Final Free-Shipping Week Sets Ecommerce Record

Online retailers have continued their momentum this holiday season, posting record sales for the week ending Fri. Dec. 17.

During that week, the last full period when shoppers could expect free shipping with delivery in time for Christmas, four days each saw sales of more than $900 million, according to Web metrics firm comScore, enough to make it the heaviest spending week on record.

The heaviest online shopping day of the week came on what comScore dubs "Green Monday," when consumers spent $954 million. On Friday, termed "Free Shipping Day" for the last day that many retailers were offering free in-time holiday delivery, shoppers spent $942 million, up 61 percent from the same day last year, underscoring retailers' increasing reliance on free shipping offers as a promotional tool, a key tactic in drawing spending away from brick-and-mortar operations.

Together, the week saw ecommerce sales of $5.15 billion, a 14 percent increase over the corresponding period last year.

Since the beginning of November, shoppers have spent $27.46 billion online, up 12 percent from last year. And while last week was the heaviest on record, the Monday after Thanksgiving -- termed "Cyber Monday" as the traditional kickoff to the heavy part of the online holiday shopping season -- saw sales of $1.028 billion, the only billion-dollar day on record.

"While no individual days during the week surpassed $1 billion in spending, we saw strength throughout the week beginning with Green Monday and ending with Free Shipping Day on Friday," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "At this late juncture in the online holiday season, we have likely already witnessed the peak spending day of the year, which means that Cyber Monday should emerge as the season's heaviest online spending day for the first time in history."

Throughout the season, comScore has been monitoring online purchases for free shipping offers, finding that more than half of all orders over the past five weeks were delivered at no charge. By contrast, in 2009, only one week saw a majority of purchases include free shipping.

"Free shipping has certainly become one of the prevalent themes of the 2010 holiday season," Fulgoni said. "Free Shipping Day also appears to have driven a sustained late-season response, with free shipping transactions accelerating in importance in 2010 whereas they actually began to decline during the same period in 2009."

On Friday, 52.7 percent of online purchases came with free shipping offers.

By category, computer hardware has seen the largest year-over-year sales increase this holiday season, up 25 percent since the beginning of November. That segment includes devices like Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad and Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle e-reader.

Consumer electronics and books and magazines followed closely, up 22 percent and 21 percent from last year, respectively.

Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

Ecommerce Poised for Strong Finish to Holiday SeasonFor UPS’ peak shipping day, growth forecast is optimistic

5 Coupon Code Marketing Tips

Offering coupon codes or digital coupons is a good way to entice consumers to make a purchase at your online store. Coupon codes are the Internet version of a discount or savings coupon that a consumer can redeem at the time of check-out by entering a series of letters or numbers in the coupon or promotional code box on your shopping cart page. Many consumers today actively seek out coupons online to lower their overall shopping costs.

3 Tips to Manage Your Coupon Code Promotion

To keep your coupon code campaign on track from a business perspective we recommend that you first set a budget, then choose a coupon type and decide on a minimum redemption requirement to profit from this type of small business marketing campaign.

Set a Campaign Budget

It's important for a small ecommerce business to set a budget for a coupon campaign and then stick to it.  Even though you are offering a discount to customers, the overall goal is to earn money; exceeding your campaign budget will quickly eat up your profits.  Be sure to determine the value of the total campaign ahead of time -- for example $10,000 total in discounts -- or set a maximum number of redemptions.

Determine the Offer Type

The biggest question small business ecommerce site owners ask is “What do I offer?”  If you have plenty of stock you could make your coupon product-specific, but that limits the number of consumers who would be interested in making the purchase. Similar coupons may offer a smaller item for free with an order.

To reach more consumers you can also choose to offer a dollar or percentage-off a total order. For this type of coupon, merchants tend to offer $5 or $10 off orders less than $100, but switch to percentage discounts (like 10 to 15% discount) on orders that are more than $100.

Set a Minimum Coupon Redemption Requirement

When offering a discount coupon code to customers, remember to take into account your current order value and stay above that to earn money. For example if the average order on your site is $50 then you would want to increase the minimum redemption value to boost overall profits. In this case, a $10 off any $60 or more purchase would be a good coupon to use for your site.

