Online retailers use e-mail, mobile, social on Cyber Monday

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November 28, 2011 Sign up Forward Archive RSS Feed News about digital retail commerce   Top Story    Online retailers use e-mail, mobile, social on Cyber Monday Online shoppers will find a slew of Cyber Monday discounts on their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and mobile phones as well as their e-mail boxes this year, according to Shop.org research. More than half of U.S. adults plan to shop on Cyber Monday, and about 90% of online shoppers plan to spend today. Shop.org Blog (11/27)        Download GSI Commerce’s 2011 Holiday Planning Guide GSI’s 2011 holiday guide centers around the key tactics to keep top of mind. It contains a practical checklist that spans 10 critical areas of your business, and includes a workbook to help you move from concepts to planning easily. Download now »   Online Retail Trends    Online sales saw significant Black Friday jump Black Friday online retail sales grew 26% compared to the same day last year, according to comScore, and online sales hit $816 million up from $648 million last year. Department stores saw the biggest increase in online traffic, and their online sales rose 59% over last year, according to Coremetrics. The Wall Street Journal (11/27), Houston Chronicle/The Associated Press (11/27)      Online retailers expect robust Cyber Monday About three-quarters of holiday shoppers are expected to shop online today, compared to 80% who hit Black Friday sales at brick-and-mortar stores, according to online marketplace ShopAtHome.com. Cyber Monday sales are slated to hit $1.2 billion this year, according to comScore. CNNMoney.com (11/26), Courier-Post (Camden-Cherry Hill, N.J.) (11/26)      Other News Retailers extend time for returns on online purchases InternetRetailer.com (11/23) Forrester Report: Enhance your eBusiness with Live Chat Read this Forrester report detailing how video chat solutions like Netop Live Guide can increase onsite engagements (491%), improve conversions (662%), increase order value (32%), and enhance your customers’ experience. Download report.   New Media & Technology  Social media growth spurs new strategies Social media has graduated from an add-on to public relations campaigns to its own department, and with the growth of social media come new strategies for using it effectively, writes Ancestry.com's social media director Nick Cifuentes. In addition to marketing and PR, social media is becoming a key part of customer acquisition, service and retention strategies. ClickZ (11/28)      IBM: Mobile shopping more than doubled on Black Friday Mobile research and shopping grew to 14.3% of Black Friday traffic, up from 5.6% last year, and 9.8% of sales were made on mobile devices, according to IBM. Together, Apple's iPhone and iPad accounted for 10.2% of all online traffic the day after Thanksgiving. Multichannel Merchant (11/26)      Earn 3X rewards points when you fly with The New Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. Designed to earn Membership Rewards® points faster: • 3X points on airfare • 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping • 1X points on everything else LEARN MORE AND APPLY   Hot Topics  Top five news stories selected by Shop.org SmartBrief readers in the past week. Online retailers gear up for Cyber Monday (Shop.org Blog) The pros and cons of drop shipping (Practical eCommerce) Retailers use bricks to boost clicks (CNNMoney.com) One Kings Lane aims to sell a lifestyle (The Wall Street Journal) Zappos will pay holiday toll for Massachusetts drivers (American City Business Journals) Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.   Companies in the News    Amazon quadruples Kindle sales on Black Friday Amazon sold four times as many Kindles on Black Friday as it did the same day last year. The Kindle Fire was the best-selling tablet on the retailer's website and at Target stores, the company said. Many customers bought multiple devices as gifts, a trend Amazon expects to continue through the holiday season. The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (11/28)      YouTube Movies prepares to add Disney films Walt Disney will soon make hundreds of films available for online viewing via YouTube Movies. The rental website already has movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate. The Disney deal will bring the catalog to about 3,000 titles. MediaPost Communications/Online Media Daily (11/27)      From "The Office" to your office The fictitious Dunder Mifflin paper brand from NBC's "The Office" is coming to Staples online