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The hack heard `round the Web
Description: Just when polls show consumers growing more comfortable with shopping on the Web, along comes Maxus to bend the trend. The alleged hacker of CDUniverse claims to have stolen as many as 300,000 credit card numbers from the site, the online music subsidiary of entertainment site eUniverse, Wallingford, Conn. Maxus, who says hes an 18-year-old Russian, then posted some of those numbers on the Web after eUniverse refused to pay $100,000 in ransom.
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The hidden buying motivator: Trust
Description: What makes shoppers buy online? When they`re asked, they say convenience, price, ease-of-use and efficiency. Not very often do they say trust.
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The holiday online spending scorecard
Description: The holiday online spending scorecard There were a number of record days and weeks in this years online holiday season. And shopping is staying strong almost all the way until
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The household (design) help that does windows
Description: The household (design) help that does windows Consumers shopping for window blinds cant yet order them online from brands Graber and Bali. But theyre getting a preview of how
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The icing on Ice.coms cake
Description: Sometimes it just pays to be nice. When Ice.com developed a new series of weblogs last year, it was only trying to provide an informational service to build relationships with its customers. We wanted to do something to increase service, and each blog talks to a different kind of customer, says Pinny Gniwisch, executive vice president of marketing.
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The importance of return-to-the-store policies
Description: The importance of return-to-the-store policies Multi-channel retailers who allow online customers to return merchandise to a store have hit on a feature that is extremely
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The importance of search to sales cant be understated, says study
Description: The importance of search to sales cant be understated, says study How important is search to online shopping? Very, says a report from Georgia Tech. A whopping 87% of Internet
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The importance of showing up early
Description: The conventional wisdom has long been that its important for marketers out for share to place high in search results. Now theres evidence that its even more important for some than for others. A study of search engine use that sliced responses from 1,649 web users by demographic factors has found that retailers aiming for certain groups are likely to miss those targets if they dont appear early in results listings.
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The importance of testing
Description: Walmart.com learned a hard lesson last month when its automated cross-selling system linked a DVD of Planet of the Apes to movies with African-American themes: Test, test, and then test some more.
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The invisible site failures that doom a transaction
Description: The invisible site failures that doom a transaction A full 80% of shopping web sites contain content errors that prevented customers from finding or buying products, says a study
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The jewelry business booms for Bidz.com
Description: The jewelry business booms for Bidz.com Online retailer and auctioneer Bidz.com Inc. is reporting sharply higher profits in the third quarter. For Q3, Bidz.com is reporting net
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The key to consumer comfort--e-retailings emerging standard practices
Description: The key to consumer comfort--e-retailings emerging standard practices Web shopping is becoming standardized with certain practices showing up on 85% or more of the sites shopped
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The key to search marketing is in the ad copy, American Meadows says
Description: The key to search marketing is in the ad copy, American Meadows says November sales at wildflower seed retailer American Meadows Inc.s AmericanMeadows.com doubled sales of
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The king of content
Description: Observers call REI.com a solution killer because it aggressively bundles product, information and community to woo outdoor enthusiasts. They do one of the best jobs of providing content, says IXLs Duif Calvin. Some of the content helps you buy and some just makes you feel good about REI.
