Ecommerce World

PayPal Australia, a leading global online payment service, today launched a new partner programme to reward partners for doing business with PayPal. For the first time, partners that integrate PayPal within their e-commerce and web solutions can qualify for member, gold or platinum partner status to receive special benefits and financial incentives, which vary by tier.

The new partner programme supports partners that offer PayPal-enabled solutions via revenue-share opportunities, referral incentives and a certification programme. Partners can also access the latest PayPal marketing, product and educational resources via the new PayPal partner portal www.paypal.com.au/partnerprogram.

“Our partners’ success contributes to PayPal’s success so we’ve launched this programme to deliver more value to the partner community,” said Glenn Lim, PayPal’s general manager of global alliances and vertical markets.

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Overnight Amazon has announced it’s acquisition of Zappos for around US$920m in stock.  Zappos has built a legendary reputation around customer service and open communication, which is at odds to Amazon’s communication strategy.

The post by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is here. In a letter to employees he writes:

We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos — continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different.

Video from Jeff Bezos about Amazon and Zappos

Intabill customers appear to have been thrown a lifeline from an unknown payment provider, Payovation.

A recent post on the WebHostingTalk forums includes a letter from the CEO of Payovation, who managed to aquire the assets of Intabill just before it entered administration.

July 10, 2009

Dear Merchant,

You may have recently read or heard that Intabill has entered into voluntary liquidation or administration.

I am pleased to inform you that on July 7 2009, prior to Intabill entering into administration, Payovation purchased all core Intellectual Property from Intabill, allowing for a smooth and seamless transition of their processing platform and all merchant accounts into our care and control.

Payovation is an international payment gateway and processor, providing highly reliable merchant services to merchants around the world.

Payovation brings an experienced team of senior management with many years of processing experience to ensure a smooth, seamless and profitable future for all of its clients and customers. Please be assured that your existing Intabill merchant account will continue to operate under Payovation without interruption or change.

Existing Intabill merchant accounts will remain on the same processing platform which is now being run by Payovation. A Payovation representative will be in touch with you in the coming days to answer any questions or queries you may have, however in the interim please find below some questions and answers related to this change in ownership and servicing. The experienced team here at Payovation looks forward to providing you with a reliable processing solution you can depend on.

Yours sincerely,

Michael

Michael Hui
Chief Executive Officer
Payovation

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FAQS

Q: Will I receive rolling reserve payouts owed to me from Intabill?
If you had a live active merchant account with Intabill, your reserve will be transferred over to Payovation.

Q: What happens to my current processing funds?
All funds recently processed by Intabill have been transferred to Payovation. You will continue to receive all payments owed to you on the same settlement schedule as you had with Intabill.

Q: When will my settlements occur?
Payovation will maintain your settlements on the same schedule you had with Intabill.

Q: Will I need to reintegrate with Payovation?
At the present moment we do not foresee a need to reintegrate merchant accounts, as Payovation has acquired the processing systems and intellectual property formerly used by Intabill.

Patrick Stafford from  Smart Company has reported on eBay Australia’s latest announcement to increase the exposure of “buy it now” listings on ebay.com.au.

From 10 September all store listings will have increased exposure as they will appear within the main eBay search results.  This will provide sellers with increased exposure on search results pages, however eBay is also introducing monthly store fees, ranging from $19.95 to $499 per month.

eBay Australia managing director Deborah Sharkey said that 50 per cent of eBay’s global sales were now fixed price and that, in the March quarter, such sales grew by 12 per cent globally while auction sales declined.

“Buyers are telling us that they want the same convenience and immediacy of payment on eBay as they get in their favourite department store,” she said.

For detailed information and explanations of all the changes, visit eBay’s “The Big News” page.

IT News and eCommerce Report have reported on the launch of the Australian PayPal developer program.  It’s the first market outside of the United States to be included in the developer program.

The program includes free technical tools and resources, PayPal developer certification and  developer days to be held in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth later this month.

Spiro Rokos, PayPal’s senior manager of technical engineering, said it would help Australians tap into revenue opportunities.

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MIS reports today that the Colorado group is preparing to take the plunge into online retailing again after suspending it’s ecommerce operations a few years ago.

The company upgraded it’s 500 stores to a wide-area network to assist with real-time information transfer between stores.

“Not a week goes by without us receiving emails from people asking when they will be able to buy from us online, so we are very keen to get back into the space,” Ms Ryan, Colorado Group’s chief information officer said.

Read the full article at MIS Australia

Yesterday, Google Australia announced an enhancement that allows Aussies to search for properties on Google Maps.

On the surface, the site looks great with a number of listings for various real estate agents and portals, however upon closer inspection there are a couple of noticeable omissions from the listings, namely the two gorillas of online real estate,  realestate.com.au and domain.com.au.

Patrick Stafford from SmartCompany spoke with former chief executive of REA Group, Simon Baker who views Google Maps as a competitor but not a major threat:

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A growing number of Australians are going online to compare before they buy as Australia’s leading comparison shopping website, www.getprice.com.au reports its biggest month to date.

Reporting a massive 2.7 million people shopping for the month of June, getprice.com.au has seen an increase of traffic of more than 500% to the site from June 2008.

“As one of Australia’s fastest growing websites, we are seeing a huge increase in consumers coming to us to make their money go further,” said getprice.com.au Chief Executive, Chris Hitchen.

“Knowledge is power when making purchase decisions and consumers want to be able to see all their options quickly. This is with good reason too with consumers saving up to 60% by going online and comparing before completing their purchase.”

“From electronics to perfume – www.getprice.com.au can deliver consumers with thousands of product comparisons in a matter of seconds.”

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