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Posts Tagged ‘Merchant Tips’

Merchant Tips: Videos Within Ads Help Catch the Eye of Consumers

Posted in Ecommerce, Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »

It should go without saying that retailers must always be looking into new ways to enhance their marketing and advertising efforts.  The landscape of online advertising changes so frequently that only those individuals that stay ahead of the curve can truly be assured of making sure they’re crafting the most effective message.

Now, a new study has come along offering yet another guideline for maximizing the effect of your online advertising.

The report from ad server and provider Unicast, called U.S. Analytics Benchmark Report Q4 2010,  reveals that ads that engaged a viewer particularly through the use of video performed the best during the last quarter of 2010 and remain the best chance of leaving an impression with consumers.

It marked the fourth straight quarter in Unicast’s tracking that ads with videos turned out to be the most successful at getting consumers to engage.

The findings reveal that in-stream branded canvas ad formats, which generally play a related video before providing regular ad information to a consumer, had the best interaction rate in Q4 2010 at 14.7 percent.  Those types of ads also saw a 0.8 percent click-through rate, which was also tops.

Unicast defines the interaction rate as “the total number of positive user interactions divided by the total number of rich media impressions.”

By comparison, push-down advertisements, which display the ad when a user runs his or her mouse over a banner, had a 13.2 percent interaction rate and a negligible click-through rate of 0.3 percent.  Expandable ads, which work much like push-down ones, weren’t much better.  They only saw an interaction rate of 9.5 percent.

With a consistent period of such strong performances, Unicast believes that the number and scope of interactive ads can only increase.

“The market opportunity of online video is extensive and we haven’t even begun to tap into its full potential,” says Dan Berra, the company’s vice president of business intelligence.

Have you employed video in your ads? Let us know! Leave comments below!

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Merchant Tips: ‘Housecleaning’ During a Slow Week

Posted in Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2010 | 2 Comments »

If you’re a retailer or merchant, you’re probably using this week between Christmas and New Year’s to catch your breath.  And hey, we can’t blame you!   It was a banner holiday shopping season for both the retail and e-commerce industries, so chances are you were quite busy up until December 25th and deserve a little bit of down time.

Keep in mind though, this isn’t a time to rest on your laurels.  The show, as they say, must go on! Before you know it, the calendar will read 2011 and it will be back to business as usual.  Since this week tends to be a bit more quiet than most, why not use it to catch up and get yourself ready for the year ahead?  We’ve compiled some helpful tips on things you can work on this week to do just that so you’re ready to go full-force next week.

Get your House in Order:  it’s easy to let the little things slide some when you’re in the midst of holiday madness.  Use this time to catch up on things like payroll and bills or vendor/partner agreements and contracts for next year.  Remember that tax season isn’t far off either so everything you can do now to be prepared for April 15 is a step in the right direction.

Take Inventory, and Liquidate if Necessary: look around and see what merchandise you might have remaining in high quantities after the holidays.  Are there specific seasonal or holiday items that you think you can unload quickly?  If so, put them on sale this week and add some serious motivation for your shoppers to snatch them up (think a “2 for 1″ deal or free shipping, etc.)

Update those Customer Lists: if you were a savvy retailer in 2010, chances are you compiled quite a few customer email addresses for your mailing list.  What good is having all those emails though if you’re not going to use them?  Make sure your contact lists are updated and correct before you begin sending out messages next year.  Take some time to upload any emails you haven’t yet added to your list and also make sure that anyone who has opted out of your messages has been removed from your database.  You don’t want to start the New Year off by violating any SPAM laws!

Plot your 2011:  in that same vein, start drafting your strategy for next year as well.   Two very big trends emerged in e-commerce in particular in 2010–mobile shopping and social media integration.  Of the two, getting a social media presence is probably the quicker option of the two. Retailers can (and have!) easily set up Twitter accounts to broadcast specials and deals, and we’ve chronicled all of the options out there for taking your retail operation to Facebook before.  If you’re not using social media, you’re losing ground to the competition so look into those options this week.   Mobile commerce options will definitely cost you more but could be worthwhile next year and in the future as more and more smart phone users begin feeling comfortable about shopping with their mobile devices.  Do some research on mobile commerce solutions providers and/or check out your competitors to see what, if anything, they’re doing with this very important business component.

Start Planning for the 2011 Holiday Season Now:  the best ideas are the freshest ideas.  Spend about an hour this week on an honest evaluation of your holiday operations this year.  What worked?   What didn’t work?  What would you do differently?  Take that evaluation and put together a little note to yourself to be reviewed again in advance of next year’s holiday shopping period, say in late October.  Add some ideas you have now for what you can do next year as well. By relying on recent memory to shape your strategy next year, you can avoid repeating any mistakes that were made and also ensure that you’re prepared when the madness begins again!

Got some more merchant tips? Leave us a comment!

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Online Retailers Falling Short with their Product Recommendations

Posted in Ecommerce, Merchant Tips, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Product recommendations and featured products can be a very effective component of an online shopping portal. Highlighting items for shoppers visiting your site and using their shopping history to pass along other products they may like is an excellent way to boost sales and increase customer retention. But as a new survey indicates, many retailers are not using this feature to its full potential.

