Here's How Online Stores Change Prices Depending on How You Shop

A team of researchers at Northeastern University recently analyzed how e-commerce sites tailor prices to specific shoppers based on their digital habits and demographics, such as their ZIP code. According to the study, presented last week at the Internet Measurement Conference in Vancouver, major e-commerce sites including Home Depot, Walmart, and Hotels.com list online prices that are all over the map, and in some cases, these prices are “personalized” to the behavior of particular shoppers, including whether they shop on a phone or on a desktop.

Source: Online Stores Change Prices Depending on How You Shop. Here's How | WIRED

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Could Online Retailers Be Profitable and Grow?

Most online retailers are not profitable yet and the industry estimates are not looking good either. The online retail industry has so far been competing with each other on price and costly customer acquisition, which in combination does not auger well for profitability.

The prevalent belief is that only at scale (aka, a billion dollar or more in revenue) can these retailers believe to be able to amortize their customer acquisition and marketing costs. This belief stems from the assumption that you need to pay (or offer a hefty discount) for people to shop online and to market (aka advertise) heavily to remain in the customer psyche.

Source: Could Online Retailers Be Profitable and Grow? - Business 2 Community

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Amazon Files Patent For "Anticipatory Shipping"

Anticipatory shipping may be closest that retail can come to a crystal ball. Amazon, which now has a patent for the algorithm-based system, could conceivably use the system to ship products before you even place an order.

Amazon has been awarded the patent, officially known as "method and system for anticipatory package shipping. The patent summary describes a method for shipping a package of one or more items "to the destination geographical area without completely specifying the delivery address at time of shipment," with the final destination defined en route.

Source: Amazon Knows What You Want Before You Buy It

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The Top 10 Reasons Why Your eCommerce Website Is Losing Sales

The online retail game is not an easy one to win, but new research and analysis might help cast a light on the glaring problems causing your site to lose sales and customers.

Collecting user feedback and complaints from 400 websites over three years, Qubit has narrowed its findings to 10 main problem areas. The results paint a picture of a consumer with much higher expectations for retail websites and their user-friendliness.

Source: The Top 10 Reasons Why Your Website Is Losing Sales

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How Social Media, Smartphones And Tablets Are Transforming Online Shopping [INFOGRAPHIC]

Did you know that 64 percent of smartphone owners shop online using their device, and that the social media savvy are amongst the most active shoppers around, with 60 percent of Facebook users saying they would discuss a product or service if they were offered a deal of some kind?

Modern technologies such as social media, smartphones and tablets have transformed the retail business.

This infographic takes a closer look at how smart devices and social analytics are transforming retail.

Source: How Social Media, Smartphones And Tablets Are Transforming Online Shopping [INFOGRAPHIC] - AllTwitter

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Building an Effective Supermarket Retail Website

A report out by Bill Bishop, chairman of Willard Bishop, aims to decipher what supermarket websites need to do to best communicate with shoppers. The report is based on multiple visits to websites of eight retailers -- Festival Foods, Giant Food Stores, Harris Teeter, Wegmans, Kroger, Publix, Safeway, and Schnucks -- as well as an evaluation of their outbound (primarily e-mail) communications. Here are some of the findings based on the report, which was conducted in June through October of 2009:

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Reinventing Retail

It's hard to believe that 15 years have passed since Amazon launched as an online bookstore. Back then, e-commerce was largely modeled on the brick-and-mortar experience, but now the reverse is beginning to happen. Retailers, however, have been slow to adopt digital technologies in-store, resulting in antiquated and sometimes frustrating shopping experiences.
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View of Online E-Commerce in India - Under a Microscope

The phenomena that world is fast shrinking into a Global Village because of Internet and other communication mediums is not completely reflective in the Indian context. While developed and fast developing countries have understood the power of Internet, India still has a long way to catch up. Internet has brought nearly the entire world just a click away from us. The retail industry canvass has been repainted by Internet and the rules of the game in retailing are fast changing.

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The Fight over Prices on the Internet

On some pages of e-commerce sites selling products like televisions, digital cameras and jewelry, a critical piece of information is conspicuously missing: the price tag.

To see how much these items cost, shoppers must add the merchandise to their shopping carts — in effect, taking it up to the virtual register for a price check.

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Why You Should Abandon Having An Online Retail Store

With the struggling economy, I hear a lot of independent bricks and mortar stores saying they need to build an online store. The image is millions of people perusing your products, shipping to exotic locales like Pacoima, Paris or Peru. A website delivering the amount of customers you lost in the last two years with low overhead.

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