World Flix

I was reading our local newspaper today when I came across an article about a new startup dedicated to improving quality of life for people in some of the poorest communities in the world through modern technology.

World Flix, with a tag line of “E-Philanthropy for the Next Generation,” is a fascinating project which combines online videos of social projects around the world with a PayPal-enabled donation system to raise funds for microgrants to worthwhile humanitarian projects.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see when you visit worldflix.org:

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Finding E-Commerce Sites On The Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Platform

Not sure if this will help anybody, but I thought it was a neat trick.

Awhile ago, a company I work with was interested in finding ecommerce sites to partner with that made about $2-3 million dollars per year. I told them that sounded like a Yahoo! Store to me, and that there was an easy way to search for ecommerce sites hosted on the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform.

Every site hosted on the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform is required to have a privacy policy which begins with this text (automatically inserted by Yahoo!):

This site is hosted by Yahoo! Store.

We can use that fact to search for Yahoo! Stores on any subject. Just go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and enter something like this:

+“This site is hosted by Yahoo! Store” +{your choice of keyword}

The result will be a set of links to Yahoo! Stores which pertain to the word (or phrase) you chose as a keyword.

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Google Your Name

Seth Godin has a good article on his blog today — Personal Branding in the Age of Google.

He gives an example of a friend who places an ad on Craigslist for a housekeeper and then Googles the names of three applicants. The results are humorous but sad at the same time.

I googled my name a few moments ago — I’ve done that in the past, but have to admit that I don’t do it regularly enough (I was about to set this up as a weekly calendar item, but thought better of it and set up a Google Alert which will email me results every day — Trackle could be helpful with this as well). The results were encouraging — nothing embarrassing! But I did notice that the fourth result for my name was a Twitter post. When I post to my Twitter account, I am often not thinking about how it will look to someone searching for information about me. Something to keep in mind.

Seth Godin is right when he writes:

Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.

A word to the wise for those interested in maintaining their personal brand online.

Tip of the hat to @chrisaperez (also see Chris’ blog).

The Perfect Checkout

The latest issue of Catalog Success magazine includes an article by Amy Africa, an expert in ecommerce strategy. 5 Steps to the Perfect Checkout is a solid summary of ecommerce principles which, if implemented, will minimize abandoned carts and thus increase conversion.

While much of what she shares has been said before, there were some jewels of information which made me sit up and take notice:

• Before building a one-step checkout, start with a more traditional five-step checkout to identify the sources of cart abandonment. I might add, if you currently have a four- or five-step checkout and are considering moving to a one-step checkout, make sure to mine all available data to get an idea of where your potential customers have historically abandoned your shopping cart.
• Too many alternate payment options can increase abandoned carts. This was an eye-opener for me because multiple payments is currently all the rage. It makes sense though. Many ecommerce strategists have, for example, said that too many choices on the home page can lead to confusion for your customers. Why wouldn’t the same principle apply during the checkout process?
• It is important to include your phone number in your checkout pages. While we are fond of the idea that the web should replace the call center, including your phone number in your checkout pages is actually a hedge against abandoned carts. If your potential customer wants to call you while they are in the midst of the checkout process, it’s because they are having a problem and are on the verge of abandoning the order.

Those were just three of the jewels I found. I would encourage you to read the entire article.

Amazon Has Made Itself Indispensable

I was driving into work a few days ago, thinking about two things which Amazon has done which makes it indispensable for me as a shopper:

• Amazon Prime. I pay $79 per year to participate in Amazon Prime. What do I get for my $79? Free two-day shipping. Or one-day shipping for only $3.99. Both with no minimum order amount. And the free two-day and low-cost one-day shipping options are available for literally millions of items.
• Universal Wish List Button. I added the universal wish list button to my browser’s bookmarks toolbar and now I can add anything to my Amazon wish lists from anywhere on the web, even if Amazon doesn’t sell the product! Non-Amazon products I add to my wish lists include a link to the page from where they are sold.

Amazon may have other reasons for offering these programs, but one thing they both do is ensure that I will keep coming back to Amazon.

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