ChoiceStream, a product recommendations specialist and display ad provider, just released the results of its 2009 Personalization Survey. The company polled nearly 600 adult web users, nearly all of whom had made an online purchase in the past six months

In this pool of experienced online shoppers, 59 percent of the respondents reported getting poor quality product recommendations last year, up from 45 percent in 2008. Similarly, only 17 percent of those polled rated retailers’ product recommendations as excellent.

The overwhelming unhappiness on the part of the survey participants regarding their experience with retailers’ product recommendations came down to the fact that they were receiving recommendations unrelated to what they were shopping for or for products that did not match their preferences. Others in the survey, almost 45 percent actually, were unhappy because they got recommendations from products they already own.

Lori Trahan, ChoiceStream’s vice president of marketing, summed it up pretty well. “Consumers expect more from recommendations than they did even a year ago,” she said. “They expect them to be accurate and on target, so when they’re not, shoppers are disappointed.”

While product recommendation sections on retail websites are far from a perfect science, it’s pretty telling that this group of shoppers had the issues that they did. What really strikes us as odd is the figure indicating that retailers are recommending products that a consumer already owns. It’s possible that consumer might have actually purchased the product on the same site now giving them the recommendation, which reeks of sloppy data mining and organization on the part of that merchant.

And that’s what it all comes down to. If you’re going to offer shoppers recommendations on products and product categories, you need to have good customer data. The more information you collect on your customers, the easier it is to provide them with ideas for products that they will actually find useful. Shopping history, preferred brands, and average spending per transaction are just some of the things you should take into account when you’re crafting information for product recommendations.

You can also try offering questionnaires or surveys to your regular customers (albeit with some incentive for them, like discount on their next purchase or free shipping) to pull together important data. The bottom line is that product recommendations can be a useful offering for retailers and a big hit with consumers if the merchant goes about them in the right way.

We want to hear from you. As a consumer, what do you think about the product recommendations you find on retail sites? And merchants, what is your process and level of success with offering them? Leave us a comment below!

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Site Problems Resulting in Lost Customers for Many E-tailers

Posted in Ecommerce, Merchant Tips, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , on February 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

As an online retailer, one of the most important things you can do to ensure the success of your operation is to have a website and shopping portal that is humming along without any glitches. We’ve stressed the importance of optimization in several posts before, most recently in our 5 Merchant Tips for 2010 and Cyber Monday Merchant Tips blogs to reinforce just howcritical this component of running an online store is.

Why are we bringing this up now?  Because we came across a report that substantiates what we’ve said all along—a shopping portal with technology problems more often than not results in lost customers, lost sales and a boost for your competition.  In short, it says that online shoppers have very little patience or tolerance for sites that take too long to load or malfunction during the transaction process, especially during the busy holiday shopping season.

The survey, conducted by Equation Research for Gomez, the web-performance division of Compuware Corp., polled 1,500 consumers between Dec. 16-22 of last year, all of whom had used the web to buy products or services over a nine-month period of 2009.  The standout statistic from the findings: the revelationthat one out of every five shoppers who experience problems or wait times when using a retailer’s site are likely to go to a competitor’s site instead.

This is a very important study for online retailers.  More than half of those polled indicated that they spend a “significant” portion of their web purchasing dollars during peak holiday shopping times, meaning that this data is collected from some of the most consistent and experienced online shoppers out there.  These are people who rely on the web for most of their shopping needs, whose online spending likely exceeds the national average of about $1,050 annually.   In short, they’re people you want as customers.

What else did the report reveal?  One third of the respondents said they had a bad experience on retail and travel sites during the 2009 holiday shopping period.  Additionally, 41 percent said they’ll tolerate no more than two glitches with a retailer’s site before they’ll abandon it for a competitor.

But here’s where it gets really critical.  More than one-third of those polled said they moved on to competing web sites because of poor performance.  47 percent of those people left a poorly-operated site with a negative perception of that retailer (and one that probably won’t result in a return visit), while another 42 percent admitted that they shared the negative experiences they had with others via blogs, on social networking sites, and via emails and word-of-mouth. Obviously, that’s the kind of advertising no business wants.

“The first lesson for online retailers is that performance matters on peak time,” said Jeff Loeb, Gomez vice president of product marketing.  “Secondly, in terms of what they can do, [online retailers] need to be much more proactive in determining if their web application infrastructure can support [peak time] shopping.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Check out our previous postings on the subject to learn more about how you can optimize your web site for maximum performance and total customer satisfaction.  We’ll continue to track studies like this in the future so we can gauge what’s happening out there in the industry but as always, feel free to leave us your comments and suggestions below!

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Merchant Tips: 5 New Year’s Resolutions for a Successful 2010

Posted in Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , , , on December 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »

2009 is about to come to a close and let’s be honest, it wasn’t the best year for retailers.  The economy is still trying to make a comeback and consumers everywhere tightened the purse strings over the past 12 months.  But there was some good news, most notably being that online shopping popularity and sales were up yet again this holiday season, giving us all something positive to build on for the future.

