Category: Retail & eCommerce

eCommerce, Online Retail & Retail News

Minecraft Coming to PS4, Retail For PS3

Ever since its release in 2009, Minecraft has grown to become one of the biggest gaming phenomenons in history. The popular multiplayer sandbox game regularly tops sales charts for every platform it appears on, including mobile devices, where Minecraft Pocket Edition is a best-selling title despite it costing $7.

Most recently Minecraft came to the PlayStation 3, shooting up sales charts once again. Until now Minecraft for PS3 had been available only through Sony’s PlayStation Store ad a digital download. That will all change next month.

Sony and Minecraft development studio Mojang today announced that Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition will be coming to retail stores in the U.S. and Europe. The game will be available on a Blu-ray disc starting May 14 in Europe and on May 16 in North America.

The retail version of Minecraft for PS3 will have all of the same features of the downloadable version, including split-screen multiplayer. The game will come with all the updates for the title up to update 14. This means that items such as potatoes, Emeralds, and more will be available right out of the box, which will look like this:

All of these features and more are previewed in a new video released by Sony today highlighting the PlaySation 3 version of Minecraft:

In addition to the PS3 retail release of Minecraft, Sony today also teased that the game is still being developed for PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. Those ports are being developed by 4J Studios, the Scottish development studio that has handled the Minecraft ports for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

April 16, 2014
Etsy Wholesale Gets Pricing For Public Access

Etsy announced the pricing for Etsy Wholesale for when it launches publicly this summer. There will be a one-time joining fee of $100 for sellers, and the company will get a 3.5% transaction fee for wholesale purchase orders, the same as those for Etsy.com.

Etsy Wholesale was launched in beta a year ago. The program is free to buyers, though they must apply. It has also been free to vendors throughout the beta period.

“Part of Etsy’s goal is to help sellers grow, and help them reach their vision of success, whatever that may be,” writes Etsy’s Camilla Velasquez in a blog post “For some, success is making enough to cover their bills or for a fun family outing; for others, it’s about fulfilling a creative passion. But for many sellers who have built sustaining, full-time businesses on Etsy, Etsy Wholesale is a way to support their continued growth. What we’ve built is a direct reflection of listening to the needs of our growing community of shop owners ready to take their businesses to the next level, and it complements a traditionally seasonal pen-and-paper practice.”

“In addition to facilitating orders between sellers and independent boutiques, our partnerships with large retailers such as Nordstrom, West Elm and Indigo have presented wholesale sellers with new opportunities to scale up and expand their audience,” she says. “Etsy-sponsored events with tradeshows like Capsule, American Craft Council and the National Stationery Show (coming up in May) have further extended the reach of sellers doing wholesale.”

If you’re interested in signing up as a seller, you’ll probably want to peruse this FAQ. There will be a lunch event in August.

Image via Etsy

April 15, 2014
Facebook Reportedly Readying New Payment Service

Facebook has dabbled in online payments for years, but news out of Europe indicates that the company is working on becoming an “e-money” institution in Ireland, and has been in discussion with various companies in London about money transfer services.

A report out today from the Financial Times (registration required) says Facebook is “readying itself to provide financial services in the form of remittances and electronic money,” and that it’s just weeks away from gaining regulatory approval in Ireland for such an endeavor.

With this service, the FT says, users would be able to store money on Facebook, and use it to pay and exchange money with others. It cites “several people involved in the process” as the source of this info.

Facebook is not commenting on the matter, but if regulatory approval is indeed as close as the report suggests, we’ll probably be learning more about this in the near future.

While the focus appears to be more on international markets, such an offering would put Facebook in more direct competition with Google on yet another front, not to mention all the other companies scrambling to be your payments provider.

Google and Square both have email working for them, offering users the ability to send money via simple email messages. Facebook recently abandoned its email service, but it does have the advantage of 1.23 billion monthly active users.

Payments (and other fees) generated $241 million for the company in Q4.

