14 DAY TRIAL // Both through its ecommerce partners and via its very own retail outlet, Microsoft is making easier for customers to find and take advantage of holiday discounts. With Christmas approaching fast, the Redmond company is pointing users to Bing and to the Microsoft Store for a variety of special deals that can be leveraged for gifts. As far as the Microsoft Store is concerned, the company’s online retail outlet features a page designed to centralize all special offerings, as well as deliver the best Christmas gift ideas to customers that might find themselves without inspiration. The software giant is even ready to pay for the gifts to get to you, offering free ground shipping for a limited period.
“What’s more, you can skip the crowds and lines by shopping online at the Microsoft Store, to find the best gift fast. In conjunction with Microsoft’s brick-and-mortar stores, the online store now carries far more than just Microsoft products. You’ll also find an array of software, hardware and accessories from a range of manufacturers, including Xbox games from Activision and Electronic Arts, headphones from Bang & Olufsen and Skullcandy, and a wide selection of computers, laptops, notebooks and netbooks from the likes of Sony, Dell and Acer,” Microsoft stated.
Of course, the software giant is also recommending Bing Shopping to users looking to purchase Christmas gifts, and not only, online. The company’s search/decision engine is designed to allow customers to easily find products to purchase and to just as easily access discounts. Online retailers can choose to participate in the Bing Cashback program via which users receive rebates for products they buy through Bing. Cashback amounts this holiday season range between 5% and 35%, Microsoft said.
“Bing recently unveiled improvements to make holiday shopping even easier. For example, customers can now sort search results by user sentiment through the new Opinion Ranking feature, where Bing extracts what customers are saying about products. The new Product xRank feature lists the most popular products by compiling Web searches, product page views and purchases into a ranking formula that lets you easily track what’s hot and what’s not,” the company added.