Trade Names: Shockoe Commerce has assortment of growing e-commerce businesses

Patrick Galleher likes acquiring businesses that generate high repeat orders through the Internet.
Shockoe Commerce Group LLC’s companies manufacture and sell consumer products associated with yoga, lifestyle, fitness, and food and beverage.

The Richmond-based company has 14 e-commerce businesses.

“I always wanted to play in the health and wellness and sporting good space,” said Galleher, CEO of Shockoe Commerce and managing partner of the private-equity firm Boxwood Capital Partners, which owns Shockoe Commerce.

His research showed growth in the popularity of lacrosse and yoga over the next 10 to 15 years.
“We started looking for both types of businesses and found several yoga companies to acquire,” he said.

Shockoe Commerce was created in 2010 as a holding company for the growing eBeverage Wholesale business that it owned and its yoga business.

In 2008, eBeverage had been founded to acquire Coffee Wholesale USA, and later began Snack Warehouse and Office Saver.

On the yoga side of the business, the company acquired two leading wholesalers in 2010: Yoga Accessories of Toronto and Yoga Direct of Hartford, Conn.

The company added the e-commerce fitness company Red Rock Products in 2012, changing the name to Shockoe Fitness LLC. “The majority of Red Rock was yoga-oriented, so it fit really well,” he said.
Shockoe Commerce sells its products wholesale to retailers and other e-commerce sites. It also sells directly to retail customers online.

About 90 percent of its customers are in the United States. Most of the remaining 10 percent are in Canada and the United Kingdom.

“About 30 to 35 percent of yoga studios across the country use our mats,” Galleher said.
Shockoe Commerce has seen explosive growth in recent years.

Sales rose to $16 million in 2012 from $3.2 million in 2009, resulting in a three-year revenue growth of 400 percent. Since 2009, the company has created 13 jobs.

“We expect considerable growth through the next five years and are expanding our office, creating new positions and hiring several new employees to help us grow our brand,” Galleher said.

The rapid revenue growth landed the company on Inc. magazine’s 2013 list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately owned companies in America. Shockoe Commerce was ranked 1,062; it had been ranked No. 423 last year.

The products for the various companies are made in Asia, Mexico and the U.S. The company operates a call center at its Richmond headquarters near Shockoe Slip to handle inquiries from its Internet sites.
Dana Walters, co-director of Project Yoga Richmond, a nonprofit organization that provides yoga education, outreach and networking, orders yoga products from Yoga Accessories and Yoga Direct.
“We’re thrilled with the quality of everything we’ve ordered,” she said.

Jill Loftis of Uttara Yoga Studio in Roanoke has been happy with the products she buys from Yoga Accessories.

“I tried a few different vendors when I first opened and nobody delivered as quickly,” she said. “They have great consistency.”

source:- http://www.timesdispatch.com/business/local/metro-business/trade-names-shockoe-commerce-has-assortment-of-growing-e-commerce/article_f20d5114-7238-541a-8e29-f2f44a8a08e6.html

China set to overtake US in e-commerce

China is poised to surpass the United States to become the world's largest e-commerce market this year, according to consultancy Bain & Co.

With forecast 32 percent average annual growth, online shopping expenditures in China are set to reach 3.3 trillion yuan ($539 billion) by 2015, the consultancy said in a report.

The study was based on a survey of more than 1,300 shoppers in China across a range of cities, ages, educational backgrounds and income levels.

"While beating the US is a major milestone for e-commerce in China, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between retailers' brick-and-mortar, Web and mobile strategies," said Serge Hoffmann, a partner in Bain's retail practice in China and co-author of the report.

The study found that more than 70 percent of Chinese shoppers research products and compare prices online and offline, and across different e-stores, with half of them citing price as the top reason for online shopping.

The research suggested that two-thirds of buyers rely on smartphones to browse for or buy products, a proportion higher than the US.

The figure climbed to 75 percent for upper-income consumers, who have a monthly household income of more than 50,000 yuan.

"China's rising middle class has high expectations of consumer products and also a need for product verification.

