Came across a very interesting blog Correlation between Gas Prices and Online Retail

So is there a correlation between Gas Prices and Online Retail or is it just a coincidence?

Now that Gas prices are falling, there could be a possibility that the extra expected dollar savings may have provided a boost to the expected disposable income and thus fueled the online buying spree.

A few quick ways to get prospective customers to your online store. This may help the online retailers this holiday season buying ….

SEO search Engine Optimization)
Paid Search ( Search Engine Marketing)
Online banner ads
Email Marketing
Print advertising
Blog Marketing
Direct mail
In-store promotions
Coupons
Word Of Mouth Marketing
Network Marketing
Referral Marketing

I hope this helps you get those visitors who will buy online.

This is time of the year when Online Retailers (In categories like gift and related to holiday shopping) will get almost 20 to 30% of their revenue. And thus , this is also a special time for the online retailers to put on the Marketing Hats to reach out to as many prospective customer as possible with the enticing marketing promotions.

This is a quick list for those who are looking for broad ideas.

According to latest study by Shop.org and Forrester Research, the US eCommerce Industry has compound growth rate of 33%. Forrester predicts that revenue in 2006 will continue to grow another 20% to top $200 billion.

This is a very good news for the Online retailers since the pie of opportunity is really growing very fast at the same time the online retailers will need to be innovative in their Marketing approach and responsive in their fulfillment operations. Setting up an Online Store is becoming increasingly simpler but running the same with high profitability is becoming increasingly difficult.

An online buyer has come to the site and he has browsed through the categories and products. She is interested in purchase but wants to get clarity on a few items, typically about some features or delivery time or just a check that someone exists and responds on the site. What do you think is the probability that once answered the query she will buy from the site? … Very High , right? … And what do you think is the probability that her mail gets answered …you would have expected “High” as an answer but unfortunately that is not what happens. As per the study conducted by Benchmark Portal; Around 26%, of retailers failed to respond to e-mail inquiries from customers seeking to make a purchase. Nearly half, or 47%, of retailers failed to respond to customer e-mails within 24 hours, Surprisingly, 40% of online-only businesses, a category that includes online recruiters and shopping comparison sites, also failed to reply to customer e-mail inquiries.

As per Forrester Research, 28% of North Americans who go online don’t buy there. This is for a variety of reasons. 62% of non-buying online consumers polled said that concerns about giving credit card information over the Internet held them back, while 55% cited the inability to see an item personally before buying. 25% of non-online buyers said they prefer to research online but buy in a store. 22% cited delivery costs, 21% cited “horror stories heard about online purchasing,” and 17% don’t buy online because they aren’t confident the product will arrive in good condition. 12% didn’t want to have to wait for the item to be delivered; others cited a variety of additional reasons.

There are few SIMPLE rules to increase the online visitor to buyer conversion ratio.

Different types of marketing can be done to get the buyer to the site, but ultimately he spends hardly a few seconds to take that decision to buy or not to buy.

What are those?

S: Site Name should be simple and easy to remember. In the micro seconds the user takes to buy an item, he also tries to associate the name with what he wants to buy. Make it easy to remember and representative of what he is supposed to be getting at the site. In the case of repeated buying items this is most critical.

One of the most sought after studies in the Online Retail is to get to know the buying pattern of the prospect and what exactly is going on his/her mind at the “Click Cart Happy” moment. Every online retailer would love to know what is the most important factor which made the buyer actually commit on buying the item.

Is she an impulsive buyer? And the same question was asked to me by one of our customers. We did a quick study (using Google Analytics) of the average time spent on the site by those who buy. The number was around 2 mins. The customer sells household appliances and average price of the item is around 100 pounds. Taking a decision to buy something that costs 100 pounds is done in 2 mins! That is pretty quick and we had all the reasons to think that the buyer went through a quick “Veni Vidi Vici”… I came , I saw and I conquered (“bought”)…

In this brief article I hope to introduce the concept of Multichannel visibility on the internet: Why it is required for an online retailer like you and how this can be achieved.

The Online Consumer
As is expected in Marketing let's start from the consumer. A typical consumer on the internet never buys anything on the very first website he finds the item. He always uses the tools available to him to search around a bit before buying online. The sites he used to research an item are:

Retail industry has been evolving very fast. The upscale department store, the mail-order catalog, and the discount department store were earlier disruptive innovations that forced retailers to change and rethink how they did business. e-retailing has been in vogue for last few years but it is changing as well as becoming a huge force very rapidly.
V2Biz, a company promoted and managed by ecommerce experts has been a great help to online retailers across the globe. V2Biz has an in-depth understanding of the e-retailing industry and a focused Value Process Outsourcing methodology.