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The lack of alternative online payment options slows e-commerce adoption
Description: The lack of alternative online payment options slows e-commerce adoption The lack of alternative online payment options to credit cards is slowing consumers adoption of
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The largest processor of card payments is going private
Description: The largest processor of card payments is going private First Data Corp. has entered into an agreement to be acquired for $29 billion by an affiliate of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &
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The last gasp from Garden.com
Description: The last gasp from Garden.com Garden.com Inc., the failed e-retailer of garden products, will pay a partial liquidating payment of 20 cents per share to shareholders of record on
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The latest in pricing: Personal value pricing
Description: The latest in pricing: Personal value pricing Price isnt the only way consumers assess the value of an online shopping transactiona dynamic that can open the door for
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The latest in video e-mails: Personalized content
Description: The latest in video e-mails: Personalized content Dynamics Direct, which provides video e-mail services to such clients as DisneyStore.com, says personalizing video e-mails can
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The latest salvo in the Blockbuster-Netflix war
Description: The latest salvo in the Blockbuster-Netflix war Blockbuster Inc. is taking direct aim at rival Netflix Inc., which allows consumers to order DVDs online and receive them in the
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The latest twist in the patents dispute: The Patent Office reverses itself
Description: Following a reexamination, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued an initial rejection of claims in a patent it had earlier granted to technology developer Pangea Intellectual Property. The patents on payment processing technology used at e-commerce sites was at the center of a series of suits that San Diego-based PanIP had filed against small retailers claiming it was due licensing fees on their supposed use of the patented processes (Internet Retailer, May 2004; Nov. 2002).
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The leading computer/consumer electronics sites in mid June
Description: The leading computer/consumer electronics sites in mid June With Fathers Day just around the corner, Nielsen/NetRatings ranked the leading computer and consumer electronics web
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The leading sites in online customer experience, according to a new survey
Description: The leading sites in online customer experience, according to a new survey Although WalMart.com scores the highest for value, it ranks low for customer experience in a Vividence
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The learn-as-you-go plan at eBay
Description: As sellers become smarter about using online auctions, they continue to refine their approaches to maximize returns. Liquidator Genco Distribution Systems recently found a correlation between the starting price of an auction and the winning bid. Genco, which sells surplus goods at eBay, used to start all bids at 30-35% of the original cost of the item. The average auction generated five or six bids and the average selling price was around $60, says Pete Rector, senior vice president.
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The lesson plan at eFollett.com: higher web sales
Description: The lesson plan at eFollett.com: higher web sales The old college try is paying off in the form of more e-commerce sales for Follett Higher Education Group, which operates
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The long crawl to wireless shopping wont speed up soon, says Jupiter
Description: The long crawl to wireless shopping wont speed up soon, says Jupiter After flirting with, then abandoning, wireless applications four years ago, the online retail industry has
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The long slow crawl to m-commerce: Can pizzas revive a comatose marketing idea?
Description: During the Olympic Games two years ago, a television ad for wireless phones featured a woman using a cell phone to buy a soda from a vending machine. While full of the gee-whiz! factor, the ads also provoked many to think: Who needs it? Why doesnt she just put change into the machine instead?
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The longest mile
Description: Foster City, Calif.
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The march of technology---and your competitors---keep upping the ante on customer service
Description: A growing selection of real-time support software and services is available, and companies pioneering new customer support technologies are attracting heaps of venture capital. FaceTime Communications recently raised $30 million from investors including Compaq and Novell.
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The market moves toward search and browse, says Forrester analyst
Description: The market moves toward search and browse, says Forrester analyst The market for site search technology is moving to search and browse, Paul Sonderegger, analyst with Forrester
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The market reacts to Amazons move into online groceries
Description: The market reacts to Amazons move into online groceries Now that Amazon.com, the worlds largest web retailer, is selling grocery items two of the biggest online grocers are
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The marriage of TV and e-commerce continues at HSN.com
Description: The marriage of TV and e-commerce continues at HSN.com Six months into a web site redesign HSN, formerly Home Shopping Network, is learning a few things about its web shoppers.
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The marts go portal
Description: Is this the year of the big boxes on the Internet? Critics sneered at the first Web efforts of discounters Kmart and Wal-Mart, pointing to their cautious-at-best sites as proof that the big-box stores just didnt get e-commerce. Well, that was then.
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The mass affluent will continue to be a major online force, Jupiter says
Description: The mass affluent will continue to be a major online force, Jupiter says The Internet may still be a specialized marketing medium, says a new report from Jupiter Media Metrix.
