Microsoft Live Search cash back live on eBay.com

Microsoft have revealed more of their Live Seach cashback initiative confirming that all fixed price listings on eBay.com are eligible for a rebate.

When a buyer clicks through from Live Search to eBay and goes on to make a purchase, when they check out they’ll be presented with a screen telling them exactly how much cashback they can expect. Payment for the purchase will have to be via PayPal to qualify.

The cashback offers are now live on eBay.com, but currently Live Search cashback is only available in the US. It marks a departure from Google’s stategy where advertisers pay for exposure, on Microsoft Live Search, merchants can offer cashback direct to the buyer with eBay paying rebates for products on their site.

If Live Search cashback proves popular in the US doubtless it will filter across to the UK in the future. One to keep an eye on and no doubt JD will be announcing it to US sellers at eBay Live! next week.

Google get their dates wrong

Christian Yee, Product Marketing Manager for Google Checkout has posted “Checkout summer savings” on the official blog. It promises “over 50 Google Checkout stores will be offering savings of $10 off purchases of $60 or more to Checkout buyers”.

The landing page for the Checkout promotion small print says “Offers available until June 23, 2007“.

Opps, not like Google to get something like that wrong, I’d have thought they’d want to forget June 2007 after last year!

Microsoft Live Search Cash Back for browsing

Microsoft is expected to offer cash back to users of it’s Live Search platform, when they go on to make a purchase. In an effort to bolster their share of the search market an announcement is expected at the advance08 event today.

Microsoft Live Search Cash Back is to be launched in conjunction with eBay’s PayPal and John Donahoe has recorded a taped message to go out in conjunction with the announcement.

Microsoft’s official statement reads “On Wednesday, we will be announcing a major new initiative that our search teams have been driving. We are getting better and better with our core algorithmic search, and at the same time, we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences and to disrupt the current model.”

Microsoft will use the technology obtained from the acquisition of JellyFish, where buyers who make a purchase through the service receive a portion of the advertising revenue Jellyfish receives from the seller. Soon instead of visiting Jellyfish the cash back will be available on the Live Search site.

The big question is will you switch from your current search engine for some hard cash? Will you make Microsoft Live your default search engine? Most important of all, can they deliver the same quality of search results as Google and if not will cash convince browsers to put up with an inferior experience?

Google Product: 10x increase predicted

One of the main themes running through the Catalyst conference is Google Product Search. Scot Wingo introduced the subject when talking about developments in the US.

Comparison shopping attracts more buyers in the UK than almost any other territory - 50% of UK buyers visit comparison shopping engines, and although they only account for some 13% of all sales it’s suspected that they influence and assist as many as 75% of all sales even though a search engine may get credit for the final click.

Google Product is in the top five of comparison search engines and it’s free. Any merchant, or eBay seller can upload their inventory to Google.

Scot stated that when Google changed page layout recently to include “shopping” instead of “video” there was a ten fold increase in useage in the US. It’s predicted that a increase will occur in the UK later this year.

Sellers who feed their products to Google Product will be in prime position when the expected change occurs.

Get people away from your site as fast as possible

Robert Swerling, Head of Commerce Partnerships at Google gave an outstanding presentation at Catalyst this morning with four principles of successful online retailing.

1) Velocity

Give customers what they want as quickly as possibly. Customers don’t want to be impressed with a complex site, they just want to come, buy and go. 31% of abandoned shopping carts occur when buyers are forced to register with a site and 27% because the checkout process is too long.

2) Visibility

Don’t surprise customers on your website, 36% of abandoned shopping carts are due to hidden charges such as shipping or VAT. Keep all the information a customer needs to make a buying decision easily available.

3) Provide Value

Value isn’t just the price products are offered at, but includes customer reviews, discounts and free shipping. Equally don’t add features that don’t add value for customers.

