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Electronics Top Shopper Back to School Lists, SortPrice.com Says

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Retail, tagged , , , on August 12, 2011 | 1 Comment »

With the back-to-school shopping season in full swing, what items are consumers targeting most?

According to price comparison site SortPrice.com, electronics and gadgets are once again the most sought-after products in 2011.   The company rolled out its annual top 10 popular back to school products list yesterday, which is compiled using site traffic and user searches.

Gone are the days when pencils, pens, and spiral-bound notebooks dominate back to school shopping lists, though SortPrice is quick to point out that the economic climate is still having an effect on consumer buying habits, even now during the industry’s second-biggest shopping period of the year.

“With the economy still clearly affecting consumer buying habits, we’ve got an interesting dynamic going on this back to school season,” says Doron Simovitch, SortPrice co-founder and CEO. “While parents seem committed to spending extra time looking for the best price on back to school essentials, that diligence hasn’t necessarily translated down to students, who are still targeting higher-end electronics in particular as must-haves before they return to the classroom this fall.”

So what does this year’s SortPrice top 10 look like?

1- Apple iPad 2

2- Sony Cybershot Digital Cameras

3- UGG Girls and Women’s Boots

4- Acer Netbooks

5- Jansport Backpacks

6- North Face Hooded Sweatshirts and Outerwear

7- Bed-in-a-Bag Bedding Ensembles

8- Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star Sneakers

9- Diesel Messenger Bags

10- High-Definition Web Cams

We were surprised to see the iPad so high on the list given its hefty price tag but it’s apparent that more students (and their parents) are viewing Apple’s tablet as a must for a successful school year.

Thoughts on SortPrice’s list?  Leave us a comment with what you’re targeting for back to school 2011!

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SortPrice’s Facebook Store Application Gets Boost with New Flash Sale Feature

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Flash Sale for Facebook StoresAlready one of the leading F-commerce solutions in the industry, comparison search engine SortPrice.com announced this week that they’ve added another cool feature to their Facebook Store Application that allows merchants to run Flash Sales right on their fan pages.

The company says the new component is just the latest in a long line of upgrades to its Facebook retail application, which is currently being used by more than 1,500 retailers across the nation.

According to SortPrice, the Flash Sale feature is, in part, an attempt to bridge two big recent F-commerce trends: the rise in popularity of daily deal sites like Groupon and the reality that most Facebook users tend to “Like” retail brands in the hopes of getting a special deal as a result.

“We’re really excited to offer this feature, since Flash Sales and the daily deal models have proven to be very effective and popular tools for retailers,” said Doron Simovitch, the company’s co-founder and CEO.  “Shoppers love such deals for their exclusivity and merchants can really capitalize on that potential by quickly and easily incorporating flash sales into their overall social shopping offerings.”

SortPrice merchants who are operating Facebook stores through the company can run one Flash Sale per day (for now) on their Facebook fan pages, listing a specific product for a discounted price for a limited time, with the option to include a promo code or coupon if they wish.  Simovitch says the Flash Sales are ideal if a merchant has a high volume of merchandise they need to move quickly or they just want to reward their Facebook fans for their loyalty.

“It’s another way to engage your Facebook fans and provide them with an incentive, which is ultimately the name of the game when it comes to social shopping,” he said.

One of the major benefits of the component is the ease in which a Flash Sale can be set up—SortPrice says retailers can have one up and running in less than five minutes by picking an item from their catalog and then setting the special price and time frame for the sale right in the management console that SortPrice provides to all of its retailers.

The console is also where SortPrice retailers can control the look and feel of their Facebook stores, enable or disable particular components, enact side-by-side product comparison features and more.

Keeping things consistent throughout its broader application, SortPrice has also included all of the usual social shopping features in the new Flash Sale offering.  Users can “Like” or comment on Flash Sales and share them with their Facebook friends as well.

We’ve followed a lot of SortPrice’s F-commerce work in the past few years.  They were, after all, one of the first companies to even offer retailers a storefront application back in 2008 and since then, their client list is an impressive 1,500-plus national retailers.  An earlier SortPrice press release said those merchants posted more than $3.78 billion worth of merchandise on their Facebook stores in 2010 and with the Flash Sale component, we’re guessing the company will pick up quite a few more clients in the coming months.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments!

