Shop.org: 80% of online retailers offered free shipping during holidays

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September 8, 2008 Sign up Forward Archive RSS Feed News about digital retail commerce   Top Story    Noted authors give voice to classics for Barnes & Noble The first in a series of animated videos is making its debut on the Barnes & Noble Web site, featuring well-known authors and classic literature. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo does the voiceover on the first one, a scene from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." ClickZ (9/8) Is your ecommerce platform setting you up for success? Your online business is only as successful as the ecommerce platform it's built on. Examine the various types of ecommerce platforms being deployed today and understand the benefits and risks associated with each. Download "The Evolving and Changing Face of the eCommerce Platform."   Online Retail Trends    Shop.org: 80% of online retailers offered free shipping during holidays Cutting shipping costs has proved to be an effective retail strategy during the holiday shopping season. Despite higher fuel costs this year, retailers such as Harry & David intend to keep shipping costs down to boost holiday sales. USA TODAY (9/5) Click to Call helps Bridge Online and Offline Channels. Many online customers are most comfortable interacting with live customer service representatives, so retailers are turning to Click to Call to drive revenue and personalize their customer service. Read how retailers have increased online revenue by 45% and decreased Web site abandonment by 25%.   New Media & Technology    Web companies boost micropayments by selling chunks of credit Online microtransactions that buy online goods for avatars -- 29 cents here, 60 cents there -- represent about $1 million in monthly revenue for virtual world IMVU. The concept of micropayments was not particularly successful until the popularity of virtual environments and video gaming boomed. Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)/Associated Press (9/7) Can Twitter help your brand? Microblogging service Twitter, used by members to alert friends to small, random happenings and short musings via 140-character bursts, can also provide marketers with a view of how their brands are being discussed. JetBlue, General Motors, Comcast, Dell and Whole Foods Market are just some of the companies that track Twitter mentions (called "tweets") using Twitter's internal search function. BusinessWeek (9/6) Why advocacy matters to online retailers: Customer focus can mean greater loyalty and financial returns. IBM's Institute for Business Value study of U.S. online shoppers reveals that retailers who incorporate customer insights across business operations can reap the financial benefits of customer advocacy.   Hot Topics  Top five news stories selected by Shop.org SmartBrief readers in the past week. Retailers ask, is social networking just a passing trend? (STORES magazine) Facebook earning millions on $1 virtual gifts (CNET) Mexican Web sales reached $955 million in 2007 (Reuters) Facebook knows you all too well ... or does it? (The Washington Post) How to manage your company's reputation online (E-Commerce Times) Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.   Companies in the News  Amazon's new wiki site targets music fans Amazon's latest new Web property, SoundUnwound.com, is a wiki-based site that enables users to build online profiles of their favorite musicians. The artist discographies on the site provide links to Amazon MP3 downloads and music CDs. MSNBC/TheMotleyFool.com (9/3) Google: The next 10 years As Google turns 10, technology gurus, advertising leaders and even the company's own Marissa Mayer weigh in on what the company needs to do to maintain its success over the next decade. Los Angeles Times/Technology blog (free registration) (9/8) Site's users find celebrity fashions online British fashion site mycelebrityfashion.co.uk is not allied with any particular brand. Jill Tovey, who heads the small team that runs the site, says the goal is to help its community of users find hot celebrity fashions for sale on the Internet. The Guardian (London)/PDA: The Digital Content Blog (9/5)   Interactive Advertising  Experts: New mobile applications improve consumer experience Strong mobile advertising focuses on products, services and utilities that shoppers need, according to experts. Companies are finding success by tailoring their ads to the mobile environment and making it easy for consumers to interact with a brand. Advertising Age (9/8) Survey: CMOs boosting digital outlays at expense of traditional ads Nearly two in three CMOs have boosted their interactive-digital marketing spending in the past 12 months, compared with six in 10 who have cut their traditional outlays, according to the first quarterly Epsilon CMO Survey. "The results show that because of the economy, companies are really trying to identify the consumers that are very active in communicating with each other through social computing, blogging or podcasting," said Epsilon CMO Steve Cone. Advertising Age (9/8)   Shop.org Spotlight  RSVP for Shop.org dinners in Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch never ate with us! This October, Shop.org is bringing its popular regional dinners to California and Texas. Dinners provide great networking opportunities and are limited to 40 retailer-only guests, so RSVP early to guarantee your spot. Learn more or register. Customer-focused merchandising innovations: Case studies with eBags, myShape and Borders Find out what eBags does with customer comments and reviews, how myShape pulls robust profile information from customers, and how Borders has gone beyond multichannel to cross-channel retailing. Watch the session from Shop.org's Online Merchandising Workshop. Learn more about Shop.org -> Website  |  Events  |  Research  |  Shop.org Blog  |  Join Shop.org   SmartQuote  If I called a strategic planning meeting, there would be dead silence, then people would fall out of their chairs laughing." --Oprah Winfrey, entertainment executive     This SmartBrief was created for fashionarchive@gmail.com Subscriber Tools       Update account information | Change e-mail address | Unsubscribe | Print friendly format | Web version | Search past news | Archive | Privacy policy   Advertise Sales Account Director:  Mike Thomas 202-737-5500 ext. 261       Recent Shop.org SmartBrief Issues: Friday, September 05, 2008 Thursday, September 04, 2008 Wednesday, September 03, 2008 Tuesday, September 02, 2008 Friday, August 29, 2008     Lead Editor:  Megan Conniff       Mailing Address: SmartBrief, Inc.®, 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005     © 1999-2008 SmartBrief, Inc.® Legal Information