4) Variation

Always continue to optimise your website - both the design and promotions. Offline retail outlets constantly rotate stock and offer discounts, you should be doing the same with your website.

Google summed up the presentation with the principle of their own website - “Build a business by getting people away from your website as quickly as possible”. If a buyer visits your site to buy a product make sure that there are no barriers between them landing on your site from a search engine, adding the product to the shopping cart, checking out and paying. Some may want to browse, but many buyers simply want to complete the purchase and your aim should be to make this as easy and fast as possible.

Google and Skype partnership on the cards?

According to TechCrunch, a new Google partnership with - or even outright acquisition of - Skype may be announced shortly. There doesn’t seem to be much substance behind the rumour; news.com called it Valley gossip at its finest.

Nevertheless, I think this would make sense. eBay spent a lot of money to get Skype, they took a lot of flack for doing so, and then they left their shiny new toy sitting in its box. For months, eBay sellers were not allowed to add Skype buttons to their listings; it seems eBay’s fears that we might use Skype to cut them out of the selling process took precedence over any desire to make the most of their new acquisition. And even now, with ?? worldwide users and profits of $400m in 2007, it feels like Skype is growing dispite eBay, rather than because of it.

A Skype sold to Google could be integrated with just about every aspect of Google’s services. Imagine Skype click-to-call buttons on every company in a page of Google search results. Imagine Skype buttons for local services on Google Maps. Imagine shared Google Documents which could be automatically imported into a Skype whiteboard and worked on simultaneously across Skype’s network. The possibilities are endless, and more than anything, they’re possibilities that make sense for Skype themselves.

Of course, given the amount of April Fools’ nonsense that TechCrunch posted yesterday, it’s always possible that this is just not true, but its appearance on Seeking Alpha under an April 2nd dateline makes me think that the rumours do at least exist. Mashable had the same rumour as far back as last November, and Silicon Alley Insider and ZDnet seem to think there’s something in it.

Yahoo! may merge with AOL

There were two merger stories in the last week, the first was Microsofts univited bid to buy Yahoo! which is looking increasingly unlikely to happen, with a rejection expected later today. The second was an extremely speculative guess that eBay might buy AOL.

Today The Times reports that Yahoo! are reopening talks to merge with AOL, currently owned by Time Warner. This would protect Yahoo! from the unwelcome attentions of Microsoft, and surprisingly could be supported by Google. One might wonder why Google is so interested in protecting their closest rival, but a strong Yahoo! is more attractive to them than an even stronger Microsoft/Yahoo! partnership. Google own a 5% share in AOL.

Microsoft puts in $44.6b offer for Yahoo!

Microsoft has today shaken up the rumours over who will acquire who this year with an offer of almost half a trillion dollars for Yahoo!

The real question is, if the offer is accepted, how it will change the landscape of ecommerce shopping. There have been rumours about a possible merger of eBay and Yahoo!, especially as Yahoo! have been closing their shopping sites in recent times.

eBay are lacking search and rely on companies like Yahoo!, Google and MSN for traffic. Yahoo!, Google and MSN all have search, but largely are not destination sites where transactions take place. In the middle are a myriad of shopping comparison sites which direct transactions from buyers Internet searches to merchants ecommerce websites.

Into the mix throw increased competition from Amazon who go from strength to strength, along with merchants own ecommerce websites and any merger is going to affect online sellers to some extent.

Although Google is the undisputed leader in search, including paid search, a joint Microsoft/Yahoo! partnership could become a real contender. Competing for the paid search from comparison sites and destination sites such as eBay is all about the return on investment. Many merchants have found success with Yahoo! relative to Google as there is less competition and thus lower cost to buy keywords in paid search.

Historically Microsoft were late to embrace Internet, for them acquiring Yahoo! will gain a well established, respected brand. One thing is for sure a Microsoft/Yahoo! merger could bring benefits for buyers, advertisers and publishers, as well as giving Google a bigger competitor to keep them on their toes.