Retail-Blog

Its October and the Holiday shopping season is rapidly approaching. Good news, right? It is if you are an online shopping site.

According to a recent survey by Burst Media and a related press release, the percent of consumers who expect to complete either a portion or all of their holiday gift purchasing online this year has surged to more than half (50.7%), up from 37.6% in 2006.

While increasing use of the Web for holiday shopping is a positive sign for Internet retailers, there are also signs of economic uncertainty among consumers. Survey results indicate holiday spending is likely to decline from 2006 levels for many consumers. Among survey respondents, one-quarter (25.6%) expect to reduce spending, 36.1% will spend the same amount as the prior year and only 16.8% expect spending to increase. These conservative spending estimates are true even among the highest income segments.

More "Holiday Online Shopping Outlook Promising But Consumers Will Spend Less Overall" »

According to comScore (www.comscore.com), a leader in measuring the digital world, total U.S. e-commerce spending for the second quarter of 2007 climbed to $47.5 billion or an increase of 19 percent over the same period last year. Non-travel (retail) e-commerce grew 23 percent versus year ago to $27.2 billion, while online travel spending increased 14 percent to $20.3 billion.

More "U.S. Retail E-Commerce Climbs 23 Percent in Q2; On Track to Reach $200 Billion in 2007" »

In light of the well-know data compromises including TJX Corp reported earlier this year by the retail-blog.com, Visa USA announced a program earlier in the month of July designed to help the nation's small businesses improve their security.

Visa's program calls for acquiring financial institutions to strengthen their existing data security efforts to identify and address risks among their small merchant customers, including identifying whether merchants are storing sensitive account data and are complying with the industry-wide Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Visa has long required all entities, including small businesses, which store, process, or transmit Visa cardholder data, to comply with PCI DSS.

More "Visa USA Introduces Program to Strengthen Small Retailer's Data Security" »

Cosmetics leader Estee Lauder has announced that it has closed down its site -- Gloss.com -- after six years of operation effective at the end of June, 2007. Gloss.com was one of the leading stand-alone e-commerce sites, ranked 180 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 sites and featured deep content and tools that enabled shoppers to personalize beauty product purchases.
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The site offered shoppers nearly 5,000 products and was originally launched as a partnership between Estee Lauder and such consumer brand manufacturers as Chanel S.A and Clarins.
Over the last few years, Estee Lauder emerged as the majority owner. The company has decided to close down Gloss.com and concentrate on better serving customer needs on its other commerce-enabled web sites such as Clinique.com and Aramis.com.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Retail Report that measures online consumer retail activity and purchasing behavior, the Lane Bryant web site had the highest visitor conversion rate of any e-Commerce site tracked by Nielsen in the June, 2007 report on May, 2007 activity. Visitor conversion rate is the ratio of buyers to visitors at a web site. It is the key metric by which all commerce sites measure themselves, because it is directly related to revenue.

More "Redcats' Lane Bryant Site Has the Highest Online Shopper Conversion Rate of Any Site Tracked" »

AT&T and Apple hope the introduction of the new iPhone on June 29th will cause the next retail frenzy. The device, which uses a touch-sensitive screen rather than a keypad, has been hotly anticipated with more than 1 million people signing up with AT&T to receive notice when the device is available.

Using the same hype techniques that toy manufacturers use for the launch of new gadgets and games like the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll, we will certainly hear about people camped out in lines for days and the ridiculous and inevitable stampedes of customers rushing to order the $500 - $600 unit.

More "The iPhone -- The Next Newest Thing We Can't Live Without" »

Internet Retailer 2007 annual exhibition and conference took place in San Jose, CA June 4-7th. The Conference boasts the single largest gathering of retail executives in the United States with more than 4,000 attendees, 105 speakers, and 245 exhibitors. Attendees report that site search and improving conversion rates were the hottest topics during this year’s conference. It was clear from the variety of eCommerce practitioner speakers that bullet-proof site search was essential to increasing conversion rates.

More "Site Search and Conversion Rates Top the Buzz at Internet Retailer 2007 Conference & Exhibition" »

Each year, Internet Retailer, the leading information provider for the e-retailing industry, looks at the Top 500 online retailers to provide a logical ranking for America's largest e-retailers based on their annual sales on the web. The all new Top 500 Guide contains the very latest competitive data on the leaders of web-based retailing who account for nearly two-thirds of $135-billion e-retailing industry in the U.S.

Click on the link below to read datapoint excerpts from the new research.

More "The Results are In – Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide Now Available" »

Welcome back to the future! Remember the success of industry exchanges during the Nineties? It turns out that Web sites, like fashion, have cycles of nostalgia when what was old is new again. At least that's what's happening at eSourceApparel.com.

eSourceApparel.com (www.esourceapparel.com) is quickly becoming the central business hub for the global apparel industry, reporting an average of 10,000 hits per week and a steady increase in new members since its March 21 launch.

More "eSourceApparel Asks: Is It Fashionable Again for Industry Exchanges?" »

70% of leading online retailers report that visitors who use web site search tools were more likely to convert from browsers to buyers, according to the Aberdeen Group. And Aberdeen’s research survey also revealed that more than half of best-in-class retailers use site search as a merchandising tool, according to “Web Site Search: Revenue in the Results,” a new report from Aberdeen Group.

Among best-in-class retailers, 62% continually fine-tune search for desired results based on user actions, current promotions and collective behavior, Aberdeen found. Half of these retailers segment search query results based on different attributes of product categories, and that number of retailers will grow to 92% in the next 24 months.

More "“Searchandising” – Customers Buy When They Can Find It Using Site Search" »