Most everyone knows that a bad experience is more likely to be shared than a good one. For some reason, people are much more inclined to rant than they are to rave. Even writers have an easier time writing a bad review than a good one. In the end, everyone just wants to be a critic.   Because of this little human idiosyncrasy, business owners are uber sensitive to the wants and needs of their customers and clients. And they should...

Guest post by Avery Cohen – Metrist Partners   If you’re a marketer serving B2B or consumer websites, expect to encounter an evolving use of eCommerce analytics tools in 2014. Why? Because businesses will continue to adapt to a simple yet inevitable shift in buyer behavior in which nearly all buyers, B2B and consumer, research their problem and possible solutions online before ever speaking to a salesperson.   Therefore, marketers need to be a central part of their customers’ research experience on social...

For anyone who searches for eCommerce news on a daily basis, they would be hard-pressed to not have noticed a new theme that’s been emerging in the search results: India. Although articles about the U.S. industry typically dominate those results, news from India has been showing up more and more.   The success of Indian eCommerce has risen to such a degree that the country is now reconsidering its ban on foreign investments in its eCommerce sector. Amazon and eBay,...

When designing a mobile site, it's important to remember that it comes with its own set of rules when compared to that of a traditional site. And because of those differences, some elements could go overlooked in the design process. So to keep you from losing any precious time, the following list should prove useful. It covers a few aspects of launching a mobile site that you won’t want to forget:   1. Know your users – even better than before....

Other than Peapod or FreshDirect, shopping for groceries online leaves something to be desired. Although some of the United State’s biggest and most successful supermarkets offer the service, many of the websites are old, slow and clunky. To say the least, the user experience is lackluster – and that’s not even taking into consideration the limited selection that many of these sites make available.   So if anyone were to come to the rescue, Amazon would be the one to do...

Over the past few weeks, retailers nationwide have been on the edges of their seats. With the government shutdown, the abbreviated holiday shopping period and general economic uncertainty, the balance sheets for November were literally hanging in the balance.   According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s recent advanced retail sales report, however, retailers beat the odds, racking up $432.3 billion in sales in November. That amount represents a 0.7 percent increase from October and, excluding receipts at gas stations, the biggest...

As 2013 comes to a close, the general public is being showered with best-of lists and 2014 forecasts. Whether it’s a month-by-month article of celebrity blunders or a nuts-and-bolts business blog full of advice for the year to come, the media engine won’t be putting a halt to this type of reporting until the ball drops in two weeks.   IBM, however, didn’t just offer up its predictions for the next year, the editors there went a few steps further. In...

One of the biggest challenges faced by retailers today is figuring out where to put their marketing dollars. With consumers taking so many avenues toward an eventual purchase, it’s tough to know what messages are truly making an impact. Attribution modeling – although an intimidating idea to tackle for some – can help marketers make sense of their customers’ interaction histories and their ever-growing collection of cross-channel data.   Attribution modeling for the masses   Not so long ago, attribution modeling...

According to Forbes, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, China’s (and the world’s) biggest eCommerce company, is ranked No. 8 on the news outlet’s China Rich List. According to the Financial Times, an international publication that covers business, finance, economics and politics, Jack Ma is its Person of the Year for 2013.   Before Ma first founded Alibaba in 1999, he might not have expected to find himself on a Forbes’ list of any kind – or as the person of...

“The cultural and organizational implications are huge. Relationships must be fully reciprocal and once that relationship is established, companies of all sizes need to be prepared to act based on the influence of the customer. In this way, organizations are shifting from being merely customer-centric to customer-activated.”   This was just part of the message shared from the editors at IBM in regard to a recent study, which focused on midmarket companies and their intent on developing a digital strategy. The...