On March 11^th, Yahoo! will be discontinuing the automatic Yahoo! Product Submit from Yahoo! Store Manager. Yahoo! has now partnered with PriceGrabber to handle the population of Yahoo! Shopping in the future.

Yahoo! Shopping will continue as always to be a valuable channel for reaching customers with your products. The difference will be in how you, the merchant, get your product information into Yahoo! Shopping.

What if I am currently use FeedPerfect to submit to Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber?

If you are currently submitting to Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber you will not need to do anything to make the transition. As of March 11^th all PriceGrabber accounts will automatically submit products to both PriceGrabber and Yahoo! Shopping. PriceGrabber Cost per Click rates will apply.

What if I am currently use FeedPerfect to submit to Yahoo! Shopping but not PriceGrabber?

On March 11^th, FeedPerfect will combine the Yahoo! Shopping channel with PriceGrabber. By combining the channels we have minimized the impact on merchants using FeedPerfect. FeedPerfect will count both engines as one “feed” when calculating your billable usage.

You should make the conversion to PriceGrabber as soon as possible to prevent any lag time in product listings on Yahoo! Shopping.

1. Activate the PriceGrabber Channel in FeedPerfect.

2. Sign up for a PriceGrabber account through the Channel Wizard in FeedPerfect.

3. Map your products and complete the Channel Wizard in FeedPerfect.

4. After PriceGrabber has successfully received your first feed, deactivate your Yahoo! Shopping Channel in FeedPerfect.

FAQ

Q: Can I submit to Yahoo! Shopping without submitting to PriceGrabber?

A: Yes, you can. For a very limited time PriceGrabber is offering a “Yahoo! only” PriceGrabber account.

You can sign up at for a Yahoo! Shopping only account, or a combined Yahoo! Shopping/PriceGrabber account here.

Q: Can I submit only to PriceGrabber without automatically submitting to Yahoo! Shopping?

A: After March 11^th, but default all PriceGrabber accounts will submit to both. If you want to limit your products to appear only on PriceGrabber after March 11^th, you should contact your PriceGrabber account representative.

Q: Where can I see more information about the partnership between PriceGrabber and Yahoo!?

A: Yahoo! has sent several notifications to Yahoo! Merchant Solutions users in the past few weeks. If you missed the notification, you can view it here.

Q: Is there a deadline to de-activate my Yahoo! Shopping channel in FeedPerfect?

A: We recommend you make the change as quickly as possible to prevent any lag time in listing on Yahoo! Shopping. Officially the Yahoo! Shopping channel will be removed from FeedPerfect March 11^th. PriceGrabber will have many new accounts as they absorb the traffic for Yahoo! You should act quickly to give PriceGrabber as much time as possible to help you get listed.

On Saturday, January 23^rd 2010, Solid Cactus will be performing routine maintenance, beginning at 1:30 am ET and lasting until approximately 5:30 am ET, which will affect your FeedPerfect account.

While the maintenance is completed, scheduled feeds may not publish. All feeds will publish again as normal at their next scheduled publish time. Although, if you’d like your feed to publish sooner a manual publish can be done through your FeedPerfect account.

During the maintenance you may not be able to access your account. Please plan ahead for the temporary scheduled maintenance time on Saturday the 23rd.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and appreciate your cooperation.

Hello FeedPerfect Users!

I just wanted to report that the Google Merchant Center is having an issue recognizing and processing feeds that are being published to the FTP locations. The problem seems to have begun on November 2nd 2009.

What does this mean for you?

Google is generally quick to identify problems and resolve them, so most likely you will not have to do anything. This is not something that is cause by FeedPerfect so there isn’t anything that our support team can do right now. We are aware of the issue and I will be monitoring it closely.

I will update this blog with any instructions for a fix if necessary. but chances are you will not need to do anything except for wait while Google rectifies the issue.

