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Marketing/Ecommerce Research
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Ecommerce, web marketing and development news and research by Michael Bloch of Taming the Beast.net
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Coupon use online – Canada vs. USA
Coupon use continues to increase, but there are major differences between online coupon redemption between Canada and the USA.
According to the results of a survey performed by Epsilon, people in the US are more likely to have ever printed an online coupon (78%) compared to their counterparts in Canada (70%).
30% of Canadians who participated [...]
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The Internet’s new billion
Ka-ching! Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia will have 1.2 billion folks online by 2015 according to The Boston Consulting Group.
There are already plenty of Internet users in those countries says the report – around 610 million by the end of 2009. To double in 5 years is pretty phenomenal and online merchants should take [...]
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Fake user reviews – don’t be tempted
Many online merchants have been tempted at some stage or another to post positive reviews about themselves around the web while posing as a customer. It’s not just unethical, it’s illegal.
A public relations agency hired by video game developers has been rapped on the knuckles by the FTC, who claimed it engaged in deceptive advertising [...]
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Internet Explorer 6 – die already!
Internet Explorer 6 is now 9 years old and increasingly becoming a headache for web developers. Even Facebook has had enough of it.
Facebook announced on Wednesday that in order to make improvements to its chat feature, it will no longer support Internet Explorer 6 browsers (just for chat).
Internet Explorer 6 is holding back web developers [...]
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Google adds to domain search listings
Google has announced it will now display more than 2 listings for the same domain for some queries.
Google said last Friday that queries indicating a strong user interest in a certain domain (or what it presumes to be a certain domain) will trigger the feature. The company says it was implemented to make it more [...]
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Ready for mobile commerce?
As if online merchants didn’t have enough to do, m-commerce now appears to be a profitable sales channel. You might not be ready for mobile-commerce but a recent survey indicates it might be ready and waiting for you.
The study, performed for Sterling Commerce and Demandware, Inc., found that 15 percent of consumers have used mobile [...]
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Groupon – coupon marketing on steroids
I’ve been seeing the name “Groupon” increasingly popping up in various publications – it appears to be doing big things in the world of coupon marketing. Here’s how it works.
Groupon’s not quite 2 years old – it was launched in November of 2008. It’s really a coupon/buyer’s group hybrid approach.The service offers daily deals through [...]
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July search engine rankings
Comscore have posted their search engine market share statistics for July – but with a bit of a difference this time around.
According to various reports around the web, some of the search engines have been attempting to “game” Comscore by, for example, by generating non-traditional searches through the way photo galleries are viewed; with each [...]
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“Voyeur” malware emails
Most of us have a streak of innocent enough voyeurism – and those seeking to spread malware via email are increasingly exploiting it.
The term “voyeur” is most often associated with ..er.. adult-type activities, but it simply means “one who looks”. It’s human nature to observe what others are doing, whether it’s watching people go about [...]
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White space entices readers
Whether it’s on-page content or an email, remember to use line breaks and paragraphs appropriately. That white space can be critical in getting your message across.
I received an email from a merchant today which was around 20 lines of text; all in one paragraph. My immediate reaction was “too hard, next email”. The great big [...]
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Cross border ecommerce handbook
If you’re a U.S based online merchant looking to increase your Canadian customer base, this comprehensive free handbook is for you.
Visa have developed a 97 page handbook to provide U.S. retailers with a bunch of guidelines and tips for doing online business with folks in Canada. It seems there are quite a few differences between [...]
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Google Earth is watching
Considering installing a pool or shed without the proper council permits? Be careful, Google Earth is watching.
Google Earth is an incredibly useful and incredibly creepy tool. I’m navigationally challenged when it comes to the suburbs and love how Google Earth makes what used to be white knuckle trips into areas I’m not familiar with not [...]
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The big pay per click spenders
If staying on top of a pay per click budget of a few thousand dollars a month is daunting enough, imagine managing a $5 million a month pay per click budget.
Internet Retailer’s newly released Search Marketing Guide quotes data from Conductor Inc., who studied over 2 million keywords and paid ad positions to estimate [...]
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Beware of forum posting services
I’ve touched on this before, but it’s a practice still rife, so I thought it worth mentioning it again as it can save your company cash and harassment.
Some years back, marketing companies offering forum posting services started to spring up all over the place. The usual spiel is that their “expert” staff will post an [...]
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Kindle is carving it up
If you visited Amazon’s press release page at the moment, you could be forgiven in thinking you had hit the Kindle-specific press release page as the device is mentioned so often. Ebooks are turning into very big business for Amazon and others.
According to Amazon, the Kindle has been their best selling item two years running [...]
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Monitor resolution and browser statistics
It’s been a full year since I took much note of what screen resolution folks are running their monitors at. Here’s the latest, along with browser statistics.
The top ten monitor resolutions for June 2010, along with May 2009 results:
1024 x 768 – 24.27% (down from 33.44%)
1280 x 800 – 17.98% (down from 20.46%)
1280 x 1024 [...]
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Credit card expiry reminders
If you’re running a subscription service, do you send out credit card expiry email reminders? If not, maybe you should.
I used to work with a subscription based service and one of the thorns in our side were customers who forgot to update their credit card details after their current card had expired.
Considering the service [...]
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The power of a no.1 search ranking
A no.1 ranking on a popular keyword or phrase in search engine results not only brings a ton of traffic, but instant credibility it seems.
A Northwestern University study found participants trust Google so much, many just click on top ranked sites.
While Google doesn’t rank on credibility per se, the study found that a site’s layout [...]
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Email marketing trumps social media
A recent survey designed to determine shoppers’ retail promotion preferences found consumers prefer receiving promotions via email.
CrossView surveyed 160 shoppers in 4 states in April, of which 35% said they were shopping due exposure to a retailer’s promotion.
Among those respondents, 32% received the promotion via a mailer, 29% from in-store promotions, 27% through email marketing, [...]
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Facebook hits half a billion users
On Wednesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced 500 million people are actively using his social networking service.
It’s a remarkable achievement and works out to one in 14 people in the world using Facebook. Even more remarkable is the fact it’s only been around for the last 6 years. Facebook was launched in February 2004 and [...]
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