As the holiday season swiftly approaches, the draw to do your shopping online intensifies. Online shopping provides an excellent outlet for those of us who prefer to avoid traffic and crowds at local shopping malls in order to fulfill the wish-lists of our loved ones. Recently online shopping has also become a more economic way to buy, with many companies offering online-only deals and big name retailers like J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, and WalMart offering free shipping through their ecommerce solutions.
However, consumers are becoming more wary than ever about surrendering their personal information to online merchants due to the latest high profile fraud cases.
Consumer trust in ecommerce solutions has been compromised due to the hard work hackers have been putting in to crack even the most secure websites. Just this summer hackers were able to gain access to three digital certificate authorities, or CA’s, that ensure the authenticity of the Web’s most commonly used pages. The authentication provided by CA’s lets people know websites are not fakes trying to steal information such as account log-ins and credit card numbers. With the recent invasion of these companies, unsettling gaps in the Internet security systems used to authenticate websites for banking, email and ecommerce around the world have been revealed.
With these threats to our security, online shoppers must be cautious when completing transactions online. Peter Caparso is the president of fraud protection company Adyen, which uses a combination of device fingerprinting, extremely persistent cookies and cross-browser technology to detect instances of fraud with a high rate of accuracy. He offers insight on the progression of ecommerce fraud and how to protect yourself.
“When purchasing online, it’s important to not lose sight of choosing a credible website that emphasizes your security as much as they do with customer service,” advises Caparso, adding, “If you have to question why a website is asking for [sensitive] information, don’t give it to them!” He recommends that ecommerce solutions employ secure shopping cart software compatible with Visa, Mastercard, and PCI-DSS global. “Additionally, they should offer complete control of the parameters and weight of each individual check, full transaction- specific insight into the result of each check and offer automated dispute and chargeback management.”
What else can consumers do? Never fear, here at ZippyCart we have several tips on how your can stay safe while online shopping this holiday season!
1. Use well-known sites and brands . Non-mainstream websites are dodgy and you should do your online shopping only with retailers you know are secure and trustworthy.
2. Stay on the companies website to complete the transaction. If they direct you to another site for your payment information: red flag.
3. Stick with one credit card for all your online shopping payments. This will make your transactions easier to track in case of any fraudulent activities.
4. Don’t use a debit card! Credit cards offer some protection against identity theft, but if someone gains access to your debit card number they could wipe out your entire checking account.
5. Steer clear of fraud. When completing your shopping cart purchases, always log out of the account when you are finished. For further protection, close the browser window so others can’t access your information.
6. Don’t save your information online. No matter how secure a website is or how often you make transactions on it, never agree to save your credit card information.
What it all boils down to is: be smart! Don’t succumb to greed and go for an unrealistic offer. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Online shopping can convenient, thrifty, as well as safe- you just need to be savvy! Peter Caparso offers these parting words for retailers and consumers alike:
“Choose an e-commerce solution that provides next generation technology, making payments flexible, efficient and easy to run and operate. If merchants are prepared, then consumers have little-to-nothing to worry about.”
An online shopper is comparing cases for one of her most precious investments: her laptop. She wants to be sure she’s getting something that will do the job, and not just for a week, so she reaches out to her fellow ecommerce customers for opinions. Will our heroine solve her dilemma before it’s too late? Will her laptop be cozy and scratch-free, or will her search continue into the holiday shopping frenzy? Join us in this highly theoretical–but entirely plausible–journey down Ecommerce Q&A Lane.
(Potential) Customer: “I’m thinking about buying this laptop case, but I’m wondering about the durability of the zipper. It looks a little flimsy in the picture, especially for the price tag. Can anyone vouch for it?”
Q&A Forum: [crickets]
[Two Days Later]
(Apprehensive) Customer: “…Hello?”
[Another Day Later]
Q&A Forum: “Hi there, I’m Dave from [website] Customer Service. I can assure you this product is a great value and comes with our 30-day no-risk return, standard on all our items. If for any reason you’re dissatisfied with the product, we’re happy to help.”
(Not a) Customer: “Thanks. For nothing.”
The Customer Service Rep has thwarted our heroine. There is certainly nothing wrong with getting the opinion of an employee; let’s make that clear. Sometimes a customer’s question could only be answered by someone who works for the store, such as inquires about return policy or shipping costs. Other times either a CSR or a consumer could help, such as with a clarifying question about materials. However, in this case, it’s obvious CSR Dave was not the right person to contribute his opinion. Dave has only provided assurance that if her suspicions about the product are correct, she can return it. But really, wouldn’t you rather just buy a durable product in the first place? So would our heroine. That’s why input from actual consumers on a Social Q&A is so valuable to shoppers.
Why not just trust product reviews? According to George Eberstadt, CEO and Founder of social ecommerce solution TurnTo, reviews can be a good tool when available and employed properly. However, Q&A offers some advantages in conjunction with reviews.
“We’ve … done sentiment analysis on social answers and found that it tends to run more positive than for customer reviews,” he told us, adding that “reviews tend to come disproportionately from those who have had extreme experiences – the 5s and 1s.” The ability to ask a specific question and get targeted answers can reduce that bias that comes from an employee or general product review. And “exposing sincere criticism has been shown to have a net positive effect by building credibility,” according to Eberstadt.
