E-Commerce

As holiday sales results continue to roll in, now’s the time to start thinking about ways to improve your online preparedness for the 2007 holiday season. Search marketing firm Oneupweb offers four best practices based on data from the past holiday season in its recent whitepaper “2006 Holiday Online Retail Buying Trends”: 1. Be ready by Halloween. Consumers start thinking about the holidays in October, making this holiday a good milestone to keep in mind, the whitepapers’ authors note. During the final full week of October (23-29) in 2006, retail site traffic went up 14.2 percent, conversion rates grew 15.7 percent and sales rose

Online shoppers were slightly more satisfied with the 2006 holiday season than they were in 2005, according to the Top 40 Retail Satisfaction Index produced by customer satisfaction rating firm ForeSee Results. Average customer satisfaction rose one point, from 74 to 75, on a 100 point scale. The Index, which was compiled from a survey of more than 10,000 online holiday shoppers, provided experience ratings for the Top 40 retail Web sites defined by sales volume. The following catalogers and notable online merchants, as well as their customer satisfaction ratings, follow: * Amazon.com - 84 * L.L. Bean - 80 * QVC - 80

More than 90 percent of catalogers and online retailers plan to use rich media on their sites in the coming year, according to a recently released report from rich media platform provider Scene 7. Rich media refers to the set of Web applications that allow consumers to flip pages in online catalogs, zoom in on products or otherwise engage in an interactive way with a Web site. The survey revealed the percentage of online merchants that have deployed or plan to deploy specific rich media applications in the coming year. * Dynamic cross selling - 73 percent; * Alternate product views - 68

As human beings, it’s only natural that we each develop our own methods of organizing our daily activities, from work to play to everything in between. Researchers have postulated that there are two distinct types of time planners, with most of us existing in a continuum somewhere between these two types. In the recent report, “Pleasure or Utility? Time Planning Style and Web Usage Behaviors,” marketing academics from the University of Western Ontario, University of Missouri-Columbia and Quinnipiac University defined those types and how Web merchants, once they define their own customers, can capitalize on each type to drive sales to their sites. *

Getting organic and paid search results on the same page, figuring out various keyword phrases and linking paid search to the call center are among the newer advancements in search marketing. And a recent whitepaper by search agency Fathom Online, offers these and other latest tips in search marketing. * Get organic and paid results on the same page. While research has shown that consumers tend to trust organic search results more than paid search results, they’re also much more likely to click on either if both results are in proximity to one another. “That’s because they inherently trust the fact that a listing

Nearly 40 percent of consumers this holiday shopping season reported changing their shopping venue based on which merchant best met their needs, according to a recent survey released by the accounting firm KPMG. According to the survey, 81 percent of consumers said they shopped wherever their desired items were in stock, while 75 percent said a simple return policy influenced their purchasing decisions. Other data revealed by the survey: * 5 percent of shoppers said they moved a larger portion of their holiday budget to Internet shopping in 2006, compared with 6 percent in 2005; * 19 percent of respondents cited price as influential

The past decade hasn’t been good to small booksellers — catalog or retail. Soundly beaten in price, selection and convenience by volume-driven big box retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders, as well as online retailers such as Amazon.com, many of today’s smaller booksellers are barely hanging on. But at least one small cataloger has found a way to reinvent itself and thrive. Chinaberry, a two-title cataloger of children’s books, educational toys, and spiritual and inspirational gifts, has found its own path to modest growth over the past couple of years. The company mails a namesake catalog that offers children’s books and toys, and

For smaller catalogers like Chinaberry, the Web can certainly be the great equalizer. Here are some tactics used by Chinaberry’s namesake children’s books and toys catalog and its spiritual gifts catalog Isabella. Search engine marketing: Both catalogs use Google AdWords for prospecting. “Google is the most compatible for us in sending us our types of prospects,” he explains. “MSN is starting to do well, and everyone is waiting for the Yahoo! paid search relaunch. We’ve had Yahoo! on hold for a few months until its ‘Project Panama’ has its full rollout.” Affiliate marketing program: Using Performics’ tracking system, Chinaberry can monitor the online relationships

For many catalogers, paid search will be the single most important channel for new customer acquisition this year. Here are what I believe to be the 12 best ways to do it. 1. Focus on Google. The reality is, Google controls more than two-thirds of the search market and is growing rapidly. Yahoo! continues to lose market share each quarter. MSN is a far distant third. Ask.com is even further back. Allocate your attention proportional to your ad spend. Don’t completely ignore Yahoo! or MSN, but invest the most love and attention in your Google campaigns. You’ll be rewarded with the largest return for your time.

While it’s widely known that hard-sell e-mails with product offers can be effective, at least one cataloger successfully focuses 80 percent of its e-mails on providing benefit-driven content, such as style guides and recipes, which isn’t directly sales-related. The e-mail campaigns that Monroe, Wis.-based multititle cataloger The Swiss Colony develops for 10 of its catalogs take more of a soft-sell approach that works. Aside from its namesake food gifts catalog, Swiss Colony's catalogs include Seventh Avenue (home furnishings, clothing, jewelry), Midnight Velvet (budget jewelry and gifts), The Tender Filet (gourmet foods) and Ashro (Afro-centric women’s apparel), among others. Designed to develop good relationships between Swiss