Growing Your Online Business

Spring is in the Air

Crocuses, tulips, and worst of all – your grass. Spring is the time for new growth in your garden. For lots of people it is a time for new personal growth. And if you are reading this blog – it’s likely that you are interested in business growth.

But before I talk about your business, let me tell you about my garden. For me there are few things that are more gratifying than growing a beautiful garden. But growing a garden takes planning, patience, and dedication. Soil amendments, fertilizer, weeding, and watering are just a few of the steps it takes to have a beautiful garden. There is more to it than throwing water on a pile of dirt and waiting for flowers. But the blooms are worth the wait.

So how does this relate to your business? In the very near future you’ll hear news about Infopia’s Spring Release! Like my garden, we are focused on optimizing and growing your business. The features ready to launch are all designed to help you maximize your profits and expand your revenues. Our new features empower you to get more out of Marketplace Manager (preparing the soil), give you access to more marketplaces & increased customization of your website (planting seeds and bulbs), and enhanced customer service tools (cultivating beautiful blooms).

So when it comes to Spring – do you treat your business like I treat my garden? Check back tomorrow to see what blooms!

David

Product Development – You Can’t be a Chicken!

The problem of the chicken and the egg is timeless, when applied to software product development it is timeless and incredibly frustrating. If we build a better tool, the sellers will flock to us – OR – let’s get some new clients who need the tool and then we have reason to build it. There really is no way to know, the problem is universal.

At Infopia, we’ve always taken pride in our innovative ideas – not just the idea, but the implementation and delivery of the idea.The Configurator for eBay was one such idea – for the record, this one started with a chicken. Once the Configurator was built and launched we hatched several ideas about how to make it better, smarter, and dare I say COOLER! Infopia already supported the concept of compatibility (identify your product and find things that “fit”), add this to the Configurator and the Parts Finder was born!

 

But the question remains – build it and sell it or sell it and build it.  We’ve decided to pursue this product – with or without committed sellers.  We believe in the technology and believe that sellers will quickly see the value of lower listing fees, higher customer satisfaction, and increased buyer loyalty!

Infopia’s Parts Finder solution is designed to help buyers find the specific auto parts and accessories they’re looking for. Using the Parts Finder is straightforward and intuitive. Buyers simply choose the vehicle year, make, and model to begin the search. A complete listing of all relevant and compatible products within your inventory is displayed. For Parts & Accessories sellers this means fewer live listings, but increased visibility of available inventory.

If you are interested in learning more – click here to view our Parts Finder Data Sheet. If you are a parts & accessories retailer (on or off eBay) with serious interest in being part of the development of this feature I’d love to hear from you! Email me at dplatt@infopia.com.

Infopia & Bid4Assets Marketplace

In an effort to help sellers diversify their portfolio of sales channels - Infopia continues to deliver new marketplaces.

Bid4Assets and Infopia Announce Integration - High-volume merchant Neimans Jewelry to beta test integration

The integration lets sellers take better advantage of Bid4Assets’ high-touch customer service, national reach and marketing support to find the right buyers while improving profitability through Infopia’s automated, end-to-end solutions. Neimans Jewelry, a high-volume merchant that uses Infopia’s Marketplace Manager and sells on Bid4Assets, will beta test the integration with new auctions starting this week on Bid4Assets.

Launching Infopia Marketplace Manager 6.3

We are pleased to announce the newest release of Marketplace Manager 6.3 available now.

Please review the following list of new features. Complete documentation along with training materials are available online. If you have questions or need additional information, please call us at 888-337-6352.

Infopia’s newest release of Marketplace Manager 6.3 includes new and expanded features that will give you added functionality, streamline processes, and provide integration and compatibility with evolving technology and services. The features listed below are available now. The Marketplace Manager 6.3 upgrade is free to all current Marketplace Manager users. Complete documentation and training materials are available at http://www.infopia.com/infopia/Upgrade_6.3.pdf.

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Custom Template Access
Access your custom templates on various online marketplaces, make changes as needed or create new designs to highlight features or attract attention. With a greater ability to control the look and feel of the templates, you can increase brand recognition across all your listings on multiple marketplaces.

eBay Stores New Multiple-Level Categories
Infopia requires that you migrate your eBay Store listings to the new 300-category listing system. Marketplace Manager will automatically add and revise eBay Store categories to correlate with your websites categories to make the migration quick and easy.

eBays "Best Offer"
The eBay "Best Offer" feature allows buyers to specify a price they are willing to pay for an item, rather than consecutive bidding. You choose which offers to accept. When the auction closes, the highest offer wins. You can easily select which products to include in this type of bidding. More functionality for this feature, including more automation, will be added in future releases.

eBay Category Selector
Browse through eBays current six-level category structure and choose the appropriate category for your products by category name only. Based on your selection, Marketplace Manager will then automatically locate the relevant Infopia category corresponding to the eBay category with no need for the eBay category number.

Google Analytics Integration
Take advantage of the features available from Google Analytics by allowing tracking codes to be placed on your website. Google Analytics is a free service and can be requested from their website at www.google.com/analytics.

Receipt Tracking Codes
Utilize the capabilities of third-party services such as CJ.com, AdWords, Froogle, and others to help you take full advantage of online selling opportunities. Simply add tracking codes to the receipt page of your website.

Multiple Carrier Insurance
Easily create custom insurance settings on Shipping Profiles. Specify the order amount levels, insurance charge amounts, and required status so that insurance can be accurately calculated and easily added to orders. Interface available for all the major insurance carriers.

Multiple Storefront Categories
Improve your merchandising capabilities and boost sales by listing products within multiple product categories on both standard and custom websites. In addition, you can manage placement of multiple menus on custom sites.

HTML Creator
The new WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) tool provides basic HTML capabilities including common formatting tools, copy and paste, viewing codes, and spell checker. This tool is easy to use and requires no prior HTML knowledge. Access this tool from the Description Field of Inventory Items.

Top Seller Settings
Manage the Dynamic Top Seller section of your website easily through the Storefront Settings field. Control how often products are updated and indicate the measurement to use: transaction volume or highest sales price.

Bulk File Center
Perform bulk file management processes more easily and efficiently with this new feature. Import and export bulk inventory files and utilize the data for various processes including updating eBay Item Specifics and Infopia Category Attributes. Advanced functionality, including searching and filtering of data, is also available. Further enhancements to this feature will continue to be added.