"With the rise of e-commerce and social media, online marketing channels and Internet forums offer a platform for consumers to gather the intelligence they need to make informed purchasing decisions," said Robert Theleen, chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The potential is huge for business-to-customer sites to woo shoppers from customer-to-customer sites, said Hoffmann.
For instance, the compound annual growth rate for B2C platforms was 160 percent from 2009 to 2012, and the sector is expected to continue growing by 53 percent annually through 2015.

In comparison, Taobao.com, China's leading C2C platform, grew by a compound annual rate of about 65 percent throughout the period.

Given a choice, 82.9 percent of shoppers would prefer an e-store with a brick-and-mortar presence over pure play sites like Jingdong Mall, which only runs digital stores.

"This indicates a significant growth opportunity for omni-channel merchants," said Hoffmann.
He identified two reasons for shoppers' preferences. One is the "touch and feel" of a physical shop. In general, Chinese consumers lack confidence in merchants because they are worried about being sold fake or low-quality products, especially online
.
A majority of these shoppers also cited offline after-sales service and a general comfort level with physical merchants.

The survey found that websites successfully feed store sales. More than 60 percent of shoppers said that a retailer's e-store will increase their spending at the same retailer's brick-and-mortar stores.

Building a dedicated digital team and investing in a world-class website are critical to grab a foothold in the e-commerce territory. Hoffmann cited Uniqlo Co Ltd, the Japanese apparel brand, as an example of how to streamline entry into China's digital retail market.

Uniqlo outsourced development of websites for both its e-stores (the official Uniqlo site) and another on Tmall.com.

Hoffmann said that outsourcing accelerated Uniqlo's online launch by tapping into Tmall's knowledge, reducing IT costs and allowing the company to utilize its partner's established logistics and distribution systems.

Hoffmann suggested that 20 percent of the online products should be "special" ones, with the same price in stores that are not available to pure plays.

About 30 percent of online merchants offer the same price as stores but with different coding, which limits price comparisons.

source:- http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-08/28/content_16927926.htm

China’s internet titans Preparing for battle

TWITTER is blocked in China. And yet, the Chinese are probably the most active tweeters in the world. They share their banalities (and, on occasion, profundities) using Weibo, a microblogging service run by Sina, a Chinese internet firm. Although the majority of Weibo’s more than 500m user accounts are inactive, many millions use the service every day.

Weibo’s popularity has caught the eye of Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce firm. On April 29th it announced that it would take an 18% stake in Sina Weibo for $586m in a deal that gives it the option to raise that stake to 30%. The agreement values Sina Weibo at nearly $3.3 billion. But why would Alibaba, expected to go public soon, shell out that sort of cash?

Alibaba may be a titan of e-commerce that handled more transactions last year than Amazon and eBay combined. But in social media it is still an also-ran—which could become a serious competitive disadvantage. More than elsewhere, shopping is a social phenomenon in China. It is not just young women who want to discuss styles and shoes with their girlfriends. Men often shop in groups for clothes and watches. And punters of all ages post and scrutinise numerous consumer reviews online before buying.

In tying up, the two firms hope to combine e-commerce and social media to "bring unique and valuable services to Weibo users," in the words of Jack Ma, Alibaba's chairman (pictured). The deal is supposed to help Sina squeeze more money out of Weibo (which, like Twitter, generates more buzz than profits) and to speed up Alibaba's efforts at expanding its e-commerce platforms onto mobile phones (an exploding market, but one that Alibaba does not yet control in the way it dominates web-based e-commerce in China). The firms have not revealed much about how exactly they will do all this, but it is a safe bet to say that they intend to combine and mine the enormous quantities of consumer data they have collected. In other words, the Weibo joint venture will be one of the world's most interesting test cases for big data.

That may seem reason enough to justify the deal, but another motivation is just as important: taking on Tencent, another big Chinese internet firm. It made its mark with simple messaging and gaming, but its greatest innovation may be Weixin, known in English as WeChat. This clever service, which is spreading like wildfire in China, is a fusion of features offered by Twitter, Facebook and other social-media services. The firm hopes to also make it a success abroad.