TurnTo released some exciting data for the Q&A world this week. They posted questions to four different categories of online stores across three different Q&A providers: PowerReviews, BazaarVoice, and themselves. They asked four questions per site. TurnTo’s Social Q&A forums generated 117 customer answers over four weeks. PowerReviews and BazaarVoice combined only got 16 consumer responses in that time. That’s less than 14% of TurnTo’s results. (The two of them also got a total of 15 replies from store employees.)
With this kind of success, where’s Social Q&A headed next? How might it play into Q4 and the upcoming shopping season? Eberstadt has a good feeling about the future:
“My guess is that 2012 will be the year that social Q&A starts to become commonplace on ecommerce sites, and by the end of 2013, sites that don’t have it will be the exception rather than the norm – much like customer reviews are today. As far as the 2011 holiday season: there are a number of sites out there using social Q&A today, but consumers haven’t yet become accustomed to it the same way they have to ratings and reviews.”
Taobao Mall, China’s largest virtual shopping mall, has recently decided to allow 38 smaller online retailers to open stores on its website as part of a new strategy to increase scale and revenue.
The Chinese ecommerce solution provides a place for online retailers to set up a virtual storefront, the actual handling of orders is left up to the merchants. Most of Taobao Mall’s revenue comes from commissions paid by retailers who sell goods on the site. Prior to the decision to allow smaller competitors to open stores in the virtual mall, the site mainly sold goods from big brand-names such as Dell Inc, Uniqlo, and Proctor & Gamble Co. Shoppers can now expect to find a bigger variety of goods from smaller online retailers.
Taobao Mall is the business to consumer branch of a three-way split that the Taobao unit of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China’s largest ecommerce company, underwent back in June. The other two branches are Taobao Marketplace, a consumer to consumer marketplace site, and eTao which provides shopping searches. Taobao Mall competes with 360buy.com, China’s second largest business to consumer ecommerce solution. Taobao Mall held approximately 48.5 percent of China’s online retail market share during the second quarter of 2011, significantly more than 360buy held.
Included in the list of 38 new online retailers that will be added to the site is Yihaodian, an online department store that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. owns a stake in. Also included are clothing retailer Vancl, electronics retailer Newegg, and online retailer Redbaby. Taobao Mall expects to generate 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) in revenue by the end of 2011 and to double that number in 2012.
Retailers wishing to sell their products on the virtual mall’s site must comply with the site’s merchant management policies that are designed to protect consumers and ensure quality customer service. Merchants must pay a security deposit that is subject to loss if the merchant is found to be selling fake products through the ecommerce solution. Retailers must also provide a seven-day-no-questions-asked return policy for customers along with official Chinese VAT receipts. There are currently more than 50,000 merchants selling their products through Taobao Mall.
Taobao Mall has no plans to take on its own inventory or become a retailer itself but will continue to encourage other business to consumer merchants to set up shop. Daniel Zhang, president of Taobao Mall, had this to say about the ecommerce solution:
“We are not weighted down by the low gross margin pressures of taking on our own inventory. Our platform business model enables us to re-invest our profits towards better customer experiences and support for merchants.”
The company is committed to bringing together retailers and customers in the online marketplace for a mutually beneficial shopping experience. Zhang added that the market is big enough for retailers to have a virtual store on the mall’s site in addition to their own websites. Taobao Mall is currently the most visited online retail site in China.
We know, it’s not even October yet. It’s a surprise every year when the holiday ads start to roll out immediately after fall hits, and we haven’t even gotten our Halloween costumes. (Some of us haven’t finished back to school shopping, either.) But realistically, preparing your ecommerce solution for a successful holiday season needs to start as soon as possible. Q4 starts in October, so crunch time is sooner than you’d think. Even if most consumers aren’t doing their seasonal shopping yet, they may be browsing already, and it’s important for your brand to look its best. The world of ecommerce is growing all the time, and as technology surges forward and consumers grow less patient with the crowds and hassle of brick-and-mortar shopping, online retailers have the advantage. To make your business stand out from the crowd during the holidays, you need to make some key changes. After the numbers, we’ll discuss what some of these changes are, with the help of Matt Winn from Volusion.
2010 Online Shopping Facts
By December 23, 2010, consumers had spent $36.4 billion just on their online holiday shopping that year. That was a 15.4% increase from 2009. Cyber Monday 2010 saw 9 million online shoppers making purchases; these shoppers made history by spending $1.028 billion that day, the first time the billion dollar mark has been surpassed in a single day. That record meant Cyber Monday was 19.4% more profitable for retailers in 2010 than it had been in 2009. This seems to be great news for ecommerce, but let’s see what shoppers said about their spending habits for this year.
How Will Consumers Buy Online This Year?
While 62 percent of shoppers who said they would change their holiday shopping habits also said they would be spending less money this season, nearly a third of shoppers surveyed said they would be depending on online browsing more than going to stores. Also nearly a third said they wouldn’t buy anything that wasn’t on sale or offered with free shipping. These numbers are higher in higher income brackets, and with families and women. (Free Shipping Day sales were up 61% in 2010 from the sales in 2009.) This means your ecommerce solution needs to be prepared to be competitive. Remember that you can choose optimal times during the shopping season to offer free shipping–it doesn’t have to be from now until the end of the year–and the way you present your deals has a big effect on how they will be perceived by your customers, both new and returning.
Last year, ZippyCart brought you some holiday preparation tips from Matt Winn at Volusion. The 101 tips we condensed into a few bullet points for you have been revamped for this year. Volusion’s got a new video offering you their top 5 tips to optimize your ecommerce solution and get the most out of the 2011 holiday season. After you’ve made a partial recovery from the consumer stats you’ve read, click on the video and let Matt walk you through the ways you can make this year a success for your business.
