Bad global economic conditions during the holiday shopping season is every retailer's nightmare, and unfortunately, that's today's reality. And while Forrester Research expects U.S. online retail sales this holiday season to grow 12 percent - the slowest growth rate to date - there is hope for online sellers. Although U.S. consumers are pessimistic about the health of the economy, they expressed a marked interest in the ability of the Web to save them money.
Are AuctionBytes readers pessimistic about holiday sales? We're conducting a survey to find out and will publish the results in an upcoming issue of AuctionBytes. You can take the survey here and talk more about your views and experiences on the AuctionBytes Blog.
Forrester Research Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said, "This is going to be a very competitive online shopping season, so retailers should take immediate steps to bolster their customer retention strategies in order to ensure repeat purchases."
Some of the common ways online sellers encourage repeat business is by including inserts in orders that offer coupons on future orders and through email marketing to past customers. IMN wrote a white paper outlining best practices on email marketing. It's a good backgrounder and explains the do's and don'ts that can be applied using any email marketing service. (Access the white paper in PDF format here.)
Another way to increase exposure to your product listings is through Google Product Search (see our interview with Google's Jessica Ng in EcommerceBytes Insider), and through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We've got an interview with search-engine guru Danny Sullivan that will be published in an upcoming issue of EcommerceBytes Insider. Danny will tell us the top five things every merchant should know about SEO, so make sure you are subscribed to EcommerceBytes Insider. We'll also be covering pay-per-click advertising and cross-selling/up-selling in future issues.
Multi-channel merchandising is another way to increase your exposure to buyers. Large retailers and top eBay PowerSellers have been going multi-channel for many years, but this year, the trend of multi-channel selling has exploded among small sellers. I attribute this to two things. One is the "Google Base effect." In the past, small sites would get sellers to come list on their sites, but had a difficult time getting buyers. Now, sites like eCrater and Bonanzle are uploading merchants' product listings to Google Base and are gaining traffic through Google Product Search.
The other reason small sellers are going multi-channel is to break free from the restrictions and fees of marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. The investment in learning a new marketplace and setting up an ecommerce-enabled website is now less daunting and more appealing given the changes and restrictions on large marketplaces.
The EveryPlaceISell.com merchant directory empowers independent sellers and increases their visibility in search engines. We are actively marketing the merchant directory with Google AdWords and have some additional plans up our sleeve to drive traffic to merchant listings on EPIS.
We are receiving emails from sellers who are seeing more and more referrals to their websites coming from EveryPlaceISell.com. There's no reason not to set up a free merchant listing, and you'll increasingly see more reasons to do so.
Thanks for reading, and an early Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. readers!
