The TConnect Websites, until now, have been extremely basic and limited in features. Not anymore! If you'll go to your TConnect Website now, you'll see a completely redesigned page with many valuable new features, including:

1. You can add your company logo and a company profile.

2. A suggestion box so TC members can submit ideas and suggestion to you to help you improve your products and operations.

3. A "Tell-A-Friend" button so members can quickly and easily refer others to your TConnect Website.

4. A detailed "Contact Us" page that allows your customers to contact you by phone, fax, postal mail, or via our internal message center (more on this in a moment).

5. A brand new and expanded product showcase area. Your products are now viewable in five tabs: Featured Products, Hot Deals, Closeouts, Newest Products, and ALL Products. The showcase area also now includes the ability for members to search for your products by keyword!

6. Member comments. Located in the left sidebar is an area for customer comments and testimonials. Logged-in members will see a box in which they can enter and submit their comments to you (you approve any comments before they are displayed). Customer testimonials are one of the best ways to boost sales, so we encourage you to ask your buyers to submit comments. You can do this in order acknowledgements, for example. Just give them your TConnect Website address, and tell them to log in and post a comment for you. And be sure to thank them in advance of course!

7. Your new TConnect Website now provides you with the ability to instantly distribute messages to all of your connections! Effective immediately, you can now send out news, updates, and special offers to every TC member that has connected with you--whenever you want, and at no cost to you! And because your messages flow into each member's personal TConnect page, there's no email addresses to mess with and no spam filters to get in your way!

Here's how you send connection messages: Log in at your TConnect Website. You will see a box to enter your text. Enter your text and submit. Boom! Your message is instantly distributed to every one of your connections!

Tip: Send ONLY professional, pertinent messages and not too frequently or you will cause your connected members to DISCONNECT with you. "Less is more" when it comes to connection messages!

Here are some message ideas for you:

- Announce new Hot Deals you've set up. Tip: Setting up 1-2 new Hot Deals every week provides a great reason to use the connection messaging on a regular basis.
- Announce items you've added to Closeouts.
- If you've been notified that you've got a product that will be featured as Deal Of The Day, announce the day it will be featured, the special price, discount, etc.
- Ask for comments and testimonials from those who have placed orders with you (direct them to the comments box in the Member Comments section).
- Announce new stock.
- Announce special coupons or other special deals you're currently offering.

Note: If you have a physical store, you are also allowed to distribute messages inviting local customers to shop your store sales, come check out your new stock, etc. You may not, however, divert your connections to any other Website to make purchases.

With your TConnect page, you now can easily build an awesome master customer mailing list. All you have to do is ask your customers to go to your TConnect Website and click the "Connect with this company" button located in the top right corner. It's that easy! And there's absolutely no list maintenance. We take care of all that for you!

To help you easily sign up LOTS of people, we will soon be making a variety of marketing tools available to you for this purpose. Fliers and mini-cards you can distribute, signage for your store windows and walls, Website banners, and more. Stay tuned for announcements on this.

Special note: For TC members that YOU refer, we waive the minimum 15% TripleClicks fee on any orders they place at TripleClicks for you. Instead, there is just a flat rate $.95 (95 cents) surcharge to cover our costs of processing the payment and other overhead.

8. The new TConnect Websites also introduce "Power Rankings." Power Rankings allow you to engage in friendly, head-to-head competition with your fellow TripleClicks ECAs within your city, your state/province (if applicable), your country, and worldwide--both overall and also within your specific business category.

Power Rankings give you the opportunity to tell the world, "Check us out, we're the number one company in apparel in the city!" or "We're one of the top ten jewelry companies in the country, according to TripleClicks.com!"

How do you increase your rankings? Currently, we award you one point for each connected member you have. And ten points for each that is a buying customer. Several additional features will be added in the coming months that will allow you to gain points in other ways.

In the meantime, you'll want to encourage customers and prospective customers to connect with you. Each new connection will increase your points and potentially move you up in the rankings. Doing so also, of course, adds them to your mailing list for connection messaging (see #7 above).

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WHAT YOU SHOULD DO NOW:

1. Add* your company logo (or other company photo you wish to use).

2. Add* your company profile.

3. Check* your contact information, make sure it's complete and up to date. Edit as needed.

4. Write your first connection message. A brief and friendly "Welcome, I'm delighted you've connected with <company name>, we look forward to being at your service" message would be perfect to get started with.

5. Set up at least one Hot Deal and/or Closeout if you can (see the Listings Manager at the ECA Center to set these up).

6. Start referring your customers who are not already TC members to your TConnect Website and ask them to connect with you. This will both build your TC mailing list AND help you increase your Power Rankings.

7. Check your TConnect Website at least once a day. Very important!

* Log in at your TConnect Website, then click the "EDIT" link located in the upper panel to do this.