70% of U.S. shoppers won’t purchase via online shopping cart systems if the shipping costs more than $4.99
75% of ecommerce shoppers are planning to buy when they use a major search engine to find products online
60% of consumers purchased a gift card online in 2009
Bottom Line
Retailers offering ecommerce solutions have a distinct edge in this economy, but nothing is a given. Making the appropriate impression is vital if we want Cyber Monday to go up another 19.4% this year–or at least hold steady. There are simple changes to design, promotion, SEO, and exclusive offers that you can make to ensure customer loyalty this year, but as Matt says, “by ASAP we mean N-O-W.”
Our guest blog this week comes to us from Ross Kramer of Listrak. He covers three simple, but sometimes overlooked, strategies for increasing your customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Introduction
A survey conducted earlier this year with internet retailers revealed that while respondents almost unanimously agree that audience engagement is a critical priority, they are underutilizing proven tactics to engage consumers, including welcome series, re-engagement messages and post-purchase campaigns. So how can marketers increase engagement with their customers? Here are three powerful yet underutilized initiatives that can have immediate impact.
Welcome Series
Today’s consumer is accustomed to subscribing to retail emails and certainly engages with the brands they like. Retailers need to take advantage of new subscribers by engaging them immediately upon subscription; when they’re most interested and your brand is top of mind. Setting up a welcome series, notice I said series, not message, is key to building a relationship with your subscribers. Sending a series of three or four messages–providing subscribers with information about your brand and products, what they can expect from you, and special first time purchase or welcome offers–can go a very long way in creating a valuable customer. Some of our retail clients who have welcome series in place are achieving an average 15.4% conversion rate. One retailer is getting a 43% conversion rate on its initial welcome message. So, put a welcome series in place that is automated and triggered upon subscription.
Shopping Cart Abandonment
With 70% of online shoppers abandoning the cart before completing the purchase, it’s become a necessity for retailers to put a shopping cart abandonment strategy in place, unless of course you aren’t concerned with lost revenue. Implementing an automated shopping cart abandonment campaign has proven successful for many retailers. Your cart abandonment campaign should include personalized, behaviorally-triggered emails with dynamic merchandising to show products left in the cart and potentially product reviews or offers to get shoppers to complete the purchase. Using behavioral triggers, retailers can tailor offers for shoppers; for example if a shopper abandons after reaching the shipping details page, the email could offer free shipping. However if they abandon on the total page, a percentage discount offer may work better. Let’s be clear that testing is critical! Test various offers–percentage off, dollar amount off, free shipping, and no offer at all–to see what works best for your customers. You should also test the timing of cart abandonment campaigns: sending an email in three hours, versus 24 hours, could have a significant impact.
Shopping cart abandonment programs should consist of a series of emails, providing more opportunities to prompt the sale and make special offers as needed to close the sale. For instance, a first email might be a simple reminder–“You left items in your cart.” A second message might come a day or two later and include a discount offer. And a third message might be a last chance to use the discount. Regardless of which test wins, and how many emails are in the series with what offers, shipping cart abandonment programs are a tried-and-true way for retailers to recoup significant revenue that is otherwise lost.
Post-Purchase Emails
Just because a customer completes a purchase doesn’t mean there isn’t additional opportunity to further engage and get more long-term value. Sending a post-purchase email that is automatically triggered a set period of time from purchase date is a good way to get customer feedback, as well as do some additional promotions. A post-purchase email may ask customers to submit a product review, which can be helpful feedback for you, and good reviews can also be good information for getting other shoppers to purchase. You might also include a promotion of similar or complimentary items in a post-purchase email–”thank you for shopping, other customers who bought the same product also bought this…” If you don’t stay in front of the customer, your competitor will…so make the effort.
Effective deployment of welcome, shopping cart abandonment, and post-purchase campaigns requires retailers to shift gears to a behavioral approach versus the batch emails of the past. Today’s retailers need to focus on utilizing what they know about customer behavior, purchase history and email engagement to truly capitalize on the potential ROI from email marketing.
Author Bio:
Ross is a co-founder and CEO of Listrak, an email marketing firm providing retailers and direct marketers with solutions, services and technology. He can be reached at rkramer@listrak.com.
With just over a month before Halloween, consumers are running out of time to pick a costume. New York retail chain Ricky’s has ensured you have one less to choose from. Public outcry about “Anna Rexia,” a costume poking fun at a serious eating disorder, prompted Ricky’s to pull it from their website. It was set to retail for $49.99 on the ecommerce solution, but a trip to Ricky’s website now reveals just a note: “The page you requested was not found, and we have a fine guess why.” The costume featured a skintight black dress with a skeletal outline in “glitter screenprint” and a red nametag reading, of course, “Anna Rexia,” as well as a cutesy bone barrette and a measuring tape, presumably to keep track of that three-inch waistline. It was available in sizes from extra small to plus size (irony?). The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders doesn’t find the costume so cute. Board member Trish Jones-Bendel weighed in:
“I’m just appalled because eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. [...] Depending on the rates, and how long people have had the disorder, mortality [for the illness] can be from 10 to 15 percent. There are also high suicide rates with people that have anorexia.”
