Wholesale News & Articles

A report from A.T. Kearney suggests that ecommerce vendors are seeing increased interest from consumers with the web becoming an avenue for Americans to ensure they are buying the best products for their needs at ideal prices.

According to the research, features that help save people money are best suited to drive sales. However, there are other elements of a site and different marketing efforts ecommerce vendors can use to help drive traffic and interest in their products and services. Ninety-six percent of consumers said being able to find specific products on a site was essential to the buying process, while 88 percent pointed to simple navigation as an "important attribute" in online shopping.

This suggests that marketers and web developers should regularly monitor their site and see which links, content and other features visitors are clicking on most frequently. Pages with high bounce rates may suggest poor navigation that frustrates consumers and drives them to other sites. Moreover, 59 percent said they enjoy seeing product reviews from other consumers on websites. User-generated content can be a strong method of boosting a site's appeal to both readers and search crawlers. Encouraging customers to leave reviews of items they have purchased can help guide the habits of future visitors.

Brafton recently highlighted a similar user-generated content marketing campaign that helped Coffee For Less improve its site traffic and guide consumers' purchases on the site. While ensuring that sites have their own original content is critical to keep consumers engaged and drive SEO campaigns, allowing users to share some information of their own provides interesting perspective.

In terms of the specific verticals performing well in ecommerce, books were the most popular, with 81 percent of users purchasing either e-books or hard copies on the web. Moreover, 74 percent said they bought apparel, and 59 percent said they purchased beauty and personal care items. These industries have major opportunities to create website content and overall integrated web marketing campaigns that draw on consumers' interests.

Pairing content with email and social media marketing can help retailers drive conversions from across the web. Brafton recently reported that exposure to social content on Facebook helped Target improve conversions from fans and their extended networks.