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SortPrice Rolls Out Updated Version of Facebook Store Application

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , , , on June 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

While other companies continue to flood the market and target retailers with new e-commerce solutions for Facebook, one of the industry’s original ‘F-commerce’ providers is already well into phase two of its retail offering for the social networking site.

Comparison search engine SortPrice.com yesterday announced that it has unveiled Version 2.0 of its Facebook Store Application .  The SortPrice app, which was one of the first retailer tools for Facebook when it was originally rolled out in late 2008, is already used by more than 1,500 merchants nationwide.

The updated version of the application takes the original concept of selling on Facebook and enhances the experience by providing retailers with a host of customization options and other features designed to spur interaction among, and feedback from, their Facebook fans.

“At this point, selling on Facebook has evolved from an option to a must for any retailer that’s serious about the success of their business,” said Asaf Klibansky, SortPrice.com co-founder and CTO.  “Version 2.0 reflects that shift in priorities and gives a retailer even more ways to build a comprehensive, interactive Facebook store that will not just increase traffic and interaction but deliver actual sales as well.”

SortPrice says it timed the release of the new version in part to coincide with Facebook’s recent coding shift to IFrames.  That change, among other things, helps retailers better track the use of Like buttons both on their Facebook fan pages and own websites.

Version 2.0 also includes a side-by-side product comparison feature that retailers can use to solicit consumer feedback on which item they prefer and why, as well as a dedicated section for spotlighting popular products that can be used during special sales or promotions.

Among the customization options in the new version are features that give merchants the ability to add customized banners, color schemes and splash pages to their Facebook stores, tailor the layout of the storefront itself either by moving or enabling/disabling components, customize product categories to match those on their own website and include personalized footers at the bottom of their stores in the form of links, banners, contact information or plain text.

SortPrice’s application is still a free add-on for any merchant that lists their products on the company’s product search engine.  SortPrice techs build each Facebook store in a matter of days and then turn it over to the retailer, who can take advantage of all of the application’s tools and resources through a dedicated management console.

SortPrice expects to add a few more features to the application in the coming months but in its nearly three years of existence, it has already assumed a place on the leading edge of the e-commerce/social media integration movement: the company says its retail partners posted nearly $3.78 billion worth of merchandise on their SortPrice-built Facebook stores in 2010.

Leave us your thoughts and comments below!

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SortPrice Rolls out Data on its Facebook Store Application

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , on March 8, 2011 | 2 Comments »

The rise of e-commerce on Facebook and other such social networking resources has been a well-documented trend in the industry for the better part of a year or so.  We’ve seen a steady flow of new companies and applications emerging, offering e-commerce solutions on Facebook in a variety of ways and those new entrants to the market have garnered their own fair share of coverage as well.

What’s often been missing, however, is a quantitative analysis of how those Facebook e-commerce solutions are performing for retailers.  Admittedly, tracking sales on Facebook in particular seems to be tough to do, which makes it harder to get a handle on exactly how retailers are doing on Facebook.

But shopping search engine SortPrice.com today released some data on how its Store Application for Facebook performed in 2010 that helps illustrate just how big F-commerce, as SortPrice calls it, has become.  And based on their information, the trend is living up to the hype and then some.

SortPrice has been doing the F-commerce thing longer than just about anyone else and they boast more retail partners (more than 1,400) than any other competing Facebook e-commerce solutions provider.   So we’re inclined to put a lot of stock in the company’s information.

According to the data, about 7.6 million products were posted on SortPrice-built Facebook stores in 2010, a 60 percent increase from the year before.  In total, there was nearly $3.8 billion in merchandise on those Facebook stores as well, a startling number to say the least.

But there’s one nugget really stood out to us—that 40 percent of the 1,400-plus retailers using SortPrice’s app started using it at some point last year, exemplifying just how much of a priority F-commerce became in 2010.

“Last year, retailers across the board definitely began to realize the importance of hopping on the social shopping bandwagon,” says Asaf Klibansky, SortPrice’s co-founder and CTO.