Image via Facebook

April 14, 2014
Amazon Is Already Working On Its 7th And 8th-Generation Drones

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has penned a new letter to shareholders (via Business Insider) addressing numerous parts of the business. Among these many parts is a little thing called Amazon Prime Air. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Perhaps you’re more familiar with it under its more common nickname “Amazon’s Drones”.

In December, Bezos appeared on 60 minutes, and revealed that the company has a program that will see drones delivering packages to people’s homes. At least that’s what it will do if the initiative ever sees the light of day.

The announcement was followed by a great deal of skepticism and accusations that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt. Well, publicity stunt or no, the company isn’t letting it go.

According to Bezos, the project is still very much in the works, and they’re already working on designing the eighth version of the drones. Here’s the relevant snippet from the letter:

Fast Delivery

In partnership with the United States Postal Service, we’ve begun for the first time to offer Sunday delivery to select cities. Sunday delivery is a win for Amazon customers, and we plan to roll it out to a large portion of the U.S. population throughout 2014. We’ve created our own fast, last-mile delivery networks in the UK where commercial carriers couldn’t support our peak volumes. In India and China, where delivery infrastructure isn’t yet mature, you can see Amazon bike couriers delivering packages throughout the major cities. And there is more invention to come. The Prime Air team is already flight testing our 5th and 6th generation aerial vehicles, and we are in the design phase on generations 7 and 8.

We haven’t heard anything about Prime Air lately. The company hasn’t really talked about it much since the original unveiling, but here, Bezos is reminding us that it’s still in Amazon’s plans.

“Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations,” said Amazon in December. “It looks like science fiction, but it’s real. From a technology point of view, we’ll be ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is actively working on rules for unmanned aerial vehicles.”

“One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today,” the company said. “We hope the FAA’s rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time.”

Bezos, admitted, however, that it could be four or five years, and some are skeptical that even that is realistic. Either way, it sounds like Amazon will be ready, and with age-appropriate models.

Image via YouTube

April 10, 2014
Google Analytics Gets ‘Smart Lists’ For Remarketing

Google announced the launch of a new type of remarketing list in Google Analytics: smart lists. These are built using machine learning across websites that have opted to share conversion data, and make use of “dozens” of signals like visit duration, page depth, location, device, referrer, and browser.

The lists predict which users are most likely to convert during a later visit.

Based on their on-site actions, Analytics is able to calibrate your remarketing campaigns to align with each user’s value, according to the company.

“If you use use eCommerce transaction tracking and have enough traffic and conversions, your Smart List will be automatically upgraded,” Google explains in a blog post. “Marked as [My Smart List], your list will be customized based on the unique characteristics that cause your visitors to convert. Only you will have access to this list, and no new data will be shared whether you use this feature or not.”

“For best results, make sure your Google Analytics goals and transactions are being imported into AdWords, then combine your Smart List with Conversion Optimizer using Target CPA or ROAS in AdWords,” it adds. “If you’re new to remarketing, the Smart List is a great way to get started with strong performance results. As you get comfortable with remarketing you can tailor your creatives and apply a variety of remarketing best practices.”

Google says it will extend the signal directly to marketers’ current lists as an optimization signal used in AdWords bidding for those already using sophisticated list strategies. It’s also working on surfacing signals elsewhere in reports and in the Google Analytics.

Image via Google

April 9, 2014
Microsoft Is About To End Windows XP Support

The final countdown for Windows XP support is upon us (There’s literally a countdown. You can see it here). It’s had a good twelve-year run, but on April 8th, Microsoft will support the OS no more.

This means there will be no more security updates or technical support.

“Security updates patch vulnerabilities that may be exploited by malware and help keep users and their data safer,” says Microsoft. “PCs running Windows XP after April 8, 2014, should not be considered to be protected, and it is important that you migrate to a current supported operating system – such as Windows 8.1 – so you can receive regular security updates to protect their computer from malicious attacks.”

The company notes that antivirus software will not be able to fully protect your PC when the operating system itself is unsupported.

“Businesses that are governed by regulatory obligations such as HIPAA may find that they are no longer able to satisfy compliance requirements,” the company says.

