E-commerce isn’t just a solution for big corporations. For small businesses, e-commerce can significantly boost revenue and profitability without the expense of additional physical stores. E-commerce sales are projected to account for one-tenth of discretionary purchases in the U.S. and an estimated 33 percent (and growing) of e-commerce revenue goes to small businesses.* Despite the clear benefits of e-commerce for business including: visibility, accessibility and profitability, it is not without challenges for small business owners. We have conducted a series of interviews with a number of small business owners regarding e-commerce challenges they face. Eric Shannon, Founder & President of Oh My Dog Supplies shares the issues and challenges of his business regarding e-commerce. Oh My Dog Supplies is an upscale, online dog supply retailer based in San Francisco. Shortly following the launch of Oh My Dog Supplies, the company quickly grew to nearly $2 million in … Continue reading
E-commerce challenges with SMB’s: Flooring.org
E-commerce isn’t a playing field made only for big corporations. For small businesses, e-commerce can significantly boost revenue and profitability. E-commerce sales are projected to account for one-tenth of discretionary purchases in the U.S. and an estimated 33 percent (and growing) of e-commerce revenue goes to small businesses. Despite the clear benefits of e-commerce for business including: visibility, accessibility and profitability, it is not without challenges for small business owners. We have conducted a series of interviews with a number of small business owners regarding e-commerce challenges. Eric Hurst, CEO and Founder of Flooring.org shared the struggles and challenges his business faces with e-commerce. Flooring.org is a nationwide distributor of hardwood flooring, laminate flooring, stair parts, and other fine hardwood products. Builders, contractors, sub-contractors, and homeowners alike can find all types of flooring products at “ridiculously low prices.” Flooring.org combines deep discounts with a wealth of flooring information, … Continue reading
Cinsay Is The Home Shopping Network For Viral Videos
BY: Kathryn Hough | July 13, 2012 Television networks like QVC and the Home Shopping Network revolutionized window-shopping by bringing the concept of shopping for leisure into the living room. Now that people are watching less television and more short videos online, companies like Cinsay have the opportunity to bring shopping into the social video experience. The Austin-based startup creates viral stores that combine video, e-commerce, and social media for a shared shopping experience. Single users can monetize their viral cat, cute baby, and skate videos by selling products within their videos, while large brands can turn online commercials into interactive, entertaining shopping experiences. Cinsay’s SaaS-based technology enables anyone to sell products, display printable coupons, capture donations, and generate leads all within the patent-pending Smart Container. Customers are offered a complete turnkey business via merchant account services as well as an exclusive on-demand solution featuring dozens of personal, brand able … Continue reading
PayPal is here!
Many of our Cinsay store owners have been waiting patiently for us to release our PayPal integration and the wait is over! Now, Cinsay merchants can enjoy great merchant rates while extending the ease and security of the most trusted payment system to their customers. Watch this quick video to see what all of the excitement is about and client “get started” below to sign up for your free trial! Get started!
Traditional eComm Conversion Rates Pale in Comparison
It’s been a month since we launched MyCinsay, the self-managed version of Cinsay (in addition to our managed services) at the Spring 2012 Demo Conference. The Demo Conference was exceptional—we’ve received a lot of press and a surge in adoption and we even got cozy with some of the other teams (hi Arqball!) and began collaborating on additional ways to make your social video commerce experience even better. The eCommerce industry is expected to increase from 2011′s modest $5 billion mark and reach a whopping $30 billion by 2015, so it’s a good time to be in the online retail space. Add to this, the fact that 70% of adults who use social networks are online shoppers, social commerce is the boom town of the online retail space, which means our social commerce solution puts you in a sweet spot when it comes to closing the loop on your online … Continue reading
The Value of Viral
Have you seen the latest viral video “Lotte Time-Lapse: Birth to 12” that reached 3.7 million views in just one week? The guy who created it, Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester, was elated that his labor of love—filming his daughter once a week for 12 years—managed to engage the masses. This, by any measure, is a success. Or, is it? For personal use, an engaging, viral video is impressive. But for businesses, engagement is nice, but it doesn’t keep the lights on—ROI does. Many companies create engaging, viral video campaigns that boast impressive stats about views and engagement, but those stats are rarely accompanied by stats of how much revenue those wildly successful campaigns generated. And, achieving ROI is what separates personal from professional, making the distinction between social networking and social commerce. If engagement were the end goal, we could just call it social media because engagement only covers one … Continue reading
What is Engaging Content and How Do I Make It?
Engagement is the buzzword du jour when it comes to content creation especially for social commerce. Every business wants to create a magical piece of content that provides an experience so profound that viewers want to engage, or interact, with it and share it with their friends. But, guess what? There’s no magic—anyone (yes, anyone) can create engaging content if they follow these very easy-to-implement steps. Know Your Audience: Before you can create engaging content, you have to decide who you want to engage. How does this person spend their time? What do they find funny—or offensive? These characteristics, or psychographics, help you create content that will resonate with the people you want to engage. An example of this is a dotcom era software developer who created software that appealed to a niche, highly technical audience. He knew that while the rest of the world was browsing Internet Explorer to … Continue reading
A Case for Social Commerce
“If I had to guess, social commerce will be the next area to really blow up.” –Mark Zuckerberg In business, the key to success is location, location, location—in other words: being wherever your customers are. Today, the new hotspot is online and in the world of online retail, people are spending 23% of their online time on social networks, making social networks prime real estate and the smartest retailers are meeting their customers there, too, ushering in our evolution from eCommerce to the age of social commerce. You read Christian’s blog post about how smart SMBs are tapping into Facebook’s F-Commerce platform and selling products directly from Facebook. Now, while the fact that social networks are the watering holes for customers is a huge draw, the biggest benefit for SMBs is the fact that these customers can also easily share their purchasing decisions with the connections they have on these … Continue reading
An Idiot’s Guide to DEMO: A Loosely Accurate History
–by Johnny Dripp (with a little help from Chris Shipley) PART I: “If You Can Remember This, You’re Too Old.” If memory doesn’t fail, Stewart Alsop – genius journalist/VC, editor-publisher of PC LETTER, and one class act – launched DEMO as the “anti-PowerPoint,” a sane, upscale alternative to the brutal gauntlet of crucial, but boring, listless computer industry trade shows that chewed up organizational budgets back in 1991. The first DEMO was, by most methods of reckoning, small: it was held in Palm Springs, CA at the foot of the La Quinta (the Resort & Club, not the motel…it wasn’t THAT small) as a prestigious hang. DEMO has been filled with heady names such as Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Borland (the latter constitutes being too old. Are you?) Since its humble beginnings in 1991, DEMO’s come a long way, baby. It has been the launching platform for many of the … Continue reading
Cinsay Launches and Opens Public Beta for ‘Smart Container,’ Promising “eCommerce for Everyone,” at DEMO Spring 2012
Easy-to-manage “website-free” technology combines Facebook, YouTube and Craigslist ease-of-use with universal content sharing across social media and mobile devices. SANTA CLARA, CA – APRIL 18, 2012 – Cinsay, Inc., a Texas-based next-generation social video commerce provider, is launching its Smart Container™ technology at DEMO Spring 2012 today before the technology industry’s most prominent media, analysts, investors and entrepreneurs. The Smart Container is an easy-to-use eCommerce storefront aimed at helping individuals, first-time entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises make money online without a website. Customers will be able to use video, photos and other images to sell their goods and services, take an order and complete the transaction from within the Smart Container’s video player. “We are delighted to host Cinsay and have them showcase their new technology this year,” said Matt Marshall, executive producer of DEMO. DEMO Spring 2012 is being held April 17-19, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency … Continue reading