Tencent has recently declared its intention to make its biggest bet on e-commerce yet. With its highly profitable gaming business, an online payment system to rival Alibaba's Alipay and a social-media blockbuster in We Chat, Tencent looks to be the only internet company in China that poses a real threat to Alibaba. By taking a stake in Sina Weibo, Alibaba is arming itself for the coming clash of titans.

source:- http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/04/china-s-internet-titans?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

Ecommerce Quickly does it

FOR many shop owners, e-commerce remains a riddle. Each step, from creating an online shopfront that lures in customers to taking payment for goods, can flummox retailers selling their wares online. In many cases, intimate knowledge of such technical wizardry as Perl, PHP and MySQL databases is needed.

Enter Tictail, a ten-month-old Swedish start-up, which aims to radically simplify the process for businesses to go online. It takes no more than a few minutes before a new virtual store is ready to accept orders. Owners only need to follow a few simple steps, link their shop to a PayPal account, and set a price for their items.

The idea of automating the set-up of an online store came to Carl Waldekranz, the firm’s 26-year-old founder, when he was involved in marketing Spotify, the popular music-streaming start-up. He likens Tictail to the clean, intuitive interface used by Tumblr, a blogging platform popular with teens. Retailers, Mr Waldekranz argues, are more concerned with the products they sell than learning about technical trifles such as search engine optimisation (SEO).

His hunch seems to be correct. During its short life, Tictail has already attracted 10,000 users (and 75% of them have recommended the service to friends). So far, Sweden is its biggest base and America number two. Seed funding of €1.2m, secured in late 2012, is allowing the firm to try to boost growth in Western Europe.

All this is admirable, but not in itself extraordinary. Other products and websites also let users set up simple online shops. Etsy, a community-driven marketplace, for instance, is popular among makers of twee knick-knacks such as crocheted tea cosies. Where Tictail differentiates itself, is its continuing support for shop owners.

Tictail has a “feed”—a stream of messages—that acts as an automated adviser. Among other things, it coaxes and cajoles shop owners to tweet about their latest lines. And it reminds them to follow up with customers to ensure their packages arrived in good order—important in any customer-facing industry, but often overlooked in the rush to keep a young business afloat.

The service also aims to build loyalty and repeat custom through social-media features. Customers can “subscribe” to a store, meaning they will get messages informing them of any new products put on sale. Later this year, owners will also be able to add extensions, such as the ability to hand out discount codes to their store—which will be a way for Tictail to make money: it will charge a fee for the use of such extensions.

Like every ambitious entrepreneur, Mr Waldekranz has big plans for his product: he wants Tictail not only to become the world’s most used, but its most loved e-commerce platform, with millions of users worldwide. Whether he will get there remains to be seen, but lowering the barrier to entry for online retailing will certainly push many bricks-and-mortar businesses to move into the virtual world.

source:- http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/04/e-commerce?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

H&M launches e-commerce site in U.S., but is that good news?

H&M, the Swedish fast-fashion retailer, opened its e-commerce site to the U.S. today, making its women’s wear, as well as men’s, children’s and home wears available online here for the first time. It is the latest step in the world’s second largest retailer’s very public campaign to boost sales – which has included a string of high-end collaborations, a show at Paris Fashion Week and an eco-friendly line.
An e-commerce site has been long-awaited by fashion bloggers and serious fans who have been buzzing about this day for nearly three years.

For long-time customers and fashionable shoppers looking for good deals, the online smorgasbord of cheap, trendy clothing will likely elicit jubilation. The long lines and general insanity at brick and mortar H&M’s in big markets have long been one of the store’s pitfalls — as can be witnessed at the Georgetown location on any given Saturday.

So the thought of being able to purchase that $5.95 burn-out print top with a few mouse clicks without the onset of severe claustrophobia is tempting. But is it worth it?

H&M will be unveiling a few enticing online-only offers to grab shoppers. First, there will be garments available online only, as well as additional sizes. Pieces from the upcoming Paris Fashion Week show will be available for pre-order online starting August 22. And the Home section, which is not available anywhere in the U.S., is a pretty good selling point.

