Hear that jingle? It’s not a holiday song. In fact, it’s more like “cha-ching” -- the sound of record Cyber Week sales achieved in 2017. Online sales totaled $19.6 billion over the five-day period between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday.…
Although many online retailers have recently shifted their focus towards newer digital marketing options such as mobile ads and social media, e-mail marketing continues to evolve and be a core component of any digital marketing strategy. Despite being around for over a decade, e-mail marketing continues to be an essential digital marketing tactic even as the industry is in a constant state of change.
So what should online retailers know about the current state of e-mail marketing? Here are 5 things…
1) E-mails sent late at night are successful for many online retailers – In a recent study done by Experian it was shown that open and click-through rates were the highest for many online retailers between the hours of 8PM and 12AM. Consumers not only converted at a higher rate during these evening hours but they also spent approximately $50 more per order.
By default, when tablets were introduced into the technology marketplace they were dubbed as “mobile” devices due to their ability to be used everywhere and the ease of obtaining internet connectivity through wireless providers, similar to mobile phones. But are tablets truly “mobile” devices anymore, especially in the eCommerce space?
Our web analytics specialist, Jacob Knettel, conducted some original research to see if tablets are still worthy of the mobile tag or if they have differentiated themselves from the smaller mobile phone devices…
—
Our research is a compilation of data from twelve PFSweb clients (six consumer goods and six retail clients) from the first quarter of 2013, although some data from previous months is also used for comparative purpouses. On average, each site received approximately 1.2 million visitors per month and a total of 15.2 million visits per month combined across all twelve sites.
—
The percentage of visits on eCommerce sites from desktop and laptop devices continues to decrease while visits from mobile phones and tablet devices continues to increase. Over time, the percentage of site visits from different devices may be more evenly spread across devices instead of being dominated by desktop and laptop devices.
Recently Google made some bold moves in the search marketing space, in particular with Google AdWords and Google Shopping, which could affect many online retailers. Let’s take a quick look at these changes and exactly how they could affect your operational methods…
1) Google AdWords launched “Enhanced Campaigns”
AdWords, or the platform which Google uses for their paid search, is getting a serious overhaul. In the past, mobile ads included both mobile and tablet devices and required a completely different campaign within Google Adwords to manage. With enhanced campaigns, there is now only one campaign for all ads and tablet devices are lumped in with desktop ads. Mobile ads are now broken out and can be bid on separately.
It’s time to look back on how the past year has impacted the eCommerce industry. Here are some of the major events which affected the eCommerce industry over the past twelve months:
Record Industry Growth
2012 was one of the most successful years in the history of eCommerce from a growth perspective. According to comScore, eCommerce grew by at least 15% year-over-year per quarter for each of the first three quarters. The holiday season (from November 1st until December 25th) grew at a similar rate with a 14% year-over-year increase.
Tablets and Technology Change Again
Tablets were all the rage in 2012, with releases such as the improved iPad 3, the launch of the Microsoft Surface tablet, and Apple’s debut of the iPad mini. Google also joined the tablet space with its Nexus tablets. Of course there was no shortage of smartphone launches, notably the vertically enhanced iPhone 5 with its taller screen.
Social Media Grows Up
Few topics were more discussed in the eCommerce world in the past year than social media. In 2012 shopping directly on social media sites wasn’t a focal point as many services instead focused on revenue opportunities to support eCommerce sites.
Cyber Monday 2012 has come and gone. So how did the biggest online shopping day of the year compare to years past? Let’s find out…
Cyber Monday 2011 was one of the most successful days in the history of the online retail industry. Sales reached $1.25 billion, a new single day online retail record, and many of the top online retailers set single-day site traffic records. The 22% increase in sales from Cyber Monday 2010 only further illustrated the unprecedented growth of the virtual holiday and the eCommerce industry as a whole.
So what can we expect from Cyber Monday 2012? Here are 5 things to know about this year’s version of the biggest online shopping day of the year…
Technology simply never ceases to change. Our gadgets continue to get smaller, faster, lighter, smarter, and better. One of the most innovative changes in recent months has been the debut of the “mini tablet”, in particular the iPad Mini, the Kindle Fire HD, the Nook HD, and the Nexus 7. At lower price points than tablets with larger screens, the speculation around the impact of these smaller tablets has been huge – they are devices which are viewed as less of a luxury item than full-sized tablets and more as a low price alternative to the traditional PC or tablet experience.
So what impact will these small tablets have on the eCommerce industry?
Here is our latest mobile commerce infographic on the state of the mobile commerce industry, featuring facts and statistics on smartphones, tablets, and international usage of these devices. One thing to note in particular is that mobile commerce is really…
Men and women have shopped differently for generations, well before the first eCommerce store launched. While it’s easy to translate the differences in retail settings, (low height shelves in women’s stores, hands-on product displays in men’s stores) for some retailers making the transition online has been more difficult when it comes to optimizing their online shopping experience for their targeted gender.
Here are some of the ways the tendencies of the different genders affect eCommerce…