For our final Merchant Tip posting of 2009, we’re going to give you some broad ideas for helping your operation grow and succeed in 2010.  Most important is that you learn from the past year—what worked, what didn’t—and use that experience to craft your strategy in the coming year.  Eventually, the economy will fully rebound and you want to be positioned well when it does. So here we go:

Be a Leader (not a Follower)

This encompasses every aspect of your business but more specifically, we’re talking about your technology here.  Is your site running smoothly?   Is it aesthetically appealing to the eye?  Crafting a website that stands out and operates quickly is a must in the world of e-commerce.  You should be constantly seeking ways to enhance your site, as well as your shopping cart and check-out process.  Don’t copy others’ styles!  Find your own, use it and maybe someone will copy yours!

Get Social

We’ve been saying this for quite some time, but if you’re not branching out to social media networks,you’re putting your business future in peril.  Fact: Facebook alone has an audience of nearly 250 million users.  That’s 250 million potential customers for you to tap into if you’re using something like Sortprice’s Facebook Store application.  Make social media networks like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter part of your business plan in 2010 and you’ll bepleasantly surprised with the results.

Boost Your Customer Service

More often than not, a consumer will remember his or her shopping experience with you not because of price or selection, but because of how they were treated by your customer service team.  Now more than ever, customer retention is crucial so put even more time and effort into making customer service a cornerstone of your operation.  Give shoppers every available means of contacting you if something comes up—email, phone, fax, whatever.  And most importantly, highlight how serious you are about customer service on your site and in your marketing materials.

Email Baby!

If you haven’t already done so, start a customer email database in 2010.  The benefits are endless. Set up a spot on your site where shoppers can add their email addresses to your database, then stay in close contact with all of them.  Monthly email newsletters are a great way to stay on your customers’ radar screens throughout the year.  Offer discounts or sales to these loyal customers and encourage them to communicate with you with tips or suggestions.   The more you involve them, the better.  You can build these email lists with software you already have, or you can browse the web for a special service that will do it for you.

Promote in New Ways

We hate the term “outside the box” but when it comes to your promotions, that’s exactly where you need to be thinking.  It’s survival of the fittest out there, so find new and interesting ways to promote because you never know what the “next big thing” will be.   We already covered the value in email marketing but don’t stop there.  Run a few contests throughout the year that will ensure increased traffic to your site.  Make yourself more visible in the media and on blogs and get involved in your local communities.  These are all small things that you can do to increase your brand awareness and ensure a successful 2010.

Got more tips? Leave a comment! Good luck to all of you and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

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Merchant Tips: Establishing Trust and Security

Posted in Ecommerce, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Build trust with your shoppers

Building trust with your shoppers

Let’s face it: people who still have hang-ups about online shopping more often than not cite safety and security as the chief reasons why. The prospect of identity theft and a general fear of online shopping has kept a sizeable chunk of people, 10 percent of the market by some estimates, off the internet for shopping.

As a merchant, your goal should be finding a way to get that 10 percent of the population online and shopping on your site.  Your inventory, prices and customer service will all play a role in that process but only by establishing a sense of safety with these customers will you ensure that they feel comfortable enough to utilize your website.

Here are 5 easy steps you can take to give jittery customers and first-time online shoppers the peace of mind they need to keep coming back:

Beef Up Security: this one’s a no-brainer but you should be operating on SSL (secure sockets layer) technology to ensure that the pages on your site that require sensitive customer data are run through an encrypted link. Furthermore, it’s important to promote and even flaunt your security system throughout the site to assure customers that they can trust doing business with you.

Provide Clear Methods of Contact: don’t make customers search endlessly for your contact information. Place your phone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses in highly visible sections of your site. In addition to traditional customer service phone numbers, explore adding live chat or online support features as well. Remember that communication is the key to any relationship. If shoppers can easily reach your staff when they have questions or concerns, they’ll feel much better about utilizing your company.

Keep it Private: make it clear to customers that you value their privacy and that you will not engage in selling or making available their private information to outside entities. Post a clear, concise and easy-to-understand privacy policy in a prominent position on your site so they know that whatever information they provide you with in the course of a transaction is going to stay with you and only you.

Update, Update, Update: be diligent about keeping every facet of your website current. This goes not only for product pages, which should be updated frequently to reflect inventory and pricing, but every other section as well, from customer service to FAQ sections and contact pages. If a shopper finds something outdated on your site, it reflects a lack of commitment on your part.

Align Yourself with Reliable Third Parties: join your local chamber of commerce as well as any applicable trade associations and promote these relationships on your site. If you’re listing products on comparison shopping engines, do whatever it takes to earn special recognition with them that highlights your commitment to quality business practices, such as Sortprice.com’s Certified Merchant Program.  Don’t be shy about promoting these relationships that prove to customers that you’re dedicated to quality.

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