Weekly eCommerce Reading List: Dec 19-23

Sleigh bells ring are you listening? Santa is on his way folks. But before then, we've got one last eCommerce and technology reading list. This week its been uncovered that social buy buttons don't seem to be working. The CRTC brings Canadian a Christmas miracle in the form of high speed internet for all. It may actual be cost driving online sales rather than "convenience." And Sunday was the best day for online shopping this holiday season. Sit back, grab yourself a cup of egg nog and rum, and get reading. And behalf of us all at The Jibe, happy holidays to you and yours.

Social Buy Buttons Aren't Working

Source: Internet Retailer

Touted as being “the next big thing” a few years ago, they haven’t gained much traction. While it’s true, there aren’t a large amount of online merchants using them, those that are just aren’t see many sales according to email marketing vendor Campaigner. The survey says that 16.5% of the 562 Campaigner clients that took part in the survey are utilizing Buy buttons on one or more social networks and 71.8% of those aren’t seeing amazing sales. Further, 17.5% said they are making only 1-5% of their revenue from Buy buttons. Because of these disappointing sales, 39.7% of respondents said they’re planning on limiting their use of Buy buttons next year. However, social media marketing and email marketing is still a hot area to engage consumers. Of those surveyed, 73.1% said they plan to increase their email marketing, 59.8% said social media marketing, 46.3% email newsletters, 45.5% content marketing, 37.6% personalization, 33.8% search engine optimization and 33.1% digital advertising.

And the CRTC said "Let All Canadians Possess High Speed Internet"

Source: TechVibes

Earlier this week the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled that all Canadians must have access to modern, world-class mobile and residential internet services. The decision has been called by Vancouver-based OpenMedia, a pro-internet organization as “truly historic.” “Canadians asked for universal Internet access, support for rural communities, world-class speeds, unlimited data options, and minimum guarantees for the quality of their Internet,” said Josh Tabish, campaigns director for OpenMedia. “With this ruling, the CRTC has finally listened to Canadians and agreed that residential and mobile Internet is a basic service required for modern life, as important as the telephone.” What many of us with high speed internet don’t know is that almost one in five Canadians is offline due to a digital divide. This ruling helps rural and communities with inadequate internet access whether due to it being unavailable or unaffordable, access to internet. The plan will include network speed targets of 50 Mbps download speed and 10Mbps upload speed, as well as the ability to subscribe to fixed internet packages with an unlimited data option. The CRTC also issued a report that brings to light the need for a national broadband strategy and offers insight into how the government should go about doing it.

79% of Americans are Shopping Online But It's Because of Cost, Not Convenience

Source: TechCrunch

According to a new study from Pew Research, eight in 10 Americans are now shopping online, whether through desktop or mobile devices, up from only 22% back in 2000. And over half of those consumers have made a purchase from their phone, 15% having first clicked on a link that appeared in their social media. The study found that while convenience does play a factor in shopping behaviour, consumers are actually more moved to action by cost. The web enables an online shopper to quickly research prices, and compare products quickly. It’s an efficient process. The study also found that 65% of online shoppers compare real world prices against online prices and would end up making a purchase where they could get the best deal. Only 14% of Americans said they’d buy online without checking retail prices. What’s more interesting is that the study revealed that the convenience of shopping from home rather than going to a store wasn’t really an issue and in fact, at the bottom of the list of what shoppers consider important.

Consumers Favour Sunday as the Day to Online Shop this Holiday Season

Source: Internet Retailer

It seems as though the traditional "day of rest" has been not so restful for many consumers this holiday season. The biggest web traffic day for the top 100 holiday-oriented retail sites this month have all been on a Sunday. According to analysis done by Internet Retailer, Dec.11 was the biggest day with Dec.4 and Dec.18 both coming in at a close second. These top 100 holiday-oriented retail sites saw 205.6 million smartphone and desktop traffic from global web traffic on Dec.11. What’s interesting to note is that on that day, 54.% of traffic came from mobile devices, and on Dec.12, while not a Monday, of those top 100 sites, 51.2% again came from mobile users. Furthermore, for the first 19 days of December, these same 100 sites were visited a total of 3.71 billion times and 53% of that traffic came from smartphones and tablets.