Forrester Research predicts 12% growth in online holiday sales in 2008.
Walker says his first purchase on the Internet was a hard-to-find CD from a band called The Durutti Column back in 1995 – from the former site CDNow.com.
Walker says the most cost-effective, quick improvements an ecommerce company can make to its site should be related to usability: how search results are organized, how product pages are organized, how easy it is to purchase items and check out.
Walker says e-commerce is at the forefront of the growth in demand for “in the cloud” products and services, as there are many examples of success in this industry with software-as-a-service e-commerce technology solutions.
Walker predicts growth will continue to be strong for e-commerce solutions despite the challenges in the overall economy.
Aaron Magness, business development manager for Zappos, says the company relies mostly on word-of-mouth, but also utilizes paid search, SEO and social media sites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) for its marketing efforts.
Magness’ advice to other ecommerce companies getting started on Twitter: Be yourself; be transparent; be honest.
Biggest headaches for Magness are creating brand awareness for Zappos among people who don’t already know the company, and educating people that Zappos sells many more products than just shoes. He wants people to think of the happiness they feel when they receive the box from Zappos.
SLI Systems is the developer of on-demand search and navigation technology for corporate Internet sites, e-commerce destinations and consumer Internet portals that Searches, Learns and Improves the user experience. SLI Systems’ hosted site search and user-generated SEO solutions empower businesses to enhance customer satisfaction while increasing sales, reducing costs and yielding valuable customer information. Unlike traditional search software, SLI Systems’ patented technology continuously “learns” from the behavior of visitors over time to deliver more relevant results. SLI Systems is a privately held company, with offices in Silicon Valley, London, and Christchurch, New Zealand. For more information, visit www.sli-systems.com, or see the company’s blog at http://blog.sli-systems.com/.
