Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: November 11 - 20 2005

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November 20 2005

Over 80% to shop online for holiday gifts

In a survey recently carried out for Yahoo!, 83% of respondents said they would shop online for holiday gifts and 80% stated they would purchase from small online businesses.

Other key points from the survey:

• 30% will purchase at least 50% of gifts online

• 63% stated ecommerce merchants catering to niche markets were the best places to buy unusual gifts

• Many participants stated that continued high gas prices would encourage more online shopping

• 59% felt it important that their offline gift retailer have an online presence

• 75% stated convenient hours being the motivator for shopping online

Read more of Yahoo's holiday online shopping survey

Points for consideration - Xmas and web marketing

November 19 2005

Windows - 20 years old

Ah, the nostalgia - 20 years tomorrow since Windows 1.0 was released and regardless of whom stole what ideas from whom; I for one am very thankful for Windows - well, generally :). 

While my computing days don't go back that far, I still vividly remember sitting in a class at the age of 24, sweating over the beast I was about to try and tame - Windows 3.0. I was unemployed at the time and had little prospect to better myself; learning how to use a computer seemed like my only hope at landing a decent job. 

From the first "tadaaaaaaaa" (the Win 3.0 signature tune) and game of solitaire, I was totally hooked; just couldn't get enough of learning about this new world I had ignored throughout school. 

Within 2 years, I was in business for myself - computer hardware and software. So Bill, Steve, Xerox, whomever it really was who came up with the original concept and to anyone who worked on the early releases of Windows - thank you.

Internet Week have published an article on the making of Windows 1.0 and a visual history of Windows releases.

November 17 2005

Broadband use explodes, but don't forget dialup

The number broadband subscribers will exceed 215 million globally in 2005. Just 6 years ago there was less than 5 million. The top country for broadband subscription is the USA, then China; but the Computer Industry Almanac states that China could challenge for first place in a few years. Per capita, South Korea is the leader, followed by the Netherlands.

Something important to note here is that even though there are 47 million broadband subscribers in the USA alone, and even with a few people being "attached" to each connection, there's still a significant number of people who access the web via dialup. 

That being the case, lengthy page load times are still annoying literally millions of people. Annoyed people aren't as receptive to sales pitches, so it's still wise to consider page load time issues when developing your site - it's a very important part of your marketing strategy. There's no point in have a wonderful looking landing page if the person doesn't hang around to see it.

Learn more about optimizing page load times

Learn more about creating effective landing pages

November 16 2005

Google Analytics launched

Eh, I feel like I'm the last person in the world to report on this, so I'll keep it brief. The results of Google's acquisition of Urchin is Google Analytics, a free web traffic monitoring service. This is basically the same service that Urchin customers were paying up to a couple of thousand dollars a year for previously. 

I haven't had the opportunity to take it for a spin yet, but it's caused quite a stir in the webmaster community - so much so that demand temporarily disrupted the service for a while as webmasters raced to sign up and commence monitoring. This new free service in Google must be making some other analytics companies very, very nervous.

And why is Google offering this for free? Conspiracy theories abound of course! Bear in mind Google's huge stake in paid search and imagine all the lovely aggregate data they'll be able to collect and use in relation to that. There's nothing new here, many other analytics companies do this now. Google does undertake to protect the privacy of users' data. Aggregate data is information that is collected in such a way so that it no longer reflects or references an individual.

In my opinion,  this data will also assist them in refining their standard search product and give them a better insight into how other search companies are faring in comparison. Good business move by Google.

Learn more about Google Analytics.

Learn more about studying web traffic.

100 billion + searches in 2006

Search queries are expected to exceed 100 billion during the next year according to the Kelsey Group. The organization also states that local commercial search could make up to 20% of that figure.

In terms of investment, paid search advertising could possibly reach $7 billion by the end of 2005.

Read more

November 14 2005

Grey power - blogging and seniors

CNN are currently running a story on the popularity of blogging amongst seniors. According to figures quoted by CNN from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 3% of online U.S. seniors have created a blog and 17% have read someone else's blog. OK, so it's not a huge figure, but  it's climbing. Blogging across all age groups is still coming of age.

We have a tendency to forget what a huge segment the senior demographic is or to disregard this group as being non tech-savvy. Many mature age people don't have the fear they had of computing as they did a decade ago.. they are getting into it and big time! Much of the Western world's wealth is tied up in the senior age bracket and they are increasingly spending some of that wealth online.

Learn more about marketing to seniors.

November 13 2005

Small ecommerce merchants winning against fraud

The seventh annual CyberSource Corporation survey of eCommerce fraud shows that the bulk of fraudulent online orders is impacting greatest on medium-to-large eCommerce merchants.

Smaller merchants fared better in the 2005 survey. Fraud loss reduced from 2.1% to 1.6% of revenue and from 1.4% to 0.9% of orders.

The survey excerpts also state that merchants who process overseas orders state a decline rate of 12.4% based on suspicion, which is over three times the overall rejection rate. International orders accepted that later turn out to be fraudulent is at 2.4%, well above the overall rate of 1%.

Learn more: CyberSource survey of eCommerce

Learn more about minimizing credit card fraud and chargebacks

Google rolls out personalized search

A couple of days ago, Google unleashed it's new personalized search from Google Labs and into the mainstream. Personalized Search  "learns" about a users habits from previous searches and clicking within results. The effect this has is to shuffle results around, bringing what appears to be most relevant to that particular user to the top. Personalized Search also allows a user to remove particular listings from future searches, offers a bookmarking feature and a full manageable search history - all controlled through the users' Google account

Learn more about Google Personalized Search

November 12 2005

Email - highest open/click days

Excerpts of a study by EROI and published by Emarketer provide some very interesting information regarding the best days of the week to send commercial email.

Sundays and Fridays (USA) seem to be the pick of the pack. Sundays have an average open rate of 30.8% and a click rate of 7.2%. Fridays open rate average was stated as being 27% with a click rate of 5.3%.

Autoresponder software  & mailing list managers Get more from your email marketing - tips, reviews  & free trial software/services.

PPC prices stabilizing

Or is it the calm before the storm of the holiday season? According to Fathom Online, PPC prices remained relatively unchanged in October in comparison to September, only increasing an average one percent  from $1.44 to $1.45. In the eight sectors monitored by Fathom Online, four categories increased and four decreased. 

Introduction to Pay Per Click advertising

Minimizing the cost of pay-per-click advertising

Cookie deletion/blocking on the rise

JupiterResearch has recently released a report on the negative impact of anti-spyware software on 3rd party cookies - often used by site owners in conjunction with external traffic tracking services to record visits to their web sites. 

JupiterResearch  that 32% of Internet users have anti-spyware software that deletes third-party tracking cookies. The deletion of these cookies creates false readings in traffic reports, making it more difficult for ecommerce merchants to fine tune their sites. It can also interfere with user experience on-site with user settings and cart contents being "forgotten".

Read more about cookie deletion trends

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