E-Commerce

Not surprisingly, holiday-related content drove most Web activity in December, with seasonal sites accounting for eight of the top 10 gaining properties and nine of the top 10 gaining categories, according to comScore Media Metrix monthly analysis of consumer activity online. Following are a few things comScore noted: * Five of the top 10 gaining categories in December were retail subcategories. * Jewelry, luxury goods and accessories was the fastest growing retail subcategory with a 30 percent increase in traffic from November, and a 15 percent increase from the same time last year. * The department store category continued to show growth with a

“For businesses using the Web as a revenue-generating channel, their data are important company assets,” says Chris Kivlehan, marketing manger for INetU Managed Hosting, a Web hosting provider. Losing a customer database in a system-wide crash or other crisis can devastate your business. Orders can go unfulfilled leading to dissatisfied customers and, in turn, reduced revenue. Kivlehan recommends that you talk with your IT manager or a qualified consultant/vendor to discuss back-up procedures and the technologies (e.g., tape drives, separate network storage devices, CDs) needed to do the job properly. In the meantime, here are four steps to help you focus your efforts: 1. Write a

Customers like the convenience of ordering merchandise online and picking it up at their local stores, says Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group, a Chicago-based consultancy that provides e-commerce merchandising solutions. “As online shopping continues to become more mainstream, we believe that delivering a cohesive, multichannel shopping experience is essential,” she says. To that end, the e-tailing group offers the following checklist to multichannel retailers offering in-store pickup of items ordered on the Internet. 1. Consistently send an e-mail notification when merchandise is available for pickup; include detailed pick-up information. 2. Strive to have merchandise available for pickup within 24 to 48 hours from the order

Ease of use, not low product prices, rules customers’ online shopping satisfaction rates, according to Keynote Systems, which recently tracked the shopping experiences of about 2,000 consumers. Here’s what Keynote found: * 59 percent: consumers who cited ease of use as the most important criterion when selecting an online shopping site. * 32 percent: consumers who said low prices were what drew them to particular sites. * 6.1: average number of problems a typical consumer encountered during a single shopping experience. Keynote Systems’ executives recommended that online merchants focus on the following: site performance, the best practices of e-commerce leaders and customer feedback.

Most Internet users don’t read the majority of what they view online, says John Morkes, a usability expert and director of the Human-Computer Interaction Group at Trilogy Software. In fact, he continues, 79 percent of all Internet users just briefly skim most of the material they see on the Web. In her book, “Web Copy That Sells” (American Management Association, www.amacombooks.org, $21.95), Maria Veloso gives five tips on how you can write copy that takes advantage of your customers’ method of viewing your Web site. 1. Use bulleted lists to summarize content. 2. Highlight selected keywords or phrases by using bold or italic

With the start of the 2005, the Can Spam Act reaches its one year anniversary. As the year unfolds, it’s especially important to make sure your multichannel business is compliant. Bennie Smith, chief privacy officer at DoubleClick, offers the following tips on how to unify your e-mail campaigns and protect your customers’ privacy. - All e-mail communication to customers should be presented in a clear, consistent and standard fashion. This includes standardizing e-mail subject lines, headers and footers. Your e-mails need to clearly designate they are an advertisement or solicitation, as well as provide functional opt-out mechanisms, says Smith. - Multiple e-mail marketing databases of opt-in

If your opt-in e-mail marketing campaigns could use a kick-start, try segmenting customer groups and then sending targeted messages based on their preferences, say officials at Responsys, an e-mail service provider based in Redwood City, Calif. They recommend that if you want to effectively communicate with your e-mail customers throughout their buying lifecycles, take the following actions. 1. “Keep the initial opt-in form with required information short and ask [customers] for preferences iteratively,” notes Responsys in its white paper”Making the Most of Each Customer Contact.” Include an optional secondary page on which customers can offer additional data about themselves, including interests, hobbies and how often

We are seeing an increase in the growth and financial performance of many specialty catalogs. None of these companies are old-fashioned general catalogers, and all share the following distinct characteristic: most of the new-to-file customers are coming in via the Internet, while most of the sales are being generated by a catalog (even if the order was placed on the Web site). The economics of finding Web-generated customers searching to meet specific interests are often more favorable than those obtained by direct mail prospecting. Shoppers have become more adept at locating products using various Internet capabilities, such as search engines and product syndicators of catalog

Furniture and home accessories multichannel merchant The Bombay Company has made aggressive strides into e-mail marketing during the past two years. The results have been worth the effort, says Matt Corey, vice president of marketing and e-commerce. The Bombay Company has 650,000 opt-in names on its e-mail list and successfully integrates its campaigns with those of its retail, catalog and e-commerce channels. Donna Loyle, editor in chief of Catalog Success, asked Corey to share the secrets of his success in e-mail marketing. Catalog Success: What mechanisms did you use to go from 20,000 opt-in, or registered, e-mail names to 650,000 in only two

Aaron Montgomery Ward mailed the first catalog in 1872, and catalogers have been working to perfect the art of selling from the printed page ever since. By now, savvy catalogers understand the factors needed for effective print design, including cover imagery, page count, product density, copy, typography, color, paper, trim, etc. The Web, in contrast, is in its infancy. The graphical Internet dates back only to 1991. Leading online firms (e.g., Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Google) are no more than 10 years old. It isn’t surprising, then, that many catalogers have more experience creating strong print pages than Web pages. This article offers four suggestions