E-commerce | Internet Marketing Blog

How to extract actionable insight from online customer feedback

The Reducing Customer Struggle report that we produced recently with Econsultancy found that the majority of etailers (76%) generally first become aware of website issues when customers call or email the contact centre.

The problem with this method and other feedback channels, such as voice of customer feedback forms, is that the onus is on the customer to help recreate or replicate the issue in question.

by Geoff Galat 04 November 2011 10:54am 0 comments

Will f-commerce succeed?

At the end of September, Magners announced that it is starting to sell limited edition cider directly via its Facebook page.

Asos was the first UK retailer to open a fully transactional Facebook store in January this year.

On the face of it, f-commerce seems to be taking off, so should brands be launching F-commerce stores?

by Steve Richards 12 October 2011 09:46am 7 comments

The truth about the ‘death’ of the high street

The ‘future of the high street’ debate found its way back into the spotlight again recently with the opening of Europe’s largest shopping centre at the site of London’s Olympic stadium.

Last month, Stratford’s Westfield shopping centre, a £1.45bn hulk of glass, steel and concrete, covering 1.9m square feet and home to 300 shops, 70 restaurants, a 14 screen cinema, bowling alley, casino and three hotels, opened its doors to 160,000 eager shoppers.

by Geoff Galat 05 October 2011 10:37am 4 comments

10 amazing e-commerce infographics

I've rounded up ten recent infographics on e-commerce and related issues, including delivery, social commerce, and how the use of colour affects purchase habits.

Where possible, I've added the infographics to this post in a readable size, but for others you can click on the image to see a larger version...

by Graham Charlton 25 July 2011 12:27pm 42 comments

Seven multichannel retail success stories

Over the past year, the release of sales and trading statements reveal the advantage that multichannel retailers have over their pure play online rivals.

For example, the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index for March showed the widening gap between multi-channel and online-only retailers.

Those retailers with a presence online and offline experienced average growth of 19% compared to March 2010, while online experienced just 6%.

We take a look at some recent sales figures for some of the UK’s multichannel retailers. ...

by Graham Charlton 29 June 2011 09:56am 3 comments

How UK e-commerce sites have changed in the past five years

2006. Daniel Craig’s first James Bond film was released, Steve Irwin died, Italy won the World Cup and “It’s Chico Time” reached number one in the charts: A mixed year.

But what was happening online, and more specifically, in online retail? In celebration of Econsultancy’s fifth E-commerce Platforms Buyer's Guide, we’ve gone back five years to look at the top UK retail sites as they were then... and how they shape up now.

by Jake Hird 22 June 2011 11:00am 13 comments

Checkout best practice revisited

It’s been over two years since I published an article on the Econsultancy blog entitled: Are retailers following best practice to improve conversion rates?

In that article I was specifically looking at the checkout processes of a variety of retailers, and in particular whether or not they have enclosed (or in other words removed site wide elements and distractions to focus the user) the process.

In this article I have revisited the retailers who featured in this article to see which of the retailers who didn’t enclose their checkouts then are now using this approach .

Enclosing the checkout is an approach I almost always recommend my retail clients adopt as a primary way of improving their checkout funnel conversion rate.

by Paul Rouke 07 June 2011 10:50am 1 comment

10 essentials of e-commerce optimization & attribution: Part one

Online shoppers are a fickle lot and the competition for their attention and their spend in utterly fierce. Consequently, optimizing every aspect of your e-commerce program, and the tags that manage them, is absolutely essential.

Since we’re working mainly with e-commerce businesses, we compiled a list of the key steps they can – and do – take to optimize online sales.

by Paul Cook 26 May 2011 18:12pm 3 comments

WTF does usability best practice actually mean?

What constitutes usability best practice for e-commerce? In fact, what makes something/anything 'best practice'?

I’m the first one to say that I regularly refer to ‘usability best practice’ and best practice is certainly a phrase used often enough by Econsultancy. I thought it would be worth starting a discussion on what you think when they hear this term, and what you feel justifies having the label ‘best practice’.

Or perhaps you feel it should just be banished from our industry!

by Paul Rouke 27 April 2011 13:32pm 22 comments