MerchantAdvantage Products FAQs
- Does Channel Management support more than one online Storefront?
- Absolutely! Channel Management will allow your Customer Service representatives to support your customers from an unlimited number of online storefronts, even if each storefront is on a different platform, and there is no additional cost.
- Is there some way in which Channel Management can help increase sales in addition to saving money?
- Yes. Channel Management can automatically feed selected products up to many marketing based sites such as Amazon, Buy.com, Google, Bing, and Shopzilla to name just a few, which helps increase sales. All clients have their own VIP, Customer Relationship Representative who is available to help with marketing decisions.
- How much does Channel Management with Chanalytics cost?
- Channel Management starts at a $695 monthly charge for usage and maintenance. Chanalytics is included in this price. Pricing is based on data usage. You only pay a flat-fee based on usage with no revenue share, no set up fees, no transaction fees, or no listing fees from MerchantAdvantage. You increase ROI with a scalable, marketing platform that supports unlimited SKUs, storefronts and marketing channels. This also includes your own VIP, Customer Relationship Representative, who works with you live. Call 305.895.9466 for more information.
- Will there be any downtime when switching over to Channel Management if our company is already using comparison engines?
- The installation of Channel Management can be set up so there is no down time. For the installation, with your company's assistance, you should verify your products are correctly imported and then the feeds being exported to the comparison engines are configured to replicate your current feed format (which may be different than the default format issued by the comparison engine). This can be done very quickly. It all depends on your data and channels being used. However, once the system is set up and verified, you could switch off your current feeding method and switch to Channel Management resulting in zero downtime.
- Where does the product file which is to be imported into Channel Management normally come from?
- Typically, the catalog file comes from the merchant's shopping cart. Some shopping carts have a great deal more features relating to product exporting than others, and the merchant should refer to their shopping cart manual for further details. However, Channel Management can import from a great veriety of formats, and is completely configurable. It is not uncommon for Channel Management to import from spreadsheets, XML files, csv exports, and in many cases Channel Management will actaully communicate directly with your shopping cart in an automated fashion, requiring only the initial configuration to be done by the merchant.
- How long does it take for my products to appear on the CSE sites?
- That would depend on which site, if this is the merchants first feed, and how clean and the cleanliness of your product information. As a ballpark answer, it is typical to see your products within 24 - 48 hours, even on a first upload. But it has taken as long as 6 days in some isolated cases. Also note that on some CSE sites, the signup and ftp process requried the merchant to go through many phases. So, our quoted timelines would assume that all phases are completed with those CSEs.
- As a hosted solution, what kind of up-time should be expected, and what are the ramifications of any MerchantAdvantage system downtime.
- MerchantAdvantage servers are hosted at a hurricane class 5 rated data center, with multiple fiber loops, and over 8 backbone carriers connecting us to the internet. Other than system maintenance and such, users should expect 99.99% uptime. However, if downtime occurs, there is no net residual effect on retailers sites. Feeds are actually housed at the various channels once a scheduled feed has been completed. Although Chanalytics data would discontinue tracking during any downtime, storefronts would operate normally, and not be effected.
- How do I get my data into Channel Management ?
- There are a number of ways to import your product data into the database. Channel Management
accepts most data file types including
- comma separated
- tab-delimited
- excel spreadsheets
- xml
- (.csv, .xls, .txt or .xml)
- Can Channel Management be installed on mupltiple computers?
- Yes, and at no extra cost.
- Can I view and edit my product information in Channel Management ?
- Yes you can. Channel Management comes with the Query Creation Tool which makes finding and viewing product data easy. However, the Channel Management application is not generally used as a data entry tool, most content conversion is created using the provided automation tools.
- I have complicated feeds, how can Channel Management help?
- With Channel Management, feeds are customized and updated on the fly. This allows you to customize the products you feed and conversions of any content can be adjusted easily pertaining, specificly to that marketing channel or across multiple marketing channels. So the content and product selection for each channel can be unique, and pre-programmed into automated business rules within the Channel Management system.
- What if I find new feeds and channels I want to send to?
- You can always add new feeds, and there is no limit to the number of channels to which you can feed instantly using Channel Management . MerchantAdvantage supports 200+ global marketing channels and does not believe clients should be limited to where they can send their products and potentially increase their revenues. Some MerchantAdvantage clients feed to 50+ marketing channels worldwide!
- How many feeds can I have?
- A merchant can have an unlimited number of feeds to an unlimited number of marketing channels. There is no extra cost related to the number of feeds sent or supported marketing channels.
- I'm new at ecommerce retail, can I use Channel Management ?
- Yes! Channel Management was created to use as a tool to help make managing marketing for an online store eaisier. Call us, we are more than happy to explore new opportunities with you.
- My product file changes frequently, how would I benefit from Channel Management ?
- Importing products into Channel Management is typically automated, so all product information would be updated as often as you schedule the imports. If the structure of the files change often, your VIP Customer Relationship Representative works with you to re-map/update fields within the Channel Management application.
- Do you have header requirement information from the major shopping comparison sites?
- We have links from within the Channel Management private, client, back office which show the channel partners specifications. However, many channels (in excess of 25) are preconfigured within the Channel Management application and updated regularly, so we make it easy to auto-map product files and get up and running with marketing channels quickly. We always encourage our clients to communicate any recent changes they are aware of to their VIP Customer Relationship Representative in order to achieve a unified effort to maintain all data current. To find this information just log in to www.merchantadvantage.com using the same credentials used to log into Channel Management .
- Merchants and Agencies Should Work with MerchantAdvantage because:
- You can work with over 200 shopping destination sites, specialized comparison shopping engines, and marketplaces from one dashboard of aggregated data.
- You can customize, optimize, submit, adjust, monitor, and analyze product data feeds to any third-party partner.
- You have access to senior managers at the leading marketing channels and have your own VIP Customer Relationship Representative who is available to you live to help co-manage your channel marketing efforts. You only pay a flat-fee based on usage with no revenue share, no set up fees, no transaction fees, or no listing fees from MerchantAdvantage. There are no extra costs related to the number of SKUs or the number of marketing channels you want to work with including marketplaces such as Amazon, Buy.com, eBay and MarketAmerica, just to name a few.
- You increase ROI with a scalable, marketing platform that supports unlimited SKUs and storefronts.
- Internet Retailer 500 companies trust and use MerchantAdvantage solutions for their marketing data feed needs, and so should you.
- What is a product feed?
- A product feed is a file containing your product information. This includes, but is not limited to:
- product name
- product code
- product url
- image url
- cost
- price
- sale price
- description
- category
- What is a CSE?
- A Comparison Shopping Engine. Also known as a shopping comparison site or price engine, these allow individuals to shop for products on the internet and identify the retailers carrying the products they are searching for. These sites do not sell products but source products from retailers who market their inventory to these specific types of websites. Examples include:
- Google Product Search
- Bing
- Ciao
- PriceGrabber
- Pronto
- Shopzilla
- What is required of me to ensure that my product feed is accepted by the marketing channels I advertising on?
- You should regularly log in to your marketing channel accounts to make sure accounts are funded and that the feed you are sending has no errors. Your VIP Customer Relationship Representative helps with this process.
Click Here for your No Obligation 15 Minute Product Demo, or call 305.895.9466
MerchantAdvantage Blog coming soon.