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eCommerce Growth Reported Amid Ailing Economy

Rick Noel — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:43:26 +0000

According to a recent SpendingPulse May Retail Report release last week by MasterCard Advisors, eCommerce sales in May 2010 showed continued growth, far surpassing the growth rate in brick and mortar sales. May was the 8th consecutive month of double digit year-over-year growth for eCommerce sales, with May 2010 sales increasing 13.7% over May 2009. Acoording to the SpendingPulse report, the best performing eCommerce sub-categories were Children’s Apparel and Family Apparel, growing 30.4% and 26.2% year over year, respectively.

Additional commentary from Michael McNamara, Vice President, Research and Analysis MasterCard Advisors, SpendingPluse

In comparison, U.S. retail sales overall are expected to have also experienced consistent growth with eight consecutive months of gains through May 2010, attributed, in part, to consumers taking some comfort in a gradually improving US job market. US retail sales overall are estimated to have climbed 0.2 percent May following a 0.4 percent rise in April 2010, according to median estimates of economists polled by Reuters. The retails sales growth overall lag the nearly 14% growth rate enjoyed by the eCommerce sector for the same period.

eCommerce Growth Reported Amid Ailing Economy is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |

Local Product Search 2010 Opportunity for Capital District Retailers

Rick Noel — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:36:15 +0000

Like two out of three Americans, eBiz ROI procurement relies on the Internet as the primary souce of local product information. Recently we found a local product search opportunity for a large, national office supply retailer. This short story starts out with the need for two large whiteboards for the eBiz ROI main office. Having a savvy procurement department and needing to procure these whiteboards fast, the procurement team went to their favorite local search engines and selecting everything from web to product to local search, but were unable to find a local (Capital District, NY- Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy) supplier of whiteboards using Internet search. The eBiz ROI procurement yellow pages were not available to aid in the local product search as they had all been used to prop up computer monitors to proper viewing height

Local search was perfect for the task of finding affordable whiteboards since finding a local supplier meant avoiding the prohibitive cost of shipping two large whiteboards. In fact, the shipping costs in almost all quotes received were more expensive than the purchase price of the whiteboards themselve. The only relief from the shipping cost is to buy wholesale and pick up your shipment off the back of a truck. Since eBiz ROI only needed two whiteboards for the office, wholesale purchasing was not an option.

To provide the reader some persepctive, the eBiz ROI procurement team is comprised of determined web surfers from back in the days when Archie, Gopher and FTP where the hottest things since Commadore Commuters, Atari and 1400 baud dial-up bulletin boards. They searched way beyond local product search engines including searching the three biggest search engines and then proceeding to navigate directly to the websites of several national retailers who with comprehensive websites and robust ecommerce functionality and a local brick and motar presence. Surely these large national office supply retailers, with stores serving local markets in the 100 of thousands of consumers would have large whiteboards in stock locally. For heavens sake, eBiz ROI operates in the Capital District of New York State with faily substantial population centers in – Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy not to mention New York State government offices.

Long story short, local product search yielded no options for the methods employed. The eBiz ROI whiteboards were purchased at a brick and mortar store of one of the national office supply retailers who has several stores in the Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy sales district. The whiteboards were found only during a visit to one of the physical stores. Whiteboards that were not found usling local product search. The opportunity stems for the fact that this company has a great website and tons of qualified traffic, but there is no doubt that they would move more whiteboards in their stores nationwide if they could somehow integrate that large ticket item with their website and local product search strategy.

Granted, no one, including eBiz ROI, expects there to be a run on large whiteboards in the Capital District anytime soon, but with a fresh crop of entreprenuers popping up everyday, who knows? If you are going to invest in shelf space to inventory large whiteboards which are a medium to large ticket item among your available inventory, whny not efficiently market to your thousands of loyal Internet customers searching for your products online. Sounds like there is a local product search pony in there somewhere.

Local Product Search 2010 Opportunity for Capital District Retailers is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |

Consumer Confidence High in US Low in UK

Rick Noel — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:02:20 +0000

Did anyone notice that there were two news stories on consumer confidence today? One headline read “US consumer confidence hits 16-month high.” This headline was driven by a ABC News consumer confidence survey based on a sample of about 1,000 interviews conducted in the four weeks ending January 3rd.

One of the measurements in the ABC News consumer confidence study is referred to as the consumer comfort index, currently at -41. While this is the highest measurement of this index in 16 months, it is still well off the 24 year average of -12. The consumer comfort index is measured on a scale of -100 to +100.

Another headline today read “Consumer confidence suffered its sharpest fall in over a year in December” coming out of Reuters London. It appears that some recently announced changes in VAT and other taxes possibly has UK consumers a bit worried or their economic future.

A few weeks back, on December 29th, the Wall Street Journal headline read “The Conference Board, a private research group, said its index of consumer confidence increased to 52.9 this month, from a revised 50.6 in November.” This seems like “directionally” good news for US consumer confidence and hence, anticipated consumer spending in 2010.

