-Shopping.com, please get rid of the hideous ‘Sponsored Listings’ from eBay littering your site. Or take down all the paid merchant listings and just put up eBay ads.

-Google using BizRate ratings (among others). Yes, everyone knows that BizRate is one of the sources for Google’s ratings, but it’s nice to see a press release on the subject (from Sept. 29). Also nice to see more activity recently on the BizRate Insights blog.

-95K Job cuts in September. Analysts got this one wrong. Doesn’t bode well for the holiday shopping season. From the NYTimes: “September’s U.S. payroll report adds to the evidence that the recovery is losing what little forward momentum it had,” said Paul Ashworth, senior United States economist at Capital Economics.

With all these tests that Google is running, your traffic will most likely go up and down and up and down and up and down.  Frustrating when you’re a marketer trying to meet your numbers.  That’s why you can’t put all your eggs in one basket – be it Google Shopping, NexTag, Shopzilla, Amazon Product Ads, or PriceGrabber.

Brian Mark of Toolbarn had a great slide in a SES presentation years ago that showed how he used the shopping engines to make up for a decline in traffic/sales after a site change knocked all his listings out of Google’s organic results.  If he didn’t have the shopping engine listings, he would have been in serious trouble.  In the same vein, as Google Shopping will continue to play around with its listings, merchants should think about listing on other top shopping engines.  Yes, Google Shopping might be at the top of the list in terms of traffic and revenue (and of course, ROI), but NexTag, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, and Shopping.com can provide a steady stream of traffic and revenue in the face of uncertainty from Google Shopping.

I’ll release some recent SingleFeed numbers discussing aggregate  traffic/revenue #s for the shopping engines soon, but let’s just say that listing on additional top engines can significantly boost results.  Yes, you’ll have to think about PPC costs and not all products will work on all shopping engines, but if you’re smart about your data feed marketing efforts (reporting/analytics!, you can succeed

Shopping.com is now displaying related items on product pages. And as opposed to some shopping engines which seem to just be sticking up links for SEO purposes, Shopping.com has a more elegant (although obviously simple) integration:

Shopzilla has related searches:

Yahoo! Shopping has ‘shoppers who viewed this item also viewed…’ I think this is the best integration:

Smarter has Similar Products:

Pronto has Related Products:

And of course, TheFind & Like.com provide much richer ‘related products’ integration.

Become, NexTag, Google Product Search, PriceGrabber, and SortPrice do not have a related products section.

First, Josh Silverman, SDC’s outgoing CEO said in the February Merchant Support Newsletter, “As our traffic increased in the past quarter, it placed some unexpected strains on our systems.” That’s a far cry from what I was told when SDC cut off new advertisers.

And now after taking down the Merchant Account Center (MAC) 2 times for a total of 14hrs in the last week (according to the notifications), SDC has launched a public Help Center.

The full announcement is here. This is an excerpt:

Previously, our help tab was integrated into the Merchant Account Center and only provided access to solutions in our database. Now, you can search the knowledge Base as well as interact with other merchants under our supervision in our new Beta Merchant Support Forums! There, you can post optimization information, bidding statistics or tips, discuss your marketplace, or troubleshoot a technical issue in a public space so others can take advantage of your experience.

We’ve also changed the process of how to submit a case. All cases will be submitted through the knowledge base page. Additionally, once you detail your issue, keywords in your inquiry’s subject and body will be used to find solutions related to your issue in case you couldn’t manually find what you were looking for! With this feature, our Account Managers hope to provide you faster, more detailed responses to questions about your performance rather than focusing on How-To’s or other technical issues.

With this announcement, we are pleased to redefine our services to you as well as decrease our current advertised response time from 7 days to 3!

It’s nice to see Shopping.com making the effort to help it’s merchants. The Help Center is public and can be accessed here.

Seems that Shopping.com is now making use of SalesForce’s web-to-case management system which allows merchants to log their own cases, get suggested solutions, and have the cases be routed directly to an account manager. Coincidentally, SingleFeed is implementing the exact same system this week, although I’d say the parallels end there.

My #1 suggested resolution for the shopping engines for 2008 was to provide more transparency. While I meant this in a number of ways (and left it open to interpretation), one way was to open up a bit and tell merchants what’s going on. At SingleFeed we screw up every once in a while, but our account managers are transparent about the process. That openness doesn’t solve everything, but it goes a long way in building trust.

Shopping.com is going the right direction with this Help Center. I was shocked (in a good way) to see that they had opened up public forums. While the threads will be under ‘[SDC's] supervision’, the initial three four posts have been negative and SDC hasn’t removed them:

“I am being charged hundreds of dollars per month although the product has been removed a while ago!!! Please look into this matter and provide contact informations! This is an urgent matter.”

“We too are being billed for products that have been removed OVER 5 months ago. I contacted support before this new support area was setup with no resolution.