2 Tips to Promote Your Coupon Codes for Free

Coupon codes will help bring in new customers, but you can also promote coupons to existing customers to refresh their interest in your site and brand. For small business owners looking to offer coupon code marketing on a tight budget, you can invest a little time -- instead of money -- to help spread the word about your promotion online.

 Use Email Marketing and Blogs to Spread the Word

If you offer a coupon code, be sure to include details in your email newsletters to current subscribers. You can also post details of the coupon code on your business blog or add details to your website to announce a special deal for “new sign-ups.”  Different call-to-action pitches placed in different online communication channels will help your promotion reach more consumers. You can also Google “coupon sites” and send a notice out to some of the popular sites that advertise coupon codes.

Announce the Deal on Twitter

You can also use Twitter to spread the word about your coupon promotion -- for free. If you have a twitter account, your current followers will see the message, but many Twitter users who like shopping and good deals are apt to pick up your message and tweet it out as well.  For a little extra help on twitter you can also use the twtQpon (Twitter Coupon) service to create special reward coupons for Twitter.

Customers who click the link you create using the service are directed to an image-enabled version of the coupon page (on twtQpon.com) and are then redirected to the URL you specified when they click to redeem. 

More Small Business Marketing Tips

Looking to get a better handle on your small business marketing plan? Try these tips and guides for small business ecommerce sites:

How to Add Facebook Like to Your Ecommerce Site Twitter, Facebook Influence Google Real-Time Search Top 3 Email Marketing Tips5 Tips for Writing an Ecommerce Landing PageEMarketing Tips: Reformat Your Products Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG .

3 Twitter Tools for Small Business Ecommerce SitesNashville People in Business

25 Twitter Tools to Make Tweeting Easier, Faster

Twitter, the social media platform, offers new marketing and promotional opportunities to small business ecommerce site owners.

To fully take advantage of using Twitter as a marketing tool, it's helpful to invest time in finding the right tools to integrate Twitter into your existing social marketing practices. The following list of Twitter tools can help make the process of using Twitter an easier, less time-consuming task for small business ecommerce site owners.

Twitter Analytics Tools

Use these online Twitter tools to measure your Twitter influence, reach, trends and popularity. Some offer more advanced analytics while others are simple tools you can use to see who is tweeting about you.

1.  Friend or Follow: find out if Twitter users you follow are following you back. You can also check if they are following the people following them.

2.  Tweet Effect:  this Twitter tool is designed to filter Twitter data to show which of your own tweets made people follow or leave you.

3.  TweetLevel: a tool used to measure an individual's importance on Twitter. Four key ranking metrics -- influence, popularity, engagement and trust -- are scored.

4.  TweetReach: search for a URL, Twitter name or phrase or hash tag and generate a report of the reach and exposure data for those tweets.

 5.  TweetStats: graph Twitter stats including tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweet timeline and reply statistics.

 6.  Tweettronics: Twitter metrics and brand monitoring tools. You can graph moving averages and trends, identify common phrases and words and many other options. Searches can be generated by topic, brand or person.

7.  Twinfluence: determine which major factors control your influence and power on Twitter. Measurements are provided for reach, velocity and social capitol.

 8.  Twitalyzer: an analytics platform for Twitter that is available at three different levels of paid services (with a free trial available). Analysis is offered for sentiment, tagging, click-tracking and more.

9.  Twitter Analyzer: view graphs of your daily tweets, chats, popularity, reach and subjects.

10. Twitter Grader: see how influential you are on Twitter.  Simply type in your Twitter username and click the Grade button to see results.

Tools to Manage and Synchronize Twitter

You can use a number of Twitter tools to post short messages across multiple social media platforms from one single service. Other management tools simply help you tweet better.

11. Babller: the Babller service lets you read and post status updates on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin in a variety of languages. Babller will automatically translate your status to any of the selected languages.

12. BiggerTwitter: a Web-based tool that can be used to post tweets longer than 140 characters on Twitter. BiggerTwitter works by placing a link in the tweet.

13. Hellotxt: a social tool (for Web or mobile platforms) that lets you update Twitter and other social networking sites by clicking a single button. Currently, it supports 50 social network sites.

