Consumers are searching for retailers on Facebook and Twitter in growing numbers, 31 percent report checking out Facebook fan pages or Twitter feeds of retailers, almost twice as many people as in Q3 2009.

Research indicates that over the next six months, the “most shopped” products online will be entertainment related, including movies, music, video games, e-media and books.

Forty-four percent of consumers reported they research electronics online, but purchase electronics at a store, 30 percent do so with kitchen items, 28 percent with media and 28 percent prefer to research furniture online and buy it in the store.

Marketers can overcome barriers to buying online by offering incentives that address the reasons many consumers research products online, but by offline. Some of the top ways to encourage consumers to buy more products online are free shipping (87 percent), free returns (63 percent), and fast shipping (42 percent). In addition, the ability to use in-store coupons online is increasingly valued among consumers — 51 percent indicated it is a motivator to make more purchases online — up from the 19 percent reported in Q1 2010.

“As retailers look toward the rapidly approaching holidays, they should prepare for an uptick in spending — over half of all respondents said that compared to last year, they will be spending as much or more this holiday season,” said Debra Arbesman, retail associate at Compete.

“Retailers should be mindful of these promising findings to create strategies that will better engage shoppers.”

When a users books a Name Your Own Price airline ticket, hotel room, rental car or Priceline Vacation Package and finds a better price online for the same itinerary, Priceline.com will match that price, pay a $25 bounty and give the user a $50 vacation package coupon. The guarantee covers users up until the day before they travel.

“Leisure travelers who use priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price travel services can negotiate the absolute lowest prices and biggest savings available online,” said priceline.com’s Chief Marketing Officer Brett Keller.

“We are so sure of our deals that priceline.com is tripling the benefits for customers who book a Name Your Own Price travel service through us and find a better price. We’ll match that better price, pay them $25 and give them a $50 vacation package coupon. We believe this combination of benefits offers the richest price guarantee of any online travel agency.”

In November 2007, priceline.com became the first major online travel agency to eliminate booking fees for all domestic and international airline tickets. Then, in July 2008, priceline.com became the first major online travel agency to slash booking fees on its published-price hotel rooms.

“We’ve witnessed retailers getting better at providing a robust on-site search experience. It makes sense that consumers have come to rely upon the rich information provided by retail sites and that marketers embrace this new reality,” said John Federman, president and CEO of Searchandise Commerce.

“We wanted to better understand how retail site search worked as a complement to search engines, and we’ve now quantified our assumptions about the value and the ways retail on-site search mirrors search engine marketing. In both, attaining top position in search results is key to winning a higher share of clicks and sales.”

The study participants were asked a series of questions about their impressions of various retail sites. The findings drawn about retail sites from their responses are clear; they want less clutter and ease of use:

*Pop-ups or advertising should not be displayed

*Pricing and product information should be clearly listed

*Product comparison tools should be provided

Products appearing in the top section of a site search results page, or within the first 10 – 15 results after using the site search box, carry additional weight for shoppers. Those products were identified by shoppers as best meeting their needs, of highest quality, and most relevant to their search.

Shoppers who begin their search on retail sites (19%) either purchase directly on the retail site or navigate to a manufacturer site for further details, then either visit a search engine or physical store. Of this group, nearly half buy in the physical store, while 40% transact online.

BigCommerce described the victorious organization by stating, “[G]rand prize winner Gorilla Sacks converts retired billboards into one-of-a-kind messenger, market, tote and sling bags.  The company also donates 10% of its profits to Gorilla Haven, whose mission is to help make every captive gorilla’s life as enriched and natural as possible.”

Nice, eh?  That last fact alone might even justify awarding Gorilla Sacks the top prize pack, which is supposed to include a professional store redesign, a Google AdWords audit from one company, and a marketing consultation with another.

But Mitchell Harper, co-founder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, observed, “Gorilla Sacks is already a successful online and offline retail business, and her recycled products and commitment to helping gorillas resonate with today’s eco-minded consumers.  With a professional and full-featured ecommerce website, Gorilla Sacks can easily grow their business even more, getting the site found by search engines, better serving customers, and completing more sales.”

