Is there any good news in $4.00 per gallon gasoline, higher food prices and rising unemployment among free-spending teens?

Yes! Bargain Stores, Second-Hand Clothing Outlets, Off-Price Discount Stores and even … gasp … sewing and make-your-own Bling advice, targeted to teens, are now considered v. cool.

Tween-Teen belt-tightening is unmistakable: Retailers who target teens – like American Eagle, Tween Brands, Inc. and its Limited Too — have seen up to four consecutive months of sales declines (says UBS-International Council of Shopping Centers). Fewer teens remain in the part-time workforce over the past 14 months, squeezing out C-note Coach wristlet handbags and $80 jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch and pre-distressed surfer hoodies with brand new Brand Hollister price tags. Even Teen Food Staples – pizza, potato chips – cost more of youths’ dwindling discretionary dollars.

Opportunity knocks for off-price and bargain apparel traders!!! Now it’s cool to be frugal, including:

• • Get ready for another Grunge Fest? Maybe not. Economists state the current spending slump is the worst since the early 1990s … and it slumps all the way through the family, as budget-conscious parents cut unlimited text-message services, allowances and frivolous shopping.The previous big 1990s slump birthed the Grunge Look – torn clothing, flannel shirts, ripped stockings and that Je ne sais quoi touch of Gothica. Even with a sinking economy (teen hiring dropped 13% in the early 1990s vs. a 5% hiring slump this past year), no one thinks fashion will go Grunge during this cycle. Keep stocking that economical Bling: DIY beads, rhinestones; Metallic-thread shoulder wraps and scarves; Oversized handbags that double as beach totes and book bags; Off-price jewelry and accessories.

• Buffalo Exchange, a chain of second-hand clothing stores based in Tucson Arizona that operates throughout the west and central California, says business is surging. Because teens can trade in jeans and apparel at Buffalo, shoppers are still buying top brands like Banana Republic and Juicy Couture. The brand-name threads are simply “recycled” and cost a fraction of regular price at Buffalo X.

• Off-pricing and low-pricing still works. Another tween favorite, Aeropostale, sells jeans to teens for 30% less than look-alikes at Abercrombie & Fitch … and is thriving during this downturn. Teens are re-branding their shopping hangouts from higher-priced Hollister to lower-priced Target; and they’re shifting from pricey Pacific Sunwear of CA demo stores to thriftier knock-offs at H&M and Steve & Barry’s.

• Even if the prices aren’t bargain basement, a “thrift-store ambience” keeps frugal Teens loyal. Or, so say trend experts who look at Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie brands, which are staying afloat in the economic storm when they only look like thrift stores.
• For anyone who thought free-spending Teens would never, ever cut up credit cards, pinch dollars till George yelps or turn to sewing machines, get this: the teen-targeted spin-off of women’s Elle Magazine (called Ellegirl.com) launched videos titled, “Self-Made Girl.” It’s all about making clothes, crafting accessories like a prom clutch bag, and altering what’s already in the closet to look more stylish or fit better.

Online Advertising unlike Traditional Advertising bestows a multitude of benefits to both buyers and sellers.  Although Online Advertising utilizes Traditional Advertising methods as a chauffeur to drive consumer traffic to your website, its techniques are neither bound by the constraints of geography or time, like its predecessor.

Online Advertising offers Advertisers a targeted system of marketing that insures those who view their ads are the ones who are most likely to make a purchase.  It also allows for improved tracking, as Traditional means make documenting conversion rates of advertising incredibly complicated.  For example, the internet allows you to monitor the number of visitors who have viewed your website via a specific ad, as opposed to the difficulty in accurately tracking the reach of newspaper and television ads.  Online Advertising also capitalizes on the vastness of the Internet and the Worldwide Web to deliver its marketing messages, thus attracting more Customers than its Traditional form.

If you are working with a limited budget, Online Advertising is often the more economical option.  Traditional Advertising, such as a Yellow Page ad may cost you several hundred dollars.  However, Online Advertising can start at mere pennies to the dollar when operating on a performance based strategy- meaning that you are only charged when visitors click on your advertisement.

