Brand Ecommerce

Manufacturers drive online sales with where-to-buy

February 28, 2012

Once you know what “where-to-buy” is, you understand why so many people in the industry consider it to be an essential component for manufacturer websites. If you work for a manufacturer that supports the retail channel, nothing makes more sense than taking ready-to-buy consumers directly from your product page to a retailer “buy page.” And [...]

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What is “where-to-buy” all about?

February 13, 2012

It occurred to me a few days ago that although my colleagues and I talk about “where-to-buy” all the time, there are probably plenty of people who have absolutely no idea what it is. Because we are so close to the concept, we might occasionally be guilty of assuming everyone connected to our industry has [...]

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A tale of two states and e-commerce

December 2, 2011

One of the interesting things we noticed in our review of the holiday data is that online shopping patterns are often the same no matter where people live. Take Connecticut and Oklahoma, for example. Based on the 2010 United States census estimate, the population of Connecticut is 3,574,097 and Oklahoma’s population is 3,751,351. However with [...]

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Worth reading

November 29, 2011

Here is a round-up of some recent stories we found interesting: Internet Retailer: Cyber Monday spending jumps 33% Online sales yesterday increased 33% compared with a year ago, according to  IBM Corp.’s SmarterCommerce unit that tracks data from 500 retailers. (more) # # # Washington Post: Cyber Monday continues as sales figures roll in It [...]

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Black Friday starts and ends on an e-com high

November 26, 2011

In the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday, many Americans snapped out of a turkey-and-dressing coma to shop online. CI’s retail partners recorded a huge surge in sales between midnight and 2 a.m. as consumers took advantage of discount pricing. What happened after 2 in the morning is anyone’s guess. People either drifted [...]

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Shopping patterns shifted dramatically on Thanksgiving

November 25, 2011

Other than gluttony, football and a few random family spats, what made yesterday different from the first 23 days of November? The answer is: Online Shopping. From Nov. 1-23, we saw a consistent pattern of purchase activity in each time zone of the United States. There were large spikes in online purchases from 8 a.m. [...]

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Increase your visibility in mobile search

November 17, 2011

In a previous post we established that if you are an online retailer, you also need a mobile site. They go together like burgers and fries … Homer and Marge … Kim Kardashian and controversy. The mobile site is important because many shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores use smart phones for product research. You don’t want [...]

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New wave in e-com: Where-to-buy at every touch point

October 27, 2011

Over the past few days, I uwrapped the results of our survey questions about the start of the holiday shopping season and product search optimization. Today we’ll complete our series about the survey we conducted at the 2011 Shop.org Annual Summit. Back in 2001, CI pioneered the concept of deep-linking from “Buy Now” buttons on [...]

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Down to the wire for update to Google Product Search feed spec

September 21, 2011

Are you ready for the Google Product Search feed spec update? Google publicized the changes to their feed requirements for the past several months. And maybe you put action on the back burner because you had until Sept. 22 to revise your feed. Well consider this your pop-up reminder, because that date is tomorrow. Google [...]

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Manufacturer sites take place of ‘the guy’

July 16, 2010

I guess I was around 12 years old when I first saw the revolutionary piece of lawn equipment. My dad and I stopped to visit our neighbor Jack Gerard who lived a half-mile down the road. Jack took a break from his lawn work to show us the new tool he bought. It was an [...]

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