E-Commerce

When Adidas confirmed that it was pulling its merchandise from online marketplaces, many in the e-commerce community were taken aback. After all, here was an internationally recognized brand cutting off distribution across some of the most prominent — and fastest growing — channels. Adidas wasn't alone, however. The company was likely responding to similar pressures associated with selling on marketplaces that other brands, of all sizes, have been facing, according to Wes Sheperd, CEO of Channel IQ, an online services provider catering to manufacturers, distributors and retailers. 

Travel retail has long been a fixture for brands like Estée Lauder Cos Inc and LVMH's Louis Vuitton. But sales at airports and other travel venues have risen far more quickly in recent years than at regular stores for many chains, putting this area of retailing front and centre in many companies' expansion plans.

With everyone from brands to magazines tripping over themselves to ramp up e-commerce these day, it seems counterintuitive that online-only retailers are tapping back into the perks of shopping in the physical world. But they are.

Fifty percent of Google Product Search traffic will be switching to paid Google Shopping by July 28. Online merchants who aren’t ready for the switch will face some serious repercussions.

As online shopping has surged, traditional retailers have lost millions in sales to so-called showrooming — when shoppers check out products in stores that they then buy from Web sites like Amazon. It has gotten so bad that Best Buy even replaces standard bar codes with special Best Buy-only codes on big ticket items so they cannot be scanned and compared online. Now some big retailers are taking a new approach to the dreaded showrooming by transforming their stores into extensions of their own online operations.

Online-only and multichannel retailers both expect growth in the next year, according to new research from Eccomplish, which found about 73 percent of them are anticipating growing revenues anywhere between 1 and 20 percent. That compares with the 79 percent of multichannel retailers who expect the same growth, according to managementtoday.com

According to a new study by Monetate, tablets may just be the future of e-commerce, more so than mobile or PCs, says Blair Lyon, vice president of marketing at Monetate. The study, which was released June 29, appeared in Monetate's Q1 E-Commerce Quarterly report. The study found that during the first quarter of last year, just 1.66 percent of all website visits came from tablets. During the second quarter of 2011, that percentage rose to 6.52 percent.

Listen in as Jonathan L. Fleischmann, president and CEO of Potpourri Group, whose brands include Potpourri, NorthStyle, Serengeti and Country Store, discusses his company's winning branding and merchandising strategies at the Retail Marketing Virtual Conference & Expo. Register for the on-demand version of the event, which is available until July 23, by clicking here.

Amazon.com is poised to open a digital bookstore in Brazil in the fourth quarter that features a Portuguese-language catalog of digital books and the Kindle e-reader, Reuters reported Friday, citing Brazilian publishers and an industry source familiar with the company's plans.

The intersection of content and commerce isn't a surprising development. Retailers have known for years the benefit that having relevant content (e.g., blog posts, product and how-to videos, customer reviews) on their site can have for their business, from improving organic search rankings to creating a better overall shopping experience. Retailers shouldn't worry about editorial integrity holding them back. Their job is to sell things and consumers know it. Magazine publishers dabbling in some form of e-commerce aren't as fortunate, however.