5 steps to getting started with merchandising for Online Trading

In the broadest sense, merchandising is defined as 'the activity of promoting the sale of goods'. Whether this is in a store, over the phone or online the principle is the same – 'Sell more stuff (Profitably)'; the differences come in the techniques employed to do this. A traditional retail store will use gondala end displays, clip-strip cross-sells and sales assistants to maximise revenues, but without the advantage of face-to-face sales influence how can we sell online?

[si_guide_block id="74974" title="Download Expert Member resource – Online Retail Merchandising guide" description="This guide examines all aspects of the buyer journey and gives great tips along the way to improve your customer's experience and make them more likely to buy. Via detailed examples of sites including JohnLewis.com, B&Q, Asos and more, in both desktop and mobile views, the guide lets you learn from market leaders…

Mobile commerce predicted to reach $250 billion by end of the decade

Mobile commerce is at an inflection point. Whilst over the past few years many have been disappointed by relatively low conversion rates from mobile visits, things will soon turn a corner. A wide array of new apps, innovations and improved experiences mean buying from a mobile device has never been easier, and will only get more so. Forrester forecast that thanks to the removal of barriers to m-commerce over the next four years, things are going to hot up fast. Purchases from mobile devices will double by 2020 reaching an impressive 250 billion dollars worth of transactions. So for any marketers out there working for ecommerce sites, you need to make sure your mobile experience is as slick and seamless as possible. And no that doesn't just mean having a mobile responsive site. It means fast load times, simple forms, easy…

How to best use punctuation in email marketing campaigns

Is the smartphone really killing off the period as a punctuation mark for texters? A recent story in the Washington Post says it is. Where the full stop once marked the end of a sentence, the simple line break now claims that role in texting. The stop itself has evolved into a shorthand symbol that charges an otherwise innocuous sentence with deeper meaning, such as anger. It's less obvious than emoji and takes fewer taps on the keyboard. That made us think (because we think about email all the time) about subject lines with stops at the end. Do they help or hurt opens, clicks and deliverability? And what about other punctuation marks? Do question marks really drive more traffic? And what’s the deal with exclamation marks? To get some definitive answers, we turned to Touchstone's universe of virtual subscribers to see what impact punctuation…

The pressure for brands to select the “right” digital agency to deliver projects and campaigns has never been greater. So what steps can you take to avoid a digital partnership disaster?

2015 continues to be a golden era for digital agencies. UK online retail sales eclipsed £100bn in 2014 reflecting the nation’s insatiable appetite for buying online. With digital ad spend increasing by 800% between 2004 and 2014 to £7.2 Billion, brands are responding to consumer demand and investing heavily in their online presence. The rapid growth of online investment and increased availability of advertising platforms means that digital marketing roles have rapidly evolved to be multi-disciplined and complex. Agencies are therefore an attractive option for brands looking to deliver quickly on digital campaigns and projects.

Imagine you’re hiring a member of staff

The process of selecting a digital agency…

A checklist of issues aimed at improving your new business marketing processes and techniques

If you are a big, established agency then you may well run a finely tuned new business or demand generation machine already. If you are a smaller or a start-up agency and growth so far has been ‘accidental’ then where do you start with a more proactive, controlled approach to generating ‘New Biz’? New business is, I think, is more competitive than ever and there are a few reasons: The sheer number of agencies of all types. There are 18,000 or so in the UK alone (figures I have seen vary from 16-20,000). Client (prospect) time is stretched thin with smaller teams and more to do. It follows that decision makers are less willing to hear you out, unless they have a burning need and you catch them at that exact time. An increasing understanding of all things inbound…

Online Video is maturing, and often delivers higher ROI than TV ads.

The way people consume media is changing. Traditional TV is down, desktop is plateauing. People are canceling their cable TV subscriptions, but are signing up to streaming services like Netflix or Amazon prime in droves. Mobile is exploding and online video is enjoying a huge surge in popularity. YouTube has over a billion users, and that number is growing over 40% per year, with revenue growth up an even more impressive 50% over the same period. This is starting to mean that YouTube is becoming more effective (or at least more cost effective) than TV when it comes to video advertising. A dutch brand called Landliebe, which focuses on dairy products, studied it's ROI on both TV ads and YouTube ads, to discover which form of video advertising was more effective. A 20-second spot ran on several German TV channels, while…

When Parents and Grandparents started turning to Facebook, there was fear this would lead to a max exodus of the privacy conscious Millenials. Will this happen to Snapchat?

Well so far, so good. New data from eMarketer, has shown that Snapchat is getting more popular with the older demographics. Particularly from the ages of 25-34 and 35-44. What's interesting is that this follows a very similar trajectory to that of Facebook - a rapid growth which started with the students and teens, before the slightly older generation of 25-34 and 35-44 year-olds began adopting it. Following from this, their Mums and Dad's, before finally a few Grandparents joined the party. Although following a similar trajectory of Facebook isn't a bad thing; bearing in mind they have surpassed 1Billion users and are now valued at in excess of $330Billion, Snapchat still…

Web Hosting 101 for SEO

When people talk about SEO, web hosting seldom comes into the picture. What people forget is that registration and hosting data can affect your search engine rankings in a big way. In the world of SEO where there are only ten slots that matter in SERPs and thousands of webmasters competing to find favor in the eyes of Google, any competitive advantage you have access to should be quickly taken advantage of. Optimizing your registration and hosting data is one of the things you can do to improve your search engine rankings. Not all hosting services are created equal. There are some that are good value for money, and there are some that you should actively avoid like the plague. When looking for a hosting service, you should pay attention to the factors that will affect your SEO.…

Landing pages are a key tool in your CRO arsenal

So, you’ve already invested a considerable amount of time, money and resources on developing a fully-functional and navigable site. What next? You plan to set a budget for PPC ads, social media and email marketing in order to drive traffic to your site. Great! But what happens when a visitor clicks on your PPC ads or links on your social media profile? If they land on the company’s homepage, you’ve already failed! Remember, you don’t just need to drive leads to your site; you also need to convert them. This is where landing pages come to your rescue. They help you convert your web traffic into qualified leads. In case you’re still looking for reasons why you must invest in landing pages, check out these stats: Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15.…

3 new features make Facebook ads a tempting prospect for bricks and mortar retailers

Importance: [rating=3] (For bricks and mortar retailers) Recommended Source: Facebook blog 9 out of 10 retail sales still take place in-store, despite everything you hear about shopping moving online. Mobile is a great facilitator of in-store purchasing, with people using their phones to research purchases and locate stores. Now Facebook are launching new features to help retail businesses take advantage of the growth of mobile, to both target ads more effectively and help track the effectiveness of their campaigns. Here's a breakdown of the new features just announced:

Native Shop locator

Facebook already has an ad format that lets stores with multiple locations serve ads that dynamically display the location of the nearest store to that person. But now to remove friction on the buyer journey Facebook is launching a shop locator, that lets people find the route to the nearest…