AllThingsD » online shopping

Online Shoppers Say They Buy Things They Find on Pinterest

Liz Gannes — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:53:37 +0000

Here’s a stat worth bookmarking: 21 percent of people who identified themselves as Pinterest users said in a recent survey that they had purchased a product after seeing it on Pinterest — most frequently, clothing, food or home decorating materials. Unfortunately, the survey wasn’t done by a major research outlet, but rather by the comparison shopping site PriceGrabber. Of 4,851 U.S. online shoppers who participated in the PriceGrabber survey, 10 percent said they had Pinterest accounts.

How E-Commerce Is Expanding Internationally, One Package at a Time

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:00:19 +0000

Online shopping in the U.S. is growing at a fast clip, but retailers are realizing that another way to juice revenues is to open up their site to international markets — if they can manage the logistics.

“There’s an excellent growth opportunity for U.S. retailers outside the U.S.,” said Michael DeSimone, CEO of FiftyOne, a logistics company. “E-commerce is much more nascent [outside the U.S.], but our merchants are seeing extraordinary growth by building their brand with a new customer base.”

As it turns out, however, shipping and selling goods internationally is extremely complex.

First, there’s currency translation, then there’s the complexity of dealing with customs. And there are other considerations: For instance, a down pillow or a snakeskin purse may have to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife or require a permit if the animal is on an endangered list.

“The opportunity for a bad customer experience is very high, unless you have a repeatable process in place,” DeSimone said.

In other words, done well and executed efficiently, it can be a moneymaker, but if done poorly, you can hurt the brand.

FiftyOne helps U.S. retailers ship products to 106 countries worldwide, by assisting retailers with currency conversion and global shipping logistics, including customs and returns. It manages a central distribution in Columbus, Ohio, where all the packages exit and enter the U.S.

The New York company works with dozens of online retailers, including Macy’s, J.Crew, Overstock.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Gilt Groupe and Wet Seal. Since FiftyOne started focusing on international logistics, back in 2008, it has seen e-commerce start to take off internationally, DeSimone said.

Last year, the company’s gross merchandise volume, accounting for the total amount of all international purchases made, was $136 million, almost up twice from the year before, when it recorded $78 million. In 2009, its business totaled $26 million.

The biggest international markets for U.S. retailers today, FiftyOne said, are English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia and the U.K. But South Korea, Brazil and Mexico are also all growing close to 50 percent year over year.

In addition, DeSimone said, the average order size increased to $265 in 2011, up from $237 the year earlier.

Here’s a graphic detailing some of the challenges in shipping internationally:

Amazon May Miss Q4 Estimates, Despite Selling More Than One Million Kindles a Week

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:25:37 +0000

Since its introduction 13 weeks ago, the Kindle Fire has become the best-selling, most-gifted and most-wished-for product on Amazon.

But that could be a problem.

The device sells for about the same amount ($199) as it costs to make (about $202).

Amazon’s stock fell as much as 4 percent this morning after Goldman Sachs suggested that the Seattle-based company could miss analysts’ sales estimates for the current period.

The stock has recovered some since early this morning, and is now trading down 1.6 percent, or $2.74, at $171.15.

According to Bloomberg, Goldman analyst Heather Bellini said in a note today that Amazon’s sales may grow 38 percent from a year earlier, to $17.9 billion, which is less than analysts’ average estimate of $18.2 billion.

Bellini based her analysis on a comScore report that found online shopping increased 15 percent this year, compared to last year’s holiday season. Since Amazon is the largest e-commerce provider, she reasons that it would be difficult to outperform the average by a wide margin.

“While the comScore numbers are just one data point which does not capture international sales or breakout individual companies’ sales, taken alone they seem to suggest the potential for downside risk to consensus forecasts,” Bellini wrote.

Ultimately, strong sales of the Kindle Fire could help Amazon hit its sales estimates, since it is counting on the device to serve as a platform for the sale of more content. But in the short term, the Fire could hurt the company’s bottom line, a possibility Bellini did not address in her report.

In addition to comScore’s numbers not capturing international sales, its report also does not capture sales from mobile devices. Amazon said the Kindle Fire was the best-selling product on Amazon’s mobile Web site and across all of its mobile applications.

In all, Amazon said it sold more than one million Kindles a week in December.

Bellini reiterated a “neutral” rating and a price target of $190.

Move Over Cyber Monday, Make Room for Sofa Sunday

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:00:15 +0000

This year, even more people shopped online on Christmas Day, fueled, perhaps, by finding change in the couch cushions — or, more likely, receiving gift cards in their stockings.

Either way, consumers barely waited until Santa got back to the North Pole before hitting up the stores again.

ComScore reports that e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the holiday season — ended Dec. 19 — reached $32 billion, jumping 15 percent over last year. In one week alone, at least four individual days surpassed the $1 billion mark.

