'Net Features : internet retailer

Life-Size Your Product Images with LifeSizer

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:30:00 GMT

Product images, particuarly for Internet retailers, can be a blessing or a curse – depending on how seriously you take the development and display of those assets.

There has really not been much in the way of innovation in product image technology, but take my word for it – that is certainly changing. Announcing its public beta launch today, LifeSizer.com is a Web-based service that might just prove critical to your e-commerce sucess.

A patent-pending technology, the solution provides merchants with the ability to show website visitors the actual size of a product on their computer or mobile device. LifeSizer does this by calculating the physical dimensions of an object within an image to determine the pixels per actual life-size inch. That data is sent to LifeSizer servers, where it is calibrated, stored and ready for display by merchants on their own sites through the integration of some basic code.

The benefits of employing such a solution are numerous for merchants. Without question, of course, the most significant is that software such as LifeSizer provides a way to reduce a shopper's uncertainty, which reduces returns and ultimately improves the experience of the buyer – who is then more likely to return in the future.

While only launching this week, LifeSizer has managed to break out with one vendor in UncommonGoods, an online retailer offering sustainably designed products.

"We’ve always heard questions about the size of our products and now shoppers can see the exact size as if they were looking at the item in person. LifeSizer’s technology was simple to integrate and customers that use it convert at a higher rate" says David Bolotsky, CEO and founder of UncommonGoods.

AddShoppers – Sharing Analytics for Internet Retailers

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:15:00 GMT

One of the reasons Internet retailers have been hesitant to invest more heavily in social media is that it has been difficult if not impossible to determine the actual return on investment from participation. Merchants essentially have no idea how social "shares" equate to the dollars they spend and earn.

That, of course, hasn’t stopped merchants from loading up their Web properties with social media icons, taking a “something is better than nothing” approach. But if a solution came along that supported attributed product shares to revenue, merchants would use it, right? I believe they would.

Social commerce analytics promises to be a white-hot market in the very near future. One of the trailblazers in the field is AddShoppers. The service enables Internet retailers to measure their total social reach by showing what individual products are receiving the most views, shares, clicks and sales revenue. The platform also provides the ability to identify influencers - those that share content most often and those that have the most clout.

"Our goal is to simply give retailers valuable and insightful social commerce data for free," says AddShoppers founder Jon West. "Everything is built from the ground up with e-commerce in mind -- granular data on all the right levels. With us the value of a Facebook share or a tweet is no longer ambiguous and that's just the beginning."

AddShoppers is currently in private beta but early/preview invitations can be requested.

Facebook Tops in MerchantCircle Merchant Confidence Index

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:30:00 GMT

MerchantCircle, an online network of local businesses, released the results of its Merchant Confidence Index survey which revealed that new local ad offerings from Facebook are seeing increased pick up and may even be putting the pressure on Google and Groupon.

“Facebook and other social networks have already established themselves as important marketing channels for local businesses, and the company is effectively parlaying this popularity into local ad sales,” said Darren Waddell, vice president of marketing at MerchantCircle. “Most local merchants are working with very small budgets and tend to prefer marketing methods that are easy and familiar, so it stands to reason that many merchants will gravitate towards a well-known brand such as Facebook when it comes to trying locally targeted display ads and group buying.”

Survey finding of note include:

- Only 22 percent of merchants report having used Facebook Ads since its launch, but nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of these merchants say that they would use the service again, citing ease of use (67 percent) and the ability to start and stop campaigns (65 percent) as the top reasons for continuing.

- 52 percent responded that familiarity with the Facebook and Google brands would lead them to choose Facebook Deals or Google Offers over competitive offerings. Other reasons for choosing Facebook Deals include bigger audience size (26 percent) and better local targeting (21 percent).

- While three months ago, only 50 percent of merchants who had tried offering a group deal said they would do so again, 77 percent now say they would be willing to offer another daily deal, citing effectiveness in customer acquisition (58 percent), favorable deal structure (30 percent) and profitability of the deal (24 percent) as their top three reasons. Among those who wouldn’t offer another daily deal, 42 percent said that it was not effective in customer acquisition, 25 percent said it was too costly and 24 percent said they lost money.

- The popularity of location-based marketing services has also dropped over the past quarter. Data shows that 22 percent of businesses are using Facebook Places to market their business, while just seven percent are using Foursquare. This is trending downward from the last survey in January 2011, when 32 percent said they were using Facebook Places and nine percent said they were using Foursquare.