Windows XP will still be able to be installed and activated, and activations will still be required for retail installations. Existing updates will still be available via Windows Update.

Microsoft is also ending support for the following: Office 2003, Windows XP Mode in Windows 7, Windows XP used with MED-V, Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows XP, System Center, Windows Intune and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit for Windows XP
Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool will be provided for Windows XP through July 14th, 2015.

People using machines with Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional, who receive updates via Windows Update, will be notified about the end of support.

Image via Microsoft

April 8, 2014
This Video Explores How Color Affects Online Shopping Behavior

BrainCraft has a new video out looking at how color affects our emotions, and how it relates to our online shopping habits.

Something to think about when designing your product pages.

Image via YouTube

April 2, 2014
Survey: Businesses Not Satisfied With Their B2B Lead Generation Processes

A recent survey from Salesfusion and Demand Metric found that most small and mid-sized companies have lead generation processes in place, but few (less than 10%) think they’re highly effective. Over half (58%) say they don’t produce enough leads.

The survey of 200 businesses also indicates that the most common approaches include email marketing (78%), tradeshow or event marketing (73%), and content marketing (67%).

“Lead generation is quite often the greatest point of friction in the marketing and sales relationship, and a goal of our study was to understand what marketers are doing, and what kind of success they are having,” said Demand Metric Chief Analyst Jerry Rackley. “The marketing team experiences constant pressure to produce more and better leads, and when they do generate them, where they’re stored has much to do with overall process effectiveness. Almost 60 percent of organizations whose leads are stored in CRM or marketing automation systems report that their lead generation process is moderately or highly effective. Less than half of organizations that store their leads in spreadsheets, in-house databases, email folders or other places report this same level of process effectiveness. CRM and marketing automation systems provide marketing and sales with the tools needed to more effectively execute, measure and improve the lead generation process.”

“The study verified what we’ve been hearing,” said Salesfusion CEO Christian Nahas. “Marketers need an easier way to accurately identify leads as interested and qualified and they need to deliver those leads to their sales teams at the right time. Marketing professionals are being held increasingly more accountable for budgets and business impact. As the demand for data on marketers continues to increase, smarter tools and more accurate and easy-to-read data will also be increasingly important.”

Content marketing, based on the survey’s findings, is the lead generation tactic targeted for the greatest increase in investment (70%). Tradeshow and event marketing will see the biggest decrease in investment among these companies (40%).

Web forms were found to be the most common mechanism for capturing leads (73%), followed by data entry (66%). The most common lead storage repository is a CRM system (45%) followed by spreadsheets (17%).

According to the report, only 16% of those using and storing their leads in CRM or marketing automation systems say they have no standard for lead quality. 62% say their standard or definition is moderate to very effective.

Hat tip to Direct Marketing News

Image via Thinkstock

April 2, 2014
Report: B2B Trending Towards Mobile Before PC

eMarketer has a new report out called, “B2B Mobile Marketing: As Buyers Harken to Mobility, Sellers Hasten to Keep up.” The firm references data from Forrester Research, Forbes Insights, and Google.

For one, it says (citing Forrester) that 91% of “connected employees” used a computer at their work desk in Q4 2012, and 64% also used a smartphone. We can only imagine that percentage has grown significantly over the past year.

eMarketer looks at locations where connected employees use their tablets, smartphones and computers. Again, this data is over a year old, so it’s likely to have skewed to increased mobility.

It then looks at data from a year ago from Forbes and Google, showing that over half of business executives in the U.S. said that within the next three years, they’d be using mobile devices as their primary business platform as opposed to PCs.

The paid report delves into the role mobile tech is playing in informing B2B buying decisions, how B2B marketers are factoring mobile into their budgets, strategies and tactics, and how these marketers are integrating mobile at different phases of the buying process.

Image via eMarketer

April 2, 2014
Report: Content Sharing Circles Have Big Impact On B2B Vendor Selection
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and NetLine Corporation recently put out a report (via MarketingProfs) finding that customer content sharing circles strongly impact pre-sale vendor selection. More and more, “insight-hungry” businesses are relying on trusted third-party information to make their decisions.