And IBM, which analyzes mobile shopping trends using data from 500 retailers nationwide, said shoppers continued pulling out their credit cards on Christmas Day, as they shopped for themselves after shopping for others.

IBM found that on Dec. 25, online sales grew by 16.4 percent over Christmas Day 2010. (IBM’s results do not include Amazon.com, the Internet’s largest e-tailer.)

Many of the online sessions on a retailer’s site were initiated from a mobile device, accounting for 18.3 percent of traffic, up from 8.4 percent last year. Mobile sales grew to 14.4 percent versus 5.3 percent on Christmas last year.

As stated in a report that came out earlier this week, most mobile shopping was conducted on iOS devices. The iPad led all mobile-device traffic at 7 percent, followed by iPhone at 6.4 percent and Android at 5 percent, according to IBM.

Many of the days surrounding the holidays have acquired quirky nicknames, such as Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Green Monday (the second Monday of December).

Perhaps this Christmas will qualify as Sofa Sunday.

The term was first introduced to me by Joaquin Ruiz, the co-founder and CEO of Padopolis, which makes a catalog app for the iPad. He was hoping the Sunday after Thanksgiving would see a spike in traffic after everyone hit the mall on Black Friday and then curled up on the couch with their iPad the following Sunday to recover.

This year, Christmas Sunday’s shopping spike continued into Monday, also known as Boxing Day. IBM said that online sales were up 10 percent by midday on Monday, over Dec. 26 last year, and that mobile sales were up 13.8 percent.

(Image courtesy of iStockphoto | mattjeacock)

Apple Had More Web Traffic Than Wal-Mart in November

John Paczkowski — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:41:34 +0000

Hard as it might be to believe, Apple attracted more online visitors in the United States during November than Wal-Mart.

According to a comScore press release first noted by Ad Age, Apple’s Web properties saw more than 79 million U.S. unique visitors last month. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart saw nearly 59 million.

How did Apple manage to surpass the world’s largest retailer in unique Stateside visitors? And how did it do it during one of the biggest shopping months of the year? ITunes, according to Ad Age, was responsible for about 30 percent of that 79 million total.

Retailers Try to Thwart Price Apps

Dana Mattioli — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:00:44 +0000

The smartphone boom is unleashing a new era of pricing transparency to consumers able to use wireless apps and search engines on their mobile devices in stores to check if they are offering the best deal. But retailers are fighting back harder than ever to prevent their stores from becoming mere showrooms.

More bricks-and-mortar stores are reviewing prices of online stores when setting initial price of an item. If prices are out of whack, they are more aggressively matching the prices of their online rivals. Some retailers are investing heavily in exclusive products that are less vulnerable to price competition.

“Our pricing has to be very competitive,” says Best Buy Co. Chief Marketing Officer Barry Judge. “We know what Amazon’s price is on everything they sell,” he says.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Record Online Shopping Brings New Meaning to "Holiday Stress"

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:33:46 +0000

No big disasters have been reported yet this holiday shopping season, but there are signs that record-breaking online sales are starting to take their toll on retailers and shippers.

It’s too early to know for sure; there are two days left for last-minute packages to be delivered, wrapped and placed under the tree in time.

So, while it’s hard to say whether there will be any widespread panic come Sunday, there are some early indicators that the system is reaching capacity.

In perhaps the biggest demonstration of holiday stress, a FedEx delivery driver was caught on camera tossing a box containing a new computer monitor over a customer’s fence. The owner claims he or she was at home at the time, with the front door wide open. After nearly five million people watched the security footage on YouTube, FedEx responded by posting an apology on YouTube. (Only 193,000 people have watched that.)

Then there are the canceled orders at Best Buy, which ran out of heavily discounted merchandise and was forced to void some orders that consumers had placed last month. A few more reports have surfaced from other retailers, such as Sears, which was failing to keep up with orders that were placed online for in-store pickup.

But perhaps this sort of thing is to be expected when you see 15 percent year-over-year online growth in online shopping.

ComScore reports that e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the holiday season has reached $32 billion, jumping 15 percent over last year. Last week alone, ComScores said, four individual days surpassed the $1 billion mark, to help set a weekly record of $6.3 billion.

On a positive note, retailers’ Web sites have been able to keep up with the demand. Compuware, which has been monitoring the Web and mobile performance of the top 50 retailers, reports that there have been no prolonged site crashes.

At this point, most online purchases won’t get to people in time for Christmas, although Amazon is offering some expedited shipping options for consumers in some markets as late as Saturday.

Besides stress on the retailers, one other choke point in the system has been delivery.

This week will be the busiest week of the year for UPS, which estimates that it will deliver more than 120 million packages worldwide. In particular, it was anticipating that today would be its busiest day, with more than 26 million packages shipped — which breaks down to about almost 300 a second.

UPS’s close competitor, FedEx, previously predicted that Dec. 12 would be the busiest day in its nearly 40-year history. The company was forecasted to ship more than 17 million orders that Monday, which was double its daily average volume.

