Online retailers end the holiday shopping season with a smile
Online retailers are generally pleased with their holiday shopping results, reports a survey of retailers by trade group Shop.org and shopping comparison site BizRate.com Inc. The survey reports that 59% of online retailers reported revenue growth of 25% or more vs. the year earlier and 30% reported growth of 50% or more.
Spam concerns did not prevent retailers from using e-mail effectively to drive sales, the survey says. 86% of retailers said their own e-mail promotions were one of their most successful marketing vehicles. 38% of merchants said their e-mail open rates had increased significantly or somewhat from last year. 48% said their open rates were unchanged from the year before.
When given a list of 22 marketing vehicles to choose as the most successful in driving revenue, retailers picked their own e-mail, search engine marketing (58%) and affiliate marketing (50%) as tops. Retailers were allowed to choose more than one vehicle. Fourth on the list was catalogs, at 37%, fifth was shopping portals, at 17%.
In marketing promotions, retailers ranked free shipping with conditions as the most effective, followed by online-only sales, free shipping with no conditions and online-offline sales.
A consumer portion of the survey reported that 89% of online shoppers were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the online shopping experience, up from 84% a year ago.
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