Retailsolutionsonline.com posted a story this week, written by Matt Pillar, highlighting a recent retail survey conducted by commerce solutions provider ATG. The results of the survey, confirmed that most consumers use multiple, online channels to research products as well as make purchases.

ATG’s survey included responses from 1,054 consumers, 78% of which claimed to regularly utilize two or more online shopping channels to research items when making a purchase. Another question featured in this study addressed whether the browse/research/purchase dynamic has changed since the proliferation of various shopping channels including in-store, catalogs, online, mobile, and more. Broadly speaking, those polled answered yes–nearly one-third of shoppers now use three or more of these channels in order to make a purchase.

When asked about the results, Bill Zujewski, VP of product marketing at ATG, replied “each channel has its unique strengths and weaknesses, so consumers often hop from one to the next to compensate for a weakness or take advantage of a strength.” For example, Zujewski cites mobile channels as a problem, saying that many lack the ability to enable customers finalize transactions. This means that scores of consumers will begin their shopping on their mobile phones, but execute the transaction from a computer or at a brick and mortar store.

But Zujewski warns companies not to demote mobile channels to promotion only status because the traffic is growing at a rapid pace:

“In terms of mobile traffic, what accounted for 1% of Web traffic a year ago is up to between 4 and 6% today, and 23% of consumers between 18 and 23 years completed at least four purchases on a mobile device in the past 12 months.”

Channel-specific research was also conducted. The findings was as follows:

Web: 92% of consumers begin the shopping process on the Internet because they can easily access extensive product-level information.

Brick and Mortar Store: Consumers appreciate the convenience of immediate access to the product as well as returns. 36% said stores are important to them because they want to see and touch the tangible product before they make their purchase.

Call Center: Following Internet research, shoppers often turn to phone conversations in order to have their questions answered immediately. 43% of survey respondents said that they start their product research online or via mobile device, then complete the transaction with a phone call to a customer service representative, usually because the website failed to answer all their questions.

Social Networks: 24% of consumers have incorporated their social networks, most notably Facebook or Twitter, into their overall purchase activity from beginning to end.

Catalog: Apparently people still enjoy receiving catalogs in their mailboxes. According to the ATG research, hard-copy catalogs are still read by 78% of consumers.

via Matt Pillar @ Retailsolutionsonline.com

To view the full ATG study go here.

ComScore.com recently posted their Q4 2009 online retail analysis which claimed that total revenue witnessed a 2% increase compared to Q4 2008 ($38.1 billion) and a 32% increase when compared to the previous quarter. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Q4 increase followed three quarters of negative growth. Q3 saw a decline of 7%, Q2 saw a 9% decline and Q1 fell 10%. Sales over the whole year were stagnant, remaining at $130 billion.

As usual, there were some surprises among the popular retail categories in 2009. Luxury and highly-personalized items like jewelry and watches saw an increase. Consumer electronics, computer software, event tickets, and books also shot up. Non-personalized items like computers, music, movies and sports equipment were also slightly up.

But not all retail sectors received a boost in 2009. Home and garden items, furniture and appliances, apparel and accessories, and greetings and miscellaneous gifts took a marginal slide. Other surprises on the downside included video games, consoles and accessories. Online toys and hobbies sales dropped in 2009 as well, despite a relatively strong fourth quarter. The decline in sales is most likely due to the price slashing at large retailers like Wal-Mart.

In the same article comScore.com released some key e-commerce trends to look for in 2010. They include the following:

• Sixty-one percent of consumers identified current economic conditions as poor in January 2010, compared to 77% in January 2009.
• Despite this improvement, 25% of consumers believe the economy has not hit bottom yet, and another 23% think it may drop again before fully recovering. Only 9% of consumers think a recovery will continue with no significant problems.
• Thirty-six million people visited a digital coupon site in December 2009, representing 20% annual growth in total visits and 8% annual growth in unique visitors.
• Supermarket retailers tend to attract few visitors to their e-commerce sites.

Between November 1 and December 31, 2009 shoppers spent $29.1 billion in online sales. Retailer Daily reported that these figures indicated an increase of 4% from $27.9 billion spent in the same period a year earlier. In contrast, the 2008 holiday season saw a decline of 3%.

The presence of online, or digital, coupons has also grown exponentially in 2009. Data presented by Coupons.com reveals that consumer savings from digital coupons increased 170% in 2009, while regular coupon savings grew just 16%. ComScore’s Q4 2009 retail e-commerce sales data was gathered from a global panel of 2 million internet users and included all worldwide buying on U.S. e-commerce websites.

via comScore.com

CNN Money posted an article today about a study recently published by VeriSign, which revealed that merchants on theFind.com that display the VeriSign seal (proof of using the VeriSign  SSL Certificate) have, on average, a 18.5% higher click-through rate. TheFind.com, is a shopping comparison site that receives 17 million unique visitors every month.

