Nevermind...I'm an idiot.
>>>Were you aware of Yahoo! Local Listings as you developed your product?
We were very aware of Yahoo Local when we created the product.---How could anyone miss the ads in the Wall Street Journal trying to get people to use it. But serious, we believe that bringing the Yahoo inventory and visibility opportunity to our Merchants is an important part of our solution. As you noted, we already make sure our pages are being picked up by the search engines since this where were Local Consumers often first enter the Local Internet.
http://www.merchantcircle.com/bu...ed.831-430-
0911
Part of our current paid programs includes Yahoo Search marketing. We continue to work to expand this with Yahoo and other sources of great opportunities to be visible on the Local Internet for our Local Merchants. Paul Levine and his team at Yahoo are doing some great things. We hope to continue to expand that dialogue so that when we bring 5M merchants online, Yahoo is part of that solution.
>>>What's your exit strategy?
Our goal is simple, we want to bring every small merchant online. Every small merchant from Mom and Daughter carpet cleaners who can't afford the Yellow Pages, to the corner Pizza joint who is wasting money on an ad in a book that in a couple of years no one is going to open. We want to do it because it creates an enormous opportunity for Local Merchants to use their one advantage that Starbucks and Wal Mart, they are Local and they understand and value the Local Community. We don't think about exit strategy (ok so maybe late at night- say 3am when we are trying to get to sleep), we think about getting to every local merchant from Soldotna to Fairhope.
>>>Please give me a link to a page describing how you're offering paid search to your merchants.
I don't know that we have one. I will get something posted on the blog this week.
http://www.merchantcircle.com/co...corporate/blog/
I agree with you on the topic of local maps. This is a huge disadvantage for merchantcircle.
It's an interesting concept and I've been trying to keep an eye on what they're up to since first discovering MC very recently. I think the business network thing is close to genius -- many small businesses know the value of referrals more than they know about general web marketing.
Garrett (or Ben, if you're reading) -- have the security issues with regard to Joe Q. Public being able to claim anyone's business listing been fixed yet?
Garrett: Good questions! Actually, it is Merchant Circle itself that compares themselves to "the Yellow Pages mafia." I wrote about it at http://localonliner.com/?p=123. The major thing it really has in common with YP is that it is trying to grab the YPs base of 3.2 million small business advertisers. In fact, Merchant Circle is more of a marketing company, and has kind of a mediocre Yellow Pages offering -- no geographic proximity search, no "copy points" search such as store hours or brands. The company says it doesn't care very much, it isn't a "destination site," and that everything is Google anyway. But consumers really do use the YP for structured search (and to lesser extent, IYP), even with the complementary values of search engines. Do you know the avg. U.S. household still uses YP 1.2 x per week? It is an interesting stat. For Merchant Circle, mostly, it is a resource issue. But they're innovative and I'm looking forward to their pushing the envelope. As for Yahoo!, it really isn' on the radar with Listings. I talk to them, but they aren't pushing very hard on listings, are they? They've got other fish to fry.....
Peter - thanks for the comments, your interview's going up soon.
Good question Matt. I will ask Ben.
latest blog
post.
Why is Merchant Circle using a New Jersey telemarketing firm to call companies on the FTC Do Not Call list, with phony references ?
I just rec'd a 2nd telemarketing call from Merchant Circle claiming that I had a negative rating!!
When I go to your website there is no comment available for me to read and react to.... When I check to see how you have my company listed, I find the same erroneous information that I have been unable to remove from the yellow pages for years.
As my business has NO local clients it is completely international. How can I believe these calls. It would appear, that your marketing plan is to scare small business into joining your circle!
You need to be honest with your ratings if you hope them to be of any use to the consumer base, let alone to local businesses.Otherwise, you come across as trying to blackmail small business into joining your business model.
Why don't you try the carrot instead of the stick to drum up your business.
regards,
Kevin Sullivan
Latam Medical
400 Belleville Ave.
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
PS. To be clear!!! Remove my business from your database and stop calling with telemarketing messages.
k
Hello Kevin,
It's been removed.
Challenges of Growth
c35f1c 2d365ac4c3
Fast-forward 4 months (from September's posts) and today we get a pre-recorded phone call telling us that somebody googled us and rated us at merchantcircle.com - only to find no such ratings at merchantcircle.com ?
I'm not against networking businesses, and I'm aware that MerchantCircle will remove listings upon request. Nonetheless, unsolicited pre-recorded phone calls containing false/mis-leading information isn't the way to grow a business nor to build a positive reputation.
More comments from merchants:
http://battellemedia.com/archive...ives/
002632.php
MerchantCircle -an unethical kind of viral effect.
After receiving an email from the Governors office inquiring to my email that I had supposedly sent them, I did some checking and here’s what I found. MerchantCircle had sent an email to the Governor of Connecticut fraudulently using my name as the signatory which boasted about the MerchantCircle service and asking them to sign up. Yes, they in-fact, took my personal email after I was jerk phone spamed, high jacked my email address and sent emails out making it appear they were from me with the intent of endorsing their service.
After days of aggravation over the issue (it’s my reputation not theirs) I officially reported the fraud to the State of Connecticut and to MerchantCircle, the State has promised to look into the fraudulent practice of Merchant Circle. MerchantCircle honored my request to cease and desist notice and removed my account. No apology, no answer on their practice – just hiding from phone and email inquires.
Their practice is certainly viral but not a mystery anymore –Ben Smith and Wayne Yamamoto are common internet spammers and scamsters of the worst kind that give legitimate companies a bad name.
For an in-depth unbiased look at MerchanCircle fraud tactics look at the post here:
battellemedia.com/archives/002632.php
L. Rubin
This site, and its methods promise to do much more damage to small business than you can imagine. My brother called me to tell me the bad news that I had been 'HAD', and upon investigation I find that my business is on merchantcircle.com, (with incorrect information, no less) and that there is some false negative rating listed, and that I'm on the top of the google listings. The comment is clearly bogus since 1) I have never met a person by that name, either for business or personally, and 2) there is no one by that name in the town listed.
It's interesting that the site is set up so that I can 'claim' this site, to 'control' my reputation. Bulls*it!
Who else, but one of merchantcircle.com's minions would intentionally but bogus information on an ad that THEY placed without MY knowledge. Why? To get me to sign up of course!
After finally reaching FLAME_OFF stage, i searched their FAQ and filled out the REMOVE information. Let's see if they actually honor it.
Stay away, FAR away from this site.
Wayne, thanks for your comments. Please let us know if they actually remove it.
Hi Jeremy, I submitted the request Tuesday night, it didn't come down until Monday. Unfortunately, only two links came down, the third is still hanging out there... it was 'fed' to a local link. don't know if this will eventually purge itself or not.
MC folks, if you're reading, please get this listing with the bogus comment and bad email OFF the local site for Dresden, ME 04352.
Merchant Circle continues to spam folks on their cell phones, selling their 'verified' status....people are ANGRY and cancelling accounts---this company is DISPICABLE...bottom of the barrel!!
BEWARE OF MERCHANT CIRCLE!!
merchant circle has posted a very negative "review" about my company and I have never even signed up with this site. We have told them in the past to remove us from their call list and that we are not interested. I am going to FTC with this. BEWARE of these SCAMMERS.
MERCHANTCIRCLE IS SHIT!!!!!
Commenting by HaloScan