- MerchantCircle’s data shows that local marketing budgets continue to be very small: 61 percent of local merchants are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and 73 percent have no plans to raise their budgets this year. Time is also a critical issue for merchants, with 37 percent citing lack of time and resources as their top marketing challenge.

Google Commerce Search 3.0 Boasts New Features

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:49:00 GMT

Google announced an update to its Commerce Search (GCS) product today and the new features aim to provide merchants and shoppers a more interactive and engaging experience.

Google has integrated its instant search feature (search as you type – see below for image from babyage.com) into GCS 3.0, returning product results as users type into the search box. Merchants will also be able to better align offline and online sales by displaying to shoppers when a product is available in a nearby store – right in-line with the search results.

Merchants will also be excited about the enhanced merchandising capabilities within the updated GCS. Retailers can now create product promotions that will display in banners alongside related search queries and even set up query-based landing pages.

Still in development but apparently upcoming for GCS are product recommendations. The feature will enable shoppers to make purchase decisions by showing them what others viewed and ultimately bought.

While none of these features is terribly unique as other commercial platform have offered similar technologies in terms of recommendations and merchandising capabilities, it does show Google’s renewed focus on created a competitive offering for merchants.

Shopping on the iPad

Administrator — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:51:00 GMT

E-Commerce solution provider Shopatron has some data that might get you even more excited about the iPad possibiliites.

An analysis of its data collected since March 2010 indicates that average conversion rates for non-optimized stores on mobile devices (including iPhone, Android, and iPod devices) average just 0.37% - significantly below PC conversion rates. The iPad, however, performed much better as an eCommerce platform than mobile phones, with an average conversion rate up to 2.04%. For some stores the iPad conversion rate was as much as double the conversion rate from personal computers.

While this could be attributed to first adopters being heavy online shoppers, it might also be that the user experience on the iPad is that much better than smartphones.

“In finalizing an upgrade to our mobile browsing experience to enhance purchasing behavior from phones, we began by analyzing the current environment,” commented Mark Grondin, SVP of Marketing at Shopatron. “We were surprised to find that the iPad performed so well. Because shopping on the iPad is so much easier, we believe that is can perform an important role driving mCommerce into the mainstream. And as more consumers become comfortable with researching and purchasing products on the move, Shopatron will be there for our member brands.”

New Volusion Features Focus on Customer Satisfaction

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:30:00 GMT

E-commerce software provider Volusion announced a broad and very interesting set of new features related to merchandising, social media, user interface, administration and its actual shopping cart today. The platform enhancements include:

- Soft add-to-cart: allows customers to add products to their cart without leaving the product details page.
- Gift Registry: merchants can now offer a global gift registry to their customers.
- AddThis™ integration: enables online businesses to share products across hundreds of social media networks and news sources – including Facebook, Twitter, Kaboodle, and StumbleUpon.
- Interactive administrative interface: provides more intuitive navigation menus, tabs and tables, as well as easier order processing.
- Advanced search capabilities: provides corrections or suggestions on consumer search terms, automatic spell check functionality, and allows grouping of additional terms by keywords. Also, search results can now be refined by brand and price.
- My Rewards: a loyalty program that empowers merchants to reward their customers. Merchants can choose to offer points for products or points for cash. Merchants can also control the amount and timing of the point payout.

“As the competitive ecommerce software industry continues to evolve, vendors must remain nimble enough to keep up with market trends like social shopping and advanced search engine optimization,” said Michael Fauscette, IDC’s group vice president, Software Business Solutions. “With its latest product release, Volusion is addressing these issues that are critical to its merchant customer base. Established ecommerce SaaS vendors like Volusion are in a good position as online businesses look for simple, affordable options in the current economic climate.”

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TheFind Debuts Merchant Center

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:01:00 GMT

Vertical shopping search engine TheFind formally announced the debut of its Merchant Center. Retailers are now able to provide information about their store to be included within the site's search results.

Similar to Google or Bing’s Webmaster Tools, but specifically designed for retailers, TheFind’s Merchant Center is a free service. Merchants can claim their online store by completing a store profile and placing a piece of code on their home page that verifies control and ownership. Once their store is registered in TheFind Merchant Center, retailers can use the tools provided to improve the presentation of their information within TheFind’s search results.

