MerchantCircle is a
Walnut Creek
A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, ''Juglans regia''.
Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a true bo ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
-based digital company which helps small and midsize businesses network with other local businesses and reach local customers through free
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
tools and
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
features.
History
MerchantCircle was co-founded in 2004 by former CEO Ben T. Smith IV, and announced in June 2006. It was named "Newcomer of the Year" by AlwaysOn Media in 2007 and was ranked as the fifth-largest local directory site and one of the top 160 sites in the U.S. by a Quantcast study in 2009. MerchantCircle received just over $4 million in early stage funding from
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...
firms Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Steamboat Ventures. In November 2007, the company received an additional investment of $10 million from
IAC, Square 1 Bank, and all three previous investors.
Ron Conway
Ronald Crawford Conway (born March 9, 1951) is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's " super angels".
Early career
Conway graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor's d ...
was also an early investor.
In 2010, MerchantCircle acquired online meeting scheduler TimeBridge to enable merchants and consumers to schedule appointments and calls online. That same year, the company also took over management of RSS feed company Bloglines, through which it plans to deliver local and industry-specific targeted content to member merchants and local deals and information to Bloglines account holders. The MerchantCircle network signed on its one-millionth member merchant in early 2010, and expanded internationally to Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
On May 26, 2011, Reply! Inc. announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MerchantCircle for $60 million in cash and stock. The transaction was completed in 2011. Reply! founder and CEO, Payam Zamani, is the CEO of the combined companies, now known as One Planet.
One Planet maintained its directory listing at its core.
Service
MerchantCircle is an online business directory, social business network and marketing platform. It combines features from traditional Internet yellow pages sites such as
Yellowpages.com
Yellowpages.com is a United States-based web site operated by Thryv that provides listings for local businesses. In 2013, it was re-branded as YP.com or simply "YP". It currently offers a broad range of marketing tools including online presence, L ...
,
Citysearch
Citysearch is an online city guide that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city ...
and
Yelp
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San F ...
, with community-oriented social media sites like
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
. MerchantCircle offers small and midsize businesses, which may not have marketing experts or the financials to hire an agency, SEO products, assistance with managing social media platforms and email marketing. The company has upwards of 5 million merchants listed nationwide. Businesses have the ability to upload pictures, write blogs, create coupons and send online newsletters through the network. Consumers can leave reviews on business listing pages and business owners can respond.
Merchants can sign on to MerchantCircle and have the option for free packages as well as paid packages tailored to growth, which can be modified and customized.
In 2020, MerchantCircle plans to expand its pay-per-call network, helping drive traffic and connect customers directly with shops.
Criticism
In May 2010, MerchantCircle settled a lawsuit with the
Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together f ...
District Attorney's office, agreeing to pay $900,000 but without admitting wrongdoing. MerchantCircle was accused of making automated telemarketing phone calls without a live person on their end. Telemarketers are required in California to have an actual person on the phone to allow recipients to opt out.
Timeline
On May 4, 2011, MerchantCircle launched the first mobile app designed for small businesses to manage marketing.
On November 4, 2010, MerchantCircle announced it would acquire
Bloglines from
Ask.com
Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering–focused e-business founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California.
The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky, from his own design. Wa ...
. Ask had earlier announced it would shutter the service.
On September 22, 2010, MerchantCircle announced the acquisition of online scheduling company
TimeBridge.
On May 24, 2010, MerchantCircle entered into an agreement with
VeriSign
Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gene ...
. As part of the deal, MerchantCircle businesses display the "VeriSign Trust Seal" in their member profile on the MerchantCircle web site.
On May 12, 2010, MerchantCircle expanded internationally, marketing its social networking service to Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
On January 18, 2010, MerchantCircle announced the network's one-millionth member.
References
{{reflist
External links
MerchantCircle homepage
Companies established in 2005
Marketing companies of the United States