The Twelve Shoppers of Christmas (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:30:31 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

Still Looking for Gift Ideas? Wal-Mart Recommends a Box for Men.

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:27:18 +0000

Still don’t know what to get your loved one for the holidays?

Well, you better decide fast. For many sites, today is the final day that orders can be placed to get guaranteed delivery by Christmas.

If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas, there are plenty of Facebook applications that will offer recommendations based on a gift recipient’s interests.

Late last month, Wal-Mart launched an application called Shopycat, which does just that.

To be helpful, I got a list of Shopycat’s 20 most-recommended gifts. At the very top of the list was an unexpected item called a “personalized keepsake box” for men. The box, which costs $24.76, is designed to hold a man’s watch, jewelry, money clip and/or other items.

It’s not clear what a person’s interests would have been for this to surface at the top of so many lists (maybe the popularity of the holiday-themed Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg music video “Dick in a Box” had something to do with it?) After all, many of the other items on the list are clearly based on someone’s favorite TV shows, movies or videogames. For instance, other fun items that made the list were action figures for “The Big Lebowski,” an Angry Birds beanie and “Star Wars” bathrobes.

As for the man box, it is sold out, so clearly some people agreed with Wal-Mart that it made for a good gift.

Not all of the items are recommendations for items sold on the Wal-Mart site. It also refers shoppers to other sites, such as ThinkGeek.com, Barnes & Noble, CBSstore.com and RedEnvelope.

Wal-Mart did not say how many people have used the app since it went live last month, but given that Wal-Mart has 11 million Facebook fans, it could represent big numbers.

Here is the entire list of most-recommended gifts for 2011:

Better Hurry, the Shipping Deadline for Christmas Is Approaching Fast

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:04:42 +0000

Just in the nick of time.

That’s Target’s motto this holiday season, as it promises on-time Christmas deliveries for online orders placed by Tuesday.

But some retailers are being a little more jolly.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, procrastinators are being rewarded, and will be able to shop online as late as Thursday and still get presents safely underneath the tree in time for Christmas.

For example, Wal-Mart will rush packages to your door for orders placed as late as Wednesday; Amazon is offering regular free two-day shipping as late as Wednesday; Zappos is offering free shipping for orders made by 1 pm PT on Thursday; and Toys “R” Us will go as late as noon on Thursday for express shipping.

There are exceptions, of course, and Amazon is a big one.

For orders placed on Thursday, one-day shipping will cost shoppers $3.99 an item; for items ordered on Friday, only Amazon Prime members will be able to pay $9.99 an item for on-time delivery; those in 11 U.S. cities can wait until Saturday, at which point it will cost $3.99 per item to ship by local express.

Amazon Prime is the e-commerce company’s membership service; it charges $79 a year for free two-day shipping and other perks, like free streaming videos.

One of the biggest limitations for the holiday is the logistics of getting a package from a distribution center to someone’s home. For example, FedEx won’t be running on Christmas, but will be running partial operations on Christmas Eve, a Saturday.

At this late point in the year, physical retailers shine.

For example, Apple’s shipping cutoff date is on Wednesday, but it will allow customers to order online and pick up in the store until 11 pm on Friday. On Christmas Eve, many of its stores will be open until 6 pm. Toys “R” Us and Best Buy are also offering free in-store pickup, adding late hours to accommodate the busiest of people. Best Buy will be open until 3 pm local time on Dec. 24, and Toys “R” Us will will stay open for 112 hours straight, starting at 6 am Tuesday, Dec. 20 and closing at 10 pm on Saturday night.

Online retailers can’t compete with store hours but, conversely, stores have had a hard time competing with the deals online, especially earlier in the season.

This holiday period, Amazon prompted consumers to consider the moral dilemma of shopping in stores versus online, when it kicked off a Dec. 10 promotion that offered $5 off to consumers as an inducement to walk out of stores empty-handed. EBay fired back with its own promotion, which gave online shoppers a $10 coupon to return to stores.

To be sure, online retailers will have something to celebrate on Sunday.

ComScore, which is tracking online spending habits this holiday season, said $30.9 billion had been spent online during a 46-day shopping window that ended Dec. 16, marking a 15 percent increase over last year.

Spending last Friday — dubbed Free Shipping Friday — hit $1.07 billion; it was the fourth day to surpass the billion-dollar mark this year. Still, Cyber Monday — the Monday following Thanksgiving — appears to rank as the heaviest online spending day of the year for the second consecutive season.

One of the Biggest Winners on Green Monday Won't Be a Retailer

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:00:22 +0000

Everyone from online retailers to FedEx are hoping to be rolling in the dough by the end of today.

With only 13 days until Christmas, today has historically ranked as one of the heaviest online shopping days of the year, thereby earning the nickname “Green Monday.”

This year it’s almost a guarantee that history will repeat itself.