“Our goal is to make it easy for people to be smarter shoppers by distilling relevant information about every product and every store into a single search,” said Dave Cook, the senior market director at theFind.com. “VeriSign’s well recognized seal has given merchants — particularly smaller stores — a substantial and measurable lift in the traffic theFind.com sends them.”

The study surveyed traffic to 65,535 online stores between January 21 and 27, 2010. The Find.com sends traffic to 150,000 stores each month. The stores examined as part of this study, are a sampling of the most popular stores across a wide range of popular e-commerce categories. The VeriSign seal is viewed over 150 million times every day on more than 90,000 sites across the globe.

Regarding the study, Tim Callan, VP of product marketing at VeriSign, said that, “consumers need to trust the merchants they buy from, and TheFind is making it easy for shoppers to quickly and confidently recognize those retailers who protect their online transactions with VeriSign SSL.” Callan continued, “…theFind’s research shows that the VeriSign seal delivers a true advantage for all merchants, but the benefits are greatest for smaller stores that are always in search of ways to elevate their brand to compete with eCommerce leaders.”

Via MarketWire @  Money.cnn.com

Frank Findley (ASRgroup/comScore) recently posted at the comScore blog, summarizing ASRgroup’s research findings from the past thirty years. According to this research, “…the advertising creative is four times as important in determining sales outcomes as the amount of media spent. Said another way, what we say and how we say it plays an even more critical role than how often we say it.”

According to Findley, the following are four tips for optimizing creative, within the e-commerce space:

1. Quantifying benefits.

2. Take advantage of multiple executions when communicating complex or higher order messages.

3. Don’t forget the emotional content!

4. Make the brand prominent.

(Image: Seven insights from holistic campaign testing; Frank Findley, Quirk’s Marketing Review April 2008)

via Frank Findley at comScore

An article was recently published on marketingvox.com citing ComScore’s recent study, Digital Year in Review. The study revealed that between December 2008 and November 2009, U.S. Internet users viewed 4.3 trillion display ads, representing a 21% increase from the previous year. The overall gains were driven by an increase of 8% in the number of eyes exposed to the ads as well as a 12% increase in the average frequency.

Conversely,  U.S. magazines have lost a substantial number of ad purchasers. The industry saw the largest revenue decline in at least 10 years as it fell 18.1% in 2009, and further 12.4% in Q4 2009. While these trends may seem altogether intuitive, the degree to which display has grown, and print has shrunk is remarkable.

Via Marketingvox.com

With all the recent commentary surrounding Google’s push to create a dominating display marketplace, it is interesting to look at what the statistics really have to say. According to a recent post at BusinessInsider - with data by way of comScore -  Google sites’ display impressions equal about 1/6th  of those of the Yahoo! sites. And, for Q4, Yahoo’s earnings (according to CEO Carol Bartz) display ad revenue grew 26% from Q3. This was reportedly the largest sequential growth for the company since 2006. Perhaps surprisingly, Facebook ranks third. It will be interesting to see what will become of the biggest players in display publishing this coming year, with ad spending expected to increase dramatically.

via Dan Frommer @ BusinessInsider

ABC News recently posted an article, written by Eric Noll, discussing the future of advertising and the increasing shift towards using social media and 3-D ads to reach more consumers. Another big story this year focuses on those companies who opted out of advertising during the most watched television event in the U.S.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of companies to not advertise this year was Pepsi, which has paid for commercials in every Superbowl for the last 20 years. “The economy is wreaking havoc with a couple companies. And you’ve got a couple companies, big companies like FedEx and GM, who are long-time Super Bowl fanatics, that have pulled out because of the economy,” said Suzanne Vranica, advertising columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Companies are moving away from spending massive amounts for a single ad spot during the big game and heading towards social networking. “Social networking is the newest thing for marketers,” states Vranica. “You’ve got 60 ads fighting for attention, so if you use social networking as a marketer and drum up some excitement, you’ll have people specifically watching out for your commercial that night.”

That’s not to say that companies are unwilling to spend on advertising. Pepsi will be dropping $20 million on their philanthropic social networking campaign aimed at providing support for consumer initiated charity projects. According to Vranica, “…every company out there has some kind of cause.”