14. Lazyscope: lets you see shared links in your twitter stream without clicking through to view the site. You can use the tool to discover and follow streams from Twitter or any website.

15. LiveGo: a Web tool that lets you stay connected to multiple social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messenger clients and online email accounts, such as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo.

16. Natter: an online service that monitors your tweets and posts to your Facebook. Comments posted on Facebook are also posted to Twitter.

Twitter Tools for Websites

These Twitter tools let you display your latest tweets on your website, blog or other Web-based publishing space. Some Web tools may also be designed to allow other twitter users to have messages left in the display tweeted for them.

17. Jotabl: a "shoutbox" that you can display on your website and in which site visitors can leave comments. Your visitors can sign in via Twitter to add their message, and even have it tweeted for them.

18. TurnSocial: a free social toolbar that lets small business websites add popular social media and location based applications, in addition to content from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and more.

19. Twitter Widgets: Twitter's own widgets are compatible with any website and most social networks. You can customize this widget to display your latest updates on MySpace, Blogger, Facebook and Typepad, or you can get the code to use the widget on any of your personal Web pages.

Twitter URL Shrinker (URL Shorten) Services

A URL shrinker is an important Twitter tool. It's an online service that takes a long URL you want to include in your Tweet and shrinks it down to save character space in your Tweet.

20. Bit.ly: shrink tweet URLs to 20 characters, plus track and share the shrunken URLs.

21. Goo.gl: Google's own URL shortener. Offers short URLs, reliable service and good uptime.

22. ReTwtme: shorten, share, and track URLs posted on Twitter and other online publishing spaces.

23. t.co: Twitter's own link service is used on all links included in Direct Message notification emails and can be used to shorten URLs -- but only those posted on Twitter. It won’t work for other social platforms.

24. TinyURL: shrink your URLs to 23 characters on Twitter or any online publishing space.

25. v.gd: automatically generates URLs that are typically 18 characters long and offers statistics for the link.

Feel free to add any Twitter tools that you think should be on this list to the comments section below.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG .

Internet guru launches new Web browser3 Twitter Tools for Small Business Ecommerce Sites

Rockefeller Ecommerce Scam Bill Heads to President's Desk

The House of Representatives has approved legislation that aims to stamp out an ecommerce scam that a handful of marketing firms allegedly used to bilk consumers out of more than a billion dollars, sending the measure to President Obama's desk for signing.

The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, introduced by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) in May and passed by the Senate in November, easily cleared the House by a voice vote on Wednesday.

The measure would establish a set of restrictions on the activities of so-called post-transaction marketers, firms that partner with ecommerce websites to display offers after a shopper has completed a purchase. Last year, Rockefeller, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, led an investigation into three such marketing firms and their ecommerce partners, finding that they had duped consumers into registering for fee-based clubs that billed automatically each month, recurring fees that the committee found added up to $1.4 billion.

The companies in question, identified as Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty, were alleged to have partnered with well-known Internet merchants such as Blockbuster and Pizza Hut, who furnished them with customers' payment information, including credit card numbers. After a customer completed a transaction, a pop-up window would appear offering a rebate or a discount on a future purchase.

In the absence of obvious language identifying the company behind the offer, consumers assumed that it came from the merchant with whom they had initiated the purchase. But once they clicked through, they were unknowingly enrolled in a loyalty program run by the post-transaction marketers, which, with payment information in hand, began automatically billing the consumers, who would only become aware of the mysterious charges if they scrutinized their credit card bill or bank statement.

"This is a victory for American consumers. This legislation provides new standards that make sure businesses can't bill online shoppers for services they did not want to buy," Rockefeller said of the bill's passage in a statement. "It's not the way business should be done in America -- and now it will end. We're slamming the door on this billion-dollar scam.

The bill, expected to be signed into law shortly, would require post-transaction marketers to obtain express, informed consent from consumers before enrolling them in a fee-based program. They would also be mandated to provide a clear description of the product they are offering and to disclose that they are not affiliated with the initial merchant.

The bill includes in its threshold of expressed and informed consent the requirement that post-transaction marketers obtain consumers' full 16-digit account number before it enrolls them in a program, and prohibits ecommerce sites from passing along payment information.

