The Intel® Business Exchange Software Store in Europe has just been launched, bringing a new sales channel for selling software to European countries – with localized sites for the UK, Germany,  and France (official launch to follow by the end of the month). Good news.

We are, of course, proud to boast that Avangate provides the hosting, billing and process execution of the new market place… that the Avangate eCommerce platform is the core engine of the European Intel® Business Exchange… More good news.

Focused on SMBs
Yes, indeed, Intel ® BX is focused on SMBs – providing an advantage for this market. Why was there a need for this? Because SMBs often struggle to find technology products, services and support that fit their particular budgets and needs. The Intel ® BX Software Store helps them quickly and efficiently find the software solution they need to help implement business solutions. That’s why the store features extensive product details and facilitates customer ratings and reviews.

Thoughts about getting your voice heard in the crowd

See how Avangate communicates with its affiliates

Once you have a number of affiliates in your portfolio, keeping in touch with them and helping them make sales become paramount. Some software companies invest in creating a special position for this – the affiliate manager -, some deal with the affiliates through the already existing employees, but let’s say you have an affiliate manager.

Talking about communication with the affiliates, beside the personal contacts the affiliate manager should have with his Super Affiliates, email marketing is the best way to reach your affiliates.

Recently I was doing a market research on eCommerce trends in 2009. One of the things we should expect is that customers are more cost-aware and every minor thing they get for free or with a discount is often worth more than a brand they’ve used for a certain time or even a popular and reliable brand worldwide (we’re talking, of course, about similar features of the products being compared).

Of course, discount coupons are not a new technique for affiliate marketers, but in the near future we could easily foresee an abundance of promotions, discounts – let’s call them “deals”.

I’m not sure how to start this post, but most techniques of overcoming the writer’s block say that you should write something and worry later about how it looks. Besides, I only have 27 minutes to write it until the next meeting.

Let’s see.

I want to talk about the way microISV present themselves on the market – as Bob Walsh says, when you have a microISV you have to wear about 47 hats – from creating the product, marketing, support and up to being the janitor. So how important is it to show bigger than you really are? Should you fake it until you make it?

25 minutes to the next meeting. Writer block gone.

Why do people like better to buy from bigger companies?

• They trust them more in giving their credit card details
• It’s unlikely that the company / product will disappear
• It’s a “warranty” for the software quality
• They think the afterward  support will be better

I remember from my early days as an affiliate that waiting for the commission check to arrive, then cash it in were amongst the most annoying things of the affiliate marketing business.

It was annoying because you had to wait for the money to re-invest instead on focusing on growing the business. Wire transfers sometimes are subject to high banking fees.

Even with PayPal (PayPal made things slightly better for the affiliates), you still had to withdraw the money to a card (and that added some more fees) or to a bank account. My time working for software vendors showed it was quite the same for software vendors – waiting for the check to arrive or paying wire transfer fees.

Join us for an informal gathering in Mountain View!

If you’ve met with one of the Avangate guys or gals, then you probably know that this year we worked hard. We attended lots of conferences, had presentations, booths and wrote a lot of white papers and other articles. But you should also know that we also like to play hard and relax with our friends and partners.

That’s why I’m happy to invite you at the Casual Drinks with Avangate – Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at the Tied House in Mountain View. It’s the perfect time to come meet the Avangate US team and schmooze with other people from the software business. The event will be hosted by Casey Potenzone, VP Sales, and Daniel Nicolescu, Business Development Manager.

Discovering the fan part of your partners and mingle with software people seems like having a good time to me. Or at least because it’s easier to explain what you do to people that talk the same business language like you do, it should be a relaxed, informal schmooze. Of course I also happen to know that Daniel is an excellent wine expert so it’s always nice to be around him at parties ;)

If it sounds like fun to you too, register now here.