E-commerce and online retail weblog by Screen Pages

Website colours and design

2008-11-10T13:23:00.003Z

So if you are stuck with a colour and have no idea what complementary colours will look good, check this site out COLOURLovers.com. It's a resource that monitors and influences colortrends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use colour - whether for websites, ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification -a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

We like the latest website palette column.

Online fashion sales to grow 25%

2008-11-10T11:31:00.002Z

Online spending is expected to rise 15% on last year to £13.16 billion in the run up to Christmas as hard-up shoppers search for bargains on the internet, we see in Drapers.

Online spend on fashion, footwear and accessories is forecast to grow by 25% to £1.2 billion over the quarter according to a report from the IMRG and Capgemini.

Total average online spend per person will be £215. Although this is a growth of 15%, it is slower than the rate of growth in 2007 when final quarter online sales jumped 54% on 2006.

Monday December 8 is expected to be the biggest Christmas shopping day online when £320m is expected to be spent. Peak shopping time will be between 1pm and 2pm when shoppers are expected to spend £28m. This is double the amount spent by shoppers at last year's peak Christmas hopping hour, at midday on Monday December 11.

Google Analytics new version - fabulous for e-commerce segmentation

2008-10-24T14:33:00.009+01:00

We're very excited about the latest version of Google Analytics which has a number of great new tools in it for online retailers. See Google's anaytics blog for a summary.

We've been exploring some of the new capabilities, and especially like the new realtime segmentation tools. In a nutshell, you can create segments (eg traffic from generic search terms) using a drag-and-drop style interface, test the selection (to see if it all stacks up) and then use the segment in any of the many reports straightaway (with all the history). I've seen something similar in Nedstat, but this is Google Analytics. (Avinash has written up the feature and there's a helpful tutorial on Youtube...

So we made a chart that compared conversion rates from generic search (e.g. "clothes") and "know us" traffic (brand searches + direct traffic) and the whole thing took 2 minutes (just like Avinash said).

Unique Rollover Feature on Category Pages

2008-10-15T15:41:00.007+01:00

Having scoured the internet a couple of days ago we came across this cool feature on the Uniqlo (http://www.uniqlo.co.uk/) site.
When you mouse over a category image you get an immediate enlargement, great for selling clothing or high detail products.

We believe that a feature like this will greatly increase a potential customer’s click through to the product page for a possible purchase as they do not have to advance further into a site to see more detail.

Other variations of this action are featured on some of our clients' sites.

* Donald Russell also utilizes a nice effect to enlarge their product image on their product pages
* Joules use an effect similar to this for showing cross sells on their product pages - using AJAX to see complementary products & size/colour variants, with an add to basket option.
* We liked the Uniqlo approach so much, we put it on Oliver Bonas: check it out on their dresses category page.

Email ROI

2008-10-15T09:00:00.002+01:00

E-mail’s ROI in 2008 was $45.06 for every dollar spent on it, according to the DMA’s just-released Power of Direct economic impact study, we glean from Ken Magill.

Non-e-mail Internet marketing delivered $19.94 for every dollar spent on it this year and catalogue marketing delivered $7.28 for every dollar spent in 2008

While e-mail’s ROI far outpaces every other channel, spending on it lags far behind, possibly because it remains primarily a retention vehicle and its deployment costs are far lower than other channels. The DMA estimated marketers spent $600 million on e-mail in 2008 and will spend $700 million on it in 2009.

The channel employed 98,300 people in 2007 and 111,700 in 2008, according to the DMA.
However, e-mail marketing’s growth during that period—13.6%—was the highest of the various marketing channels. E-mail’s employment growth by percentage edged out non-e-mail Internet marketing—which went from 1.7 million to 1.9 million—by 0.3%, according to the DMA.

Second Life hit by credit crunch?

2008-10-13T10:56:00.003+01:00

American Apparel launched their virtual retail experience on Second Life to great aplomb. Now, it's closed. I know, my avatar found out the hard way.

If you want the official stoy, here's the spin. Personally, I blame all the sub-prime lending.

Luxury Online - upside in a cold climate

2008-10-09T21:39:00.003+01:00

We went to the Walpole Society's conference on selling luxury brands online hel at the RAC club. The Walpole Society promotes the interests of the British luxury goods world. Its members include our clients Smythson and the Real Flower company. Online is one of two special areas for luxury markets, the other being China.

The penny has dropped
First off, the man from Barclays (the sponsors) told us that 75% of wealthy consumers use web for research and purchase and that they spent more time than any other group online. Not too earth shattering, but a sound introduction. Guy Salter - the Society's Deputy Chairman - characterised this universe as moving from the experimental to the penny-dropping, but with that comes the anxieties. At the end of the day, the devil is in the detail & execution. That said, Forrester reasearch (across 178 CEOs of luxury brands) revealed that only one third were selling online and amazingly, half of those who were not had no immediate plans. A quick show of the 300+ hands in the room revealed that pretty much EVERYONE was now transacting online - with one exception.

Google's take on luxury
Peter Fitzgerald, whom we knew when he was at Amazon and now Industry Leader for Retail at Google gave us Google's take. 84% of ultra-affluents (how do I become of these?) and 98% of millionaires have their purchase decisions influenced by the web. Interestingly, rich people make their purchases, then use the web to feel good about their decisions after the event: 33%
used it to validate their purchase post sale. Luxury web shoppers spend more (about $250k more per annum), are richer and younger. And Google thinks the UK is the most sophisticated online market (it spends 50% more per head than the USA) and digital ad spend is at 17% vs 9% across the pond.
"Where are the Ecommerce Directors on the Board?" he asked and exorted folk to be online, be part of the conversation and test. Google apparently launches something when it's 60% ready (and theories abound about Microsoft using customers as beta-testers). Nordstrom does 8% of its total sales - that's about $700m pa and Fitzgerald suggests that 6-12% of total sales
was about par for the course.

Getting religious about conversion
Regarding the testing part, Fitzgerald shared Google's own trial and error testing of its own Adwords (Google's online advertising platform) start page. Well, not so trial and error it seems. It mechanically tried different combinations of important elements of that page - and it's quite simple if you have a look - such as the header, blurb, image and button - and tracked everything using Website Optimiser, Google's A/B, split & mult-variate testing platform. By optimising the
combinations, Google reports a 56% increase in conversions, taking the politics out of design: "you have to monetise every pixel of your real estate."
He advised we all check out Google Insights for Search and Google Trends.

Ecommerce is not about the web
The very amusing Ian Jindal of Internet Retailer et al, chaired the next session of e-commerce practitioners with gusto. His view: one year, we all said "let's do e-commerce". You can go from late to great in 6 months, but that's not enough now. Brands' customers are being educated by fast-moving competitors and only one thing matters: sharp elbows and a willingness to
use them. It's about ruthlessly maximising £s per minute per pixel. Anyway, as we always say too, it's not about the website. It's about fulfilment, stock management, customer service etc, that is e-business simply has to be a business.

Ian's big question to his panel is how do you get sustainable advantage? E-commerce is hard work - you have translate and animate your products online, deal with complex stock issues across multiple channels and manage organisational silos and politics). And sadly, there's no magic wand (ie social media). At ASOS they simply can't innovate fast enough, so it has to
be about other stuff.

What do customers want in 2009?
People want simplicity, the panel agreed. 60% of visitors disappear at checkout and 90%+ don't come close. Customers want to feel like VIPs, so make it human and personal and as we're in the realm of automation, aspire to "the personal touch on an industrial scale". Take it further, let customers do the personalising themselves.

Exit panel one, enter panel two - the brands themselves...

