Forum Moderators: open
Here's the Everflux [webmasterworld.com] information, with several links to other threads. More can be found using the site search at the top left of the page.
More on topic: quiet_man, that's a really important issue you raise. I absolutely agree that Google should work well everywhere, not just in the U.S. Over half our traffic comes from outside the U.S., and we're always looking to improve our international quality. I think that in this case, people want to make sure that everything works smoothly before explicitly trying to do other currencies and countries. Napoleon, I see over 60K sites from the UK in Froogle, so it's not an absolute requirement to be only US-based. It probably wouldn't hurt to try to do everything you mentioned though.
A couple points about languages/currencies/cultures. It is possible to search Google with over 86 interface languages, and our AdWords program is already more scalable than most advertising programs because you can choose several currencies and languages. One last interesting tidbit: from time to time, we do show holiday logos for just a country or two. For example, today is Santa Lucia day on our Swedish and Norwegian pages:
[google.com...]
This is a pretty good page about countries and languages:
[c.asselin.free.fr...]
I am not really surprised with all those links pointing to it. This thread is 3 days old already. :)
<added> never believe the person that tells you they never lie - never trust the person that tells you they are always honest</added>
[edited by: Lots0 at 7:36 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2002]
I'd also like to point out that after having met several of the top executives of Google at the GoogleDance 2002 and working with several of their adWords folks and having listened to lectures by techs and engineers at SES conferences, that I have not witnessed a finer group of people all working towards the same goal with an incredible company culture.
Off topic and a new one for the glossary BT - if Yahoo ever picks up these ferps for Yahoo Shopping will we now have a Yafroogle?
Please take the time to read all those everflux and fresh dates threads to find all the others.
I did, you were the only one that said that, the others were offering where to find information on everflux. ;)
Froogle being such a major new entrant, I am not surprised that you saw the effect of everflux quickly!
Ok.. I realize some of you are 20 year old guys and girls in here who have no knowledge of the "real" world and such.. as for the rest of you.. Well dont be fooled for one second. Froogle is certainly not our friend! Froogle will merge with Yahoo and they Y Stores for revenue shares. Thats number one of many ways they will be making alot of cash. Secondly, froogle allows people to sort by price or scan by price at the moment. THIS IS NOT GOOD! One can scan a hundred stores and buy from the pimple faced 17 year old boy who while he is in High School is selling his stuff online and making a dollar on each item when as of now people make a zillion times more. A true business needs profit to surivive. This does not allow that! FROOGLE does absolutely nothing but cause a big stir and sends every single merchant into a price war.. the effects.. many people go out of business and the pimple faced boy makes a couple of bucks with his pennies of margain, does he care? Nope.. afterall he only needs gas money while living in mom and dads house while going to high school. As for those of you that think yeah but now I can buy my stuff cheaper.. Well if you sell something. WELL HELLO with what money since you arent making any. As for google thinking no, we are friends with this froogle deal.. HA! They are laughing their asses off so hard when they say that. Cmon.. get business sense.. Froogle is in no way, shape or form our friend. The best thing to do would be supress froogle, hope noone ever uses it and hope AV or someone comes in and squishes google and turns their lights out! Sorry GG, but you know this is true. While I think your a good guy I see nothing but harm coming from froogle.
Chris
2. Froogle will be important. It will have a market. Amazon is important, it will have a market. Microsoft wants to own the net. Yahoo wants to own the net. They will all get a share. But it won't and can't be all things to all people, even if they do a very very good job at it. And what will make it impossible is the pricing. Just wait till people try to manipulate pricing, with shipping costs, quality costs...It's one thing to write an algorithm to detect link farms but no computer will be able to compare 2 merchants offering the same product for 2 different prices with hidden fees. What SEOs can do with ecommerce is unique and cannot be replicated by a froogle style engine.
Those with the right attitude will use Froogle to their advantage...