Already, six individual days have surpassed the billion-dollar threshold this holiday season, according to comScore. That’s up from last year, when only one day eclipsed $1 billion in spending.

The term Green Monday was coined by eBay in 2007 to describe the second Monday of December because it tended to attract shoppers who wanted to make sure their presents would arrive in time. And, well, because the color of money is green.

This year, a number of online retailers are banking on it by offering a number of holiday specials.

But one of the biggest benefactors of all is FedEx, which must ship all the orders.

The commercial postal service is predicting that today will be the busiest day in its nearly 40-year history. The company is forecasting that it will ship more than 17 million orders today, double its daily average volume, and will exceed last year’s busiest day of 15.6 million shipments.

FedEx might be one of the first indicators to reveal how well the online shopping is fairing.

It says the increase is largely driven by residential shipments sent from online and catalog retailers. ComScore’s data would agree with that hypothesis. Already, the research firm says that online shopping is up roughly 15 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 9, compared to the same period in 2010.

ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said, “We know that Green Monday will rank among the top online spending days of the season.”

But he added that it will likely not be the last hurrah of the year.

Other important days to come include the promotional day coined “Free Shipping Day,” which occurs on Dec. 16, and other days this week as we near the end of the year.

One retailer, however, was not in the holiday spirit.

Amazon-owned Zappos put out a press release today calling itself the Anti-Green Monday. It said shoppers don’t have to get caught up in the hype because it is guaranteeing that all orders made on Dec. 22 will receive next-day delivery for Dec. 23.

Now that’s the true definition of a procrastinator.

Here is comScore’s list of the 10 biggest shopping days of 2011:

Retailers vs. Amazon: A Brick-and-Moral Dilemma

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:38:13 +0000

Brick-and-mortar retailers are asking consumers to “buy it where you try it” after Amazon disclosed it will be encouraging consumers to treat stores as showrooms through the use of a one-day promotion on Saturday.

Amazon’s promotion will give shoppers up to $5 off on most purchases made using its price-check application. The event serves as a way for Amazon to increase usage of its bar-code-scanning application, while also collecting intelligence on pricing in the stores.

Large and small retailers alike often consider Amazon one of their toughest competitors, but this time around they say the company’s initiative is a direct attack.

“It’s wrong to try something in the store and then buy it online,” said Lesley Tweedie, who owns a bike shop with her husband in Chicago and is hoping that the mantra “buy it where you try it” takes off.

Tweedie is also the founder of Little Independent, a six-month-old marketplace where local stores can feature products online.

“I don’t know what their [Amazon's] motivations are. I would like to believe it’s about business and it’s not about deliberately trying to hurt a retailer,” she said. “But this affects our little bike shop in Chicago, Target, Wal-Mart or Nordstrom. It affects them all.”

The promotion brings into question a shopper’s moral compass just in time for the holidays.

Does price or convenience win? Or, is it more important to shop locally to support jobs and nearby businesses?

From the consumer’s perspective, it’s hard to walk away from Amazon’s offer. The application compares prices, gives product reviews and, on Saturday, will also offer a discount to those who use it to make a purchase online.

Still, it seems consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the online-versus-local debate.

EBay recently conducted an online survey on the subject, and based on more than 1,000 responses, found that nearly 50 percent of shoppers plan to allocate up to half of their holiday budget to buying local this season. EBay says it tries to be an advocate for local stores. Its bar-code scanning app, Red Laser, not only shows people the cheapest price online, but also provides a list of stores where the item can be purchased locally.

Yesterday, the Retail Industry Leaders Association made a much less emotional argument.

Jason Brewer, the association’s VP of communications and advocacy, said Amazon is anticompetitive because it does not collect sales tax in most states, so it will nearly always have a price advantage over a physical store.

“Our retailers aren’t afraid to compete on price — that’s a part of retailing,” he said. “If the price check app replaces the Sunday newspaper circular, that’s fine. But what retailers can’t do is not collect sales tax.”

Tweedie says the one silver lining of Amazon’s promotion is that it is bringing the conversation out into the open.

She frequently catches people pulling out their phone in her store and often even hears them wonder out loud if they find it for less on Amazon. “It’s hard as a retailer without alienating the shopper. But they’ve never thought about it, and they aren’t trying to be rude. … What I think is so exciting is how many people are talking about this.”

Amazon will offer the discount on up to three qualifying products in eligible categories, including electronics, toys, music, sporting goods and DVDs, and is anticipating that Saturday will be one of the biggest days of the year for the application.

Free Shipping Drives Three Record-Breaking Online Shopping Days

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:49:00 +0000

This holiday season is easily breaking records for online shopping.

So far, three days have eclipsed the $1 billion mark, representing three of the four heaviest days in U.S. history.

In all, shopping has already reached $18.7 billion for the month of November and first two days of December, representing a 15 percent increase over 2010, according to comScore.

