Stefany Zaroban says, “Nonstore sales increased 11.9% year over year, a deceleration from October, and an indication that election fatigue’s effect on retail was short-lived. All in all, November was a good month for online retail, as new data released this morning suggests U.S. consumers spent a lot more on the web in November than they did last year. That bodes well for many in e-commerce and could dispel any fears that softness in online retail spending measured in days leading up to and following the Nov. 8 presidential election would put a damper on sales all season. November is traditionally... [...]

Thomas Smale says, “If you’re subscribed to any number of newsletters, there’s a good chance you saw Black Friday promotions coming from your favorite brands — and those promotions are increasing each year, coming from unlikely or at least less likely places. So, if we now look back a month to take stock of this year, 2016’s, results: How does Black Friday affect businesses, and how has it changed, with the rise of online stores and mobile shopping? Is it helping or hurting businesses? What were some of the most successful Black Friday deals? Black Friday results and how... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “According to eDataSource, an email marketing and e-commerce analytics platform, Amazon’s email marketing efforts have outperformed seven other retailers so far this month. Tracking campaigns sent between November 29 (the day after Cyber Monday) through December 10, the e-commerce giant sent 1,691 email campaigns – earning 96.6 percent inbox placement and a 19.8 percent read rate. Looking at email marketing efforts for Amazon, Toys R Us, Macy’s, Dicks Sporting Goods, Best Buy, Walmart, Kohl’s and Target, eDataSource tracked the total campaigns sent, read rates... [...]

Mike Kalis says, “There’s something undeniably charming — and perhaps a bit nostalgic — about being a local business that conducts only face-to-face commerce. But in this tech-driven day and age, you’re selling your customers short by limiting the scope of your services to an in-person setting. Sure, you might be able to say you’ve personally met and shaken the hand of each and every one of your clients, but as your business expands, a time will come when those one-on-one interactions no longer make sense. In fact, they’ll only be stunting your growth... [...]

Holly Miller says, “Without question, November and December are among the busiest months of the year. If you work for an e-commerce brand, in many cases the development teams have placed a hold on any new SEO or development requests. So what do you do? How can you make the most of the job searchers looking for information on what’s best for them and the people they’re shopping for? During the past holiday season, mobile searches related to “best gift” grew 70 percent year over year while searches related to cheap or inexpensive gifts grew about 35 percent.The following on-page... [...]

Khalid Saleh says, “Checkout conversion rate is arguably the most important metric for any e-commerce business. This is the page where your business actually makes money. Mess up here, and all the hard work you put in attracting and nurturing visitors will have gone to waste. Shopping cart abandonment makes your checkout process conversion rate even more important. The average shopping cart abandonment rate for e-commerce stores is roughly 68.8 percent. This means seven out of 10 people leave your website after committing to purchase. In this post, we’ll look at some simple tips you can... [...]

Alex Wolk says, “For everybody, the holiday season is a time to come together and celebrate the close of another year. But for e-commerce businesses, the holidays are a time to really give business a boost. Follow these tips below to make sure that the stressful season doesn’t get the best of you. 1. Do something to stand out. Every e-commerce site is working hard to up their game over the next couple of months, so you can’t just sit on your hands. Find a way that you can be different from the crowd, whether that’s by offering cool content (which we’ll take about later), incredible... [...]

Wesley Cherisien says, “In this digital world of websites, social media, video blogs, etc., the importance of good content cannot be undermined. Companies that do not give priority to content creation, will, and often do, fail in achieving their marketing goals.Long gone are the days when companies could simply launch a product or service through a press release and some print advertisements. Today, organizations use a variety of digital promotional strategies including social media marketing activities, blogs, video and photos to build an online presence. Since they now rely more than... [...]

Michael Sandstrom says, “Congratulations! So you’ve done a great job and attracted some visitors to your website. Unfortunately now the really hard part begins, convincing said visitors to part with their hard earned money and turning them into customers. With 74.6% of online baskets being abandoned, this is no small feat. As marketers we tend to think that abundance of choice in products is one of the key strengths of ecommerce. But without proper management and structure, this can become a hindrance and not necessarily result in more sales. For this article we will go through some of... [...]

Jim Yu says, “Eric Schmidt predicted that sales of smartphones would surpass PCs more than six years ago, as the then-Google CEO prepared the world for the “mobile-first” culture at the Mobile World Congress in 2010. Fast forward to today, and we’re witnessing the birth of a new mobile era where consumers interact and convert in what Google describes as mobile micro-moments — the key points of time when a user is interacting with their mobile device because they want to know something, go somewhere, do something or buy something. As marketers, measuring mobile moments that matter... [...]