How should etailers ask for customer reviews?
The fact that having user reviews can be an effective sales driver, providing valuable information for customers is well established, but how do retailers attract reviews onto their product pages?
I looked at ways etailers can attract reviews a few months ago. One of those ideas was to email customers after purchase and invite them to leave a review of the product(s) they had bought. A recent report from Snow Valley(pdf) takes a closer look at the issue...
Online retailers still need to work on customer service
While a study of 46 leading e-commerce sites found overall performance to be satisfactory, with average scores ranging from 76% to 90%, many etailers still need to improve on customer service.
The eRetail Benchmark Study from eDigital Research used mystery shoppers to assess the usability of leading online retail sites in the UK. Customer contact by email and phone are two areas where some retailers performed poorly.
The Guardian makes its comments search engine friendly
The Guardian has introduced some welcome updates to its comments system, with comments now handled server-side instead of client side.
This means that the newspaper is not using javascript to display comments anymore, which brings with it a number of benefits, as pointed out by Malcolm Coles:
Ad:Tech: How do you market to cellphone users who don't want marketing?
For marketers working in mobile, talk about cellphones being on the verge of breaking out can feel more than a bit repetitive. At least that's the way Brian Levin of Useful Networks put it at the Location Awareness panel at Ad:Tech today.
"I feel a little like Bill Murray in 'Groundhog's Day.' I was on this panel last year."
Despite all the technological progress and increased user adoption that mobile phones have experience in the past few years, they still occupy only a small percentage of most marketing budgets.
Amid all of the promise held out in the future of mobile, how is the market actually going to break out? The panelists at Ad:Tech's panel on location werein agreement on a few things (besides the Corona's that were served on stage to celebrate impending happy hour).
A lot of it will rely on users self-reporting their data.
PayPal turns to developers in its quest for world domination
When Steve Ballmer repeated the now-famous and parodied words, "Developers,
developers, developers", he may have been far more sane than he looked at the time.
From Apple to Facebook, some of today's most successful and popular internet companies are taking advantage of third party developers to extend their products and make them more useful and appealing. In many cases, these companies owe some of their success to developers.
There is now a mobile device dedicated to Twitter. Why?
It may be hard to wrap your head around a device that exists solely to Twitter, but that does not negate its existence.
Starting today, Amazon is selling the TweetPeek. For the low price of $199, you can tweet for life. You may be wondering why you would shell out $200 for a feature that can be easily had on most mobile phones already. Well, that's a good question.
Site review: BBC Democracy Live
The BBC yesterday launched a new political website, Democracy Live, which enables the public to keep up with TV coverage of political debates.
The site offers live and on demand coverage of the Commons, the House of Lords, the European Parliament, Scottish Assembly and more, so you can keep up with debates on a variety of issues that may effect you.
Which etailers make it too hard to phone them?
Providing contact options for customers is a pretty basic requirement for online retailers, yet often users are forced to hunt around on websites for contact details.
While email can be a useful contact method, responses are rarely instant, so a contact number should be provided for customer support. yet so many retailers don't seem to want customers to call them.
38% of visitors to e-commerce sites in research phase: survey
Of all visitors to e-commerce sites, 38.6% are there to research products and prices, and to gather information, though just 85% are able to complete this task successfully.
This is one if the findings of an iPerceptions e-commerce survey, suggesting that improvements in navigation and usability can have a significant impact on sales.
Facebook changes put end users above app developers
The app economy generates big bucks for Facebook's most prolific developers. Thanks in large part to virtual goods, the companies which develop some of Facebook's most popular apps are reportedly pulling in over $100m/year individually.
But what's good for Facebook's app developers isn't necessarily good for Facebook's users. App developers are understandably willing to go as far as Facebook will allow them to in their quest to acquire more users and generate more revenue.
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