The one downside I’ve found to Online Advertising is that while it may be placed on auto pilot, it tends to lack a sense of permanence- when the website page is closed the marketing appeal is exhausted.

The bottom line is that regardless of size or profit potential, companies worldwide are vying for a piece of the internet marketing pie by employing an efficient and newly improved cost effective strategy to advertising.  At the end of the day, Online Advertising is an excellent approach to getting the word out there and increasing exposure of your company’s products and/or services.

There’s really no big secret about increasing your Internet sales.  You drive traffic by creating more sales leads.  When these newbie shoppers show up, you engage them and convert their interest into a transaction.  Then presto: Better sales.

But all that’s much easier said than done.  Here are some specific ways to build sales momentum and to make your online store crackle and then (hopefully) pop.

1. Seek out strategic partners.

Question: What’s the online retail equivalent of “location, location, location?”  Answer: Links to your site in all the right places.  You want to create awareness of your wares among customers, so the first step is to truly define your target buyer.

Thoroughly research your customer’s profile and preferences.  Next, develop come-hither offerings, teasers, interactive ads and must-read content for as many appropriate sites as you can manage and afford.  “Small businesses can develop relevant content for other sites that drives traffic on a very low-cost basis,” says Andrew Restivo, founder of GourmetFoodMall.com, a New Orleans-based online shopping mall for more than 150 specialty food companies.

 In considering sites as partners or affiliates, don’t forget professional organizations and associations, especially when you market services or business products.  Try trading or paying for links with other small or midsize e-commerce marketers.  But before making any deals, verify that your links add value on those sites.  For instance, links to your boutique hotel might bring in business from local restaurant sites or a car rental agency or even a local chamber of commerce.  But it would make no sense at all on a site selling computers.
 
2. Keep customers clicking toward the checkout page.

Customers won’t wade through faulty, bulky or clunky architecture.  Broken links or haphazard navigation will only squander your hard-earned sales opportunities.  Streamline all site paths and continually check that every click works.  Rely on plain, instant gratification (HTML) text links to all products, services and registration forms.

“Graphics and Flash make your site look cool, but without text to encourage search results, customers may never even make it to your home page,” says Michelle Jackson, a spokesperson for Range Online Media, a search marketing company.

Also, consider easy ways to get to the shopping cart and reliable site-wide product search functionality.  When a shopper arrives with product specifics already in mind, you do’nt want to make that buyer work or wait.
 
3. Cross-promote like crazy.

Don’t make your online store a stand-alone orphan; make it work with other sales channels.  Successful sellers have figured out that the Web is just one sales channel, like mail-order catalogs, phone orders or face-to-face contact.  Everything must work together.  That means customers being able to research one of your products online, buying it by phone, and picking it up at the offline store.

If you only sell online, you must make sure your branded URL is seen far and wide.  That includes using it in every e-mail signature of every employee you have.  Print the store URL on all brochures, catalogs, packing material, shipping boxes, shopping bags, delivery trucks, posters and postcard notices.  If you attend trade shows or conferences, make sure your booth signage and promotional material also have a big, bold printed URL stamped on them.  Don’t miss an opportunity.

Also, it would be wise to register variants and misspellings of your domain name so customers who get it wrong will find you anyway.  For instance, a company named “Baskets R Us” should also register “Baskets Are Us.”  Think about it: For a few hundred dollars in registration fees, you might net one return customer who buys thousands of dollars worth of wares over time.
 
4. Keep it personal. 

Customers will feel more valued and comfortable about buying online if you establish a bond.  The more you’re in touch and display a personal tone, the more your customer will relax.  Some methods that work:

• Create an “About Us” or “Who We Are” page so that customers can learn about your background, the staff, and the history of the company.
 
• Create a blog or other feedback page so that customers can exchange comments.  Or set up an email option.  Just make absolutely sure that you have the capability of responding quickly.  The worst thing to do is set up a channel for contact that gets ignored.
 