It would also stipulate certain disclosure requirements about the terms of recurring fee-based programs, including the length of a trial period and instructions for cancelling membership

The bill would grant the Federal Trade Commission with the authority to enforce the provision of the legislation, and authorize states' attorneys general to sue for injunctive relief in federal court.

Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

4 trends may help sharpen marketing for 2011Mobile Commerce: Coming to Ecommerce Sites Near You

Mobile Devices Take a Holiday: A Guide to Mobile Gifts

It's the busiest time of the year for small business ecommerce site owners, but even time-strapped e-tailers have to take a little personal time out to get ready for the holidays. If you're looking for hot gift ideas to warm up your winter, you don’t have to look much further than the latest mobile phones, tablets and accessories.

But if you're not tuned in to what's new in mobile, we've pulled together a 2010 Holiday Guide to Mobile Devices to help you find the best gifts for everyone on your list. Our guide includes tips on how to buy a smartphones, accessories that can put your iPad to work, the 411 on Android phones, the latest on Windows Phone 7 and more.

Whether you need the latest business smartphone or something more laid back but packed with cool features, dive into our wireless wonderland to get the best tips, advice and accessories for the hottest mobile devices today.

Download and read the 2010 Holiday Guide to Mobile Devices

Mobile Commerce: Coming to Ecommerce Sites Near YouMeager increase forecast for holiday retail sales

Ecommerce Poised for Strong Finish to Holiday Season

Online retailers have gotten off to a strong start to the holiday season, and if a new survey from comScore is any indication, they are well positioned for a flurry of last-minute shopping as consumers round up the last items on their lists.

The Web metrics firm found that 65 percent of consumers polled haven't finished their holiday shopping, with many saying they're operating under a tight budget. ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni suggested the poll could indicate that shoppers are holding out for their final paycheck ahead of the holiday before purchasing their last items.

"The reasons consumers give for not having finished their holiday shopping reveal some very important dynamics driving the retail industry today," Fulgoni said in a statement.

"The first is that we are offered a stark reminder that many consumers are still strapped for cash and may be waiting for their mid-December paychecks before they can finish their shopping," he said. "The second important point is that it's clear consumers have significant time constraints in their lives, which is one of the key drivers behind the continuing shift in retail dollars to the online medium, as the Internet enables people to shop for many gifts quickly and more efficiently, not to mention the cost savings that can be realized through ecommerce."

Of the respondents in comScore's survey who said they hadn't finished their shopping, 33 percent said they hadn't had enough money, and 32 percent said they hadn't been able to find the time.

Of the remainder, 11 percent said they were waiting for better deals to turn up at the last minute, while 8 percent said they hadn't been able to find what they were looking for. Six percent cited the "thrill of last-minute shopping."

While the economy remains sluggish and many shoppers are stretching their budgets this season, online retailers have nonetheless posted strong sales increases over last year. Since the beginning of November, comScore has registered ecommerce sales of $23.8 billion, a 12 percent increase over the corresponding period in 2009.

On Monday, Internet retailers posted sales of $954 million, making it the second-heaviest online spending day on record, behind only this year's Cyber Monday -- the Monday following Thanksgiving -- when comScore counted sales of $1.028 billion.

The second Monday in December has been tagged as "Green Monday" for brisk sales that have historically made it one of the strongest shopping days of the season, though comScore notes that in recent years the heaviest spending days have fallen even later in the month.

"Green Monday kicks off what we expect will be the heaviest online shopping week of the season right up through 'Free Shipping Day' on Friday, Dec. 17," Fulgoni said. "In the past, Green Monday was more reliably the heaviest day of the season, but in recent years we have seen heavy spending days occur even later into the season as consumers continue to gain confidence in retailers and shippers being able to deliver their gifts in time for Christmas."

Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

Shoppers crowd stores as season winds downBlack Friday Ecommerce Starts Strong as Cyber Monday Looms

Ecommerce Marketing: 10 SEO Tips for YouTube Videos

People love to watch videos online, and people are more likely to find and engage with your site if you offer videos. The trick of course is to help people find your YouTube videos, and that's where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.