Many of the company’s practices are probably worth imitating, then, and not just its commitment to supporting animals.  After all, even if only a few companies can win contests like this, many more can be successful.

Other places to look for ecommerce inspiration should include the four runners-up: CoastCityStyles.com, KettleBellsUSA.com, LatinPopShop.com, and OverTheMoonRibbons.com.

The five finalists are CoastCityStyles.com, GorillaSacks.com, KettleBellsUSA.com, LatinPopShop.com, and OverTheMoonRibbons.com, and so represent a pretty eclectic mix of organizations.

As for what one of them stands to earn, prizes include a professional store redesign, a Google AdWords audit from one company, and a marketing consultation with another. Plus a fair amount of publicity (along with a few other things).

Then here’s the interesting part: pretty much anyone who would like to influence the outcome can do so. Voting is open on the BigCommerce site and a Facebook page through July 9th, where videos submitted by the different businesses have been posted.

Of course, those videos can also help other ecommerce specialists see what how the finalists achieved their success.

Even organizations that never entered the competition or have already been eliminated should be able to benefit as a result. Then perhaps faithful ECommNewz readers will have better luck the next time a contest of this nature rolls around.

I think it’s because they place a blind reliance in their ecommerce store’s shopping cart. The problem is that the cart was usually created by a programmer – not a customer service rep. So the priorities in design were easy coding, not easy buying. As a result, lots of shopping carts cause SMBs to lose sales.

Photo credit: Dan Chace, aka Lacrymosa

Here are some examples of what not to do, and why they’re bad ideas. If the ecommerce cart you want acts this way, switch!

1) Worst idea EVER: Ask for my credit card info before telling me the shipping price.

I don’t care about/believe your reassurance the card isn’t going to be charged until I click confirm.

I don’t know you. And your site looks like a 4 year old made it.

Quality graphics build trust – this is a well-known finding in survey after survey and usability test after test, as to what consumers use to gauge a site’s trustworthiness.

Asking for card information before telling me what shipping is going to cost would never even occur to someone offline. Imagine you go into a used car dealership and the salesman says, “give me your credit card info, then I’ll tell you the price!” – No thanks!

2) Aggravating, close second: Delay presenting shipping rate information until I get to the page where I type my shipping info.

While this may be logical, it assumes two things, incorrectly:

a) First, that I’m going to add to cart and go through a step or two in the process without knowing the total price. That’s almost the same as above.
b) Second, that you can’t just include a simple shipping calculator on product detail pages. It just needs to ask the Zip code and return a price. Simple database job that doesn’t cost more than $100 to program.

3) Third worst idea: Making money off shipping.

Yes, lots of people do it online. No, most consumers won’t find out. Buuuuuuuut…

What happens when you get caught cheating customers on shipping?

I’m not the first affiliate to create a price comparison site. Heaven knows there’s lots of them around.
It doesn’t cost much to have a virtual assistant browse the web and do the legwork to find product prices and shipping rates.
And affiliates, including myself, are increasingly SEO savvy, as well as usability savvy.

What happens is that you end up with a reputation management problem that costs you sales of that product. How?

People click on the price comparison result in Google and find you’re more expensive.
Guess who gets the sale?

If it happens frequently enough or blatantly enough, you develop a bad reputation and word gets around. Then you don’t just lose sales on that one product, but across the board. Ouch.

So think long term, rather than trying to take in a few extra bucks at [what turns out to be] your own expense.

A) Excellent approach: For low-ticket items (e.g. below ~$200), offer flat rate shipping countrywide, or statewide/provincewide. Present shipping rates in a chart. If you need to adjust a few dimes/dollars upwards for states further away, you can do so.

This isn’t ‘making money on shipping’ – it’s increasing convenience to customers. You can explain it, and people will understand. Consumers aren’t against profit, they’re against abuse.

Takeaway tips on ecommerce shopping carts and shipping rate information:

1) Offer shipping information on the detail page.

