E-Commerce

About 74 percent of online shoppers that started the checkout process during the week of Dec. 4 to Dec. 11 abandoned their shopping carts before paying for items, according to statistics released last week by Think Partnership, an interactive performance-based marketing firm. From this, Think Partnership officials conclude that consumers continue to use retail Web sites for research rather than actual purchases. The average total dollar value in abandoned shopping carts was more than $57, illustrating how much money abandoned carts are costing online retailers. Further, the number of carts created in that week was 5 percent greater than the previous week. To tap

Cyber Monday is considered to be the kickoff of the holiday season for all retailers with a Web presence, from catalog players to brick and mortar shops and Internet pure-plays. After a weekend of holiday festivities, people are back at their desks and in their offices, and in the spirit of the holidays, they’re shopping. This season, we conducted a study of more than 36,000 retail Web site visitors over the 2006 Thanksgiving weekend and found that shopper satisfaction dropped significantly on Cyber Monday from previously high levels over the holiday weekend. This research offers a couple of lessons you can implement so you can

Consumer concerns about the security of the Internet will result in nearly $2 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales losses, according to a recent survey by research group Gartner Inc. About $913 million is lost, because consumers who do shop online don’t shop as much as they would if they weren’t concerned about security. Another $1 billion is lost because of shoppers won’t shop online at all because of security concerns. Other data revealed by the survey of 5,000 U.S. adults: * 46 percent of U.S. adults say that concerns about theft of information, data breaches or Internet-based attacks have affected their purchasing payments, online

If you’re on the fence about developing a podcast for your customers, consider the following: From April to August this year, there’s been a 71 percent increase in podcast downloading, according to a report released last month by Pew Internet Research. But how can you make sure your podcast is found by listeners looking for the topics you cover? Natural and paid search marketer Oneupweb offers the following tips to increase search traffic to your podcasts in its recent whitepaper, “The Value of Podcasting to Search Marketing”: 1. Offer your podcast as an XML feed. Creating an XML file that automatically uploads your

The number of consumers willing to provide demographic information in exchange for a personalized online experience increased 24 percent this year over 2005 to a total of 57 percent, according to a recent survey by multichannel personalization provider ChoiceStream. However, 62 percent of respondents still express concern about the security of their personal data online. The survey also showed that 30 percent of online consumers are members of social networking sites, such as MySpace. Broken down by age, however, 69 percent of online consumers ages 18 to 24 participate in social networking sites, while just 8 percent of consumers older than 50 do so.

The advent of e-mail as a marketing medium has provided catalogers and online marketers with the ability to reach their customers with personalized, highly relevant messages that drive them to purchase again and again. In fact, 39.6 percent of respondents to The Direct Marketing Association’s “2005 Postal and E-mail Marketing Report” used e-mail personalization to increase response rates last year; 93.2 percent of those marketers said the tactic was successful. But before you can start slapping your customers’ names and other personal details on all of your outbound e-mails, there are five things you’ll need, according to a recent white paper from catalog management

The most successful Web sites are those that serve the interests of customers rather than organizations. Practically all Web sites, whether they are intranets or public Web sites, start off with an organization-centric worldview. Following are 10 tips to make your Web site more customer-centric. 1. You are not your customer. Never fall into the fatal trap of thinking that all you have to do to understand your customers is look into your heart. Constantly research, test and change things that aren’t working. 2. Your language is not your customers’ language. Just 4,000 people per month search for “low fares” (industry language) online, while 2 million

Customers shopping online over the weekend following Thanksgiving were more satisfied than they were on Nov. 25, a/k/a “Cyber Monday,” according to a survey of more than 36,000 e-commerce Web site visitors, conducted last week by online customer satisfaction research firm ForeSee Results. Cyber Monday has come to be known as the e-commerce answer to the retail shopping madness of “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving when most U.S. retailers run huge sales to get a jump on the holiday selling season. As they did in the malls on Black Friday, consumers “were looking for deals,” says Larry Freed, chief executive officer of ForeSee

The Web is an essential channel for catalogers. Customers expect catalog companies to have effective, well-designed e-commerce sites. The Internet is undergoing a period of rapid innovation, often labeled “Web 2.0.” It includes tagging, visual search, wikis and Ajax. Web 2.0 technologies will transform online retail over the next two years. Catalogers will need to upgrade their sites to remain competitive. I suggest you read this month’s column with a computer close by — as I’ll tour some Online Retail 2.0 ideas that will transform e-commerce. The first stop is del.icio.us, the social tagging site. (Go to del.icio.us/catalogsuccess, and you’ll find a

The advent of blogs, message boards and online social networks has become a double-edged sword for multichannel merchants. Consumers now can easily heap goodwill and praise on your brand and products, but they just as easily can disseminate complaints and vitriol about a poor service experience. So what do you do when your erstwhile customers are shouting your flaws from the rooftops? Following are five steps to deal with negative word of mouth offered by Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the World of Mouth Marketing Association, taken from his recently published book, “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.” 1. Know what