E-Commerce

Voxware, a provider of voice solutions, yesterday released research highlighting why consumers return items purchased online or by phone and how their experiences with the return process affect their future purchase intentions with retailers.  Highlights from the survey, which collected responses from 600 consumers, include the following:

In December, American Apparel achieved the highest sales month for its online business in the company's history, besting December 2011's sales by 59 percent. The company, which both manufactures and distributes merchandise and operates retail stores, had moved its multisite e-commerce operations to Oracle's ATG Web Commerce in October. American Apparel is using the platform, a component of Oracle Commerce, to operate multiple integrated e-commerce sites for different customer groups and geographic regions. The retailer is using the solution to present customers with personalized content and customized search options, helping to accelerate selections by presenting items that the shopper prefers.

Even though digital sales at Finish Line were up a healthy 25 percent in last year's third quarter, they might have been as much as $3 million higher. After going live with a new e-commerce platform on Nov. 19, the athletic footwear and apparel retailer noted poor customer experiences and lower-than-expected online conversion rates. The issues were severe enough that after only three weeks, Finish Line reverted to its legacy online technology, which had been running in parallel with the new system as a standard safety precaution.

"When we started there were not a lot of female-founded [online] consumer retail companies," Gilt Groupe Co-Founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson told the Financial Times. Gilt, of course, is huge now, and in addition to revolutionizing online shopping, FT is suggesting that the company has also provided a much-needed model for MBA students and other women headed into the business of fashion. "There now seems to be a path to follow," says Christina Wallaceof, co-founder of newly launched e-commerce site Quincey Apparel, which she founded with Harvard Business School classmate Alex Nel.

Online retailers must design sites that work well and look great on tablets as those devices emerge as a favorite for online shoppers. Designing for tablets include adaptive layouts, touch-sensitive navigation, great images and graphics, and fast load times. Some 25 percent of American's now own and use a tablet computer like Apple iPad, Google Nexus 10, Samsung Galaxy Note, Amazon Kindle, and Microsoft Surface, according to an August 2012 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. 

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported the final 2012 holiday season retail e-commerce spending totals. $42.3 billion was spent online during the November-December holiday shopping season, marking a 14 percent increase from 2011. The latter portion of the season saw several days with particularly strong growth, including Free Shipping Day on Monday, Dec. 17 (up 76 percent to $1.013 billion) and Christmas Day (up 36 percent to $288 million), but they couldn't make up for the spending growth shortfall earlier in the month. 

While Times Square was preparing to drop a ball and Kimye was preparing to drop a bomb on New Year's Eve, Gap was finalizing the details of its acquisition of specialty retailer Intermix. WWD reports that the deal, which fueled some rumors and speculation last month, closed on Dec. 31 to the tune of $130 million. The partnership should aid both brands: Intermix can use Gap's massive reach to grow its own retail and e-tail presence, while Gap can benefit from Intermix's expertise in the contemporary luxury market. But most exciting: Gap also intends to beef up Intermix's website with some innovative-sounding improvements.

Of the two companies with the weakest customer reviews, Gilt.com scored poorly because of subpar website "functionality." As ForeSee Spokesperson Sarah Allen-Short explains, part of the site's low grade can be attributed to the fact that Gilt is a luxury outlet, so consumer expectations are higher. (She notes that Saksfifthavenue.com and Nordstrom.com both earned higher scores, at 79 each). Fingerhut, meanwhile, received low marks across the board, underwhelming shoppers in the areas of price, content, functionality and choice of merchandise.

Apple is preparing to take a serious run at the Japanese e-book market. The company is negotiating deals with a handful of Japanese publishers to supply a local version of its iBookstore with their e-book catalogs. Sources with knowledge of the situation tell AllThingsD that Kodansha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa are among the publishing houses to whom Apple is talking. Conversations are said to be going well, and the company expects to have agreements hammered out soon.

Google's new bid-based Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are designed to be a richer advertising experience that increase clickthrough rates by including additional product information (e.g., product image, price and merchant name) without requiring additional keywords or text to be added by retailers.

 With the new Google Shopping, online merchants will also benefit from the ability to manage their feed advertising as well as the increased control over which products and categories to focus their ads on.