E-commerce stocks get a bounce from strong online holiday sales

Wall Street was impressed with online retail sales over the Thanksgiving period, and it showed up last week in strong gains in share prices for e-commerce stocks.

The Internet Retailers Online Retail Index gained 5.2% for the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up only 0.8% and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced only 1.3%.

"Stronger than expected online spending data contributed to share prices moving higher," says analyst Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets. "We are still looking for ongoing healthy online trends over the remainder of the shopping season, however growth rates may moderate a bit." Sebastian predicts 3-5% growth in online sales for the holiday period. Web measurement firm comScore Inc. reported online sales grew 7.4% from Thanksgiving Day through last Monday.

Analysts from such Wall Street firms as UBS Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley, as well as Lazard's Sebastian, issued reports noting the strong online retail sales. All three reports highlighted e-commerce technology provider GSI Commerce Inc. as one of the companies likely to benefit from consumer spending shifting to the web. GSI's stock was up nearly 9% last week.

Overall, 22 of the 25 online retailer and e-commerce technology provider stocks tracked by the Internet Retailer Online Retail Index gained for the week. Leading the way was Drugstore.com, which reported it had its best day ever on the Monday after Thanksgiving, typically one of the heaviest online shopping days of the holiday season.

Here are the best-performing stocks last week in the Online Retail Index and the percentage price increase for each:

• Drugstore.com, 17%
• 1-800-Flowers.com, 14.8%
• VistaPrint, 10.5%
• CyberSource, 9.8%
• GSI, 8.9%

Here are the Online Retail Index stocks that performed least well last week and the percentage change in stock price for the week:

• Netflix, -2.8%
• American Greetings, -1.0%
• Bidz.com, -.9%
• Digital River, +.3%
• Overstock, +1.8%

How Simple Usability Fixes on Your Site Can Immediately Impact Sales

When shopping or browsing a website, many people can get frustrated, lost, or even confused. As marketers, we are often so close to the site that we don’t realize what’s going on with our target audience, which is why reviewing your analytics daily is such an important task. But there are also little fixes you can make to your site to keep visitors happily shopping. Here are the first five we’re going to discuss this month:

Usability Tip #1: Put Contact Information Above the Fold
Don’t send your audience searching for ways to communicate with you. Make sure your phone number and contact info are in plain view, above the fold and preferably in the top areas of your site where visitors will look first.

Usability Tip #2: The More Content, the Better When Trying to Convert
If you have an e-commerce site, putting a great deal of content on your product pages is an important practice. Why? While some visitors like to scan and pick up tidbits quickly, other types of visitors will carefully read all you have to offer. Plus, adding more content to these pages increases your relevancy in SEO rankings.

Usability Tip #3: Show Breadcrumbs Everywhere
Just telling a visitor where they are on your site can help decrease frustration and prevent visitors from abandoning your site altogether. Adding breadcrumbs is a quick and easy fix for your IT department, and even has SEO benefits.

Usability Tip #4: Don’t Use Too Much Red
You’ve probably heard it a million times, but don’t overuse the color red on your site. Subliminally, red means stop, and has a host of other negative connotations. Keep the red to a minimum while playing up more happy colors.

Usability Tip #5: Let Buttons Speak for Themselves
Your calls to actions on the site are so critically important, why would you hide them or keep them small? Let them live large, especially if they are as crucial as the Add to Cart button. You don’t want visitors to wonder where it’s hiding.

Next month we will visit five new quick and easy usability fixes you can make that can immediately impact your site stickiness and revenue.

Paid Search is Saturated: So What’s Next?

For the past five years, paid search has been the top sales driver for many online retailers. And, as many marketing agencies will point out, paid search involves much more than just choosing the right keywords. Paid search requires constant optimization and testing, from the ad text grabbing the customer’s eye to the landing page introducing or reaffirming your brand’s offerings.

Most importantly, and as many have realized, paid search can only work when your site is optimized with the latest and best in usability and site stickiness tactics. Meaning: You need marketers to get people to your site, but you need top usability experts to make sure those visitors convert to customers once they’ve landed there.