Costumes in poor taste are no doubt a staple of Halloween antics, but many feel one that makes light of a deadly illness is going too far. It’s worth noting that this particular costume is also nothing new. It earned the title of “Most Socially Insensitive” in a 2009 list of tacky costumes, where it was revealed that a former tagline for the costume was “You can never be too rich or too thin.” (Or too insensitive, apparently.) There’s a history of appalling costumes to recall.
Last year, two men offended dozens at a Halloween party in Ontario when they arrived as a Ku Klux Klan member and a lynching victim in blackface. The KKK-costumed man pulled the “lynched” man around the party on a string. “It wasn’t meant to be anything racist. I’m not prejudiced. It was a Halloween costume, it was a joke,” the man said when interviewed. (He then pulled the “my best friend is black” card. No, seriously.) Two years ago, Target sold an offensive “illegal alien” costume, featuring an orange jail jumpsuit, an alien mask, and a green card. A store in Carlsbad, California received complaints about inappropriate and suggestive costumes being displayed too obviously, where children could easily see them.
If you (and your partner) are still looking for a Halloween costume, you’ve got five weeks till the big day, so click around and fill up your shopping cart. You can probably find something out there that’s a little–or a lot–less offensive.
Whether you’re into the tacky or the classic, you’ve got about five weeks left till the big day: Halloween! You might be getting anxious around this time if you don’t have a costume–or even a costume idea–yet. Your girlfriend’s got one, that cute couple in your office won’t stop talking about theirs… Well, never fear, ZippyCart is here! We’ve got suggestions on the best ecommerce solutions with the best deals for your costume. You’re already on the internet anyway. You might as well get Halloween taken care of while you’re here.
Costume Kingdom
From movie favorites and cartoon classics to the completely absurd and humorous, Costume Kingdom has your Halloween hooked up. There are over 1000 men’s costumes to choose from, and you’re sure to find things your friends will envy. Don’t forget to use coupon code CK10 (through September 30 only!) for 10% off your purchase. Imagine showing up to your Halloween party as:
80s Rock Star God
Big Foot (not Sasquatch..)
The Joker
Captain America
Popeye the Sailor Man
Sexy Cowboy Gun Slinger
Halloween Express
Halloween Express has tons of new costumes for 2011, meaning you can avoid showing up in something you realize (all too late) that guy you despise wore last year. There’s no shortage of familiar costumes, though, including your favorites from classic horror movies like Friday the 13th and Chucky. Before checking out, enter coupon code CJTAKE10 for 10% off your purchase of $75 or more, and get free shipping too.
Thor
Mortal Kombat: Scorpion
Despicable Me
Papa Smurf
Zombie Pirate
Cobra Commander
Costume Discounters
With party time fast approaching, who wants to brave the stores during the inevitable pre-Halloween rush? Employ an ecommerce solution for your holiday accessories instead. Costume Discounters aims to help you do that with ease and savings: when you use coupon codes35SPRING for 10% off your order of $35 or more, FREE60 for free shipping on your purchase of $60 or more, or 15MORE for 15% off a total of $150 or more, you’ll have extra money for candy this year. Celebrate the season as:
Mister Monopoly
Batman (with muscle chest!)
Burger King
Daffy Duck
Baron von Bloodshed
Ghostbusters Inflatable Stay Puft Man
Buy Costumes
If you’re looking for good prices on quality costumes, Buy Costumes might be the place for you. They boast a wide selection and a costume for every price range, and at this time of year they offer coupon codes to help you get the best deal on what you want. If you find a great costume, make sure you use SAVE15 to get 15% off your order of $75 or more. Apply that discount to any of these choices (and to the rest of the site, of course):
Optimus Prime Super Deluxe
Wolverine
Oktoberfest Guy
Musketeer
Cobra Kai Replica Gi
Cuddles the Bear
Spirit Halloween
Another good choice if you can’t stand the thought of a crowded Halloween store in October: Spirit Halloween has an online store with the same stuff you’d find in their brick-and-mortar. In fact, not all of it would fit in one physical store, so you’re actually better off shopping online. To sweeten the deal even more, use coupon code SPAFF20 and get 20% off an item in your shopping cart–if you buy before October 26th. Then you can sit back and wait for one of these to arrive at your door:
Green Lantern Light-Up
Top Gun Flight Suit
Spy vs. Spy
Headless Horseman
Zombie Hunter
Sir Steampunk
Amazon
Besides everything else you already do on Amazon.com, it makes sense to grab your Halloween costume there, too. One shopping cart for holiday shopping and everyday shopping. No hassle, no entering your credit card info multiple times… Check out their selection in between browsing for DVDs and cookware.
Offering the right online deals to shoppers will be critical for retailers to attract customers this holiday shopping season.
A recent survey by SteelHouse revealed that 82 percent of respondents will change the way they shop this year. Of those respondents, 62 percent plan to spend less money on holiday shopping in a variety of ways. That number doesn’t bode well for retailers but with the right offers customers may still flock to ecommerce solutions. Almost one third of those surveyed said that they plan to spend more time browsing products online rather than going to the mall and that they will not buy anything without a discount or at least free shipping.
Retailers should consider the option of using daily deal sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial to attract customers who will be using the Internet to do their holiday shopping more than ever this season. 12 percent of survey respondents said that they will use social media such as Twitter to find deals or let their friends know about deals. Word of mouth about discounts and offers may have a big influence on what items customers are putting in their shopping carts throughout the remaining months of 2011.
Coupons will also be a bigger factor this year, 11 percent of respondents said that they will use coupons for the first time. Retailers should consider sending out coupons by email to get an edge over the competition. 50 percent of respondents said that they will comparison shop more than usual in order to find the best price, an e-coupon could determine what ecommerce solution shoppers will turn to for desired items.
