Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Co., is a provider of technology market research, intelligence and demand generation services to online retailers and other clients. Research coverage includes business intelligence, communications, customer management, enterprise applications, financial management, global supply management, human capital management, IT infrastructure, IT security, manufacturing, product innovation and engineering, retail and banking, service management and supply chain management.

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Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, uses its industry knowledge, service-offering expertise and technology capabilities to identify new business and technology trends. The firm's research helps clients enter new markets, increase revenue in existing markets, improve operational performance and deliver their products and services more effectively and efficiently. Accenture also offers business transformation outsourcing.

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• Best Buy hires exec to build its international e-commerce platform

• Getting It Right

• Big chains must take harder look at online sales, experts say

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Altman Dedicated Direct provides direct response marketing consulting services to web retailers. The company helps online retailers meet a range of challenges, including merchandising, development strategy and planning, new product development, catalog and web merchandising planning, and brand identity programs. Altman offers consulting in the areas of strategy and assessment, merchandising and product development, promotion planning and execution, and customer relationship management.

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• Apparel & Accessories Bringing merchandise and the store to online shoppers

• Computers/Electronics

• Housewares/Home Furnishings

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B2C Partners is a research firm specializing in e-commerce application evaluation and product selection. The firm assists web retailers with business planning, vendor scorecards, delivery management and professional staffing. The firm's exclusive focus is optimizing global e-commerce and cross-channel integration, including online marketing, resource planning, strategic procurement, project delivery, merchandising/sales, fulfillment/logistics and customer care.

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Bridge Pointe works with card-not-present merchants to minimize payment card chargebacks and fraud through education and best practices. The company, formed by former executives of Visa, offers analysis and support to merchants to help them prevent chargeback disputes and improve back-office efficiencies. As part of its chargeback mitigation analysis, Bridge Pointe reviews payment page terms and conditions and makes recommendations to ensure maximum protection in the event of a dispute and to ensure compliance with all card association operating regulations. The company also will review fraud tool utilization and procedures to help merchants avoid unnecessary chargebacks, back office expenses, and card association fines and penalties.

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Clicks and Mortar Consulting helps online retailers handle the challenges of the multichannel retailing environment, including store operations; point-of-sale selection and implementation; gross margin planning and control; inventory management of units and dollars; return on inventory investment analysis and training; and international cash management. The company offers expertise in merchandise management in such areas as forecasting and merchandise classification structures.

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ComScore is a provider of global Internet information, maintaining proprietary databases that provide continuous real-time measurement of the ways in which the Internet is used and activities occurring offline. The company designs fully integrated marketing strategies with syndicated and custom applications in online audience measurement, e-commerce, advertising, search, video and mobile. ComScore ARS creative pre-testing and the comScore AdEffx suite measure digital and cross-media campaigns.

Recent Headlines

• E-commerce jumps 15.4% in Q1

• Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten invests in Pinterest

• Bing gets friendlier with Facebook

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Consumer Centric Consulting provides management consulting services for online retailers. The company's clients develop and sell consumer goods across multiple channels of distribution, including e-commerce, retail, catalog and wholesale. Areas of expertise include multichannel integration, change management, product innovation and lifecycle management, process and productivity improvement, customer relationship management, software, inventory optimization, and store and e-commerce applications.

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Conversys is a digital promotions marketing provider that helps web retailers host, display and manage their digital promotions. Conversys' proprietary software and digital toolbox--e-mail, social media, mobile and shelf talkers--help web retailers leverage their print publications into online publications through the company's advanced digital publishing application. It then distributes those assets across multiple awareness channels and segments key audiences, while refining reach.

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Deloitte Consulting provides consulting services to web retailers and other clients on topics such as online retailer operational excellence, e-commerce strategy, implementation and business process re-engineering, content management and multichannel integration. Deloitte consultants work with web retailing clients to evaluate and resolve complex issues. The firm provides regular industry insights and analysis on a variety of topics, such as surviving retail globalization.

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F. Curtis Barry and Co. provides e-commerce, catalog, retailer operations and fulfillment consulting services to web retailers. Services focus on warehouse management systems; order management systems services; warehousing and distribution; contact center services and benchmarking; forecasting and inventory management; strategic, operational and financial planning; merger and acquisition services; and freight analysis. The company also hosts benchmarking share groups and executive forums.

