e-Commerce: Complete. Configured. Connected.
Introducing BlueSnap
Apr 3rd
Today, we proudly entered the era of open eCommerce with the launch of BlueSnap, a new company focused on providing enterprise-size vendors of digital goods and content a complete eCommerce infrastructure and payment solution. BlueSnap is the result of an investment last year by Great Hill Partners, focused on bringing to market flexible monetization solutions that enable companies to quickly and cost-effectively implement a compliant and secure online business environment.
Based on more than a decade of experience helping companies of all sizes deploy eCommerce solutions, BlueSnap’s vision is to become the “go-to” commerce provider in the age of always on connectivity. As Hagai Tal, BlueSnap’s CEO, says, “We literally grew up in this industry, and as we gained experience, our vendors became more successful. BlueSnap is the result of that experience and growth, and represents an evolution of eCommerce technology that provides our customers a virtual ‘app store’ of BlueSnap products that can be combined to design the solution that best suits their needs.” For existing Plimus vendors reading this blog post – operationally nothing changes for you. Plimus will be a service of BlueSnap. As a current Plimus vendor, Plimus.Com will continue to be your website for support, information, and questions. The Plimus payment platform will remain the core platform to help you sell your digital goods and services online.
BlueSnap supports eCommerce business models for virtual ownership of services or content – things like subscriptions to premium online video or audio content, recurring membership to an online gaming site or other cloud-based services – as well as more traditional purchase models. We’ll be going into more detail on our product offer in future posts, but, in short, BlueSnap will offer a suite of five customizable solutions, including:
- BlueSnap Full Service Commerce – technology and expertise to build enterprise class online commerce capabilities
- BlueSnap Custom Commerce – builds on BlueSnap’s Full Service Commerce solution, with the addition of specialized functionality from the company’s best-in-class ecosystem of partners
- BlueSnap Content Commerce – solutions to monetize online content, SaaS and cloud services, including industry-specific solutions including CloudTV+Plus, a unique IPTV entertainment solution
- BlueSnap/Plimus Self-Service Commerce – a continuation of Plimus’ 10-year leadership as the “do it yourself” eCommerce platform for small and medium sized businesses, now a BlueSnap service
- Commerce Integration – channel and developer targeted services to support integrated commerce and embed payments, eCommerce and online marketing in existing applications to create new revenue streams
Today’s announcement has been a long time in the making and there’s still more to come. You can learn more about these developments and keep updated on BlueSnap’s evolution of open eCommerce by visiting our website at www.bluesnap.com. You may also follow The BlueSnap “Make It Happen” blog at BlueSnap Blog
[l1]Insert link to blog when bluesnap.com goes live.
Who Is In Your Social Network?
Mar 22nd
We wrote recently about some of the changes in the payments world, particularly about a tightening of the rules and regulations around who can sell online, and how they interact with the credit card associations. For most online merchants, these are changes that continue to fuel a mainstreaming of our industry, even if they do cause some irritation in the short term. The underlying theme here, to a large degree, is the virtual version of school yard: who you hang around with determines how others perceive you.
There’s the jocks and the nerds, the Goths and the slackers, even – dare one say – the stoners. Who we choose to associate with has a real impact on how we are pre-judged by those who don’t yet know us; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. We can argue the justice of being judged ‘guilty by association’, but we certainly can’t deny that it happens, and likely always will.
This plays out in the online commerce world every day. There was a situation I learned about a couple of years ago where one online merchant was accused of playing fast and loose with the rules on adding post-purchase promotions: they successfully got a slew of consumers to unknowingly sign up for a subscription they didn’t realize they were committing to. Eventually their program was noticed, and all kinds of bad things happened, not the least of which was that that organization was sent packing by their payment processor. Perhaps toughest, though, was that dozens of other companies who offered similar programs – regardless of how transparent their processes were, or how high their customer satisfaction rates soared – were also advised that their business was no longer welcome. They had been tarred with the same brush, because no payment processor can take the risk of enabling behavior that can fundamentally damage their own reputation, and hinder their ability to serve their customers.
Plimus has just introduced a new process to the sign-up for our service, one in which new accounts run through a risk review before being enabled for credit card sales. To some, this may seem like just another cumbersome hurdle to clear in order to get into the marketplace – and there’s no doubt that it makes the path from creative genius to revenue-producing merchant a little longer. For current Plimus merchants, though, it ensures you don’t find yourself in the company of merchants with a more tenuous relationship with ethics and regulations – and protects us all from being viewed as part of a, shall we say, disreputable social network.
