Posted: 11/2001
E Channel Briefs
* e-marketplace SmartPrice.com Inc. (www.smartprice.com) has signed a deal to offer its long distance services to Elibrium Inc.'s (www.elibrium.com) small business customers. Elibrium is a provider of business productivity software to more than 1.5 million registered users.
SmartPrice.com has about 100 different plans available from a dozen different providers. The plans are featured on a section of its site dedicated to small businesses. SmartPrice offers customers a comparison tool that customizes usage profiles and providers users with an estimate of their new monthly bill. The company's flagship service, the SmartNotify notification services, is the first service to monitor changes in long distance calling plans and regularly alert customers to opportunities to save money on their bills.
The new partners are working together to promote SmartPrice.com to Elibrium's customers through the software vendor's SOHO Insider newsletter. The newsletter directed customers to the website at http://partners.smartprice.com/elibrium.html. For a limited time, they offered a free Elibrium software title to customers that switched long distance service.
"We are working closely with Elibrium to integrate SmartPrice.com into their web site -- as a featured partner and in several other areas," said Erika Bennett, director of marketing for SmartPrice.com.
She says the company hopes SmartPrice.com is integrated into some Elibrium software programs. "These additional steps are longer-term, and we likely won't see traction in these areas for a few months while we work on the integration."
* The number of online users and buyers continues to grow despite the soft economy, according to the "eCommerce: B2C Report" published in September by eMarketer (www.emarketer.com).
The report aggregates and analyzes data from more than 100 research organizations. eMarketer's estimates that U.S. B2C e-commerce revenue will reach $156 billion by 2005, that is quadruple the $38.3 billion revenue raised in 2000.
The report also reveals the online buying population continues to grow, reaching 79.3 million this year. Significantly, eMarketer found more of those consumers are opting to buy from trusted names from the offline world.
"It's clear that the Internet has been accepted and is evolving as a key distribution channel -- not a separate business entity -- for traditional merchants," said Geoff Ramsey, CEO and co-founder of eMarketer. "e-commerce has become a strategic imperative for all retail merchants since consumers like to shop seamlessly across channels, including the Internet. Moreover, the lines are rapidly blurring between traditional business operations and the Internet pure-plays, to the benefit of the companies with the strongest brand names, largest customer bases and strongest financial positions."
eMarketer places the online customer conversion ratio at 2.9 percent for 2000, an improvement from 1.9 percent of 1999. For 2001, the ratio will jump to 3.5 percent as e-tailers attract and win new customers with targeted, customized marketing campaigns.
E Channel Links
AT&T www.att.com
AT&T Wireless www.attws.com
BestNet Communications Corp. www.bestnetcom.com
Cable & Wireless plc www.cw.com
Cingular Wireless www.cingular.com
Digital Impact Inc. www.digitalimpact.com
Dynamics Direct Inc. www.dynamicsdirect.com
Forrester Research Inc. www.forrester.com
Iconocast www.iconocast.com
IMT Strategies Inc. www.imtstrategies.com
Jupiter Media Metrix www.jmm.com
MCI Worldcom Inc. www.mci.com
Motorola Inc. www.motorola.com
Nextel Communications Inc. www.nextel.com
PlanetOne Communications www.planet1comm.com
PhoneDomain Inc. www.my800number.com
Simplexity Inc. www.simplexity.com
Sprint Corp. www.sprint.com
Sprint PCS www.sprintpcs.com
Sterling Consulting Group Inc. www.quality-service.com
Verizon Wireless www.verizonwireless.com
VoiceStream Wireless www.voicestream.com
Working Assets www.workingassets.com