• Create a way for customers to log on to track their order as they are packed and shipped.
 
• Create a series of auto-responder e-mail messages, saying thanks for visiting, offering to answer questions or send a reward for buying and then confirmation of shipping.
 
• Create e-mail discount or news blasts to announce products or price deals.  Or create an ongoing newsletter. 
 
 5. Be specific (and honest) about your product offerings.

“The more detail you include, the better.  People like to know the histories of what you’re selling and who you are,” advises Lynne Dralle, an eBay Power Seller who has sold more than 20,000 items at online auctions over the past six years.  “Always describe exactly what the buyer is getting.  Be honest,” she says.  When selling her collectibles, Dralle mentions any chips or flaws, but she also tells stories, like how her Aunt Mary brought an item over from England.

High-quality photographs of products are also a must.  If you don’t have a digital camera, you might consider investing in one; they’ve come down in price and are worthwhile to have.  But also know that, for a very low cost, Staples or Kinko’s or the corner drugstore can scan images onto a disk that can be uploaded to your PC.
 
6. Set delivery policies that work for your business model.

The great debate about whether free shipping boosts online sales is finally fading into individual solutions.  While you still find advocates pro and con, it’s now boiling down to a matter of your product pricing.  “Free shipping costs can kill you if you can’t include them in the price of the product,” says GourmetFoodMall.com’s Restivo, whose company regularly surveys online consumers on such issues.

But if you jack up your price to accommodate free shipping on commodity items that only sell at the lowest price possible, you lose.  In those cases, customers expect to pay a reasonable amount for shipping, Restivo says.  On the other hand, high shipping prices are a big detriment to sales of perishable or premium products, presumably because it’s easy to forgo those items when they don’t feel like a “bargain.”  Restivo’s tip: Rely on second-day-air shipping.  “You can build $3 to $5 into the price.  Costs are much cheaper than overnight and customers are satisfied.”
 
7. Spruce up your site and service.

The goal is to get customers to return and to spread the word among friends and family that your online shop is worth a visit. So do everything you can to make the experience fast, fun and fabulously better than your competitors.

Explain all your policies, up front.  Promise 100% money-back guarantees with no strings attached.  Offer free samples.  Quickly respond to every query or comment.  Invest in a live chat function so that customers can get answers to product questions immediately.  Create reasons to return to your site with a loyalty club or contests or email games and discounts.  Make connections with customers and don’t let go.
 

One last point: Don’t forget that having well-written content and product descriptions are important because you want the search engines to find you.  Learn how to optimize your site for search engines.  Next thing you know, the sales will start rolling in.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Net Neutrality issue and how AT&T was fighting this legislation tooth and nail but then made a concession not to pursue two-tiered pricing on the Internet in return for getting FCC approval for it’s lucrative ATT-BellSouth merger.
However, this concession by ATT does not mean that the legislation is going to be passed. Republicans have historically opposed it while Democrats are in favor. Recently, two senators, one a Democrat (Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND) and the other a Republican (Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME) have introduced a bill to guarantee that Internet service providers do not discriminate against content providers with two-tiered pricing policies. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), head of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, plans to hold hearings on a newly introduced Net Neutrality bill later this year.
Both House and Senate refused to pass Net Neutrality legislation last year, and it could also be an uphill battle this year. The very nature of the Internet is threatened if Net Neutrality does not pass. It will no longer be a level playing field for all comers if two-tiered pricing is allowed to prevail, abandoning both free speech and commerce.
We at JP Communications support this legislation. Net Neutrality will guarantee that all companies and individuals, large and small, will have the same access to consumers on the Internet. This democratic principle lies at the foundation of the Internet and should remain intact as we go forward.