We tracked down two sites offering the outdated feeds www.racecarpartysupplies.com and www.napkinholders.net both run by the same company. There are more but I’m unable to locate them.

Our frustration of not getting any support on this matter is also likely to drive us to abandon Shopping.com as well.”

I’ve been pulling my hair out for 3 days now trying to get my products to map properly and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get any help. No contact email or phone number. I’m ready to pull the account.

Anyone else notice that for many weeks now the Bidding Tool not only fails to display all the bids? Instead, for example, the bidding tool truncates the bid list (see Health and Beauty for example) so that it lists only about 43 bids from 1-43. The list is missing more than 600 bidders and bids. It is not particularly useful as it is.

So far, so good. Look forward to see more of these improvements.

Andre Haddad, currently a SVP at eBay, will become Shopping.com’s new CEO. Haddad joined eBay in 2001 after eBay acquired iBazar, a European online marketplace he co-founded.

I believe Haddad will be the 4th Shopping.com (after Dan Ciporin, Lorrie Norrington, and Josh Silverman) since starting I started covering the shopping industry less than 3 years ago.

One of the worst hit in the ecommerce/online marketing group has been eBay, which hit a new 52wk low today of 27.13 and is down almost 15% Year To Date (YTD). GSIC, down almost 20% YTD is the only other ecommerce related stock that I follow which has fared worse than eBay.

While Scot Wingo, the eBay pundit, points to Bob Peck’s ‘swing for the fences‘ analysis, I’m more keen on Jeetil Patel/Herman Leung’s (Deutsche Bank) analysis:

“We maintain our SELL investment rating on shares of eBay. In our opinion, challenging buyer demand, escalating seller economics, lack of reinvestment (to position for future growth), near declines in transaction volumes and potential operating margin pressures all represent key challenges at eBay. Upcoming fee changes may place additional pressure on operating margins and growth, while consumer spending is likely to be lackluster.”

I also think Jordan Rohan’s (RBC Capital) comments about spin-offs/sales are interesting:

“It may be early to call for a bottom on EBAY shares, in our view. The company may soon lower expectations for 2008 and could be pondering a significant change in business strategy. We view the potential retirement of Meg Whitman as a slight positive, as the pace of strategic change could accelerate after her departure. What would make us more positive: 1) management change, 2) resetting of financial expectations, 3) strategic refocus to reflect current reality, possibly including a PayPal spin-off, Skype sale, and layoffs, and 4) further correction in analyst sentiment. We have reduced our 2008 estimates to reflect the uncertain near-term outlook.

Meg Whitman announced yesterday that she’s leaving. eBay’s earnings call is on tap for tomorrow after the market close. If you’re in the ecommerce industry, pay attention to the call.

Here are examples for a couple searches. Notice the big SEE SITE buttons next to the ads:

According to my read of the Google’s AdSense Policy, Shopping.com’s actions are in violation of that policy:

In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. Publishers participating in the AdSense program:

* May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language
* May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
* May not place misleading images alongside individual ads
* May not promote sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites
* May not compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behavior
* May not place misleading labels above Google ad units – for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”

When I asked Shopping.com about this, they said that their “relationship with AdSense is confidential.”

Does this mean that Google AdSense sanctioned this test? I figured that this was just a programmer error, but that’s obviously not the response that I got.

So I’ll put it to my readers:
1. Is this a violation of Google’s AdSense Policies?
2. Is this a good user experience or is this just tricking the users into clicking on a link. The SEE SITE buttons Shopping.com posted next to the AdSense ads are the same ones they use for product listing results:

I thought I was clicking on a Shopping.com ad. Instead, I arrived at Shogging.com, which is owned by the Pepperjam Network. So what is Shogging.com? From the about us page:

The Shogging.com Comparison Shopping Blog embraces our dynamic e-commerce tradition and is powered by the most cutting-edge tools available, including applications such as AJAX and Python, which afford an integrated e-commerce, search, and blogging experience. Imagine that – the ability to shop and blog (SHOG) within the same user experience – it’s never been done before and Pepperjam is proud to have pioneered the technology that allows you, the user, to experience the ultimate in shopping and blogging!

Shogging.com has been around for a while, but I just noticed it because of the PPC ad. Just goes to show that there’s still potential for arbitragers. It’ll be interesting to see if Pepperjam can pull this off. Conventional wisdom would say no. Shogging.com has to pay the PPC fee and then has to rely on the merchant to convert. With high PPC fees (for all the reasons the shopping engines have high PPC fees), it’s going to be hard to make this a profitable venture. However, one industry insider did point out to me that Shogging.com gets well above even ‘Super-Affiliate’ rates because it actually manages the affiliate programs for many merchants.