The downside — H&M garments are notoriously tricky — sizing can vary, materials can be iffy and quality is generally a guessing game. Ordering a blouse without having seen or touched the fabric in the store can be a different ball game than ordering one from J. Crew or Banana Republic, which have built reputations around consistency.

Perhaps to counteract that uncertanty, H&M has set a flat shipping rate of $5.95 for any purchase. Items can be returned if they are unworn with labels still attached within 30 days and with the original packing slip. The $5.95 extra is relatively cheap, but for a $10 skirt, it may be more cost effective to brave a bought of claustrophobia.

source:- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/08/01/hm-launches-e-commerce-site-in-u-s-but-is-that-good-news/

Pinterest Tests the Ad Waters With New Promoted Pins

Pinterest's latest monetization effort is good news for retailers. "There is definite potential for promoted pins to be successful," said Chelsey Binkley, social engagement coordinator at Engauge. "For retail and fashion brands that already use the platform to drive discovery to their products and e-commerce sites, this will make for a great extension of their Pinterest efforts."

Pinterest on Thursday announced that it would begin experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of businesses.

The announcement came via a blog post from CEO Ben Silbermann, who hastened to assure the site's users that this move would not be a descent into ad madness.

"I know some of you may be thinking, 'Oh great ... here come the banner ads,'" he wrote, "but we're determined to not let that happen."

  

To that end, Silbermann promised that the ads will be "tasteful," with "no flashy banners or pop-up ads."

The ads will also be transparent, and viewers will always be informed when they are viewing paid promotions, he promised.

The ads will be relevant as well -- that is, they will be marketing products the viewer actually is interested in -- and will be improved upon feedback, too.

Pinterest is now rolling out just a few promotions in search results and category feeds, he said -- but no company is paying for any placement yet.

"We want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think," Silbermann concluded.

A Pinterest spokesperson was not immediately available to provide further details.

Good News for Retailers

Even with its slow approach and restrictions for advertisers, the announcement is good news for retailers.

"There is definite potential for promoted pins to be successful, especially for businesses looking to showcase their wares," Chelsey Binkley, social engagement coordinator at Engauge, told the E-Commerce Times.

"For retail and fashion brands that already use the platform to drive discovery to their products and e-commerce sites, this will make for a great extension of their Pinterest efforts," Binkley added.

Certainly demand will be strong on the part of retailers, who have been paying attention to Pinterest users' propensity to shop, Christopher Penn, vice president of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications, told the E-Commerce Times.

"According to research firm Edison Research, 27 percent of Pinterest users have made a purchase based on a pin they've seen," Penn said. "If Pinterest can work sponsored pins into relevant pinboards in an appropriate way that doesn't alienate users, they're going to be quite successful at their advertising program."

'The Risk of Significant Backlash'

Not everyone foresees smooth sailing for Pinterest's monetization plans, however.

The site has no advertising to speak of at the moment, "so it's going to be a bit of a shock to users when they first start seeing promoted pins," noted Keith Trivitt, director of marketing and communications at MediaWhiz, for example.

Another challenge "is the risk that advertising poses to Pinterest's carefully cultivated network and image as a user-friendly platform," Trivitt pointed out.

"While advertising has many benefits to both brands and consumers, any time you place ads on a site or social network that has largely built up its user base around the fact that it is ad-free, you run the risk of significant backlash," he explained.

All that said, however, Pinterest's slow approach should go far to address these concerns, he continued.

"By starting with promoted pins in search results, rather than dropping ads or advertiser messaging directly into a user's feed, Pinterest in working to ensure that its community comes to trust its advertising efforts as a means of building and monetizing Pinterest," Trivitt said.

'Aspirational Purchases'

It also helps that Twitter and Facebook plowed the road ahead for Pinterest, said Chia-Lin Simmons, vice president of marketing and content at Harman International.

"Twitter and Facebook opened the way to native advertising and promoted content in their service, and Pinterest is following suit, so I think there will be little backlash from consumers," Simmons told the E-Commerce Times.

In fact, in many ways, there is more risk to Twitter and Facebook with native advertising, she suggested.

"Consumers use Pinterest to capture interest, and often from an e-commerce perspective, they are using Pinterest boards to bookmark 'aspirational' purchases," she explained.

