Ginny Marvin says, “As the holiday shopping season heats up, the ongoing competition between Google and Amazon to be the destination for consumes researching products reaches its annual apex. Conventional wisdom holds that Amazon dominates in this realm. Recent data, however, suggests Google may be gaining ground or at least is not as far behind as Google has intimated. Product search is worth billions, and the overhaul of Google Shopping into a paid platform in 2012 was designed to combat losses to Amazon. In that year, a 2012 Forrester survey found that 30 percent of searches started... [...]

Kyla Cobb says, “Introducing a whole new customer segment to your brand can be a challenge for marketers. Especially when your brand transitions from catering solely to professional specialists to the general B2C market. That’s the challenge the team at mybody skincare faced when they were looking to expand from selling to physicians to also selling directly to consumers. Abby Traister, Vice President of Marketing, and Mike Nelson, Marketing Director of Online, both of mybody skincare, sat down with Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MarketingSherpa, in the MarketingSherpa... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “What began as an in-joke between Chinese university students about their lack of significant others has evolved into the world’s biggest online shopping day.  Alibaba’s 11:11 Global Shopping Festival is an annual event held on 11 November, otherwise known as Singles Day, originally launched by the retailer to raise awareness of ecommerce in China. This year saw a record-breaking spending spree, and the stats below are enough to turn even the most gracious ecommerce sites green with envy“. 10 eye-watering stats from Alibaba’s Singles Day in China ‘Econsultancy’... [...]

Youtse Sung says, “With the exponential growth of ecommerce in the UK, there is increased competition between traditional brick-and-mortar retailers selling online and the pure-play retailers that are only online. As a result, it is essential for all retailers to gain market share, expand their addressable market and increase conversion rates throughout their digital channels. Econsultancy has written a lot about the importance of customer experience, as it’s one of the most impactful ways for retailers to stand out from the competition and build a loyal customer base. A recent study... [...]

Verónica Maria Jarski says, “To help you improve your e-commerce conversions, check out the following tips from a Template Monster infographic. One tip is to include trust seals on your site. “48% of visitors rely on them,” states Template Monster. Trust seals uplift conversions by 40%. Faster speeds can also boost conversions. “51% of US buyers leave a slow site,” suggests Template Monster. Some 47% of users expect a site to load in 2 seconds. You should also consider adding live chat. A total of 63% of client return to a site with a live chat support, according... [...]

Kyla Cobb says, “In today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’ll look at the 2014 holiday campaigns of Amazon, Best Buy, Apple and Walmart and see what you can learn from their efforts. If you sell anything at all — from books to electronics to glow-in-the-dark toilet paper — you compete with at least one, if not all, of these retailers. More than 500 data points gathered and analyzed over 42 days To understand the information you’re about to see, let’s take a quick look at the methodology. 16 Web Research Analysts from MECLABS Institute (MarketingExperiments’ parent research... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Some retailers are making basic errors preparing their landing pages for Black Friday. As we’ve discussed previously, retailers need a year-round Black Friday landing page to ensure that they achieve decent search rankings and keep their audience informed. Granted, Black Friday only truly hit the British consciousness during 2014’s elbow-fest, but some websites have missing pages or redirects where their Black Friday landing pages once were. I’ve had a look at the landing pages of some British retailers that sell TVs. Let’s see how they compare. Littlewoods Starting... [...]

Glen Hartman says, “Believe it or not, a 16-year-old and his or her 56-year-old father are part of the same generation. This generation isn’t defined by age. Rather, its members share the same attitude towards how to apply digital technology to their most mundane, everyday tasks – from finding a parking spot or the latest news headlines, to their food orders and package deliveries. What really stands out is their shared view on shopping and commerce. They prioritize convenience and value an experience that extends far beyond the traditional path to purchase. Meet the next generation... [...]

Frank Tong says, “Chinese consumers show their huge purchasing power in online shopping during the annual Singles’ Day event. A 24-hour shopping extravaganza has ended in China, and online consumers spent 91.217 billion yuan ($14.32 billion) on online marketplaces operated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. That’s up 54% up from $9.30 billion sales on the same date last year. Even more impressive is that Singles’ Day sales exceeded average Chinese daily retail sales. On average this year, Chinese consumers spend 80.38 billion yuan ($12.63 billion) a day on retail goods, according to Chinese... [...]

eCommerce is a tried and proven way to earn a living online. Build an online store where you sell what people want to buy, then promote your store properly to bring in traffic. This sounds simple, and seen from 5,000 meters (15, 000 feet), it is simple. It’s only when you get down to the ground level and actually start doing it that you notice the complications and experience the frustration. But if you find a good mentor, someone who has already gone through the complications and frustrations and is willing to share what he has learned, then you can bypass a lot of trial and error, with... [...]