A look at potential numbers:
Average CPC for Shogging.com on Google Adwords: $0.35
# of clicks: 100
Cost: $35.00
Click-through Rate to Merchant: 40%
Click-throughs to Merchant: 40
Conversion Rate on Merchant’s Site: 3%
Total Conversions: 1.2
Average Order Value: $75
Total Revenue: $90.00
Commission rate for Shogging.com: 17.5% (being generous, I think)
Commission for Shogging.com: $15.75
Profit (Loss): ($19.25)

Now there are a lot of guesstimates here, and I’m not taking into consideration clicks on Google AdSense ads and potential organic traffic, but play around with the numbers, and you’ll see that it’s going to be hard to make this work.

I appreciate Shopping.com explaining their side of the story to me earlier this week. I’m not always the easiest person to work with and the openness Shopping.com executives have demonstrated over the last couple months has been a breath of fresh air compared to my previous dealings with the company.

According to Shopping.com, the company is investing its resources into its existing merchant base and into customer service. They are prepared for the holiday shopping season and doing a lot of things to help their merchants like providing a monthly email, conducting webinars, and even launching live chat (coming soon). Shopping.com wants the most productive relationship possible with its current merchants.

The reason I felt sick hearing the news that Shopping.com is no longer accepting new merchants is because I see another side to the story. I’m not saying that my side of the story is correct. In fact, I could be completely wrong, but it’s what makes most sense to me.

So here’s my view, which Shopping.com flat out rejected:

Shopping.com dropped the ball. Plain and simple. Could you imagine Google Adwords telling people tomorrow that it can’t accept any new advertisers? NO. It’s unimaginable. That would mean that Google was not prepared technologically or otherwise.

Shopping.com should have been prepared for a holiday rush and it wasn’t. I applaud the company for taking care of its current merchant base, but cutting off new merchants just says that it (systems? technology? manpower?) can barely handle its current merchants (and thus the support emails that say to expect a reply in 5-7 days).

Just as the company has made recent strides to improve the quality/cost effectiveness of leads its merchants receive, the merchant management process (sign up, data feed management, account management, etc.) will also be addressed. Still, this is an embarrassing setback.

As for the financial impact, because Shopping.com is such a tiny part of eBay, cutting off new merchants isn’t going to really do anything. Furthermore, Shopping.com makes a significant percentage of its revenue from advertising sales and Google AdSense and that revenue is not going to dry up overnight – in fact, I’m sure ad sales is booming.

As for raising its initial deposit to $700, I feel that Shopping.com doesn’t care about the smaller merchants. This is also a theory that Shopping.com flat out rejected. Now I’m a bit more practical here, there’s sometimes significant cost involved with getting a smaller merchant up and running. I understand this because we deal with it at SingleFeed every day. But if you lower the barrier to entry in terms of cost, the potential upside is huge.

My favorite phrase is metrics oriented marketing, what the web enables you to do: run tests, track and make decisions based on actual data. By increasing the minimum initial deposit to $700 (from $50), you cut off tens of thousands of merchants from ever considering running a test with you. If the service is good, you should offer merchants a trial at little or no cost because the proof will be in the results.

But what do I know? I’m just a blogger. I’d rather take into consideration what the other shopping engines have for initial deposit requirements:

Google Product Search – Free
Become – $25
Yahoo! Shopping – $50
Shopzilla – $50
Pronto – $50
PriceGrabber (Soft Goods) – $50
Smarter.com – $100
NexTag – $150
Shopping.com – $700

And then there’s Google Adwords @ $5 and Yahoo Search Marketing @ $30. While these guys don’t have to worry about the dreaded data feed, it’s important to note that PPC advertising on Adwords and YSM is the standard. That’s what everyone knows and loves. So the shopping engines should be somewhat in line with these minimum required deposits in order to effectively convert potential advertisers into paying clients.

As SingleFeed friend, Miguel Salcido writes out on the eVisibility blog, Shopping.com is no longer accepting new merchants:

It just boggles my mind when merchants are not prepared for their busiest times of the year. But for one of the most established and well backed CSE in the world it is just disgusting. They will lose out on so much money this season because of this. Although they have been making many efforts to improve their program lately, this is pretty terrible. Honestly, the traffic from Shopping.com has not been performing too well for the handful of shopping data feeds that I run and submit. And I also hear that they are now requiring a $700 minimum deposit to get started with them, that is ridiculous! I remember last year they could not accept one of the credit cards, can’t remember if it was Visa or MasterCard, but it was a big pain in the but since the merchant I was submitting did not have another card to put it on.

Add to this the fact that Shopping.com increased their minimum required initial deposit to $700, automated emails from customer support say to expect a response within 7 days (thanks for the tip, L!), and the company is giving away the farm in the UK to try to get customers back, and I actually feel sick to my stomach.

I’ll just stick to the facts for now and hold off on commenting until I’ve talked with SDC directly. I really feel sick. I love this industry. What’s going on?