Efforts to force internet retailers to collect sales tax seem to be strengthening.
Brick and mortar retailers are spending a lot of money to try to get federal legislation passed because states currently cannot force businesses outside their jurisdiction to collect sales tax on orders shipped into the state.
It appears Scripps-the 100+ year old media company-isn’t having the level of success with online media it had hoped.
Acquiring online comparison shopping site Shopzilla for $525 million in cash in 2005, Scripps indicated it expected great growth fromthe company. Unfortunately, it appears tougher competition and increased costs have thrown them of course and now Shopzilla is struggling, according to Portfolio.com.
Shopzilla’s revenue in the second quarter fell to $59 million this year from $65 million last year, and profits were down to $6.8 million compared with $16.5 million a year ago.
Adding to Shopzilla’s woes are reduced referral revenue from the search engines and costs associated with management changes.
So, does this suggest dark days ahead for online comparison sites? Maybe not. Compare Scripps doom and gloom with ValueClick’s upbeat report.
ValueClick’s comparison shopping segment, which includes PriceRunner.com and Smarter.com, generated $8.2 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2007, up 37 percent from the second quarter of 2006.
ValueClick does admit that a strong European market helped lift its business, but Scripps uSwitch.com is UK focused, and that didn’t help them much.
Could it be that online media companies are simply better at running, erm, well, online media companies? Scripps certainly has a diversified portfolio of media companies, but ValueClick is all about interactive-they know the business intimately. Perhaps this statement from Scripps is revealing:
“Follow the eyeballs, follow the money,” said Scripps President and Chief Executive Kenneth Lowe.
Hmm, isn’t that like a city-slicker buying the goose that lays the golden eggs, and assuming he can care for the goose as well as the farmer? Maybe Scripps should have watched Green Acres before deciding they could easily run the interactive farm. 
Product pages maintain considerable strategic importance for ecommerce websites.
Your visitors enter your product pages not only with an intention to buy something (the most desired end action) but to also learn, research and compare what you have against a competitor. In addition to this, product pages also serve to help buyers find relevant pricing information, delivery costs, warranty and/or return policies and a whole lot more.
If you operate an e-commerce business, you’ll know intimately well the balancing act constantly playing out in your mind and in your strategic and tactical planning processes.
As you plan your next move to take your web business to an even higher level of performance, you’re confronted with multiple and many times competing opportunities.
Do you identify and execute a new advertising method? Do you spend more time optimizing your current advertising methods? Do you test out a new advertising method you recently read about in your Search Marketing Standard magazine? Do you expand your pay-per-click campaigns to LookSmart or a vertical search engine like FindGifts.com?
A question I am asked frequently is what is the average conversion rate for an e-commerce website or for any website for that matter.
There is a basic answer and a more complicated yet more practical one.
For the basic answer I reference a recent study conducted by Forrester as presented in an article from the August 2007 edition of Target Marketing Magazine. The article stated, “Forrester research indicates that the average conversion rate - that is the ratio of orders to overall site visits - is 2.9 percent.”
About three-fourths of the e-commerce companies I have worked with to improve their conversion rate (defined the same way as indicated above) initially reported to me a conversion rate of less than 1.0 percent. Therefore, from my experience the average conversion rate among small to mid-size businesses (ones probably not well represented in Forrester’s study) is maybe closer to 1.5 percent.
NOTE: If anyone has expereince with a larger number of samll to mid-size e-comemrce sites, please send me your thougths on the average conversion rate! It would be a great information for everyone to know.
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Product pages of online shops are perhaps the most complex of the landing pages, as they have a lot of information, require some action and functionality.
If you’ve got an eCommerce website you understand perfectly the need to generate a reliable stream of traffic to your venue.
Reliable and steady traffic means reliable and steady profits. Of course, there are many factors that come into play when you are dealing with developing and then maintaining a strong traffic flow to your website. Chief amongst these considerations is gaining the trust of prospective customers or clients when it comes to your eCommerce website. Through this article, you will be provided with an overview of tactics and strategies that you can employ when it comes to gaining the trust of prospective customers or clients for your eCommerce website.
Circuit City + Napster is the name of a new service launching April 29th that has the retail giant marketing Napster’s 3 million track library. (press release here)
Search engine optimization on Ecommerce related web sites can be a little different than static web sites. However, other opportunities exist for shopping cart web sites.
Search engine optimization companies often see e-commerce (shopping cart) web sites as an obstacle to their search engine optimization platform.
Shopping carts are generally template based and most content is pulled from the database.
Its not the typical static HTML web site that is seen in the SEO training text book, but is it really possible to optimize a shopping cart? Well, maybe.
Not all shopping carts are created equal. Most shopping carts written in ASP, PHP, or related languages, can be optimized within the limitations set forth by the program.
Speed is everything when it comes to trade and commerce. You might have the best ice cream sundae in the world, but if it takes you an hour to make it and another hour to deliver it, you’ve lost a lot of potential customers.
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