Amazon vs. eBay – part 2

In my last Amazon vs. eBay post I explained why Amazon is the right horse to bet on.

In this post I want to shed some more light on this claim. From the demographic viewpoint the conclusions become pretty clear:

Amazon users are:

1. More Educated - 36% of its users hold Bachelors and/or Graduate degrees. Only 27% of eBay users falls into this category.

2. Wealthier - 20% of its users earn household incomes of over $100,000. 17% of eBay users earn the same.

3. Younger - Analyzing the trends shows that eBay users are generally defined as older, whereas Amazon users are generally defined as middle-aged.

4. Diversified - 44% of eBay users are female – compared to 51% of Amazon’s. Overall, Amazon’s population is mixed, whereas eBay’s is mainly masculine.

eBay users are:

Although eBay users may be more loyal (58% regular visitors and 9% “addict” users), Amazon has 46% regular users and almost no “addict” users. Amazon’s chief officers are aware of these figures and efforts to preserve clients has increased over the last 2 years. Features such as “Amazon Prime” are intended to increase the Amazon user’s loyalty.

It appears that Amazon wins in 4 out of 5 criteria. See the charts below to get better visual indication on this:

eBay vs amazon- source: Google ad planer

eBay vs Amazon - demographics

amazon vs eBay- source: Quantcast

What’s The Bottom Line?

eBay users may be more loyal, but Amazon gets more new visitors every month. Amazon users are also more educated and wealthier. Amazon wins in an almost flawless knockout (4 out of 5 criteria). So I think it is safe to say (again) that our main bet for the 2010-2012 leading marketplace remains Amazon.

I would love to hear your thoughts and predictions about this trend. You are welcome to discuss this issue with our team of eCommerce experts.

How Will The New Google Search Affect Your Search Experience?

For those of you that still don’t know, Google is in the process of redesigning its home page, and is currently running beta testing for it.

if you want to see it for yourself, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are signed out of your Google account

2. go to Google.com

3. Enter the following code into your brower’s URL window:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:
U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-
53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

4. See the magic

OK. so now you should see a screen like this:

So we’re all excited about the new look & feel of Google, and the new search experience, but the questions we’re asking are: How this is going to affect online consumers behavior? and How this will affect search engines optimization and paid search campaigns?

We  can summarize the changes in one word – refining. Google is sharpening the tool of refining, and will improve upon the search experience with several refine options.

The Main New Features and Their Impact

Refine by category on prominent position- this option is located on the top left side (eye catching position- as the eye scans from left to right). The categories are: News, Images, Video, Books, Maps, Shopping, Blogs and Forums.

Related results- the “see also” tab enables the user to find related content and similar results for his search term. With regard to eCommerce, it can be used as an effective cross selling feature for similar items (even by competitive brands/items!).

***

Brand Search – “Nike”

When searching the term “Nike” – which is a generic search – we see that the first category in the refine search is News. Following that are Images, Video, Blog, Etc. It appears that without a specific search, the Google search categories will present the natural 7 structure. When you search “Nike,” you get more relevant news content than you do images.

Brand Only search

- Product search – “Nike Shox”

When searching for “Nike Shox” – which is not a generic search – we see a change in the category order that Google presents us with: the first category in the refine search is Image. Right after that, we see Shopping, which jumped to the #2 position (In the natural 7 structure, it is in the #7 position). So, it appears that when searching for “nike shox,” there is more image related content than there is shopping related content.

Buy this product search – “Buy Nike Shox”

Searching for “buy nike shox”  clearly and directly defines the purpose of the search: shopping. Google’s search algorithm will adjust and reevaluate the search results for relevancy. In this search instance, the Shopping category will be presented as the first result.

Buy Specific Item search

Pretty cool stuff, right? How do you think the new Google homepage will affect eCommerce? I would love to hear your comments and thoughts.

Arie.

Converting Leads to Sales- or How to Wisely Design Filters for Your Online Store

Clay Shirky was presenting a very interesting issue at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York when he claimed that “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” While we indeed appear to be suffering from an overload of unwanted data coming through our internet connections, perhaps we can approach the problem from the perspective of one particular solution: better information filtering.

Today more than ever, the web is flooded with unwanted information – spam in the story of inbound information flow, as social networks are the stories of outbound information flow. Information flooding is indeed creating major setbacks in our online life – it consumes our time and makes our work less efficient, our shopping experience less fun, and our online experience less enjoyable. But instead of assuming that the problem is information overload, the problem can actually be viewed as a filtering issue.

Once we’ve concluded that this is a filter failure rather then information overload, we can approach the task of finding the right filtering solution that will handle the entire mass of unwanted of information.

Designing newer filters doesn’t mean simply updating the older filter mechanisms.

There is a need for innovation in the filtering process, which will also involve rethinking of social norms.

In the world of eCommerce, filters are foundations of every shopping experience. If you have an online store with 10,000 items, having a 3-click shopping experience will make your website a winner and a top convertor. Otherwise, your clients will spend at least 2-3 minutes just trying to find what they wanted – in the worst case scenario they will abandon their shopping cart after 15 seconds.

Organizing website structure is a top priority, especially when you are dealing with high volume inventory where the filter system is so vital.

Here are 5 Dos:

1. Categorize – Divide your store items into clear parent categories, preferably by product type. For instance, in a fashion store you might want to divide your products among categories called Shoes, Clothing, Bags, and Accessories. Or you can create categories such as Men, Women, Children, and Dogs.
2. Sub-categorize – Once parent categories have been set, think about the sub-categories to be included under each parent category. This will help you narrow down the number of items in each category, and will enable the placement of a higher resolution filter.
3. Refine search tool – The ability to narrow down the number of items in one page view is crucial. Most viewers are willing to view around 9-20 items, but this is as far as most shoppers would go whilebrowsing without losing patience. By providing a “refine search” tool (which can be placed as in a left navigation menu or a central one), shoppers will be able to narrow down their search by specific parameters, such as brand, size, color and style.
4. Diversity – The refine search tool should be applicable for every main category. Every category should have its own “refining attributes”. This will help ensure well-designed filters.
5. Give them what they want – Buyers love to search by price, popularity, on sale and newest items. Give them this possibility by offering these filter parameters in your product search.

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