eCommerce Wish List
Feb-2008
Whilst particularly annoyed by Adwords the other day, I got thinking about things I would like to change about the major eCommerce platforms.
eBay
- User access levels. eBay was never originally created with businesses in mind and so, unlike most business systems, there is no function to limit the access of some users to certain functions like listing items. This fact means that an account’s password must be widely distributed, increasing the opportunities of ID theft
- Password entry. Password entry would be more secure if eBay asked for select characters from the password and not the whole thing.
- Product attributes. Currently on eBay, if you are selling a product which has multiple variations, you must make a listing for each variation. According to eBay rules, shoes for example should have an individual listing for each size. I would like to be able to choose attributes like colour and size at the checkout.
- Checkout upsell. I would like to be able to upsell services in the checkout such as gift wrap
- Moving Adgroups. Unless I am missing something it is not possible to move adgroups between campaigns without deleting and then recreating the agroup, loosing all the quality data.
- Search query. I would like to see actual query information alongside keywords in the adword interface.
- Google Maps. I wish analytics would give figures of traffic which came from the Google Maps product.
- Extended Match. Google’s extended match throws up all kinds of rubbish. Google, we choose those keywords for a reason!
Anyone want to add to the list?
Did you get one of these emails, Trevor?
I got mine from Adwords today. You could give your feedback direct!
AdWords Advertiser Feedback
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Dear Google Advertiser,
No one knows AdWords like you do – which is why we want your feedback. This is one of only two big surveys that we do each year to identify what you think is working and what is not. Bottom line: we want your ideas on how to make AdWords even better.
As a small token of thanks for your feedback, we’re sending everyone who completes the survey a Google gym bag.
You should always feel free to chat about AdWords with your friends and colleagues, but since we’ve only invited a select group to participate here, please do not forward this email or discuss it with others.
To get started, click the link below – you’ll have a chance to enter any ideas, thoughts and concerns that we haven’t explicitly asked about at the end of the survey (and yes, we promise that we’ll read them). The survey should take less than 20 minutes to complete.
[i’ll send you the url by email if you’d like it…hey, you get a free gym bag too if you fill it in. yowzer!]
As always, we appreciate your time and thank you in advance for helping us make Google AdWords more effective for all our users.
Yours sincerely,
The Google Global Customer Insights Team
I don’t use Adwords for two reasons, with well researched keywords you can still command listings on the first page of google and the other why use words when you can use pictures to sell through a shopping engine…shopping.com (ebay owned) This helps to show customers you products before they even hit your site and perhaps lessening failed pay per clicks.
Since the failure of ebay express, ebay has had to think again on business sellers getting a fair viewing on ebay. As well as advertising on several sites it now advertises on ebay hence giving your listings more exposure as well as the search results page.
I think ebay is now going in the right direction helping businesses as they have begun to realise it has a large flow of revenue now that businesses realise that ebay does wonders for brand awareness and advertising.
One of my biggest bugbears at the moment is editing listings. ebay are constantly updating this and that, particularly ‘Item specifics’ and if that shop listing has a sold item on it we have to pay to get it relisted just to update basic information. Likewise postage, when the postal prices change and we have hundreds of products to update, it be easier to update the prices for several items at one hit than to go through all items individually and spend an hour or two doing this.