Those who advocate charging more for rich media delivery content are the big telcos (AT&T and Verizon) and the cable companies (Comcast). They propose a two-tiered pricing model that would allow companies who can afford it to pay more for getting their rich media pages loaded faster. Convenient for them, but not for everyone else.
Note that these opponents claim regulation of the Internet is unnecessary and will stifle investment, innovation and creativity. However, Net Neutrality is not about regulating the Internet. It is about regulating the carriers.
We need to keep the barriers to entry low on the Internet. This position is held by Net Neutrality advocates such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay, to name a few. Many of today’s Internet giants did not even exist in the early ‘90s. It was only because of the Internet’s low-entry barriers and ability to connect consumer with marketers that these Internet companies are worth billions of dollars today. This will never happen again if Net Neutrality legislation is not passed. If you work in any Internet marketing channel, I urge you to support Net Neutrality. I urge you to support Net Neutrality by contacting your Congressional Representative and Senators to let them know how you feel.

Jason Prescott

If your company uses Yahoo Search Marketing pay per click advertising you probably are already aware there has recently been some changes, upgrades they like to call them, to the program. As a whole I am not particularly impressed but some advertisers I have spoken with seem very pleased.

Here’s what’s going to different.

Remember when you were setting up your old account? You had to generate separate ads for each key word or phrase. Now, titles, descriptions, and URLS can be applied to multiple keywords. This will cut down the time needed to create ads and will make it possible for quicker adjustments to your campaign.

If you have always wanted to test different version of an ad to see which is most effective the new manner of grouping keyword should make that easier. A single ad group will now be able to contain up to 1,000 keywords and 20 ads. This feature brings Yahoo Search Marketing more into line with Google Adwords.

If you already have an existing account you should have received an email telling you how you can see a preview of the upgrade of your account. This notice should come approximately one week before your upgrade is available. Once your preview is ready you can take a look at read-only version and get an idea of what’s up and how to navigate through the impressive collection of reports and ad building tools.

Whenever you are ready you can select to put the upgrade in place for your account. Now this process will take about eight hours and during that time you will not have access to your account so you will most likely want to choose a time during the night or other off period.

If you don’t want to fool with doing the upgrade yourself simply do nothing and Yahoo will do the upgrade themselves. Yahoo will send you an email telling you on what date they will make the changes. You will continue to use your old username and password but will need to go to the new login page. The emails from Yahoo will contain this link or there is a link to use on the old login page. If you have an account and haven’t heard from Yahoo you should probably get ahold of them to be sure there have been no mistakes.

While the new system isn’t an Earth shattering change it does make Search Marketing function more like Adwords. To my mind this is a pretty good thing as I have always found Adwords a good deal easier to work with than Search Marketing. Not bad, Yahoo.

Business and professional users searching for work-related information on the web are not finding needed data through general search engines like Google and Yahoo. A 2006 study by Outsell reported a search failure rate of 31.9 percent among business users when searching from major search engines. With one-third of the B2B and professional business queries producing unsatisfactory results on Google, this presents an opportunity for vertical search engines (VSEs).
Another study by Convera conducted in December 2006, shows that professionals in virtually every industry cannot find important work-related information on the major search engines. Convera surveyed 1,112 professionals in publishing, advertising, marketing, healthcare, finance, government and other industries. Results show that B2B professionals using general search engines do not find queried information quickly or easily.
One of the problems is that Internet search engines were not designed to be used as business tools. Another reason is that most industry professionals are not trained in research practices. As a result, only 4 out of 10 professionals are very satisfied with search results on general search engines.
· Only 11 percent always find what they are looking for on the first attempt.
· Only 43 percent always find what they are looking for after several attempts.
· Only 21 percent feel their query is always understood.
General Search Engines Work Well for Consumers
General search engines rely strongly on the popularity theory that rewards sites with authoritative inbound links. Website popularity and keyword relevancy (among other variables) help determine rankings. The relevancy model works well for consumer search, and consumers usually find what they are looking for on page one of search results. For instance, a search for Toyota Camry brings up 2,630,000 results on Google and 6,740,000 on Yahoo (at time of writing). So there is no scarcity of information on Google and Yahoo when consumers are looking for product information.
Professionals, on the other hand, get a mixed bag. They are used to instant success with their consumer searches, but when it comes to looking up business information, it’s a different story. Here’s what generally happens with many business searches.
When several business searches fail, 93 percent of professionals will enter a similar term into the same search engine hoping for better results. (This is the same result found in other studies on search behavior.) Some of them (53%) will try a different general search engine. When these searches lead nowhere, 52 percent will turn to a vertical or topic-specific search engine. A third may give up altogether; however, 41 percent will make 6 to 10 search attempts before quitting, and another 47 percent will try up to 5 times.
Sounds like work, right? So it’s no wonder that many of these professionals report getting lost or distracted. Here’s what professionals do when they don’t find what they need, and they don’t give up easy.
· 17 percent quit before 5 minutes
· 42 percent continue up to 15 minutes
· 24 percent continue up to 30 minutes
· 17 percent continue more than 30 minutes
So it’s no surprise that 70 percent of the professionals surveyed reported that they get sidetracked during the search process. Of that group, 68 percent end up on sites they did not expect to visit and are not relevant to their work.
When the search process fails, 52 percent believe the data they seek exists but they just can’t find it. Only 23 percent are very confident they’ve covered all the bases. About one-third admit to making decisions without all the needed information.
More Relevant Search for B2B