The measurement firm had at least one explanation for the surge. It’s not because people were less naughty. Rather, it’s because of all the discounts being offered, with the prevailing method being free shipping.

Typically, the use of free shipping peaks around the Monday after Thanksgiving, comScore said, but this year, the incentive was used at record levels over an extended period of time.

Throughout the 2011 holiday season, more than half of all transactions have included free shipping, the research firm reports. In particular, during the week of Thanksgiving, the promotion was used the heaviest with nearly 65 percent of all shoppers not having to pay freight.

During the following week, which includes Cyber Monday, the percentage of free shipping stayed high at 63 percent.

Free shipping was not used as heavily during the online shopping season last year, peaking at only 55 percent the week of Thanksgiving.

The five most visited sites the day after Thanksgiving were Amazon, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Apple.

While retailers such as Amazon are known for offering free shipping if you meet a certain spending threshold, clearly others are jumping on the bandwagon. For instance, Apple is offering free shipping on all purchases from its Web site until Dec. 22.

Photo Credit: thisisbossi.

Retailers Expecting Another $1 Billion-Plus Cyber-Shopping Spree Today

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:01:02 +0000

Last year, the Monday after Thanksgiving became the big deal retailers always wanted it to be.

For the first time ever, so-called Cyber Monday registered as the biggest online shopping day of the year despite years of procrastinators lifting other days higher as they waited until a few days before Christmas to do their online shopping.

The theory had always been that consumers who flocked to stores on Black Friday would return to their desks on Monday to continue buying deals online.

Last year, the plan panned out and more than $1 billion-worth in items were added to virtual shopping carts across the U.S. to make it the heaviest online shopping day of the year — and the first time ever that a single day eclipsed the billion-dollar mark.

Now, with November already off to a strong start with a 15 percent increase in sales compared to the same period last year, another strong Monday could be in the works, according to comScore, which tracks online holiday spending. The research firm tracks shopping from fixed Internet connections, meaning it doesn’t count items purchased on phones or tablets.

Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — alone saw online sales of $816 million, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase over the same day in 2010, comScore reported.

ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said, “We now turn our attention to Cyber Monday, a day that Shop.org says will see eight in ten retailers running special online promotions. Last year, Cyber Monday was the heaviest day of online spending ever, with sales exceeding $1 billion, and we fully expect to see another record set this year.”

Cyber Monday may finally be living up to its name.

Amazon is a prime example of a retailer working hard to pry open wallets today.

Last year, the largest e-commerce company said Cyber Monday was Amazon’s peak day with more than 13.7 million items ordered worldwide, setting a record for 158 items sold per second.

Today, it will be important to achieve that pace again.

On Sunday, it bought full-color circulars in newspapers around the country promoting its lineup of discounts in its special Cyber Monday store.

On the front page, it touted its full lineup of Kindle e-readers, and a couple of pages were also dedicated to sales supposedly so steep you had to go online to see the prices for electronics, cellphones and videogames.

The Cyber Monday store, however, appeared a little unorganized with random “lightning deals,” which ranged from gift baskets to knife sets, board games, power tools and inexpensive jewelry — but nothing that seemed like the hit item of the season.

Other leading retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, will also be expected to offer special deals.

Surely, the theory goes, if enough marketing dollars are spent, and the discounts are substantial enough, it might get consumers to turn out again to break another record.

In a blog post, comScore analyst Andrew Lipsman explained that last year’s shopping bonanza on Cyber Monday — which was first named that six years ago — was finally successful thanks to consumer awareness.

Over the past few years, it’s been steadily climbing.

In 2009, it was the second-biggest shopping day; in 2008, it ranked third. Before that, it wasn’t even close to the top. In 2006, it ranked 12th and in 2007, it ranked ninth.

“Today the majority of consumers know what it is and the attractive types of deals they can anticipate. With increased awareness comes increased participation on the part of both retailers and consumers,” he wrote.

So, now we have to wait to see if the deals — and the shoppers — both turn out, or if Cyber Monday turns out to be just another big sales day.

(Image credit: iStockphoto.com/mbortolino)

Why Open Stores Early, When the Internet Is Open 24 Hours a Day?

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:30:35 +0000

A handful of large retailers are opening their doors on Thanksgiving to get a jump on “Black Friday” sales.

But the strategy might backfire. Not only are employees upset that they’ll have to staff the stores instead of being able to stay with their families, the move could cannibalize the retailers’ own online and mobile efforts.

Historically, shoppers have lined up in the early hours on the day after Thanksgiving — which has come to be known as Black Friday — to race into stores and be the first to scoop up discounts ahead of the holidays.

This year, stores are jumping the gun by opening a day earlier. Wal-Mart will open at 10 pm, two hours ahead of last year’s opening; Toys “R” Us will open at 9 pm, an hour earlier than last season; and Target will open for four hours when the clock strikes midnight.