Women and shoppers with families will be the ones making the most changes to their shopping habits and looking harder for deals over the holidays. Women are more likely than men to both spend more time shopping online and to require a discount or free shipping before making a purchase. Interestingly, men are more likely to use coupons for the first time this holiday season, perhaps because women are traditionally more likely to use coupons on a regular basis. Respondents with families also plan to change their shopping habits more drastically and are more likely to comparison shop and browse items online instead of at brick-and-mortar stores.
Although the survey results don’t look good for retailers when it comes to overall holiday spending, ecommerce sales have been going up steadily over the past two years and are expected to at least remain the same and likely to increase further. Retailers just need to keep in mind the types of things that shoppers are on the lookout for and provide the right offers on ecommerce solutions. A little flexibility when it comes to shipping and pricing this holiday shopping season could go a long way.
Hung-over college students everywhere will soon be just a few clicks away from having all the food delivery options they want at their fingertips.
GrubHub is a website that allows users to enter an address and view menus for all of the restaurants in their area that offer delivery or pickup. Searches can be narrowed by type of cuisine, distance, or delivery-only. The actual process of ordering items from the menu is done through GrubHub as well, so the customer never needs to leave the website or make a phone call. Users can also keep records of past orders, favorite menu items, and leave notes for delivery drivers.
Restaurants have to sign up with GrubHub before the service will allow customers to order from their menu and start sending them orders. Restaurants then pay a commission to the ecommerce solution on each order that gets processed. The site will also promote affiliated restaurants through social media and let customers know about deals and coupons. A restaurant using GrubHub is viewed an average of 165 times a day.
GrubHub is currently live in 13 cities including Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, Denver, Boulder, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington, DC. The company has recently acquired Dotmenu, a New York-based food delivery network and parent company of Campusfood and Allmenus. With the acquisition, GrubHub will now begin to do business in 50 major U.S. cities and college towns.
The primary users of GrubHub are college students and young working professionals. These young college-educated customers are on-the-go (or immobilized on Sunday morning) and frequently looking for the easiest, most convenient food options. This target market is providing a significant portion of the company’s business through smartphone apps. The ecommerce solution expects to become an increasingly mobile service during the next several years as it expands its reach throughout the U.S., with more than 20 percent of orders coming through mobile apps by the end of 2011.
The company was founded in Chicago by Matt Maloney and Mike Evans and, according to the website, the idea began in a bar. The two started GrubHub based on a question than many a hungry young man or woman has asked themselves at one point or another:
“Why, given the available technology on this earth, is there not a website that will tell us who delivers?”
Now that the company has reached 13 major cities, acquired Dotmenu, and oh, just raised $50 million in funding, food lovers in dozens more cities and college towns will be ordering from GrubHub soon. The company, newly combined with Dotmenu, will have provided more than $200 million in revenue to independent restaurants by the end of 2011. In June alone, the ecommerce solution saw 173,000 unique visitors to its website. Whether it’s facilitating late night delivery orders from the computer, or daytime smartphone orders for pick-up, GrubHub is giving many people what they have been asking for for a long time.
SailThru, a company whose service allows ecommerce solutions and businesses to send relevant and personalized email content to their customers, has received a new round of venture capital funding totaling $8 million. The new investment, led by RRE Ventures, qualifies as Round A funding for SailThru, which means it is still early in its development stage. The company plans to use this latest round of funding to fuel the growth in the flash sales and publisher markets, as well as increase staff numbers and invest in continued innovation.
Since getting its start in 2009 the company has added major clients such as AOL/Huffington Post, Betaworks, Business Insider, Fab.com, FlavorPill, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, the New York Observer, Oscar de la Renta, Oyster.com, Thrillist, and Turntable.fm. SailThru helps its clients increase conversion rates and generate revenue by delivering users highly relevant, personalized content via email, the web or other advertising channels.
“Merchants and online publishers have long struggled with issues of engagement, retention and maximizing the revenue generated by each visit to their properties. Sailthru’s technology enables its customers to create individual offerings…using data science and analysis to consider the preferences and circumstances of each individual visitor to a site,” said Eric Wiesen, General Partner at RRE Ventures. “The platform helps customers maximize engagement and deliver messages at key times based on a user’s individual stream of activity. It is of huge incremental value to both publishers and ecommerce merchants.”
SailThru helps solve a problem that many of the world’s major retailers and search engines struggle with: getting the most relevant information, be it consumer products or search results, to the customer as quickly and effectively as possible. Sailthru uses JavaScript to track everything users do on partner websites, be it articles that they read or items they view. Sailthru uses the information to personalize and recommend content, both on the sites and in email newsletters. For instance, if someone is reading about a new iPhone case on SailThru’s partner site Huffington Post, Sailthru might recommend another iPhone case for them to check out next. Or if you’re shopping for a new vacation spot on Oyster.com, SailThru would email you to recommend travel packages or sites to check out. It allows ecommerce solutions to use their service to not only direct traffic to their site but put relevant products in front of them.
Directed content is one of the most important components of ecommerce conversions. Consumers don’t want to waste their time opening an email and being directed to a site that sells, for example, a thousand different pairs of jeans when what they have been looking for is a new pair of shoes. Both sites would qualify as clothing ecommerce solutions, but narrowing down the focus to exactly what the end-user is looking for not only helps boost conversions, it also develops a lasting relationship with the purchaser that is more likely to bring them back to the site. It’s an issue that retailers and search engines alike have struggled with for years, and it will be interesting to watch companies like SailThru develop and work on solutions for the relevant content dilemma.