The past year has seen a number of new VSEs targeted at professionals. These resources offer options that allow professionals to tailor searches according to their own requirements. The most significant trend is that of trade publications developing their own online vertical search destinations for their professional communities. These customized search engines will provide a more relevant search experience for B2B users. When asked about their expectations for these new vertical search resources, nearly 90 percent of professionals indicated they believed such search engines would offer more relevant contact.
· 86 percent said VSEs would locate content more quickly.
· 85 percent believe VSEs would offer access to content not indexed by popular search engines.
Vertical Search in Wholesale Merchandising
Because the current general search options do not meet the needs of B2B and professional users, vertical search is becoming more important than ever before. Both vertical search engines and customized search engines are making it easier for professionals to find the data they need.
If you are in the wholesale general merchandising industry, the following VSEs put buyers and sellers of wholesale merchandise together:
TopTenWholesale is a B2B wholesale merchandise search engine offering pay-per-click, banner and promotional marketing to wholesale companies.
Wholezilla is a B2B wholesale product comparison search engine and the only wholesale search engine on the web that lets retailers compare pricing and product information from wholesalers. Wholesalers can submit their data feeds at no charge.
OffpriceNetwork is the only wholesale directory for the Off Price Apparel industry. Wholesalers can add their websites to the directory (6 sites for a $249 listing fee). OffpriceNetwork caters to the wholesale apparel and fashion accessory industry, offering over 80 categories, blogs, classifieds and forums.
WholesaleU is the most mature directory of wholesalers on the web, offering access to wholesale companies at no fee. Wholesalers can add their websites to the directory (6 sites for a $249 listing fee). Catering to the general merchandise, closeout, and dropship community, WholesaleU offers over 80 categories, blogs, classifieds and forums.
Vertical Search Meets the Needs of B2B
Today, it appears that general search engines do not adequately serve professionals, leaving them with unmet needs. The advantages of vertical search will go a long way toward providing professionals with relevant business results.

Last week I wrote on this blog regarding a situation were Amazon.com and McAfee.com were both bidding on Top Ten Wholesale’s domain name and trademarks. We were appalled both by the fact that huge companies, such as those two, can drive up the costs of doing business for a smaller company, such as, well us and how little in the way of cooperation we received from them in correcting this violation of Google Adwords terms of service.

As I said before we contacted Google and got seeming encouraging activity from them but were also told to attempt to fix the problem with McAfee and Amazon ourself. Not surprisingly, they were of little help. They returned neither phone calls or emails.

However, in all fairness, we wish to report that Google has taken action and made tremendous steps towards rectifying the situation. We received an email from them saying that they agreed that McAfee’s “ad text was unclear” and that McAfee’s ad would no longer contain our trademarks and domain name. We greatly appreciate their speedy action.

Although Google didn’t mention it in their email we they seem to have removed Amazon’s ad from our trademark as well. They also promised that we would here from their trademark department as well once they had fully reviewed the situation.