Recent Headlines

• Amazon takes on retail chain rivals with same-day delivery in seven cities…

• Exit Strategy

• Time & Money

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First Annapolis Consulting offers consulting and merger and acquisition advisory services to clients, including web retailers, with a specialty in the payments industry. The firm offers strategic and tactical advice to financial institutions and service providers in the retail, travel, entertainment and affinity group segments. First Annapolis partners with software and service vendors, including Salesforce.com, Sterling Commerce, Big Machines and Cast Iron.

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FitForCommerce is an e-commerce consulting company that helps web retailers and other clients define their detailed functional and technical requirements; assess their e-commerce needs and strategies; design wireframes and site navigation; benchmark against industry best practices; write an effective e-commerce request for proposal and analyze responses; evaluate e-commerce technology offerings to find the best fit; and ask and answer the right questions.

Recent Headlines

• New tools help e-retailers manage product information

• Single-channel focus drives growth

• Small e-retailers win holiday sales

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Forrester Research Inc., an independent research company, provides advice about technology’s impact on business, including web retailers, and consumers. In May 2009, Forrester forecast that the U.S. web analytics market would reach nearly $1 billion by 2014, fueled by a need for marketing organizations to be more accountable to business. The report notes that the introduction of free analytics tools is forcing a change in the value proposition among vendors, from a point solution to an underlying service embedded within broader marketing applications. The transformation will have a positive effect as customer intelligence data will be shared more widely across organizations, Forrester says.

Recent Headlines

• Alibaba.com’s shareholders vote to take the company private

• Chinese Internet company Tencent will invest $1 billion in e-commerce

• Retailers get mobile-friendly

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Gartner is an information technology research and advisory company that often studies trends that affect web retailing. Gartner media products help web retailers and others increase response rates, generate leads and strengthen their brand, while its custom newsletter programs reach decision makers with co-branded electronic newsletters that feature objective Gartner research and the retailer's messages. Gartner's monthly audio program helps clients stay up-to-date on key issues.

Recent Headlines

• Monitoring web performance from the user’s perspective

• Breaking the Mold

• A payment card breach at processor puts consumers at risk

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Glenbrook Partners, a payments consulting and research company, helps web retailers with strategy definition, product development and the application of technology to solve financial service industry problems. The firm offers an international e-commerce payment assessment that helps web retailers learn about markets in countries in North America, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and Latin America. Topics include market size and demographics, and current and emerging online payment methods.

Recent Headlines

• Fed cuts debit card fees

• Credit card rules change

• Changing their stripes

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Experian Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence company, provides Internet measurement data to web retailers and others. Hitwise measures 25 million web users worldwide, including 10 million in the U.S., allowing clients to understand Internet behavior and competitive activity. Products and services include Clickstream, custom data and analytics, demographics, lifestyle, rankings and search intelligence. Clickstream reports on where traffic comes from and goes to for a specific web site.

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J.C. Williams Group, a global retail consulting company, offers services in strategic planning, branding, multichannel merchandising, research, technology and real estate. Practice specialties include: strategy and concept development; market research; branding and marketing; multichannel and e-commerce; merchandise management and pricing; operations and productivity; human capital management; real estate and shopping centers; legal services; and urban marketing collaboration.

Recent Headlines

• Internet Retailer Survey: International E-Commerce

• Wal-Mart talks big

• Foreign Affairs

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Kurt Salmon Associates, a global consulting and project management company provides information and services on consumer products suppliers and retailers, I.T., business strategy, value chain improvement and customer-optimized retail execution. Retail and consumer product services include merchandising and planning, product development and sourcing, supply chain, store operations and I.T. Issues include productivity improvement, business growth and inventory efficiency.

Recent Headlines

• Time & Money

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LakeWest Group is a retail management consulting company, providing consulting in the areas of strategy development, infrastructure design and assessment, and multichannel operating model design. The firm conducts an annual merchandise planning, allocation and replenishment best practice study that retailers can use to evaluate merchandising best practices. The study identifies improvement opportunities for multichannel retailers through strategic technology planning, process management and collaboration. LakeWest applies a best-practices perspective to channel conflict, fulfillment, returns and customer service, giving retailers options for optimizing stores, catalog, telemarketing and Internet operations.

Recent Headlines

• Bob Antall leaves LakeWest to form his own consulting company

• Housewares/Home Furnishings

• Sporting Goods

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Le Site is a web site design and web strategy agency for online retailers and others. The agency seeks to provide clients with a strategy, supported by strong technology and unique design. The strategy phase includes planning, enforcement and surveillance. Le Site builds its technology on the foundations of open source projects. The agency makes the source code it creates available to the open-source community. Le Site combines web design with new technologies.