The credit card scanning technology that Card.io provided for iOS back in June is now available for Android.
Card.io is a software development kit that developers can integrate into their apps to aid payment processes. The San Francisco based company was founded by former Admob employees Mike Mettler and Josh Bleecher Snyder. The tool allows users to simply place their credit card in front of their smartphone’s camera to scan it and upload the data, rather than manually entering it all in. 80 iOS apps have integrated the ecommerce solution since its recent release and Card.io says more than 750 additonal developers have signed up to start using the platform.
The hassle of entering payment information on a relatively small device is one of the biggest challenges to mobile commerce. The type of technology offered by Card.io makes the process much easier for smartphone users who wish to quickly purchase items in their shopping carts. Anytime credit card information is involved, there are obvious issues with security that become a concern. Card.io uses 128-bit SSL encryption to protect consumers’ data and doesn’t save an image of the credit card on users’ phones.
Major competitors in the field of mobile commerce and mobile payments are Google and Square. There are however some key differences between the types of tools that these companies offer and what Card.io provides with its SDK. The major difference between Card.io and Square is that users have to plug in an additional piece of hardware to their smartphones in order to use Square to accept credit card payments. Card.io targets the developers rather than the consumers and is actually integrated into apps to allow for easy payment options.
The newly released Google Wallet is a bigger threat to credit card scanning technology because it replaces the physical credit card itself. However, Card.io is more specifically targeted for use as a mobile ecommerce solution rather than as a replacement for an actual wallet to be used in everyday transactions. The launch of Google Wallet and impending release of other mobile payment technology from companies such as PayPal may make plastic credit cards obsolete sometime in the next several years. If this happens, ecommerce software like that offered by Card.io will no longer serve a purpose, but for now the company shows no sign of losing steam as developers sign-up to integrate the platform into their apps.
Shopatron, one of the world’s largest and most successful providers of ecommerce solutions, is celebrating a decade of being in business. Shopatron is a tool available to large-scale ecommerce solutions who are interested in not only selling online, but also maintaining their relationships with retail outlets.
Manufacturers accept orders online and fulfill them through retailers or dealer channels to avoid the marketing problem called channel conflict. Channel conflict occurs when manufacturers bypass their distribution network (retailers) and sell directly to the consumer. Orders placed on a manufacturer’s web site are placed in a pool, which retail partners view through a Web portal. Each day orders are assigned to the retailer closest to the consumer who has indicated it has the ordered product in stock.
Retailers then make the ordered product available for in-store pickup, wherever the closest location is to the customer. This eliminates the channel conflict issue, and promotes both online and retail sales. Say you order an item from the JL Audio ecommerce solution. Let’s also say there’s a JL Audio store nearby. Your order through JL Audio, with the in-store pickup option selected, is then placed in a pool for participating retailers to fullfill. Those retailers prepare your order, and you are informed of where to pick up your order. Maybe you didn’t previously know there was a local store carrying JL Audio products, and now not only are you aware of the local retail presence for the company, but you did not have to pay for or wait for your item to ship. At the same time, JL Audio saves money on fulfillment costs and also promotes their own brand. The retail store fulfilling the order is reimbursed by Shopatron for their participation. It’s a win-win for the company, for the store and for the consumer.
Shopatron started as a small niche company focusing on toy and hobby manufacturers and retailers. Today, the company has grown substantially, and works with over 1,000 brands and 18,000 retailers in more than 35 industries. As the #1 ecommerce solution in the world for brands, it is one of the only solutions that promotes more sales both online and in stores. Ed Stevens, the founder of the company, came up with the idea for Shopatron when he worked in a Russian military factory and saw the fierce competition between retailers and manufacturers.
Stevens is very happy to be celebrating a decade in business. He launched Shopatron, originally called FirePoppy, in 2001. “Most people told me it was impossible. They said it wasn’t going to work,” Stevens said. “But I’m one of those people who is motivated by the naysayers, so we built the workflow, programmed it and launched our first store in the fall of 2001.”
The company now offers its ecommerce solutions to retailers in the United States and Europe. In 2008, Stevens recognized the potential market for his product in Europe, and Shopatron opened a new office outside of London. According to the company’s official press release concerning the tenth anniversary of the company, brands using Shopatron see their overall sales increase 5% on average after launch, with an average 38% increase in their online sales.
CrowdTwist is a new tool that allows brands to track and measure audience interaction across all online social channels.
The CrowdTwist platform integrates itself into a brands website and connects to all of the brand’s social media channels to provide data about consumer engagement and ROI. It keeps track of all online interactions and mentions by the public. Brands can use this information to determine the most influential or loyal followers and customize future marketing strategies based on the types of interaction that they are receiving.
The ecommerce solution benefits the customers as well as the brand, giving them points for all interactions that can then be used towards real rewards. Brands can choose to provide any type of reward that they want, from experiences to discounts or free shwag.
Data that CrowdTwist provides allows brands to understand what types of customer actions on various social media channels are most valuable. The recent explosion of so many new outlets for consumers online has fragmented brand-consumer interactions and made it more difficult for marketers to structure both their online and offline campaign strategies. CrowdTwist brings together metrics from all these scattered outlets and provides custom campaign tools for brands to reach different target markets.
