Theme: Online Retailing
Summer 2005

This issue contains a number articles and analyses, focused on online retailing:

• Conversion Rates of the Top 400 Retailers
• Review: Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide (2005 Edition)
• Software Used by the Top 400 E-Tailers -- E-Commerce, Affiliate, and E-Mail
• The State of the US Online Market 2005
• Tips for Designing Online Stores
• Why Major E-Tailers Sell on eBay
• Review: The Culturally Customized Web Site

In this issue we examine ways that online retailers succeed -- those with hundreds or thousands of product SKUs. June 7-8, 2005 I attended the Internet Retailer Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago. Here are some of the things I gleaned that can be of help to small and medium sized businesses. I hope these articles will open your eyes wider to the possibilities.

God bless you,
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor

Conversion Rates of the Top 400 Retailers

The 2005 Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide gives an estimated conversion rate for each of these top online e-tailers. These will provide you a guide to see how your online store's conversion rate stacks up with the best. Gives some of the top conversion rates, explains how the more average CRs compare with each other, and provides both bar and scatter graphs. Read the Analysis.

Review: Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide (2005 Edition)

Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide contains a huge amount of data on the top 400 e-tailers in the US, with conversion rates, traffic, average sales total, software, executives, etc. Read the Review.

Software Used by the Top 400 E-Tailers -- E-Commerce, Affiliate, and E-Mail

The software used by the top 400 e-tailers is markedly different than that used by smaller online businesses. These differences are generally due to price, scale, support, and the problems created by the need to integrate with legacy retail software systems. This analysis of data from the Internet Retailer Top 400 gives you the top software programs in each category with graphs.

• E-Commerce Software Used by the Top 400 E-Tailers
• Affiliate Management Software Used by the Top 400 E-Tailers
• E-Mail Marketing Software Used by the Top 400 E-Tailers

The State of the US Online Market 2005

Provides an overview of the state of the US online retail market by Dan Hess of comScore and Mary Brett Whitfield of Retail forward. Sees increase due to broadband, tenure comfort, search, comparison, shopping, and channel blurring. Read the Article.

Tips for Designing Online Stores

Provides tips on line store design from the Internet Retailer 2005 conference -- Ken Burke and David Fry. Suggestions included a concentration on merchandising, creative use of specials, discounts, simplification, cross-sell and up-sell, spreads, layered content, gift certificates, store locators, and multi-channel gift registries. Read the Article.

Why Major E-Tailers Sell on eBay

Reviews comments of Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor on why major retailers (and e-tailers) sell on eBay as well as on their own websites. Some reasons included liquidation as well as product testing. Includes examples of how Sears.com uses eBay. (Published for my WMT Free readers). Read the Article.

Review: The Culturally Customized Web Site

The Culturally Customized Web Site by Singh and Pereira provides a sound theoretical basis for creating culturally sensitive websites in other countries. Helpful for multi-national companies as well as smaller companies attempting website globalization. Read the Review.

New Ecommerce and Web Marketing Articles

Each month our team of link editors scours dozens of online periodicals and resources to find key information on e-commerce and Web marketing. With so much new literature available to you, how do you find what you need quickly and painlessly? Here's a selective and searchable database of article and resource links to help your research and keep you up-to-date in the field. (Links gathered in a given month are usually available during the second week of the following month.)