Our SEO expert, Jim Martin, offers up 10 SEO tips to add to your small business marketing strategy, to get your videos in front of your primary audience and to drive sales.

Our sister site, Small Business Computing has the complete list, so go check it out and get filming.

How important is YouTube video to your small business marketing strategy, and how can you use small business SEO to boost clicks on those videos? Consider these facts:

Google Instant, the recent feature that begins displaying search results while you're still typing your query, has increased clicks to videos in search results by 28 percent, according to a panelist at the fall 2010 Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East conference in New York.

Read the complete article: Top 10 Small Business SEO Tips for YouTube Videos

EMarketing Tips: Reformat Your ProductsNashville People in Business

Top 5 Tips for Your Facebook Business Page

It’s no surprise that more small business ecommerce site owners are using a Facebook Business Page for marketing and brand awareness.  The social networking site currently lays claim to more than 500 million active users, and you can create a free Facebook Business account to market your small business.

5 Tips to Boost your Facebook Business Page

Simply creating a Business Page on Facebook is not enough. To fully take advantage of Facebook traffic and users you must also interact with your customers using the social networking site and update your Business Page with fresh content.  The following Facebook Business Page tips will help you create a better Facebook Page for your ecommerce business.  

Tip #1.  Set a Unique Facebook Name

Choose a unique name for your Facebook Business Page. By visiting www.facebook.com/username you can select your Business Page (NOT your Personal Profile) from the drop-down list and provide a username, which will also be used for your unique Facebook URL.  Also, choosing a name is a one-shot deal; once you choose it you can’t change it, so check for typing mistakes before setting the username.

Tip #2.  Add Interactive Facebook Applications

Facebook is home to more than 550,000 active applications. By adding related applications to your Facebook Business Page you can provide fresh content and interactive value for your fans -- those who "Like" your business on the social networking site. You can search Facebook for applications closely related to your business or vertical and then install the application. Be sure to test the app to make sure you are not adding "spammy" apps to your Business Page.

Tip #3.  Promote Your Content with Customizable Facebook Apps

Not only will Facebook apps provide interactive value to your fans, but a number of applications exist that can help you promote your own website and content on your Facebook Business Page. The good news is that many of these applications, like RSS feeds, Notes and Extended Info are applications developed by Facebook and are extremely easy to install and customize. This will help you promote links to your own website, blog, or online retail space. Tip #4.  Promote Your Facebook Business Page on Your Site

To encourage your blog or website visitors to join you on Facebook, start using Facebook Like, a social plug-in offered by Facebook that lets people share your content with their friends.  With a single line of generated code you can add the Facebook Like button to your own small business ecommerce website, and anyone who clicks it will have a story appear in their News Feed with a link back to your website.

Tip #5.  Let Facebook Business Page Fans Be Social

People are joining you on Facebook for one key reason: to be social. Locking down your Facebook Business Page to limit management time is going to make your page less fun and less interactive for users. In your Facebook Page management options you can set permissions that allow users to post on your Wall, add photos, tag, add videos and comment on your posts and posts made by other fans. By enabling interactive options, you will most likely see some spam posts but you can monitor the activity and delete what is not appropriate. It's a trade-off between increased management time and allowing users to be more social on your Facebook Business Page.

More Facebook Business Page Small Business Marketing Tips

From beginner guides to expert tips, our selection of Facebook Business Page tips and articles can help you to better manage your small business marketing tasks.

How to Add Facebook Like to Your Ecommerce SiteTop 10 Tips for Successful SMB Facebook Pages5 Facebook Apps for Small Business Ecommerce SitesThree Ways to Make Money on FacebookFacebook Tips: How to Use the New Business Page LayoutFacebook Analytics For BeginnersTwitter, Facebook Influence Google Real-Time Search

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG

Ecommerce Marketing: 10 Tips to Build a Facebook PageState tourism bureaus use social sites to promote sights

5 Tips for Writing an Ecommerce Landing Page

A landing page is an important part of any ecommerce website. By definition, the landing page is a page within your website you will create that provides sales copy and expands upon information provided in a shorter marketing message. You can create a landing page for advertising messages placed in email newsletters, a blog, or social media and networking sites.