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The measure of search marketingthe consumers and the retailers view
Description: Search engine marketing is the hottest thing going these daysspending on search engine marketing will grow 78% between 2005 and 2010, says Jupiter Research. So its no surprise that two significant research reports have come out almost on top of each other this year. The interesting thing is that one reports how consumers use search engines and the other how marketers use them. The consumer survey was conducted by Jupiter Research for search engine marketing company iProspect.com. Among its significant findings were that consumers equate high search ranking with the top brands and that 88% of consumers will change terms or engines if they dont find what they want in three pages (vs. 78% in 2002). The marketers survey also came from Jupiter, conducted on its own behalf. Its interesting findings include the fact that click-through rates go up as marketers use more search engines and that a lot of marketers want a lot more reporting data from search engines. Following are highlights on this page from iProspects Search Engine User Behavior Study and on the preceding page from Jupiters Search Engine Selection Strategies.
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The merchandise traffic cop
Description: While throwing more products at customers, retailers use web-enabled planning to get the right products to stores at the right time
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The merger of customer satisfaction and web site performance measures
Description: The merger of customer satisfaction and web site performance measures The talk at the eTail conference last week was all about customer satisfaction. But customer satisfaction
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The missing quesadilla makers:
Description: As one of the giants of retail, Sears, Roebuck and Co. has what people want: its online offering includes more than 15,000 products in 85 categories from 497 manufacturers. But a big store faces a big challenge: making sure shoppers find what they are looking for.
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The most dynamic home page on the web
Description: The most dynamic home page on the web Whos got the fastest-changing retail home page on the web? Qvc.com is a contender. The front page of the web site of home shopping network
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The multi-channel customer buys more and may cost more to keep
Description: The multi-channel customer buys more and may cost more to keep Its no news that customers who shop multiple channels of the same retailer buy more than the customer who shops
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The never-ending battle against online fraud generates an ever-growing technology arsenal
Description: How high is credit card fraud on the Internet? The card companies say one thing and the payments processors and merchants say another. But one thing both agree on: It urgently needs to be stopped.
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The new Thanksgiving Day tradition: online shopping
Description: The new Thanksgiving Day tradition: online shopping The turkey is the animal name most often associated with Thanksgiving, but for retailers, this year it could be a mouse.
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The new Whirlpool.com links shoppers to local retailers
Description: The new Whirlpool.com links shoppers to local retailers Whirlpool Corp. is taking a new step in fixing an online dilemma faced by manufacturers: how to leverage direct contact
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The new call center agent
Description: Wired consumers and tons of product data on the web create new challenges for customer service reps
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The new challenges that broadband presents
Description: The new challenges that broadband presents How retail a web site performs is being dictated more and more by how the shopper is accessing a site. And while the spread of
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The new co-stars of TV advertising: infomercials, e-mail and the web
Description: At IdeaVillage Products Corp., infomercials are central to its strategy of introducing unusual but useful products like the Finishing Touch personal hair remover and the Handy Stitch handheld sewing machine. The TV advertising programs produce sales that amount to double the cost of the infomercials themselves, says Jordan Pine, director of marketing for IdeaVillage. For every dollar spent on advertising, we take in two dollars in sales, Pine says.
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The new e-retailing reality sacks the MVP-SportsLine deal
Description: VP.com, the online sporting goods retailer, has been yanked from SportsLine.coms starting lineup. However, the retailer says this is not a signal that its playing days are through.
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The new eCRM systems keep tabs on customers purchases, wherever they occur
Description: As recently as 12 months ago, software that recommended products based on a customers shopping habits at a web site was considered exciting. Imagine keeping track of a customers buying habits electronically and using that information to pop up product recommendations the next time the customer came to the site.
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The new frontier in search: Customized results
Description: The new frontier in search: Customized results One of the next frontiers in site search could be presenting customized search results based on what a retailer knows about the
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The new obstacles to e-mail delivery
Description: Challenges to e-mail delivery now focus on the sender and not the message. Retailers have to adopt new strategies to ensure a sparkling reputation.
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