Ritz Interactive says better searches help holiday conversion rates

Online shopping malls aren’t always the most effective selling portals, Ritz Interactive tells InternetRetailer.com. An increase in holiday sales this year is partly due to a growing trend among customers to search for specific products through popular search engines rather than through online shopping malls like AOL and Yahoo, says Andre Brysha, vice president and chief marketing officer. "It used to be that the place to be was in shopping portals, but Google and other search engines are proving very effective," he says.

Brysha says customers who come to a one of Ritz’s 14 web sites as the result of using Google or another engine to find a particular product are more likely to buy than shoppers who browse through shopping portals. He adds that shoppers using search engines also appear to be more likely to conduct preliminary product research on the web before searching for and purchasing a particular item. Ritz Interactive’s sites include RitzCamera.com, RitzPix.com and BoatersWorld.com.