E-Commerce Trends

Utilizing On-site “Searchandising”

Manoj Jasra — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:54:35 +0000

Omniture, Inc. (NASDAQ:OMTR), Bazaarvoice and Mercado today announced that Overstock.com is using integrated solutions from the three companies through Omniture Genesis to employ a strategy called “searchandising”—the utilizing of on-site search terms, user-generated product reviews and analytics to optimize product merchandising and relevance.

“Overstock’s ability to deliver relevant search results has a material impact on conversion success,” said Geoff Atkinson, vice president of tactical marketing at Overstock. “The integrated Omniture, Bazaarvoice and Mercado ‘searchandising’ solution provides Overstock with the ability to improve conversion by automatically optimizing search relevance and product merchandising based upon a number of factors, including customer ratings and reviews.”

Overstock uses “searchandising” by feeding data from Omniture SiteCatalyst into Mercado via Omniture Genesis, where Mercado uses the information to optimize Overstock’s search results and site navigation. Overstock displays Mercado search and refinement results that include Bazaarvoice ratings and reviews, which customers can use as a sorting or refinement preference when selecting products to purchase.

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Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

Anil Batra — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:05:28 +0000

Shopping cart abandonment is a huge challenge for online merchants. eTailers are constantly struggling to understand how they compare to other eTailers and the reasons of cart abandonment so that they can improve their conversions.

Yesterday I came across some interesting survey data that will help shed some light on the average abandonment rates, conversion rate and the main reasons for cart abandonment.

Industry averages

The following charts are from MarketLive Performance Index Volume 4

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Reaching Out with Blogs and Social Media

Christopher Carfi — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:58:59 +0000

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.

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Focusing More on Widgets

Greg Howlett — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:04:57 +0000

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.

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Ebay Banning Digital Product Sales

Kenny Tran — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:03:00 +0000

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.

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Walmart’s The Checkout Blog

Lisa McNeill — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:00:21 +0000

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).

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Finishing the Form Process

Gary Angel — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:20:38 +0000

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.

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eBay Buyers Love Saving Money

David A. Utter — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:57:15 +0000

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.

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More Payment Options Increase Online Sales

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:01:55 +0000

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.

The Value of Consumer Generated Media and Editorializing Commercial Offers

Aaron Wall — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:54:16 +0000

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

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