Hopefully, these will be the people that spam the results so bad that most people will shy away from using Froogle. Price is a powerful tool when you can get something for 20% less. These websites will now be found by using Froogle's "Narrow by Price" feature. These people can't be found in the regular SERP's and can't afford to advertise with Google's Adwords without raising their prices. Let them pay for it like the rest of us.
Froogle will screw us paying Adword advertisers. Our sales will go down along with the advertising budget. It's tough enough getting online sales through advertising and working hard to get top SERP results.... now we have to worry about competing with a large number of "fly by night" websites who can now be found because they offer the same product at a 20% discount! We know on this board how difficult it is to be found by the search engines. It takes allot of hard work and a understanding of what search engines look for. But with Froogle you can be easily found by just offering the lowest price, looks like a real easy way to spam the engine. Google, you're making it harder for your Adword advertisers to justify spending so much money with you. Once our online sales go down so will the amount that we spend on advertising. I hope you're going to make alot from Froogle because you will screw Adword advertisers. "Fly by night" websites will have a field day. Just offer the lowest price and now you can become a "player" and be found on Froogle. Who needs to advertise or offer good service - You'll be seen now because of the low price. Do you really think paying advertisers like the idea of competeting with websites who will cut prices just to be found on Froogle? Do you think this will make it easier to sell products for your advertisers?
If people want to buy the cheapest, so be it. However, many people can see beyond the pricetag. I won't buy from a site if I don't like the look of it, or it isn't clear what I am getting. A few quid saved is far less important than getting what I want when I want it, and in the condition it should be in.
Price comparison is not new by any means. I don't know what the US has, but the UK uses Kelkoo and sites like that for comparisons. There are lots of shops on there and the prices vary enormously, so obviously price isn't everything.
It won't be the end of every online shop by any means, although if it really takes off it may, as you say, cause more price wars. But then we already see this - Amazon discounts bestsellers to the extent that independent bookshops cannot compete; so they don't. Instead, they concentrate on other areas of their business such as customer service, specialised lines etc.
Matt
Secondly, froogle allows people to sort by price or scan by price at the moment. THIS IS NOT GOOD! One can scan a hundred stores and buy from the pimple faced 17 year old boy who while he is in High School is selling his stuff online and making a dollar on each item when as of now people make a zillion times more
Im afraid its not that simple. We have the buying power to buy the product from the manufactuer,the 17 year old does not. We could probably sell the item for less than the 17 year pays for it and make a profit.
And this is just one of the factors. Business is complicated. How do high price boutiques stay in business. There are several ways to make a business model work. Consumers buy for a lot of reasons, and lowest price is not always one of them.
The first company is a bad company with bad costumer support etc but has a great listing on Froogle with low prices.
The second company is a good company with excellent costumer support but has a worse listing on Froogle and slightly higher prices.
The first company get 15 new costumers everyday, and only 1 is an imbecile return costumers. That's 31 return costumers per month.
The second company get 5 new costumers everyday, and 4 of the are return costumers. That's 124 return costumers per month.
Let's say those return costumers come back every third month to purchase something for $50.
The good company would get $6200 every third month from those 124 return costumers. That's $24800 per year spent by those 124 return costumers.
The bad company would get $1150 from their return costumers. That's $4600 per year from the 31 return costumers.
I don't think anyones business will be hurt by Froogle.
How can you show your service on the web? YOU CANT! SURE YOU can have a squeeky clean site, look professional but price is a big factor my friend.
Chris
The bad company will have almost no return costumers.
The good company will have plenty.
The good company has many return costumers and make more than the bad company, therefore the good company can lower their prices if they wish to compete. Now the good company gets even more costumers and return costumers!
The bad company has almost no return costumers.
The bad company can not lower their prices more - they will not be able to make things go round.
Add the fact that the good company will have many satisified costumers who will tell their friends and family what a great company the good company is, and that everybody should shop for it because they offer such an excellent service.
Everyone will say that the bad company has usless costumer support and that they frankly don't give a damn about their costumers. They will get a bad rumour.