There appears to be a lot of diversity in the products SortPrice is listing on its’ Facebook stores as well.  By the end of 2010, there were approximately 53,000 different product categories represented in the listings.  Here are the top 5 categories both by product count and value in dollars, according to SortPrice:

Top Product Industry Categories (by total products)
1.Apparel (62,106)
2.Women’s Jewelry (37,429)
3.Home & Garden (33,754)
4.Gifts & Flowers (11, 618)
5.Computers (11, 580)

Top Product Industry Categories (in dollars)
1.Home & Garden ($7.966 million)
2.Computers ($5.84 million)
3.Electronics ($3.983 million)
4.Jewelry & Watches ($3.023 million)
5.Apparel ($2.846 million)

It will be interesting to see if SortPrice runs similar data this time next year to gauge just how much F-commerce grew this year.  But it’s safe to say that while F-commerce wasn’t born 2010, it certainly enjoyed a coming-out party last year.

Leave us your thoughts and comments.

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SortPrice.com Unveils “10 Commandments” for Safe Online Shopping this Holiday Season

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , on November 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Cyber Monday is almost here and to help consumers prepare themselves to tackle their holiday shopping in 2010, comparison search engine SortPrice.com has rolled out “10 Commandments” every online shopper should follow to ensure a safe, secure, and productive shopping experience as they comb the internet for gifts this year

SortPrice’s 10 Commandments for Holiday Shopping

•Update your home computer’s anti-virus software and security tools before you start shopping, and if using a wireless connection, make sure it’s encrypted with a password.

•Be thorough in your research: utilize all the resources the internet provides, compare prices and search for online-only bargains to guarantee that you’re saving money.

•Order in advance to ensure you don’t get hurt by holiday shipping delays and check stock availability for a given product before you place an order.

•Use credit cards instead of debit cards—you’ll be better protected from fraud and face less liability in the event of your card number being stolen.

•Carefully review every online retailer’s terms and conditions as well as their return policies, as they vary industry-wide.

•Create or update new online passwords that are unique and difficult to steal—avoid pet names, birthdays, etc. and incorporate numbers and characters.

•Shop only on certifiably secure websites: look for ‘https://’ URLs that indicate secure connections when placing orders and entering personal information.

•Be diligent about where you disclose personal information—including phone numbers, addresses and financial information—and avoid unverifiable entities.

•Look for delivery guarantees from online retailers and always keep hard copies of email confirmations of orders and delivery status.

•Beware of certain promotional emails requesting personal information or promising a special deal as they could be part of a ‘phishing’ scam.

While the holidays provide some of the best web shopping deals out there, it’s also a time of year ripe for fraudsters. We covered some of the most common holiday scams out there recently and by employing these helpful tips from SortPrice, shoppers will be in a great position to make the most of the web while they shop this year.

Good luck to all of you holiday shoppers!

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Pop Culture, Hollywood Hits Shape Halloween Buying Trends as SortPrice.com Unveils Annual Top 10 Costume Lists

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , on October 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Halloween is going to be here before you know it and if you haven’t started looking around for costume ideas yet, now is the time to do so!  Shopping online for Halloween is more popular than ever this year  and there are a ton of specialty retailers online offering huge selections of costumes.

As they do every fall, SortPrice.com’s team has compiled their lists of the most popular kids and adults costumes this year. The comparison shopping engine monitors its own site traffic and mines user search information from mid-September on to build these lists.

We’re thinking that you’ll find at least one costume here that catches your eye!

TOP 10 KIDS COSTUMES

1. Avatar (various characters)

2. Alice in Wonderland

3. Hannah Montana

4. Vampires

5. Iron Man

6. Captain Jack Sparrow

7. Disney Princess

8. Classic Bumble Bee

9. Transformers

10. Star Wars Jedi

TOP 10 ADULT COSTUMES

1. Lady Gaga

2. Sexy Nurse

3. Jersey Shore Characters

4. Sexy Vampire

5. 1980s Theme Costumes

6. Ghostbusters

7. Star Wars Princess Leia

8. Beer Pong Table

9. Sexy Pirate

10. Sexy Alice in Wonderland

If any of these sound good to you (personally, we’re pretty psyched ourselves about the Beer Pong Table costume!!!), you can view all of them and a bunch of other cool ideas on SortPrice.com’s Halloween Shopping Guide.