Mulberry presented a very candid and informative case study (well done - have a free link as a leading purveyor of Luxury English Fashion). Nick Roberts, Mulberry's Retail Director, explained that Mulberry had been transactional since 2001, and was now on V3 of a bespoke e-commerce website which was now part of "Retail", not "Marketing", showing the corporate emphasis on web sales. It's now nearly the highest grossing store with 55% YOY sales growth (and it plans to double sales in the next few years) and there are no signs of slowing.
Mulberry attracts 140,000 unique visitors per month, with a 1.5% conversion ratio and a £200 average order value. Investment in the site is constant, but measured and must be profitable (which it is, much more so than a store) and it's ran as a retail store with a fully-costed budget). Mulberry dispatches an email per month to its 60,000 database, always communicating
in the "luxury way" and a call to action. Google ad spending for small businesses can be very expensive, and Mulberry puts 35% of its online marketing budget into PPC (the rest on goes on social media and email). It spends a lot of time managing communications with the blogging community - a practice we can only commend.

The audience seeemd to ponder the issue of cannibalisation between online and off (irrelevant in the main as consumers will demand a choice out of convenience, if nothing else). Would it matter if Prada came next to Gucci in a search result or price comparison engine? Not in the least, said the lady from Burberry. Brands love to be next to each other - as they are in
Harrods, vogue and New Bond Street.

Brian Tickle, who runs Luxury Travel.com - owned in part by the Orient Express - is creating a portal to attract luxury travel customers. His problem was that he could do well in Google for "Cipriani Hotel" or even "Venice Hotel", but scaling oftier heights such as "luxury hotels in Italy" was extremely hard work. His new portal - content rich and search-engine-sexy means he can fish in a bigger pond with a larger rod. The message for brands - brand/luxury is about content and that's the differentiator (so syndicate it across the web). Folks' internet time is a clear indicator: 5% is spent in search, 50% in content.

The best thing about online is the immediate metrics.
Bec Astley Clarke founded Astleyclarke.com, an online jewellery boutique "pureplay" (which means online only) which is 2 years old. She's is backed by Index Ventures, a serious VC outfit (so sadly she coudn't disclose numbers, except her goal to do "several £ms this year" and a planned average order value of £150, which she's exceeding. She wants her website to be a
luxury end-to-end experience - exclusively next day delivery, expensive gift wrap and the works. For Bec, the whole business is a steady marketing and technology evolution, driven by careful attention to the metrics: traffic sources, conversions, drop-offs et al on a daily business. She tries everything - but measures. Astley Clarke gets best results from PR, SEO, and
email as well as partnering with other brands on joint promotions. Her killer stat: she spends 5 times more on natural search than paid search for the same number of sales - just shows how much work getting those top search results are.
The panel agreed that the No. 1 driver of profitability is repeat business, as its so expensive acquiring new customers: lifetime value is critical.

Part Two was all about "social media"
That'll be blogs and Facebook, then, and as Mr. Salter said: "we just can't avoid it". We all loved Forrester's Christine Spivey Overby with her shiny black hair, a perfect white smile and wearing a nice, big shiny black belt over her black woollen dress. She spoke in American and we enjoyed her US pronunciation of our cherished olde worlde European brand names as she discussed "social strategies that work". (I was hoping this would improve my cocktail party patter).

Well, it transpires the audience was heavily signed up already: 50% use it/them for personal stuff, 20% use it/them to enhance their brands and 5% do it succcessfully. Ultimately, she said, social media is about people getting things from each other, not institutions (or advertising they no longer trust). More dialogues are now happening online between customers
about the brand, rather than between the brand and the customer.

She had some great content - such as the dog that rolls in nothing but Gucci on Flickr. Forrester's reasearch shows that luxury brands are participating and about one fifth pursue most of the obvious social media channels. Christine's message was
basically to be clear on one's marketing objectives. Breaking down usage into spectators, creators, critics, collectors and the rest, here are the stand out stats:

- 47% in the mass affluent class spectate (read, listen, watch social media), versus 40% in all other classes;

- 11% in the mass affluent are creators (create blogs, upload content etc) vs. elsewhere

- In fashion its a lot higher: 58%+ spectate and 20% create.

You can download her slides at http://www.forrester.com/walpoleluxury

The panel that followed presented various social media platforms - which we shall skip for the time being - but concluded that whatever you say or might think, there are growing numbers of people doing it and people are coming together in these new ways - but what's the tipping point? Ultimately, brands should treat it all as they treated brand communications all along: it's about driving messages to targetted influencers. Sounds just like PR, I guess.

Strategies for retailers in a downturn

2008-10-07T21:28:00.003+01:00

Strategists (and McKinsey fans) will appreciate this article which analyses approaches to gain competitive advantage during tougher times - just sitting it out is not an option. Retailers should either be investing to get ahead - if they have the balance sheets - or they should be taking out cost to improve performance.

The article discusses how retailers should "rapidly sort through their options and set priorities for action—in particular, determining whether to take an offensive or defensive approach. Combining a tough self-assessment with a hard-nosed scan of the environment can help retailers decide on the relative importance of reducing costs, increasing investments, creating financial flexibility, and seeking near-term revenue growth."

Google 2001

2008-10-01T08:38:00.002+01:00

Google's 10 already and as a special treat - it has relaunched it's oldest index from 2001.

The Screen Pages listing is nearly OK.

website design web hosting services by Screen Pages
Screen Pages is an Internet solutions company. We could also describe ourselves as a design agency, a software company, a sales and marketing company, ...http://www.screenpages.com

Try yours!

2008-09-29T13:40:00.004+01:00

Good piece in The Times on the growth of internet retailing: here's a few excerpts:

"More than half of all the sales growth in Britain's retail sector over the next four years is expected to come from the internet as more consumers switch their preference from the high street to the worldwide web. "

"A new survey claims that the value of online retail sales is expected to soar from £20billion this year to as much as £50billion by 2012 - nearly 15 per cent of the total retail market. "

"Despite all the optimism, there are clouds in cyberspace. Last week IMRG indicated that some internet retailers were beginning to feel the effects of the credit crunch, with year-on-year sales growth slowing to 15 per cent in August, against 30 per cent earlier in the summer. "

Online sales growing at 37% YOY on average

2008-09-29T13:31:00.001+01:00

Screen Pages analysis from August 2008.

Best day to email

2008-09-19T15:19:00.003+01:00

We were asked what our views were on the best day to email & guessed (well, more opined based on anecdotal evidence) and said "Thursday". I nearly added "lunchtime". I was asked why and felt iffy about revealing anecdotal material.

So I googled it. And found this:

- Fridays for open-rates, but Sunday has best click-thru rate.
- Friday has open rate of 21% and click-thu of 4%
- There's no best day
- How to use Google Analytics to derive the answer

Here's the e-roi data - you'll need the B2C data.

Buy button

2008-09-16T22:04:00.003+01:00

We can all be amused by the concept of the "magic buy button".

But behind it all is a serious point. How many online retailers are even thinking about A/B and split testing of important parts of their website? We can all run simple tests using Google Website Optimiser that cost little but offer potentially high yields.

You don't have you his button - but you do need to discover which one works for your customers.

Christmas looms online already

2008-09-12T08:44:00.002+01:00

I was encouraged and shocked to see that retailers should be turning their planning towards Christmas already and the hints & tips were starting to fly in already.

This year, Christmas begins a little earlier than usual on October 13th.

I came across this rather helpful planning guide, summarised below:

- At 10 weeks to go: start getting your site's gift content and delivery programmes in gear and optimise your SEO (as that takes time).
- At 9 weeks to go: plan your paid search approach. Highlight best-sellers and seasonal picks, then start your email programme by encouraging sign-ups.
- At 8 weeks to go: start weekly email campaigns & boost customer service messages
- At 7 weeks to go: target loyal customers with offers and create/move gift categories into prominence. Create gift guides.
- At 6 weeks to go: promote "collections" via PPC & email. Run a "win your wishlist" competition. Adjust cross-sells to be gifts & cards. Introduce free shipping above threshold.
- At 5 weeks to go: Roll-out free shipping.
- At 4 weeks to go: start emails twice per week (target weekend shopping). Work your wishlists hard. Use seasonal user-generated content.
- At 3 weeks to go: use games/competitions to stimulate activity. Introduce countdown and gift-of-the-day.
- At 2 weeks to go: run 2nd free shipping campaign & communicate last delivery dates. prmote reviews and "top-rated" gifts.
- At 1 week to go: Discount "special" delivery for loyal/top customers. Special promotion around cut-off date. Use global banners (daily) to promote this. AFTER cut-off date, allot space to sale previews.
- 25th December: email news of sales. Explain returns policies!

