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Retailers should be emailing checkout dropouts

Though the majority of companies in the UK are failing to send emails to customers who have abandoned their shopping baskets, yet 46% of consumers say they would be likely to complete a purchase if they received a reminder.

An e-Dialog survey revealed the latter statistic, while our Email Marketing Census earlier this year found that 67% of companies were not employing this tactic to attempt to revive abandoned sales.

The email survey also revealed some useful stats about email's effectiveness as a direct marketing channel, and the potential for driving offline sales. Some highlights after the jump...

by Graham Charlton 05 June 2009 12:10pm 4 comments

Delivery costs sending bargain hunters offline

Cash-strapped shoppers are moving offline and shopping at discount stores like Primark and Matalan, mainly to save on delivery charges, according to a survey released this week.

Verdict Research's e-Retail 2009 report predicts online retail growth of 13.3% this year, to £20.9bn, but also had some interesting stats about how the recession is affecting online shopping habits.

by Graham Charlton 05 June 2009 09:00am 1 comment

Online retailers afraid of payment fraud: survey

Two-thirds of online retailers say they feel threatened by payment fraud, something which threatens to hold back e-commerce growth in the UK.

The stats come from payment provider Sagepay, which surveyed 1,000 retailers, also revealed a lack of awareness of what they need to do to meet the industry standards (PCI DSS) on payment security.

by Graham Charlton 04 June 2009 11:42am 2 comments

The Telegraph pulls in 75,000 visitors a day from social media

The Telegraph's social media strategy seems to be paying dividends, as its website now receives 8% of its daily traffic from news aggregators like Digg and Reddit, as well as Twitter.

The newspaper's Head of Audience Development Julian Sambles revealed this figure to Malcolm Coles on his blog, and based on the Telegraph's 28m uniques in March, this equates to around 75,000 visitors per day from social media.

by Graham Charlton 11 May 2009 13:19pm 4 comments

E-tailers need to offer more payment options - survey

The UK's online retailers are missing out on potential sales because they are not offering a large enough range of payment methods, and 50% of regular online shoppers' will cancel their purchase if their desired method is not available.

So says a YouGov survey of 2,000 UK web users commissioned by ClickandBuy, which suggests that e-commerce sites should catch as many customers as possible by providing alternatives to credit or debit card payments.

by Graham Charlton 07 May 2009 09:00am 2 comments

Ads perform better when the sun goes down

The saying 'Timing is everything' is a simple statement that packs a powerful truth.

Add online advertising to the list of things it applies to.

by Patricio Robles 29 April 2009 09:07am 2 comments

Online video: Hulu rising

Hulu broke into the top-three most watched video sites in March, with 380 million videos viewed, thus capturing 2.6 percent of the U.S. market.

comScore Video Metrix finds users in the USA viewed 14.5 billion videos online in March, an 11 percent increase over February.

Google sites remain the top video destinations in the country, with 5.9 billion videos viewed (40.9 percent market share). In March, YouTube accounted for over 99 percent of all Google video viewed.

by Rebecca Lieb 28 April 2009 20:12pm 1 comment

Budget airline websites fail usability test

The websites of some of the UK's budget airlines are some of the worst to use, with four of them scoring 50% or less for usabilty, with Ryanair coming last with just 41%.

This is the verdict of Webcredible's Flights Online study, which looks at the websites of 20 airlines and travel agents in the UK. British Airways topped the table with 71%, closely followed by Expedia and Virgin Atlantic on 70%.

by Graham Charlton 28 April 2009 12:00pm 6 comments

Search market report finds growing focus on social media

Econsultancy's third annual UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report was released last week; it profiles the UK search marketing environment, and covers paid search, SEO and social media.

One of the trends uncovered by the report, produced in association with Guava, is that social media is becoming a bigger part of the marketing mix, with 91% of search agencies already offering, or else planning to offer, advice and services to clients on how to make the most of social media.

by Graham Charlton 28 April 2009 10:13am 2 comments

Online retail growth slows slightly in March

Though online retail sales are still on the up, new figures from IMRG suggest that this growth may be slowing, as sales in March grew by 19%, less than the same month in 2008.

These are still encouraging figures in a recession though, and it shows the strength of the online retail sector; e-commerce offerings have improved in the last few years, while more shoppers recognise that the internet is the place to find value for money.

by Graham Charlton 22 April 2009 10:28am 3 comments