E-Commerce Express : feature

Web Users Will Pay for Digital Content

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:42:00 GMT

The days of "free" are seemingly coming to a rapid end according to survey results released last week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Nearly two-thirds of internet users (65%) have paid to download or access some kind of online content from the internet, ranging from music to games to news articles. As one might imagine, music, software, and applications are the most popular content types that internet users have paid to access or download, although the range of paid online content is seemingly quite varied.

The average expense for users choosing to pay for content was approximately $47 per month for material they have downloaded or accessed, including both subscription (an average of $12 per month) and individual file access (an average of $22 per month). However according to the survey results, some high-end users at the extreme end of the scale pull the average higher, with most purchasers spending about $10 per month.

Concerning methods of accessing online content, the majority of the internet users pay for subscription services (23%), versus downloading an individual file (16%), or accessing streaming content (8%).

Groupon at the Bottom of This Holiday List

Linc Wonham — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:20:00 GMT

A website and application performance monitoring firm tested 11 leading social shopping and daily deals sites for availability and performance during the height of the 2010 holiday shopping season. The company's tested by Watchmouse from November 22 through December 22 included Blippy, Bloomspot, Groupon, Kaboodle, Living Social, Red Laser, Social Currency, Swipely, Tecca and Woot.

The overall results were fairly positive with eight of the 11 eleven sites coming in at the industry standard of 99.9 percent uptime or greater, and two coming in between 99.3 percent and 99.5 percent. Kaboodle performed the best with 99.99 percent uptime, and Groupon performed the worst, landing in the ‘unacceptable’ category at 96.44 percent because of more than 26 hours of downtime during the monthlong reporting period.

Groupon has been called the fastest-growing company in the history of the Web, and it has been running a successful Grouponicus holiday campaign in addition to its enormously popular daily deals. Today’s consumers are not only relying on word-of-mouth recommendations but they also expect a full range of social shopping services when making online purchases – including fast load times.

Online social shopping websites can be particularly vulnerable to slow page load speeds due to large increases in server traffic, especially when combined with the amount of components each website needs to load in order to optimize its product offerings and images.

The full report from Watchmouse can be found here.

Online Holiday Spending Climbs Past $28 Billion

Linc Wonham — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:57:00 GMT

Christmas came a little early for many online retailers this year, as the final shopping weekend of the holiday season pushed e-commerce sales past $28 billion for the first time ever. Research firm comScore reports that consumers increased their spending by 17 percent during the final weekend before Christmas, pushing that week’s total to a record $5.5 billion.

Online spending has exceeded $5 billion per week for each of the past three weeks, and three days in particular set record highs. Spending on Cyber Monday (November 29) exceeded $1 billion, followed by Green Monday (December 13) with $954 million and Free Shipping Day (December 17) with $942 million.

The most-visited online retailers over the final shopping weekend that ended on December 18 were Amazon with a 15-percent visit share, Walmart (7 percent) and Target (4.5 percent).

Refer-a-Friend in Action

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:47:00 GMT

New social shopping site JoeShopping hopes to spend its way to awareness by giving away $5,000 to celebrate its launch. Through the site’s refer-a-friend contest, 20 members will win $100 each, while the grand prize winner will walk away with $3,000. While not an “organic” way to grow a web presence, kudos should be given to the site for tapping into its own viral potential.

To participate members must log on to JoeShopping.com, visit the Refer-A-Friend page, and fill out an entry form. Participant members are then given a personalized link to share on social networks and when new members sign up for JoeShopping via that link and begin interacting with other users on the site, they earn points towards the contest for writing status updates and uploading photos. The person with the highest number of total points at the end of the contest wins the Grand Prize of $3,000.

Participants can earn additional contest points if their referrals continue to use the site. The more active a member's referrals are, the more points that member can earn so the contest is particularly well-suited for avid social media users.

nsCommerce Gets Gift Registry

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:16:00 GMT

Online gift registry provider MyRegistry.com announced the integration of its gift registry solution with the Network Solutions nsCommerceSpace platform.

Ecommerce merchants using nsCommerce are now able to place the MyRegistry Universal Gift Registry widget on their product pages, giving customers the ability to add items to a "one-stop" registry. The widget, which can be customized to match the merchant's website design, enables buyers clicking on the widget to add product to their personal gift registry at MyRegistry.com. Anyone who then visits that customer's gift registry at MyRegistry.com can select the favorite product and complete the purchase at the merchant's website hosted on the Network Solutions nsCommerceSpace™ platform.

