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eBay, Yahoo Japan to faciliate cross-border trading

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seikamonOnline auction giant eBay will have another chance to establish foothold in Japan with its new partnership with Yahoo Japan to link up their auction sites.

The two companies will launch a separate website called Sekaimon which means “Gateway to the World” and or “global shopping” in English. The goal of this venture is to expand online auction and make online purchase a lot easier between Japan and the U.S. In English, it means additional income for both companies.

The Japanese-language Sekaimon will break language barriers by translating all items in eBay to Japanese. Moreover, it will assist in all aspects of online shopping from shipping, payment to custom clearance.

With only 15 million auction items listed, Yahoo Japan will now have access to more than 248 million users registered under eBay. The auction giant, on the other hand, will benefit from the strong presence of Yahoo in the Japanese market.

Originally posted on December 4, 2007 @ 10:18 am

Luxury consumers are also into social networking

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social networkingThe next time you visit social network sites don’t be surprised if middle-aged men and women checked out your personal profile. In fact, you should be accommodating for many of them are quite well off.

This is perhaps the most surprising finding of a survey conducted by Unity Marketing on how 1,074 luxury consumers are using the Internet. In the last 3 months, more than 40 percent of luxury consumers have visited social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube.

When buying home luxury products, more than half of luxury consumers relied on the Internet for their purchases. In terms of luxury fashion, fashion accessories, cosmetics, jewelry and watches, about 46% depended on the Internet.

By definition, luxury consumers have average income of $150,200 and age of 43.6 years. The top 5 sites they frequently visit are:

  1. Amazon
  2. eBay
  3. Nordstrom.com
  4. Macys.com and Overstock.com (tie)
  5. Neimanmarcus.com

“When asked what features were most important for a luxury shopping site to offer these luxury consumers, they were adamant about three features in depth product information and specifications, detailed product pictures and a flexible return policy. They were far less concerned with company or brand news, lifestyle content or a store locator,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing.

Read full details

Originally posted on December 3, 2007 @ 1:30 pm

PayMate, India’s leading mobile payments company enters North American market

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paymate.pngPayMate, India’s leading mobile payments company, is entering the North American mobile market and has hired Mr. Dhruv Singh as Vice President of Americas to lead its growth initiatives in the region that are focused on providing mobile payment solutions to the cross border remittance and the US unbanked consumer markets.

PayMate has built the largest ecosystem for mobile commerce in India by signing up merchants, banks, carriers, and consumers. PayMate is already accepted by over 3000 merchants in India and can be used to pay for purchases online, over the phone, and across the counter via the mobile phone.

Dhruv Singh was previously Director of Worldwide Business Development at AMD where he was responsible for all Go-To-Market and Sales Development strategies, initiatives, and execution for the HP worldwide account. Prior to that Mr. Singh led the worldwide corporate and professional graphics
sales and business development efforts at ATI Technologies. Mr. Singh will be based out of PayMate’s Sunnyvale, California office.

Originally posted on December 3, 2007 @ 11:06 pm

Evo.com opens world’s largest green shopping destination

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evo.pngJust in time for the holiday shopping season, EVO announced that evo.com is open for business to provide shoppers with the widest selection of green gift items on the web. EVO has prescreened millions of products for their green attributes and only offers products for sale on evo.com that earn an EVO rating of one to five leaves. evo.com features more than 100,000 green products and services from 1,200 retailers in one location to make it easy for holiday shoppers to find great green gifts for everyone on their list, from babies to grandparents to business associates.

In addition to toys, evo.com features gift baskets, clothing, jewelry, bath and body products, food, home accessories, gadgets, and even eco-travel packages, cars and solar energy products. Retailers offering products and services on evo.com range from specialty brands to large retail giants and include American Apparel, Baby Center, Burt’s Bees, Comet Skateboards, Eileen Fisher, GE, Hanna Anderson, HP, Home Depot, Macy’s, Method, No Sweat Apparel, Nordstrom, Patagonia, REI, Target, Toys “R” Us, Toyota, Under The Canopy, Whole Foods, Victoria’s Secret, Viva Terra, and more than a thousand other sellers.

EVO has partnered with Trees for the Future to plant a tree in the name of everyone who joins the evo.com community, and has pledged to plant at least 100,000 trees this holiday season.

Originally posted on November 30, 2007 @ 9:00 am

Best prices available with text message to AuctionSHARK

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auctionshark.pngAuctionSHARK, Inc. announced its new text-based shopping tool. Users can get the best prices from online stores and eBay by sending a text message to [email protected].

Results are provided by AuctionSHARK.com’s shopping search engine, which currently searches and provides results from more than 100 million item listings from eBay, as well as more than 6,000 online stores, including Amazon, Best Buy, Overstock, Target, among others.

Aside from any text messaging costs from the user’s cell carrier, the tool is completely free to consumers. Users can also choose to send more detailed search results to any email address.

Originally posted on November 26, 2007 @ 11:30 am