Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Top 10 Web 2.0 Activities for Ecommerce | via GetElastic

"Retailers often wonder what Web 2.0 / social media activities to be involved with, so this post ranks what I believe are the top 10 Web 2.0 activities for ecommerce based on their business impact."

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Music Industry Is Dying: a Visualization.

No comment.
Source: The New York Times

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Geolocalized mobile shopping app drives sales to stores

NearbyNow, the website that helps you find the products you want to purchase that are available in stores nearest to your physical location, has released a white-label iPhone App Platform, enabling brands to offer a product availability/localization feature directly from your mobile phone.

How a NearbyNow-powered app works (excerpt from Seventeen magazine's "Fashion Finder" app description) :
- Browse the latest looks by style or item.
- Zoom in and out of the stuff you like, so you can see the details.
- Tap “Find It Near You” to find a store within 50 miles that carries the item.
- Confirm the item is available in your preferred size and color.
- Just enter your contact information and the Seventeen Fashion Finder personal shopper will call the store during normal business hours and put the item on hold. Within 10 minutes, you will receive an e-mail or text message with details on where to find the item in the store and whom to ask for. You’ll have 24 hours to come in and try it on.
- Tap “Find It Online” to get a list of online stores for items available on the Web.

Pretty neat service huh?

BUT... a human from NearbyNow actually has to call stores in your area to check availability of your item in your size... Not a very scalable model, don't you think?

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

GM, eBay to Test Online NEW Car Sales | via Reuters



The venture, accessible at gm.ebay.com, "currently limited to California, lets shoppers scroll through about 20,000 vehicles sitting on the lots of 225 of GM's 250 dealers in the state. The listings include a "buy it now" price, which customers can accept, or they can enter into online bargaining with a dealer."

Monday, August 10, 2009

Retailers shift focus to e-commerce... where retail still has a pulse.

According to the Wall Street Journal, US retail powerhouse Target won't renew its contract with Amazon when it expires in 2011. Target had been outsourcing its e-commerce operations (software, hosting, call center, logistics...) to Amazon since 2001...

As e-commerce grows bigger in the retail market, and as it is the only distribution channel with promises of growth, major retailers finally realize online retail is no longer an afterthought. They want to regain control over it and integrate it with their store channel, in order to create multi-channel offerings for their customers, and get a piece of the online cake before it's too late.

Target is the latest to end their contract to outsource their e-commerce operations at Amazon, after Borders and Toys 'R Us.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Breaking: Publicis buys Razorfish

Paris-based advertising group Publicis has confirmed 1 hour ago that it has purchased Razorfish, the digital agencies network, from Microsoft for 530 million dollars, in cash and shares (this makes Microsoft the owner of about 3% of the Groupe by the way...), with an agreement to purchase ad inventory from Microsoft online properties in the years to come.


Publicis Groupe now owns the #1 (Digitas) et #2 (Razorfish) digital agency networks in the world. It is in line to generate 25% of this year's revenue from digital communications.

Razorfish will be included in the VivaKi agency line-up.

Official press release here.

Friday, August 7, 2009

US manufacturers going direct online: follow-up

Excellent post from the GetElastic blog following Internet's Retailer's article about manufacturers being the fastest growing segment of e-commerce in the US: read it here.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

in the US, brand manufacturers lose their fear of selling online | via Internet Retailer

"As a group, consumer brand manufacturers have lagged behind Top 500 web-only merchants, catalogers and retail chains in the race for e-commerce sales.

But with more at stake, Top 500 manufacturers, which grew their combined web sales 15.7% to $14.0 billion in 2008 from $12.1 billion in 2007, are leading the pack. When Amazon.com, which accounts for 52.2% of sales among all Top 500 web-only retailers, is factored out, manufacturers stood out as the fastest-growing merchant category."

Read full story at Internet Retailer.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

With Swaxy.com, QVC meets woot.com meets Playboy !

Sex sells with Swaxy.com, literally... :)

Augmented Reality hits mass-market with Wal-Mart and Best Buy

Augmented Reality is now a mass-market marketing technique... and is getting closer and closer to e-commerce.

Walmart was the first multichannel to launch an AR initiative, finally finding a way to add true value to their weekly ads and engage consumers with print advertising (you can print out this AR marker to try it for yourself).















And now Best Buy launches "Best Buy in 3D" with the same model in mind: showing the paper weekly ad to your webcam launches the AR engine, displaying a 3D rendering of the highlighted products within the webcam video on your computer screen, complete with info, specs etc etc.

Seeing is believing!

 
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