How to Use Ecommerce Landing Pages

Landing pages, especially those designed for ecommerce website, are most frequently used by sales to enhance a marketing message. For example, you may highlight a free shipping deal in an email newsletter or on Twitter and link to a special landing page that details the specific promotion. The content provided to customers on the landing page is basically an extension of the previous marketing message.

The goal of using landing pages is to increase conversions. Instead of sending users to your homepage with many navigational options to choose from, sending the customer to the associated landing page provides them with quick access to a topic, product or promotion they are interested in -- and you know they are interested because they clicked the link to get more information.

Landing pages are also used by website owners as the page visitors will "land on" when clicking from pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing campaigns, banner ads or affiliate programs.

5 Tips to Create an Ecommerce Landing Page

An ecommerce landing page can be used any time you want a customer to complete a specific action -- to complete a transaction or to submit a membership registration, for example. The goal of creating a landing page is to provide highly relevant content to further expand on the desired action, instead of just "dropping" the customer off on your homepage where he can get lost looking for the information.

The following tips will help you design and create a more effective landing page to further boost online conversions for your small business ecommerce website:

1. Relate the Headline Back to the Source Ad

Ensure the landing page uses a headline and introduction that refers exactly to the main marketing message in the short ad or link. If your tweet states "Free Shipping on orders over $40," then you should display the exact same marketing message in the landing page headline.

2. Use a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Use eye-catching images or friendly text, but get that call-to-action mentioned right away on the landing page. The Call-to-Action is typically a sales statement that engages customers and creates a sense of urgency to encourage them to make the desired action now, not later.

3. Keep Important Points Brief

Be sure to keep the important points brief and include them at the start of the paragraph or introduction. Use bullet points to highlight the relevant points of your offer. Many people will simply skim the text on the landing page and not read it thoroughly, so avoid being too wordy.

4. Stay Above the Fold

Most users will not scroll down the page, so be sure to keep the relevant details above the fold. This is the portion of a webpage that is visible once the page has loaded -- the very top part of the landing page.

5. Offer Direct Links

The landing page is the single stop between the short copy ad and the conversion. The call to action message, images and important assets should be clickable and lead directly to the converting page.

For example, if your email campaign highlights a special sale price on a specific product, the landing page for this offer should use hyperlinks that will automatically place this product in the shopping cart. Here you could also use a hyperlinked "Add to Cart" button. If the desired action is to have customers fill out a form, the CTA and images should lead directly to the sign-up form.

The best advice for designing your landing page is to keep it simple, be concise and make it easy for customers to "act now" by providing only relevant information, sales copy and direct links for conversion.

More Resources for Writing Ecommerce Website Content 10 Tips for Writing an Ecommerce Website FAQEcommerce Content: Writing a Good Privacy PolicyEcommerce Design: Writing an 'About Me' PageE-commerce Content: Writing Product DescriptionsE-commerce Content: Be Ready for Any Holiday

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

Ecommerce Marketing: 10 Tips to Build a Facebook PageState tourism bureaus use social sites to promote sights

LivingSocial Snares $175 Million Investment by Amazon

Groupon, LivingSocial? Who are these guys? That might be the question a lot of folks are asking about the fast-growing group of startups offering consumers daily email deals on popular local goods and services such as restaurants and spa treatments. Discounts are typically 30-to-50 percent or more and retailers are believed to pay a healthy commission of 50 percent for the privilege of reaching new customers.

Since it launched two years ago, Chicago-based Groupon has quickly become the poster child for the category, thanks to a rapid rise in customers (reportedly as many as 35 million subscribers worldwide) and a widely-reported negotiation with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) that is said to have offered anywhere from $4 to $6 billion to buy the company.

If the deal happens, it stands to greatly benefit Google's efforts to reach more local businesses, though because of the search giant's ever-widening online footprint, any deal is likely to face a fair bit of regulatory scrutiny that could drag out, if not deny, approval.

Meanwhile, Groupon rival LivingSocial made some news of its own, announcing a $175 million investment from ecommerce king Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) on Thursday. (Earlier this year Groupon raised $135 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies).

