Archive for the ‘Online Retail’ Category

When Will Groupon Tip?

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Groupon is really catching on like wildfire, despite doomsayers' claims of low barriers to entry, and unsustainable business model (like New Yorker's column by James Surowiecki). The Groupon team has hit such a sweet spot of viral customer acquisition and high-margin revenue that it felt comfortable rejecting Google's $6 billion ...

Google Won’t Replicate Nexus One Experiment

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Google has just announced that it is pulling the plug on their Nexus One web store and web-only distribution model. The lack of distribution arrangement with a tier-one network - in terms of subsidies, network compatibility and cross-channel distribution - kind of cornered the Nexus One into a rather small ...

Mobile Retail – Coming to any Store near You

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Forrester’s Sucharita Mulpuru (@smulpuru) has a new research report out with interesting findings about emerging trends in mobile and multi-channel retail. Overall, the report confirms that the mobile web is on the cusp of becoming a game-changer for both web and brick-and-mortar retailers. Smartphone users are becoming as likely to ...

Competing with Amazon in a Depressed Environment

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Amazon’s results this week were in sharp contrast with the overall health of the retail sector. As highlighted during the holiday seasons, Amazon ruthlessly grabbed market share in an overall down retail market and turned a respectable profit on its very solid execution. Amazon’s success builds on - a ...

Cyber Monday Update – Clearance Sales Amidst the Holiday Season

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

ComScore’s numbers are in: Cyber Monday sales grew 15% year over year, making last Monday the second biggest single day on record for ecommerce. However, this performance hides a fair share of rebalancing, as shown by the chart below, as consumers held off on purchases until Monday this year. The overall ...

Will Cyber-Monday Online Sales Hold?

Monday, December 1st, 2008

Historically, online sales on cyber Monday have been a good indicator of ecommerce’s year over year growth for the Holiday season. ComScore reports that online sales for this year’s Black Friday grew a measly 2% year over year. “Early reports suggest that Black Friday sales in retail stores were slightly ...

Music discovery services chart new paths for gift recommendations

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Pandora, Last.fm, and iLike have broadened the appeal of recommendation algorithms and social discovery and sharing. Despite a challenging – even hostile - business environment, passionate entrepreneurs and music lovers are bringing to market new ways to explore and discover new music. Mufin has gathered the most attention so ...

Will Kelkoo’s Sale Spur a Turn-Around?

Friday, November 21st, 2008

Yahoo! sold Kelkoo today for a mere €100M – a fifth of what it paid in 2004 to acquire it (€475M). Beyond Yahoo’s internal issues and ability to absorb a large entity, a few fundamental issues have plagued Kelkoo and its likes (Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, etc.). Kelkoo and other first-generation ...

Buy.ology's Smart Tips for Online Marketing and Retail

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Buy.ology is a captivating read that presents Martin Lindstrom’s foray into neuromarketing – using neuroscience experiments, such as MRI scans, to determine what drives our consumer and shopping habits. Some results are quite thought provoking, such as the fact that consumer warnings on cigarette packs seem to not only fail ...

Invest in Recommendation, Search, and User-Generated Content to Boost Retail Website

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

The State of Retailing Online report for 2008 is an in-depth look at the top online retailers’ priorities and opportunities to strengthen and differentiate their websites. According to Sucharita Mulpuru, Senior Retail Analyst from Forrester Research, who wrote the report, “online retailers are finding that their best investment efforts are ...