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Top five Christmas 2014 digital marketing stats

The festive season is perhaps the most challenging and rewarding time in multichannel commerce.

Last month, the internet was awash once more with statistics and trends that dig right down into understanding how consumers are shopping at Christmas, and how merchants are striving for their engagement and cash.

As always, our Internet Statistics Compendium collects the best digital stats from around the globe and across the online and mobile landscape.

Today, I have collected the top five that really piqued my interest over the Christmas period and thought I’d try and sum up why these data points might be valuable to marketers and digital types going on into 2015.

Grazia launches responsive ecommerce site: Is it any good?

Grazia launched in Italy way back in 1938 but its international expansion only began in 2005.

Since then it has established editions in 23 different countries and as of this month it now has an ecommerce store.

However it won’t be the usual clickable magazine or affiliate scheme that you might have expected.

B&Q’s new £60m responsive website reviewed

You can’t buy much for £60m these days.

That’s the amount Real Madrid paid for James Rodriguez, the sum that Michael Gove wanted to spend on a new yacht for the Queen, and the exact figure that B&Q has apparently invested in its new website.

Clearly the home and garden retailer didn’t wish to be outdone by Selfridges, which recently invested a mere £40m to revamp its website.

When I interviewed Michael Durbridge, B&Q’s director of omnichannel, last September he said that the new site would be launched alongside an upgrade to the company’s backend systems.

This would allow the website and in-store ordering systems to run off the same database, with the user interface customised for each channel. B&Q would then have taken a huge step towards forming a single customer view.

So, just how good is this new £60m responsive site?

Why booking a flight with APAC’s premium airlines is an arduous journey

I’ve previously examined the flight search experience on APAC’s budget airlines, and now it’s time to turn the spotlight on the premium end of the market.

This time though I’ve looked at the process of buying a flight and how easy it is to get through the checkout.

Airlines probably have greater freedom than other industries when it comes to web design, as purchase decisions tend to be driven by cost so people are less likely to drop out just because the checkout is tricky to use.

But with an ever-increasing focus on the customer experience, airlines need to ensure their websites match their best-in-class aspirations.

I looked at the UX to see whether the reality matches the advertising, but first here’s the criteria we look for in checkout design:

Insurance sites need to work on their checkout processes

Last week we published a post looking at some of the world’s best ecommerce checkouts to see what we could learn from them.

They came from a range of industries, though they all sell consumer goods such as clothes or electronics.

One of the commenters noted that it would be useful to take a more targeted look at other industries, such as utilities, banking or insurance.

By coincidence, I’m in need of a new contents insurance policy so thought I’d murder two birds with one stone by reviewing the checkouts as I shopped around for quotes. 

Is social shopping making a comeback?

At one point social shopping was hailed as the future of ecommerce.

Online shopping was supposed to be moving towards becoming a more social and collective experience, whereby users could share their shopping journeys, mimicking the sort of interaction that occurs in physical stores.

However, despite all of these predictions, true social commerce has failed to really gain traction with consumers or retailers.

Whilst social elements, such as sharing buttons, have been integrated into retail websites, the overall vision of social shopping has not yet come to fruition.

How to increase conversions by creating buyer urgency & fear of loss

A sense of urgency and fear of loss are powerful sales drivers in ecommerce.

Undecided shoppers can be encouraged to make an impulse purchase if they think they’re in direct competition with other people for a product that has limited availability.

I recently rounded up 11 examples from ecommerce sites that use stock levels to create buyer urgency, but that’s by no means the only tactic available.

Here is a range of other techniques used by well known brands that can prove to be very effective in driving conversions.

And just to clarify, I’ve intentionally avoided group discount and flash sale sites (e.g. Groupon) that are built around scarcity and deadlines.

Three reasons why customers abandon your site and how to make them stay

In the classic late 80s film “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner is inspired to turn his cornfield into a baseball field after hearing a mysterious voice whisper the famous line, “If you build it, he will come.”

Indeed, the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson soon shows up, followed closely by the Chicago Black Sox and half of the town.

Unfortunately, many marketers believe that if they only build an ‘awesome’ website, the customers will start pouring in. But what happens when visitors show up and, instead of playing ball and inviting all their friends, turn right around and leave? 

Building a ‘site of dreams’ requires a whole lot more than a pretty hero image and scrollspy navigation. To truly capture and engage today’s consumers, brands must focus on creating an immersive, interactive user experience that spans channels and devices.

Here are three UX pitfalls causing your customers to abandon your site, and how to make them stay.

Six tactics for reducing cart abandonment rates

Online retail is rapidly expanding and is expected to become a $1.5 trillion industry this year.

Cart abandonment is cutting into profits for retailers, as 68% of carts are left behind before the purchase is complete. 

While retailers can do little about some of the motives, they can ensure that the abandonment rates are kept to a minimum. 

Here’s how… 

How ecommerce sites can cater for the ‘just browsing’ shoppers

Online retailers are struggling to unearth the reasons why shoppers abandon their sites without converting.

Econsultancy recent Reducing Customer Struggle report reveals that a staggering 73% of the companies surveyed admit that they are unaware of the abandonment reasons 

“I’m just browsing” is reported as one of the major abandonment reasons. This reason accounts for anywhere between 37% to 57% of the total online shoppers who left without buying. 

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