2011 July

The world has 5.3 billion mobile subscribers, which is 77 percent of the world population. The U.S., in fact, has 87 percent wireless penetration, and the use of mobile phones is rapidly becoming the norm. Couple these statistics with the technology that allows merchants to process a credit card by phone when receiving customer payments and you have the beginning of a paradigm shift in the way retail merchants accept payments for goods. Below is a review of how retailers, wholesalers and general merchandise vendors can take advantage of the mobile payments opportunity.

by Claudia Bruemmer Each day, thousands of merchandise items are sold at pennies on the dollar in thousands of product categories. Distressed merchandise is a multibillion-dollar industry in the U.S, and there are also opportunities for exporting these products. American Merchandise Liquidators (AML) specialize in selling closeouts, overstocks and returns by the truckload. Through AML’s PalletBid, you can bid on pallets with different types of auctions. American Merchandise Liquidators, Inc. …

It’s the middle of summer and the weather is getting warmer by the minute. That makes it time to shop for t-shirts in every style and color for barbeques and many other summer activities. You can get a great deal on bulk t-shirts at The Adair Group because this wholesale supplier gives buyers a Best Price Guarantee.

Since the advent of social media, wholesalers and general merchandise vendors have seen a significant change in B2B buying behavior, especially over the past few years. People are using social networks to access and share many different kinds of information about companies, brands and products. As a result, wholesalers are using social media marketing tactics more and more on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

by Claudia Bruemmer Exhibiting at ASD for the first time, giant dollar store merchandise wholesale supplier and distributor International Wholesale is offering buyers a special show-only incentive that give you up to $200 off your orders from the Show. Visit them at Booth V-2046 and see all the great merchandise they have to offer. In fact, if you plan to visit the booth on Preview Day, International Wholesale invites those …

If you’re looking for the road to success when planning your holiday email campaigns, let us give you some pointers for getting started. Back-to-school season is upon us and then your holiday campaigns will start in earnest. It’s time to test email campaigns, ensure your landing pages work and ramp up your social media activities to generate new subscriptions. Doing all this now can give your email campaigns momentum for the rest of the year.Back-to-school season is upon us and then your holiday campaigns will start in earnest. It’s time to test email campaigns, ensure your landing pages work and ramp up your social media activities to generate new subscriptions. Doing all this now can give your email campaigns momentum for the rest of the year.

Borders, the Michigan-based bookseller announced it will liquidate all its assets and close 399 stores since the offer from Najafi Cos. fell apart and there were no further offers. This is a great opportunity for consumers to discover which liquidation centers and closeouts dealers will pick up Borders’ inventory.

Listen up, all you wholesale buyers and suppliers in cyberspace. What I’m about to tell you is nothing short of awesome. I’m talking about the newly re-launched TopTenWholesale.com website that went live less than 24 hours ago. This new B2B wholesale trade platform extraordinaire now offers Supplier Pass® in addition to many new professional services and sourcing tools.

It was interesting to read about the study, “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips,” by Betsy Sparrow, Jenny Liu, and Daniel M. Wegner in Sciencexpress, suggesting Google is affecting human memory, and in fact, has become an “external memory for humans.”

Many wholesalers and general merchandise vendors have heard of Microdata, a markup language provided by Schema.org and supported by Google, Bing and Yahoo. Microdata are markup attributes (tags, code) that give semantic meaning to product pages or any X/HTMLweb page. These tags allow all product details such as price, image, reviews, manufacturer, etc., to be accurately understood by search engines. As a result, they can display complete, accurate information about your products in the SERPs.

With 87 percent wireless penetration in the United States, wholesalers and retailers can both gain by using mobile marketing to reach their customers and prospects. SMS (short message service) is one of the most effective mobile marketing channels in the advertising realm. That’s because of its simplicity, widespread adoption and extensive reach. All cell phones can receive SMS, which means you can reach 5 billion subscribers worldwide – a great way for wholesale and retail merchants to reach their target market.

Research shows about 75 percent of online shoppers fail to complete a purchase for one reason or another. While retailers and general merchandise vendors have many good offers on their site to attract sales, they might not be doing enough to ensure that shoppers complete the purchase once selected items in the shopping cart are processed at checkout.

Buyers have the unique opportunity to purchase the best in plastic housewares from Brazil, courtesy of The Export Plastic Program. Exhibitors from eight Brazilian companies will feature attractive plastic housewares at the ASD Variety and Value Show in Las Vegas Sunday July 31st through Wednesday August 3rd. You don’t want to miss the opportunity of seeing these lovely and distinctive plastic housewares.

Getting customers to buy your product has become a real challenge. Many marketing and advertising campaigns are not working, and many retailers are wondering what they should do to generate traffic. There is one tool that is currently a hot marketing tool. Provide coupons for your customers and, at present, you will grab the attention of a lot of potential customers.

The Google Plus project has been operational for a couple weeks and seems to be catching on “like wildfire.” Yesterday, Paul Allen estimated 4.5 million users. Today, Clint Boulton of eWeek said it passed the 10 million mark! It remains to be seen if Google will surpass Facebook in social networking, but at its current adoption rate, Google Plus could finally be the move that breaks the Facebook juggernaut. Google has a good chance to get ahead since it’s been around since 1998 and everybody from your kids to your grandparents use it every day.