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Archive for the ‘Online Shopping’ Category

SortPrice’s Facebook Store Application Gets Boost with New Flash Sale Feature

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Flash Sale for Facebook StoresAlready one of the leading F-commerce solutions in the industry, comparison search engine SortPrice.com announced this week that they’ve added another cool feature to their Facebook Store Application that allows merchants to run Flash Sales right on their fan pages.

The company says the new component is just the latest in a long line of upgrades to its Facebook retail application, which is currently being used by more than 1,500 retailers across the nation.

According to SortPrice, the Flash Sale feature is, in part, an attempt to bridge two big recent F-commerce trends: the rise in popularity of daily deal sites like Groupon and the reality that most Facebook users tend to “Like” retail brands in the hopes of getting a special deal as a result.

“We’re really excited to offer this feature, since Flash Sales and the daily deal models have proven to be very effective and popular tools for retailers,” said Doron Simovitch, the company’s co-founder and CEO.  “Shoppers love such deals for their exclusivity and merchants can really capitalize on that potential by quickly and easily incorporating flash sales into their overall social shopping offerings.”

SortPrice merchants who are operating Facebook stores through the company can run one Flash Sale per day (for now) on their Facebook fan pages, listing a specific product for a discounted price for a limited time, with the option to include a promo code or coupon if they wish.  Simovitch says the Flash Sales are ideal if a merchant has a high volume of merchandise they need to move quickly or they just want to reward their Facebook fans for their loyalty.

“It’s another way to engage your Facebook fans and provide them with an incentive, which is ultimately the name of the game when it comes to social shopping,” he said.

One of the major benefits of the component is the ease in which a Flash Sale can be set up—SortPrice says retailers can have one up and running in less than five minutes by picking an item from their catalog and then setting the special price and time frame for the sale right in the management console that SortPrice provides to all of its retailers.

The console is also where SortPrice retailers can control the look and feel of their Facebook stores, enable or disable particular components, enact side-by-side product comparison features and more.

Keeping things consistent throughout its broader application, SortPrice has also included all of the usual social shopping features in the new Flash Sale offering.  Users can “Like” or comment on Flash Sales and share them with their Facebook friends as well.

We’ve followed a lot of SortPrice’s F-commerce work in the past few years.  They were, after all, one of the first companies to even offer retailers a storefront application back in 2008 and since then, their client list is an impressive 1,500-plus national retailers.  An earlier SortPrice press release said those merchants posted more than $3.78 billion worth of merchandise on their Facebook stores in 2010 and with the Flash Sale component, we’re guessing the company will pick up quite a few more clients in the coming months.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments!

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The End Comes for Borders

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , , on July 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Borders, which gamely filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and then committed heavily to a reorganization effort to save itself, is out of options and will now begin the process of liquidation.

Thus ends the tenure of one of America’s most popular retail brands.

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” Borders group president Mike Edwards said yesterday.  “We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, e-reader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”

In January, Borders filed for bankruptcy and listed assets of $1.27 billion and $1.29 billion in total debts.

Earlier this month, Borders had finalized a preliminary agreement to be bought at auction by a company called Direct Brands for roughly $215 million in cash plus the assumption of another $220 million in debt.  The bid by Direct Brands, a component of the Phoenix-based investment banking firm Najafi, was a ‘stalking horse bid’—defined as an initial bid on a bankrupt company’s assets by an interested buyer chosen by the bankrupt company itself with a predetermined floor for minimum acceptable bids.

Last week, the creditor committee that was tasked with overseeing the Borders bankruptcy plan rejected the bid from Direct Brands on the grounds that it was too low.

That cleared the way for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday to approve the sale of the company’s assets to two liquidation firms—Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group—instead.

The remaining 200 or so Borders stores still in operation will be shuttered by Hilco and Gordon starting immediately through the end of September.  The two liquidation firms also assume immediate ownership of all of Border’s intellectual property rights as well as Borders.com but it remains unknown when the company’s e-commerce operations will officially end.

Quite a few major book publishing houses are still holding IOUs from Borders, most notably Penguin Putnam (for $41.1 million), Simon & Schuster ($33.7 million) and Random House ($33.4 million).

“For decades, Borders stores have been destinations within our communities, places where people have sought knowledge, entertainment and enlightenment, and connected with others who share their passion,” said Edwards. “Everyone at Borders has helped millions of people discover new books, music, and movies, and we all take pride in the role Borders has played in our customers’ lives.”

What are your thoughts on the Borders liquidation? Leave us a comment below!

