ecommerce | Internet Marketing Blog

How Appliances Online went from 2,500 to 1m Facebook fans in just two years

Online electrical retailer Appliances Online (now rebranded as AO) has seen impressive growth on its Facebook page, recently hitting the milestone of 1m likes.

According to AO, it is also making Facebook sell, something not all retailers have managed to do.

It has seen a 60% in branded search traffic, which has led to a 58% uplift in sales driven by brand terms.

To find out the secrets behind this growth, I've been asking AO Social Media Manager Yossi Erdman...

by Graham Charlton 21 May 2013 10:07am 2 comments

Bing is an untapped venue for ecommerce videos

Bing, the search engine created by Microsoft, is gaining traffic, although it’s no Google yet. However, not many e-commerce companies are placing their product videos on this newer search engine.

Now that Bing is powering searches on Facebook’s Graph Search, it’s a good time to get your videos indexed in Bing. Here’s how to do it.

by Melody King 16 May 2013 17:10pm 4 comments

Ecommerce stats: online shopping in the Middle East

The Middle East and North Africa edition of our Internet Statistics Compendium has seen some interesting updates over the past few months, with some fascinating insights into ecommerce across the region.

This post gives a general overview of the online retail numbers and brands which are proving significant in the Middle East. For further details of the many specific trends and developments within respective MENA markets, check out the latest edition of our ISC.

by Luke Richards 16 May 2013 09:48am 4 comments

Why does mobile out-perform desktop on this ecommerce site?

I had an interesting email from an ecommerce site owner in Texas over the weekend, wondering why mobile outperforms desktop on his site for conversion rates.

The site in question is discgolfstation.com, and owner Clint Henderson tells me that mobile conversion rates are twice that of desktop, which is obviously unusual.

While the mobile site isn't bad at all, it seems the problem is down to poor desktop performance.

Here, I'll suggest some possible reasons, but it would be great to see what suggestions you have for improvements as well...

by Graham Charlton 15 May 2013 11:26am 5 comments

70+ epic ecommerce best practice tips, stats, blog posts and more

After this post rounding up some of our case studies, articles and reports on social media, I thought I'd steal Andrew Warren Payne's idea and do the same for ecommerce.

We have written a lot on ecommerce since the blog launched, but here are 70 or so of the our best practice tips, interviews with ecommerce folk, stats, and reports from the past year or so.

Hope you find this useful...

by Graham Charlton 10 May 2013 10:45am 5 comments

The segmentation conundrum

When it comes to ecommerce engagement, a brand’s ability to connect with customers meaningfully is only as good as its segmentation strategy.

Consider an online apparel shop that wants to microsegment its customers based on ZIP code. This could come close to treating each and every customer as a separate segment, a one-to-one marketing strategy that's very difficult to scale.

by Jordan Elkind 09 May 2013 16:35pm 0 comments

Why the slow days of dial-up could be making a return

As familiar names like HMV and Blockbuster disappear from the High Street, web traffic can be expected to grow as a result.

However, the increasing numbers of data aggregators and tracking tags being placed on websites are leading to slower loading pages, while advances in technology designed to save people time have made us less tolerant of waiting.

In 2006, the average web user expected pages to load in four seconds or less. By 2010, that expectation had become two seconds or less.

by Amy King 08 May 2013 12:26pm 3 comments

Eight ways to drive extra revenue online

There are many complex ways of increasing your online store's performance. From analytics to data segmentation, once you've mastered the infrastructure of selling online, reaching new customers and selling more can become much easier.

But there are simple tricks to achieve bursts and spurts too…

by Craig Le Grice 07 May 2013 09:58am 0 comments

Is Primark mad to ignore ecommerce?

Obviously, we're big believers in ecommerce at Econsultancy, and we would advise any retailer to start selling online, if they aren't already doing so, but one big name still doesn't see the virtues of online retail: Primark.

I've written in the past about retailers that have shied away from online retail, and most of these retailers have since taken the plunge.

Not Primark though, and it seems the retailer has no immediate plans to sell online. Indeed, its most recent trading statement (pdf) makes no mention of the internet at all.

So, is Primark missing out as other fashion retailers grow their online sales, or is its business model somehow less suited to the internet?

by Graham Charlton 01 May 2013 11:43am 37 comments

Loyal customers are key to online growth

Consumers can buy almost anything online from groceries to holidays, gadgets to clothing, even cars.

Ecommerce today is exciting, innovative, and profitable: last year U.S. shoppers made internet history when Cyber Monday sales topped a record-breaking $1.5bn in online sales.

According to comScore, it was the biggest spending day in U.S. ecommerce history.

But one of the cornerstones of retail, be it online or in physical stores, has always been turning one-time shoppers into regular customers. What's the best way to do that?

by Bernard Luthi 30 April 2013 15:51pm 3 comments