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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

MerchantCircle Engagement Tour Visits Minneapolis, Up next: New Haven, CT

We announced it a few months ago. We kicked it off in our Bay Area backyard.



We took it on the road to Minneapolis in June. And now…



We're heading to New Haven, Connecticut this week. Get ready for another Merchant Appreciation Night of Networking!



But first, a bit about our trip to the great city of Minneapolis…



We made our way through downtown Minneapolis to the beautiful Nicollet Island Inn , where our MerchantCircle team settled in for a couple of days in the Twin Cities.



Some of MerchantCircle's most prolific Community Leaders joined us and about 80 other local business owners at Pracna on Main for an evening of networking, great food, new friends and loads of information from our two guest speakers.



In between glasses of wine and bites of Minnesota specialty Walleye, attendees were treated to feature speakers Mark Munroe of MerchantCircle and Marty Weintraub of aimClear, who shared their insider tips about how to increase web presence and develop a search-friendly listing page.  The evening also included raffles for prizes donated from local merchants, an iPad giveaway and even free horse drawn carriage rides. Ultimately, it was a great opportunity for our Minneapolis area members to connect in person with one another as well as meet some of the people that work to make MerchantCircle a better place for them to market their businesses.



Some of our major learning's included:



-MerchantCircle Community Leaders are powerful assets! These guys know their stuff, and other business owners know them! If you want more information on becoming a Community Leader in your area, send an email to Robyn.



-Big things are happening with small businesses. The enthusiastic bunch of merchants who came to the event were networking pro's! And they're excited to utilize the free tools and services offered by MerchantCircle.



-There's this thing called "Minnesota nice". And it is REAL! The people of twin cities were SO kind. Example? We got pulled over for speeding in our rental car. Instead of giving us a ticket, the officer gave us DIRECTIONS to our destination. (In our defense, the Minnesota freeway max is 55, much slower than Cali's recommended 65mph.)





We're looking forward to continuing our trek to MerchantCircle cites around the country! Stay posted for more news on these events!











Check out the rest of the Minneapolis photos here!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

MerchantCircle Q2 2010 Merchant Confidence Index (MCI) Results

Below are the results of our third quarterly Merchant Confidence Index (MCI) survey, designed to track trends in local business sentiment over time. This survey was presented to a random sample of MerchantCircle members between June 28th and July 5th, 2010. 9,874 completed responses came in during this period and there were no incentives offered to complete the survey.



Read MCI press release here