I am sure there is at least one idea here for everyone.

404 pages

2008-09-09T17:39:00.004+01:00

We have commented on 404 pages before - those little unhelpful pages that appear on an e-tailer's site especially when those products aren't in stock or available anymore. For websites with a higher product churn, this can be a frequent event.

Here's how a few of our peers handle "page not found" scenarios:

Boden (too technical and not really helpful, although complete)
John Lewis (offers some tools instead)
White Company (sends you to the home page)
Asos (technical message + redirects to the home page)
Argos (big browser error - ouch!)
Marks & Spencer (very nice and wins the award - shows populare categories & makes alternate recommendations, but then again, we are talking Amazon!)

The bottom line - try to engage your visitor in some other way and offer help. Imagine how a (good) shop assistant would handle it in the real world and automate that.

On another note, I read in Practical Ecommerce about a Google Widget for helping customers somewhat more:

Virtual salesmen - Can a web front-end selling tool ever replace the physical relationship that a salesman offers?

2008-09-09T17:28:00.002+01:00

In theory yes, the practicalities of online salesmen/facilities are far greater than shop floor. Online can serve thousands of customers a day where as a sales team of four may only reach a fraction of this.

TARGETING

A website can track the shoppers behaviour, if you have visited the site before it knows your preferences and shopping habits, where as a face to face salesman may not know what you bought before or your demographic characteristics.

Being able to track previous purchases, online sites can target customers more specifically with relevant promotions and product categories. For example if you have wear a particular size or style of clothing, or like a genre of music. Salesmen do not have this back catalogue of data.

KNOWLEDGE

Websites are so sophisticated they can provide more product knowledge than any salesman. Websites can include testimonials and product reviews to build consumer confidence and endorse products. Face to face sales teams may not be able to remember all this information, or be able to deliver it in believable or convincing way. In many cases, the scale of product feature and usage information on a website exceeds the level of knowledge possessed by a salesman.

HABITS

Website search facilities allow you to find the style, size and colour of a product in seconds. Shop floor assistants may take much longer and not even locate things as accurately.

HOWEVER

Humans have persuasive abilities - body language and face-to-face communication is the easiest way to build trust/confidence and turn this in to a purchase. Consumers like personality and character; it is more engaging than looking at copy or pictures on a website. Human interaction is a key factor, but online companies are responding with chat online facilities and dedicated customer service teams who you can talk to whilst online.

Statistics show that retail is moving towards the Internet. Shopping can be a time consuming and costly hassle, many people don’t even like being sold to.

In theory sales people can be replaced but this is not necessarily the end-game. Businesses have to understand how their consumers want to shop, some may research online and then go purchase in store, or vice versa. In an a increasingly multi-channel world, retailers need to provide a ‘shop to suit system’.

Search engine eye-tracking

2008-09-05T13:46:00.002+01:00

Indebted to Bryan Eisenberg for the latest eye-tracking research fom Think. The message from searchers is "top three or bust" and they're adword savvy as well.
Here's the heat map:

Bryan concludes: "As seen in the heatmap above, fixations are studded around the top 5 results and the majority of clicks are upon the top 3 results (discounting the sponsored link). The sponsored link was actually not well attended to due to the fact that searchers are now familiar with advertiser placement within Google. The 2008 heatmap supports the recent trend observed by Cornell University (Their study found that the top 3 Google results get 79% of all clicks) and by AOL (Findings were that 63% of clicks were concentrated upon the top three search results)."

Google's Chrome Browser

2008-09-03T11:51:00.002+01:00

Google has launched its browser, dubbed Chrome.
Here's the Google pitch in comic strip format. At our Google meeting, we were assured that there would be no compatibility issues (great news for our e-commerce sites, if true) and that the primary purpose was to create a browser that worked for "cloud" applications.

Here's some reviews:

- ZDnet
- Profy
- Review centre covers what consumers says

Is it Worth Paying for Google Adverts for Your Brand?

2008-08-27T09:20:00.005+01:00

Paying Google for clicks on your own brand name is always a painful process when you're already sitting at the top of the free "organic" search results.

The received wisdom within the PPC industry is that you need to do this. They sweeten the pill by pointing out that the bid price is low. But it's always reassuring to see some hard evidence.

A recent post on FutureNow's "Grokdotcom" blog, titled "Would You Buy the Cow?" provides some useful information.

The research they cite is from Microsoft (who also have a keen interest in selling advertising clicks, of course). The test shows how a company who ranked at the top of the organic search gained a 16% benefit in brand association over rivals when they also paid for adverts on the search results.

So far so good. But when you look at it closely that test refers to people searching for an unbranded term like "fuel efficient cars" and the benefit was in terms of "brand association", not actual clicks, let alone conversion. The benefit they're claiming here is that nebulous one, "branding".

Read on in the comments on the post however, and you will notice that other people are chipping in with results of their own tests. Turn off the "brand" adverts and the free organic clicks do not go up to compensate. Those paid "brand" adverts do bring visitors you would have missed otherwise.

You're probably not throwing your money away. The reason for the 'probably' there? Each brand and each site is different.

The best thing to do, as always, is to run your own test!

Fashion online sales up 23%

2008-08-20T09:42:00.004+01:00

Online fashion and footwear sales grew by 23% in July as people opted to shop from the comfort of their living room in the wet weather and to take advantage of special offers on the internet - according to Drapers.

Total online spend rose by 11.3% to £4.8 billion against June, which works out at an equivalent spend of £79 for every person in the UK according to the IMRG Capgemini Index, which measures online sales from 60 retailers including Arcadia Group, Asos, John Lewis, Next and Otto UK. Against July 2007, online sales were up 15.2%, and within that fashion, footwear and accessories sales recorded an uplift of 25.9% online.

The online sales rise is in stark contrast to the British Retail Consortium's figures for high street sales in July, which fell 0.9% on a like for like basis against July 2007. Total high street sales were up 1.7% on the previous year but fashion sales were in negative territory. The BRC pointed to the clothing sector as having suffered one of the biggest effects of the slowdown in consumer spending as shoppers move further away from discretionary and frivolous spending.

High street retailers winning online shopping battle

2008-08-18T11:16:00.008+01:00

Retailers who operate other channels are pulling ahead of "pure play" internet only wesbites, says Hitwise.

Summarises Robing Goad: "High street retailers are pulling ahead of their online only counterparts when it comes to online shopping in the UK. As the chart below illustrates, the internet properties of the 100 largest online high street retailers in the UK, such as Argos, Next, and Marks and Spencer, received 19.3% more UK Internet visits during July 2008 than the 100 largest online only retailers, such as Amazon, Play.com and ASOS."

Top 10 SEO tips

2008-08-18T10:24:00.003+01:00

Useful & sensible summary of the keys to success for SEO, which we endorse:

1. Create relevant, keyword-rich product and category names, titles and descriptions.
2. Add relevant, keyword-rich content to the site.
3. Populate SEO-relevant attribute fields in your product catalog.
4. Ensure proper redirects from legacy URLs.
5. Configure 404 error pages.
6. Submit Sitemaps to search engines and directories.
7. Analyze site for broken links.
8. Fix landing pages.
9. Add tags to images and video.
10. Keep abreast of major changes in the search engine market landscape.

Of the list, numbers 1-5 are incredibly important.