The Internet simply isn’t a border town any more, and the cowboys are becoming much less popular. To a lot of folks in the industry, this is – and is going to be – painful and frustrating. Customers, though, are evolving too and know when they are being bamboozled. They are learning to spot the signs of a scam, and aren’t afraid to chase down the perpetrator, get their money back, and make a loud fuss online. Fast-and-loose merchants can run, but it’s getting awfully hard to hide.
So our new review program may cause a few hiccups to genuine web entrepreneurs, but it will also help us to weed out the bad actors, and ensure that we properly curate the reputation of the broader Plimus community. Being part of the crowd known for doing the right thing is never going to harm any merchant’s standing with customers.
Promoting a New Product Online
Mar 19th
Our vendors are constantly offering new products and services on their websites. Regardless of the product, vendors always do a launch to raise awareness of the brand. Product launches are more than creative ideas, however, vendors need to conduct a launch that addresses a wide market segment and speaks to multiple audiences. It’s important to leverage marketing tactics that provide consistent and comparable data for all launches, helping make improvements from one to the next.
In a recent Practical eCommerce article, “How to Promote a New Product on Your Ecommerce site,” Armando Roggio discusses four tips for promoting a new brand online:
- A Common Thread – Begin with a common strategic goal. It’s imperative that this goal (or set of goals) have a common thread. This allows us to compare the results from each launch. With this data, we are able to improve the goals moving forward.
- Common Measurement – Include a general set of data points that are regularly tracked from launch to launch, such as website traffic, user time on website or total number of click-throughs. Once again, this data will be valuable to identify room for improvement.
- Common Resources – Always use the same set of resources – for example, the same email lists or Facebook or Twitter followers. This way, vendors leverage their existing resources and help increase the list with each new launch.
- Tactics are the Ingredients – By combining these ingredients and making the perfect recipe, vendors can and will be hugely successful.
So what do you think of the list? Do you leverage these tips when conducting a new product launch?
10 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Google
Mar 13th
Vendors are always seeking new, innovative ways to optimize their websites. With e-Commerce sales continuing to grow each year, vendors must understand the importance of creating a secure and frictionless website, and employ methods for converting browsers into buyers.
Leading technology blog Mashable recently wrote an article highlighting 10 ways vendors can optimize their websites specifically for Google SEO. While we think there is more to optimization than just this list, however, it’s a good start.
According to Mashable, here are the “10 Ways to Optimize Your Ecommerce Site for Google Search”:
- Panda Loves Humans: A recent update to Google’s algorithm, Panda, now incorporates user experiences and interactions. For example, time spent onsite and the variety of incoming site traffic impact a website’s Google ranking.
- Control Duplicate Content: Duplicate content, while common for e-Commerce sites, will lower the Google ranking. Be sure to keep content fresh and new.
- Frontload and Focus: Focus your efforts on pushing and marketing a few key items rather than the entire store.
- Quality over Quantity: Research the key words that are driving users to your page. Instead of paying for Google’s Keyword Tool … incorporate these targeted words into website copy for SEO.
- Getting Cutting Edge with Google Adwords: Don’t forget the new Adwords offerings – lots of new ones to try – including mobile targeting and retargeting.
- Explore all Types of Content: Use many different tags, keywords, tags, recommendations, etc. to distribute your product and help drive sales.
- Keep it in the (Google) Family: If Google is the ultimate selling ground for you, leverage Google products such as YouTube, Google+, etc. Plain and simple.
- Be a Social Butterfly: Be active on Google+ to help search engine optimization.
- Google Places: This is only for brick and mortar stores … not relevant for us.
- Use Schema.org: Often, online sites are build from data converted to HTML code and are not optimized for Googlebot. Schema.org helps give search engines access to your data – most importantly, Google crawl.
So that’s the list … pretty good stuff. Outside of the 10 tips listed above, it’s important that vendors build websites that enable a seamless transaction allowing consumers to buy without unnecessary hassle. Key components of a frictionless website are auto-login, a secure payment process, one-click purchasing and ability to buy in multiple currencies. We understand that the end result for our vendors is to sell their goods and services and it’s our mission to give them the tools to increase their revenue streams.