2) If possible, offer flat-rate shipping nationwide. Otherwise, you can present state-by-state (or province-by-province, in Canada) shipping rates in a table. Figure out your average price to ship to that state and use it.

3) If the order is large enough and you can afford it, upgrade the shipping so it gets to customers faster than expected. Amazon is famous for this practice – which they preferred over TV ads – and look how well it’s helped them do.

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What most people fail to realize is that every single page within your store is a landing page.

The home page, every section page, and every single item page its own landing page. You have to treat every single page as a separate landing page.

That is what people fail to realize. Most people think their home page is their only landing page.

When people are searching for the different section categories you have, those sections are landing pages.

When people search for your items, those items are landing pages.

We want to take them from landing on that page and converting to a sale by clicking on the add to cart button and checking out.

Every single page in your store is a landing page.

When you write a blog article, that is a landing page. Find a way to send them to your shopping cart.

Remember, you are optimizing a page not your website. Optimize every page within your website.

Listen to the entire episode of Ecom Experts - Site Reviews and Ecommerce Questions

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“The first quarter returned the U.S. retail e-commerce market to healthy double-digit growth rates,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “While these spending gains provide reason for optimism, we should note that upper-income households are currently shouldering much of the growth. Should the economy falter in the second half of the year and upper-income consumers return to a savings mode, we could still see growth decelerate. But for the time being, this momentum is encouraging.”

Other highlights from Q1 include:

• Growth in the first quarter was predominantly driven by upper-income consumers, with spending among the $100,000+ household income segment up 14 percent.
• Pureplay (online-only) retailers continued to gain e-commerce spending market share from multichannel retailers.
• Larger online retailers continued to generate higher growth rates than smaller retailers, but the smaller retailers are finally beginning to see positive growth once again.

Webinar Series: State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy through Q1 2010

Join Mr. Fulgoni as he presents an update of the state of the U.S. online retail economy through Q1 2010 in a live webinar on Thursday, May 27 at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT.

The webinar presentation will include an overview of changes in consumers’ online spending patterns through Q1 2010, survey findings that highlight consumer sentiments regarding the economy, as well as an analysis of spending patterns across key product categories, retailer sectors and consumer demographic segments.

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Store owners telling their customers not to shop at their website.

• No phone number for customer service
• No about us page
• Check out pages contains security warnings
• Links to pages that REMOVE them from the store
• Confusing check out processes
• Making people register to buy
• Asking for a customer’s first born

So the last one is far fetched but, you get the idea.

We reviewed several different websites on our radio show Ecom Experts this week and could not believe how many websites gave people reasons not to buy from them.

When will store owners learn that their store has to say:

• Buy here now
• Shop with confidence
• This is exactly who I am
• You can contact me
• You can trust me
• Our site is secure
• We provide value and service

Take a look at your store right now, what is it saying?

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1. Provide a Progress Report – Show your customer or client the work you’ve been doing and the results you’ve achieved. By giving them something they can read and react to, questions are answered and suspicions are erased. What’s more, the customer may realize they need you to do additional work.

2. Meet Face-to-Face – If most of your dealings are done over the phone, make a point of holding face-to-face meetings periodically. Meeting in person says you are interested in there business and it gives you an opportunity to literally see things that you can help address.

3. Avoid Jargon – Every business has its own verbal shorthand. When speaking with a customer use terms they can readily understand. They feel more comfortable and sense you’re working as a team.

4. Ask for Feedback – Never assume the customer is satisfied. Throughout the work process, ask how your customer feels about what you’re doing and show them by word and deed the comments are taken seriously.

5. Tune your Offering – As proud as you may be about your product, remember it’s being made for the customer. Make certain you know exactly what they want, when it’s needed, and more. Avoid the kind of surprises that no one likes.

6. Be Open to Change – For any number of reasons customers change processes, be it terms and conditions, purchase orders, accounts payable or just about anything. Customers know they are valued if you show a willingness to work with them, just as much as you want them to work with you.

Bob Dieterle, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Smart Online, developers of the OneBiz® suite of web based small business applications.

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