Ad clutter is another current issue, but companies are finding unlikely places, such as cars, crosswalks, elevators, and garages to advertise. But 3D and interactive advertising appears to be the up-and-coming medium. “Interactive advertising is a big draw for marketers because it proves that people are engaging with your ad rather than sitting back, says Vranica. With that said, touch screens, holograms and augmented reality are expected to become increasingly popular forms of advertising. It may not be long before roadside “smart-signs” and billboards will also have the ability to scan their audience and collect data about their demographic, including height, age, clothing size, and more.

via Eric Noll @  abcnews

A recent article by Janet Morrissey in Time predicts that (after a better-than-expected holiday shopping season), retailers should expect to see continued improvement.  To John Canally, a bullish economist at LPL financial, retail sales may even rise as much as 3.5% this year, a full percentage point higher than was predicted by the National Retail Federations 2010 forecast, released earlier this week.

According to Morrissey, historic trends side with such optimistic claims. Typically, in the year following a recession, spending quickly rebounds to pre-recession levels. To most, this year’s spending, however is expected to be tied to savings.  This means that shoppers have grown used the last year’s discounts, and so retailers may have to get used to leaner margins, and learn how to run tighter operations (less employees, less inventory, etc).

Invariably, unemployment will a role in how much retail bounces back.To Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates (a retail-consulting and investment banking firm), unemployment should reach as high as 11% before it drops off. Perhaps not surprisingly, Davidowitz suggests that discount retailers such as Kohls, Target, and Walmart will experience better than usual growth — but, that the recovery will not span the retail industry.

via Jane Morrissey @ Time

A recent MediaPost article, written by Sarah Mahoney, featured forecasts that the retail sector is expected to bounce back in 2010. After suffering for over a year, two retail industry organizations say that 2010 retail sales will see gains of at least 2.5%. The National Retail Federation has predicted decreased unemployment combined with a stronger housing market will boost sales in 2010, which were down 2.5% overall in 2009. The experts at Retail Forward are more optimistic,  forecasting a 1.5% to 2% gain in the retail sector in the first half of 2010, gains of up to 4% in the second half of the year.

However, according to Retail Forward economist Frank Badillo, these predictions remain nothing more than that: “Renewed job and income growth will ultimately outweigh other drags on the recovery, such as tighter credit availability and new credit regulation.” Badillo continues, “…and we’ve seen some real improvement in consumer confidence levels since last March. But if confidence and the overall mood of the country were to turn more negative, that could threaten the outlook.” Within the retail sector, food, drug and mass, and soft goods will continue to perform best in 2010. Each of those sub-sectors are expected to see gains of 2.5% in the first half of 2010, and 4% in the second half.

According to Rosalind Wells, NRF Chief Economist, “As we continue to see signs of improvement throughout the U.S. economy in 2010, overall sentiment will begin to lift, making way for slight increases in consumer spending.” She goes on to say that, “…while we still expect shoppers to continue to be frugal with their discretionary spending, retailers will soon be able to reap the benefits of leaner, smarter inventories and a year and a half of pent up consumer demand.” Following the recent economic downturn the retail industry could certainly use the boost that is predicted for this year. Needless to say, much remains to be seen.

via Sarah Mahoney @ MediaPost

The results of ComScore’s 2009 global search market study were released last week and further analyzed on the search marketing news blog, searchenginewatch.com. In a snapshot, the increasingly robust global search market grew a massive 46 percent in 2009. Overall, the U.S. holds the lion’s share of the global search market, while Google properties also remain king of the hill.

In December alone, 131 billion searches were conducted around the world, that’s 46 percent more searches than the previous year. The astronomical monthly number figure represents more than 4 billion searches conducted per day, 175 million per hour and 29 million per minute.

In December, the U.S. held 17 percent of the entire global search market, which equals roughly 22.7 billion total searches. Markets trailing behind were China with 13.3 billion searches, Japan with 9.2 billion, and the U.K. obtaining 6.2 billion.

In regards to global search property, Google still retains a commanding lead. Google took in 87.8 billion searches in December, 66.8 percent of the global market. Over the past year Google has seen a somewhat drastic increase of 58 percent in search queries. However, that figure includes all Google owned sites that involve search queries, such as Youtube. But to highlight the mega-site, YouTube earned 28 percent of all expanded search queries in the U.S. on Google sites in November 2009.

In second place, trailing far behind Google, was Yahoo! which saw 9.4 billion searches globally. Yahoo! was closely followed by Chinese search engine Baidu taking in 8.5 billion search queries. Aided by the launch of the search engine Bing, Microsoft saw a sharp search query surge of 70 percent to 4.1 billion among the top five properties.

via searchenginewatch.com