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Steps to Success for Data Feeds
By Michelle Megna, managing editor, ECommerce-Guide.com
For e-tailers who need help with data feeds to
comparison shopping engines, Brian Smith, CEO and
founder of SingleFeed, has three steps to follow for
success: Add more attributes to your data feed;
categorize all products; and participate in ratings
programs.
In regard to attributes, Smith says, though Google
Product Search requires five, that's simply not
enough. There are a multitude of other fields you
can use. For instance, if you're selling ski boots,
he says, "You're the expert on Ski Boots, Google is
not. What else do consumers need to know before
buying Ski Boots: Color; department; age range;
liner material; tech specs; manufacturer warranty;
number of buckles; etc."
Second, you need to categorize your products or they
will end up in "miscellaneous," and not be found by
shoppers. "Think your products are categorized
properly? Think again. Zappos, Amazon, B&H Photo,
HomeClick all have 100s if not 1000s of
'miscellaneous' listings on Shopping.com," Smith
says.
The last tip from Smith when submitting data feeds
to shopping sites: participate in ratings because
they increase click-through — and sales. For
instance, he says Shopping.com merchants with a 4.0
or higher store rating have 34 percent higher
conversion-to-sale than merchants with a store
rating below 4.0. Also, people engage with offers
24.5 percent more of the time if they have ratings
(either positive or negative).
Finally, Smith says, "On Yahoo, merchant rating is
one of the factors that is used when ranking our
search results, which means a higher merchant rating
leads to higher traffic."
---Source:
ECommerce-Guide.com Oct 23, 2008. Michelle Megna is
the managing editor.
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