F-Commerce Fizzles
The e-commerce platform Payvment announced it's going out of business this week. In 2011, Payvment had opened a virtual mall that allowed customers to shop without leaving the social media site. MediaPost reported that the company powered an estimated 200,000 Facebook stores. Payvment is sending its customers to Ecwid, which also offers F-commerce applications. As Mark Walsh notes in the MediaPost news story: "Despite its enormous user base and high...read more >>
How Social Reviews Will Change the Retail Landscape
Reviews can play an important role in giving consumers the confidence to buy. They can also be incredibly overwhelming. For example, the reviews on Amazon for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rival the length of the book itself, but without any of the plot intrigue or fancy writing. No one is going to read all those reviews, damned be any far-buried nuggets of useful information. When you look at why people love reviews, you see that consumers...read more >>
Content Merchandising Roundup #35
Below is a summary of the week's most interesting content merchandising-related posts from Content Ping as well as from other blogs and news sites. Happy reading. Managing Duplicate Content on Your Website You know better than Google and Bing which version of your product should show up in search results. So take the initiative to address duplicate content. Rank Better and Help Stop Duplicate Content Distilled SEO Expert Kate Morris writes that manufacturers...read more >>
Are Your Products Wantworthy?
A company that "helps online shoppers build virtual wish lists" has raised $1 million in venture capital funding, according to the technology website GigaOM. New York-based Wantworthy launched last year as a social shopping tool that simplifies creating wish lists as they surf the web and share their wants and desires with friends. The lists--which are made dragging a "Want" button onto an item from the toolbar--are kept private unless the user decides...read more >>
Spearfishers, Netcasters, and Social Media
In last week's post, I talked about two different types of searchers: spearfishers and netcasters. Spearfishers know exactly what they want and they are on a mission to find it, while netcasters take a more impulsive, know-it-when-they-see-it approach to discovering products, browsing more than searching and informing themselves along the way. These two types of search mentalities should affect the way you design your product pages. They should...read more >>
Spearfishers, Netcasters, and Product Pages
I'm about to give you an explanation of spearfishing, netcasting, and social media, but before I begin, I'd like to extend a courtesy announcement to those of you in California. Please don't spear any fish from a moving vehicle, unless it is a whale. This type of fishing is a misdemeanor (although some disagree with that law), and you may be the unlucky recipient of a fine. Actually, the spearfishing and netcasting I am talking about has nothing to...read more >>
Can Social Gifting Give Retailers a Boost?
Dear Facebook Friends, Have you noticed I've been spending an unhealthy amount of time obsessing over the upcoming French presidential elections? And not nearly enough time shopping at H&M? A mobile gift card would help fix that. If you'd all chip in a couple bucks, I'd be well on my way to "paparazzi chic." Gifting for Cheapskates Ah, yes, social gifting. This e-commerce fad has been getting a lot of attention this week with the launch of Wrapp...read more >>
Why You Should Offer Your Consumers a Social Login
It's a little like the chicken and the egg, except that us e-commerce folk have to decide: allow consumers to purchase incognito, or force them to create an account before they check out? The fear for the latter is that those consumers really will check out, and not in the sense of handing you money; the fear for the former is that you will be left after one purchase, forgotten and dataless. With the advent of the social age, this choice is neatly...read more >>
Engage and Educate Customers for Improved WOMM
Consumers are jaded. This is probably not news to you, but it's a fact that deserves your attention. To borrow from Public Enemy, we don't believe the hype. We tune out the thousands of advertising messages we encounter every day, and when we do pay attention we can usually see through them, meeting their overblown claims, promises, and emotional pleas with cynicism. With general skepticism surrounding consumerism, it's no wonder we rely more heavily...read more >>
Social Sharing Drives Online Sales
Online shoppers rely on their social networks for product recommendations. A new study from social commerce provider Sociable Labs found 75 percent of consumers who read online comments about products from Facebook friends end up clicking through to look at the product page. Of those that click through, conversion rates can reach 50 percent, according to the study. For more findings, check out the infographic below. This "high-velocity frictionless...read more >>