It also found that buyers are often clustered in “distinctly different content sharing circles”.

The report is based on data from 352 business buyers during January. Participants came from all executive levels across 30 different industries. It identifies three primary types of sharing circles:

From the middle out (35 percent): Content sourcing and purchase decisions are driven by tactically focused executives, but senior management is informed about how and why key decisions were made.

From the bottom up (30 percent): Junior or mid-level managers source primary content and share upstream to members of senior management, who then make the final purchase decision.

From the top down (29 percent): Senior management consumes content, sending information downstream for product identification and final purchase and execution.

These circles are being powered by three segments of content personas, the report suggests:

Researchers: Primarily seek out the most broad and expansive content and are focused on new industry reports and research to inform them of advancements in solutions, trends impacting the market and opportunities for improvement

Influencers: Interested in both the broad thought leadership consumed through trusted third-party channels, as well as vendor-branded technology specifications, data sheets and use cases. This group emerges as the segment most interested in summarized content, including infographics, video and blog commentary.

Decision Makers: Want to stay informed through research reports and analyst commentary but also expect to have access to data in order to speed and enable better decision making in the tail end of the decision funnel

According to the report, the web is the main place business buyers begin their path to purchase with 68% starting at search engines. It also found that while buyers are seeking out input from trusted third-parties, facts and data-driven insights from vendors are the second most valued source of content in purchasing decisions.

“B2B marketers annually invest an estimated $16.6 billion in digital content publishing to acquire business leads, influence customer specification and consideration, as well as educate and engage prospects,” says Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. “Despite spending about 25 percent of their marketing budgets on content creation, most companies lack the necessary strategies, competencies and best practices to effectively engage their markets, and very few have content performance metrics in place to measure effectiveness and calculate ROI.”

As far as the actual reasons buyers are using content, the top five were: identifying best practices/best-of-breed solutions, determining where competitive differentiation can be achieved, clarifying the position of a specific vendor or partner, setting the strategic agenda and assessing areas of need and prioritization, and providing perspective from trusted/neutral sources.

You can find the complete report here.

Image via CMO Council
March 31, 2014
Alli Weight Loss Products Recalled

GlaxoSmithKline this week recalled all alli-branded weight loss products from store shelves in the U.S. The company believes that production of the diet pills may have been tampered with.

“Safety is our first priority and we are asking retailers and pharmacies to remove all alli from their shelves immediately,” said Colin Mackenzie, president of consumer healthcare North America at GlaxoSmithKline. “We have posted a Consumer Alert on our website, www.myalli.com, and issued a news release with information and photographs to help consumers determine if their alli is authentic.”

The alli recall is due to reports from consumers that their bottles of alli contained capsules that were not alli, but something else. Consumers have reported tablets and capsules of varying shape and color found inside bottles of what was supposed to be alli.

GlaxoSmithKline now believes that some alli containers were tampered with and therefore may not contain alli at all. Some of the bottles containing pills other than alli were found to have been missing labels and to have inauthentic tamper-evident seals. All of these tampered-with products were found to have been bought in retail stores throughout the U.S. The company is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to research the cause of the misplaced pills and recall all alli products.

According to GlaxoSmithKline, alli capsules are blue with dark blue bands and have the text “60 Orlistat” printed on them. They should be found within bottles that have a foil seal reading “Sealed for Your Protection” imprinted on it.

The company is urging customers to confirm their alli is authentic and to not use any capsules that they are unsure about. For consumers who may have ingested something out of an alli bottle that they believe is questionable, GlaxoSmithKline suggests contacting a healthcare professional.

“We are committed to finding out what happened and to doing everything possible to prevent future issues with alli,” said Mackenzie. “We regret any inconvenience caused by this retailer recall.”