store Quill.com. The office supply retailer is licensing the Dunder Mifflin brand from NBC and plans to use the brand's slogans on packaging. The Wall Street Journal (11/28)      PayPal reports 500% rise in mobile payments Mobile payment volume on PayPal Mobile rose more than 500% on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, compared to the same days last year, the company said. TechCrunch (11/25)      Google encourages businesses to go mobile in Mobile Google is hosting an initiative to persuade companies to invest in mobile-ready websites, focusing on Mobile, Ala., as a test market. Google is offering companies best-practices advice for designing mobile sites and a tool for testing whether their company's site is mobile-accessible. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (11/24)      Consumer Insights Your Brand Needs to Know: Latest Trends in Behavioral Advertising Learn what brand managers, advertisers, as well as networks, agencies, and publishers need to know about consumer survey insights into behavioral ad serving, also known as interest-based advertising. Learn more today!   Featured Content    How Cell Runners Distribution Used Outsourcing To Grow And Succeed Kate Fisher- FedEx Small Business Team Bought By Yahoo: What It's Like On The Other End Mark Henricks Finally: A Reason To Feel Good About Overeating Suzanne Sataline How To Be A Master Of Productivity: A Small-Business Guide Laurel Donaldson Retain Employees By Making Work Matter Penelope Trunk Most Popular Headlines from Last Week Would You Fire Someone For Refusing To Wear A "666" Sticker? Courtney Rubin 8 Tips: How To Make Your Company And Career More Dynamic Shira Levine Niche Marketing: 3 Tools That Will Help You Reach Targeted Customers Heather Whaling (Mashable) Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.   Interactive Advertising  Wal-Mart steers sales force into digital world Using its in-store magazine and social media and offering incentives, Wal-Mart appears to be tapping its 1.4 million employees nationwide as potential consumer influencers. Brands will have more opportunity to reach Wal-Mart workers through the magazine. In turn, Wal-Mart employees will be encouraged with credits to promote online sales. Advertising Age (tiered subscription model) (11/28)        Shop.org Spotlight  More than 122 million expected to shop on Cyber Monday Online shopping continues to win over millions of Americans this holiday season, with a record number planning to hit retailers' websites today to take advantage of one-day only deals, percentages off websites, and free shipping offers. According to a survey conducted for Shop.org by BIGresearch, 122.9 million Americans plan to shop on Cyber Monday this year, up from the 106.9 million who shopped on Cyber Monday in 2010. Eager to meet consumers' demands, nearly eight in ten retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, according to a survey released last week. Read more.      Shop.org SmartStat: Nov. 28, 2011 This year, 44% of shoppers will rely on debit cards as their primary form of payment. Source: NRF survey conducted by BIGresearch.        Looking for the best deals on Cyber Monday? Look no further Shop.org's CyberMonday.com, which features holiday promotions and special savings from more than 800 retailers is the No. 1 destination for holiday online deals -- with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund, which helps students pursuing careers in retail. In addition to hundreds of special offers, the site will also feature Deals of the Hour on its homepage with exclusives from Eddie Bauer, The Nike Store and Sephora, among others. Learn more.      Learn more about Shop.org -> Website  |  Events  |  Research  |  Shop.org Blog  |  Join Shop.org   SmartQuote  Any idiot can face a crisis -- it's the day-to-day living that wears you out." --Anton Chekhov, Russian author and playwright        This SmartBrief was created for cpgbrokers.data@blogger.com   Subscriber Tools       Update account information | Change e-mail address | Unsubscribe | Print friendly format | Web version | Search past news | Archive | Privacy policy Grab our News Widget Publish your Press Release   Advertise Senior Account Director:  Dena Malouf (202) 407-7837 Download Media Kit       Recent Shop.org SmartBrief Issues: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 Monday, November 21, 2011 Friday, November 18, 2011 Thursday, November 17, 2011     Lead Editor:  Megan Conniff       Mailing Address: SmartBrief, Inc.®, 555 11th ST NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004     © 1999-2011 SmartBrief, Inc.® Legal Information