PCI apathy

2008-08-14T11:21:00.003+01:00

The PCI juggernaut continues to move slowly in some quarters. Our experience is that some companies are deadly serious and are being encouraged by their banks to be so, others are simply not interested. Many feel it's a bit like Y2K all over again.

"The same apathy applies to PCI, Alan Calder of IT Governance says: "Merchants in the UK simply haven't come under pressure from their acquiring banks to comply. We see Barclays trying to apply some pressure for merchants to comply, but most other banks are not... most companies realise that deadlines for compliance have slipped several times, and there is still no real idea of the level of fines that could be suffered in the case of a breach. So why would you spend the money, if your bank is not pressuring you, there is no obvious size of fine, and there are not obvious benefits to compliance?"

E-commerce spend up 17% in 2008

2008-07-31T20:28:00.001+01:00

Forrester are seeing online investment is up:

The big reason for aggressive investments is the growing strength of the channel. With Forrester Research predicting of a 17% increase in e-commerce spending in 2008, and gas prices passing the $4 gallon mark, Forrester says e-commerce will be an even bigger priority for retailers."This is where retailers are actually seeing growth, and there is pressure to go where the growth channel is," their analyst says. "The reality is that the growth opportunities are online, and catalogers have to understand this."

Advice on keyword approaches for e-commerce site

2008-07-30T14:37:00.002+01:00

Courtesy of Promotion World

When it comes to ecommerce sites, there are plenty of keywords to choose from. Because sites typically follow a fairly set format, numerous pages are created between the home page and the order confirmation page. Those pages all need keywords and phrases if they are going to rank high in the search engines...here's a summary:

Home Page - go with Broad Keywords

Use keywords and phrases that are descriptive of your overall site. For example, if you sold clothing for the entire family, you might opt for phrases such as "ladies clothing," "men's clothing" or "kids clothing." Those would be expressive, but could also be worked easily into the home page copy.

Category Page - Specific Keywords

Once you move to the category pages, you'll want to select keyphrases that work well with what you're trying to describe in your copy. If your visitor clicks on the women's shoes category, she'll want to read about and see pictures of women's shoes. Perhaps you'll use phrases such as "fabric ballet flats" or "leather peep-toe pumps."

Create a paragraph at the top of the page, then add a descriptive sentence or two under each image. Sometimes, add a paragraph of copy at the bottom of the page. This helps guide your visitors through the sales process.

Product Descriptions - "Long Tail" Keywords

The product description pages should incorporate long tail keywords that are laser specific. If your visitor clicked on a link for "Bermuda shorts" on the category page, you'll want to get as detailed as possible, so your customer can make the decision to buy.

For instance, a keyphrase such as "Liz Claiborne pastel plaid Bermuda shorts" would be perfect for a product description because it is… well… descriptive. Long? Yes, it is a long phrase. Most long-tail keywords will be. But the further into the sales process a customer gets, the more specific their searches will be. Chances are, someone who has decided she wants pastel plaid shorts will use a phrase like the one above instead of something like "Bermuda shorts."

Here's a plus: Because long-tail phrases are much less competitive than broader terms, you stand a better shot at getting ranked highly for them.

Online shopping saves on gas prices

2008-07-21T16:51:00.004+01:00

Well, that's a new angle to recession & increased fuel prices - shop online. Relevant article from New York times citing Gap. Victoria's Secret, Sears & JC Penney: "With gas being such an issue, we know that mall traffic is down more than off-mall traffic,” said Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer for J. C. Penney, which had an 8.7 percent increase in Internet sales in the first quarter of this year.

That is in contrast to a 7.4 percent decrease in sales at stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales and a measure of retail health. “We see more people turning to online because it’s much more efficient in terms of time and money,” Mr. Boylson said.

"Victoria’s Secret's ....catalog and Internet sales were up 11 percent in the first quarter of this year while same-store sales declined 8 percent. Gap had an 11 percent decline in same-store sales in the first quarter, but a 21 percent increase in online sales."

Online sales up 38% in first half

2008-07-18T11:23:00.001+01:00

UK shoppers spent over £26.5 billion online in the first six months of this year despite the credit crunch, up 38% on the first half of 2007.

According to figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, 17p in every pound was spent online during the first half of the year. Clothing is faring well out of the reported online boom, with £1.76 bn spent on clothes online by UK shoppers in the first half 2008. James Roper, chief executive and founder of IMRG, said that online shopping growth continues to out-perform the high street and predicted that 30% to 50% of all retail will be online in the next five years. He said: "As tight budgets and poor weather keep people at home where they can shop online for bargains.

"Clothing and footwear sales were the biggest losers in physical stores in June, with sales either flat or lower than last year despite heavy and widespread discounting.

"However, online they were big winners. Internet clothing sales were up 32%, while lingerie sales rose by 37% and footwear 38%." Shoppers spent a record amount on clothes in March, a month-on-month growth of 21.8%, and 31.2% more than March last year.

Make sure customers can skim through your copy

2008-07-10T10:41:00.008+01:00

The words and pictures on your site are your main chance to actively sell something to your potential customers -- and you only have a couple of seconds to do it.

We all know that's common sense. But the point needs repeating. And it's often hard to remember to do it for each product we add, or each new bit of CM copy we add to a category page.

The Grokdotcom blog is full of great advice on the subject of persuading your visitors to become customers. This post about optimising your copy for skimming and scanning provides a very useful summary of the key things to consider:

Use bullets
Bold the critical text
Consider embedding hyperlinks for more information
Use sub-headlines to break up the copy
Use white space to make copy easier to scan
Avoid jargon

The article mentions that one of their clients increased their conversion rate by 24% simply by following this approach.

Why not use this as a check list and take a fresh look at your product pages?

Here are a some of extra tips:

Use your Google Analytics "Top Content" report and switch the "Analyse" menu to report on "Entrance Keyords". Note the bounce rates. Consider these as 'trigger words' and apply the techniques above. See if you can reduce the bounce for those words.
The keywords you've seen in the report will normally include your PPC keywords. But if you're launching a new campaign, optimise the page for those words in advance. It will help with your Google Quality Score and bring down your costs -- as well as increasing your conversion rate.
Be very careful about the advice on using hyperlinks. Be wary of encouraging people to navigate away from the page unless your products do require lots of supporting information and you really have plenty of it on the site.

Engagement - buzzword or vital ingredient for website success

2008-05-28T14:55:00.002+01:00

Great blog post explaining "engagement" as a metric.

when people are saying engagement, they are really talking about satisfaction and loyalty. Which does mean that engagement is not a new buzzword or concept but instead it is something that has been around for as long as businesses have been. The difference between now and then is that in the online world, we can measure it.

Engagement is an attempt to use quantitative measures to understand satisfaction (using data that we already have), as opposed to having to rely on qualitative studies (data that we have to make an effort to acquire). Engagement is important and it should be used as an indicator of the performance of a website.

LIVEmark Retail Benchmarks

2008-05-28T14:24:00.004+01:00

Yearly and monthly April 2008 benchmark figures from Coremetrics LIVEmark figures.

Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion - April 2008

2008-05-28T14:18:00.005+01:00

Article by Bryan Eisenberg

Here they are, the top 10 converting retail sites for April 2008*…

1. Proflowers.com -27.5%
2. Office Depot - 25.8%
3. Lands End - 24.8%
4. QVC - 19.4%
5. CDW - 19.1%
6. HSN - 16.8%
7. Vistaprint - 16.8%
8. Oriental Trading Company - 16.5%
9. Williams-Sonoma - 15.6%
10. eBay - 14.8%

10 Tips to Optimize Your Landing Pages

2008-05-28T14:04:00.002+01:00

Great article with tips that are particularly useful if either (1) you purchased traffic from a search engine, or (2) you’re a merchant running receiving traffic from an affiliate network.