TheFind's Merchant Center plays well into its UpFront feature, which shares a merchant's key store information with shoppers in a single, uniform display. Information on UpFront includes information on the company, shopping and payment options, contact information, and access to a store owners Facebook, Twitter or blog. Certifications such as those provided by Verisign, Authorize.net, Mcafee and the Better Business Bureau are also displayed in UpFront.

According to Larisa Hall, TheFind’s VP of Marketing in charge of Merchant Services, “Even more features will become available in the Merchant Center this quarter to help retailers engage TheFind’s vibrant shopping community and drive additional qualified traffic to their sites during this critical upcoming holiday shopping season.”

Syncing Search Marketing and Inventory

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:30:00 GMT

Search marketing platform Kenshoo unveiled RealTime Campaigns today, a feature which links a company's search marketing program directly to their e-commerce or inventory system.

Connecting inventory and marketing clearly offers web enterprises many benefits to improve their overall advertising effectiveness. The Kenshoo system automatically updates dynamic items like promotional text and prices in the ads to reflect the status of inventory, can pause ads for items that are out of stock or unavailable (valuable in improving customer satisfaction), and eases management thanks for larger campaigns (the average size for a RealTime campaign so far is 1.2 million keywords).

Kenshoo is the first vendor in the search management space (that I am aware of) to offer this functionality.

"Select customers have been using RealTime Campaigns with resounding success - on average they are seeing a 40% improvement in ROI. RealTime Campaigns is the pinnacle of online technology solving the issues faced by real world advertisers. We have connected the supply chain and marketing departments like never before to increase the success and effectiveness of our customers marketing programs," said Yoav Izhar-Prato, CEO of Kenshoo.

Wishabi Predictive E-Commerce

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:23:00 GMT

Some very interesting predictive intelligence technology was announced this week from Wishabi.

The Canadian e-commerce company enables both price and value comparisons of more than three million products using statistical analyis, trending and a pentent-pending deal-rank algorithm. "While consumers love the convenience of online shopping, they also want to get great prices and the best deal available," said Wehuns Tan, CEO of Wishabi, Inc. "With the latest features offered on Wishabi.ca, consumers now have ready access to more complete information to ensure they can make smarter and more confident buying decisions, and get the most value from their purchase."

Predictive intelligence is among several innovative new features launched this week by Wishabi. The company is also introducing:

Value Visualization - provides transparency about a retailer's reputation, return policies, shipping time windows, and whether price-matching is offered. Merchants are evaluated on more than 40 different values, enabling Wishabi's patent-pending deal-vectoring system to give consumers an at-a-glance view of the added value that retailers provide.

Demand-driven Social Shopping - uses aggregate demand information to help consumers follow items they want, and automatically get the best offers targeted to them. Merchants can use Wishabi's demand-driven system to see which products are in demand and create offers to meet that demand.

Cross-Border Analysis - takes into consideration the growing number of deals that can be found south of the Canadian border. Wishabi lets consumers see all costs upfront - including brokerage fees, duties, exchange rates, shipping and customs fees - to ensure any comparisons take into account hidden fees that are typically only revealed once a product arrives at the consumer's front door.

Google Checkout Buy Now Buttons Available

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:06:00 GMT

Last week Google announced the availability of Buy Now buttons for the exclusive purpose of selling digital goods. If you're an e-book seller or provider of individual software downloads you'll be very interested in this development.

What's so unique about Buy Now buttons from Google Checkout is that buyers (once their card has been successfully authorized) receive instructions on how to access the items purchased using the URL and "Key" you specified. This is big news in the world of "digital delivery."

A button creation wizard is available on the 'Tools' tab on your Checkout merchant accuont - just select 'Digital Good' from the 'Describe your item' drop-down list. You can learn more about creating buy now buttons for Google Checkout in the Google Checkout support section.

Data on E-Commerce and Customer Feedback

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:26:00 GMT

Survey solution provider iPerceptions crunched customer feedback on sites using its free 4q website survey tool and found some interesting data on e-commerce and customer feedback.

Retailers lag beyond other verticals and the webwide average when it comes to shoppers' ability to accomplish their primary task on a website. Only 68% of shoppers could actually get what they needed from the site, whether it was product information, company data, pricing, etc. This may be due to more shoppers coming to the website to research/learn (34%) than buy (25%) and more shoppers interacting with your brand and your site many more times before purchasing. In Web analytics speak, these shoppers are “lengthening the conversion funnel.”

In this environment, getting people to your site at the point they are ready to buy is a big win. But 44% of retailers are missing out on that opportunity, because of mundane but unnoticed things like broken shopping carts, limited product availability, inadequate pricing information or simply because visitors couldn’t find what they wanted.