Consider a consumer who is using Pinterest to post what she would like one day in her would-be living room, Simmons suggested. Having promotional pins from Crate and Barrel or Design Within Reach would not necessarily be an affront. 

- See more at: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Pinterest-Tests-the-Ad-Waters-With-New-Promoted-Pins-79013.html#sthash.DWBW8SZg.dpuf

Engine News: Amazon Product Ads Increases Minimum Bids in 60 Categories

Dear Advertiser,
On August 27, 2013, Amazon Product Ads will be increasing the minimum bids in 60 bidding categories. We will not be changing the minimum bids in the remaining 114 categories.
In the 60 impacted bidding categories, we will automatically set your category-level bids to the new minimums. We will do this for your category-level bids that are at or above the current minimums and below the new minimums. We will not change your category-level bids that are above the new minimums or SKU-level bids that you have set using your product feed. You should review and update all SKU-level bids in the impacted categories before August 27, 2013.
If you do not want us to set your category-level bids to the new minimums, you can opt out of this change in Seller Central (Product Ads log in required). Just look for the “Minimum Bid Increases on August 27, 2013” notice at the top of any page.
Ads for products in the impacted categories will not be eligible for impressions as of August 27, 2013, if you opted out of automatic bid adjustment and your category-level or SKU-level bids are below the new minimums.
Please review the Setting Bids help page or contact our Seller Support team(Product Ads log in required) if you have any questions about adjustments to the minimum bids.
Thank you,
Amazon Product Ads“
Merchants, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to check in to the Amazon Seller login ASAP. It’s crucial that you monitor your budget when bid increases come around.

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2013/08/engine-news-amazon-product-ads-increases-minimum-bids-in-60-categories/

Amazon Is Poised to Re-Enter Web Art Market

The selling of expensive contemporary art online has had a rocky history. Sotheby’s and the art-information company Artnet both tried and failed as pioneers in the late 1990s, giving up after deciding buyers were not yet ready to pay five or six figures for works they had not seen in person. The VIP Art Fair had slightly better luck when it began in 2011, though it was plagued by technical problems that showed how tricky it was to transplant the experience of bricks-and-mortar selling into a virtual environment.

But the landscape is shifting rapidly, and it is about to be tilted by the entry of a heavyweight: Amazon is in discussions with dozens of smaller established galleries to begin offering contemporary and other fine art, moving well beyond the posters and inexpensive prints it now offers.

The expected decision would represent Amazon’s re-entry into the art world, after it also made an early unsuccessful try, as partner to Sotheby’s, in 1999. It would join several well-established players in the online market, like Artsy, a high-end seller that uses a Pandora-like algorithm search feature; Paddle8, an online auction site; Artnet, which is back in the business with auctions; and Artspace, which has partnerships with dozens of prestigious galleries and museums offering works from $100 prints to a $2.5 million Cy Twombly painting.

A spokesman for Amazon said in an e-mail that the company had no comment about plans for an art venture, first reported by The Art Newspaper. But several of the galleries in discussion with the company have said that the sales might begin this month and several told The Wall Street Journal that Amazon would charge the seller a commission of 5 percent to 20 percent.

It is unclear whether the company will focus on lower-end sales of prints and photographs or also try to move into the market for higher priced one-of-a-kind works like paintings and sculpture. The growth of online sales has been fueled primarily by three factors: a broadening base of art collectors around the world; a much greater willingness by those people, both veteran collectors and newcomers, to trust online transactions and buy works after seeing only pictures of them; and a huge amount of inventory in the storehouses of galleries, as a growing number of art fairs and other exhibitions leads to more artists making ever more work.

A survey of more than 200 collectors by the international insurance company Hiscox, released in April, found that almost two-thirds had bought art online, without first seeing it in person, and that one-quarter of the collectors surveyed had spent $75,000 or more on works from online sellers or those they had seen only in JPEGs sent by galleries.