Today, more and more people have discovered the ins and outs of paid search, but… what’s the next big thing taking the online marketing community by storm? Two types of media – video and social media marketing – are leading this year’s hottest marketing trends.

Website Videos

Retailers especially will benefit from using videos on their websites and in their marketing campaigns to increase online conversion rates. Why? Videos bring the customer one step closer to that true in-storm experience. Although they can’t touch an item of clothing, for example, or try it on, a video allows them a true snapshot of the item, bringing it to life better than a series of photographs ever could.

Videos also bring a sense of credibility to your website, and – if done right – a sense of class as well. Meta Media, Inc. partner Quadras Integrated has been an expert in photography and now videography for over 30 years.

QI experts recommend that your website videos:

• Compel users without overwhelming them with too much information.
• Be very focused; showcase individual products or services rather than a variety.
• Be short and to the point; videos that are too long will lose the audience.
• Play in all browsers; testing is crucial when launching a new website video.

Video SEO

You can even take advantage of Video SEO by including transcriptions and captions of your videos on your site. Post them to YouTube as well for additional external links, bound to raise your overall rankings on Google especially.

Video Advertising

Video advertising is on the rise and should be tested, in addition to adding website videos to your site. As a recent eMarketer article pointed out:

“[S]pending on online video advertising will grow to $4.6 billion in 2013, representing a more than sevenfold increase from the $587 million spent on the format in 2008” (1/9/09).

Marketers love video advertising for the sole reason that it allows you to convey so much (ideas, emotions, sensibilities) in a quick and charismatic format. It is also ideal for communicating to younger audiences who would much rather watch than read.

Social Media Marketing

Finally, we have social media marketing, defined as the collaboration and communication of online content across a variety of different verticals. From clothing & accessories to health & beauty to home services, people are taking advantage of social media marketing to share ideas, comments, coupons and more. The growth of social media marketing has proved it’s not a short-lived trend, but the latest way to get audiences interested in your product, service or brand.

- Social Media Resources: From Facebook to Myspace to Twitter, your audiences are discovering new ways to interact with each other and create “Consumer-Generated Media” (CGM). It’s important to locate those resources that have the most potential for your business, and test and track the results.

• Widgets: Social media widgets for Facebook, Twitter and others keep you constantly connected with your audience. Just a simple application added to your site can make a big difference in how you interact with visitors and keep them updated on your business.
• Blogging: How can a blog impact your sales? Is it essential for your business growth? With so much saturation in blogs today (there are about 80+ million blogs online and active), you need to find your voice and continually update and enhance your content to make sure your audience sticks around.

For more on the latest trends in online marketing, contact Meta Media Inc. today.

The Importance of an Easy-to-Use Admin Tool for Site Updates & Maintenance

In many organizations, large and small, the IT-Programming department often serves as a bottleneck for many company-wide requests. With IT services always in demand, especially for larger projects that require advanced technical expertise, smaller fixes and updates to your website can remain “in queue” for weeks and even months at a time.

That’s why it’s so important to have a back-end system that allows you to make updates to your site – without involving the IT department.

Add and update categories, products/ service listings and new pages.
Refresh photos and keep site content fresh to keep visitors returning to the site.
Change title tags, meta descriptions, alt text and meta keywords for search engine optimization.
Control product feeds in real time.
Store and segment customer data.

Companies like Meta Media, Inc. build these admin tools with the “every user” in mind, so that someone with little to no IT knowledge can make these updates quickly and easily.

There’s an Expense… But It’s Worthwhile

Many admin tools require an upfront expense, as they are usually custom built to handle the specific needs of your business and your employees. Once the admin tool is built, however, you control your site, and don’t need to depend on a third-party or even your IT department to make the updates and maintain the site the way your marketers require. The cost definitely pays out over time – just in time saved and in the increase in site stickiness you’ll experience as you regularly update your site.