When Shoppers Start Shopping

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT

OneupWeb released a study entitled The 2008 U.S. Online Shopping Report: What the 2008 Holiday Shopping Season Can Teach Us. Data was compiled from a variety of e-commerce companies and aimed to determine when consumers started their holiday shopping, evaluating what period of the season was the most important to reach them.

Insights revealed in the report include:

Holiday traffic and conversions start before Halloween. Yes, before Halloween.
The week of Halloween experienced the highest volume of sales. Interestingly, this was also the week before elections.
The week following Christmas is just as important as those before, experiencing an increase in conversions and sales.

"The findings reveal some important consumer buying trends in a down economy, such as an increase in online browsing," says OneUpWeb CEO Lisa Wehr. "This means it is vital for companies to stay top of mind with consumers in 2009. Online marketing and integration is a good way to get there."

Free Shipping an E-Commerce Must-Have

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:58:00 GMT

Free shipping is a valuable acquisition and retention tool for first-time visitors. But what impact does it have on already-loyal customers decision to purchase or recommend a website? A report published today from ForeSee results indicates that high shipping costs drive people to shop in stores versus free shipping that drives people to shop online.

Key findings highlighted in the Free Shipping report include:

Free shipping is becoming commonplace and highly satisfies shoppers when available. Of holiday shoppers, 68% recall seeing an offer for free shipping this year.
Free shipping can be an effective acquisition tool. Free shipping results in positive bottom line impact for the e-retailer, surprisingly even when restrictions are put on free shipping, such as $100 minimum orders.
Shipping costs affect whether people choose to buy online or offline. Of all shoppers, 18% said avoiding shipping costs is the main reason they choose to buy in a store, and 33% said free shipping encouraged online buying.
Free shipping helps online retailers beat out their competitors. Sixty percent said free shipping influenced which retailer to choose when purchasing.

Retail Paid Clicks Convert Higher

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:07:00 GMT

It's a difficult decision for every Web professional where should we put our budget, time and resources? Paid traffic or natural/organic SEO for traffic? While there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of campaign, Google and Compete believe that paid clicks are more likely to convert in the online retail space.

It should come as no surprise that the role of SEO and advertising is vital in e-commerce. The findings from a joint study (available through a Webinar here) reveal that while both branded and non-brand clicks were important to ROI, paid clicks are more likely to convert than natural clicks. One retail study they were involved with stated that in 7 out of 8 categories tested (the exception was home furnishings) paid clicks were 50% more likely to convert than organic clicks.

The study aimed to quantify the value of search clicks in driving online and in-store sales. Google and Compete documented shoppers search behavior to understand non-converting clicks by monitoring clicks to leading retails websites (e.g. Ann Taylor, Zappos, Buy.com, Ikea, Walmart to name a few) and tracking consumer purchase activity 60 days after the of initial click. Some interesting findings from the study include:

Up to 33% of all visitors to retail sites come from search
Up to 55% of paid traffic comes from non-branded clicks
Up to 49% of purchasers using search click on non-branded search terms
32% of mass merchants purchases occur more than 2 weeks after the initial search referral (30% purchase same-session, but 70% purchase later)
Up to 43% of online shoppers purchase in-store

What does this mean for marketers? Primarily that search is a valuable tool for reaching retail shoppers and that broad and diversified search investments is the best strategy. Marketers should look beyond consumers immediate actions when valuing the ROI of search efforts.

If you are new to Website Magazine, consider reviewing the following two articles as they compliment the importance of this study quite well:

PPC Accountability: Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Lifetime Value
Web Promotion Cagematch: PPC vs SEO

Internet Retailer Quick Tip: Knowing Your Customer

Mike Phillips — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:10:00 GMT

We're at the Internet Retailer trade show this week, in sunny Chicago. And while there are hundreds of new and exciting products and tools to discuss, the sessions offer some good information too.

Eric Faintreny of RedCats.com stresses the importance of knowing your customer. In one example, he talks about RedCats clients Avenue.com and KingSize, both manufacturers of clothing and accessories for plus-size individuals. They are incorporating "shop by size" functionality to their websites, not seen on many other apparel retailers' sites. And it makes perfect sense. Plus-sizes are not always easy to find, an important consideration for this demographic. Why not offer the ability to see exactly what's available in your size before spending time finding what you like, only to discover it's not available?

Knowing your customer.