“We’ve seen that the price point people are willing to pay is rising,” said Catherine Levene, a co-founder and the chief executive of Artspace, which began selling art online in 2011. The company does not disclose overall sales figures but says that more than 200,000 people are now registered as members. Artworks pushing past the $100,000 mark have been showing up increasingly on the site, which charges a commission from galleries like 303 and Luhring Augustine in New York and Sadie Coles in London. Artspace has sold pieces like an engraved granite bench by Jenny Holzer for $125,000.

“That doesn’t happen every day, but for sure it’s happening more and more,” said Ms. Levene, who added that she believes the share of the overall contemporary market moving to online sales will increase steadily in the next few years. She added, “I think that Amazon getting into the business just makes that more clear.”

source:- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/arts/design/amazon-is-poised-to-re-enter-web-art-market.html?_r=0

The Surprisingly Small Size of E-Commerce

For all the ink spilled over the rise of e-commerce, it may be surprising to learn that new data show web retailers to be, in fact, not all that big. According to new figures from the National Retail Federation, online-only retailers are almost nowhere to be found among the largest retailers in the U.S. However, that may be due in part to a subjective definition of what a "retailer" is.

[RELATED: Auto Sales Push Retail Sales Past Expectations]

The federation released its list of the 100 largest U.S. retailers this week. Among the 100 largest retailers in the U.S., only two are online-only: Amazon.com (No. 11), with $34.4 million in U.S. retail sales last year, and Dell (No. 83), at nearly $4.4 million.

Below are the 10 largest retailers in the U.S., as measured by their 2012 U.S. retail sales.

Rank	Company	2012 U.S. Retail Sales	Sales Growth (2011 to 2012)
1	Wal-Mart	$328,704,000	4.0%
2	Kroger	$92,165,000	6.6
3	Target	$71,960,000	5.1
4	Costco	$71,042,000	10.6
5	The Home Depot	$66,022,000	6.4
6	Walgreen	$65,014,000	-1.2
7	CVS Caremark	$63,688,000	6.7
8	Lowe's	$49,366,000	0.2
9	Safeway	$37,532,000	1.6
10	McDonald's	$35,593,000	4.2

The NRF's STORES Magazine pointed out the lack of web-only stores' representation among the top 100 inits latest issue. However, that's not to say that e-commerce is failing, by any means: Online sales are expected to grow at a nearly 15 percent pace this year.

Rather, the figures indicate that despite the occasional predictions that e-commerce will push out brick-and-mortar retailers, it isn't going to happen anytime soon. According to market research firm eMarketer, e-commerce accounted for only 6 percent of all retail sales last year. Long-established brick-and-mortar retailers dominate the retail industry in part because they sell their own goods online in addition to in their stores.

[READ: Barnes & Nobles Ditching Tablets, Closing More Stores]

It's not just big-box behemoths like Wal-Mart and Target that have crowded out web-only retailers; specialty stores, like high-end home goods store Williams-Sonoma (No. 91), craft supply chain Michaels Stores (No. 88), and agricultural supply retailer Tractor Supply Company (No. 79), are also among the top 100.

While more online retailers could easily crack the top 100 in coming years, they may be hindered by the fact that they cannot show their wares in person.

"There's still a customer that wants to touch and feel," says Susan Reda, editor at STORES Media. Because many customers want to be able to try on their clothes and flip through books before buying, she says, "store-based retailing is never going to go away."

[ALSO: The Exploding Growth of Bikesharing]

Still, online-only retailers may be also be held back in the rankings by what the definition of "retail" does and does not include. An NRF spokesperson says that Groupon, for example, is not considered a "retailer" and is not included on the list. That company took in over $600 million in revenue globally in its most recent quarter.Likewise, some of the retail categories are areas where online-only retailers simply cannot compete.

A lot of the companies that are listed in the [National Retail Foundation] figures are in categories that are not particularly online-friendly, says Clark Fredricksen, Vice President at eMarketer. "McDonald's, Starbucks, these are companies that have some online presence, but not a big one."

Indeed, the data includes some large restaurant chains. Likewise, grocery stores are also well represented among the top 100, and very few people buy groceries online. Even retail giant Amazon is only beginning its push into that market.

