eCommerce Trends to Watch This Holiday Season

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Black Friday and the holiday shopping season are fast approaching, and customers know this just as well as retailers. Based on last year, between Labor Day and mid-November we can expect online customers to change their behavior by deferring purchases. As an industry, we have conditioned our customers to expect exceptional offers in the run up to Black Friday.

At SeeWhy, we track both conversions and shopping cart abandonment rates, and you can see this change in behavior in the data. Shopping cart abandonment rates normally average 70 percent, i.e. 7 out of every 10 people that place items in the shopping cart do not complete the transaction. But last year from Labor Day through November 15, the number of online sales fell by almost 56 percent compared with the volume for the previous month, and the shopping cart abandonment rate shot up, peaking at 83 percent.

But once holiday promotional offers were rolled out, the transaction volumes rose sharply, and the abandonment rate fell dramatically. You can see this in the graphs below.

Note also how the day of the week is very significant: During the weekends, customers were researching, not buying. The pattern of high shopping cart abandonment rates during the weekend is normal throughout the year as customers research online before potentially making a purchase during the week. However, this pattern was much more pronounced from mid-September through mid-November, reflected in a peak abandonment rate for the year.

What happened in mid-November, of course, was that Black Friday-specific promotions were being rolled out across the board, triggering seasonal buyingnot browsingbehavior and the ramp up to the peak on Cyber Monday.

Based on last years pattern, we should expect that, until the big Thanksgiving promotions get rolled out in mid-November, many customers will defer purchases, having become conditioned not to purchase online but to wait.

This reinforces what we have known for decades; promotions shift the timing of revenues and may not provide significant lift overall.

Well be monitoring both the discounting trends and the shopping cart abandonment rates through the rest of the holiday season, and it will be interesting to see whether the Holiday 2010 will be a rerun of 2009.

An Ultimate Solution for Magento Store Management for Your Web Store

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Plenty of Magento users are satisfied that this shopping cart provides many features which many other shopping platforms do not have. The buyers can write some kind of reviews around different products and read the opinions of other people. The consumers can also do a comparison of various products when making their selection. Dropdown menus are comfortable, especially when you do not have a lot of time. In fact, these are generally the things with regard to consumers. As to online store administrators, Store Manager for Magento has actually been designed for their needs. It is very easy to use, even for the people who do it for the first time. What is more, it definitely saves time and performs some tasks automatically. There are following important features of the Store Manager for Magento.

The first of all that needs to be explained is that this Store Manager assures a safe keeping of your own data. It utilizes SSH port for secure connection. You can make all the necessary modifications locally then when they are made -apply them to the remote data-base. Furthermore, you can back up or reinstate the database.

In relation to the product item and category management, you are able to do all the needed work, including create, modify or delete the data, export and import it to Excel, HTML or.csv files. The product search may be executed easily as there are some advanced search features and multiple filters.

Considering the customer management, the options of creation, edition and also termination are also offered, but there are some more useful options. As an illustration, you can trace the customers’ orders, look for customers by some information about them or you can filter customers by period of time or ordered products. One more thing is that it is possible to manage your client’s wishlist as well as that you possibly can work with a list of all newsletters that he/she receives.

In addition, there are some amazing things which make this Store Manager very comfortable. First of all, it is Wizard which helps a user to do a particular task by choosing the needed option and then by clicking “next”. Another important thing is that there is no delayed update, nor synchronization. All of the modifications you have created are applied to your current store instantly.

As MagneticOne team is always making an effort to improve all their products, they develop several addons to the Store Manager for Magento. Now there is numerous addons available, including Automated Product Import, ICEcat integration for Store Manager, QuickBooks Integration et cetera.

So if you work with Magento but you have not still tried using Store Manager for Magento, it is possible to download its free trial version and then start working with it just now. And if you have certain questions regarding the management of this desktop application, you can find a support center on the official website of Store Manager for Magento which will help you to settle all your questions.