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McFadyen Solutions is a global professional services organization offering industry-specific software applications, strategic outsourcing and integration services. Through a hybrid onsite/offshore delivery model, it offers clients the competitive advantages of rapid deployment, world-class quality, and reduced costs. McFadyen has been working internationally and recruiting high caliber staff through offshore channels for more than seven years. Company expertise includes e-commerce, portals, web content management, eLearning, online relationship management (B2C, B2B, B2E), and enterprise resource planning integration. McFadyen’s strategic partnerships include ATG and Interwoven. ATG is a developer of online customer relationship management applications.

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McMillan Doolittle specializes in retail strategy development, and aims to generate results through processes and proprietary models that can be profitably implemented and sustained. The company evaluates and optimizes retail concepts, strategies and businesses, including feasibility studies of start-ups and new concepts; performance improvement for existing concepts; and due diligence activities for mergers and acquisitions. The company also develops retail concepts and formats.

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Molecular is an interactive agency that helps web retailers and others develop a strategy for their online sales channel. Service offerings include digital strategy, experience design, engineering and project management. Digital marketing services include content management, data and analytics, emerging interactions and mobile strategies and applications. Digital strategy applications include behavioral segmentation, and business case and roadmap development.

Recent Headlines

• Mobile commerce ready to shine

• IRCE speaker will show how he spiffed up PressureWashersDirect.com

• Apparel & Accessories

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Moving Minds, a strategic marketing and Internet consultancy, offers integrated marketing services in the areas of marketing and growth strategy; thought leadership; customer acquisition and demand generation; customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty; customer experience; and product design and commercialization. Other areas of expertise include market research and intelligence; marketing automation; social media; and search engine marketing and optimization.

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The Nielsen Co. analyzes online audiences, video, blogs, consumer-generated media, word-of-mouth, consumer behavior, advertising and other online content for web retailers. In October 2011, Nielsen joined forces with Carrier IQ, a mobile intelligence provider, to measure the performance of mobile networks and devices. The partnership is designed to apply Nielsen’s measurement science with Carrier IQ‘s technology platform to gather actionable data for online merchants.

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Phase 2 International delivers business software applications via a Software-as-a-Service model for small to medium-sized retailers. The company hosts business software from IBM and Microsoft in its data center, offering a monthly subscription plan where the client only pays for a per-employee, per-application. The subscription includes all licenses, storage, bandwidth, and technical support and training. Phase 2 also hosts BlackBerry Active Sync, ShareMeeting and Linux Server.

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Retail Forward Inc, a provider of management consulting and market research services, specializes in retailing and consumer product marketing. According to a June 2009 Retail Forward survey, retail same-store sales excluding Wal-Mart deteriorated in May 2009, but shoppers showed signs of letting up on their belt-tightening behavior. Sales-weighted same-store sales excluding Wal-Mart fell 4.2% in May 2009 for more than 30 retailers. “The aggregate sales numbers may not reflect it for a while, but shoppers are showing signs of moderating their frugality. If shoppers can sustain this positive momentum, then it should bear fruit for retail sales by the end of the year, if not the coming months,” said Frank Badillo, senior economist.

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RSR Research, a research company run by retailers for the retail industry, focuses on technology. The company covers store operations, merchandise optimization, cross-channel and multichannel issues, and private label management. RSR Research delivers benchmark reports on the state of the industry and analysis of breaking news. RSR also offers custom research for niche markets or applications. All the company's research is available to qualified retailers and their business partners.

Recent Headlines

• What the 2011 Top 500 reveals

• RedPrairie acquires Escalate Retail

• IBM weaves together e-commerce technology acquisitions

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Sedlak Management Consultants is a supply chain consulting firm, specializing in distribution consulting. Services include supply chain/distribution strategy, facility design and deployment, I.T. selection and implementation, and overall process improvements and cost reductions. Other services include strategy development, distribution network optimization, workforce optimization, operations assessment and productivity improvement, and information systems selection and implementation.

Recent Headlines

• Time & Money

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Sentier provides customized research services for e-retailers in the areas of user experience, market research, human factors and interface design. Its market research services include attribute mapping, competitive benchmarking, brand and message testing, design profiling, perceptual mapping, pricing and conjoint studies, social media research, focus groups, user profiling and personas, and ethnography. Sentier's user experience research services include human factors and usability testing, eye tracking and biometrics, accessibility testing, contextual inquiry, and tax and workflow analysis. The company also offers specialized services such as mobile device testing and international, cross-cultural and intercultural studies.

