Tom Funk's Blog, page 8

2009 eCommerce: The Year in Review

As we close the books on 2009 and gear up for New Year's 2010, let's take stock of the ecommerce highlights -- and lowlights -- of this past year. It was a grueling 12 months for online retailers, but it definitely marked a bottom and modest rebound from the chaos of the global economic meltdown of 2008. With overall ecommerce sales eking out a 11% gain according to Forrester Research, we are definitely better off than our friends in brick-and-mortar retailing, whose sales were flat...

Email Subject Lines: How Many Ways Can You Say "There's Still Time for Christmas"?

As we enter the last three shopping days for Christmas, online retailers are, in unison, sounding a "Last Chance" note in their promotional email subject lines. Here's a sampling of some of the ecommerce companies we watch.

They employ the whole arsenal of tactics: Encouragement ("there's still time"), urgency ("last chance!"), personalization, some ALL-CAPS and an exclamation point here and there, lots of free shipping pitches, and other angles. Which do you think are most effective?
...

FedEx Holiday Volume as a Leading Indicator

How will Holiday 2009 stack up against last year? Estimates have been cautious, but most offer some bump from 2008's anemic numbers.

This morning, driving into work, I listened to an NPR interview with the head of FedEx's LAX hub, on what is traditionally their busiest holiday shipping day of the year.

Asked about package volume, the FedEx manager said they will handle 14 million packages today, compared with 12 million on last year's busiest shipping day. That would be a gain of...

December eCommerce Sales - What Is the Busiest Day for Ecommerce Revenue?

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, blah blah blah -- when are the REAL banner days for Holiday ecommerce?

ComScore has compiled a day-by-day revenue report of ecommerce sales from the 2008 holiday season. The report, which was shared on Google's blog, covers December only, but it is really interesting. The numbers are indexed to the performance of 450 top online retailers. How does your holiday ramp-up compare?

Mon, Dec 1 - Cyber Monday: $846 million

Tues, Dec 2 - $822

Wed, Dec 3 - $734

December eCommerce Sales - What Is the Busiest Day for Ecommerce Sales?

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, blah blah blah -- when are the REAL banner days for Holiday ecommerce?

ComScore has compiled a day-by-day revenue report of ecommerce sales from the 2008 holiday season. The report, which was shared on Google's blog, covers December only, but it is really interesting. The numbers are indexed to the performance of 450 top online retailers. How does your holiday ramp-up compare?

Mon, Dec 1 - Cyber Monday: $846 million

Tues, Dec 2 - $822

Wed, Dec 3 - $734

A Business Built On Caring

During the holiday season, we like to give credit to companies doing a little bit extra, achieving a social mission or making the world a little better place. Since 1991, The SCOOTER Store has helped people with limited mobility lead more active lives by providing medical mobility scooters, power chairs and power wheelchairs, walking aids, and bathroom and bedroom safety equipment. Starting with a single store dedicated to helping people regain their freedom and independence, The SCOOTER...

2010 eCommerce & Marketing Conferences - Schedule

Here's our list of the major conferences to consider if you're an online retailer, cataloger or direct marketer:

 

February 15- 17: Internet Retailer Web Design (Orlando)

March 2 - 4: SMX West (Santa Clara)

March 12 - 21: SXSW - South by Southwest (Austin)

March 22 - 24: CommerceV3 User Group Conference (Savannah)

March 22 - 26: Search Engine Strategies (New York)

May 3 - 6: Web 2.0 Expo (San Francisco)

May 24 - 26: ACCM (Orlando)

June 8 - 11...

2010 CommerceV3 User Conference, March 22-24, 2010

CommerceV3 is proud to announce our 2010 User Conference that will be held on
March 22nd-24th, 2010. Last year's conference was a huge success and we believe
it is safe to say that everyone went home with more ideas than they expected.
During the conference you will learn about CV3, marketing with CV3, general
business education and even meet some of our vendor partners. In addition to
learning more about CV3 and all it has to offer, there will also be many
opportunities for...

Major Retailers Suffer Website Crashes

Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic surges were handled ably by most of the top online retailers this year, but a few high-profile websites suffered what one expert called "catastrophic" failures.

In a report published by Internet Retailer, the web monitoring company Gomez cited Hewlett Pakard's HPShopping.com as the worst example, afflicted with dreadful page-load times, pages unavailable, and site-wide crashes. "It had what can only be described as catastrophic problems," said Matt P...

2009 Cyber Monday Results: Sales Reportedly Up 20%

U.S. online retail sales on yesterday's Cyber Monday reportedly increased by 19.6% from the same period in 2008, according to estimates from Coremetrics.

"So far, the weekend results are a strong reinforcement of how web sales continue to outpace store sales," says Forrester Research ecommerce analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

Following strong online sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, retailers tried to keep the momentum building, with a profusion of online sales and discounts. Web...