March 31, 2014
Weight Loss Drug Recalled Due to Product Tampering

Infamous weight loss drug Alli, known for keeping dieters on track for fear of messy side effects, has been voluntarily recalled in the United States and Puerto Rico by producer GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSK) on account of possible product tampering. “Safety is our first priority and we are asking retailers and pharmacies to remove all Alli from their shelves immediately,” said Colin Mackenzie, President of Consumer Healthcare North America.

Authentic Alli pills are turquoise pills with a dark blue band, however consumers in seven states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina and Texas) have reported purchasing Alli pills of different shapes and colors as well as bottles with dysfunctional safety seals, missing labels, and mismatched expiration dates on the pill bottle and the carton.

Alli is manufactured in the United States and Puerto Rico, and the exact source of the possible tampering is currently unknown. However, GSK is investigating and fully cooperative with the FDA. “We are committed to finding out what happened and to doing everything possible to prevent future issues with Alli. We regret any inconvenience caused by this retailer recall,” said Mackenzie.

Alli first hit the shelves in 2007 amongst high expectations as the first FDA approved over-the-counter weight loss pill, a form of the prescription weight loss drug Xenical. Reports subsequently surfaced that while Alli is clinically proven to aid in weight loss in conjunction with a low-fat, low-calorie diet, it also can cause diarrhea in users who don’t stick to their health plan.

Consumers who encounter any irregularity in their Alli product are encouraged to carefully examine the pills and labels for adherence to the standard Alli features, including a labeled bottle and safety seal printed with “Sealed for your protection,” and matching expiration dates on both bottle and carton. If uncertain about product authenticity, contact GSK. If any inauthentic Alli pills are ingested, contact a healthcare professional.

Thus far, there have been no reports of negative side effects from consumption of the inauthentic Alli pills, however when consuming authentic Alli, users are advised, as always, to refrain from fatty foods to avoid digestive complications.

Image via Alli

March 28, 2014
Few Top Web-Only Retailers Are Using Responsive Design

The Search Agency looked at the top 100 web-only retailers based on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 list of e-commerce sites in order to evaluate how they’re handling mobile. Specifically, they wanted to see if these sites are more mobile-ready than others.

They found that a shockingly small amount of them (9) were using responsive design, which is what Google apparently prefers. 59 of them used dedicated mobile sites, and the rest simply used desktop sites.

“The average load time for all companies was 2.99 seconds, significantly greater than Google’s recommended 1 second,” the firm says. “The average score was only 2.808 out of 5. The companies with the highest scores were Nasty Gal, eBags, and Zazzle.”

“Sites that ranked higher on the list tended to be more female-oriented businesses,” it adds. “For instance, the highest scoring industries were jewelry, health/beauty, and accessories/apparel.”

It’s worth noting that Google supports sites with dedicated, separate mobile versions just fine. You can read more about mobile optimized sites from the search engine here.

You can find the full report here (via MarketingLand).

Image via Google

March 27, 2014
US Retail Giant Wal-Mart Admits Dependence On Food Stamps To Keep Margins Up

Wal-mart Stores, Inc. declared an interesting factor in their bottom line when they filed their Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The world’s largest retailer officially admitted that certain changes in government assistance programs, especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, could affect its profit margins.

Wal-mart’s 10-K stated that their business is affected by a number of domestic and international factors and risks, which are beyond their control. It added that “any one, or a combination” of these factors and risks could significantly affect the overall financial performance of the company.

The form singled out modifications in the “amount of payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” which is more popularly known as the Food Stamp Program. Federal aid policy on these types of assistance plans also include eligibility requirements for potential beneficiaries. In addition, Congress has yet to renew the policy on extended jobless benefits that ended at the end of 2013.

Web-based international news provider International Business Times reported that this is Wal-mart’s first admission of its dependence on government assistance programs as a crucial factor in its revenue. On the other hand, Wal-mart has mentioned the effects of the Food Stamp Program in the past. At the beginning of 2013, the company said that their profits declined after the stimulus boost to SNAP benefits expired in November.

