E-Commerce

Despite rapid online gains, future still bright for print catalogs. Considering it’s now been at least a decade since debates first surfaced in this business about whether the print catalog would ultimately become obsolete in favor of online catalogs, you’d think you could make a stronger case for such a phenomenon in 2006. And today, with a rapidly growing number of catalogers reporting 50 percent-plus levels of orders placed online, the writing would seem to be on the wall. But while it’s nice to dream of the cost savings associated with alleviating paper catalogs altogether, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain.

Problem: The order entry system for My Grandma’s of New England routinely transposed data from one order to another, causing shipping errors and other assorted problems. Solution: The company implemented a new order entry system. Results: Shipping errors were virtually eliminated. My Grandma’s of New England had an order entry system (OES) that was wildly unstable, often causing data errors that resulted in shipping methods from one order being applied to another order, disappearing entirely or customer greetings placed on an order to end up on the wrong order. So last November, the company implemented Morse Data’s InOrder OES to reduce shipping errors caused by its legacy

Forty-one percent of North American households now have broadband Internet access, up from 29 percent two years ago, according to a recent Forrester Research survey. And 18- to 26-year-old consumers continue to spend more time online than older individuals. These Generation Y’ers spend 12.2 hours online each week, 28 percent more than 27- to 40-year-old Generation X’ers and nearly twice as long as 51- to 61-year-old baby boomers. Other results of the survey: * 75 percent of North American households have mobile phones; * Gen Y’ers are 73 percent more likely to research online and shop offline than they were in 2004; *

Fifty-six percent of consumers say it’s important to them that online retail sites save the contents of their shopping carts when they leave e-commerce sites, according to a survey released by the Decision Direct Research division of list firm Millard Group. That’s up from 48 percent in last year’s survey. Additionally, 24 percent of shoppers want to receive an e-mail reminder that they still have items in their shopping carts, up 2 percent from 2005. Other insights revealed by the survey: * 53 percent of shoppers find multi-angle product views important, up from 48 percent last year; * 42 percent of respondents said they

If attendance at affiliate marketing sessions at industry conferences is any indication, many catalogers and online merchants struggle with how to effectively manage and grow their affiliate programs. In a Q&A with Catalog Success associate editor Matthew Griffin, Kelli Beougher, vice president of distribution services at Linkshare, a New York-based affiliate network, offers some tactics that can enhance your affiliate program, setting it apart from the the competition. Catalog Success: Say a cataloger has an affiliate marketing program; the merchant manages its affiliates well and communicates on a regular basis. What are some next-level steps to improve on an existing affiliate program? Kelli Beougher: Beyond the

Ask Amy Africa--the Web usability surveyor and president of Eight By Eight, which consults for such B-to-B catalogers as VWR, S&S Worldwide and Hello Direct--and she’ll tell you there are really only a handful of things that matter when it comes to online marketing. During her keynote address at the recent MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op Conference in White Plains, N.Y., she outlined the following pieces of online marketing that matter. Landing/entry page: Armed with her own survey findings, Africa said that 80 percent to 90 percent of people leave landing pages (upon coming from search engine sites) within five pages of the landing pages. “Landing

Seventy percent of marketing decision makers report that their organizations currently practice integrated marketing, a marketing plan that coordinates online and offline marketing efforts, according to the “B-to-B eMarketing Survey” released last month by marketing services provider Epsilon. The survey of 175 U.S.-based marketing executives also revealed the following: * 70 percent of companies report that the same person controls both traditional and interactive marketing budgets. * 46 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using rough estimates based on past experience. * 23 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using modeling and planning techniques. * 19 percent give each channel a fixed allocation. *

On the Web, data rules. The trick is to not allow it to rule you. To do that particularly when you’re trying to figure out just what customers, prospects and surfers do when they’re clicking around your site, the key is to measure the post-click value. So said John Marshall, chief executive officer of ClickTracks, a Web analytics software provider, during a session at last week’s DM Days New York conference. He offered several tips on Web analytics and tracking: * Determine the minimum amount of data you need for statistical relevance. He suggested that with fewer than 500 visitors, “you can’t get the type of

In a session during the DM Days New York Conference held last week, Amanda Watlington, chief executive officer of consulting firm Searching For Profit, offered up five tips on ways marketers can best position themselves in search engines: 1. “County fair principle: You must be present to win.” If your site isn’t visible to search engines, they can’t and won’t list it, she pointed out. “My client had a nice large site,” she said, “but navigation was invisible to search engines.” She advised the client to monitor how much time its site was active and live by checking logs and asking hosts when the site

Methods to improve Web sites were the order of the day at Internet Retailer 2006, held last week in Chicago. Several industry experts were on hand in one session to offer their strategies on how to create opportunities for sales and conversions. Below are tips they offered: * Give your customers what they want. “While 92 percent of customers say that customer reviews are helpful to their shopping experiences, not many merchants actually are employing customer reviews,” said Lauren Freedman, president of e-commerce consultancy the e-tailing group. She cited a recent joint survey conducted by her company and retail consultancy J.C. Williams Group. Other site