By the way, I make all my money on return costumers and I know people who tried to go the fast way and make some quick cash - all I can say is that they made $20 000 in a year (before all bills) the first three months. Later sales dropped heavily.
I make much, much, much more per year before all bills. Most of the money comes from return costumers PLUS I have MUCH higher prices than the other guy had. How can I have higher prices? I have satisfied return costumers who comes back.
I think that good costumer service is one way to give your company a face on the internet and show your service on the web.
Word of mouth is the most important marketing tool for your business. You can not rank what people say about your company with some Google Toolbar and tweak what your costumers is saying about your company by changing some meta tags.
I still beleive Froogle will not harm any business.
It's 4.36 in the morning over here and I'm very tierd. Sorry if the post is messy and hard to understand. Please bare with me.
I have a "mix" of affiliate and own products on all pages..
Will froogle pick up the "none" affiliate products?
or
If it see's any affiliate products it slams the entire site?
If this store with great service and low prices are ranked #1. Do they not deserve to be there no matter if they are competitors or not?
There are no easy road to having a sucessfull business online or "offline". I think Froogle can help businesses but I certainly don't think it can break a business with a strong business model, no matter what the rank says.
Businesses with weak business models would have and will get thrown out of the game sooner or later anyway.
If people say that Froogle will break their business maybe they'll have to rethink their business model and try something new.
Froogle rocks.
Instead of bidding on keywords, you may be offering say blue widgets at cost, so that you will show up first in froggle. Once the customer shows up at your site, they will buy yellow and red widgets, at a higher price.
Or get blue widgets at such and such price if you promise to buy a life time supply of purple-widgets, in the conditions apply offer.
Or maybe the blue-widgets are out of stock, but we have a good deal on orange widgets at only twice the price in the old bait and switch gambit.
Is this beginning to sound like those Walmart door crasher specials, where they only stock 2 items for the special, and sorry no rain checks :)
The line between online and brick and mortar is beginning to get a little fuzzy.
How can you show your service on the web? YOU CANT!
Nonsense, and if you don't know how to show your service on the web, then you shouldn't even consider trying to make it in eCommerce.
SURE YOU can have a squeeky clean site, look professional but price is a big factor my friend.
Sure, price is a factor, but in the vast majority of cases it is far from the dominant one.
Who's moving the most volume of book sales?
Amazon. (who never has the lowest price)
Who's the largest domain registrar in the world?
VeriSign (Network Solutions) Best Price? Suuuure, and I've got some beach front property in Arizona to sell ya too. ;)
Even GoDaddy doesn't have the lowest prices available, though price PLUS positive word of mouth has contributed to their rise through the ranks.
Largest Web Hosting company... Verio.
Best price? C'mon.
In most niches you will rarely find the top players offering the lowest prices in their industry.
Trying to compete on price is perhaps one of the worst ways to make a dent in any given niche. There will always be someone waiting in the wings that will undercut you and your profits.
Having a Unique Selling Proposition is far more important, and price is only one of many possible USPs. Differentiating yourself from the competition is the only way to insure long term gains that are not built on a house of cards.
In fact, offering the absolute lowest price can actually be detrimental to sales. When people see a price that seems to good to be true their skepticism goes through the roof and they are likely to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find the catch.
On the other hand, a site that offers a reasonable price and takes the time to educate the consumer as to why they are worth every penny is going to come out on top almost every time.
Froogle isn't going to mean the death of good businesses because people can find better prices. People already do exactly that every day with the search engines and countless high profile comparison shopping sites.
What Froogle will hurt by offering price points is the business that doesn't have a clue about how to differentiate themself from their competition in the minds of their prospects.
Patriciak
As far as the Froogle algorithm, I'm finding that when my ecommerce sites offer products on the home page (featured items, etc.) for product names and model numbers (not general descriptive terms) I rank #1 on Froogle. For items offered on internal pages it's hit or miss so far.