So what do you think? Any tips missing? You can read the full article, written by Stacey Politi, by clicking here.
2012 – The Year of eBusiness, Mobile Commerce and APIs
Mar 2nd
Recently, I came across a very interesting 2012 predictions piece from Brian Walker, a leading industry influencer in the e-Commerce space. After a record-breaking year for e-Commerce, it was great to read about what will come next in this industry. We’ve summarized some of the article’s highlights below to see what’s on tap for 2012.
• Can eBusiness stand the heat and share the love?
In 2012, CEOs across various industries will realize the importance of implementing e-Commerce strategies. With year-over-year numbers ranging from more than 15 percent to more than 25 percent, leveraging e-Commerce technology will clearly be a top priority this year. But, with this opportunity comes added pressure and new challenges. Brian notes that new e-Commerce strategies will not only bring in additional cash, they will also create new responsibilities. Educating senior leadership, setting a technology direction and planning a transformation roadmap will be critical to implementing a successful and organized e-Commerce strategy.
• Mobile commerce is ready for its close-up.
We’ve seen countless reports that predict that mobile commerce will hit record numbers in 2012, but how will this impact the overall e-Commerce industry? As mobile computing devices gain share, and consumers become more comfortable purchasing from these new platforms, e-Business leaders will significantly raise investments in mobile commerce, tripling or quadrupling budgets to add or redo sites and apps.
• APIs, APIs, Oh My.
This year, Brian forecasts that application programming interfaces (APIs) will become a key topic for business leaders eager to increase flexibility of their technology platforms and applications. Along with the rise of mobile commerce comes the desire to add new customer touch points, which will accelerate investment in APIs. According to Brian, “this trend will drive a lot of business to commerce services providers and third-party API management companies to help develop and manage APIs that will be used internally and increasingly externally.”
What is the best part about Brian’s predictions? According to his piece, 2012 will be another great year for e-Commerce, with more organizations than ever implementing e-Commerce into their business strategies. In order to increase revenue streams and truly capitalize on this flourishing industry, it will be essential for vendors to provide a seamless payment process across various channels. This year, Plimus will continue to evolve its offerings and provide the flexible payment options consumers demand.
Did You Get What You Wanted for Valentine’s Day this Year?
Feb 21st
What did your sweetheart get you for Valentine’s Day this year? The gift you absolutely wanted—a virtual good?
Last week, Plimus released the results of its Plimus Virtual Valentine’s Day survey, which highlighted consumers’ behaviors toward giving their valentines online gifts and what, if any, barriers prevented them from doing so
The “Plimus Virtual Valentine’s Day” survey found:
• 43 percent of consumers wanted a digital gift this Valentine’s Day
• Nearly half of respondents indicated they would like to receive an electronic greeting card for Valentine’s Day
• One in five survey participants planned to purchase social media game credits for their Valentine this year
• Two out of three consumers said they would be more willing to purchase a virtual good for Valentine’s Day if the order page was intuitive and required limited personal information
Sales of virtual goods have increased consistently year-over-year as virtual goods and services become more abundant and consumers’ access to them has become easier and more frictionless. In fact, consumers said they would prefer a virtual good from their significant other for Valentine’s Day rather than a traditional gift such as chocolate, flowers or stationery.
Survey respondents indicated that, too often, they cannot complete a virtual purchase due to bothersome order pages and the large amount of personal data required to complete the purchase. For every three buyers, two indicated they would not complete the purchase — leaving their partner without a gift this Valentine’s Day.
We want everyone to get the gifts they want, and we ensure that all transactions purchased through our vendors are safe, secure, frictionless and intuitive for the end-user.
So tell us, what did you get this year?
What Happens to Virtual Goods Once a Game Closes?
Feb 15th
Last week, word of a virtual goods lawsuit against Google resurfaced in the news. Originally filed last fall, angry players of the game “SuperPoke Pets” are seeking damages for their class-action suit against the game’s owner, Google. “SuperPoke Pets” allowed players to chose their favorite pet (dog, cat, frog, etc.) and care for it online by purchasing “gold” with real-life money. Using the virtual gold, users could purchase special items such as dog bones, food and treats. for their pets.
“SuperPoke Pets” was created by Slide, a gaming company that was acquired by Google in August 2010. Last summer, it was announced that the game would stop selling gold for virtual goods news that caused a wave of blacklash and crazed spending by gamers.
