You know that we don’t like to brag about how the Avangate eCommerce platform is the best in the Universe ;) , but a recent survey of eCommerce providers for software vendors shows that, well… we are the best! Hurraaay!

It turned out that out of 14 major eCommerce providers rated by 192 software vendors on Andy Brice’s blog, Avangate was rated highest!

The survey covered important aspects that software vendors need to keep in mind when choosing an eCommerce provider: features, ease of use, reliability, support, fraud protection, ethics, value for money.

A big thank you to all our clients (some of them listed here) that took part in the survey and we promise to do our best to be better every day:).

Although even Andy warns that the survey should not be taken as official statistical data, we can’t help but feel proud of the outcome.

Software Industry Conference - Avangate bears

As you probably know, Avangate attended, sponsored and presented at the 19th edition of  SIC for the fourth time this year. I was there with my colleagues Casey and Adriana, proudly representing Avangate by sharing knowledge on generating more e-sales,  mastercard-class mints and the classic Avangate bears and red caps :).

I know that many of you out there wanted to attend SIC this year and because of some reasons (not only generated by the economy situation I hope!), you couldn’t, I will share some pictures with you, as well as thoughts noted down after  SIC.

Geno Prussakov CEO of AM Navigator LLC

I recently had the pleasure to interview Geno Prussakov, one of the most important voices in affiliate marketing, founder and CEO at AM Navigator LLC. He has been involved in affiliate marketing for over 6 years now, currently helping online businesses succeed with this marketing channel by consulting, speaking and writing on the topic.

Here’s one of the things I like – Geno’s opinion on the issue of affiliate marketing not working:

If it’s the competitors of my clients that are thinking that way, I don’t want to convince them otherwise.

And he’s right – affiliate marketing is really working for those that understood they have to be involved in this channel.

Or his tips on how to recruit quality affiliates:

There are 6 techniques that I use on a continuous basis. All of them start with a letter “S”: (1) software, (2) social media, (3) search engines, (4) second-tier affiliates, (5) summits and symposiums, and (6) symbiotic recruitment.

I better stop here with the teaser – go ahead and read what Geno has to say about motivating affiliates, the ways to recruit good affiliates and the pitfalls to avoid as an Affiliate Manager.

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.

click on the image to see all photos from the event on Flickr

Two or three weeks ago spring returned to northern California and despite everything going on in the world, spirits are starting to soar.  Taking our lead from nature we hosted the second edition of “Casual Drinks“, Avangate’s networking event focused on software publishers and their partners.

We elected to host the spring edition of “Casual Drinks” at local Mountain View restaurant Don Giovanni, and from the start were quite pleased with the decision.  Don Giovanni has a tradition of hosting events for local software companies, as you can see by the logos on the wall, and with the success of “Casual Drinks” Avangate has taken its place next to these giants!  Inviting our friends and colleagues to see our new permanent position on the wall was quite a proud moment.

No more than 20 questions :) and you will receive a full copy of the survey report.

I won’t lie to you: at the beginning of the month we had no intention of doing a survey on channel distribution in the software industry. Now we are.  More than that, we have put more and more effort into it as we were designing the questionnaire and it’s grown into this wonderful piece of research … It  became my baby project.

How has this all started? From a discussion about an ad we had to do for a reseller newsletter. We wanted to produce something different, not just a boring ad… but rather à la @Neil Davidson in his interruption marketing post. Well, we didn’t quite match Napoleon & the Hemorrhoids, nevertheless we did come up with something we believe is very useful and interesting to share with the world.