So while the data indicate that online retailers may be lagging, a company may have to perfect the art of selling fast food online before the tide shifts dramatically.

source:- http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/02/maybe-e-commerce-isnt-all-that-big?page=2

Sneak peak at the new Apple iPhone 5S

Apple is expected to hold an important event that will soon unveil its new iPhone 5S on September 10. Japan's Nikkei said sales of the device will begin September 20 in that country.

Then Chinese newspapers chimed in with a release date there of late November, due to China's verification process.

Here's what we've heard about prominent specs. First for the camera, probably the most important feature for the consumer is a better lens system for the camera.

The latest speculation on the camera claims it will get a larger f/2.0 aperture that would match the HTC One with dual LED flash.

If accurate, that aperture would be significantly larger than the iPhone 5 that way it is now. That means more light gets through, improving image quality and low-light performance.

Then there's the fingerprint scanner/reader in the home button. That technology is likely coming from AuthenTec, a fingerprint sensor technology company that Apple acquired last year.

The larger point is that the iPhone 5S' mainstream biometric technology, improving electronic payments and making it easier to get music and sensitive data from the Cloud.

Then, a 128 GB flash storage option is the freshest speculation. That seems like an overkill for most consumers but then again 16 GB seemed like a lot when the iPhone 3G came out, remember?

An updated A7 processor is also expected. If you recall, the iPhone 4S got the new A5 processor when it was released in October 2011.

The new iPhone 5S is also expected to feature new 3G/4G standard support. Versions of the 5S (and the 5C) may support China's 4G TDD-LTE standard.

That could mean a huge boost in market penetration in China and global market share for Apple. That support may also include China's TD-SCDMA at this point in time.

It's almost needless to say that there may be a gold iPhone 5S along with the standard black and white versions. The important point to remember is that it most likely won't be a garish gold but a more subtle champagne color.

Of course, we're speculating a lot here, but then again, there's been so many rumors whirling around of the iPhone 5S that it's getting harder and harder to separate hype from reality until the device is officially launched to the world.

In other mobile news

Google just scooped up a whole slew of patents from Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Taiwanese electronic contract manufacturer otherwise known as Foxconn.

The decision is designed most likely to bolster Google's Glass headsets against potential competitors. In a statement obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Hon Hai described the patents sold as "Head Mounted Technology" that can create virtual images "superimposed on a real-world view."

No further details were revealed, and the price of the sale wasn't disclosed either. Hon Hai said that it doesn't know whether Google plans to use the patents for Glass, adding that the patents are "commonly used in aviation and tactical/ground displays, engineering and scientific design applications, gaming and video devices as well as training and simulation tools."

If protecting Glass is the goal and it seems likely, this wouldn't be the first time Google has tried to shore up its portfolio of wearable-computing technology.

Just last month, the company acquired a 6.3 percent stake in Taiwanese chip designer Himax Display, which produces components for Sergey Brin's high-tech headsets.

Similarly, Foxconn is widely believed to be the frontrunner to build Glass for Google – possibly in a new, stateside facility in Santa Clara, California – but Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou has dismissed such reports as "speculative."

Google buying up Foxconn's patents could strengthen the relationship between the two companies, but it could also make it easier for Google to take Glass to any number of other manufacturing partners without being stung by intellectual property issues.

But most importantly, the patents could also be used to swat away would-be Glass competitors. Chinese search firm Baidu is reportedly planning to horn in on Google's action, as is Meta, a startup founded by Columbia University neuroscience researchers that has recruited Canadian wearable-computing guru Steve Mann to help develop a commercial augmented-reality headset.

Or the move could be purely defensive. Glass is currently only available in a limited "Explorer Edition" intended for developers and wearable-computing enthusiasts, but Google is expected to release a version for the general public sometime next year.

By building its wearable-computing patent war chest now, Google may be hoping to avoid the seemingly never-ending patent battles that have plagued its Android business. Google didn't immediately respond to our request for comment.

In other mobile news

It's reported today that ZTE and Huawei have scooped up about 50 percent of the $3.2 billion worth of the infrastructure contracts to build China Mobile's TD-LTE network.

