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Tag Archives: TurnTo
What to do if your “social” Q&A doesn’t actually get social answers?
To date, Q&A on ecommerce sites has been primarily a tag-along application to customer reviews (provided by vendors that specialize in customer reviews). This approach results in a Q&A model that's more like customer reviews than a true social experience between shoppers and customers, missing the benefits that a truly social approach to ecommerce Q&A provides. The key to Social Q&A is that shopper questions should reliably and quickly get answered by real customers, and participants should have the ability to go back-and-forth beyond the initial question, if they choose to. If shopper questions receive customer answers only rarely ... read more
Meet with us at the NRF Innovate11 Conference
Coming to the NRF Innovate11 Conference in San Francisco next week? Interested in Social Commerce? Stop by and see us in booth 52. Or be one of the first 10 to pre-schedule a 15 minute appointment with us at the show, and we've got a $50 gift certificate for you from Amazon or Apple. Send us an email here, or call Gadi Benmark at 917-763-7868 to schedule your appointment. The fine print: One gift certificate per company. For pre-scheduled appointments only. Qualified retailers only.
The “Right Time” Web and Social Commerce
I gave this presentation at the MIT Enterprise Forum of NY a year and a half ago. The NY Times Bits blog piece today on comments by Venrock's Brian Ascher about the "Right Time Web" made me dust it off. I tidied it up a bit (but not much). My predictions about the imminent arrival of the "Trusted Reference" model in the e-commerce world were at least a year too soon - I left those unchanged. (Brian's colleague David Pakman also blogged about this in the spring.) The "Trusted Reference" Model for Social Commerce View more presentations from TurnTo Networks.
July conversion lift numbers
This shows the conversion rate of shoppers who interact with the TurnTo Social Merchandising widget while on one of our partner merchant sites vs the baseline conversion rate for that site. Each letter here is one store. We've picked the biggest stores from our network, since the data are most robust there (ie not just the ones where the data are most positive). Full-month for July.
TurnTo presentation at the New York Tech Meetup last night
Many thanks to Nate and Brandon for another fabulous NYTM. Here's our first public demo and announcement of the general availability of TurnTo 2.0 (aka the Social Commerce Suite). The TurnTo segment starts at 10:30 and runs for about 3 minutes. Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com
Introducing the TurnTo Social Commerce Suite
It’s a big day at TurnTo: we’re introducing our Social Commerce Suite. (Yes, we know that it’s ambitious to call it a “Suite” with just 2 products – please humor us. Also, there’s more in the pipeline…) Official press release here. So what’s new? 1. We’ve done a nearly complete overhaul of our current product, now branded “Social Merchandising” and 2. We’re introducing a new product called “Social Purchase Sharing”. Social Merchandising. We’ve made improvements top to bottom. Shoppers who open the widget but don’t personalize it by checking for friends will now ... read more
New whitepaper out: Onsite Social for Online Retail
After over a year in the market helping a few dozen innovative online retailers add social shopping features to their stores, we thought it was time to synthesize and share the big lessons we've learned. So here is our new whitepaper: Onsite Social for Online Commerce. In it, we get specific about things like: How to leverage social networks for Social Merchandising within your store How to most effectively encourage shoppers to share news of their purchases with their social network friends Why adding Social to ecommerce sites requires different strategies than for content sites What sort of results are realistic to expect We're ... read more
March and April Conversion Lift Numbers
Here is the conversion lift data for the larger sites using TurnTo for the last couple months. We're comparing the baseline conversion rate for the site to the conversion rate for shoppers who interacted with the TurnTo system at some point in their shopping path on the site. The 2-7X lift factors we were seeing in the first couple months of the year are still evident.