Welcome to America: Walmart blames cuts in SNAP/food stamps for lower sales http://t.co/P9l7rb3I8a (PDF) pic.twitter.com/1nHTkveWmu

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) February 1, 2014

Wal-mart is known for its low prices, which caters mostly to customers with below-average incomes. According to research studies, one-fifth of American Wal-mart customers do not possess a bank account. As a result, a huge chunk of Wal-mart’s customer base makes use of food stamps to purchase items from the store. Moreover, although the store is known as one of the largest retailers, most of their employees tend to rely on welfare.

This SNAP program is the largest nutrition assistance plan in the U.S., which has served approximately 40 million poor Americans in the past years.

A discussion about Wal-mart and SNAP

Image via YouTube

March 25, 2014
Supply Chains To Be Significantly Impacted By Huge Growth Of ‘Internet Of Things’

Gartner is predicting a 30-fold increase in Internet-connected physical devices within the next six years, and says this will “significantly” alter how the supply chain operates, and create more “cyber-risk exposure”.

So how much is a 30-fold increase exactly? We’re talking about 26 billion devices on the “Internet of Things”. For comparison, it was more like 0.9 billion just five years ago (Facebook just turned 10 if that helps add some perspective for you).

With regards to how this will change the supply chain, it’s all about the flood of information that comes along with having so many connected devices. This will, of course, vary by industry.

“It’s important to put IoT maturity into perspective, because of the fast pace at which it is emerging, so supply chain strategists need to be looking at its potential now,” said Gartner managing vice president Michael Burkett. “Some IoT devices are more mature, such as commercial telematics now used in trucking fleets to improve logistics efficiency. Some, such as smart fabrics that use sensors within clothing and industrial fabrics to monitor human health or manufacturing processes, are just emerging.”

“Supply chain leaders must design their processes to operate in this digital business world,” said Burkett. “This includes fulfilling the new expectations of customers and the volatile demands that digital marketing will create. A future supply chain will meet those expectations by converging people, business and things in a digital value network, and incorporating fast-emerging capabilities such as IoT and smart machines into this design strategy.”

The firm makes the point that as the quantity of connected devices increases, greater fragmentation will occur while marketing budgets continue to increase. In other words, marketing efforts will have a broader array of devices to target, but all of that data from said devices should open up some interesting targeting opportunities at the same time.

You can find a lot more insights into the subject in Gartner’s new report “Digital Marketing, Internet of Things and 3D Printing Are Digital-Business-Driven Disruptions for Supply Chains.”

Gartner will discuss issues facing the supply chain industry at its Supply Chain Executive Conferences in May and September in Phoenix and London respectively.

Image via Gartner

March 24, 2014
Genealogy Subscription Sites: Worth The Cost?

If you want to know more about your family’s history and where you came from, you may enjoy genealogy. Genealogy involves searching historical records and family stories to find out more about your ancestry. The Internet has made it easier than ever to research genealogy, and there are plenty of ancestry sites that will help you locate the records you need. Most of these sites charge a subscription fee. The question is, are they worth the cost?

If you plan on putting a lot of time and effort into your genealogy or family history project, you may find that ancestry subscription sites are well worth the cost. These sites offer access to records that you may not be able to find anywhere else and they are easy to search and distinguish between family members.

Ancestry.com is one of the most popular genealogy sites and has the most records online. There are several subscription plans to choose from and prices start at $19.99 a month. You can sign up for a 14 day free trial before you buy a subscription and you can cancel at any time. The site offers war records, census records and allows you to search through birth records, death records and marriage records.

World Vital Records is another site that charges a fee and allows you to search through records that are hard to find elsewhere. The site offers many of the same records as Ancestry.com and they offer a 7-day free trial. Many of the records available on the site come from other family trees.

So what makes the subscription sites better than the free sites? Subscription sites offer more support and a bigger records selection. Many free sites such as FamilySearch.org, use Census information and other public records but do not offer access to certain types of documents such as war records or immigration records. Subscription sites also offer better customer support. You can contact customer support for questions about certain records or question on how to use the site.