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Shop.org, the digital division of the National Retail Federation, is a forum for digital retail executives. The organization has more than 700 member companies and focuses on challenges such as Web 2.0 and its effect on online shoppers; best practices in online marketing and merchandising; analytics and how to make findings work for a business; customer-focused web site design; and multichannel integration. Shop.org sponsors an annual summit and hosts a member-only online community.

Recent Headlines

• Retailers get mobile-friendly

• Search Fanatics Hires Industry Veteran as SVP of Search

• LiquidPixels Expands Organization and Infrastructure to Support Ongoing Growth

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The Sloan Center for Internet Retailing is a university research center, located at the University of California, Riverside, and focuses on improving the effectiveness of online retailing. The center includes the UCR eLab, a virtual research lab and online panel for the study of online consumer behavior; and the eLab Global Panel, a community of Internet users who participate in Sloan Center-conducted Web surveys and experiments about consumer behavior in the digital world.

Recent Headlines

• Obama picks Internet expert for top economic posts

• Raising the Stakes

• Harder sell, softer landing

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SmartIcon Technologies, the developer of the SmartLogin one-click auto-login technology application, is a technology and consulting company that delivers brand awareness and consumer convenience. SmartLogin places a retailer's logo on the consumer's personal computer desktop, Internet browser and quick launch toolbar. When consumers click on the retailer's logo, they are automatically logged into the retailer's application with no user name or password required.

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Soasta is a cloud-testing services provider. The company’s CloudTest products and services are designed to apply cloud, or network, computing to quickly and affordably test consumer-facing web and mobile applications, helping to ensure clients’ applications will be reliable and scalable. CloudTest is designed to give clients the flexibility to launch internal and external tests on a single platform that integrates internal hardware with private and public cloud infrastructure.

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The e-tailing group is a niche, cross-channel e-commerce consulting group that conducts annual mystery shopping on 100 e-commerce sites, fact-finding merchant surveys and fields online consumer research to understand what works for industry-leading retailers. The e-tailing group creates "voice of the merchant" marketing initiatives for web retailers and others, incorporating proprietary consumer research and merchant outreach. This includes briefs, white papers and webinars.

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Trinity Insight helps retailers with their e-commerce operation. Services include consulting on e-commerce strategic planning, search marketing and optimization, web analytics management, and multivariate and usability testing services. Trinity helps retailers identify, prioritize and execute opportunities within the technology, marketing and usability aspects of their e-commerce store. Trinity will define the tests, recruit respondents, administer the test and analyze the results.

Recent Headlines

• Apple's roll-out of its newest iPad calls on e-retailers to sharpen their tablet strategies

• IRWD 2012: Conference closes with a web design reality show

• Tablets are driving retailers’ redesigns

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Usability Sciences provides customer experience programs to web retailers, with services including usability testing, focus groups, competitive testing, online usability testing and web site assessments. The company uses a proprietary rating system for the usability of rich media features--such as the ability to zoom in on products, and audio and video - and combines it with analytic data to generate reports and recommended actions for clients. Focus groups and field studies also are employed.

Recent Headlines

• IRWD 2012: Web design best practices begin with consumers

• The toughest design puzzle ever

• Sales light up by 18% for Bulbs.com in 2011

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User Centric provides consulting to retailers that focuses on improving user experience. Its consulting services include usability testing, eye tracking, expert evaluations, remote user testing, user-centered design and online surveys. User Centric uses a special monitor with infrared technology to capture the location of the eyes while looking at stimulus, offering insight into the processes involved in user interaction with computer interfaces, physical products and printed material.

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Yankee Group is an independent technology research and consulting company. The company's core offering is proprietary research and analytics on the attitudes, behaviors and usage patterns of mobile users. Based on this research, Yankee Group provides data insights and advice to its web retailing clients and others. Consulting services include market and technology prioritization, customer segmentation, competitive benchmarking, market education and market services.

Recent Headlines

• Tealeaf Brings Mobile Customer Experience to the Forefront

• Modiv Media Introduces Industry’s First Mobile-Social Coupon Sharing Feature

• Visa Certifies Smartphones for Use as Visa Mobile Payment Devices

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