  | News about digital retail commerce |  |
 | Personalization Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Success. The industry's first report on which key performance indicators are most important for effective personalization and measurable value. Learn deep insight into segmentation, demand, average order value, conversion rate and cart abandonment. DOWNLOAD NOW | | Online Retail Trends |  |  | | - Survey: Hispanic women flock to digital commerce
About 71% of Hispanic women in a new survey say they're members of at least one daily deal site, 66% own smartphones and 39% of them have used the phone for shopping, according to Latina Insights. The research also revealed that Macy's, Target and Victoria's Secret were among the group's favorite holiday shopping stops. Women's Wear Daily (subscription required) (2/29)      - How the little guys compete online
Small online merchants face tough competition from Amazon, but they can hold their own by excelling at customer service and offering private label products that aren't available anywhere else, said executives at a recent conference. "If we can bring them back and make them a repeat customer and then turn them into raving fans for us, that is going to be the differentiator between us and the next folks," said former Golf Warehouse CEO Brad Wolansky. InternetRetailer.com (2/29)  | Fly a lot? Earn 3X rewards points on airline purchases with The 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 |
  - 10 tips to create a more effective Facebook brand page
Creating a killer Facebook brand page starts with knowing your audience, keeping in mind that the people who shop your stores may not be the same ones who seek you out on social media, says IDEA executive director Chris Pitre. Pitre and other social media experts share this and nine other tips for putting your best face on Facebook. iMedia Connection (3/1) - U.S. consumers spent $2.3B on virtual goods in 2011, report says
Virtual goods rang up $2.3 billion in sales last year in the U.S., a 28% increase over 2010, according to Frank N. Magid Associates and PlaySpan. The firms reported that purchasers of virtual goods in games like Zynga's FarmVille spent an average of $64 last year. Almost half of gamers buying virtual items did their transactions through games played on a console, while 42% bought things within a game application and 40% used a pre-paid card obtained at a retail outlet, it was said. MediaPost Communications/Online Media Daily (2/29)  | 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! |
 | Companies in the News | | | | - New search tool helps Guess boost traffic, conversions
Traffic at Guess Worldwide's online shopping site grew 20% and the apparel brand also boosted conversions after implementing the BloomSearch platform. The technology is designed to improve natural search results by indexing Web search data to determine how consumers are searching for specific products. InternetRetailer.com (2/29)
| Interactive Advertising | | | | - Facebook opens Timeline to brands
Facebook has announced that it will upgrade all brand pages to the Timeline profile format at the end of March and is allowing brands to upgrade before then if they wish. The transition will allow brands to highlight important content and to tell a story about their brand to young consumers who may not already know the brand's history. "While the brand timeline will unlock opportunities and also expose risks for many CMOs, we envision a world of possibilities for heritage brands to build connections with millennials," write Matt Makovsky and Matt Wolfrom. Adweek (2/29), Advertising Age (tiered subscription model) (2/29) | Shop.org Spotlight | | | | - How Under Armour and Warby Parker win with social media
Social networks have become a fixture in our everyday lives, and consumers are spending anywhere from four to ten hours a day on Facebook, Twitter, and niche social sites like Pinterest. With this phenomenon only likely to grow, how can retailers cleverly reach and engage this captive audience? In a post on the Shop.org blog, Shop.org's Artemis Berry explains how two very different brands focused on consumer engagement to engender word-of-mouth marketing that traditional advertising can't buy. Read more. Shop.org Blog (3/1)
| SmartQuote | | | |  | If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."
--Michelangelo,
Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer  |
| | This SmartBrief was created for cpgbrokers.data@blogger.com
| | | Advertise | | Associate Publisher: Dena Malouf 202-407-7837 | | | | | | | | | | Recent Shop.org SmartBrief Issues: - Wednesday, February 29, 2012
- Tuesday, February 28, 2012
- Monday, February 27, 2012
- Friday, February 24, 2012
- Thursday, February 23, 2012
| | | Lead Editor: Megan Conniff
Mailing Address:
SmartBrief, Inc.®, 555 11th ST NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004 | | | | | | © 1999-2012 SmartBrief, Inc.® Legal Information |
|
83% of online shoppers feel that the presence of a trustmark, a common safe shopping symbol, increases their confidence that a site is legitimate and secure. Source: 
