David Moth says, “Rakuten is one of Japan’s biggest tech companies, yet it’s still relatively unknown in Europe. It began as an ecommerce marketplace but has since diversified into areas such as instant messaging and banking. CEO Hiroshi Mikitani aims to raise Rakuten’s profile outside of Japan with expansion plans driven by further acquisitions. Mikitani, known as Mickey, detailed his strategy last week at Le Web in Paris. His ultimate aim is to position the Rakuten brand as the centre of his global empire with three business divisions built around it: ecommerce, finance, and digital”. How... [...]

Pamela Parker says, “Online shoppers stopped doing quite as much research and started seriously buying last week, as conversion rates rose to the highest rate seen yet this season — up 1 percentage point from the previous week, and up 76 percentage points (1.8 times) as compared to the baseline week of September 29. This conversion rate occurred on lower online commerce site page views, as compared to the previous two weeks, perhaps indicating that shoppers have done their research and are in serious buying mode. Still, traffic was up 2.4x over the pre-holiday baseline, though it was... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Most online shoppers say they want to know what other customers think about a product before purchasing it on an e-commerce site, according to a recent report from VWO. Some 55% of online shoppers say reviews from other shoppers are an important factor that influences their ultimate decision to buy or not buy, the survey of 1,000 mobile and desktop users found. However, 23% of consumers say they do not think reviews from others are important, and 22% are indifferent about the issue”. What Motivates Consumers to Complete E-Commerce Purchases? MarketingProfs  [...]

Tucker Schreiber says, “First impressions are everything.  Many store owners spend time tweaking their homepage, but often forget about the importance of a well designed product page. Choosing an appropriate way to showcase your products is essential, as it can either drive users to continue to checkout, or click away from your store. In this post, we’ll look at some excellent examples of product pages, why they’re effective, and how you can replicate them for your store”. 7 Effective Ecommerce Product Pages: How to Turn Visitors into Customers Shopify  [...]

Derek S. says, “With consumers turning to e-commerce websites more than ever, it’s important that merchants are prepared for the rush of returns after the holiday season is over. TrueShip, a provider of e-commerce shipping software, has announced the release of the latest iteration of their product return software called ReadyReturns 5. With the latest version of ReadyReturns, e-commerce merchants will be able to implement an easy to use consumer-facing return system where consumers can quickly print shipping labels and packing lists for products they wish to return. There are many updates... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “According to ComScore’s latest e-commerce report, Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day ever. ComScore says desktop online spending reached more than $2 billion on Monday, a 17 percent increase over last year’s Cyber Monday revenue. This year’s Cyber Monday wasn’t the only day to set a new e-commerce record over the holiday weekend. The Saturday following Black Friday was the first ever billion-dollar online shopping day reports comScore. Online desktop spending during the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday reached $6.6 billion this year,... [...]

Derek S. says, “As consumers continue to flock to their favorite social media sites, e-commerce retailers are presented with a great opportunity to engage with their consumers on a personal level. Zantler, an e-commerce company, has recently announced their social commerce platform, Shoppost, is available for retailers using Amazon Webstore. Through Shoppost, e-commerce retailers can promote and sell their products on many of the popular social media networks including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest as well as within blogs. Posts that are published using the social commerce platform will... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “According to the National Retail Federation, in-store sales for the holiday weekend proved disappointing, but that doesn’t appear to be the case online. Predictive analytics platform Custora reports e-commerce revenue for Black Friday through Cyber Monday was up 15.4 percent – and orders up 15.7 percent – over last year, with email marketing driving a majority of the weekend’s e-commerce transactions. Based on data curated from its online dashboard tracking more than 100 US online retailers, 100 million online shoppers, and over $40 billion in transaction revenue,... [...]

Pete Prestipino says, “The search engine optimization community was all abuzz this weekend with reports that Google may refreshed its index. Google has repeatedly told the SEO community that it would not push out major updates during the holiday season, which would make this development very surprising to say the least if it turns out to be true. While Google has not yet actually confirmed that any changes were made, there has been a significant increase in SEO forum threads which would indicate some activity (whatever it is) has indeed taken place”. Google SERPs in Motion? Website... [...]

Amberly Dressler says, “Thanksgiving has quite a bit of ground to make up if it wants to compete with the likes of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but that’s not to say it didn’t have an impressive retail showing. In fact, the Custora E-Commerce Pulse indicates that online shopping was up almost 20 percent in Thanksgiving 2014 compared to Thanksgiving 2013, driven by mobile shopping and promotions. Many of the top retailers offered their Black Friday deals early to take advantage of those looking for deals online Thursday”. Pass the E-Commerce Please – Thanksgiving Revenue... [...]