What might be most interesting is that merchants subscribing to the gift registration service can track items that were added to customers' gift registries and track associated purchases. Merchants will also gain access to several tools for their customers, including a social networking tool via a Facebook application, a barcode reader iPhone application, customizable eCards, Thank You Note Reminders, and SMS Text Messaging Gift Alerts, among others.

"We are excited to make our Universal Gift Registry solution available to Networks Solutions merchants," says Oded Berkowitz, founder and CEO of MyRegistry.com. "Ecommerce is getting more popular and competitive every day. Our Universal Gift Registry solution provides online retailers a much sought-after, sophisticated and affordable tool that markets their products to the multi-billion-dollar gift industry. It's an honor to work with Network Solutions, as our company is dedicated to continue to provide the best online gift registry experience in the marketplace."

BazaarVoice Big with Big Brands

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:00:00 GMT

Social commerce solution BazaarVoice announced today that more than 1,000 brands (including Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy's, P&G, Panasonic, QVC, and others) now use its services.

“Over the past five years, the social web has shifted power into the hands of consumers – and completely transformed the way that companies do business in the process,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice.

“Bazaarvoice and our clients have helped drive this revolution by enabling more than 160 billion customer conversations across a network that connects brands to global consumers, each other, and destinations like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Our growth is a reflection of our own commitment to innovation, transparency and customer-centricity – and a testament to our ability to translate these same values into real business results for the largest brands in the world.”

The importance of "customer conversations" has never been more important - but is it just for big brands? Share your thoughts below.

Online Shoppers Consuming Reviews in Record Numbers

Linc Wonham — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 15:00:00 GMT

New data from social commerce solutions provider Bazaarvoice underscores the dramatic change taking place in the shopping behaviors of online consumers.

Bazaarvoice is one of the leading providers of user-generated ratings and reviews, sharing the competitive space with PowerReviews and several others. The company has just revealed that during the course of Thanksgiving Week 2010, online shoppers consumed more than 2.7 billion customer opinions and recommendations through Bazaarvoice.

To put the data in perspective, that number was a 44-percent increase over the same period in 2009 and a 128-percent increase over 2008. Consumers are turning to each other for guidance in record numbers, and more than 550 million conversations were tapped into on Cyber Monday alone. Bazaarvoice reports that it passed nearly 10,000 opinions per second from customer to customer during the peak times.

In addition to the much higher volume, the other dramatic change this year has been in how consumers are accessing this user-generated content. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have become the most popular places to gather and share the information, and mobile devices are rapidly becoming the mainstream technological tools for doing so.

Bazaarvoice pointed to several brands that effectively changed their strategies to meet these new demands from consumers. By adding product ratings and reviews capabilities to its Facebook Fan Page, Benefit Cosmetics successfully enabled customers to share, read or retrieve product reviews without ever leaving Facebook. Top brands such as QVC and Express also integrated their reviews into their mobile applications to provide instant access to the customer voice.

eBay Releases Online Index for Small Businesses

Linc Wonham — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:15:00 GMT

A day after strengthening its foothold on local commerce with the acquisition of shopping search engine Milo, eBay has released a new report intended to help small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive on the world’s largest online marketplace.

The first-ever U.S. Online Business Index (OBI) was compiled from survey results of more than 400 eBay sellers on topics ranging from mobile commerce to Internet sales taxes to 2010 holiday sales and projections for 2011 growth. Key findings included the following:

Mobile Matters
• 73 percent of respondents said it was important that shoppers have the ability to browse and buy items on eBay using mobile devices
• 60 percent said they are willing to adjust their eBay listings for easier viewing on mobile devices

Tax Talk
•    88 percent of respondents said they would not support an Internet sales tax, which is currently under proposal
•    81 percent said they would support a small-business tax exemption if the proposal should be put into law
•    74 percent said they feared a sales tax would reduce the number of online transactions; 69 percent said they feared it would reduce out-of-state sales; 69 percent said it would make it difficult for them to maintain profitability, and 68 percent said it would hurt the U.S. economy

Optimistic Outlook
•    60 percent said they are considerably optimistic about the future of their online businesses in the 2010 holiday shopping season
•    72 percent expect their total online sales to increase through December
•    36 percent plan to increase their inventory through 2011 by up to 15 percent or more
•    53 percent plan to raise their sales targets from 2010, and 66 percent of those are targeting increases of up to 20 percent

Local Products Startup Milo Purchased by eBay

Linc Wonham — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:05:00 GMT

E-commerce giant eBay struck a significant deal Thursday, purchasing startup local product inventory search engine Milo.com for a reported $75 million.

There has been a lot of recent attention given to the growing importance of local commerce – with rumors swirling about a possible deal between Google and Groupon, as well as Amazon potentially investing in LivingSocial – and Thursday’s acquisition affirms that eBay has been doing more than just listening.