According to the article, “Virtual Pet Owners Sue Google Over Lost ‘Gold’” by Paidcontent.org, “… some players rushed to stockpile virtual items after the company announced that it would stop offering gold-based transactions. These players hoped to sell their items on a secondary market (basically, a Craigslist of sorts for items like virtual doggy bones) but those hopes were dashed when Google said it would kibosh the game.”
This is an interesting discussion as it marks one of the first litigation filed surrounding virtual goods sales and the value of the money used to purchase them. The dispute over the SuperPoke virtual goods and similar online currencies and the items purchased with them has, until now been a thing of the future – consumers never seemed to worry about making their purchases or the risk involved. As you know, the virtual goods and services market is large and we’re interested to see how challenges like this lawsuit are dealt with in court.
As a selling platform for virtual goods and services, we understand the value of providing buyers with safe and secure transactions. We ensure that all sellers on our platforms meet all business and industry standards. It’s important that Plimus’ sellers enable a frictionless shopping experience with a secure checkout process.
This lawsuit was transferred to federal court in San Jose last week, and we’ll continue to track its development and keep you posted on the news.
The Other 99% Of Entrepreneurs by Guest Blogger, Sramana Mitra
Feb 9th
This week we are pleased to have Sramana Mitra join us as guest blogger. Sramana is a noted entrepreneur and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley and is an author of several business books and a very active blogger as well. You can find out more information on Sramana at the end of this post. Of note, in 2010, Sramana started a program called “1 Million by I Million,” the goal of which is to help, through her virtual program, 1 million entrepreneurs achieve 1 Million or more in revenue – by the year 2020. At Plimus, we have a simple business philosophy; we make money only when our sellers make money. We think Sramana and her 1 Million program is a natural fit for our sellers, and we hope many of you will take advantage of what this program has to offer. So, without further delay – Sramana welcome.
Thank you Plimus for inviting me to blog to your followers today. I want to talk with you today about my recent piece Reengineering Capitalism where I highlighted a phenomenon that the global entrepreneurship ecosystem is paying very little attention to: Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.”
The media, when pitched a startup story, is interested in who funded the venture. They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable. Incubators take pride in how exclusive they are and how many “deals” they “reject.” Angels and VCs, of course, discard most of their “deal flow.” And entrepreneurs? They seem to have confused the definition of entrepreneurship altogether. Entrepreneurship, they mistakenly believe, equals financing!
This is wrong.
There are numerous stories of successful businesses that have been built without a penny of outside financing. I want to share with you some wisdom from the heroes of the other 99%. They live in a world of entrepreneurs who enjoy their freedom and are not looking to sell their businesses or take them public. You could say these businesses are built-to-enjoy, as opposed to built-to-flip. Needless to say, outside financing, by definition, requires an “exit,” and for most businesses, that means a sale to a larger company.
But the entrepreneurs I will introduce you to today are not interested in selling their companies. They just want to continue doing what they are doing: building value.
Meet Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks, a super-successful healthcare IT company based in Boston. He has never taken any funding but has built a $100 million-plus business by delivering value to customers.
Girish says, “I don’t foresee leaving the company for at least 10 years. I would like to leave it a private company with no external investors and absolutely no thoughts whatsoever about Wall Street. I am having fun and take great pride in my freedom. There is no reason I would give that up. We are a cash flow positive company. We have recurring revenues and no debt. We have a large customer base that is growing exponentially.” [You can read Girish’s full story here.]
Meet Andrew Fox, CEO of ClubPlanet, a $30 million-plus nightclub ticketing services company that is also 100% founder-owned. Andrew loves nightlife and says, “The business is very successful and has a lot of room for growth. I think that we have a lot of suitors out there who mention really ridiculous numbers at times. This is such a great lifestyle business that I don’t know if I could ever sell it. All of my previous businesses I built to sell, but this time around you might find me right here in thirty years. I hope by then it is $300 million a year. Based on our growth trajectory, we are seeing really good signs of improvement. [You can read more of Andrew’s story here.]
Then there is the oft-cited Sridhar Vembu, who has turned all tables with Zoho, a $100 million-plus SaaS company that competes with Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com without a penny in outside capital.
I have had numerous conversations with Sridhar over the years, and each time he reinforces the same basic philosophy: “I want to build this without outside capital. I don’t want to sell the company.” [You can learn more about Sridhar’s methods here.]
