Embracing blogs to connect with a company’s network of customers is fait accompli for the tech industry, but what about the rest of the planet that doesn’t put its every movement up on Twitter?
Here are four retailers that are using blogs and social media in an attempt to better connect with customers.
According to the National Retail Organization, online retail should grow to $204 billion this year, which represents a 17% increase over last year. (Many experts predicted a 20% increase in 2008.) Considering the economy is in a slump, this is very welcome news to online retailers. I personally am not surprised. At Vitabase, our first quarter was up very dramatically over the same period last year.
As is normally the case, the top categories for online retail include apparel, electronics, and cars.
I am especially interested in some other data in the report. For example, 53% of online retailers are spending their marketing budget on customer acquisition while 21% are more focused on customer retention.
This is quite a big news for those who is earning a living or just some pocket money from selling digital product on Ebay.
Hello…This is Brian Burke, Director Global Feedback Policy. Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation (both real and perceived).
To preserve the integrity of the Feedback system, effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.
I’m the first to admit that I have a track record of bashing Walmart’s previous social media efforts on this blog, but I’d like to take a few minutes to give my review on Walmart’s latest social media effort, the checkoutblog.com.
Even though I visited the site with low expectations, I was shocked to find out that it seems that Walmart has wised up to some of the basic social media rules (at least some of them).
Perhaps my last post on the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo was premature. It seems like Yahoo’s board is determined to reject that offer and hope for something sweeter. If Microsoft doesn’t sweeten the deal and I was a Yahoo shareholder (I’m not) I think I’d be down at Yahoo’s HQ with a pitchfork and torch. There are plenty of different opinions about whether a deal is good for Microsoft. Not so many about whether it’s good for Yahoo shareholders!
But enough about high-finance and giant companies, I’m returning to my series on Form Abandonment and in this post I’ll talk about what happens AFTER you seal the deal. Because what you do after the deal is often even important than what you did before.
A study at the University of Maryland of eBay buyer activity found those buyers gain satisfaction out of spending less than they thought they might on auctions. Sellers, well, they probably aren’t that ecstatic over it.
Three out of 10 major online retailers offered new payment methods as an additional option to credit cards in December 2007, according to a study from Brulant.
That is an increase of 24 percent of major online retailers who offered alternative payment methods in February 2007.
More than one-fifth of online retailers surveyed offered Bill-Me-later. PayPal was second with 19 percent offering it as a payment option.
One out of 10 online merchants accepted PayPal’s rival Google Checkout for payment.
On average online retailers accepted 2.6 different payment types this year, up from 2.1 in 2005.
Providing more payment options increases online retailers sales, last year sales increased an average of 14 percent for retailers offering three or more payment methods.
“As online shopping continues to grow, it is critical to not only expand your product assortment,” but to also offer “alternative means of payment,” says Marty Keane, senior vice president of e-commerce at Bluefly an online retailer.
“One of the most surprising findings is the increase in retailers offering all three alternative payment methods,” said Brulant principal Adam Cohen.
“Today we find 5% adoption of all three, at a variety of retailers from Toys ‘R Us to PetSmart to Rite Aid,” he added.
More than three-quarters of online retailers surveyed accepted private label gift cards as a payment method.
PayPal had the largest increase in adoption between February and December 2007 at 217 percent. Adoption of Google Checkout doubled during the same period.
Looking for Christmas oriented keyword research? You would be hard press to find a better list of hot toys this year than to look at Amazon.com’s holiday toy list. Google also offers their Google Trends product, which will likely confirm the validity of Amazon’s list as the holiday season draws near. Both of these lists work to reinforce the market leading position of the associated companies, and editorialize their content based on user feedback.Amazon.com not only offers stuff like the holiday toy list, but they
A new study from Kronos, Inc. discusses the phenomenon of retail sales shifting from brick and mortar stores to internet retailers. In a nutshell, the study states that internet retailers who expect to capitalize on this shift had better understand customer service.
I disagree with one of the conclusions of the article referenced above–that we are in an age where customer service is valued over the price. This is simply not true. All of my years of experience in e-commerce along with study after study show that customers are primarily interested in the lowest price. In fact, that is far and away the primary reason that internet retail took off in the first place.
So, here is a quick tip for you. If a consultant comes along and tells you that customer service is more important than price, fire them. They do not know what they are talking about.
Good news for online retailers and ecommerce - the Senate passed legislation that could ban taxes on sales for the next seven years.
If passed into law would extend the moratorium on Internet taxes. Called The Internet Tax Freedom Act, it has been in effect since 1998 and has already been extended twice.
The extension was much-hoped for and looks promising. An agreement between the House and Senate must be reached and the new law signed before November 1st when the current moratorium expires.
The House has already passed a four-year moratorium on internet taxes, so the two must now reach an agreement. Then President George Bush will need to sign off, all before next Thursday.
As Roderick noted in his post on this issue, states have already passed their own laws about online taxes. Some have made a permanent moratorium while others passed laws to tax internet sales. Existing laws will be grandfathered in. Texas was grandfathered and so collects tax on Internet access if charges exceed $25.00 per month (which is essentially on all high speed internet).
Plus the law is murky and difficult to apply fairly and can actually mean customers pay more online than at a physical store. Then there are shipping charges to consider. If you care to read it, here’s the current law. The new legislation is under H.R. 743 in the House and S. 156 in the Senate.
Businesses have banded together in favor of a permanent ban and formed a group called Don’t Tax our Web (nebulous name, isn’t it?).
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