Allison Enright says, “Investors and buyers put more than $32 billion into the industry last year, a 145% jump year over year. E-commerce companies saw a lot of green last year. High-dollar investment rounds and billion-dollar-plus acquisitions led to the sector nabbing $32.45 billion from investors and acquirers, a leap of more than 145% compared with 2014, according to investment firm Petsky Prunier’s 2015 summary of merger and acquisition and investment activity. In 2014, the comparable amount was $13.22 billion. Deal and investment activity in the sector increased to 475 deals in 2015... [...]
Archive for the '2015 Ecommerce Trends' Category
Kristopher Arcand says, “With the winter shopping holidays now behind us, Forrester is wrapping up its annual qualitative exploration of US consumers’ perceptions of the holiday season, both for their own behavior as well as what they observed across retailers. The retail industry has seen an increase in consumer spending compared to last year — possibly due to savings from lower gas prices. Overall, we saw that consumers felt less compelled to go out and buy gifts on Black Friday itself, but they still love a good bargain. Some other insights we gathered: Black Friday sales effectively... [...]
Sandra Guy says, “Gap garners the lead for fastest-loading mobile site in Catchpoint Systems survey of its Top 50 e-commerce desktop and mobile websites. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. gave its online shoppers the gift of speed this holiday season. That’s according to a just-released survey from website monitoring firm Catchpoint Systems, which measured the load time and availability on both mobile and desktop of the top 50 online retailers in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide from 23 locations across the U.S. at five-minute intervals. Web-page load time is the time it takes for... [...]
Tracy Maple says, “Shoppers conduct more online research before buying, and that translates into online sales, according to MasterCard. Retailers also benefit as consumers spend money they’ve saved because of lower gasoline prices. Online retail sales increased 20% between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, while total retail sales excluding automobiles and gasoline rose 7.9%, according to data released today by MasterCard Advisors. MasterCard’s data shows that furniture and women’s apparel sales posted double-digit increases, accounting for a large chunk of the growth. MasterCard did... [...]
Corey Beale says, “It’s no secret that the digital media industry needs new business models. As our 2014 Digital Publishing Benchmarks Report points out, digital media companies are operating in a volatile time of transition and discovery. The biggest challenge? It’s a time of uncertainty. Publishers know that ad revenues are on the decline, and they’re experimenting with new monetization channels like sponsored content, webinars, and courses. Consequently, Media companies are also facing option overload, with options spread thin across multiple channels. It’s times like these that... [...]
Conner Burt says, “As Q4 winds to an end, there are inevitably open deals needing to be shut and (hopefully) shoved into the “closed-won” bucket. Just one problem — this is far easier said than done. Below are a few tips I gave the Lesson.ly sales team on closing before the opening of Q1 2016. 1) Adjust your mindset. Have you ever heard a sales colleague load on the excuses towards the end of the year? I’ve heard complaints about the short schedule, the vacations, the lack of responsiveness, the lack of decision making, and a million other things. If you’re hearing this from... [...]
Greg Wise says, “With Black Friday totals down from last year, according to a survey by Nielsen, and total sales for the day slipping more and more each year, is it safe to say that the biggest shopping day of the year is losing its luster? Sure, Black Friday sales topped out at around $10.4 billion, but that’s down almost 10% from last year’s $11.6 billion. There are quite a few possibilities for the decline, with many shouting that opening on Thanksgiving will harm Black Friday sales. However, Thanksgiving sales were also down by 10%. One of the reasons for that might be the number... [...]
Jordan Simas says, “Seasonal and Black Friday shoppers are unique in that many of them will buy your products without knowing anything about your brand. This means they might forget about your business entirely if you don’t make an effort to keep them interested. Turning Black Friday shoppers into repeat customers can have an enormous impact on the success of your business; over time they’ll cost less, buy more, and even develop a real connection with your business. Now that Black Friday is over, turning these first-time customers into lifetime fans should be your number one priority. In... [...]
Pamela Parker says, “Americans are getting more serious about their online holiday shopping as Black Friday approaches. According to aggregate e-commerce figures from HookLogic, which runs an ad network on retail sites like Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Macy’s, traffic to product pages was up 53 percent in the week beginning Monday, November 16, as compared to the baseline established in October. Compared with the previous week, traffic was up 15 percent. Meanwhile, the folks visiting those product pages were increasingly likely to move from browsing to buying. HookLogic says the conversion... [...]
Jack Simpson says, “If you’re not constantly testing and tweaking pages on your ecommerce site you could be missing out on potential sales. But showing is always more powerful than telling, so I’m going to present you with some solid examples of A/B testing in action, along with the results. Country clothing retailer A Hume first realised the benefits of testing back in 2012, when it redesigned its checkout login screen and billing details process. According to James Abbott, the brand’s director of digital strategy and optimisation, the results were impressive. “The test was... [...]