Subscription sites also have large communities where you are more likely to find family members or other people who are looking for the same records or ancestors as you. You can also find family trees that are complete and even discuss your ancestry with other members. Many people who use subscription sites find a lot of help from other members who have been doing genealogy longer and know the ropes. Some experienced members will even offer to help other site subscribers find records of family members.

Most people who pay for genealogy subscriptions believe they are well worth the cost. If you are new to genealogy or only interested in doing it occasionally, you may want to start with a free ancestry site first. If you want are having trouble finding the records you need on a free site, you may want to consider paying for a subscription site.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

March 23, 2014
Infographic Looks At B2B Social Media Potential For 2014

UK-based Real Business Rescue has gathered some findings about B2B social media use to project what’s in store for the remainder of the year. Data comes from a bunch of sources including eMarketer, Social Media Examiner, InternetRetailer, BusinessInsider, MediaBistro, AdAge and others.

Among said projections is that social media advertising will see “explosive growth” throughout the year and into the future.

It looks at the top social media sites by unique monthly visitors, as well as those adopted by B2B businesses (guess which one is tied with Facebook). It goes on to examine B2B social media budgets, marketing tactics and marketing goals, and throws in a few tips for good measure.

Take a look.

Source: How B2B Businesses Are Tackling Social Media In 2014

[via Social Media Today]

Image via Real Business Rescue

March 20, 2014
How Googlebot Treats Multiple Breadcrumbs On E-Commerce Pages

Google has a new “Webmaster Help” video out about e-commerce pages with multiple breadcrumb trails. This is the second video in a row to deal specifically with e-commerce sites. Last time, Matt Cutts discussed product pages for products that are no longer available.

This time, he takes on the following question:

Many of my items belong to multiple categories on my eCommerce site. Can I place multiple breadcrumbs on a page? Do they confuse Googlebot? Do you properly understand the logical structure of my site?

“It turns out, if you do breadcrumbs, we will currently pick the first one,” he says. “I would try to get things in the right category or hierarchy as much as you can, but that said, if an item does belong to multiple areas within your hierarchy it is possible to go ahead and have multiple breadcrumbs on a page, and in fact that can, in some circumstances, actually help Googlebot understand a little bit more about the site.”

“But don’t worry about it if it only fits in one, or if you’ve only got breadcrumbs for one,” Cutts continues. “That’s the way that most people do it. That’s the normal way to do it. We encourage that, but if you do have the taxonomy (the category, the hierarchy), you know, and it’s already there, and it’s not like twenty different spots within your categories…if it’s in a few spots, you know, two or three or four…something like that, it doesn’t hurt to have those other breadcrumbs on the page. And we’ll take the first one. That’s our current behavior, and then we might be able to do a little bit of deeper understanding over time about the overall structure of your site.”

For more about how Google treats breadcrumbs, you might want to take a look at this page in Google’s webmaster help center. In fact, it even gives an example of a page having more than one breadcrumb trail (Books>Authors>Stephen King and Books>Fiction>Horror)

Image via YouTube

March 19, 2014
Report Finds Consumers Making Purchases More Quickly

Parago has a new report out indicating that consumers are shopping across channels more quickly than ever before, thanks to brick-and-mortar, online, mobile and social channels enabling them to quickly find good deals which can be be taken advantage of in little time.

The average time to purchase across retail categories is less than four days, even for big-ticket items like appliances, according to the report, which is based on a survey of over 1,500 people said to represent the U.S. consumer population.

65% of respondents said they’re more sensitive to price now than a year ago, while 88% look for deals, rebates and best prices before shopping.

Four out of five 18- to 49-year-olds own smartphones, with nearly 50% of all shoppers comparing prices in-store using smartphones, according to the report.

“Retailers have a lot to contend with in this new era of shopping: highly competitive prices from e-tailers like Amazon, rising smartphone adoption, the showrooming boom and incredibly price-sensitive consumers,” said Parago CMO Rodney Maso. “For retailers to thrive, they need to disrupt the path to purchase with a dynamic, real-time pricing model. Not just online, but in brick and mortar, too.”

