MindArrow Debuts E-Commerce Tool

Rich media online direct marketer MindArrow Systems is taking the wraps off its long-awaited e-commerce offering, which is designed to make it easier for email recipients to complete a purchase.

The technology behind the offering is a recent addition to the Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based company’s lineup. In June, the company received a patent for its pop-up e-commerce technology, and shortly thereafter, also acquired embedded commerce technology from now-defunct rival Radical Communication.

The new product, which combines both of those technologies, puts MindArrow on par with rivals that use a technology vendor, like Cybuy, or their own in-house tools, as does Dynamics Direct. (Dynamics Direct, for its part, said it doesn’t foresee any conflicts emerging from MindArrow’s patent or the new product.)

The firms’ technology embeds everything needed to make a purchase into a pop-up ad triggered by an email, or into the email itself. So, for instance, an emailed ad for a tennis racket could also contain a “click to buy” button and fields for a credit card number.

By embedding the actual “call-to-purchase” within an email, such technology is intended to cut down on the amount of user effort involved in completing the purchase — which, in turn, is thought to increase the likelihood of a successful sale.

Indeed, it’s also widely believed that the greater the number of steps involved in completing a transaction, the greater the chance that consumers will abandon their e-commerce shopping carts — long a source of aggravation for the e-tailing community.

“MindArrow Commerce can shorten the distance from impression to conversion, speeding up the selling process by minimizing transaction friction points,” said Scott Altman, who is vice president of marketing communications at MindArrow. “Our customers now have the ability to conduct secure transactions directly from the message or call to action, thus improving ROI potential.”

In addition to boosting MindArrow’s offerings, the new product also further attests to the company’s being back on track, following a stock fraud debacle (perpetrated by two of the company’s transfer agents) and the failure of a proposed acquisition of a Dublin, Ireland-based CRM firm, both of which occurred in February.