While consumer confidence and other economic indicators show signs of consumer optimism, consumers are shopping smarter ensuring that most value for every dollar spent. Since roughly two thirds of the economy is driving by consumer spending, businesses are paying close attention to these key economic indicators such as consumer confidence as they finalize their marketing plans for Q1 2010.

Consumer Confidence High in US Low in UK is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |

Cyber Monday Reports Optimism Online

Rick Noel — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:00:20 +0000

Recent reports for 2009 online holiday shopping, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2009 results, show consumer enthusiasm for the online buying experience.

Specific reports include:

Black Friday 2009 – Online shoppers spent $595 million, up 11% from last year – Source: CBS News
96.5 million Americans plan to shop online for the 2009 holiday shopping season, up from 85 million last year, an increase of 13.5% – Source: Shop.org
Online orders for Cyber Monday 2009 were reported by Coremetrics to be up 13.7% over Cyber Monday 2009 spending
Cyber Monday 2009 expected to bring in more than $900M in online sales – Source: CBS News
One in 10 or 10% of 2009 holiday purchases will be made online – Source CBS News
Cyber Monday 2009 – 87.1% of retailers offering deals online – Source: CBS News

With the price of gas and the stress of fighting the crowds in the parking lots and stores of malls and massive shopping centers, is it any wonder that many consumers, especially if given an incentive, would seek a more positive and rewarding shopping experience online?

For a video perspective, check out the CBS News Cyber Monday Report on YouTube.

Happy Holiday shopping to all – whether online or otherwise!

Cyber Monday Reports Optimism Online is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |

Search Share Grows in 2009, CPA Steals from CPM

Rick Noel — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:43:42 +0000

Based on the recent IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report release by the IAB earlier this week, search revenue in the first half of 2009 accounted for 47% of Internet advertising revenues, up from the 44% reported in the second quarter of 2008. Search has more than double the share of 2nd highest category, Display Advertising, which was 22% up from 21% a year earlier.

Not surprising given the level of qualified traffic that search provides over other forms of interactive advertising and positive impact of running display campaigns concurrent with search initiatives. A key quote by David Silverman, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the firm sponsored by IAB to conduct the research, “While the overall advertising market has continued to be impacted by current economic conditions, marketers are allocating more of their dollars to digital media for its accountability and because consumers are spending more of their leisure time online.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Another key finding in the report is that performance pricing models (e.g. CPA – Cost per Acquisition) are on the rise growing to 58% up from 54% share a year ago versus CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) which are on the decline from 44% down to 38% for the same period. The remaining 4% market share purchased on a hybrid model and remained flat. Given the drop in demand for all advertising due to macro economic conditions, it is not surprising that the online media buyers are able to shift the performance risk to the publishers (i.e. buying on a CPA basis) in what some have come to label as a buyers market.

Thoughts?

Search Share Grows in 2009, CPA Steals from CPM is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |

Social Media is Top of Mind for Many Web Businesses

Rick Noel — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:49:37 +0000

This post was inspired by an article published in eMarketer today entitled “Hopes and Fears of Social Media Marketing,” three-quarters of US Web retailers surveyed by the e-tailing group and PowerReviews in August–September 2009 for their “Community and Social Media Study” said they thought brands were accelerating their use of, and commitment to, social media. In fact, 86% of those surveyed had a Facebook fan page, 10% plan on getting in the next 12 months, 3% plan on getting past one year out, leaving only 1% not currently planning on getting a Facebook fan page. Even they’ll get it by next year.

Many say that Social Media is a “Communication Revolution.” I tend to agree. Ponder a few facts and references provided by socialnomics:

Years for a Media Type to Reach 50 millions Users:

Radio (38 Years),
TV (13 Years),
Internet (4 Years),
iPod (3 Years)…
Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

Source: First Stats: United Nations Cyberschoolbus Document ; Facebook Stat: Mashable; iPhone Stat: Apple.

When you think about the way that social media changes the ways that consumers interact with their peers, coworkers and business partners, it is mind blowing. Add social media enabled mobile devices to the mix, now you have ubiquitous social connectivity beyond what original laptops and cell phones could have ever imagined.

Employers using LinkedIn to evaluate recommendations from current and past employers, to verify what others say about you in a public, networked forum. This came into play for reference I provided today. Some estimate that as many as 95% of employees use LinkedIn to get to know candidates during the hiring process. Powerful stuff.

Another fact highlighting how deep social media is becoming entrenched in our lives: One out of eight couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media. Source: McKinsey Study also posted by David Dalka. I know, it is hard to believe. Still think Social Media is a fad?

The keys for companies to be able to leverage social media as part of their overall marketing strategy is to get past their web 2.0 fears about handing some of the online brand stewardship to the end customers while realizing that this is going to happen anyway. Companies that have online success leverage social media to create excitement, buzz and loyalty around their brand and those that don’t have to compensate in other ways or miss the boat altogether.

Social Media is Top of Mind for Many Web Businesses is a post from: Internet Marketing Blog | Online Marketing Blog |