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Online Retail Readiness |
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According to a new study say the US eCommerce industry has experienced a compound annual growth rate of 33%. Forrester predicts that revenue in 2006 will continue to grow another 20% to top $200 billion. And, 41% of the retailers WebTrends surveyed said that the holiday season accounts for more than 20% of their annual revenue. Email marketing to stimulate demand is the winner with ecommerce businesses, with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking second and third.
Print advertising was ranked second and in-store promotions third to Internet and Store retailers, while traditional forms of demand generation such as broadcast advertising and coupons didn't make the cut. Online banner ads were also a lower priority for all retailers. More than 23% of retailers will provide no special offers during the holidays. Last year, free shipping was a clear winner, with value-added promotions such as "free gift with purchase" running a close second. This year, twice as many retailers are opting to see what happens without any promotions at all. 28% of respondents will use a "special repeat buyer discount" to fuel repeat purchases from existing customers, down from 33% from last year's survey. The inclination to refrain from providing special offers applies to current as well as new customers.
Some other key findings reported in the study include:
63% of retailers are relying on response and activity-based metrics like clickthroughs, page and product views to measure demand generation
27% aren't consistently measuring their demand generation activities at all
10% of retailers surveyed are using visitor-centric metrics like unique visitors and deferred conversions to measure these activities |
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