E-Commerce

PROBLEM: ElectricShopping.com, a London-based online retailer of electronic appliances and accessories, wanted to increase the conversion rate on its website while reducing bounces. SOLUTION: Implemented an onsite comparative pricing tool to prove to consumers that its prices were the lowest. RESULTS: Sales increased in last year's fourth quarter after the tool's launch, with the website's conversion rate up 18.7 percent and bounce rate down 7.2 percent.

Marketers have developed quite a bag of promotion and coupon tricks to get consumers to spend more at the checkout counter or when mailing in the order form. The good news for online retailers is that modern e-commerce software lets them easily adapt these proven promotional marketing techniques to an online environment to lift average order sizes, revenues and profits.

It's Christmas in July! Or it better be if you plan to have your e-commerce website optimized for the first holiday season since the great recession theoretically ended. Here are 12 tactics to implement now if you want to maximize your products' slice of Santa's workshop budget.1. Add More Email Sign-UpsDuring the holidays, the number…

Netshoes, a leading Brazilian sports retailer, has selected software company Baynote's recommendation technology to deliver customers a more adaptive online shopping experience. Within one month of deploying Baynote's Collective Intelligence Platform, Netshoes’ conversion rate increased 30 percent and its average order value rose 10 percent.

Sears has been delivering refrigerators and washing machines to U.S. homes for decades. Now the company is looking into delivering groceries too. The service, an expansion of Sears' year-old MyGofer online shopping portal, quietly launched on Memorial Day in Manhattan and in the Hamptons, said Tom Aiello, spokesman for the Hoffman Estates-based company. The home delivery service — which brings groceries, prescriptions, electronics and other goods from its Kmart stores — is slated to roll out to Chicago and other markets this summer, he said.

Kim Siefke, e-commerce manager, web design and development at Bealls, spoke at last month's retail Marketing Conference in Orlando, Fla. on how her company has used rich media to grow its online and cross-channel sales. Joining Siefke in presenting a session titled “How Rich Media Can Help Drive Cross-Channel Success” was Wayne Sadlowski, vice president of business development at Adobe Scene7, a provider of image server software.

The Sportsman’s Guide, a premier sporting goods brand in the portfolio of Redcats USA, announced today the launch of WorkWearSavings.com, the ultimate online source for name brand bargains on work apparel and footwear at big discount prices.

Fans of The Jim Henson Company's well-known brands like Fraggle Rock and Farscape, as well as fans of the Company's new hit pre-school properties, including Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train, now have an online retail destination to shop for all of their favorite merchandise at the company's official e-commerce website at www.henson.com.

After learning how to market themselves through tweets and status updates, some small companies are taking the next step: selling directly to consumers via social-networking sites. Merchants on Facebook and MySpace are adding e-commerce stores to their fan pages, hoping users will scan lists of for-sale items and services — such as floral bouquets, hand-crafted jewelry and spa treatments — and click a button to add them to online shopping carts.

Macy's, the iconic retail brand, has launched 
visitmacysusa.com, a website designed to target domestic and international travelers — and ultimately bring them into Macy's stores as their shopping destinations.