E-Commerce

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its second quarter 2012 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, showing that online retail spending reached $43.2 billion for the quarter, up 15 percent vs. a year ago. This represents the 11th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

In a recent survey, roughly 15 percent of U.S. retailers said they offer digital gift cards that are truly mobile — i.e., they can be used immediately for a purchase via smartphone. A major growth spurt for mobile gift cards seems to be in the works. In the same survey, 61 percent of retailers said they plan on offering such cards in the next three years. In the near future, it may be time to revisit the term "gift card." Why? Because increasingly, there won't be an actual physical card involved.

Digital marketing intelligence provider AdGooroo released a new report showing how major retailers such as Target, Toys"R"Us and Victoria's Secret outperformed Amazon.com in paid search engine marketing in specific categories, including children's products, fashion and apparel, and auto parts. Additionally, the report unveils the secrets of success employed by these brands.

As it looks to grow its number of physical stores, Creve Coeur, Mo.-based Soft Surroundings has formed a strategic partnership with a private equity firm, which now has a majority interest in the largely catalog and internet-based retailer. Los Angeles-based Brentwood Associates has taken between a 50 percent and 60 percent interest in the company in a deal valued between $150 million and $200 million that closed last week, said Tom Wilcher, the chief executive of Soft Surroundings.

eBay cancelled what's thought to be thousands of listings over the weekend after a glitch wiped out critical data from the item descriptions. eBay sent an email to those affected promising to issue double refunds to sellers who paid insertion fees and must now edit the listings to add back in the data and then relist them. eBay sellers were initially alarmed over the weekend when some of their listings were cancelled due to supposed "Duplicate Listing" policy violations. 

There have been enough horror stories about frozen PayPal accounts to make some companies think twice about using the service.  The victims include individual sellers, start-up companies, creative artists and impromptu philanthropists. They all had to scramble when PayPal decided to hold on to their money longer than expected. PayPal, which is owned by eBay, remains the dominant global player in e-commerce, handling more than half of all Web transactions by some estimates, and it continues to grow. But some businesses who are frustrated by the company's aggressive antifraud measures are looking at other ways to accept payments.

South Cypress Floors, a Birmingham, Ala.-based e-tailer, wholesaler and distributor of flooring products with an emphasis on specialized tiles, realized several years ago that it needed to upgrade its e-commerce platform so that its founders could focus on strategic goals instead of day-to-day operations.

This week I conclude this series of columns about big data and what it means for marketers with a seven-minute video. I promised at the end of "E-Commerce Moneyball" that I'd show you the tools that Amazon.com developed internally and leveraged to become the dominant e-commerce market leader. In the video, I deconstruct Amazon's category (landing page) and product pages to identify the features that online retailers can duplicate with some of the big data tools that have come to the market recently.

Some sellers who were impacted by a glitch on Amazon.com earlier this month say they've been unable as of yet to recoup losses stemming from the incident and say their Amazon performance metrics suffered as a result. In mid-July, EcommerceBytes wrote about the glitch in Appeagle's repricing software that caused some sellers’ listings to be inadvertently sold for 1 cent. Appeagle Spokesperson Zee Mehler said that initially Amazon told it that it would cancel the merchants’ orders that were placed through the Fulfillment by Amazon system.

eBay is gearing up for the back-to-school shopping season with several marketing and affiliate initiatives, including Pinterest contests, a Facebook backpack drive and a promotion for its affiliates. The marketing is designed to increase user engagement with eBay on social media websites, encourage sellers to list back-to-school items and to reward affiliates for driving traffic to back-to-school listings. eBay is holding a Pinterest sweepstakes where one grand prize winner will receive a $5,000 eBay shopping spree toward a dorm room makeover. Students must follow eBay on Pinterest and create a new Pinterest pin board called "My eBay Dorm Room."