On behalf of employees, Change.org has kicked off a petition, “Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving,” which argues that night openings rob hourly and salary workers of time off with their families.

But there may also be an economic reason to maintain standard practices.

Most of these retailers have major online presences and multiple mobile applications, including on the iPad. If they are open 24 hours a day online, must they actually open the doors, too?

After all, Amazon.com is never considered closed.

To get a sense of the strategy, we talked to someone who works on mobile and online strategy at one of the major retailers that is opening early. He told AllThingsD that he was worried about the impact opening early will have on mobile traffic, since traditionally their peak traffic hits between 3 am and 5 am, before stores open on Black Friday.

If customers have the option of visiting the stores in person earlier, it’s unclear whether that pattern will continue — and whether people will do some extra shopping while killing time standing in line waiting for the doors to open.

Even though mobile is still a small contributor compared to online traffic or store traffic, the retailer in question has scaled its infrastructure to accommodate this early-morning surge.

In general, the 2011 holiday season is expected to drive record sales online and from mobile devices.

Chase Paymentech, which analyzes information from the Top 50 e-commerce retailers, reports that online sales are up 25 percent compared to last year. A separate study by IBM predicts that traffic to retail sites from mobile devices is expected to more than double this month from the last holiday season, reaching 15 percent of all visits to retail sites. Last year, on “Cyber Monday,” mobile visits totaled only 3.9 percent.

But Andrew Lipsman, VP of industry analysis at comScore, said he did not believe the impact of opening early would be very significant.

“Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday are not huge online spending days,” he said. “So, even if sales are relatively soft, it should not have a significant impact on the full season for online retailers. At the end of the day, it will likely be a rounding error — if anything.”

ComScore’s data excludes sales made on tablets or mobile phones, but it estimates that those devices account for a minor amount of e-commerce spending — roughly 3 percent.

Here are the key online shopping dates in 2010:

Target Photo Credit: djLicious.

Ho-Ho-Mobile: Record Number of Consumers Expected to Shop By Phone This Holiday

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:00:28 +0000

Forget about calling it “Cyber Monday.” The big digital shopping day of the holiday season might be more appropriately called “Mobile Monday.”

The Monday after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest online shopping days of the year as everyone returns to work and gets online.

But according to a study conducted by IBM, which analyzed data from more than 500 leading U.S. retailers, mobile is playing a larger role in consumers’ shopping habits, especially around the holidays.

The study found that traffic to retail sites from mobile devices is expected to more than double this month from last season, reaching 15 percent of all visits to retail sites. Last year on Cyber Monday, mobile visits totaled only 3.9 percent.

Of course, mobile is benefiting from the overall trend toward shopping online instead of shopping at the mall. A comScore report released earlier this week found that e-commerce spending was up 13 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same quarter a year earlier, to $36.3 billion.

But in particular, the IBM study says it’s also increasing because of smartphone and iPad penetration. Last month, iPad conversion rates reached 6.8 percent compared to the 3.6 percent conversion rate found for all mobile devices as a category.

This year, the statistics will be supported even more by more iPad sales. A year ago, the iPad was only eight months old. Separately, next week Amazon will be shipping its own tablet, the Kindle Fire, to consumers. If there’s a tablet that’s good for shopping, I’d bet Amazon would make it.

Other findings from the IBM study:

In October, 10.7 percent of people who logged on to a retailer’s site used a mobile device, up from the 4.2 percent recorded in the same month in 2010.
Additionally, mobile sales are growing, reaching a high of 9.6 percent in October 2011, up from 3.4 percent in October 2010.
Social commerce is not seeing as much growth. Facebook accounted for 77 percent of all traffic from social sites, but only 9.2 percent of consumers who visited a retailer site from a social site made a purchase.

Discounts Website One Kings Lane Raises $40 Million

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:30:03 +0000

Flash-sale website One Kings Lane has raised $40 million from venture-capital and private-equity firms led by Tiger Global Management, the latest sign of growth for an online-shopping genre that is upending traditional fashion and home retailers.

The investment round values two-year-old One Kings Lane at $440 million, said Chief Executive Doug Mack. The San Francisco start-up, which is unprofitable, is on track to bring in more than $100 million in revenue this year, he said.

One Kings Lane sends its more than two million subscribers emails and other notifications offering discounts of about 50 percent on designer furniture and other home goods. The discounts are available on the site for just 72 hours. Unlike traditional e-commerce sites that serve shoppers on the hunt for something, flash sites appeal to serendipity.

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Online Shopping on the Side

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:05:31 +0000

Online shopping is quick and easy if you know what you’re looking for, or only have to decide between a couple of products. But it can get tedious and time-consuming if you’re making a purchase that requires lots of comparisons over multiple sites.

[ See post to watch video ]

So, I’ve been testing Digital Folio, a new, free software product to be announced next week. It’s a browser add-on that lets you save and view potential product choices in a single place, and quickly see how their prices compare among some major online retailers.

