on the benefits for retailers.

Please feel free to join us for this informative webinar, by clicking on this link to register. We look forward to you joining us and Google on Monday.

p.s. if you can’t make 2pm, be sure to register anyway and we’ll send you a link to a recorded version of the webinar later this week.

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We’re excited to greet our Friday blog readers with some very exciting news!

In the last few hours, Google has rolled out its popular payment method, Google Checkout in the UK.

And of course, ChannelAdvisor has been working closely with Google UK for several months to ensure we were able to support this new payment option from day one. Which is great news for our UK clients who will be among the first retailers in the UK to be able to take advantage of all its benefits. Check out our official press release.

If you want to learn more now, read on….

What is Google Checkout?
Google Checkout is an alternative checkout flow that is designed to be fast, easy and secure. Industry data shows that a whopping 63% of checkouts are abandoned by shoppers AFTER they start to checkout. That’s a lot of lost sales. So, Google set out to come up with a cleaner, easier checkout process that would ensure more of these shoppers turn into buyers. Enter Google Checkout.

Google Checkout launched in the US in June 2006 and ChannelAdvisor offered immediate support then as well. Over the past 9 months our US clients have given us really positive feedback about the impact on their conversions, as well as their improved click-through rates on their Adwords listings.

So, let’s take a look at exactly what Google has announced so far:

For merchants:

• FREE payment processing for merchants for the rest of 2007 !
• After the free payment processing expires (i.e. Jan 1st 2008) get £10 free payment processing for every £1 spent on Google Adwords
• A very competitive 1.5% + 15p charged on all transactions that fall outside the above two conditions
• Free fraud protection technology

For buyers:

• A crazy £10 off any order over £30 if paid for using Google Checkout!

This is incredible news for both merchants and buyers. If you’re a merchant selling online then we recommend you take a look at how Google Checkout can help you to save a ton of money on processing fees.

And don’t forget that it should also improve the ROI of your paid search campaigns.

How? Simple. If you are a Google Adwords advertiser and you accept Google Checkout on your website, a snazzy Google Checkout badge will appear on your Adwords listings. We’ve seen this positively impact buyer click-through rates (CTR) when compared to listings without the badge - which means, assuming an identical bid amount, your ads will appear higher than competitor’s that aren’t accepting Google Checkout.

Want to learn more?
Here are some great Google resources to find out more:

Google Checkout official website - http://www.google.co.uk/checkout

Google Checkout blog - http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/

Meet the Google Team!
And if you want to hear from Google in the flesh, then be sure to make it along to our Catalyst conference next Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th to meet the team from Google UK and hear a presentation from Robert Swerling, Strategic Partner Development Manager at Google. We have a few seats left so please register and join us if you can!

Sign up for our webinar
If you’re not able to make it along to Catalyst, then be sure to register for our upcoming webinar, “Google Checkout UK Explained” which takes place at 2pm GMT on Monday 23rd April. Google will be co-presenting this webinar with ChannelAdvisor so expect lots of great content and a sizable Q&A section! Details on how to register for this webinar will be posted to the blog very soon.

Watch this space for lots more info!

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One powerful feature of ChannelAdvisor Complete is inventory variations. You may also hear this called “matrix inventory” or “parent/child relationships.” The main advantage of implementing inventory variations is that you can group many similar items together so they appear to the buyer as a single entry in your online store with configurable choices. This makes your store less cluttered and easier to navigate - with the end result that the buyers can more easily find and purchase what they want!

For instance, say you are selling shoes. For every style of shoe you stock there is a size and color, and therefore you have one SKU for each style/size/color combination. Normally you and your buyers would have to operate on each SKU individually. With inventory relationships, you can create a parent SKU that represents all inventory for that style, and have a group of child SKUs that vary by size and color.

As an example, let’s look at the ChannelAdvisor Store for one of our good friends, Designer Athletic. They have configured most of their inventory within ChannelAdvisor to be in variation relationships, but here is an example of one that isn’t.

This shows a single entry for a Timberland size nine brown chukka boot. If the buyer was actually looking for a size ten, they could not buy it from this page. They would have to leave and look for the correct size. Once they found the size ten in the right style, perhaps they really wanted a different color. More hunting. Wouldn’t it be easier if all of these related shoes were available on one page?

Enter inventory variations. If you group all shoes of a particular style into one relationship with variations of size and color, you can display a single page to the buyer with all of their options. Take a look at this ChannelAdvisor Store page for a Timberland field boot.

Note the choices for size and color. In addition, there is no final price displayed because it varies for the individual child SKUs. At this point, the buyer can select the size that they are looking for.

(more…)

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