Online shopping growth outlook good, shopping sites feed tactics and options growing.

Posted on November 13, 2008
Filed Under Shopping Search, shopping feeds | 2 Comments

Online shopping growth expected to outpace all other consumer spending sectors, much thru shopping sites!

“The good news is that [online retail sales] growth will outpace nearly every other sector of consumer spending” during an otherwise lean holiday season, said Sucharita Malpuru, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, in an e-mail to DMNews.

While the most recent predictions expect holiday sales to be flat or fall by a percentage point or two, more than 56% of online retailers expect holiday sales to increase at least 15% from the same period a year ago, according to the 2008 eHoliday Study conducted by Shopzilla for Shop.org. from <http://www.dmnews.com/Shopping-sites-try-on-new-look/article/120623/>

New shopping search engines are cropping up often around niche areas or improving the customer driven experience. They have gone well beyond just the cost comparison functionality. For example, Istorez.com launched in beta earlier this year and give customers more control over their experience using a profile. ThisNext.com claims to be” the social shopping site where people explore, discover and rave about the hottest products.

When it comes to shopping feeds merchants have several options:

DIY-Do it yourself (mostly to Google base, still free. )
Elementary tactic-submit via feeders all products via services, with default/limited analytics and tracking of return on investment.
Intermediate tactic-submit via feeders full feed but supplement with Indextools/Google analytics to capture and measure conversion data and Return On Investment (ROI)/ Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
Advanced tactic-via automated feeders filter products to feed only the producing profitable products to the feeds

Fastpivot works with “best in class” feed partners and portals while installing the analytics to measure results. Let us know how we can help!

eCommerce Should See Growth for the Holidays

Posted on November 3, 2008
Filed Under | 1 Comment

The economic instability that has been rocking harder than a ship in a hurricane has tightened the grip on our wallets and seemingly caused a major meltdown of the global economy. The good news is that we have not succumbed to depression and a complete meltdown. In fact, despite all the uncertainty and fear about the future, ecommerce is positioned for double digit growth once again. This is great news for online store owners, especially since brick & mortar sales are predicting a flat to 2 or 3 percent decline in growth from last year.

Holiday sales outlooks, from sources, such as eMarketer, are predicting a 10.1% growth in online sales over last year. Although a far cry from the 19%-24% year-over-year growth in past ecommerce holiday seasons, it is a much better trend than what we were facing just a few months ago.

In an article “Will the Grinch Steal This Year’s Online Holiday Shopping Season? ” eMarketer lists some encouraging reasons why growth will still be slightly over 10% this year. It sums up in one word: frugality. People are looking for a deal; and, they know that the Internet is the place to find it.
Why are more people buying online?

• Higher gasoline costs
• Free shipping offers
• Ease of bargain seeking
• Research all done from the comfort of a home/coffee shop/office, etc.

What should store owners do?

MarketingExperiments outlines the top priorities for an online store to help your viewers:
1. Emphasize your value proposition
2. Intensify clarity of navigation, organization, visuals
3. Reduce inhibitors of shopping your site

And, when someone comes to your site, they need to have answered immediately:
1. Where am I?
2. What can I do here? (how to shop even)
3. Why should I purchase from you (value proposition) stated on the page and reemphasized throughout the site.

These days, customers expect to have an easy shopping experience. Features, like customer registration, a shopping cart wrapped to match your store, clear calls to action stated in clean text and images, and other solutions will benefit both store owners and shoppers. In an uncertain economy, changes you make now for an optimized, user-friendly shopping experience, can make the difference between a gain or loss in sales. For more information about My Account for Yahoo! Stores, visit www.fastpivotsoftware.com, or contact a FastPivot account manager to discuss how to improve your site for the holidays.

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