Five Secrets to Email List Growth

2008-05-28T12:05:00.002+01:00

Five factors to consider when growing your list.

1. Make your sign-up form easy to find
2. Provide a convincing incentive for subscribers to sign up
3. Don't ask for too much information
4. Use a thank-you page that does its job
5. Understand why subscribers are leaving

Online Marketing KPIs - An Overview

2008-05-28T11:36:00.003+01:00

Web analytics KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) can be divided into five main groups: Marketing KPIs, Engagement KPIs, Usability KPIs, Conversion KPIs and Loyalty KPIs.

Three types of online marketing activities you can measure: Online Campaigns (PPC links, affiliate marketing, banners, etc.), Email Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) .

Online Campaigns KPIs

How much new traffic do you get from your online campaigns?
What is the click-through rate for each campaign?
What is the bounce rate for each campaign?
What is the conversion rate for each campaign?
What is the ROI or cost-per-acquisition for each campaign?

E-mail Marketing KPIs

How many emails have you sent?
How many emails bounced (could not be delivered)?
What is the open rate for each delivered email?
What is the click-through rate for each opened email?
What is the click-through rate for each link in your emails?
What is the conversion rate and/or ROI for each email?
What is your unsubscribe rate?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) KPIs

How much traffic do you get from each of the keywords you have chosen to focus on for optimization?
What is the average rank of your keywords on the search result pages across all search engines?
What is the conversion rate for each keyword?
What is the cost-per-acquisition for your SEO activities?
What is the ROI for your SEO activities?
Which keywords rank low on the search result pages while at the same time contributing with many visits?

Shopping cart abandonment: How to minimize orphaned carts

2008-05-28T10:46:00.003+01:00

A MUST read article about minimizing checkout dropout and basket abandonment.

According to recent studies by DoubleClick, currently around 57% of all shopping cart sessions are abandoned.

Why do people abandon shopping carts?

Comparison shopping
Confusion
Impatience
Fear

Minimizing shopping cart abandonment

Current software
Security
Third party verification seals
Requests for information
Clear, friendly navigation
Images of products, linking to information.
Live help
Friendly error handling
Distractions
Added costs
Keep it simple
Currency conversion

Cart Abandonment Statistics

2008-05-28T10:42:00.003+01:00

Statistics from MarketLive show that shopping cart abandonment rates have jumped considerably in the past year, as have site bounce rates.

Additionally, bounce rates are also increasing considerably.

The reasons for the increases likely boils down to economic reasons; people are just even more jumpier now about spending cash and the smallest “gotcha” can throw them off. The increase in popularity of comparison shopping also plays a role.

If you leave adding extra charges onto a purchase until the very last page or inflating shipping charges in order to try and get by the consumer and make a few extra bucks, it’s probably a really bad idea - sticker shock sends people packing quick smart and makes them feel decieved.

Lingerie lingers longer

2008-05-28T10:33:00.001+01:00

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index reveals that poor weather conditions appear to boost online clothing sales whilst driving people away from the high street.

Online Customer Satisfaction Improves Despite Economy

2008-05-21T17:06:00.002+01:00

A retailer's ability to keep consumer's happy is what gives it the edge in today's volatile economy. The "Spring 2008 Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index," an annual report, finds an overall improvement among the top retailers.
Four major components drive satisfaction: price, merchandise, availability of products, and brand. Price is thought by some to be a factor, in a down economy.
Netflix continues to be rated as the top online retailer based on customer satisfaction. The online film rental service recently addressed recent delivery issues before most customers were even aware of the problem, which gained the company good favor.
Investment in customer satisfaction goes a long way, especially in a tough economy, said Freed. "Satisfaction matters and it's what's going to drive financial success. A dissatisfied consumer becomes a liability. Not only are they not going to purchase from you again, they may go out there and say bad things about you. Focusing on satisfying a customer is going to pay off for retailers."

Consumers value independence of natural search results most of all

2008-05-20T16:29:00.004+01:00

2008 Search Attitudes Report reveals online search and purchasing preferences.

over half (51 per cent) of British consumers are now aware of the difference between natural and paid-for search results, an increase of eight per cent since 2007, and 91 per cent prefer using natural search results when looking to buy a product or service.
Unlike 2007, the 2008 Search Attitudes Report revealed no signs of a gender divide when it comes to the preference of natural search results over paid search.
The 2008 Search Attitudes Report indicates that sponsored links continue to suffer greatly from consumer scepticism with more than one in three consumers (31 per cent) saying that they choose natural over paid results because they trust their search engine of choice to give them the most relevant results and almost one in five (18 per cent) identifying extra information that accompanies natural search results (i.e. the text explaining the result) as a factor in choosing natural over paid search results. The importance of these factors was uniform across all generations, demonstrating a consensus of opinion brought by an increased understanding of paid and natural search.
Despite the rise of social media, review sites, affiliate and price comparison sites, search engines remain the consumer’s favourite starting point to make a purchase online. However, in an increasingly competitive online shopping environment, it is more important than ever that brands make sure that their websites are up to scratch as consumers are easily put off making a purchase online.
Women favour search engines more when it comes to retail purchases with 54 per cent of women preferring to begin with a search engine in comparison with 46 per cent of men. However, men are much more likely to use a price comparison site with 29 per cent of men preferring to begin at a site like Kelkoo as opposed to just 18 per cent of women.
35 per cent of consumers citing that being unsure about the security of a site would be most likely to put them off. In addition, one in five (20 per cent) said that a lack of clear prices was most likely to put them off, and 16 per cent identified not being able to find what they’re looking for as the biggest factor.

Which button would you click? A lesson on web site optimization.

2008-05-20T16:02:00.003+01:00

Basic step by step guide explaining web site optimization.

Website optimization means creating and testing different combinations of site content to increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction.

The most important pages to test are those that have the biggest impact on your site's success. By using Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer together, you can identify these high value pages and set up experiments that will eliminate the guesswork from their design.

Finding your high-value landing pages
What's the lesson here? Landing pages are key pages to optimize because they are your visitors' first (and often last) impression of your website. If a visitor lands on a page that doesn't provide the information she's looking for, she'll probably leave without clicking any further. For high-traffic landing pages, this can add up to a lot of lost visitors.That's why it's so important to find, and fix, high-traffic landing pages that lose a high percentage of visitors. Look at the "Top Landing Pages" report within the Content section of Google Analytics. Pages that have both a high Bounce Rate (the percentage of visits that resulted in the visitor immediately leaving the site) and large number of Entrances need to be redesigned.

Don't forget about funnel pages
Other high-value pages are those that lead visitors to your goal pages. Visitors reach a goal page once they have completed a desired action, such as a purchase, registration or download. A page that is part of a goal funnel is another great place to focus website optimization efforts.

You know which pages to test ...

Emotional Motivators in Landing Page Optimization

2008-05-20T15:50:00.003+01:00

Key article detailing key motivations of visitors and how to interpret these into your site.

All of the specific strategies and tactics that you'll apply to landing page optimization are aimed at influencing basic human emotions and moving your visitors off their comfortable spot.
The best way to get visitors to act is to appeal to their fundamental emotional motivations.

Anxiety vs. Trust - Anything you can do to minimize anxiety will help conversion. This includes clear privacy policies, detailed shipping directions, unconditional return policies, client testimonials, certifications, and trust symbols which show that you conduct business with integrity.
Confusion vs. Clarity - By emphasizing too many items on a Web page, we destroy visitors' ability to find key information and paralyze them from making a decision. Most sites and landing pages have poor information architecture and interaction design. Fixing major usability, coherence, and cognitive problems can have a major impact on conversion rates.
Alienation vs. Affinity - A sense of belonging and being understood is a powerful motivator for people. The editorial tone of the landing page needs to conform to the visitor's values and beliefs. Any images of people should also help them to self-identify. Graphic color schemes should match the appropriate palette for their sensibilities. Button text and calls-to-action should also use the language of the target community. Bysegmenting your visitors and personalizing information for them, you're much more likely to appeal to their sensibilities and move them to action.

