The organization's Ninth Annual Merchant Survey found that 59% of respondents
plan to invest more in e-commerce in 2010 than they did last year. At the start
of 2009, 36% said they would increase e-commerce investment.
With the economy in recession last year, e-commerce, though a bright spot on the
broader retail landscape, fell 2% to $209.6 billion, marking the first yearly
decline for the category, according to ComScore figures. Nonetheless, 92% of
those surveyed predicted their 2010 e-commerce revenues would increase from last
year, with 33% predicting growth of between 6% and 15%.
“Seasoned sellers, emerging retailers and manufacturers are all positioning
themselves for growth as the economy rebounds,” said Lauren Freedman, president
of The E-tailing Group, in a statement. “Results of our Ninth Annual Merchant
Survey find retailers taking a laser-like focus on performance where results
dictate category-centric demands and solid execution sets the tone for
incremental revenue.”
Keyword search, cross-sells, seasonal promotions, sales or specials and e-mail
remain the most valuable tactics, but merchants continue to improvise new ways
to sell.
Online conversion rates remained at 3% or lower, according to the survey. To
increase engagement and profitability, merchants are relying on analytic data
such as conversion rates, but they also plan to increase targeted e-mail (79%),
refine onsite search (72%) and enhance merchandising (70%). Other popular
improvement tactics for 2010 include usability or A/B testing (58%), videos
(48%) and social networking efforts (58%).
Merchants also mentioned social networking efforts considerably more than last
year (44%). More respondents also added blogs, customer reviews and community
features such as forums and share-by-social to their sites as well. Facebook fan
pages ranked as the top social tool for merchants, though 80% also will employ
Twitter in the next year. In addition, nearly 40% plan to use mobile to improve
e-commerce performance, compared to 19% last year
.