EZAir Family Case Study – From drawing board to compete branding

The Challenge

As an end-to-end eCommerce company we are always ready to take on new challenges, and develop new ideas. A great recent example is the following:

The imOnline team were tasked with coming up with new a Creative campaign for EZAir Wireless, a global player in the field of PC to TV wireless solutions. Our goal was to look for the optimal way in which to present EZAir’s best-known products in a fun, engaging, and EZ way!

We first set out to understand what would capture the essence of these products, who our intended target audience is, and what would entice people to respond to our ads.

As part of the creative process we wanted to not only get into the minds of the consumer, but to actually become consumers ourselves. Naturally we tested these products, their functionality, and found many great uses for them. From there it was EZ to see how EZAir’s products can connect with several generations of family members.

Solution

After an extraordinary brainstorming session our team came up with a first draft of the EZAir family (as seen in the images below). This family was designed to effectively demonstrate our innovative products. To set the mood we decided to go with a natural colors scheme so as to make our website as welcoming and engaging as possible to a broad range of potential customers.

The general set-up is a portrait of the family sitting down in the living room, enjoying EZAir’s PC-to-TV streaming solutions. Each family member plays an integral role in showcasing the benefits of one of our unique products. When a visitor to the website positions the mouse overs a member of the EZAir family, a bubble pops up to explain the benefits of one of our unique products.

First up is the Dad. The dad uses the EZDock appliance for his mac. The benefit of this device is that he can wirelessly connect his laptop with a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and speakers.

Mom, whose an avid shopper, can be seen surfing on ebay while simultaneously streaming her daughter’s favorite shows on the family’s HDTV. She does both of these things with EZView. This dual use of EZAir’s device, and its benefits to multiple family members, really seems to hit resonate well with a lot of EZAir’s customers.
Next is the family’s teenage boy, whose shown streaming his music with the EZVibe gadget. EZVibe is designed to enhance a consumer’s audio experience, just as our other products aim to satisfy those looking for unique audio or video solutions.

And last but not least… The dog (not yet sketched). Our feline friend, and the rest of the family, no longer has to worry about getting tangled up in wires.

Results

EZAir Wireless already had a unique selling point with its affordable and innovative products. Now it’s backed up with a brand and a concept that really hits home with its target audience. Our team crafted the look and feel of the EZAir family where family members are shown interacting with EZAir products.

The role of the EZAir family will evolve with time so comments and suggestions are strongly welcomed by all.

eBay Feature first replacement — eBay Ad Commerce

Recently eBay has announced that it eliminate its Featured First advertising which will be retiring after June 29. The program allows Top Rated sellers to upgrade their listings and optimized spots on eBay as the sample bellow shows.

eBay said there were no plans to replace Featured First at the moment. Therefore, Featured First will automatically expire from any existing listings on this July 29 (the feature is not available for listing since June 29).
Therefore, we would strongly suggest eBay merchants to allocate their budget to the eBay Ad Commerce* program (see the Illustration bellow).

With high percentage of the exposure which was allocated to the feature first section, it will be reasonable to predict that eBay Ad Commerce Conversion rates will increase, hence, the program ROI will be improved.
Considering, most merchants will not take this step (as they are not aware of the possibility). We’re strongly encouraging you to shift the feature first budget and try out the Ad commerce strategy.

imOnline specializes in multi channeling strategy. With imOnline’s full-service eCommerce program a retailer’s products are listed in deep data processes, where they appear simultaneously on all the biggest Online Marketplaces. Whether it’s a veteran marketplace or an emerging one, we are there to list our clients’ products on it.

eBay Best Match : Fixed Price versus Good Till Canceled (GTC) – Which To Choose For Maximizing My Search Standing?

eBay Best Match is the primary focus to consider during your strategy process (read more about our strategy). To keep things simple, Best Match works by considering the following elements:

1. Demand factors such as free shipping, recent sales, keywords or item specifics common to the most successful listings in a specific category.
2. Listing factors such as distance and comparable cost to other items in a specific category.
3. Seller performance factors – whether a seller is Below Standard, Above Standard, or Top Rated.
4. Recent sales – fixed price listings that generate repeat sales can get a boost in their search exposure.
5. Soonest ending time is a factor for auction-style listings.

Currently, eBay offers two very similar listings types: Fixed Price and Good Till Canceled (GTC). We have seen very clearly that new listings get a Best Match boost -high rank in the first page of the search results – for a few hours.

On the other hand, GTC items – which stay at a fixed price for 30 days with an auto-renew function – are not getting a visibility boost during the renew process.

The quick, albeit incorrect conclusion is that in order to maximize your Best Match visibility you should list only fixed price items in the peak hours. Why is this conclusion incorrect? Let’s take a look…

At imOnline we work with many different types of sellers. We have huge sellers in many categories, such as apparel, jewelry and rugs. Does the conclusion above apply to all of our clients? No, of course not.

While GTC improves listings efficiency, it also has a few more advantages over fixed price items. First, let’s be clear: eBay’s Best Match algorithm does not consider quantity available or duration options (7 days, 30 days) on the listings. So it doesn’t really matter if you list your item for 30 days or 7 days, or if you list you item with quantity 1 or 1000. At imOnline, our strategy process takes into account that a recent sales score is based only on the recent sale of that item. Thus, as a sale becomes older it has less relevance to the score. Eventually a sale becomes too old to contribute at all. That timeframe varies depending on which eBay category it belongs to.

For example, for engagement rings in the jewelry category the timeframe is between 1 – 72 hours. In general, sales between 7 – 14 days old contribute much less, and sales between 30-60 days old don’t count at all.

If you take the above points into account, you will see that GTC is the best option for high velocity items.

As you can see, fixed price listings get a visibility boost while GTC items don’t. When eBay first launched Best Match, they only allowed the history to carry over once because of a technical limitation in the underlying functions they were using. Today the listings sales factor is carried over to new listings over and over again. So, while it appears that for items with high sales/view history, GTC and Fixed price items may have the same search standing, fixed price items have a huge advantage in Best Match when the item ends without a sale, due to their visibility boost.

We at imOnline recommend that sellers with low sales/view history use a fixed price listings strategy and sellers with high sales/view history sellers use GTC as their listing strategy.

Don’t forget – besides the sales history factor, there are few other super important factors to consider in your listing strategy: competitive item price, relevant title keywords and accurate items specifics.

imOnline specializes in multi channeling strategy. With imOnline’s full-service eCommerce program a retailer’s products are listed in deep data processes, where they appear simultaneously on all the biggest Online Marketplaces. Whether it’s a veteran marketplace or an emerging one, we are there to list our clients’ products on it.