Tips for Email Marketing

2008-05-20T15:44:00.002+01:00

Tips to create a succesfull email campaign;

To make the campaign successful it needs to engage readers and build trust
They should be relevant to the interests of the subscribers and strike the right balance between content and image
Letting the design and message 'flow' from the original message a business wanted its campaign to communicate.
It is important the reader is engaged straight away by using a well-crafted and intriguing subject line in the subscription email
Important to make the correspondence personal

Retail E-Commerce and the Economy (US)

2008-05-20T15:31:00.004+01:00

An interesting report produced on online shopping trends.

The US Department of Commerce released retail e-commerce sales data last Thursday. Online sales grew by only 13.4% during Q1 2008 over Q1 2007.

E-commerce sales growth is still higher than overall retail sales growth, which has been 6% at most over the past five to six years. In contrast, retail e-commerce sales growth has been about 25% or more during the same time.

Marketing to Third-Party E-mail Lists, Part 2

2008-05-20T15:16:00.003+01:00

Basic strategies to maximize your chances for success using third-party lists in the e-mail marketing world.
Five tried-and-true rules for getting started with third-party lists.

Hedge your bets by choosing three lists.
What you send is as important as whom you sent to. Using creative that's a proven performer with your house list will increase your likelihood of success with third-party lists.
Even if you find that all three lists work, you aren't done testing. It's an ongoing process.
When you're testing lists, project accordingly.
Leverage proven creative, if you have it.

The Future Of SEO

2008-05-20T15:10:00.002+01:00

A glimpse into the thoughts of SEO in the future;

More effort will be placed on feeds to search engines. Not just XML feeds into paid inclusion and shopping comparison, but also feeds with other types of information, such as local, financial, news, and other verticals. Mobile will become much more popular, search will gradually become more of a personalized experience.

Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.

Online, monitoring the customer voice will become more important than pushing a brand message. Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.

Marketing into networks will see huge growth, and social search will grow with it.

When Should You Start Making More Money? (Not Ready)

2008-05-20T10:14:00.000+01:00

The importance of testing every time you design a new landing page, add a new product to your website, add keywords to your campaign, rewrite a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, craft an email campaign, or redesign your website, you are making assumptions about how your visitors will react.

On Sale Now, But Time's a' Wastin

2008-04-16T10:57:00.001+01:00

Key Tip

In short, a regular price might make your product look expensive; a sales price might make it look cheap. But including both with a time-limited offer makes it look downright precious.

2008-04-16T10:56:00.001+01:00

Targeting With Culture in Mind

2008-04-16T10:43:00.003+01:00

Behavioral targeting has evolved from tracking consumers' online action to evaluating their mindsets and personality traits. As technology continues to help marketers understand the consumer, the next advancement in behavioral targeting methodology should incorporate culture into the targeting mix.

Here's why culture should be the next big focus in behavioral targeting.

Culture Affects Behaviors
Get the Timing Right
Culture Matters

Ecommerce Study: Free Shipping Is Out, Social Networking Is In

2008-04-16T10:37:00.001+01:00

The report states that while free shipping offers have been effective in the past, retailers are less interested in promoting free shipping options this year. Instead, retailers are eager to experiment with "social computing" initiatives to attract customers: 65 percent and 55 percent of retailers, respectively, said that social network advertisements and widgets would be categories of increased focus this year.

eCommerce Still Growing in a Slowing Economy

2008-04-16T10:30:00.002+01:00

With shoppers trying to save money as much as possible, shopping online makes economical sense. With the ability to shop with coupons and coupon codes to save on everything from the most popular shoes to groceries, shoppers are learning how to stretch their dollars. MyCoupons.com offers coupons and coupon codes for thousands of online merchants as well as grocery coupons to use in your local grocery store.
The State of Retailing Online 2008 Marketing Report shows five shopping categories drove almost half of retail sales in 2007 and a similar pattern will continue in 2008. Among those categories are computer hardware, software, consumer electronics, apparel, accessories, and footwear.

Internet merchants turn to analytics to help boost conversion rates

2008-04-16T10:24:00.001+01:00

Online merchants are reporting lower conversion rates as online shopping matures and a recession looms, according to E-Tailing Group ‘s 7th Annual Merchant Survey of more than 200 merchants in the first quarter of 2008. To combat the trend, more are using analytics to better market themselves to potential customers.

Landing Pages

2008-04-16T10:13:00.001+01:00

Unlike landing pages of the past where the page was rarely valuable to the visitor, these pages need to provide the visitor with a reason as to why they are there while at the same time reassuring them that not only is the page is legit but that the whole website is reputable.
Make sure that on these pages you have:

State clearly what the page is about or offering.
Links to privacy and security policies
If the purpose of the site is to make sales, assure the visitor that payment is secure.
Links to the about us/contact us pages. The visitor will be able to either contact you directly with any questions or will get a better feel for your company.

Possibly the most powerful use of a landing page is for competitions or other special offers. This is a single page, often not even linked into the rest of the website that serves a single purpose – to capture info or make an instant sale. This page is usually linked to from a specific source such as an email or a preferred partner. These are usually run in the form of competitions or special offers. The reasoning behind this is that you already have an interested party and you will be making them a unique offer where they will either say yes (and sign up or buy), or no and simply not visit the page.

Online Video Ads: Ready to Roll!

2008-04-16T10:01:00.002+01:00

Research into online video advertising, what it is, who uses it and the formats it comes in.

Forrester Unveils Metrics That Go Beyond Sell Point

2008-04-16T09:37:00.003+01:00

A NEW SET OF METRICS has been designed that goes beyond the sell point to measure the way in which consumers engage with products and services.

"Involvement"
"Interaction"
"Intimacy"
"Influence"

Seven Step Interactive Marketing Analytical Framework, Part 1

2008-04-16T09:29:00.004+01:00

At the heart of almost any interactive marketing program are the following seven steps. This is a good structure for planning an online campaign as well as for providing an in-depth creative brief.

Define Business Goals
Identify Target Markets
Create an Offer
Choose a Medium
Develop Creative
Test
Define Success Metrics

Opt-Out 101: Why They Unsubscribe

2008-04-16T09:25:00.002+01:00

"It's easy to feel defeated about losing subscribers who opt out," says AWeber's Tom Kulzer. But don't get discouraged. Instead, use Kulzer's list of why customers unsubscribe to make improvements:
1. You send too many—or too few—messages.
2. Your content isn't compelling.
3. Your relationship has changed.
4. They have reasons unrelated to you.
5. They change their email address.

Online Retail Sales to Reach $204 Billion This Year

2008-04-15T17:36:00.002+01:00

According to a US survey “The State of Retailing Online 2008” conducted by Forrester Research for Shop.org, online retail will continue to be a bright spot in the industry with retail sales rising 17 percent this year to $204 billion. Clothing ($26.6 billion), computers ($23.9 billion), and autos ($19.3 billion) will be the largest three sales categories.

Marketing Sherpa: 75% of users don't see adds below the fold

2008-04-15T17:30:00.002+01:00

It appears that most online ads are not being viewed by the consumers they are targeted to. According to a recent report from Marketing Sherpa, only about 25% of consumers see online ads "below the fold". This is true whether a site has high traffic numbers or not.

Web Sweep Results

2008-04-15T17:08:00.002+01:00

In the first two weeks of December the Office of Fair Trading OFT, in partnership with the Local Authority Trading Standards Services, carried out a “web sweep” of around 600 of the UK’s top retail websites to ensure they comply with key e-tailing laws.

identified room for improvement in some areas, including the provision of adequate contact details, and transparency in cancellation and refund rights:
14 percent of sites appeared not to comply with regulations by providing no physical address or providing only a PO Box number
15 percent of sites appeared not to comply with the requirement to give shoppers information on their right to cancel within seven working days
31 percent of the sites appeared not to comply with the requirement to refund the full cost of the goods; of these, 56 percent excluded the cost of original delivery from refunds, and
40 percent of sites did not indicate that compulsory additional charges would be added when the price was first shown, but subsequently included such charges at checkout.