Ways that Website Analytics Can Save Your Online Business

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Website analytics is probably the last thing an online business owner wants to worry about. With 15 things to do every day before 10 am and another 50 to do before you can call it a day, sitting down in front of a bunch of web traffic stats seems like a waste of time. While I agree with the sentiment, it’s completely wrong. In fact, website analytics should be the first and last thing you review every day and I’ll give you three reasons why:

1. Web Analytics Help You Detect Fraud and Incompetence

Have you hired an SEO expert? PPC marketer? Social media guru? If you have people on staff or retain contractors to help you with your site, website analytics are your best friend.

Forget about the reports these experts create because all stats and data can be manipulated or ommitted. What you need is raw, reliable data to calculate the ROI of the services you are paying for.

Specifically, programs like Google Analytics can help you quickly isolate specific traffic streams and provide a host of useful data to calculate ROI, including:

Conversion Rate of Specific Traffic Channels
Conversion Rate for Specific Targeted Keywords
Average Time on Site for Specific Traffic Streams
Bounce Rate for Specific Traffic Streams

Of course, the conversion rate data for specific traffic streams (or Internet marketing experts) will help you calculate the ROI. But the average time on site will also help provide a rough gauge of overall traffic strength. If a specific traffic channel can’t keep visitors on site for more than 2 minutes, the traffic is either weak or you have significant issues on your landing pages.

2. Web Analytics Help Assess Site Health

To put that another way, web analytics essentially help show you where you need to invest your money most to boost online profits. Specifically, website traffic analytics will help you assess:

A. Traffic Strength
B. Sales Funnel Effectiveness
C. Shopping Cart Function and Conversion Rate
D. Website Conversion Rate and Rates for Specific Services/Products

For instance, high bounce rates and low average time on site typically indicate weak traffic or exceptionally poor landing pages. You can confirm which by looking at the data for specific traffic streams to see if there are significant variations in performance. If there are, then the issue is likely a weak traffic stream but if all channels are doing poorly, it’s more likely to be landing page.

The point is, the data tell you what’s wrong with your site so you can best channel your investment dollars to the most critical areas.

3. Web Analytics Eliminates Needless Split Testing

In most cases, optimization of landing pages and product descriptions is completed via split testing. That is, decide what sales tool you want to test (like a headline or CTA) and then create a new one to split test against. If your new sales tool performs better, conversions will increase and your hard work rewarded. However, this is rarely how it works.

You see, the thing people always forget about split testing is it’s sheer expense. To statistically verify even a lead gen site with a non-monetized CTA, you need at least 1,000 visitors or more to each version.

So if you think a landing page or product description might have problems with the headline, value proposition, and credibility tools, that’s at least 3 tests you need to run at 2,000 visitors per test. At even $1 a click, you can see how that would get very expensive, very quickly.

And the worst part: You have no idea if the headline, value prop, or credibility tools are even suppressing conversions. You are just split testing one sales tool versus a new one and hoping for the best, seriously.

But with web analytics, you can pinpoint the issues and eliminate the guesswork saving loads in unnecessary testing costs and content creation.

In conclusion, web analytics really are vital to your online success because they provide you with an accurate assessment of site health and your investments in traffic generating services. If you don’t know the true health of your site, then how can you possibly know what it needs to grow and be more profitable?

The E-sign Act and UETA, Two Laws that Enabled E-Commerce

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Two laws were passed with the intention of making electronic signatures valid as a regular means of validation. These two laws are the ESIGN Act and the UETA, both of which made a lot of positive changes possible for e-commerce. Both laws have expanded the functions of electronic signatures, ushering in many new ways for companies to do business in the modern world. E-commerce is now alive and well, thanks to the passing of both laws which particularly support new business practices geared towards online business operations. Both the UETA and the E-sign Act are there to support and protect electronic signatures and the documents they are in, and have provided many benefits for e-businesses in the process.

The E-sign Act is officially known as the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, and is one of the United States laws that facilitate the use of electronic signatures and records for legal electronic contracts and documents both for interstate and international transactions. The E-sign Act makes sure that electronic documents are made legal and scrutinized under similar legal effects as regular paper documents. Nowadays, electronic records and signatures are considered just as valid and effective as regular paper contracts and documents thanks to the E-sign Act. Because of that, these e-documents are also under similar regulations as those imposed on paper documents.

