Luke Richards says, “The ecommerce part of our massive, monthly-updated, Internet Statistics Compendiumsaw a wealth of fresh data and trends hit its pages this week. The past couple of months have seen some especially excellent freely available stats focusing on online retail across some of the world’s less-analysed markets. With comScore releasing their Peru 2015 Digital Future in Focus and Nielsen publishing some key ecommerce insights for New Zealand. In addition to these, Payfort haa recently released the annual and ever-growing State of Payments report looking at the Arab World.... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “With the Masters of Marketing awards entry deadline fast approaching (September 23), I thought I’d try and inspire your entry for one of the key sectors: Retail and Ecommerce.  Last year saw some fantastic entries around retail and ecommerce campaigns. In this post I’m going to cover five of the best ones and the impact they had on the businesses that implemented them. House of Fraser In partnership with Criteo, House of Fraser wanted to find a way to reach its full audience across mobile and desktop devices in order to get better return on investment (ROI) for its... [...]

Susan Wu says, “Join us tomorrow as we host a webinar on the state of global online retailing in 2015. Learn how to better target increasingly sophisticated buyers through an understanding of consumer behaviors and market trends.   We will talk about the present status of shoppers and its implications for the future.  The webinar will draw on forecast data insights from our Online Retail, Web-Influence, and Luxury Retail forecasts. We plan to discuss: 1)     What you can learn from young mobile shoppers in mobile-first economies. 2)     How product purchases differ across markets... [...]

Duncan Jones says, “If you’re trying to use e-commerce in a B2B context, it is no longer safe to ignore the procurement role within your customers’ organization. At the moment you may be able to market and sell successfully direct to end-user customers, but not for long. The growing imperative for chief procurement officers (CPOs) to guarantee compliance with various external laws and internal policies is driving a much tougher stance on so-called rogue buying. I’ve been studying the customer’s side of B2B e-commerce for a number of years. The clients I speak with work in procurement,... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “In a reversal of what was looking like a year-long trend, e-commerce conversion rates improved year-over-year in Q2, according to the quarterly report from Monetate. The gains were fairly modest, but notable after several quarters of declines among Monetate’s e-commerce customers. Conversion rates rose from 2.93 percent in 2014 to 3.00 percent in Q2 of 2015. The lift occurred across all devices, with tablet conversion rate improvements continuing to outpace those of smartphones and desktop. Conversion rates on tablets increased 12 percent, while smartphone and... [...]

Lily Varon says, “Long gone are the days in which eCommerce site localization means just translating language and accepting localized payment methods. In a high stakes environment, where a global roll out of direct localized sites can mean millions of dollars of investment, eBusiness professionals responsible for managing international customer-facing websites must localize effectively or risk damaging the reputation of their brands and stifling growth. Forrester published a report today that outlines seven mission-critical areas to any website localization initiative. Among these imperatives... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “Ecommerce has long been considered to have a cost advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers. After all, real estate, inventory and human resource costs are all lower. However, these reduced costs come at an expense — Internet retailers rely on a third-party for fulfillment. Which means their margins and perhaps overall business model is at the mercy of other companies. This dependency became all the more clear recently when UPS and FedEx announced a significant change to shipping policies by applying dimensional weight pricing (also known as DIM) to all ground shipments.... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “E-commerce sales in the US shot up 14.1 percent to $83.9 billion in the second quarter compared to Q2 2014 when adjusted for seasonality, the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce reported Monday. That compares to an overall increase in US retail sales of just 1.0 percent year-over-year. In all, 7.2 percent of the estimated $1,1771.5 billion in US retail sales transactions occurred online in the second quarter, up from 7.0 percent in the first quarter of 2015 and 6.3 percent a year ago“. US E-Commerce Sales Jump 14 Percent, Account For 7.2 Percent Of All Retail Marketing... [...]

Charlie Keegan says, “When you’re desperate to spread the word about your ecommerce site and get visitors clicking on products, your first thought may be to blast out a coupon to everyone on your contact list. While coupons definitely work, they’re not the only marketing tools you have in your toolbox. Several other techniques exist and have been proven to work. Try some of the following tactics and watch your conversions grow. Free Shipping Giving customers a chance to save money is a great way to reel them in. If you’re inundating them with coupon offers, however, the power is diminished.... [...]

Greg Randall says, “Tackling the topic of product detail page layouts is daunting because there is no short answer. Saying one element such as large product images increases conversion, though it’s proven, does not tell the full story.   The product detail page needs to be dealt with as a whole. This article will do just that. It will focus on the ‘must have’ page elements, recommend where they should appear on the page, explain why, and provide tips on how to maximize the value of each. To support recommendations, experienced online retailers will be used as examples,... [...]