“Our research shows that dynamic-price rebates are one way to respond to consumers’ demand for lowest price and protecting margins, unlike across-the-board online price matching,” he added.

Nearly all (99%) of shoppers surveyed with incomes at $50,000 and above shop from their computers, with two out of five shopping from tablets.

You can find the full report here.

Image via Parago

March 19, 2014
What You Should Do For Google On Product Pages For Products That Are No Longer Available

Google has a new “Webmaster Help” video out, which many ecommerce businesses may find useful. Head of webspam Matt Cutts discusses what to do on your product pages for products that are no longer available.

Specifically, he answers this user-submitted question:

How would Google recommend handling eCommerce products that are no longer available? (Does this change as the number of discontinued products outnumbers the active products?)

He runs down a few different types of cases.

He begins, “It does matter based on how many products you have and really what the throughput of those products is, how long they last, how long they’re active before they become inactive. So let’s talk about like three examples. On one example, suppose you’re a handmade furniture manufacturer – like each piece you make you handcraft, it’s a lot of work – so you only have, ten, fifteen, twenty pages of different couches and tables, and those sorts of shelves that you make. In the middle, you might have a lot more product pages, and then all the way on the end, suppose you’re craigslist, right? So you have millions and millions of pages, and on any given day, a lot of those pages become inactive because they’re no longer, you know, as relevant or because the listing has expired. So on the one side, when you have a very small number of pages (a small number of products), it probably is worth, not just doing a true 404, and saying, you know, this page is gone forever, but sort of saying, ‘Okay, if you are interested in this, you know, cherry wood shelf, well maybe you’d be interested in this mahogany wood shelf that I have instead,’ and sort of showing related products. And that’s a perfectly viable strategy. It’s a great idea whenever something is sort of a lot of work, you know, whenever you’re putting a lot of effort into those individual product pages.”

“Then suppose you’ve got your average e-commerce site. You’ve got much more than ten pages or twenty pages,” Cutts continues. “You’ve got hundreds or thousands of pages. For those sorts of situations, I would probably think about just going ahead and doing a 404 because those products have gone away. That product is not available anymore, and you don’t want to be known as the product site that whenever you visit it, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, you can’t buy this anymore.’ Because users get just as angry getting an out-of-stock message as they do “no results found’ when they think that they’re going to find reviews. Now if it’s going to come back in stock then you can make clear that it’s temporarily out of stock, but if you really don’t have that product anymore, it’s kind of frustrating to just land on that page, and see, ‘Yep, you can’t get it here.’”

He goes on to discuss the Craigslist case a little more, noting that Google has a metatag that sites can use called “unavailable_after”. Here’s the original blog post where Google announced it in 2007, which discusses it more.

The tag basically tells Google that after a certain date, the page is no longer relevant, so Google won’t show it in search results after that.

Image via YouTube

March 17, 2014
Pinterest Just Made Shopping Easier

Pinterest has launched a new “Gifts” feed among the rest of its categories. The feed is meant specifically to get products that are actually for sale in front of users.

The company calls it a “work-in-progress,” so we’ll likely see additional features launched in the future. Some personalization would certainly help. Considering Pinterest’s recently launched “Interests” feature, that doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

The Gifts feed shows only Product Pins, which show details like pricing, availability, and where to buy the item.

“So far, we’ve learned that Product Pins get higher click-through rates than regular Pins and make your brand more visible because of the logo on the Pin,” says Pinterest’s Kevin Knight on the company’s business blog. “Pinners also get email notifications when Product Pins they’ve saved drop in price.”

That’s a nice feature for everyone involved.

“The Gifts feed also includes a few price filters so you can find something for every budget,” Knight adds. “$$$$ means the price is greater than $200, $$$ means the price is between $50-$200, $$ means the price is from $25 to $50 and $ is anything less than that.”

Businesses hoping to have their products actually show up in the Gifts feed must be taking advantage of Rich Pins, which you can learn more about here.

Image via Pinterest

March 14, 2014