"To be the biggest player in the local commerce space there is no one better to work with than Amazon," Tim O'Shaughnessy, CEO of LivingSocial, said in a statement. "As the social shopping space continues to heat up, LivingSocial is committed to staying focused on providing the high level of quality that consumers and merchants have come to expect when working with us."

LivingSocial, based in Washington D.C., recently expanded its business by acquiring adventure company Urban Escapes, and launching three new verticals including LivingSocial Family Edition, Campus Deals and a LivingSocial Escapes travel site.

Last month, Google rival Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced a Local Offers program (currently in beta testing) that includes Groupon, LivingSocial and several other partners.

"Consumers are inundated with offers, both online and off. I think a service that aggregates several different special deals sources will give consumers great deals and make the marketplace much more transparent," said Karsten Weide, research vice president for Digital Media & Entertainment at IDC. "For partners in such a service, the audience reach of a large partner will give them a lot of much needed distribution."

As for Groupon, its 30-year-old founder and CEO Andrew Mason sounds bullish on where his company is headed, regardless of whether a deal with Google happens. "We're the fastest-growing company ever because we're the first real revolution in ecommerce since the Web has matured," he told United Airline's Hemisphere magazine.

Last year Google reportedly was in discussions to buy consumer review site Yelp, the popular hub of consumer reviews about local businesses, for $500 million. But whether or not those rumors were true, the deal never happened.

David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

Insurer Humana buying Concentra for $790 millionMicrosoft Bing Pulls Into Second Place in Search

Small Business Marketing Tips for the Holidays

Online sales during the 2010 holiday season are expected to reach $38.5 billion. According to the forecast from eMarketer, this is up 14.3 percent from 2009, and it also marks the second straight year of double-digit ecommerce growth.  While research numbers differ slightly, forecasts by ComScore and Forrester also predict that holiday ecommerce sales will increase over last year.

Small Business Marketing Tips to Boost Holiday Sales

Higher ecommerce sales are good news for online retailers, but the question of the best way to cash in on holiday sales remains. The right small business marketing tactics used at the right time can help you gain a larger piece of the holiday pie.

To help you market your way through the holiday season, Ecommerce-Guide.com spoke with several industry experts who offered the following tips to help small business ecommerce sites create successful, sales-oriented ecommerce holiday marketing plans.

Put Yourself in Santa’s Shoes Before Clicking Send

Melanie Attia, Campaigner’s product marketing manager suggests that small business owners put themselves into Santa's shoes by thinking about specific tasks you want to accomplish this holiday season.

“The best way to do this is to see things through your customers’ eyes -- what’s on their list for Santa to place under the tree this year?" Attia wrote in an email.

She continued, "In your email marketing campaign, remind them what’s popular but needs to be purchased early before inventory across the Internet -- and your store -- runs out.  Would they want coupons, special offers or promotions? Or, would they rather have valuable information and practical gift ideas for co-workers and long-lost relatives who added them to this year’s Christmas card list?  Keep the ideas and the promotions fresh to keep your shoppers reading -- and buying.”

Other holiday email marketing tips offered by Attia include:

Look at your calendar from your customer’s perspective and map out holiday promotions, topics and campaigns that will help you reach out to your customers at the right time with the right information. Plan around key holiday triggers or events such as Black Friday, Hanukkah and the last day for shipping. Your customers will appreciate receiving relevant emails when they want it. Watch what the trends are and make sure your program includes what’s hot both nationally and within your own store, including gift cards, popular items, direct shipping, coupons, free wrapping, discounts, two-for-one, impulse buys, gifts under $10, under $100. Promote these across your holiday email marketing program this year.  Holiday Shopping Doesn't Change Ecommerce Fundamentals

Cathy Halligan, SVP of sales and marketing of PowerReviews, said that ecommerce site owners need to remember that even with the holiday blitz, the fundamentals of ecommerce haven't changed.

During the holidays, the customer still wants to know that you've got the product she wants (easily found through search and browse), at the price she wants, that it’s in stock, checkout is fast and that she'll be able to get it in time for the holidays. 