Retiring the 3 Column Layout

2008-04-15T17:03:00.002+01:00

Interesting article debating the traditional 3 column layout of websites, how this can be improved or what design could be implemented instead.

Landing Pages, Flypaper or Trampoline

2008-04-15T16:44:00.004+01:00

Tips and ideas to create customer focused landing pages.

1. Think of as many questions as you can that might be on the mind of a visitor to that specific landing page.
2. Choose one of the questions to be the title of that specific landing page. Use the other questions as sub points or topics in the outline of the page.
3. The content underneath each heading will be a description of the problem. It is very important that when you describe the problem you do it from your client’s perspective.
4. After describing two or three scenarios that your client may fall into closeout with the paragraph that describes your qualifications for dealing with the above scenarios. This is where you put in how me years of experience, the combined experience of your team or your experience in the marketplace.
5. The last thing is to have a call to action. The idea is that if your client falls into one of the scenarios described it would be natural for them to do the call for action to get help with their problem.

50 Waya Your Website Is Discouraging Conversions - and How To Fix It

2008-04-15T16:32:00.003+01:00

Amazing article highlighting 50 key areas to improve website performance, covering the whole picture.

Usability
Design
Copy
Trust
Landing Pages
Product Pages
Shopping Cart

A MUST READ

Seal the Deal Part 2; 5 Tips for Designing the Ultimate Landing Page

2008-04-15T16:21:00.004+01:00

Essential design tips to review and keep handy regarding the design of landing pages.

Scrutinize your competition’s design and organization flow of their landing pages
Put your most critical landing page elements in the upper 300 pixels of the page
Think simple
Be obvious and use standard usage conventions
Make sure your page loads quickly
Format your page according to the F-Pattern Eye-Tracking Principle
Use the same color palette/visual elements from your ads on your landing page
No clipart! Choose a single dominant photo image to be your hero shot
Put your message, copy or image, close to the middle of your page
Make it easy to complete your input form

Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies

2008-04-15T16:17:00.002+01:00

Tutorials and links regarding the whole topic of landing pages, from the basics to the more complex issues.

Online shopping.......it's in the bag

2008-04-15T14:39:00.005+01:00

An article from an Irish newspaper looking at the growing trend of online shopping, especially in the Apparel and Accessories sector.

More and more Irish women are turning to chilled-out cyberspace rather than stressful shopping centres when stocking up on style. And despite the fact that cynics claimed it would never take off, online clothes shopping has become the cornerstone of the eCommerce revolution, according to the latest figures.
A recent survey revealed that almost half of all consumers here don't bother to leave the sofa while shopping. And when it comes to web-based bargain hunting, it's fashion-conscious women who are fuelling the phenomenon. Fashion has joined concert tickets and CDs on the list of most popular e-purchases, with web sales of clothes soaring by 40 per cent in the past two years.
Meanwhile, fashion website my-wardrobe.com reported a staggering 143 per cent surge in sales in its second year of trading. And it was only a matter of time before the fashion industry made designs on the dotcom explosion, according to Stylebible.ie editor Elizabeth Greehy. "The fashion world is simply following in the footsteps of every other major commodity in this country by rapidly selling online," says Greehy, who runs the site for fashion followers.

Rich Baby Boomers Are Buying Online

2008-04-15T14:22:00.004+01:00

US reserch on the increasing shopping trends of baby boomers.

Stop Paying for Bad Keywords in 3 Steps

2008-04-15T14:05:00.005+01:00

Advice and guidance analysing keywords.

With the right process and frame of mind, it is possible to use web analytics to get insight into “why” your traffic isn’t converting — especially if you do pay per click advertising.
Here are some ideas for attracting more targeted traffic in order to get higher conversion rates and a much better return on pay-per-click (PPC) spend.

Email Secrets of a Top Converting Site

2008-04-15T13:59:00.003+01:00

Compelling article by Bryan Eisenberg regarding the secrets behinde successful email marketing using a case study of ProFlowers.
A MUST read.....

Increase Conversion with Optimized Landing Pages

2008-04-15T13:38:00.003+01:00

A fanatsic article covering areas such as;

What is a landing page
What should a landing page do
What makes a landing page successful

Lets Play Google Roulette

2008-04-15T13:28:00.003+01:00

IMPORTANT information regarding Keywords from Google.
Using other peoples’ trademarks in your pay per click (PPC) campaigns and as keywords has always been regarded as blatant cheating and frowned upon, and while – in my opinion - there should be nothing illegal about doing it, it has always occupied a grey area.
From the 4th of April Google has made a policy revision that applies to complaints it receives regarding trademarks in the UK and Ireland. From the 4th Google will “no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. However, we will continue to perform a limited courtesy investigation of complaints regarding ad text purported to be in violation of a trademark.”
And from the 5th May 2008, keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland.
Google’s reason for the change is “We want advertisers to use keywords that are most relevant to their business and our user's interests. Google's goal is to provide our users with the most relevant information, whether it is from our search results or advertisements. A key to achieving this goal with our ads is providing relevant choices and giving users the opportunity to determine which ads they find most relevant.”

The UKs Most Searched For Brands

2008-04-15T13:21:00.003+01:00

Hitwise has released the list of the top ten most searched for brands in 2007 and revealed the most popular websites from more than 50 industries in the UK.
The top ten Most Searched-For Brands 2007 (ranked by search term) are;
1 ebay
2 Bebo
3 YouTube
4 Facebook
5 Myspace
6 Argos
7 Amazon
8 You tube
9 BBC
10 Tesco
Also a breakdown by industry sector of the top sites.

More Users Shopping Online

2008-04-15T13:17:00.002+01:00

Global Nielsen’s consumer report on trends in online shopping shows consumers across the globe are increasingly swapping stores for clicks.
Books are still the most popular purchases online, followed by Clothing/Accessories/Shoes, Videos / DVDs / Games, Airline Tickets and Electronic Equipment. Other significant growth categories were cosmetics/nutrition supplies and groceries, which jumped nine and eight percentage points respectively.

Internal Site Search Analysis and Visitor Intent

2008-04-01T16:37:00.002+01:00

Avinash Kaushik explains how you can gain important insights into visitor intent by analyzing how your visitors use your internal site search capability.

You may also be interested in this related article.

Top Reports for Site Search Part 1

2008-04-01T09:58:00.003+01:00

A brief overivew of 3 of the most imporatnt reports to consider when looking at site search;

Search Usage
Searches per Search Visit
Top Search Terms

What to measure

2008-03-14T15:49:00.001Z

A look at the key web analytics that you need to measure.

Quality Landing Pages

2008-03-14T15:43:00.002Z

The importance of design in landing pages - what makes a ggod landing page.

YouTube overtakes Wikipedia as top social media site in the UK

2008-03-14T15:31:00.005Z

Statistics from Nielsen regarding social media sites.

4 Qs your web analytics cant answer

2008-03-14T15:23:00.002Z

Exploring the value of qualitative data.

Improve Email Performance

2008-03-14T15:12:00.002Z

The importance of testing to improve your email performance.

How to Avoid a Crash Landing

2008-03-14T14:13:00.003Z

Pointers on landing page optimization and a great refernce book to read on the subject.

Seal the Deal: 10 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page

2008-03-14T13:45:00.001Z

Article gives a clear insight of designing the real time valuable landing pages to designers. Landing page design tips that could generate the real business for your clients.

Landin Page Optimization is Search Engine Optimization

2008-03-14T13:26:00.003Z

Fantastic article dealing with the imporatnce of landing page optimization. A MUST read.....