Milo lists product inventory for more than 50,000 stores across the U.S., including major retailers such as Macy’s, Best Buy and Target. Overall, the site features more than 3 million products for which users can search and determine in real-time whether a local store is carrying that product and at what price.

The site is an indispensable tool for local merchants to attract online customers to their brick-and-mortar stores. With Forrester projecting the research-online, shop-offline market to reach $1 trillion in 2011, Milo’s mission was to take ownership of that bridge between online browsing and in-store buying.

The purchase by eBay will give Milo a larger platform to do exactly that, but there are some potential obstacles. Google recently rolled out a local product inventory feature of its own in anticipation of the 2010 holidays, and Amazon is not likely to let neither Google nor eBay get too comfortable in the local products space without making a move.

And Google’s aforementioned interest in local deals provider Groupon, paired with Amazon’s interest in Groupon competitor LivingSocial, hints that the entire local commerce space is not only heating up but could also become fiercely competitive in 2011.

Cyber Monday Yields Highest Online Sales Ever

Linc Wonham — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:37:00 GMT

The 2010 holiday season continues to break records and exceed expectations. Passing the billion-dollar mark for the first time, Cyber Monday has been crowned history’s busiest online spending day by comScore.

In the U.S., total online sales for Monday hit $1.028 billion, according to comScore. That was an increase of 16 percent from last year’s $887 million total.

Black Friday also set records with a $648 million total, a 9-percent increase over 2009, according to comScore. Other research firms listed that increase as high as 16 percent.

Overall, 2010 holiday Web sales are up to about $13.55 billion since November 1, a 13-percent increase over last year’s total to date.

Bing Integrates Facebook to Create Social Shopping Lists

Linc Wonham — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:22:00 GMT

Bing has added a new feature this week that integrates Facebook with Bing Shopping search results. Users can now create a shopping list on Bing and then post the list to their Facebook Wall to get feedback from friends and family.

Shoppers now have the option to click an “Add to List” button for any product they find on Bing. A shopping list module will appear on the bottom left of the screen, allowing users to keep track of the products and share them with their friends and family via Facebook.

The idea, says Bing, is to make the core search experience more social by allowing users to enlist their Facebook friends for help with purchasing decisions. Shoppers can seek advice from friends with specific expertise such as gadgets, or publish a wish list on their Facebook Wall to give family members a nudge for the holidays.

The new Facebook integration is the second such announcement from Bing in recent weeks, coming on the heels of the search engine’s deployment of several new Facebook features last month. These increasing integrations between search and social create convenient new features for users, and it seems that Bing and Facebook are continuing to explore the possibilities.

Rec.fm Makes Online Shopping Charitable

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:43:00 GMT

New fundraising platform Rec.fm announced a special holiday promotion that doubles the amount of money consumers can earn for their favorite charities.

Rec.fm normally gives 51% of its site earnings to charity, but now through December 31st, 100% of revenue generated by Rec.fm will go to its non-profit partners which include the American Red Cross, Water.org, the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, Kiva and the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Rec.fm surfaces a new source of revenue for charitable organizations: product recommendations. Rec.fm users recommend products on behalf of a charity of their choice and share those recommendations on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. When recommended products are purchased, a significant portion of the proceeds go to the selected non-profit or charity.

“Social network users alone spend over $150 billion annually in online purchases.” said Rec.fm President, John Appler, “Technology now makes it easy to contribute a significant portion of that spend to charity. Rec.fm is offering 100% of our revenue this season to get consumers into the habit of 'voting with their MasterCard' to help great causes as they shop.”

E-Commerce Meets CMS at Sitecore

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:33:00 GMT

.Net Web Content management system (CMS) released an E-Commerce platform. What does a CMS know about e-commerce software? It turns out, quite a bit courtesy of the company focus on marketing automation.

What makes this e-commerce solution different (and some would argue better) is that it is built on the foundation of Sitecore’s CMS. The platform offers marketers the tools to track and optimize customer actions with specific e-commerce site goals including account creation and order completion. It doesn't stop there however.

The software includes a wizard-driven process for building a customized checkout, creating forms, managing account data and maintaining purchase history for targeted promotions. Marketers can create email campaigns, and manage the product selection process – including securing payment processing and shipping.

“The key to any successful e-commerce business is a website that attracts new visitors, optimizes conversion rates and keeps customers coming back for more,” said Paul Markun, CMO, Sitecore. “With Sitecore’s integrated e-commerce approach, marketers can offer their customers a high-touch shopping experience that generates revenue and differentiates their business from competitors.”