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US Internet users will be doing plenty of online research about holiday gift giving this year. Shoppers already conditioned to comparison shop, check coupon sites and look for discounts will also be heading to social networks for information—and good deals. According to research conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation and Yesmail , 27% of online shoppers who plan to both research and buy holiday gifts online this year will look for ideas about what friends and family want on sites such as Facebook. And nearly one-half (45%) will use social networks to research items, compare prices and look for offers. About one-fifth of online holiday buyers are specifically looking to social networks for exclusive deals or free shipping. Deloitte found that, overall, 17% of consumers would use social media during their holiday shopping.

Holiday Web Shoppers Hit Social Networks - eMarketer

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007378
http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/04/search-til-you-drop-with-googles-new-commerce-search/ Searching retail sites can be frustrating at times. While many retailers try to present product search in a visually appealing way, search can often be slow or difficult to refine. Tonight, Google is making a huge play in retail space with the launch of Commerce Search, a hosted enterprise search product to power online retail stores and e-commerce websites. Google offers a general hosted search product that is used by organizations that want to add customized Google search functionality to their websites. Google is now entering the vertical space, by the first tailor-made enterprise product, with retail optimized space. There are four key components to thew new search offering for retailers:

Search Til You Drop: Google Launches Hosted Commerce Search For

Keys to E-Commerce Success - eMarketer

Visitors to retail e-commerce sites are most likely to be heading to online stores in order to learn, rather than to shop or buy. iPerceptions ’ “Retail/E-Commerce Industry Report Q2 2009” found that 38.6% of e-commerce visitors were at the initial information-gathering phase at the top of the purchase funnel. According to the report, visitors in the learning phase have a high level of satisfaction with the retail sites studied and more than 85% are able to complete their task. Lower down the funnel, however, sites are less likely to meet the needs of visitors. Task completion rates dropped to 76.9% among respondents who were aiming to shop, and declined further to just 61.5% among those looking to make a purchase at the retail e-commerce sites studied. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007358
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/30/increasing-online-sales-simple-usability-problems-to-avoid/

Increasing Online Sales: Simple Usability Problems To Avoid « Sm

When designing an online store, you have to consider many different types of customers: repeat customers, first-timers, people in a rush, etc. One thing that would help all of them is optimum usability. You can achieve this in a variety of ways, starting with eliminating the most common usability problems from your website.
As a number of usability studies have shown recently, the fold on a webpage doesn't have to be a barrier to users, and people are willing to scroll down to see more. However, the area above the fold is the first thing visitors to your website will see, so what should be above the fold? Here are a few suggestions, with e-commerce sites in mind... According to this insightful article from cxpartners , having watched more than 800 user testing sessions, the fold was only seen to be a barrier in three of them, which is a pretty convincing statistic. Of the three cases where the fold was seen to be a barrier, a strong horizontal lines across the page, roughly around the fold area, was the culprit. It's clear that the majority of web users are used to scrolling to see more content. http://econsultancy.com/blog/4869-what-should-be-above-the-fold-on-an-e-commerce-site

What should be above the fold on an e-commerce site? | Blog | Ec

15 Common Mistakes in E-Commerce Design « Smashing Magazine

http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/08/15-common-mistakes-in-e-commerce-design-and-how-to-avoid-them/ Selling online can open up huge new markets for many businesses. When your store can be open 24/7 and you can reach a global market without the costs of mailings and call centers, it can be a huge boon to your business. But there are plenty of things to consider when designing an ecommerce site. It’s not as simple as throwing up some shopping cart software and plopping products into a database. There are tons of mistakes that online retailers make every day, all of them avoidable with a little careful planning.
http://econsultancy.com/blog/4665-the-37-things-i-want-to-see-on-a-product-page I’ve been working on a new community-orientated startup lately, which also has an e-commerce / marketplace element to it. As such it needs some beautiful product pages . Product pages are absolutely crucial to the success of your website. They often double up as a landing page, and they must tick all of the right boxes to boost conversions (and reduce bounce rates). However, product pages on a community-powered websites need to go the extra mile. They must help convert visitors into customers, but they must also engage and drive interaction .

The 37 things I want to see on a product page | Blog | Econsulta

Showcase of Fresh and Well-Designed Online Shops | Design Showca

E-Commerce websites are often thought of as typically being unattractive or poorly designed. In this post we will feature 35 appealing designs of online shops. Those featured in this post include examples from a variety of different industries and showcase several different styles of design. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/05/showcase-of-fresh-and-well-designed-online-shops/
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007258

M-Commerce Is Still in Its Infancy - eMarketer

More than 70 million US mobile phone users will access the Internet from their device in 2009, eMarketer forecasts. And a number of recognized retail brands have launched mobile commerce programs so they can be where their customers go. Nevertheless, mobile commerce is still immature. Web-enabled mobile phone users are much more likely to employ their devices to get weather forecasts, read news, find movie times and bank online than to buy products.

Publications SEO or PPC 08/13/2009

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=111342 General Mills Heads 'Most Reputable' Rankings by Karlene Lukovitz 14 minutes ago General Mills earned the #1 spot with a Pulse score of 83 (within an index of 0-100). After just missing the top 10 in 2010 and 2011, the company saw a significant, 6-point improvement in its score this year. ... Toyota plans to hire about 250 engineers to help it continue a shift from global to localized product development. The bulk of those new employees will be based out of the maker's new R&D center in suburban Detroit, but it will also open a high-tech facility in Silicon ...
Online stores can often be confusing and hard to use which can turn potential customers away. There are some very simple things you can do to keep your users focused on your site. Here are some great examples of sites doing just that. The Mozilla Store creates a fun, creative feel to their online store with related sketches in the header and clear navigation on the left makes it easy to find products.

23 Excellent Examples of How to Design Online Stores - Inspect E

Today, while many retailers conduct business in multiple channels—brick-and-mortar stores, Websites, catalogs and call centers—few are adept at coordinating the various channels. That is their loss—literally. In the early days of online shopping, the big retail chains were slow to invest in an e-commerce channel because they thought it would cannibalize their store sales. Eventually they realized the Internet was not a threat, but an opportunity. Now retail chains account for a sizable share of total online sales.

Could Your Multichannel Marketing Do More? - eMarketer

CHART OF THE DAY: Amazon Runs Away With Retailing

See the red line? That's Amazon's North American revenue growth over the past five years. See the green line? That's retail sales (seasonally adjusted). See the blue line? That's e-commerce.

Japan’s Rakuten: Can The Biggest E-Commerce Site You Never Heard

The term “e-commerce” still lacks a universally valid definition, but even if you just bundle B2B and B2C transactions under it, it’s a multi-trillion dollar business globally. Last year, Nielsen found [PDF] 86% of the global web population made an online purchase already (North America: 92%). For the US alone, B2C sales are expected to grow from $130 billion this year to over $200 billion by 2013 (excluding travel). In North America, Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla in the B2C arena – by very, very far .