You just drag links to products that interest you into a sidebar right alongside your Web browser. This module stays with you regardless of what website you’re viewing, and its contents can be shared with friends.

Best of all, for certain kinds of products from certain merchants, the sidebar will almost instantly show price comparisons for the same item from other online stores—even if you aren’t viewing the other stores’ websites. If you decide to buy an item, you just click on its link in the sidebar, and you’ll be taken to the retailer’s site, where you can place your order as you normally would.

Digital Folio is labeled as a beta, or test, version. But, in my tests, I found that, despite some limitations and rough edges, it’s a powerful piece of software that I believe could save shoppers both time and money.

Its maker, a small startup from Denver of the same name, has been showing and testing Digital Folio for awhile, but finally feels it’s ready for wide use. You can try it now at digitalfolio.com. The company makes money by getting a small cut of purchases made by Digital Folio users at partner online merchants.

Before getting into the details, it’s important to lay out three key limitations of Digital Folio today. First, while it can save potential choices for any kind of product from any site, Digital Folio only generates automatic price comparisons when you save product listings from its five online retail partners, which it calls “Smart Retailers.” These are Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and Sears.

Second, even at the partner retail sites, Digital Folio’s price comparison feature works for only 13 categories of items, all of them electronic products or appliances. These include cameras, computers, TVs, printers, refrigerators, dishwashers and microwaves. Oddly, two of the hottest such product categories—smartphones and tablets—aren’t included now in the price-comparison feature, but the company is planning to add more products.

Third, it only works with the two most popular Web browsers: Internet Explorer on Windows and Firefox on either Windows or Macintosh. And you’ll need relatively recent versions of the browsers and the computers’ operating systems. I tested it using the latest versions of the two browsers on the latest versions of Windows and the Mac OS.

Mobile versions are planned in the coming months for Windows Phones and Apple mobile devices, with an Android version coming later.

There are other comparison-shopping products, but none that work like this.

Digital Folio’s sidebar has two main sections, marked by tabs at the top. One called My Folios stores your lists of possible purchases. These can be divided into sections, or folios, for different products. For instance, in my tests, I set up folios for cameras, laptops and TVs. Each folio can also have sections, like laptops with screens in a certain size range.

The second tab is called Compare, and it provides the varying prices at the five partner merchants, though these prices don’t yet include shipping and handling costs.

Digital Folio shows you the best price among its partner stores for any given item.

Here’s an example of how it worked for me in my tests. While shopping for a pocket-size digital camera, I noticed on Amazon a certain Canon Powershot model. So I dragged its link into the Digital Folio sidebar. It was $129 on Amazon, but Digital Folio immediately advised me that Sears had it for about $113, and Wal-Mart for $119. It also listed higher prices at other of its partner merchants.

An even more interesting thing happens when you go to a retailer’s page that lists many items in a category, say a page at Amazon that lists TVs. The Compare tab starts pulsating and, in seconds, it generates a list of all the items on the page, along with prices at the other partner merchants.

In my tests, this allowed me to see that a certain Samsung model was cheapest at Amazon, but a Vizio model that also caught my eye was a lot less at Wal-Mart.

Unlike items you’ve deliberately dragged into Digital Folio, these instant comparisons at list pages don’t stay in the sidebar. They disappear when you navigate away from the page. But they’re amazingly dynamic. For instance, if you narrow down the selection on the list page by, say, brand, size or price, the Digital Folio list with price comparison changes along with it.

So what are those rough edges I was talking about? Well, I found setup to be clumsy on Internet Explorer, requiring multiple steps. I also much preferred using the product on Firefox, because, when you click on an item in the sidebar to revisit its original page, that page opens in a tab. By contrast, in Internet Explorer, it opens a new window and has to slowly reload the Digital Folio sidebar.

Also, you can’t drag an item directly into a folio in the sidebar. Instead, you have to wade through a dialog box to choose the folio where it should reside. And you can’t automatically, or rapidly, set up a new folio for a new category of item you find on a site; you have to first manually establish a new folio.

The product also doesn’t automatically refresh itself on one computer, if you’ve made changes to your folios on another. And it crashed Firefox repeatedly on one of my test Macs, though not on another.

Still, despite its early limits and design drawbacks, I believe Digital Folio is a good start toward making complicated online buying decisions simpler.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Study: Shopping on the Tablet Proves Popular

Tom Loftus — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 07:00:11 +0000

The tablet is gaining in popularity as the platform of choice according to a recent survey of online shoppers. Online retailers, meanwhile, are still in the early stages of deciding how best to customize the tablet shopping experience.

Over half of tablet owners say that they use it for shopping. And among those who owned multiple devices, the tablet trumps both the smartphone and the PC as the preferred shopping device.

The Forrester study, which based its findings on a survey of more than 20,000 online buyers by Bizrate Insights, also found that tablet users spend more time on the Web with their tablets than their PCs.

