E-Commerce

Compare Metrics, a provider of adaptive commerce navigation and discovery tools, and the e-tailing group, a consulting firm focused on omnichannel retail, announced results from a joint shopper navigation and discovery study. The study provides an explicit view of how consumers shop in-store and online, focusing on their likes and dislikes about each channel. The results from the study were showcased at an exclusive retailer-only event in New York City on Feb. 26, hosted by Compare Metrics and the e-tailing group.

Despite our nation's climb out of the deepest of its economic troubles, many Americans are still struggling to meet their monthly obligations. If you've created a personal budget, are paying down your debts and keeping your bills in check, but still having difficulties, you may want to think about generating additional income in your spare time. One of the most intriguing ways to do this is with an internet reselling business. If you work hard and approach it intelligently, online reselling can evolve into a solid and consistent stream of income. Here's how to get started:

While many retailers ask how to attract more shoppers, the better question is how to increase your conversion rate. Why? Because you can do promotions and marketing gimmicks until the cows come home, but if you haven't done all you can to convert those consumers who are in your four walls — the only place you can truly affect your sales — from lookers to buyers, then you're like a poor marksman constantly missing the target. Bigger retailers know that high conversion rates are their salvation and low conversion rates are the death knell of their operation.

Entrepreneurs across categories are recognizing subscription models as a practical solution to help bring in new customers and engage existing ones. From Birchbox (cosmetics) to Blue Apron (ingredients with recipes), just about everything is now available via subscription. It's important to note that entrepreneurs and business owners need not build a company entirely around the subscription model to benefit from the rise of today's growing subscription economy. Just about any business selling physical goods that need replenishing can act on this trend. The below infographic visualizes how subscriptions can easily help business owners to better serve loyal customers while growing their lifetime value and simplifying internal operations. 

It's all about the image. The world of social media is evolving from a text-driven experience to one that's fueled by images. Urban Outfitters is embracing the new social reality by leveraging customer-supplied photos on its website to increase the return on investment of its social initiatives. Social media marketing is transitioning from a tool used to help promote a retailer's brand to a device to help savvy retailers understand their customers and their preferences. Urban Outfitters has partnered with Curalate to host customer-supplied, shoppable Pinterest images on its website. 

Perhaps you've seen images with a special "Shop Now" button on some of the blogs and websites you visit. Affiliate marketing is alive and well, and Amazon.com has launched a new feature to make it easier for its affiliate publishers to advertise its products to their readers and visitors. With Amazon Publisher Studio, affiliate publishers insert a small piece of code on their website. Once they've added the code, they can easily create links to any product on Amazon in seconds — without having to visit and log into Amazon Associates Central to get the link.

Whether the official definition puts it in arcane measurements like terabytes or petabytes, for retailers, big data is seen as this: data sets which are too large, too complex and too disjointed to manage, analyze and use in traditional systems to determine profitable business decisions. The retail landscape is more complex than ever, with consumers expecting a more seamless experience between channels and devices. Furthermore, retailers must contend with giants like Amazon.com that use their size and structure to out-innovate the market at lightening speed.

Today's retail landscape is a far cry from what it was even a decade ago, back when bricks and mortar was dominant. As the world becomes increasingly digital, the strength and prevalence of e-commerce continues to grow. Retailers of all types and sizes are putting their businesses on the web and investing in their online presence. As we enter 2014, the emergence of additional advanced technologies - and the challenges they bring - will continue to shape the e-commerce world and move it forward. Below are just a few of the trends that I expect will impact e-commerce this year.

Amazon.com is in talks to bring listings for J.Crew khakis, Ralph Lauren polo shirts and Lord & Taylor suits to its site, according to people familiar with the talks. The discussions, which seek to win over retailers that have largely shunned the online marketplace, involve about 10 well-known retailers, these people said, including Abercrombie & Fitch and Neiman Marcus. Amazon wouldn't sell the goods directly; the listings would be links to the retailers’ own sites. The arrangement would generate traffic for the retailers while providing Amazon with more customer data and a new enticement for its Prime shipping program.

lululemon athletica said it will no longer ban some customers who have resold items of clothing from shopping in its online store. The retailer came under fire after shoppers complained that the company would no longer ship online orders to some customers who had resold used items on sites such as eBay. lululemon's online customers only have 14 days after the delivery date to return items, which also must be unworn and have the tags still attached. lululemon's policy was intended to block large amounts of inventory from being bought and resold at higher prices.