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Amazon Rolls out Kindle Textbook Rental Program for College Students

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Here’s some good news for all you college students out there.  You now have a chance to put a slight dent in what has become an outrageous cost associated with higher education thanks to a new service rolled out by Amazon today.

The program, the Kindle Textbook Rental, offers students the chance to save up to 80 percent off the list prices of their college textbooks by renting the books from the Kindle Store instead.

Amazon has tens of thousands of textbooks available for the upcoming school year, including those from leading publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis.

“Students tell us that they enjoy the low prices we offer on new and used print textbooks.  Now we’re excited to offer students an option to rent Kindle textbooks and only pay for the time they need–with savings up to 80% off the print list price on a 30-day rental,” said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle.

The big benefit of the new program, besides the obvious one in that it defrays the cost of books, is flexibility.

Students can customize the rental periods for any textbook from anywhere from 30 to 360 days so that they only pay for the specific amount of time that they actually will use the book. Customers can also extend any rental period pretty easily, even for as little as one day.

The program also allows for students to purchase any book they’re renting at any time.  To top it all off, Amazon has also found a way for students to keep possession of all the notes they may take in a particular textbook beyond the life of their rental agreement.

“Normally, when you sell your print textbook at the end of the semester you lose all the margin notes and highlights you made as you were studying,” Limp continues.  “We’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you get to keep and access all of your notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, available anytime, anywhere — even after a rental expires.  If you choose to rent again or buy at a later time, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.”

With free Kindle Reading Apps for PC, Mac, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Android-based devices, the new Kindle Textbooks fulfill Amazon’s catchy slogan for the program, “Rent Once, Read Everywhere.”

Students can learn more at: www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks.

Leave us your thoughts and comments on this new program!

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“Mobile Mannequin” App Goes Live

Posted in Ecommerce, Mobile Commerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on July 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Even the most die-hard online and mobile shopping enthusiasts would probably concede that the biggest drawback in using such channels to buy clothing and apparel is the inability to actually try the merchandise on.

Sure, advancements in product photo and video displays have helped some but consumers more often than not want to see what a piece of clothing looks like on their body before deciding to buy or not.  In that regard, brick and mortar stores have had a distinct edge over their e- and m-commerce counterparts simply by virtue of being able to offer the low-tech resource of a fitting room.  But that edge may be a fleeting one.

Marketing and technology company Weyrich Enterprises this week launched a new mobile application called Divalicious that allows a person to upload their own full body image onto a virtual mannequin.  Shoppers can then take clothing and accessory images and place them over the mannequin for an accurate preview of what they’ll look like in the wares they’re considering buying.

This form of augmented reality, which relies on a smartphone’s camera to alter imagery, has already been introduced by several companies before, most notably eBay.  What makes Divalicious interesting though, is how expansive a shopping experience it can offer: consumers can browse product images from more than 300 fashion brands, mixing and matching brands and specific products along the way, almost as if they were at the mall.

“With this application, you no longer have to go to the stores to see what you would look like with a dress from BCBG, shoes from DSW and a handbag from Saks.  The clothes are all in one place, not in three different stores,” says Rich Kessler, chief technology officer at Weyrich Enterprises.

Quite a few big names have already signed up to offer their products through Divalicious, including Zappos, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Urban Outfitters, Gap, Calvin Klein, Nike, Prada, Steve Madden, Ralph Lauren, American Eagle Outiftters, Nine West and more.

Weyrich worked with Sugar Inc.’s ShopStyle comparison and social shopping site to bring Divalicious to life.  Products are listed on the application as links thanks to ShopStyle’s product data feeds, and shoppers are taken to a mobile-optimized product page hosted by specific retailers when they click on those links.  Transactions can be quickly and easily completed with the merchant directly and the shopper can return to any area of Divalicious once the purchase is complete.

If any of our readers have already tried out Divalicious, we’d love to hear what you thought of it—leave us a comment!

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ShopRunner to Offer Digital Wallet, Monthly Shipping Service

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , on July 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Taking a page from the likes of Visa, MasterCard and others that have an electronic wallet in some stage of development or implementation, ShopRunner is using the concept as the cornerstone of a new aggressive expansion plan.

The shipping and online marketplace site has announced that it will roll out its own version of the e-wallet sometime this month.  The company will also soon begin offering consumers the option to sign up for its shipping package on a monthly basis, a move believed by some to be a precursor to an eventual premium service offering next-or same-day shipping that could give ShopRunner an edge over its biggest rival, Amazon Prime.

As with the other digital wallet offerings out there, ShopRunner’s is quite simply designed to make things easier on the consumer.