For ecommerce sites, “Like” is OK, but “Bought” is much better
First: we wholeheartedly agree with the ideas underlying Facebook's big announcements today. People want to be able to interact with their friends on sites all across the web, not just within Facebook. And sites don't all want to have to become Facebook apps to support this. TurnTo has been working to enable contextual delivery of social networks on ecommerce sites since our founding in 2007. And we've proved that the benefits for both shoppers and merchants are significant. So we applaud Facebook, appreciate the validation that their heading in this direction provides, and are already hard at work incorporating their new ... read more
Forrester TechRadar report on Social Commerce cites TurnTo
Forrester retail guru Sucharita Mulpuru recently published her latest TechRadar report on Social Commerce. Available from Forrester here. And for free download from ATG here. We were pleased to be included as one of a select group of vendors profiled in the report. It's a great resource for retailers in planning their approach to social. Here's the chart that summarizes it all in one place:
Jan and Feb conversion lift numbers
These charts compare the conversion rate of shoppers who open the TurnTo widget to that of those who don't on the largest sites in our network.
First announcement of TurnTo performance data
This will sound like self-promotional hyperbole, and I'm going to say it anyway. When we started TurnTo a bit over 2 years ago, it was clear that the viability of the business hinged on delivering measurable, positive business results for the ecommerce sites we planned to have as customers. But, of course, there was no way to know for sure what the numbers would look like without building a product and finding customers to really use it. So we plunged in, built the product, brought merchant partners on board, gained experience, and put in place the systems to measure if ... read more
Use social merchandising online to affect purchases in your store
There's a session at the next ANA Shopper Marketing Committee I'd really like to attend. (But I'm not a member - sigh... If you are a member, you can find it here.) The point of the session is so important for multi-channel retailers, I'm copying the description here. I'd put it this way: don't just use your web presence to sell; use it to create a connection to your brand that will bridge from your site all the way to your store. One of the most powerful ways you can do this is with social merchanising tools (like TurnTo) that ... read more
A great perspective on what social commerce really means
Paul Dunay, The Global Managing Director for Services and Social Media at Avaya, gave this description of social commerce in an interview in eMarketer: Social commerce is working with or using your social graph, which is defined as your followers or your friends, and allowing them to help you make buying decisions. Social commerce can be anything from a buying suggestion or recommendation—perhaps a tweet from a Dell outlet saying, “Hey, we have a special on this”—to something like Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect would allow you to go to a Website like Dell.com and authenticate yourself using your Facebook ... read more
Business Week on the merging of social and shopping
Business Week just published a piece on the potential for Facebook in online shopping. They focus on the role of Facebook Connect in enabling shoppers to post questions to their Facebook network before making a purchase. It makes sense that this is the primary way Facebook Connect has been used so far in online shopping, since it's the easiest to implement. But it's just scratching the surface. The real potential is in bringing the social network to the shopping site (not the other way around). For one thing, many people are hesitant to blast questions that they know are only relevant to ... read more
See you at Shop.Org next week.
TurnTo will be in booth #212 at Shop.Org in Vegas next week. Come by and see us. Or shoot us a note at contact@turnto.com and let's schedule a time to talk while we're all there. Oh, and we're giving away a Kindle!
TurnTo welcomes 17 new partner merchants, travel sites, and non-profits
We've just released an announcement welcoming 17 additional partner merchants, travel sites, and non-profits that have recently gone live or will be shortly. These new partners include: Intrepid Travel: offering over 650 trips in over 100 countries, specializing in 'off the beaten track' adventures, organizing trips for 20 years, with over 70,000 travelers joining them each year. Jomashop: No. 209 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, has been in the wholesale and retail trade of upscale luxury brand name goods such as watches, fine writing instruments, handbags and luxury crystal since it was founded in New York in 1987. ... read more
AuctionBytes podcast from the Internet Retailer Conference
I had fun during the Internet Retailer Conference this week chatting with Ina Steiner, Editor of the AuctionBytes blog. We covered a lot of topics in a short time. She has posted the conversation as a podcast. Enjoy.
