The Contest, part II

Wow, an amazing 200+ people took part in the “Avangate wins 5” contest. Going through all the answers was a wonderful experience per se – thank you all for your kind thoughts and words of appreciation – big happy smile on our faces.

Thanks for your thumbs up for our customer support, account managers, for helping you increase sales and manage your partners, for our affiliate network, impeccable accounting, for joining the same conferences that you go to and so much more. Here is how Avangate in your 5 words looks like:
It was a pleasure going through your answers and really difficult to choose only 2 winners, so… we decided to give away 3 prizes. Well, let’s not keep you guessing:

Avangate celebrates its five year anniversary today. To mark the occasion, we sat down on soft couches and thought hard about what we’ve gained in all of these years. And came up with a little concept that has since grown on us:

Avangate Wins 5:

• 5 Years of Experience
• 5 Years of Trust
• 5 Years of Knowledge
• 5 Years of Fun
• 5 Years of Success

And Thousands of Enthusiastic Partners!

Hurray!

Plus we threw in an anniversary fun contest to go with it so we can celebrate together. Cool prizes to be won!

Now about our story, which actually starts in 1992, being part of a larger IT group. Avangate as a brand was born in 2005 – back then we were starting with the idea that we could bring a new level of services in eCommerce for the software vertical. It has not always been a smooth journey, but five years down the road tell us we did well. Our 1,500+ clients and 18,000+ affiliates surely agree.

[Tricky to make a selection of testimonials]

Unless you’ve been on holiday these past weeks, I’m sure you know by now that we are off to China again. Yep, we loved it so much last time and the feedback was so good, that we’ve decided to re-visit this fascinating culture (one of the oldest in the world!) that just happens to have to offer some of the best dishes on the planet :).

This time we are heading to Shenzhen, an area considered “The Valley” of China. Yep, that’s the center of the Chinese IT & software market.

So on Saturday, 5th of June, I’ll be sharing the conference floor with Tina, Avangate’s finest Asian market sales consultant;) and Andy, our coolest Chinese colleague. What am I saying here… if you are a software vendor from China, you might know these guys probably even better than me.

The debate topic this year: Conversion Rate.

How high is your shopping cart conversion rate? Is it 30 or less? 40? 60? One day a client asked me: what exactly makes a conversion rate to be smaller or higher? Is it the number of steps, the security logos, the product images, adding/removing cross selling? Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a secret formula to it. However, we have found that the absence of 3 elements can influence in a negative way your shopping cart conversion rate: trust, confidence and security.

On trust, confidence and security

Trust comes from the experience with the shopping cart itself. Most of the users don’t care about technicalities or 3rd parties and so on, but when they find themselves in a cart that doesn’t look like anything on your website, some of them will hesitate to trust it. A feeling that something might be wrong could take over. It’s common sense after all. In all the tests we’ve done, the better the customized cart was (in terms of look and feel), the higher the conversion rate.

Are you already a member of the Avangate Affiliate Network? Then consider this post as “What’s New” type information. If you aren’t convinced yet, I hope you will become an affiliate after reading this post. :)

The beginning of this long awaited spring of 2010 came with a an important update to our Affiliate system – the new version of the management interface for affiliates. Its aim is to maximize the revenue generating opportunities both for affiliates and software vendors.

Affiliates Save Time and Effort

Enough with the big words – let’s see the highlights of this update:

- redesigned dashboard with essential information at your fingertips, including sales statistics and featured products

If you ever wondered what our team does when it leaves the office and hangs out together for a weekend, well… I have some information for you in this post:). However, I don’t want to just give this away for free, so let’s play a game:

I’ll only show you the pictures from the team-building we’ve been to in the beginning of this month (from our Extravaganza Party) and you must name the persons behind the characters, if you recognize them. Comment with at least 3 correct answers and receive the “Avangate Spring Buddy” title:).

If you win, we will proudly present on our blog, in the Avangate Spring Buddy badge your blog/website and will send you a surprise gift. Ready or not, here are the questions: