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Duluth Trading knew it had to define its brand differently. It did so by its product development ingenuity (bravo to the merchants!), and even provides customers with a search list of its major innovative achievements.

Creating a seamless cross-channel experience is likely your goal. But your customers may not be experiencing that, at least according to a March study from Forrester Research: US Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014.

Problem: The Pashmina Store, an online retailer of luxury pashmina scarves, wraps and shawls, sought a more robust e-commerce platform to reach its goal of $1 million in revenues. Solution: Hired an e-commerce solutions provider. Results: From 2005 to 2007, revenues increased more than 60 percent year over year; in 2008, revenues increased 25 percent year over year. Traffic to the site has more than doubled, and conversion rates hover around 4 percent — significantly better than the apparel industry's average of 2.3 percent.

Interactive multichannel retailer HSN Inc. has launched a new application for Google’s Android operating system that lets consumers make purchases using their handset. The HSN Shop application, which was originally launched on the iPhone in August 2009, is now available as a free download in Android Market to serve a wide variety of Android devices. Along with a library of original videos, the application enables users to customize their shopping experience with their favorite categories and save preferences for future visits.

The arrival of Google Buzz represents the latest twist in an already confusing landscape for social media. Can it displace or aggregate our existing hubs of social networking, like Facebook for personal friends and LinkedIn for colleagues? Regardless of the success or failure of Buzz, there are three major implications for marketers.

Too often marketers see the different components of their overall strategies as being at best separate and at worst in competition with each other. Integrating them saves time, money, resources, and delivers a better product or service.

The USPS has damaged its image, and it needs to rehab it. It must create products marketers can grow with using direct mail, promote the heck out of them on a national and grassroots level, and it'll eventually get volume and revenue back.

Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, demonstrated last December a preview version of Product Search for mobile with local inventory, which lets you see right in your search results whether items are in stock at nearby stores. We're happy to announce that as of today, if you're searching for a product that is sold by participating retailers, including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, or West Elm, you can just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it's available in a local store. If you see a blue dot, you can tap on the adjacent "In stock nearby" link, and you'll be taken to the seller's page where you'll see whether the item is "In Stock" or has "Limited Availability" near you. You'll also see how far away the stores are from you -- as long as you've enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

If you're wondering, "How am I going to increase my online sales and profits in 2010?" here's an easy answer: TEST! An e-commerce site should run at least one test a month with the potential to increase sales by 10 percent. These are seven keys to a successful online testing program. Plus: Download the Chi-Square Test spreadsheet to prove your tests are statisically valid.

I've always believed that branding is something you do while you're stimulating orders and leads via direct marketing. To me, making someone laugh while watching a commercial doesn’t exactly cause new customer acquisition. You do that with offers, calls to action, superior guarantees and, of course, products that measure up to and exceed expectations.