Stop by and visit TurnTo at the Internet Retailer Conference
If you are in Boston today or tomorrow, please come by and visit us at the Internet Retailer Conference. We're in booth #947. And in case the pleasure of meeting us isn't enough incentive -- we're giving away a Kindle.
TurnTo is in the Wall Street Journal today
Here's the full article: http://bit.ly/14Wl0n And here's what they have to say about us: New York-based TurnTo Networks Inc., for example, which was launched in September, helps retailers link their customer accounts with social-networking accounts and email accounts using Facebook Connect and other tools. TurnTo charges retailers a percentage of the revenue from sales attributed to the system. Tea retailer Teavana Corp. is a TurnTo client. Jay Allen, Teavana’s vice president of e-commerce, says the conversion rate—a measure of how many shoppers make purchases—for people who use the application is 20% higher than the rate for others, and their average orders ... read more
Vote for TurnTo for the Silicon Alley Awards
In addition to the very nice recognition we just received from AlwaysOn, TurnTo has been nominated for the Silicon Alley Awards in the "Most Loved Product" category. If you like what we're doing - or even if you just appreciate the potential - please vote for us. It'll only take a moment. http://tinyurl.com/cl4u7l Thank you thank you!
TurnTo wins 2009 AlwaysOn East 100 Award
There are many stellar businesses on this list. We're honored to be included in their company. The AlwaysOn East 100 Award is given to private, emerging technology companies creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets. TurnTo was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on demonstration of growth, market opportunity, quality of innovation and customer traction. “It’s no secret that technology and innovation are vital to bringing our country out of economic recession,” said Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “The companies on this year’s list have not only created innovative technologies that solve real business problems, but have stimulated economic ... read more
Nonprofits, especially, can benefit from Trusted Reference Systems
We're looking forward to the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTEN) this Sunday - Tuesday in San Francisco. If you're there, please come by and see us in Booth #42. And on that topic: here's a link to a press release Earthwatch just put out on their expanding use of TurnTo to increase volunteer recruitment though their website. We're thrilled, since Earthwatch provided the inspiration that led to TurnTo.
Facebook Connect can have dramatic benefits for online merchants
Here's what Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti told the New York Times last week regarding their recent trial of Facebook Connect: In the four months the site has been testing Facebook Connect, 94 percent of reviewers have published their reviews to Facebook, where an average of 40 people see them and 70 percent click back to Citysearch. That has translated into new members: daily registrations on Citysearch have tripled. If you are an on-line merchant, don't leave all the Facebook Connect fun to the publishers! With tools like TurnTo, a Facebook Connect implementation is far easier and quicker than you might imagine. ... read more
TurnTo Selected as an OnMedia 100 Winner
Always nice to be recognized, particularly in such good company. Thank you to AlwaysOn for the honor. (Sounds like a long list, but we are one of just a few in the social commerce area.) The full announcement and list. Plus, we'll be speaking at the OnMedia conference on February 3rd at 3:00pm here in NYC. Agenda.
5 more sites join the TurnTo network
We're very happy to kick-off the new year by welcoming 5 additional sites to the TurnTo network, bringing the total to 14. Go Away Travel is a leading vacation planning agency Kenmar Watches and WatchWear are sister sites that sell an incredibly broad range of timepieces Mac-Access sells a diverse array of accessories for Apple products Paganum is an online farmers market supplying meat and produce from family farms in the Yorkshire Dales, UK Check them out!
Critical mass questions
We get a lot of questions about whether TurnTo will work before we've achieved a "critical mass" of users. We built the TurnTo model so massive scale is not a requirement for the system to deliver value to users or to our partner sites. I thought I'd explain how that works: Sites that use TurnTo suggest to their customers that they join TurnTo. This message is delivered on the order confirmation page, the confirmation e-mail, or in on-going marketing campaigns. The pitch is basically: be there for your friends and they'll be there for you. The sites may offer incentives, as ... read more