'Net Features : online retailers

Feel Good About the Holidays with GoodShop

Michael Garrity — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:30:00 GMT

Some of the top retail companies on the Web are teaming up to help those in need this holiday season.

GoodShop.com specializes in partnering with online retailers for charitable causes. When consumers make a purchase on a participating ecommerce site, a portion of the proceeds go to the charity or school of the shopper's choice.

Over 2,500 retailers have jumped on board with GoodShop, including Target, Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Gap, Barnes & Noble, Hot Topic and many more. Well over 103,000 non-profit organizations such as Unicef and The American Red Cross have also joined up to receive benefits from the program.

Goodshop works in conjunction with GoodSearch, a Yahoo-powered search engine that pays a penny to a non-profit organization every time a user conducts a search, and GoodDining, which pays out a percentage of the bill to a charity or school every time a customer eats at one of more than 10,000 participating restaurants.

So far, the combined efforts of the GoodSearch companies have helped raise over $43,000 for animals in need through ASPCA and over $15,000 for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, among a great many other charitable and educational causes they support.

2009 Holiday Shopping Trends: Consumers to Buy Early, Buy Less

Mike Phillips — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:07:00 GMT

Performics, a performance marketing solution provider, has released details of a September 2009 consumer survey, “2009 Online Buyer Economic Trends Study.” The results are not shocking - of those surveyed, 29 percent will be shopping earlier than they did last year, and 60 percent plan to spend less. But a look into the details of the study reveal some interesting insights for retailers and marketers.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents who said they will spend less report buying fewer items, not necessarily spending less per item.
Two-thirds will not be buying gifts for some people who they bought for last year.
Of those who won't be getting holiday cheer, friends, co-workers and extended family top the list.

There are also significant differences by gender in this year's expected holiday shopping trends.

35 percent of women will start shopping earlier, compared to 19 percent of men.
A full 66 percent of women will spend less, compared to just 48 percent of men.

For retailers, this is a strong reminder to start holiday promotions ASAP. It does not suggest, however, that retailers need to slash prices. While fewer items may be purchased, there is no indication that big-ticket items will fall out of favor. Performics also reported on a recent projection by the National Retail Federation, who says that overall holiday sales will fall one percent this year - an improvement over last year's 3.4 percent drop.

Yet another study by NPD Group, Inc., a leading market research company, shows a less grim picture than the Performics data. NPD's study shows that only 30 percent of shoppers plan to spend less this holiday. Also encouraging is that there is no change in the top five categories for consumer holiday spending. They are:

Apparel - 49%
Toys - 34%
Movies - 29%
Books and Electronics - 28%
Peripherals, Digital & Video Cameras, MP3 Players - 24%

And from those categories, books and electronics; and peripherals, digital & video cameras, MP3 players are the only ones that saw an increase over 2008.

The bad news from all of this is that consumers are undoubtedly planning to spend less this year. The good news? Consumers are still ready to spend money on popular online retail items. And even if they buy fewer items, they are not necessarily going to spend less per item.

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Ubikwiti On-Demand Accounting for Online Retailers ($4.99/mo)

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:10:00 GMT

Ubikwiti has announced an accounting solution for online retailers. These and other cloud-based, on-demand accounting and financial management applications are excellent ways for online retailers to cost-effectively manage their businesses.

According to Ubikwiti CEO Tim Loving, "IDC's Top Ten Predictions for 2009 predict the move to cloud computing will accelerate in 2009, driven by the bad economy and shoppers seeking lower costs. IDC believes the global economic recession will push 1.5 billion people (almost a quarter of the planet) into online shopping, driving over $8 trillion in online sales."

Throughout the day I'll build out a list of similar providers that readers of this blog might be interested in. If you use a provider now or know of one you think others might be interested in, just comment below to share. The Ubikwiti solution allows merchants to perform many general/standard accounting tasks with ease;

record aggregate online sales by sales category,
review gross receipts, net receipts, commission and other charges paid,
analyze gross sales, discounts, net sales and tax collected,
record vendor bills and payments made to vendors,
record deposits of checks and cash into your bank accounts,
transfer funds between bank accounts,
reconcile bank account statements with book records,
prepare and view full financial reports and other standard reports in PDF format,
set a base time zone for operations to ensure consistency of records and reports across multiple time zones

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