Brands such as JCPenney, LiveNation, and TheFanHub are among those currently using CrowdTwist’s ecommerce software. The platform has already demonstrated its effectiveness; increasing average time-on-site by 250 percent, average page views per visit by 450 percent, and average purchase size by more than 30 percent.
CrowdTwist announced Monday that it has secured $6 million in a round of Series A funding led by SoftBank Capital and Fairhaven Capital. The company will use the funding to reinforce its rapid growth as it expands and forms new partnerships with brands. Irving Fain, CEO and co-founder, had this to say:
“Brands that take steps now to connect all of their online and offline audiences and enrich the overall customer experience are well positioned to discover, activate and retain their highest-value customers. Today’s funding by a fantastic roster of investors is an affirmation of this vision, and we look forward to continuing to build a world class team and product.”
Next week, the tool will begin powering the brand loyalty program for Simon Cowell’s X-Factor. The new talent competition TV show will use CrowdTwist’s ecommerce software to track viewer engagement and interaction with the brand across multiple channels. The show will be able to use the platform to track and analyze how viewers are interacting with their online, social, and mobile presences.
BookRenter is a unique ecommerce solution for textbook savings. One book for one college course can easily be over $100 (or even $200), and students don’t find every textbook useful for their future. Prices for selling books back are extremely volatile, and often a new edition comes out in the mean time that renders the edition you possess obsolete and unsellable. Who wants to be out an extra few hundred dollars every quarter, in addition to tuition and all the other expenses of life? BookRenter has your back: rent for cheap, ship back for free. We spoke with co-founder Chris Williams to get the inside information on this service.
So, you’re a co-founder. That puts you in a unique position to tell us about how BookRenter’s tech needs have changed and evolved over the years. Can you take us briefly through the history? What was the initial system like? When did you realize that you were “on to something” and it was time to change, upgrade, and improve?
Sure. We had only a couple of servers when we first started. However, we always made sure to have more servers than we needed. In our case, it was beneficial to overprovision since it meant we could focus on building our core product instead of spending precious time babysitting the system and solving performance issues. As our business grew, we purchased more servers in order to meet demand and increase redundancy. With the increase in number of servers, the day to day management becomes more complex. Once you get about 5-10 servers, it starts to become a time consuming and error prone process to maintain the servers without some automation. So we started to look at solutions that would help us maintain our growing set of servers. Since our team already had a Ruby background, it was natural to choose Opscode Chef.
What does the teamup with Opscode mean to you personally and to BookRenter?
Personally, I’m a big fan of their product since it makes my life a lot easier from two perspectives: 1) I spend a lot less time managing the servers since so much of the maintenance and deployment is automated, and 2) I can sleep better at night knowing our application will perform consistently on all of the servers, and that there aren’t some servers where I accidentally forgot to make a critical configuration change, etc. This is both a win for me and BookRenter.
“The Cloud” is everywhere. What made it so attractive for you and your team? Was it a hard decision? What can our readers learn from your experiences with the cloud when adapting it to their own online businesses?
Currently, we utilize Amazon EC2 for our staging and testing environment. We built a self-serve system for engineers to spin up servers with the click of a button that run an identical stack to our production servers. Not only does this give obvious benefits, such as teams can quickly show their work to product stakeholders, but it also helps in surfacing any potential problems before they ever get into production. One of the great things about Opscode Chef is that we are able to build these staging servers in the cloud the same exact way that we setup our real production servers by reusing the same recipes. There’s peace of mind in knowing you can test your project on a system that will behave identically to the production environment before it ever goes live.
They say “change is the only constant.” How do you and your team get breathing space for yourselves when trying to outpace growth and the changing needs of your company?
Well, one thing that comes to mind is automation. Since the beginning of the company, we’ve always invested heavily in automating pieces of our business. Once you start doing too many things manually, you get bogged down and aren’t able to get any breathing space. You never get a chance to think about the big picture if you’re always focused on the minutia. Opscode Chef is one way that we are able to automate our infrastructure.
How big is your “tech team” (however you want to describe them)? Can you take us through the journey of how you’ve grown the team, what you look for in a teammate, etc?
We started with two engineers, spent about a year developing the initial product, and then have spent the remaining years improving on that product and building the team. Year after year, we’ve been blessed with phenomenal growth and are always looking for more people to join our team. Right now, we’re especially looking for engineers who have a background in Ruby on Rails and/or Opscode Chef.
As a textbook-rental company, I feel the need to ask you about learning: what’s your learning process been like, both in your professional life as a whole, and with BookRenter – what are some lessons our readers can take with them?
First, we’ve always had a “best idea wins” culture in our team. We listen to all options and try our best to learn from and make decisions based on sound data instead of our own biases. Secondly, an important quality is to stay humble and not be afraid to challenge your ideas and assumptions constantly. Lastly, I’d say don’t be afraid to take chances on learning new technologies and methodologies. When we first started, we chose Ruby on Rails as our development framework, which at the time didn’t have a big following, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made early on due to its agility.
What’s the coolest non-BookRenter thing that you’ve learned recently?
Lately, I’ve been learning about espresso and purchased a manual level espresso machine. As an engineer, it’s fun to learn about all the different variables that go into making the perfect cup of espresso: beans, grind, dose, temperature, tamp, preinfusion time, etc.
The iPhone 5 craziness, it appears, is finally coming to a head. CaseMate, a major electronics case manufacturer, recently leaked pictures of their forthcoming iPhone 5 cases. The page was immediately taken down, but many sites captured screenshots of the cases and their product descriptions. The page has been replaced with a landing page that claims: “We’ll have your Cases when you have your new iPhone.”
