Vendio announced Thursday that its Vendio Store offering now powers over 50,000 small and mid-sized merchants after launching the ecommerce platform last year. Vendio Store gives sellers their own independent storefront that integrates with eBay and Amazon. AuctionBytes sat down with Michael Levit, the company's Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, to catch up on its ecommerce offerings. He discusses stores, Google Product Search, and a new Name Your Price program that's like Priceline for product sourcing.

AuctionBytes: For merchants who have a Vendio Store, what percentage of their sales take place directly on their store versus on eBay and Amazon.com?

Michael Levit: The percentage varies greatly by merchant. Some Vendio merchants only use our free store while others participate in eBay, Amazon, and their own free store. Merchants enabling Vendio's free feeds to Google Product Search also see different combinations. Overall we see anything from 100% eBay to 100% stores clearly with a lot in between.

AuctionBytes: What's the biggest source of traffic to merchants' Vendio Stores?

Michael Levit: eBay and Google are the two biggest drivers of traffic to Vendio Stores. Vendio stores are very SEO friendly and we also provide a back-link to every Vendio store which helps Google crawl the stores quickly. Google product search remains the largest source of store traffic though.

AuctionBytes: Can merchants "list it and forget it," or do they have to aggressively market their Vendio Store listings?

Michael Levit: We have created ways to help Vendio merchants market their products with very little effort. First, we make it very easy to list Vendio Store products to Google Product Search - a free comparison shopping engine. Second, because Vendio Stores are SEO-enabled, merchants can easily optimize their Store for organic search traffic. Third, we have a new Facebook application that allows merchants to sell their Vendio Store products from a "Shop!" tab on their Facebook profile or fan page.

AuctionBytes: Are you seeing Facebook and blogs as big drivers of traffic and sales - is social media really paying off for online sellers?

Michael Levit: The success of the social media sales channel really depends on what you're selling and whether or not your target customers are using those channels. We have built the tools to help merchants take advantage of social channels.

For example, in addition to our Facebook application, we also have a Store Widget that can be embedded in blogs or anywhere online. We just launched Facebook support a couple weeks ago so there isn't real GMV there yet, but given that Facebook just passed 500MM users I expect to see that channel grow quickly, particularly as an awareness channel for influencers.

AuctionBytes: There is a lot of hype about mobile commerce. What percentage of traffic to Vendio Stores comes from shoppers using mobile devices, and will small sellers be able to take part in this trend?

Michael Levit: Vendio Stores are optimized for mobile commerce. In fact 3.6% of all Vendio Store pages are consumed by mobile. Compare that to the 1.3% of the Web is consumed by mobile and we're double. Since our Store is free - it really shows that any merchant can have an ecommerce presence that's optimized for mobile commerce

AuctionBytes: How important is Vendio's research tool for pricing research, given that eBay has been moving more towards fixed-price listings?

Michael Levit: A move towards fixed price listings dramatically increases the need for Research and we have been seeing a big swell in users as a result. It's easy to set a $0.01 auction and let the market dictate the final price. It's hard to know the correct price in an ever changing competitive world. It's also hard to stay on top of the correct set of keywords which must be included to stay relevant in search results, not only on eBay, but in a Store too.

AuctionBytes: Can you talk about Vendio's project list - are you working on new features or offerings?

Michael Levit: We have hired about 10% more engineers in the past 6 weeks since being acquired by Alibaba - it's been really busy but in a good way. It's hard to scale engineering quickly and keep the quality up but I think we are doing well.

We have a huge set of projects that are under way including bringing auto's and eBay's fitment into the latest version of the Vendio Platform; beginning development of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA); integrating multi-sku/ item variants across eBay, Amazon, and our stores in a way that will really make selling simple; adding some great features to our popular Reports product; and making some great Research enhancements, to name but a few. We are upgrading the backend of Vendio Research to parse through even more data, increasing both the efficiency of our award winning clustering technology, and offering larger windows of data access for our customers.

AuctionBytes: Has Alibaba's acquisition resulted in any tangible benefits to Vendio merchants yet?

Michael Levit: We're collaborating with the Alibaba.com team on several exciting projects. Vendio merchants have already received exclusive coupons that they can use to buy samples and test out suppliers on AliExpress.com. We've also rolled out a new program called "Name Your Price" where, true to its name, Vendio merchants can name the price on products that they'd like to source, and the AliExpress team works with suppliers to get products at those prices. It's like Priceline for buying wholesale. Additionally, all transactions on AliExpress are protected by a Buyer Protection Program where money will only be released to suppliers when merchants have confirmed that their products have arrived.

AuctionBytes: Vendio supports the eBay and Amazon marketplaces, will you be adding support for other marketplaces, such as Etsy and Bonanzle, or retail marketplaces such as Walmart and Sears?

Michael Levit: We are constantly looking at traffic forecasts for those sites and talking to customers about what matters. For today, we continue to focus on helping our customers be more successful with their stores, be it through comparison shopping engines, search engine optimization, or even paid search.

Other channels are still emerging, but there is a 10X difference between eBay and Amazon and their next competitor, so it just isn't time yet to integrate Etsy or Bonanzle. Sears and Walmart represent incredible opportunities, but their API's aren't ready for the number of merchants we service today.

AuctionBytes: What are the key things small merchants should know about Google Product Search and how important is it as a driver of traffic?

Michael Levit: Small merchants need to know three things about Google Product Search(GPS): it's free, it's prominently displayed in search rankings and it's easy to get your products listed (especially if they use Vendio- sorry I had to get myself the plug).

In fact, it's one of the first things we advise all merchants to do after they set-up their online store. Google is testing placement of GPS in different web results which drives and more and more traffic through this channel. Expect to see a HUGE uptick in GPS traffic in the holiday season, even when accounting for seasonality.