Some stories I’ve been reading over the past few days:
SmashingMagazine shares some e-commerce design advice with their article, Improve Your E-Commerce Design With Brilliant Product Photos. Not only do they share examples of good product photography in e-commerce, but they also share tips and advice for e-commerce site owners who are looking for better photography.
Last year, Nordstrom rolled out a new inventory management system that allowed the retailer to combine web and in-store inventory. This new inventory system is one of the driving factors behind the retailer’s sales growth in 2010. It is also making for more satisfied customers. It’s a win for both parties.
The Retail Doctor, Bob Phibbs, has a great analysis of one retailer who used daily deal site Groupon and saw less than stellar results. Through all of the hype of Groupon and the sites that are starting to follow, this is a good cautionary tale about the downfalls of large price discounts in retail. The blog post is also followed by some great comments that offer some additional views on the matter.
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Read more about: customer satisfaction, Customer Service, Design, discounting, e-commerce, gap, groupon, inventory, nordstrom, Photography, Retail, smashingmagazine, theretaildoctor
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Sharing with you the stories that I’m reading today. Some notes on Gap International, Google makes a retail-related acquisition, and links to good resources for e-commerce developers.
The always terrific Get Elastic blog has an excellent roundup of 22 features of e-commerce site search. The terrific review of a variety of search options and search results from different e-commerce stories is really helpful. Site search is a very important, and sometimes overlooked, area of e-commerce implementations. The Get Elastic blog post should inspire some conversations about ways to improve your search.
Seeking Alpha has some notes on Gap’s Q2 results and their international strategy. Australia, China, and Italy will all see new Gap and/or Banana Republic stores this year. I don’t blame Gap for expanding internationally as that division has been on fire this year. According to my tracking, the international division has seen only one month of negative comps this year; everything else has been flat or positive.
Google makes a big splash by buying visual search engine like.com. Great deal for Google, probably an even better deal for like.com. I’d love to see what Google Product Search will look like after the like.com engine is integrated.
Finally, Practical E-commerce has another good article discussing the pros and cons of different checkout methods. More food for thought for developers and designers.
Some retail, e-commerce, and e-mail marketing links that I’ve like to share with you today:
First up, clothing retailer Gap and deal of the day website Groupon teamed up yesterday to offer customers $50 of Gap merchandise for $25. This is the first time the deal of the day website partnered with a national retailer and reports are that over 400,000 coupons were sold in one day. Excellent day, I’m sure, for Groupon.
Bronto Blog has a roundtable discussion on 5 Ways to Get Your Newsletter Deleted. As usual, great advice and tips for anyone concerned with e-mail marketing strategy.
With the bankruptcy of several national retailers, retail vacancies are on the rise. Here in New Jersey, retail vacancies are at the highest point in the last ten years. This shouldn’t be too surprising since the area has been hit especially hard with the loss of chains like Linens ‘N Things, CompUSA, and Circuit City as well as store closings by Office Depot and Boscov’s.
And finally, Zippycart has a good advice for retailers, looking to drive traffic to their store, in their post 13 Ecommerce Link Building Tactics fr Your Online Store.
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Read more about: asbury park press, bankruptcy, bronto blog, e-commerce, E-Mail Marketing, e-mail strategy, gap, groupon, link building, New Jersey, newsletter, office depot, Retail, retail vacancy, seo, zippycart
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The Bronto Blog dissects a H&R Block e-mail campaign, talks about the season life cycle of an e-mail campaign, and illustrates the dangers of overmailing. If you are an e-mail marketer, there is good insight to be read there.
About two weeks ago, Visa announced a deal to acquire payment processor Cybersource for $2 billion. Now, Practical eCommerce has an interview with Cybersource CEO, Michael Walsh, which outlines some of the strategy behind the deal and where he seems Visa taking Cybersource.
Want to write better blog posts? If you are just joining the blogging game or someone who has been at it for a while, the always insightful Copyblogger has a great post worth reviewing: 17 Easy Steps to Brillian Blog Posts.
A daily digest of some items that I’m finding interesting on the web:
Get Elastic tells us about surprising results that are found in an A/B test where the Add To Cart button is on the left hand side of the page. This higher conversion rate seems to go against the supposed fundamentals of product detail page layout, but maybe they are on to something. Another reason why A/B testing is so crucial to maximize individual site conversions.
Color Contrast in Web Typography: Designing Interactive shows us why your site’s black text can actually be dark gray and how contrast helps drive attention.
Return Customer, an excellent blog about customer service and how businesses can learn from everyday experiences, celebrates it’s fifth anniversary. Congratulations to them, they’ve been a constant entry in every RSS reader that I’ve had over the past few years, always providing valuable content.
And finally, some interesting news from Radio Shack as they release better than expected earnings. After years of lingering in the marketplace and never seeming to know what their core identity was, focusing on mobile business seems to be working well for them.