Stay tuned to the blog for more updates on this issue…

EDIT::: This Issue Appears To Be Resolved. (11/4/2009 @ 17:00 EST)

All the best,
Matthew
Matthew.Major@solidcactus.com

With the holiday shopping season almost here; a lot of comparison shopping engines will be making changes to their category minimum bids. Here is a list of what has been reported so far:

Become - will not be raising their minimum bids this holiday season

Shopzilla - select categories will have their minimum bids increased from 11-16 to 12-27

Shopping.com - select categories will have their minimum bids increased from 11-15 to 12-31

Yahoo! Shopping - all categories will have their minimum bids increased by 25% from 11-2 to 12-29

NexTag - all categories will have their minimum bids increased by 25% from 11-4 to 1-06

I will be updating this list as more information becomes available.

All the best,
Matthew
Matthew.Major@solidcactus.com

As many of us know most shopping engines raise their CPC bidding rates during the holiday season. Become has decided to do something a little bit different!

Check out this update from Become:



Valued Partner,
Become.com is proud to announce that we are not raising our rates for the 2009 holiday season!

We recognize the need for retailers to make the most of this busy shopping season, and are happy to offer our partners our tools and features in order to help you optimize your holiday campaign. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with our dashboard and offerings in order to positively impact your listings!
But that’s not all! Become.com has one more gift for our merchant partners…

…a reduced CPC bid for logo eligibility! For the month of November, merchants who have uploaded a logo in our merchant dashboard and bid at least 5 cents above the minimum CPC’s will have their logo displayed on Become.com*!

Take advantage of what Become.com has to offer you this holiday season, and let us know if you have any questions!

The Become.com Team

* Merchants already taking advantage of the logo program at normal rates can adjust their bids manually for November; however, decreasing bids will impact your ranking.

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Matthew.Major@solidcactus.com

On Saturday, September 19th Solid Cactus will be performing server upgrades which will affect your Feed Perfect account. Feeds will still publish on the 19th and Feed Perfect will continue to track events behind the scenes. However, you will not be able to log into your Feed Perfect for up to 24 hours beginning on the 19th. These upgrades are routine, and are necessary to ensure the highest standard of performance for your account.

Please plan ahead to make any feed changes relevant for that weekend on Friday the 18th.

We appreciate your business and support.

Best Regards,
Feed Perfect Support Team

Dear Partner,

Become.com is proud to announce the upcoming release of its new and improved merchant dashboard! With its easy-to-use UI and faster response time, we are sure that the merchant dashboard will be well-received by our retailers, and we would like to offer you the opportunity to get a sneak peak before it launches.

Our sneak preview presentation breaks down the main functions of the dashboard for you prior to the September 14^th launch, in order to familiarize you with the sleeker look and feel of the interface.

When: The sneak peak webinar will occur in two sessions on September 11^th, at 11AM PST and 2PM PST.

How to register: Reply back to us (dani@become.com) and let us know which session you can attend; we will then send over your registration once we have all replies.

Pre-registration for this special demo ends at 12PM PST on August 31^st, so please contact us in order to take advantage of the preview webinar.

Best,

The Become.com Team

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posted by Matthew Major

matthew.major@solidcactus.com

Our FeedPerfect help site has been updated to include a step by step walk-through for submitting your feed to Google Base through FeedPerfect!!

Click HERE to visit our help site!

Click HERE to visit the walk-through!
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Matthew.Major@solidcactus.com

Dear Valued Customer,

NexTag, Inc. has updated the Merchant Lead Referral Terms of Service Agreement, (The “Agreement”) which governs your NexTag account. The link to the updated Agreement is provided below. Please click on the link to view the Agreement. It is important that you carefully review the terms and conditions of the Agreement as it will govern your NexTag account effective at 12:01 am on July 20, 2009 (”Effective Date”). If you do not wish to continue your account pursuant to the terms and conditions of the updated Agreement, you should delete all product and/or service listings and terminate your NexTag account prior to that time.

NexTag Terms of Service

If you have any questions or need assistance, contact sellersupport@nextag.com. Thank you for your cooperation, we appreciate your business at NexTag, Inc.

Best regards,
NexTag Team
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Matthew.Major@solidcactus.com