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IMPORTANT GENERAL NOTES:

1. TConnect uses our new site-wide internal message center. That is, when members use the Suggestion Box and/or send you a message via the new Contact Us screen, the message will be delivered to you not via e-mail but through our message center. Therefore, you'll want to check for messages regularly, at least once a day. The best way right now will be to simply log in at your TConnect Website. If you have any unread messages, you will see a link in the top right corner to read them.

2. This is just version 1.0 of TConnect (the previous version was a beta). Many additional features are forthcoming. If you have ideas or suggestions for further improving TConnect Websites, or you encounter a bug, please drop us a line at: ECAsupport@tripleclicks.com

Full details and instructions are forthcoming shortly. Watch for our email.

In the meantime, we recommend you upload your company logo and enter your company profile. To take care of these items, log in at your TConnect page, then click the "EDIT" link located in the upper panel.

You can now set up special sales for your products in our new "Hot Deals" section. Hot Deals will be prominently featured throughout the site and on the TC homepage soon. And setting up your sales is super easy. Just go to the Listings Manager, click the Hot Deals link beside the product you want to put on sale, and follow the simple directions. With just a few clicks, you can be creating great, new exposure for your products!

As an E-Commerce Associate, you are now invited to submit your products for our Deal-of-the-Day (DOTD). If your product is chosen, it will be featured on the TC homepage for 24 hours. Also, any of our TC members who have opted in to receive info on DOTDs in your product department will receive a special e-mail notifying them of your product.

Submitting your products for DOTD is easy. Just go to the Listings Manager, click the DOTD link beside the product you want to submit and follow the simple directions. If your submission is accepted, you'll receive an e-mail letting you know of the date it will appear as DOTD.

If you have products that require the customer to choose a size, or a color, etc., the ECA listing editor now accommodates you. You can now create and use unlimited choice menus in any of your listings.

You can also create price differentials, such as if you need to charge more for a special color.

You can create your choice menus by using the Choice Menu Manager now located at the ECA Center. To apply your menus to your listings, simply select the choice menus you've set up from within the listing editor for your individual products.

"Makes a great gift!"
If you have products that would make great gifts, be sure you use the listing editor to mark all of your products as such. Doing so can provide even more exposure for your products as we will soon be adding a way for shoppers to search for gifts ideas.

Standing Orders
If you sell consumable products, you'll definitely want to use the listings editor to make this designation for all such products in your line. Once verified by us, a new "Add To Standing Order" button will appear on your listings. This button gives TC members the option of having your products ordered AUTOMATICALLY every month. That is, EVERY MONTH, you'll receive an order from us for the product (until the customer ceases the standing order)!

Exclusivity
If you are listing products on TripleClicks exclusively (i.e. you're not selling them anywhere else), you can also now use the listings editor to make this designation, which can provide even more exposure for your products from shopper searching for exclusive items.

The ECA program is still very new, less than 90 days old in fact. Hence, many of the most powerful features are still to come. One of them we are really excited about is the addition of social networking to TC–which will allow you to more deeply connect with your customers and grow your customer base in exciting new ways. The first component of this recently arrived in the form of the new "Connect with this company" button. All of your listings, as well as your TConnect Website, now sport this new button.

What this button is doing is building a list of customers (and prospective customers) for you! Each time one of our members clicks your "Connect" button, they are automatically added to your list. Each occurrence is a member saying to you, "I like you, I'm interested in your company's products."

Right now, we're simply building the list for you, but very soon you'll be able to start doing some very cool things with your list. For example, you'll be able to instantly distribute messages to every one of your connected members with the click of your mouse from your TConnect Website, anytime you want, and completely cost-free. And there is much, much more coming.

Yes, today, your TConnect Website is a ultra-plain Website that does very little. Soon, however, it will become a powerful business tool for your business. Stay tuned!

By the way, you may have begun receiving e-mail notifications of members connecting with your company. Note that if you prefer NOT to receive these little "good news" emails, we'll have a method for you to opt out shortly.

We've recently added a new "Share/Save" button to each of your listings. This button, when clicked, allows shoppers to easily share information on your products via Facebook, Twitter, various blogs, and other social networking sites.

The button can also be used to easily bookmark the page for future access. In all, DOZENS of helpful services are accessible from the button.

It also automatically detects the services each visitor uses and places those services first in the menu!

In short, this new button makes it quick and easy for shoppers to share and bookmark your products, resulting in more traffic, extended reach, and more sales for you.

We've added a "Tell-A-Friend" feature to all of your listings. Shoppers can now click this link to quickly and easily send information on your products to their friends. Try it out by sending one to yourself!

Many products belong in more than one department. You can now have your listings appearing in up to three different departments. This will of course result in more shoppers seeing your listings when they are browsing departments other than your primary one. Use the Editing feature in the Listing Manager to add up to two more departments for each of your listings.