Electric Shopping Standing Out from the Holiday Crowd

An October 31st 2006 Forbes Magazine (RSS) “special report,” entitled “How To Stand Out From The Holiday Crowd“ by Dale Buss discusses how retailers can capture a tasty piece of the holiday shopping frenzy pie.

Retailers grab anywhere from 25% to 40% of their annual sales during the winter-holiday shopping season. This year, some 115 million shoppers will shell out $32 billion, up 18% from last season, estimates Jupiter Research.

Elastic Path’s friends at Electric Shopping chime in with their tips to help customers spend money by speaking their language as well as providing a level of intuitive interaction to make the shopping experience more engaging, and even humorous, while gathering info to define the gift recipient.

ElectricShopping.com is taking this notion even further. Last year, the online reseller asked only if the shopper was looking for a gift for a male or female, and how much the person wanted to spend. In November, it is adding a new feature that aims to capture an even more accurate portrait of gift recipients.

Instead of describing someone as “action-oriented,” for example, the gift buyer will be able to select a more meaningful characteristic, like “outdoorsy.” Some of the questions will be even more personal: “We’re going to ask them things like: ‘How much do you love that person?’” says Chief Executive Robert Levy. “It’ll be more engaging and fun–and I hope that means our site will stick in customers’ minds a lot more.”