“A member shouldn’t have to go through multiple steps to complete a checkout process,” says ShopRunner president Mike Golden, who promised that the new tool would debut with a single, unnamed retailer later in July.

The e-wallet uses software developed by ShopRunner to store shoppers’ payment card information, shipping details and billing address to speed up the process of payment transactions.  The feature will initially be offered to retailers free of charge, but Golden says ShopRunner may add fees to the e-wallet feature eventually if sales and conversion rates increase as a result of it.

ShopRunner currently has about 44 retailers offering its services—centered around a program of free two-day shipping on all online orders for $79 annually—and expects that total double by the end of the year.  The company also runs a marketplace-style offering featuring retailers like Lord & Taylor and Toys R Us.

Also coming soon will be the monthly alternative to the $79 annual fee for ShopRunner’s discounted shipping service. By late July or early August, shoppers will be able to choose to sign up for the service on a monthly basis for a fee of $8.95 a month.

“This is a risk for us because some consumers would only use us for the holiday season, but we think that once consumers use our service a couple of times they love it and don’t quit,” Golden says.

While a premium service that would ensure even faster delivery of orders for a higher annual fee is still in the works, ShopRunner will also be launching an iPhone application in the coming weeks that will allow shoppers to scan bar codes in stores and find out if the product is available through the company’s standard two-day shipping program.

Have any thoughts or comments on the expansion efforts over at ShopRunner?  Leave us one below!

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Online Product Research Becoming More Extensive, Report Says

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on June 29, 2011 | 1 Comment »

In a likely indicator that the growing number of online shopping resources available to consumers is actually making people better and smarter shoppers, a new report reveals that product research is taking up an increasingly larger share of the overall shopping experience and that more people are doing such research on social networks.

One out of every two people polled for The E-tailing Group’s report, titled “The 2011 Social Shopping Study,” said they spend at least 75 percent of their overall shopping time researching products.  That’s a substantial increase over the 21 percent of consumers who said the same thing just a year ago.

The group credits the rise in time spent researching to increases in both the amount and quality of information available to shoppers online.  (We’ll wager that the economy probably has something to do with it too.)

“People are willing to take the time to do research,” says Lauren Freedman, president of The E-tailing Group.  “They will do anything to find the right price.”

Furthermore, the survey shows that nearly one-third (29 percent) of all respondents are employing social media sites to conduct their product research.  This despite the fact that that a mere 18 percent of the retailers in The E-tailing Group’s late-2010 mystery shopper survey include actual customer reviews on their Facebook pages.

It’s almost certain, however, that the inclusion of reviews and similar features on retail Facebook pages is substantially more widespread across the industry than the The E-tailing Group’s sample size indicates.  In fact, it’s hard to believe the use of social networks for product research would be as high as it is if that wasn’t the case.  Nevertheless, Freedman makes the case that social network product research is indeed relevant and could very well increase even more.

“Social is emerging as a significant way that some consumers research products,” she says.  “In some early adopter categories it can be important.  However, in other categories it probably isn’t top of mind.  The real question will be whether social media is adopted by most younger consumers and become a standard way consumers research products.”

So how, exactly, are consumers using social media to conduct product research? According to the report:

–59 percent of respondents say they read customer reviews;

–42 percent access question-and-answer features that allow a consumer to pose a question to other shoppers or respond  to another person’s query;

–26 percent converse in community forums;

–15 percent view user-generated videos or create their own video;

–13 percent access a retailer or manufacturer’s Facebook page;

–13 percent pose questions in their news feeds;

–9 percent monitor, respond to, or post tweets on Twitter

We’d be interested to hear what our readers have to say about this.  Are you using Facebook, Twitter, etc. for product research?  If so, how are you going about doing so?  Leave us your thoughts and comments!

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Survey Data Reveals Pluses, Minuses of Daily Deal Trend

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on June 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »

We all know just how profound an impact Groupon, Living Social and the daily deal sites that followed them have had on the online shopping world.  But despite the meteoric rise in popularity, is the daily deal model not without some negatives?

According to a new survey, the answer is yes, though the results still resoundingly point to a continued rise in the use of such sites.

PriceGrabber just rolled out its Local Deals Survey, which polled nearly 2,100 online consumers in the U.S. between May 20 and 25 about their daily and local deal shopping activity.  Primarily, the research substantiates the notion that daily deal sites are increasingly becoming a preferred method of shopping online: 44 percent of respondents say they regularly use or search a daily deal website, while 63 percent of consumers admitted they receive offers from two or more deal sites each day.

