We are having 3 focus groups in February to better understand how customers (and prospective customers) are using our product and what new features they would like to see. We regularly have these focus group to keep in touch with the marketplace and enhance our product offerings. The 3 focus groups in February will center around

• Auto Dealers and Dealerships
• eBay Power Sellers
• Commercial Real Estate Professionals

If you (or someone you know) would like to take part in one of our focus group, let us know at blog@vflyer.com. Participants usually get a free lunch (or dinner) and an honorarium or service discount.

Ever since our launch, customers have been asking us to streamline the process for getting multiple listings into their accounts quickly and easily. Last week, users might have noticed the introduction of a bulk upload button on their flyer screens. This new feature is available to vFlyer Premium users and allows them to bulk upload home and vehicle listings (other categories are in the works) from an XML or text file.

The Bulk Upload screen allows you to select the type and source of your data. Once your data is uploaded and processed a summary report is generated. You can also set import defaults such as template style in the Bulk Upload Settings screen.

A number of users suggested that it would be nice to edit the captions of photos in their gallery after they have been uploaded and we listened!

Simply click on the photo caption or the edit icon next to it while in the Photo Gallery and you’ll be able to edit its caption.You can also delete pictures from your gallery by simply the delete icon  in the upper right hand corner of each photo.  Remember if you have any suggestions for how we can improve your vFlyer experience please email us at: support@vflyer.com

Late last year we announced a new service called vFlyer FeedExpress aimed at meeting the needs of larger customers (particuarly large real estate firms and auto dealerships). We have had a great response to the service, including a lot of question, so I would like to take the time to answer a few of them and tell you more about the service.

WHAT IS FEEDEXPRESS? There are several ways to get data into vFlyer. You can use the easy-to-use forms to enter information on a single listing or the bulk upload feature to import multiple listings, but when you have a signficantly large number of listings, these options may not be sufficient. FeedExpress allows customers with hundreds or thousands of listings to simply provide a feed that we dynamically map to and use to generate and distribute flyers.Â

WHO IS FEEDEXPRESS FOR?
This service is designed for large real estate companies and auto dealerships and provides a seamless feed-based mechanism for them to publish large volumes of listings into leading online marketplaces and classified ad search engines.

HOW MUCH DOES FEEDEXPRESS COST?
The price of the service varies depending on the complexity of the feed but generally speaking vFlyer supports both Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and Cost-Per-Listing (CPL) models for the service, in addition to a one-time setup fee.  For more information, contact: sales@vflyer.com

We are finally out of beta and have introduced new pricing plans for business users! Here a quick summary of what the pricing looks like!     

Its good news for both individual and business users! Consumers can continue using the service (now called vFlyer Personal) for free! vFlyer Personal users can have as many as 10 active flyers in their account at any time. Business users such as real estate professionals, auto dealerships, recruiters and other SMBs can now pick a plan that meets their needs and enjoy new powerful features such as a customizeable gallery, advertising-free flyers, bulk upload and more (I will dive in these in more detail in the a future post).

As a special thank you to our beta customers, many of whom have a lot more than 10 active flyers in their account, we have decided to let you keep all your active flyers indefinately! What this means if you have 20 active flyers in your existing vFlyer Personal account, you can enjoy the free service with up to 20 active (published) flyers for as long as you are a member - so the new limits don’t apply to your account - you get to have as many active flyers as you currently have in your account!

We announced our subscription-based service in New York at Inman’s Real Estate Connect show. As a silver sponsor of the event we had the opportunity to meet with number of existing vFlyer customers and fans who stopped by the booth as well as fellow blogger and press. Thanks for stopping by!