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Best Buy Joins Free Shipping Fray

Matt Jarzemsky — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:33:00 +0000

Best Buy Co. said it plans to offer free online shipping on certain items through Dec. 21, following a similar move by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. earlier this month.
The electronics retailer said Wednesday its offer is valid on “hundreds of thousands” of items, including all CDs, Blu-Ray and DVD movies and gaming software and accessories. Some items, such as Apple Inc.’s iPads, laptop computers and major appliances are not included.
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, plans to provide free shipping on more than 60,000 online items during the holidays without the need for a minimum purchase or subscription plan.
The strategy was seen as an attempt to counter a similar but broader deal from rival Target Inc. and grab sales from e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc. From Nov. 21 to Dec. 11, Target plans to offer free shipping on more than 800,000 items, on orders of at least $50. Amazon already includes free shipping on many orders over $25.

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Online Shopping Poised for Another Holiday Lift

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:35:46 +0000

Black Friday may still be crowded down at the mall, but this year more of America’s holiday shopping is going to happen online, says Forrester Research.

In a new report out on Tuesday, analyst Sucharita Mulpuru forecasts online sales in the U.S. in November and December will increase 16 percent over last year, reaching $52 billion. Retail sales as a whole are likely to increase just 2.3 percent, according to the National Retail Federation.

Last month, eMarketer analyst Jeffrey Grau similarly forecast that holiday sales would increase 14 percent.

Why is e-commerce continuing to chip away at old-fashioned retail? Online shopping is still winning a few new converts, but those are few and far between, says Mulpuru. Rather, online retailers like Amazon.com are convincing existing customers to try out buying new things online–so people who might have started out just buying books online 10 years ago today have since also become ok with the idea of buying shoes or diapers online, too. “People become evangelized to the channel when they start shopping in a couple of categories,” says Mulpuru.

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Vipshop Bags $20M To Bring Flash Sales To Chinese Consumers

Jonathan Shieber — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:19:51 +0000

Chinese venture capitalists are buying into the country’s “flash sales” membership-based retail websites, as online shoppers in the country get a taste of steep discounts on the gilded life through offerings from retailers like newly funded start-up Vipshop.

The Beijing-based company has raised $20 million from DCM and Sequoia Capital China in its first round of venture funding. The capital will enable the company to expand its business offering brand-name clothes, accessories, makeup and home furnishings through time-sensitive online discounted offers.

The company has 1.5 million members across China and is one of a handful of start-ups taking the model popularized in the U.S. by companies such as Groupon Inc. and Gilt Groupe Inc., European companies like Spanish internet retailers BuyVip GmbH and Privalia Venta Directa S.L., or the French site Vente Privee, which is backed by Summit Partners LLC.

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Retailers Band Together for Online Shipping Promotion

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:55:50 +0000

Some 40 retailers and brands are joining a new loyalty program created by GSI Commerce Inc. (GSIC) to offer shoppers unlimited two-day shipping and returns across their online stores.

The program, called ShopRunner, will cost $79 per year—the same as the Prime shipping program offered by the largest online-only retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

Participants include many existing GSI Commerce e-commerce service clients such as Toys “R” Us Inc. and GNC Corp. In the coming weeks, outside retailers such as Borders Group Inc. (BGP), Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) and Drugstore.com (DSCM) will also join ShopRunner.

“If it wasn’t for the scale, these retailers were likely to have done something like this on their own,” said Mike Golden, president of Shop Runner Inc., which is wholly owned by GSI Commerce. He declined to say how much the companies were paying to participate in the program, but GSI is spending about $5 million this year to launch ShopRunner.

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"Cyber Monday" Sales Appear Strong

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:22:43 +0000

Online shopping sites offered deeper discounts and pushed new technology to connect with consumers on Cyber Monday, in what’s shaping up to be a strong post-Thanksgiving sales period for online retailers.

At GSI Commerce Inc. (GSIC), which runs about 100 Web sites for brands including Aeropostale and GNC, said that consumers began hitting Web sales aggressively early in the morning on Cyber Monday, thanks to aggressive promotions on Sunday. GSI also said that same-store sales on Thursday through Sunday increased 17 percent over the same period last year.

All indications are that Cyber Monday will be a strong day across the industry,” said Fiona Dias, the executive vice president of strategy and marketing for GSI.

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E-Commerce Health Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:10 +0000

Depending on whom you ask, U.S. online shopping is either in unprecedented decline–or one of the only bright spots in American retail.

On Thursday, comScore (SCOR) reported that U.S. online spending in the third quarter slipped two percent to $29.6 billion versus last year. That represents the first time since comScore began tracking the figures that online spending has shrunk for two quarters in a row. (Online shopping was flat in the first quarter, and slipped one percent in the second quarter.) ComScore was slightly more upbeat about the potential of growth in the fourth quarter, if only because we’ll be comparing it to last year’s dismal fourth quarter.

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