As we’ve come to expect, the motivation behind the widespread use of daily deal sites is pretty obvious—saving money. More than three-quarters of respondents (78 percent) indicated they buy local deals to do just that, while only 19 percent cited the ability to try out new services that would otherwise be outside their price range.

However, in a telling sign that points towards oversaturation, 52 percent said they feel overwhelmed by the volume of special deal emails they receive each day.  Meanwhile, 60 percent indicated they believe the daily deal industry has become overcrowded with too many sites.

“Whether we are in the depths of a recession or the height of a booming economy, consumers are looking to save money— period,” said Graham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber.  “The daily deals sector clearly shows promising signs for long-term growth, but the data reinforces the frustration consumers can feel when a new trend explodes so quickly.”

PriceGrabber asserts that frustration underscores the need for a more streamlined approach to the daily deal process, and the company itself believes it has a solution.  It recently launched a new one-stop service that aggregates daily deals from up to 20 local deal websites and gives consumers more control over how many deal emails they receive.

Still, even with some blemishes, the daily deal industry is sitting pretty right now.  In addition to the obvious benefit of saving money, shoppers love daily deal sites for their social networking angle too.  The survey finds that 86 percent of respondents tend to share deals they find with friends and family.  This sharing takes on all forms: 71 percent said they do so via word of mouth, 64 percent chose email and 26 percent share it through Facebook.

What are your thoughts on the current state of daily deal shopping? Leave us a comment!

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Report Reveals Shifting Back-to-School Shopping Priorities this Year

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , on June 15, 2011 | 2 Comments »

It’s hard to believe that we’re just now getting into the swing of summer and it’s already time to starting thinking about the back-to-school shopping season.  Lo and behold though…

PriceGrabber just rolled out its annual Back-to-School Shopping Forecast survey and the results show a bit of a shift in back-to-school shopping plans for 2011 compared to just a year ago.

Primarily, the findings reveal that an overwhelming majority of consumers (95 percent) intend to employ money-saving techniques during the busy back-to-school shopping season, and that many will start such shopping later this year than they did in 2010.

Of the more than 2,600 U.S. online consumers that PriceGrabber polled for the survey, 49 percent plan to start making back-to-school purchases in August compared to 38 percent a year ago.  While 26 percent of shoppers made back-to-school purchases in June of 2010, only 14 percent plan on doing so this year.

How do we explain this noteworthy change?  PriceGrabber maintains that it is due in large part to the fact that even more shoppers will rely on the web to make fill their back-to-school shopping lists this year, relying on price comparison services and last-minute discounts available online.  The survey shows that 69 percent of consumers plan to shop online or use comparison sites and 41 percent will visit retailer sites directly to print out coupons.

“While the economic climate is beginning to improve, we are not surprised to see that back-to-school shoppers remain cautiously optimistic,” stated Graham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber.  “Further analysis of the data supports the idea that consumers are careful to distribute their purchases over an extended period, if possible.  However, shoppers are also becoming increasingly savvy and open to taking advantage of online shopping solutions that they may not have considered in the past, as can be seen by many consumers’ decisions to begin shopping at a later date.”

As was the case in 2010, the unstable economic climate still has many consumers wary at this time of year and planning to spread out their purchases:  55 percent said they will distribute the cost of back-to-school purchases over a longer period of time.

Nevertheless, regardless of when they buy back-to-school items, consumers still have a collective budget-conscious outlook on the process:  52 percent plan to spend as much as they did last year and 35 percent intend to spend less.  Only 13 percent indicated they’ll be spending more than they did in 2010.

“According to the data, shoppers are still focused on spending the same amount or less on back-to-school purchases this year, even as the economy improves,” said Jones.  “However, as consumers become increasingly accustomed to a frugal standard of living, they also become more creative in how they save.  We are seeing more shoppers engage with the new technologies that are changing the retail landscape by comparing prices online and watching for price drops.”

PriceGrabber conducted the survey between May 12 and 19, 2011.

So what about you?  Are you thinking about back-to-school shopping already?  If so, how do your plans compare with those in the survey?  Leave us your thoughts and comments!

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Retailers Garner a Capitol Hill Victory on Swipe Fees

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , on June 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Handing a big win to retailers and e-tailers in particular, the U.S. Senate yesterday rejected a proposal to delay for a year a major reduction in debit card fees that merchants pay to banks and opened the door for the Federal Reserve to move ahead with an immediate reduction in such fees.

Both online and offline merchants could substantially save hundreds of millions of dollars annually thanks to the decision. Here’s how it all went down.

