Marketing

This week I conclude this series of columns about big data and what it means for marketers with a seven-minute video. I promised at the end of "E-Commerce Moneyball" that I'd show you the tools that Amazon.com developed internally and leveraged to become the dominant e-commerce market leader. In the video, I deconstruct Amazon's category (landing page) and product pages to identify the features that online retailers can duplicate with some of the big data tools that have come to the market recently.

PriceGrabber just released additional results from its Back-to-School Shopping Forecast, revealing that while consumers are planning to spend more money on back-to-school items this year, they continue to look for ways to stretch their dollar and take advantage of retailer incentives to save. According to the survey, 74 percent of consumers chose free shipping as the top retailer tactic that would entice them to make a back-to-school purchase this year. Conducted from May 22 to June 5, 2012, the survey includes responses from 4,450 U.S. online consumers, with 1,509 of the respondents planning to shop this back-to-school season.

Mark Zuckerberg and his senior management team will spend two days at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Arkansas home office this week, meeting with executives of the world's largest retailer and discussing ways to "deepen" their relationship. The Facebook team will meet with Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke and his lieutenants on Friday, in the first such meeting between the two corporations’ senior management teams. Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg will then speak to hundreds of Wal-Mart employees on Saturday at the retailer's monthly meeting.

Now more than ever before, small businesses need to implement strategies that build and improve consumer trust. If a user doesn't feel safe on a website, they'll leave, and the chances are high they'll never come back even if nothing has necessarily gone wrong.

Even the best search engine optimization (SEO) can't help if users don't perceive your site as credible.

Learn to establish a strong online relationship with your customer that is built on trust by bolstering security and authenticating your site.

Download this white paper to learn about the importance of providing your customers a secure and trustworthy online experience and technology available that helps online businesses protect sensitive customer data, authenticate themselves, and build consumer trust.

SSL stands for "Secure Socket Layer." It is a technology that establishes a secure session link between the visitor's web browser and your website so that all communications transmitted through this link are encrypted and are, therefore, secure. SSL is also used for transmitting secure email, secure files, and other forms of information.

Innovative companies are responding to the challenge of supporting an increasingly mobile workforce. Providing secure information is not without its difficulties. Symantec uses an end-to-end multi-layered approach to protect Exchange and the data it holds. This enables you to: Keep bad things out - Keep good things in - Be ready to handle the unexpected.

It seems retailers are having just as much trouble getting shoppers to spend money on their websites as they are in their stores. Total online sales for the second quarter were down more than 2 percent from last quarter, according to the latest Retail Online Index from IBM. The lackluster web numbers come on the heels of a disappointing retail sales report from the Commerce Department Monday, which showed a third straight month-over-month decline in sales.

Increase your Web site's potential with a trust mark. Learn how to increase transactions on your site and decrease shopping cart abandonment when you read this white paper. Download this paper and you will learn just how beneficial trust marks are to online businesses.

OneStopPlus.com, a division of Redcats USA and the world's first and only online shopping mall for plus-size women, announced today the launch of OSPFlash, a limited-time sale destination offering consumers deep discounts on designer merchandise. For the first time, designer brands that are typically excluded from promotions, discounts and coupons will now be participating in the site's latest venture, giving consumers access to some of their favorite brands at discounted prices. The offers will be accessible via the OneStopPlus.com homepage and will be available for 48 hours every Tuesday beginning at 9:00 a.m.