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More Halloween Shoppers Flocking to the Web

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , , , on October 8, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Halloween a little over three weeks away and we realized today that we have yet to really cover anything about what is a very important shopping holiday for many merchants and e-tailers.

Fortunately, just in the nick of time, a new round of research from Internet Retailer has emerged giving a glimpse into the expected Halloween shopping habit of consumers here in 2010. Conducted in late September by Lightspeed Online Research, the survey polled more than 2,000 consumers on what they plan to spend on Halloween this year and which factors they consider when choosing particular retailers for their costume and decoration needs.

Reinforcing just how popular Halloween is, 68 percent of those polled said they plan to buy items for the holiday this shopping season.  Furthermore, the number of consumers choosing to use the web to purchase those items continues to be on the rise, with 35 percent indicating they’ll go online for Halloween goods in 2010.

What are they shopping for?   Not surprisingly, 71 percent said costumes are what they’re shopping on the web for the most, with decorations (59 percent) and accessories/makeup (44 percent) close behind.

And as with past Halloweens, there is some serious revenue to be made by retailers—71 percent of those polled expect to spend between $25 and $100 on Halloween this year.

Other results from Internet Retailer’s survey:

–online Halloween shopping definitely skews towards younger individuals: 46 percent are between 18 and 34, 40 percent are 35-54, and only 14 percent are over the age of 55;

–when asked why they choose to shop online for Halloween, the leading response was convenience and time-saving (29 percent), just edging out selection (27 percent). Less common reasons were lower prices (17 percent) and the ability to comparison-shop (13 percent);

–those who don’t prefer shopping online cited being able to see items in person before buying (53 percent) and the overall experience of visiting actual storefronts (41 percent) as their top reasons for choosing brick and mortar stores over the web.

While Halloween certainly doesn’t come close to the holiday shopping season later this year in terms of potential for revenue and sales, it’s pretty obvious that consumers take their Halloween costumes and shopping seriously.

If you haven’t started shopping for a costume yet, there are a ton of fun themes and ideas for 2010. As in years past, popular culture is driving many of the most popular costumes this year, with Jersey Shore characters, Avatar, and Lady Gaga just a few of the most sought-after costumes. If you’re looking for both kids and adult costume ideas, head over to SortPrice.com, which just posted its annual Halloween Shopping Guide.

In the meantime, we’d love to get some comments from our readers telling us what costumes they’ve decided on for 2010!

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Facebook E-commerce: SortPrice Enhances Store Application

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on September 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Facebook store ecommerce application

SortPrice.com, one of the e-commerce industry’s pioneers in social media integration, has recently added new features and enhancements to its merchant store application for Facebook that the company says will help retailers reach even more customers for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

The comparison shopping engine essentially started the Facebook/ecommerce trend when it launched its store application almost two years ago.   Since then, the company has built stores for more than 1,000 retailers from Tigerdirect to Petco, using a model that takes a retailer’s existing product listings on SortPrice and brings them to their Facebook fan page with a host of social shopping tools for users to try out.

This most recent round of updates were initially made to accommodate Facebook’s own formatting changes.  However, they also result in more customization options and allow retailers to better sync up their Facebook store listings with those on their own websites, providing multi-channel consistency that could prove invaluable once the holiday shopping season gets underway.

“Even though we’ve heard nothing but rave reviews from our retailers about this application for both its effectiveness and simplicity, we realize that we have to keep finding ways to make it even better,”  says Doron Simovitch, SortPrice’s CEO.   “By adding these features we feel like we’re giving our merchants the best possible tool out there to tap into Facebook’s audience just in time for the holidays, when it’s all about putting items in front of consumers that the really want and need.”

Retailers can now highlight popular products right on their application homepage.  Through just a few easy steps they can rotate as many as six items at a time to be featured, making it ideal for a big sale or special offers on items that a merchant wants to showcase for their Facebook fans and followers.

SortPrice has also enabled merchants to use their own category trees when adding products to their Facebook stores as well.   Any unique categories a merchant has can be added to Facebook as well to match the product listings on their own websites and merchants can even map products into categories that are specific to their own stores or industries.

Finally, each Facebook store can now be customized even further with personalized graphics and banners  along the top and sides of the page.   Retailers can add enlarged logos or images for sales/promotions that give the Facebook store a look that is more consistent with their existing web sites.

