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...

When hiring or outsourcing an individual or a firm for eCommerce website development, any retailer can agree: a subject matter expert is the candidate of choice. What is difficult to find consensus on, however, is what constitutes an SME.   In the 2008 best-seller, “The Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell inspired readers by saying that if an individual devotes 10,000 hours, boiled down to a 40-hour work week over the course of five years, they will achieve the status of expert in their...

Soon, all eyes will set their focus on Brazil as the largest South American country hosts two of the world’s biggest athletic events. Surely, the selection of Brazil as host for both the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics is due to its position as one of the globe’s most promising emerging nations.   As such, Brazil offers opportunities for eCommerce companies wanting to expand their reach. With a population of just over 200 million, Brazil finds itself amongst the top...

Leading up to Black Friday, some industry experts had tepid anticipation for what the holiday shopping day would bring to retailers across the nation. With ongoing online promotions overshadowing Black Friday, they wondered if it still carried the same weight as it had in years past.   For ShopperTrak, the leading global provider of shopper insights and analytics, overall retail spending for November and December was seen as a mixed bag. The group forecasted that 10 percent fewer shoppers would visit...

Historically, consumers have held off on big electronics purchases during the early part of the year, saving them for Black Friday’s door-buster deals. This year, however, the verdict is still out as to whether the biggest shopping day of the year still holds the same level of anticipation. Regardless, anyone in retail can agree: Black Friday and Cyber Monday have taken up a big chunk of the daily workload over the past few months – and then some.   So although...