The Durbin Amendment, part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that was enacted into law last year, included a provision mandating that the Fed lower debit card fees by July 21, 2011.  In response to the mandate, the Fed in December proposed lowering the debit card fees retailers pay down to 12 cents per transaction, which the National Retail Federation estimated would cut merchants’ total debit card fee costs by up to 70 percent and save them about $14 billion a year.

A fierce lobbying battle between DC interests representing both the banks and the retail community ensued, culminating in a proposal by Montana Democrat Jon Tester to delay implementation of the fee cuts.  With 54 votes however, Tester’s Senate colleagues defeated his proposal, ensuring that the Fed can move ahead with the original July 21 deadline.

Naturally, the retail community was ecstatic with the vote.

“This is a landmark victory for American consumers that will give them the break from skyrocketing swipe fees that they have been seeking for years,” said Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO. “Congress came to the right conclusion last year—hidden swipe fees charged by big banks have driven up prices far too much for far too long.  The National Retail Federation and America’s retail merchants commend the Senate for standing by last year’s vote and for voting on the side of American consumers.”

While both online merchants and brick and mortar retailers win thanks to the move, e-tailers actually stand to reap even more savings.  Typically, online retailers are charged higher fees on both debit and credit card transactions. This is largely because card networks like Visa and MasterCard deem online purchase and those made over the phone riskier than those made face-to-face when an actual card is present.

Furthermore, in physical storefronts consumers often have the option to pay via debit card and enter their PIN to complete the sale, which routs the transaction through a less costly network.  With some rare exception, e-tailers don’t accept PIN debit as a form of payment and thus, can’t take advantage of the lower-cost networks.  Visa andMasterCard instead offer web retailers what they call signature debit where a retailer pays a debit interchange of roughly 15 cents plus 1.6 percent of the sale for any online transactions.

So why does all of this matter if we’re talking about pennies?

Debit card usage is rampant among American consumers.  Javelin Research estimates that shoppers use them for about 29 percent of all online retail and travel purchases.  The U.S. Department of Commerce reported $165 billion in e-tail transactions last year and if Javelin’s estimates are legitimate, that means about 600 million online purchases totaling nearly $48 billion were made in 2010 with debit cards.

Javelin further estimates that the average value of online purchases made with debit cards is just under $79, meaning web retailers are paying debit interchanges on each deal of $1.40.  Under the Fed’s plan, that fee would slide all the way down to 12 cents, saving the e-tailer $1.28 on each transaction.

From there, once you do the math you can see why it’s a big deal: 600 million transactions, each with a savings of $1.28 means online retailers alone could slash their costs by $750 million or so thanks to the Fed’s proposal.  And that’s a lot of pennies!

Thoughts on the Senate action? Leave us a comment below!

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eBay Buys Magento and Adds it X.Commerce Plan

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , on June 8, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Apparently, acquiring a minority stake in open source ecommerce platform Magento for more than $22 million last year wasn’t enough for eBay.

The online auction site announced this week that it has agreed to buy the rest of the company and will own 100 percent of Magento’s outstanding shares once the transaction is completed.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Analysts expect eBay to fold Magento into its own, newly created integrated open commerce platform group called X.Commerce.  X.Commerce combines several eBay assets, as well as partner technologies, to form a robust developer community that merchants and retailers can use as a resource.

eBay will unveil more information about the new service in mid-October during the X.Commerce Innovate conference in San Francisco.  For now, you can read more about X.Commerce at www.x.com, the site that formerly hosted the PayPal Developers program.

“Technology-driven innovation is blurring the lines between online and offline commerce, changing the way consumers shop, and enabling retailers of all sizes to benefit from the latest innovations from the developer community,” said John Donahoe, eBay president.

“The feedback we’ve heard from external developers has been clear — they don’t just want payments or an ecommerce site; they want access to a full set of commerce capabilities to build complete shopping experiences for merchants. We believe the acquisition of Magento and creation of our X.Commerce group will enable us to meet developers’ needs and drive global commerce innovation for retailers and consumers.”

Magento, based in Los Angeles, employs nearly 300 people.  Its platform, which serves tens of thousands of retailers around the globe and is supported by a worldwide community of solution partners and third-party developers, is a feature-rich and enterprise-class commerce solution offering merchants a high level of flexibility and control over the catalog, content, functionality and user experience of their online store.

eBay will also get Magento Go, the company’s hosted software-as-a-service solution that provides e-commerce tools for small and growing retailers, as part of the deal.  Magento Go operates similarly to Yahoo Stores and eBay’s own ProStores web-hosting solution but doesn’t charge commission fees.

Thoughts? Leave us a comment below!

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