Each of these entrepreneurs could raise money in a nanosecond given how much success they’ve had. The fact that they don’t gives you an idea about the advantages of the self-financed, organic growth model. No matter how much Wall Street gyrates, these entrepreneurs experience and demonstrate a level of stability and steadiness that is exemplary.
Imagine if the American economy had many more such steady private companies that are far removed from the movements of the speculative markets, how much more robust things would be? It really is time that the media starts celebrating more of these kinds of heroes: the other 99%.
And for young entrepreneurs, as you evaluate role models to emulate, perhaps it is not a bad idea to also consider some of these lesser-known heroes. They can give you a picture of the realities of an alternate, deeply satisfying universe.
In conclusion, I want to leave you with a 1:49 minute video message. Please listen to it, and stop for a moment to think about your path forward. Is a single-minded focus on fund-raising your only option?
New Era in Payments for the Industry
Feb 6th
Although you may not have noticed, February 1, 2012, was a big day in the payment world – although it passed with limited fanfare. The date was important because it marked the enforcement of new rules from Visa around payments, both online and offline. Now, service providers, like Plimus, are required to have clients, who drive more than $100,000 a year through Visa (or any other credit card association), create a direct relationship with their acquirers, or what we commonly refer to as payment processors. Clients doing less than $100,000 a year can still be processed as part of the service provider’s own merchant account.
For us, this has meant implementing a process by which our largest clients have started establishing a relationship, in collaboration with Plimus, with processors directly. From an operational perspective there is very little change to the way in which our service operates, as revenues are still delivered to, and then paid out by, Plimus on behalf of our clients. That said, there is nonetheless a need for larger clients to complete a few forms that are new and unfamiliar in the context of our business.
The reasons for the shift in policy are really threefold:
1. The payment processors are now able, within an established and clearly regulated set of rules, to include payment service providers as a part of their business
2. The financial institutions at each end of the transaction (if you will, the banks for the buyer and the seller) will have visibility to see which merchants are doing business with them
3. Consumers will be safely and securely served by services that are designed to protect their personal information and financial identity
As it turns out, there are some great benefits for the merchant as well. First, because merchants are now viewed by the financial institutions individually, they start to build an individual reputation, rather than being seen as just a constituent part of their service provider’s total volume. Perhaps even more powerfully, the relationship they establish with the payment provider is transferable, meaning that subscriptions can be easily brought along if the merchant decides, for whatever reason, to leave their service provider and strike out on their own.
At Plimus we understand our vendors filling out yet more forms is not something they have on their list of favorite things to do. In that regard, there is necessarily a degree of inconvenience to the new regulations; but in the long run, the benefits to all the players in the payment chain are irrefutable. In the big scheme, these new regulations deliver a high level of transparency to our industry, and represent a strong indication that the industry is taking e-commerce seriously and has made the transition to just being commerce. After more than a decade of experience as a pioneer in this industry, we could not be more pleased.
If you’d like to learn a little more about the new regulation, feel free to click through to
http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/visa-expands-payment-service-provider-model.pdf.
Plimus Program Promotes Quality of Online Vendors
Jan 30th
Plimus has expanded its quality assurance measures with an expanded program designed to increase the levels of transparency and accountability of vendors using the Plimus e-Commerce platform. This program carefully analyzes the business practices and market offerings of digital products and online marketing vendors.
In the press release, our CEO, Hagai Tal, said, “Payment processing is really just a long line of trust: each player in the chain must trust those both up- and downstream in order to agree to complete a transaction. As a leader in the industry, we are continually seeking to firm up our processes to ensure with 100 percent confidence that consumers are being handled properly, and that there’s nothing misleading going on at any stage of the game. This program is necessary for the long-term health and stability of the whole industry and for the continued success of the many excellent vendors selling their products through Plimus.”
Our quality assurance program reviews vendors’ business practices and transaction histories to ensure that the products and services sold through the Plimus platform meet strict business and industry standards. Accounts are selected in cooperation with Plimus partner card association underwriters and payment processors, and we work to complete the reviews within 30 days.
For more than a decade, Plimus built a strong industry reputation based on our leadership of the virtual payments industry. The integrity of the industry requires that vendors, affiliates and payment platforms alike focus on the quality of the products sold online. Plimus’ ongoing quality programs meet these needs and set new standards for quality in the industry.
