Amazon’s dominance of online retail in the U.S. was on fully display this Thanksgiving and on Black Friday according to data collected by Hitwise.
According to the competitive intelligence and consumer insights firm, Amazon processed 5.6m transactions on Thanksgiving Day and 7.1m transactions on Black Friday.
On Friday, Amazon sent shockwaves through the world of retail by announcing its intention to buy upscale grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.7bn.
The deal, which came as a surprise to the markets, knocked nearly $40bn off the market caps of other retails. Kroger, Costco, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart each saw their stocks drop by more than 4% following the announcement, and their declines accounted for over $23bn of the market cap losses.
Using a selection of specific criteria I’ll be gauging how some of the top US retailers handle on-site search.
The search tool is perhaps the most common way for shoppers to navigate an ecommerce site, so therefore its effectiveness is paramount in directing highly motivated visitors, who know exactly what they’re looking for, around your site.
Pinterest is used by more than 21% of all American adults. This is up from 15% on the previous year.
This figure comes from the last study by Pew Research, which also states the even more incredible fact that one-third of all women in the USA use Pinterest.
Pinterest drove an unprecedented amount of traffic to retail sites in Q4 2013 achieving a 50% quarter-over-quarter increase in revenue-per-visit (RPV). In fact, Pinterest has overtaken Facebook for UK referral revenue and is expected to do the same in the USA this year.
Also, with the amount of Pinterest Pin it buttons overtaking the amount of Facebook Likes on product pages, retailers are realising that Pinterest is a key way to drive sales.
Let’s take a look at how the top 10 US retailers (in terms of 2013 sales) use Pinterest.