The new iPhone pictures look very similar to the mock-ups that have been floating around from Chinese case manufacturers. Evidence for a redesigned iPhone 5 has been surprisingly scant, with case designs being essentially the only sign of such a revamp. Apple has always been very secretive with their new product lines. A number of parts have been surfacing, claiming to belong to Apple’s “N94″ iPhone model that is based on the iPhone 4 design and has been referred to as the iPhone 4S. Consequently, doubts have been raised about whether the redesigned form factor will be realized, with reports from Asian manufacturers showing no definite signs of the device and only the iPhone 4S going into the production stage.
But CaseMate also divulged more information than most other major companies have been willing to part with. The cases that were temporarily available for purchase were called the iPhone 5 “Vroom” and “Barely There” cases. The landing page on the company’s ecommerce solution shows:
“The wait is almost over as the next generation iPhone 5 / iPhone 4S will be released in the coming weeks. The new iPhone promises more technology than ever, all in the palm of your hand. The guessing game continues whether Apple will unveil the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 4S. Case-Mate will be ready with a collection of iPhone 5 cases / iPhone 4S cases to protect your new iPhone.”
Many times, when companies are working on their ecommerce solutions internally, the page will accidentally be published and sharp internet perusers discover new products before they are released. Amazon had a similar situation arise when they were preparing to launch their Android Appstore. Another perspective argues that these manufacturers “accidentally” leak these pages to gain publicity. For example, now that CaseMate has published pictures of its cases, people now know more about CaseMate products and are more likely to turn to their ecommerce solutions when the phone finally releases.
The iPhone 5 is expected to be released in the beginning of October, with an announcement coming at the end of September. Both Sprint and T-Mobile are expected to also offer the new iPhone, and now-Apple-CEO Tim Cook has been spotted meeting with China Mobile executives in anticipation of the carrier offering the iPhone 5 to its estimated 842 million subscribers. As we can see from CaseMates example, everyone is readying their ecommerce solutions ahead of the release of the phone. It is expected to be one of Apple’s most popular releases yet. 35 percent of the US smartphone population is waiting to purchase the iPhone 5. Apple’s CFO all but confirmed the release of the iPhone 5 back in July. Savvy Apple fans should keep an eye on ecommerce solutions from Apple and accessory manufacturers to catch the little tid-bits of information that are leaking ahead of the new iPhone’s release.
Earlier this summer, Netflix announced that they would be splitting their most popular movie rental plan into two separate plans. Previously, users would be able to get 1 DVD in the mail at a time, and watch unlimited online streaming content, all for under $10 a month. Now, the plans are seperate, and unlimited streaming will run $7.99 a month, and users must pay an additional $7.99 to receive DVD’s. Now, the ecommerce solution is struggling, and reported today that they are losing more customers than expected as a result of the price hike.
According to Neflix’s Q3 projections, the company now expects to lose around 1 million domestic customers as a result of the price hike. That may not sound like a lot, but the ecommerce solution anticipates a new user base of 37 million subscribers, which would mean they lost 2.7 percent of their business to the price hike and splitting of their plans. What’s more concerning is that the guidance for streaming customers was only revised down by 200,000 subscribers to 21.8 million. But on the DVD-only side, Netflix’s forecast was revised down by 800,000 subscribers. This would suggest that the company seriously over-estimated the popularity of the DVD by mail option. The move was presumably made to prolong the lifespan of the DVD by mail program, which was what Netflix was founded on.
Despite the fact that streaming content is still relatively young, and features less available content than the DVD rental program, the popularity continues to rise. In fact, Netflix only anticipates having 14.2 million DVD only subscribers, compared to 21.8 million streaming. Ecommerce solutions have spotted the trend, and are moving towards the elimination of physical media as a result.
The question has been asked why Netflix chose this time to split their business. Some have said that the ecommerce solution may be preparing to cancel its DVD service entirely, and the split was intended to move people to the streaming option (it’s working!). On the other hand, many times businesses will separate their offerings to appear more streamlined and appeal to potential buyers. With Amazon’s streaming video service on the rise, and more and more content being added daily, it’s possible that Amazon would be interested in purchasing Netflix. Amazon is also currently working on an “iPad-killer” Kindle tablet, which would feature their streaming services. Adding Netflix to their exclusive content would be a big blow to the rest of the competition.
The popularity and sheer number of media streaming ecommerce solutions is quite impressive. Hulu Plus is another close competitor, as is the Blockbuster-branded streaming subscription service from Dish Network. There are more choices than ever for viewers who want to access streaming content via an ecommerce solution. Amazon is also looking to start a program offering e-book rentals to its Kindle customer base. This would allow subscribers to rent Kindle books and return them when they are done, which is similar to the Netflix business model. The elasticity of these services is also quite remarkable: many people view Netflix as a “fun to have” service, and not as a necessary good. So when the cost to own rose, and the number of competitors also rose, their stock price and their subscriber numbers suffered.
As the holiday season swiftly approaches, the draw to do your shopping online intensifies. Online shopping provides an excellent outlet for those of us who prefer to avoid traffic and crowds at local shopping malls in order to fulfill the wish-lists of our loved ones. Recently online shopping has also become a more economic way to buy, with many companies offering online-only deals and big name retailers like J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, and WalMart offering free shipping through their ecommerce solutions.
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