Business Wire and TMC Net on Holiday Ecommerce Sales Strategies

It’s no secret that the holiday period is the biggest shopping frenzy of the year - indeed, I experienced sensory overload just stopping by a downtown mall on the way home the other night!

The day after Thanksgiving is the big one in the US, while the day after Christmas (AKA Boxing Day) tops the list in Canada (if I recall correctly) as retailers slash their remaining inventory to move and shoppers finish up the shopping season buying stuff on sale for themselves (some new hockey gear is on the Boxing day sale list for me).

Regardless of what your holiday is called, and when you do your shopping, studies show that more and more of you are shopping online - wisely avoiding the crowds and spending extra time relaxing with family during the festive period. In all, about a quarter of holiday gift purchases are made online and that number is bound to grow and people discover the ease of online shopping for buying unique items along with the usual books and CDs.

With this in mind, Schwartz PR sent out a press release chronicling a couple Elastic Path powered retailers’ strategies and stories from the holiday sales trenches. In particular, the release details two UK-based e-retailers ElectricShopping and I Want one of Those. Both of these companies are great gift buying stops as the former focuses on handy households appliances and the latter on gadgets and toys.

In the release, the companies discuss search as both an attraction tool (via organic Search Engine Optimization tools) and as a conversion tool by facilitating subjective internal search terms to find a unique gift match. By implementing intuitive search features, shopping is easier and more enjoyable for the customer and hopefully results in the perfect gift for the recipient.

You can read the release in the wild at these sites, or below:

Retail Technology Milestones “Top News”

Business Wire

TMC Net “On the Web”

This article is Dugg on Digg

Elastic Path Gives Online Retailers Competitive Edge During Holiday Season

“…we have seen a 25 percent increase in online shopper conversion from browsers to buyers—unbelievable.” – I Want One of Those!

December 13, 2006 07:00 AM Eastern Time

VANCOUVER, British Columbia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–According to the National Retail Federation, online shopping has now grown to the point where the average consumer will spend about one-fourth of their total holiday budget (estimated at $791.10) shopping online. To capture this rapidly growing customer base, etailers are implementing creative marketing campaigns such as personalized “gift finders” that connect consumers with the perfect gift quickly.

Elastic Path customers such as I Want One of Those! (Iwantoneofthose.com) and Electricshopping.com have implemented Elastic Path’s flexible ecommerce platform to strengthen their visibility and offering with optimized search engine rankings, stored purchase histories, saved customer shopping carts and enhanced merchandising and promotion options.

I Want One of Those! and Electricshopping.com are leveraging Elastic Path’s flexible ecommerce platform to make holiday shopping easier. Both retailers allow shoppers to “browse” for items based on the personality or hobbies of the people on their shopping list. For I Want One of Those!, Elastic Path delivers filterable, in-site search and navigation, helping shoppers find gifts based on characteristics such as “party animal,” and “couch potato.” Similarly, Electricshopping.com allows consumers to narrow down gift options by inputting basic criteria such as gender and price point. By connecting consumers with the right gift quickly, Elastic Path is helping retailers maximize the value of each customer.

“As we are seeing both the numbers of online browsers and buyers increase every year, we wanted to provide our tech savvy customers with an enjoyable and seamless way to do their holiday shopping— it was par for the course to implement a gift finder feature that would not only enhance the online customer experience but make searching for the ideal gift that much easier,” said Rob Levy, managing director of Electricshopping.com. “By using Elastic Path’s out of box functionality, it was effortless to create a site that’s both appealing and interactive; allowing us to fully engage our customers and quickly connect them with the perfect gift.”

“In providing our customers with an optimal online shopping experience, it was a natural step to incorporate a fun holiday gift finder feature complete with pull down categories such as price, gender, personality, gift category and occasion,” said Sagar Vadher, head of IT for I Want One of Those!. “With Elastic Path’s ecommerce platform, it was refreshingly easy to add the new gift finder feature to our site. Since implementing Elastic Path’s ecommerce platform in fall 2006, we have seen a 25 percent increase in online shopper conversion from browsers to buyers—unbelievable.”

“The holiday season is the pinnacle profit point for most etailers and the practice of enabling customers to “browse” just as you would at a traditional brick and mortar store is playing an increasingly important role in attracting and retaining customers,” said Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing at Elastic Path. “Our platform is designed to help retailers easily connect with consumers to drive sales and increase profits.”

Elastic Path released Elastic Path 5 this fall. This re-engineered platform delivers a powerful promotion rules engine, innovative search engine marketing functionality, faceted in-site search and navigation, and full web services capabilities to online retailers. The platform’s flexibility and significantly lower price point, as compared to competitors, help online retailers drive profit – not just revenue. Elastic Path 5 includes the AJAX-powered Elastic Path OnePage which creates an optimal checkout experience and enables returning customers to complete an order with a single click.