Sounds like some good progress being made over at SortPrice.com.  As always, leave us your thoughts and comments, particularly if you’ve had experience with SortPrice’s application as a consumer or a retailer.

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SortPrice.com Store Application for Facebook Hits the 1000-Merchant Mark

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , on March 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Shopping search engine SortPrice.com today announced today via a press release that it is has now built virtual stores for more than 1,000 retailers through its Merchant Store application on Facebook Platform.

SortPrice was one of the first to offer a virtual storefront for retailers on Facebook Platform when it introduced the Merchant Store application a little over a year ago.  Available as a free add-on to enhanced SortPrice.com merchants, the application lets retailers display product listings on their Facebook Pages for shoppers to browse and share, complete with photos, descriptions, and direct links to their own web sites.

“We’ve heard repeatedly from our merchants how valuable a resource this application is in expanding their reach to Facebook’s huge audience,” said Doron Simovitch, SortPrice.com co-founder and CEO.  “We’re thrilled to have hit 1,000-store milestone in a little over a year.  It indicates just how serious retailers are about expanding their e-commerce efforts to the world of social media.”

While the 1,000-plus retailers encompasses merchants of every size and scope, the application is proving to be especially helpful to many smaller and mid-sized ecommerce outlets that are using it to integrate their Facebook fan pages with their online stores to raise brand awareness and drive overall traffic.  Simovitch noted that nearly 1 out of every 4 retailers using the Merchant Store application has a “Find us on Facebook” badge or similar notification on their own website, indicating that more and more e-commerce entities are branching out into social networking.

One such merchant having great success is Equestrian Collections, which incorporated the application on its Facebook Fan page prior to the holiday shopping season by first using it to run a Wishlist contest for its followers.

“The ability to market the application both as our Facebook store and also as a Wishlist, by simply changing the tab gave us great flexibility,” said Chris Duggan, the company’s president.  “Having our SortPrice Facebook Store brought Equestrian Collections closer to our fans and helped make our 4th quarter a banner one.”

Nebraska-based apparel retailer Buckle.com is using the Merchant Store application as a key component of the company’s strategy to reach more potential customers through social media avenues.

“Our focus has always been on creating the most enjoyable shopping experience possible for our users,” said Shannon Whisler, Buckle’s social media and online marketing specialist.  “By offering exciting new interaction areas like the online store and Wishlist application on our Facebook page, we believe that a level of convenience and flexibility has been created that enhances that experience for our users on Facebook.”

Retailers are able to control the look and feel of their stores, and visitors can comment on other users’ wish lists, indicate particular items that they “like” and invite friends and family to view their wish lists or favorite products.

Click to to learn more about the Facebook Store application.

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St. Patrick’s Day + Spring = Cool ‘Green’ Gifts

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

St. Patrick’s Day + Spring = Cool ‘Green’ GiftsIt seems like it wasn’t that long ago that we were discussing holiday shopping trends and gift ideas for Valentine’s Day.  Today, we looked up on the calendar and realized that we’re a mere 5 days away from St. Patrick’s Day, which is not only an outrageously fun holiday but a sign that spring is almost here.

Apparently the folks over at Sortprice.com share those sentiments.  To commemorate both St. Patty’s and the end of a long and cold winter, they’ve put together a product list of spring gift ideas exclusively in the color green.  Pretty cool idea, right?

You can view the entire list of green products.

Sortprice’s list includes some typical electronics items that you may be surprised to find available in green, including an iPod Nano, Canon Power shot digital camera and a Dell Inspiron notebook. There’s also a really nice Ed Hardy Satchel and lime green topaz/diamond ring, both of which are sure to catch the eye of more than a few female online shoppers out there.

But our absolute favorite item on the list is those Kelly green Converse Chuck Taylors hi-tops. Those would look really good paired with a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” T-shirt during St. Patty’s Day bar-hopping activities.

Sortprice says that anyone can build this kind of list simply by using their Shop-by-Color feature, which lets you search for items in a specific color or narrow down product results with its’ built-in color palette.

So check out the list and let us know what you think.  Do you like any of these items? Hate them? We want to hear from you!

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