The UETA (Uniform Electronic Transactions Act) is an act that was originally proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The NCCUSL has since then influenced the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and 47 local states into absorbing similar regulations within their own laws. The UETAs purpose works hand in hand with the E-sign Act as a means of having a governing law that concerns the retention of paper records and the use of electronic processes to validate e-documents as an alternative.

Prior to the UETA, physical copies and printouts of many documents were required by most states. This presented a problem with regards to storage and production of waste, especially in the case of banks, where every check had to be kept in storage for processing. The UETA made it possible for these companies to use paperless processes instead of handling physical paperwork all the time. Keeping everything in electronic data form not only makes storage a lot easier and less space consuming, but also supports the green movement by eliminating a lot of paper wastes and the need for carbon production via paper production.

The E-sign Act and the UETA have both contributed to the now widespread use of electronic signatures in many industries. Companies have seen the many benefits that these laws offer, and are looking at other ways to maximize the convenience present in using electronic signatures and records. The ease of use has helped many companies in wrapping up even the most complex transactions and business deals within a day. With the ongoing trend of businesses going towards web site-driven operations, these laws have definitely made the future of e-commerce a lot brighter.

Key factors that affect the success of an M&A

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The cost of capital is low and your company made it through the recession. Now may seem like a good time to buy but youre scared off by the high business mergers and acquisitions failure rate. Studies conducted in the late 1900s and early 2000s show that M&A failure rate hovered around 70%.

However, recent results project an upward trend. According to Bain & Co, only 30% of M&As underperform, down from 50% of previous years. While the science of predicting the success (or failure) of M&A may seem hypothetical, there seem to be factors that hinder or help M&A.

Integration program

Budgets and people dont integrate themselves. Before the deal closes, its important to have a detailed integration plan that covers all facets of the organization. Moreover, first steps towards integration should be taken before the ink dries. Combining synergies on paper is easier than doing so in practice, but cultivating and maintaining processes should smooth the transition.

Target sighting and metrics

M&As with synergy targets and metrics in place have a better chance at succeeding. Collecting, analyzing, and presenting data on a regular basis lets the board know if the unit is growing according to plan or if actions need to be taken to correct missteps, should growth plateau or slow.

Maintaining business intelligence

Loss of key people has a definite impact on the future performance of the merged entity. Its important that new organizational structure and leadership is set early in the integration process to prevent business intelligence from literally walking out the door.

Protect your base business

While its important to have a smooth transition process, getting work done should still be top priority. Management shouldnt be distracted by M&A activity. They should be vigilant against competitors who may try to take advantage of the flurry of activity and present a unified front to customers despite gaps in the integration.

Lack of due diligence

Performing proper due diligence can unearth factors such as pending law suits, outstanding tax debt, and extreme vulnerability to litigation that can dissuade a potential buyer. A thorough background check can protect your base business and can save you time and money.

Relative Size

A significant difference in size between the acquiring and target company has been found to be a factor in poor acquisition performance. M&A can flounder if the divested company is too large to manage or if smaller acquisitions dont receive the time and attention they required.

Cultural Differences

Salient differences in corporate culture is another factor that can hamper the chance for success. When a company is acquired, the decision is typically based on product or market synergies, “soft factors” that can be overlooked with the assumption that personnel issues can be overcome. While cherished aspects of a work environment may seem petty compared to the bottom line, their removal may result in resentment, productivity decrease and loss of key employees.

Business Merger and Acquisition Experience

While previous M&A experience is not a necessary requirement for success, it does help when detecting red flags and creating and implementing a better integration plan. If this is your first M&A, seek the advise of expertise of knowledgable professionals.

Proformative.com is a free, open and independent community of corporate finance, accounting, treasury and related professionals that offers a wealth of expert advice, information and accounting resources . Finance forums like Proformative allow you to learn about M&A and other relevant issues important to finance, accounting, and treasury experts.