How does load time affect my landing page quality?

2008-03-14T13:15:00.002Z

During the next few weeks Google will begin penalizing long page load times on AdWords landing pages as load time is incorporated in Google’s Quality Score. Read the full article from Google's Adwords help centre.

Trends In Online Shopping

2008-03-13T14:19:00.001Z

Nielsen consumer report on the online trends of internet shopping.

Personalisation is still the nest big thing

2008-03-07T10:02:00.004Z

The Internet is having a dramatic impact on how individuals shop. "Nowadays, fewer and fewer consumers feel compelled to stay with a particular brand," said Patti Freeman Evans, lead analyst at JupiterResearch. That's because they are now able to find what they desire at a plethora of stores.

Consequently, companies are trying to tighten the bond to their customers via personalized services. Three personalization techniques have become common: customizing what users see on their screens, offering unique amenities for items that they have purchased, and charging them based on who they are rather than what they are buying.

The most common method of personalization has been the trend to place targeted advertisements in front of consumers whenever they meander through a retailer's Web site. "Since retailers can build a purchasing history of each customer, they are able to gauge who the person may be and provide them with items that interest them."

As it was in 2002!

Seven Tips For An Effective Landing Page

2008-03-04T11:57:00.004Z

Tips to create effective landing pages - a MUST read!!!

Landing Page Letdown and Conversion Impact

2008-03-04T11:53:00.004Z

Compelling write up regarding the importance of landing pages and the effects that can be had on the conversion rates.

"...the e-tailer has a very small window of opportunity. If the first impression is anything other than relevant, the visitor will move on. To make the most of that first impression, it’s all about creating a personalized landing page and web experience that fulfills a visitor’s needs (throughout the click-stream process)."

2007 eCommerce Success Report: The MarketLive Performance Index

2008-02-29T12:02:00.004Z

The Market Live Performance Index has released new research;

The 2007 holiday season is over, the results are in – and the news is good for eCommerce. While retail sales overall showed lackluster gains of around 4 percent, merchants reported a year-over-year increase of 19 percent for online sales, according to comScore.

The MarketLive Performance Index results from the fourth quarter of 2007 reflect similarly strong gains. Performance Index merchants saw the overall Conversion Rate jump 18 percent versus the prior quarter to 4.80%. The Engagement Rate (visit-to-cart ratio) also nudged upwards as shoppers browsed, shared and researched gift possibilities; it climbed to 9.87%, a 4 percent increase from the third quarter. Surprisingly, performance also improved for cart abandonment, which typically increases as shoppers consider gift purchases and then discard them; abandonment dropped by 6 percent to 55.64%.

What influences purchasing decisions?

2008-02-27T17:10:00.004Z

The number of respondents in 2007 (26%) said that they turned first to the Internet for purchasing decisions is dramatically up from the 15% who said so in 2004.

Customer Service for e-tailers

2008-02-27T17:06:00.001Z

Top 10 Tips for Exceptional Online Service on a Budget (Source: E-commerce Guide)

Tip #1: Provide a toll-free/800 number on your home page, merchandise pages, contact page, and checkout pages.
Tip #2: Make sure you have people who are familiar with your products answering the phone(s) — and that they answer calls in a timely fashion. As anyone who has ever been put on hold can attest to, five minutes can seem like an eternity.
Tip #3: Make your contact information easy to find and provide an e-mail address for customers who prefer to ask questions via e-mail. As with phone calls, make sure e-mails are answered promptly, if possible within 24 hours of receipt if received during normal business hours.
Tip #4: Include a return policy, privacy policy and a guarantee (regarding quality, security and/or shipping) on your site.
Tip #5: Provide a detailed, easy-to-find list of frequently asked questions (FAQs). Having excellent, comprehensive FAQs that really address customer issues is a great time and money saver, said Freedman, as the better the FAQs the less questions customers will have to call or e-mail you about.
Tip #6: Make checkout easy, and include a variety of payment options, such as PayPal and Google Checkout, in addition to traditional credit cards. Per the e-tailing group study, on the sites with the best customer service, customers clicked no more than six times from selection of product through checkout.
Tip #7: Provide online order confirmation and send an e-mail confirmation with the order number and contact information.
Tip #8: Let customers know when their order has been shipped. Order tracking has become very popular and allows customers to see the progress of their order.
Tip #9: Make sure orders are delivered on time. While this is given as the ninth tip, a late or undelivered order is often the top reason for a customer telephone call or e-mail — and why they may not do business with you again, particularly if the order was needed by a certain date or the customer paid extra for overnight or two-day shipping.
Tip #10: Provide a personal touch or a little something extra. Although this is the last tip, in many ways it is what customers remember most, as evidenced by anecdotes from online shoppers like Heather Lee, who runs a design and communications business called design/type.

The UK Internet Boom

2008-02-27T11:03:00.004Z

The UK will account for at least 40% of 2008 online sales in Western Europe
The average spend per buyer has been rising steadily, and eMarketer estimates the number will approach a healthy £2,000 ($3,800) in 2008.
Lists the Top 10 B2C Ecommerce sites in the UK.

Data Driven Marketing

2008-02-27T10:52:00.002Z

There are four key components for successful data-driven marketing, some of which are obvious, and some perhaps less so.

The four components are:

Philosophy
Processes
Data
Technology

Add to basket - Amazon style

2008-02-27T08:34:00.004Z

Fascinating review of the evolution of Amazon's "add to shopping cart" button by Bryan Eisenberg. Bottom line?

"Changing your call to action buttons doesn't guarantee the highest return on investment from website, but it is an easy and popular test. Amazon has spent many years testing this area, but they've tested countless other variables as well . They've tested the size and viewing functionality of product images, putting images on the left vs. the right side, the location of product reviews — you name it, they've tested it. Still, they continue to optimize this area (formerly known as "Ready to Buy"), making adjustments based on business cycle and market circumstance."

Go look at your action buttons!

10% Conversion Ratios

2008-02-27T08:24:00.004Z

Two interesting pieces on high-converting sites.

Commerce360 suggests: "The message it seems is that if you need to deliver an overall conversion rate of 10% or greater, you need 30M registered users who buy from you 3-5 times per year, a 24-hour television channel, a pattern of inflicting back pain on innocent mailmen 3-4 times each year, or to sell products which are purchased as a result of some ages-old game of emotional blackmail."

Bryan Eisenberg offers further analysis about what the best performers do: "What most of them have in common is they work harder consistently, year after year, at continuously improving their websites for customers than you (the average) do. Their results demonstrate it."

Retailers not hitting the mark

2008-02-25T17:15:00.003Z

Research reveals some of the biggest retailers are still failing to comply to best practice email marketing guidelines.
The retail industry has not adequately addressed the challenge of delivering personalised, relevant communications that will influence customers' buying behaviour with only eight retailers scoring over 80%.

January Sales Fever Seen Online

2008-02-25T17:11:00.002Z

Sales were dominated by electrical goods and clothes, which each saw a year-on-year rise of about a third.
The equivalent of £74 for every person in the UK was spent online in January, the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index found.

Is TV Time Caught in the Web

2008-02-25T17:07:00.002Z

Exploring various research about the growth in the amount of time now spent on the web.

PPC Search: Create, Influence, Capture and Harvest Demand

2008-02-25T16:56:00.003Z

For PPC search and contextual media, marketers must develop proxy metrics for the brand lift, purchase intent lift, and overall brand favorability that occur, not so much from the PPC search impression, but from the user clicking through and interacting with the site.
The consumer audience we can target in PPC search and particularly in contextual and behavioral media can be selected based on many of a media buyer's tried-and-true targeting options: age, gender, geography, daypart, and so on.

Error Page: Best Practices

2008-02-25T16:51:00.003Z

Examining the best practices for a number of different errors;

User-Generated Errors
Logic/Coding Errors
Server Erroros
No Content Error