She also offered the following tips for including ‘Featured Products” in your holiday emails:

Feature products in your email.  Most often, billboards announcing sales and programs do not perform as well. Be sure to confirm featured items are in stock before pushing the send button.  Remember to integrate ratings and reviews into email marketing this holiday season.Make sure featured products are 4 or 5 star products. These products convert on average 10-20 percent above 2 and 3 star products.  Show a mix of 4  and 5 star products, as customers may doubt authenticity if they see only 5-star products across the board.Mixing Holiday Promotions with Social Media Marketing

Halligan also recommends that when you send a sales-based email that you also add a viral component with a "Give the gift of [Your Brand]" callout that incentivizes recipients to share the deal with their Facebook and Twitter networks.

Businesses are conducting holiday marketing through social media networks more this year than ever before. Blake Hayward, VP of marketing at Extole said that research from ComScore indicates that 28 percent of consumers have said that social media has influenced holiday purchases. 

To reach out to those social consumers, Hayward recommended that you rise above the noise. Because consumers are bombarded with offers, catalogs and other promotions during the holidays, retailers need to activate their customer base to deliver the message.  Most often this can be done through social networking platforms.

He also suggested that brands give customers a reason to pass your holiday message along to their friends and peers on social media sites. This could be successful by offering an exclusive deal, a donation to charity, and other holiday incentives to ensure customers pass your marketing message along.

More Holiday Small Business Marketing Tips

From beginner guides to expert tips, our selection of small business marketing articles focused on holiday marketing tactics can help you increase online sales.

Five Timely Tips for Holiday E-Mail MarketingE-commerce Content: Be Ready for Any Holiday10 Holiday Tactics to Improve Sales in 10 WeeksSix Holiday E-Mail Marketing Tips

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG .

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Black Friday Ecommerce Starts Strong as Cyber Monday Looms

With Thanksgiving now passed, the holiday shopping season has started in earnest, and online retailers are enjoying strong early returns.

On the day after Thanksgiving, known in retail circles as Black Friday, Internet merchants saw sales increase 9 percent from last year, netting proceeds of $648 million, according to online metrics firm comScore. On the holiday itself, a large number of Americans took a break from food and football to shop online, with Thanksgiving ecommerce sales soaring 28 percent over last year to $407 million.

"The $648 million in online spending this Black Friday represents the heaviest online spending day of the season-to-date and a solid increase over last year's Black Friday," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "Interestingly, we are also seeing consumers beginning to buy online in a more meaningful way on Thanksgiving Day, which has historically seen low buying activity."

The brisk sales around Thanksgiving continue the strong start to the holiday shopping season Internet retailers have enjoyed, with spending throughout the first three weeks of November increasing up 13 percent from the same period in 2009, comScore reported last week. The firm is forecasting an 11 percent increase in overall online spending for the holiday season.

The latest sign of good news for the ecommerce segment comes as retailers are heavily promoting deals for today, when consumers return to work after the holiday for what has become known as Cyber Monday, a historically heavy spending day, though not the biggest of the season.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), for instance, has set up a special section of its website showcasing what it bills as Cyber Monday "lighting round" and "doorbuster-style" deals, offering hundreds of discounts on specific products for limited windows throughout the day.

Amazon also ranked as the most heavily trafficked shopping website on Black Friday, with its visitor count surging 25 percent ahead of last year, beating out other popular sites like the Web properties of Walmart, Target and BestBuy, according to comScore.

Meanwhile, comScore found that shoppers are gravitating to sites that aggregate bargains, both for research and planning a trip to a retailer's physical location, and for finding the sites that offer the best deals to buy online. The number of unique visitors to coupon sites on Black Friday increased 4 percent over last year, the firm reported, while overall visits jumped 16 percent.

Of course, online retailers often struggle to keep their sites online and responsive as their traffic ramps up throughout the holiday season. Most sites have held up throughout the Thanksgiving crush, resulting in higher rates of customer satisfaction and, presumably, more sales, according to analysts at Gomez, the Web performance unit of Compuware.

Gomez, which maintains an ongoing index of retailers' site reliability, attributes the relatively steady performance to firms investing in their online infrastructure to meet the seasonal demand and opting not to undertake major site updates over the holidays. While traditional websites are performing strongly, Gomez analysts said that the performance of mobile sites "remains disappointing."

Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

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