We inquired if there were further punishments other than simply removing the offending ad and they said that “I can assure you that repeat violators are suspended from our advertising program. We do not tolerate repeat malicious violations of our policies.”

We do not expect much to come from this but I must say I fail to understand how a trademark violation can be anything but malicious. It simply isn’t possible for this to have been a mistake. Putting a bid on some ones domain name is a conscious act and requires planning and forethought. It doesn’t happen by accident, it happens because a company wants to crowd a competitor and harm their business.

In one sense I suppose we should be proud, having some of the biggest names on the Internet begin tramping on our domain name may be a sign that our little company has arrived. About a week ago while performing a regular check of the Adwords PPC advertising that we pay a goodly amount for each month we discovered that both Amazon.com and McAfee.com were appearing as sponsored links on searches for www.toptenwholesale.com.

This is a violation of Google’s policy of on purchasing key word advertising on registered trade marks or domain names. Obviously these two big hitters have placed deposits on our trademark. The flattery of this gesture however doesn’t match up with the downside that comes with it; namely that we have to pay more to get the same result positions on our own domain names then we would if Amazon and McAfee were not bidding on it.

After Google’s recent legal dust up with Gieco you’d think they would be anxious to avoid these sort of problems. We followed the procedure to rectify this situation as outlined in Google’s term of use. We called them and found Google reasonably helpful. A friendly and seemingly dedicated customer service rep walked us through the grievance filing but then encouraged us to reach out to the violators ourself to get their assistance in fixing the problem.

Here things got a little trickier. All attempts to contact McAfee have met with an ear splitting silence. They responded to neither our emails or phone calls. Amazon at least answered their phone but beyond that were of no help what so ever. The customer service rep, know to us only as Representative #8, offered no assistance and refuse to allow us to speak with someone further up the ladder at the Internet giant.

We will continue to pursue this violation of our intellectual property rights and sincerely hope for a speedy resolution but at this point it is unclear what exactly can to be done. If Google insists that some kind of friendly talk with Amazon and McAfee will straighten everything out and the two companies continue to refuse to discuss the matter it leaves us in a untenable situation.

First off, I hate to do this, but in order to protect the little guys out there ( like us!) , I must fore warn all of you of my worse public relations experience ever.

Do not ever consult Visibility Bookings or Carrol Van Stone. She is rude, obnoxious, “salesey”, pretentious individual who will promise you the world and deliver you nothing but heart ache and wasted time. When I have some more time ( she’s already cost me enough) I will inform all of you how Carol Van Stone “stole” $4500 of our budget and did absolutely NADA! 0! Zilch.

More to come. Much, much more.
Carrol: You are welcome to respond. Please do so. We can’t wait.
Jason
TopTenWholesale
JPC LLC

How does your logo stand up to the competition? Even more importantly, is your logo doing it’s job? You logo is more then just some image to put on your letterhead; it is your identity, your face, your first impression to the market.

Many companies spend tens of thousands of dollars or more on a logo. Nike or Macintosh have huge budgets just for marketing their logo. What can you possible do to maximize you logos’ impression, without spending the kind of money IBM does?

OneVision, a British marketing company gives this advice:

Developing a quality logo is not a simple task. Imagine trying to boil down all of your personality traits, interests, hobbies, and activities into one sentence that describes who you are as a person. It would require a good bit of soul searching, introspection, and prioritizing, wouldn’t it?

Well, the same is required of your company when you create a logo. Your agency can make the process run smoothly by asking the right questions, but be prepared to commit the time and resources necessary to produce a quality result. Work with your agency to figure out what makes sense for your budget and your situation, but just to give a ballpark, allocating 5 - 10% of your overall marcom budget to corporate identity is not uncommon.

A good logo is going to to give your company a clean, professional look. The cleaner and more stylish your logo, the better your chances are of standing out amongst the others in the industry. Don’t forget, it is important to keep your logo fresh as times change. It is normal for a company that has been in business for many years, or decades to change it’s logo from time to time. Maybe it is time to update yours?