Amazon Seller Central is a program offered by Amazon.com to enable retailers to sell merchandise within the Amazon.com marketplace. The basic process starts with a retailer placing their products (in over 25 categories ranging from books to electronics to sports & outdoors) into the Amazon.com marketplace from which a consumer can buy the goods. A consumer can check out with products from more than one retailer using the same universal shopping cart. Upon successful purchase, Amazon.com automatically distributes the orders to each retailer. The retailer is required to ship the product directly to the consumer and inform Amazon.com when items ship with associated shipping and tracking information. Amazon takes a percentage (between 8 to 20%) of the order as referral fee and pays the retailer for shipped orders at set intervals. This referral fee depends on the product category and is generally negotiated between the retailer and Amazon.com at the time of creating a new Seller Central Account.

Last year consumers spent $24.5 billion on Amazon.com. This is precisely the reason why more online retailers are syndicating their products to Amazon.com. Merchants that list their products on Amazon.com benefit from Amazon’s investments in online marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and loyalty of its millions of active customers. GoECart makes it very easy for merchants, belonging to any vertical industry, to put their products in front of tens of millions of Amazon customers who are ready to buy.

Fully Automated Two-Way Integration between GoECart and Amazon Seller Central

GoECart’s Amazon integration automates and integrates product management, inventory management, fulfillment and CRM. There is no longer the need to separately manage your Amazon store; GoECart automates the entire process.

Benefits of GoECart’s True End-to-End Amazon Channel Integration:

GoECart’s merchants now have the ability to market their products to millions of customers on Amazon.com

• Requires no programming or IT staff to implement
• Easy Product Setup and Maintenance
• Seamlessly synchronize products and inventory with Amazon, including product options by color, size, material, and other attributes.
• Automated Order Management
  • Automatic import of Amazon.com orders into your GoECart Solution
  • Send acknowledgement and fulfillment details from your GoECart Store to your Amazon storefront in real time
• Complete, End-to-End Web Services Integration
• Ability to sell in multiple categories ranging from electronics, apparel to sports and outdoors
• Accelerate time to market and eliminate all manual data entry work. Enjoy the benefits of full Amazon channel automation through GoECart.

In today’s competitive ecommerce market, you need to look at innovative marketing approaches to help you stand out. Two unique ways GoECart helps merchants to differentiate their campaigns —and shorten sales cycles—is via micro sites and custom landing pages.

A microsite, or small promotional site, is typically 1 to 5 pages that are promoted independently of a company’s main retail site. A microsite is focused solely around one promotion or campaign without any distractions or irrelevant marketing messages. Landing pages are simpler by nature with even fewer distractions as standard navigation menus and other elements found in a microsites are not needed.

As consumers are bombarded with dozens (even hundreds!) of marketing messages daily, these options allow you to deliver highly focused marketing messages to create a lasting impression.

Some examples:

• A product site or page, such as for a specific product and/or refurbished products or overstock.  For an example, see Adamo by Dell microsite.
• A specialized promotional site such as those focused on coupons, contests, charitable divisions.
• A seasonal promotional page such as for a Summer Sale or “Back to School” promotion.

Micro Site

Go Micro and Land More Sales– with GoECart!

GoECart provides merchants with the capability build custom landing pages as well as the ability to make any category page look like a custom-branded micro site with its own unique header and navigation.

To develop a custom microsite:
1. Log in to your GoECart Admin Panel.
2. Go to Products > Category Editor > Add New Category to crate a new category page for your site.

3. In the Category Editor, select Format 4 option and enter desired content for the page and custom banners and navigation if you wish. Don’t forget to Save!

4. From the Inventory Manager, select one or more Products and associate them to this Category individually via the Product Editor or do them in bulk via Product Import CSV function. Once you have associated your products to the new Format 4 Category, your new micro site is ready.

To create a new custom landing page:

1. Log in to your GoECart Admin Panel.
2.  Go to Content Manager > Custom Pages > Add new custom page.


3. Give the page a title, set desired options, and click Save to publish the page to your site!


As you can see, with GoECart, creating custom landing pages and microsites is as simple as point-click-create.

Tips and Tricks

Adhere to the following tips when developing custom landing pages and microsites:

• Define no more than a few key messages per site/page and stay on message.
• Encourage registration – A form can be embedded to generate a lead which leads ultimately to sale. This landing page from a law firm provides an example of how to do this effectively.
• Use instant coupons or free shipping to increase the likelihood of impulsive purchases.
• Integrate testimonials and/or current research and statistics to increase credibility.
• Ensure the page is SEO friendly. Leverage GoECart’s search engine friendly architecture.
• Perform Usability Testing (A /B testing) using variables such as headline, copy, pricing, or product placement to come up with the optimum offer.

Last week, GoECart submitted its application for the 15th annual Connecticut Quality Improvement Award competition.

From the CQIA’s website: “The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award, Inc., America’s first state-level quality award, was founded in 1987 utilizing the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence criteria in an effort to advance innovative programs that improve quality, performance, and marketplace competitiveness.”

Last year and in previous years, GoECart has won CQIA’s coveted Innovation Prize. The CQIA prize is a great prize for outstanding innovation leadership in Connecticut. For those of you who are unaware, GoECart’s headquarters are strategically located in downtown Bridgeport, CT right across the train and bus stations. This year, we have submitted a nomination application highlighting the innovative new features in GoECart 8.1 Ecommerce Platform. Notable new features include:

• An updated discount and promotion engine that enables online retailers to offer highly customizable and focused discounts. Some examples of discounts include: buy one product and get a second product at half off, get free shoes with purchase of a dress, receive 10% off all products in Toys category only, get free ground shipping on orders over $50, and many others
• Enhanced supply chain automation functionality via multi-vendor drop ship module enhancements. Updates include the ability to source and manage products from multiple vendors at the SKU level, intelligent routing of orders based on customer proximity, and improved vendor self-service and automation
• Amazing rich media capabilities through its advanced integration with Adobe® Scene7
• An enhanced rich transactional email module
• Robust and advanced integration has been added for FedEx® shipping services
• Improved integration with third party solutions that include PayPal® payment services, Avalara® sales tax solutions, and Omniture® web analytics.

GoECart regularly receives awards for product innovation and ecommerce leadership, which are a testiment to the tireless work of our team and their dedication to continuously updating the GoECart software platform and advancing ecommerce. For example, GoECart is also a four-time finalist in the prestigious annual CODiE Awards completion for “Best Ecommerce Solution” and expects to be nominated again this year

We will be sure to keep you posted on the results of the application and on the status of others awards, news and events via this blog. Check back often for updates!

In an ongoing effort to contribute to the local community, over 90% of GoECart employees have recently participated in a 90 day fitness challenge along with 29 other companies in order to promote healthy work environments in the city of Bridgeport, CT.

The Fitness Challenge was modeled after Aquarion Company’s wellness program and launched by the Bridgeport Regional Business Council Health Care Council as part of its Wellness Initiative in order to provide added value to BRBC members and create healthier workplaces in the region. At the beginning of September 2009, thirty Bridgeport Regional Council member companies began this 90 day fitness challenge. The goal was for each participant to walk 10,000 steps a day and track their progress on pedometers provided by UnitedHealthcare (NYSE:UNH).

Together over 2,500 walkers from the participating BRBC member companies logged 1,644,370,329 steps, or just over 822,185 miles, between September 1 and November 29, 2009.