Ericsson and Nokia Siemens each landed about an 11 percent share of the project, while Alcatel-Lucent secured a 13 percent share of the project.

Datang Mobile Communications was also awarded a contract that accounted for about 10 percent of the total value of the project. The remaining 10 percent was split between three Chinese companies-- FiberHouse Technologies, Nanjing Putian Telecommunications, and New Postcom Equipment.

In all, China Mobile hopes to deploy a little over 200,000 base stations in 2013. Infrastructure vendors have been awaiting China Mobile's new contracts, as spending on networking equipment has slowed recently due to the fact that projects in the U.S., Japan and Britain have largely been settled.

News of the contracts comes as China Mobile and Apple are reportedly nearing a deal for the wireless carrier to offer its customers a new iPhone. Up until now, Apple hasn't supported TD-LTE technology in its phones, but it looks like that's about to change soon.

China Mobile's approximate 740.1 million subcribers make it the largest wireless carrier in the world and represents a considerable growth opportunity for Apple, as well as the infrastructure providers and equipment vendors.

In other mobile news

AT&T is flying high these days, with a new partnership with Delta Air Lines, and it's taking Nokia's new Lumia smartphones along for the trip to 42,000 feet up in the air. And things should look good for both companies, it is hoped.

Delta Air Lines has signed a multi-year agreement with AT&T for custom mobility services, devices and support for Delta’s new, in-flight, mobile point-of-sale (POS) application, according to a press release.

Under the specific terms of the agreement, AT&T will equip more than 19,000 Delta flight attendants with Nokia Lumia devices powered by Microsoft Dynamics mobile POS platform on Windows Phone 8, with a Delta-specific customer experience developed by Avanade to operate over Wi-Fi and AT&T’s 4G LTE Network.

Sounds too good to be true? We'll have to wait and see. Avanade will provide Delta with ongoing support, maintenance, and application enhancements until mid-2016.

The devices will allow Delta flight attendants to sell food, drinks and other items to air passengers, as well as seat upgrades and other goods.

AT&T said it will be equipping Delta Air Lines' flight attendants with Nokia Lumia 820 devices, but the company says the agreement will see the airline's crew expanding to the newest Nokia devices over the next three years.

In other mobile news

It is said that London's Oxford street has Europe's largest concentration of Wi-Fi hot-spots. Almost 24 percent of them are openly accessible to the public.

That's according to a new report that also places Britain behind the United States in terms of free wireless connectivity.

Across the U.S., about 32 percent of Wi-Fi access points offer free web browsing to anyone who wants it, compared to only 16 percent of those in Europe.

Britain falls between the two countries at 24 percent, but the trend towards giving away free internet access risks undermining attempts to make users pay for it.

The numbers come from Devicescape, which has been busy war-walking European cities as a prelude to launching an international version of its Wi-Fi leaching technology.

Devices with the Devicescape software installed automatically connect to any free Wi-Fi point offering decent speed, bypassing the pesky landing page to provide instant access, but only if such access points exist in the first place.

Free Wi-Fi connectivity is spreading rapidly in Britain, even if some users are billed for it. For example, AT&T customers are grateful to be able to roam onto The Cloud in the U.K., totally unaware that almost all The Cloud's hotspots are free to use these days and thus fall into Devicescape's database.

Devicescape makes much of its crowd-sourcing connections result in a point being dropped from its database, which is built automatically when a user finds a decent free connection, though it needs seeding first which is why the company has been war-walking around Europe.

Mobile operators are keen to use Wi-Fi, but anyone who's tried to get a BT Openzone connection working with Vodafone credentials will know how cumbersome the process can be.

The instant-connection standard Passpoint should make that much easier, but access points aren't expected until next year even if Apple's iOS 7 supports it now, and even then it's unlikely small retailers will get involved.

Passpoint will let one roam seamless into a Wi-Fi network, but it will also let one's operator bill the user for Wi-Fi usage (presumably at a discounted rate) and thus financially reward the hotspot owner.

Wi-Fi providers will be keen, but Devicescape reckons Passpoint will only appeal to the big chains while its network links up every coffee shop and corner store-- eleven million of them in the U.S. alone.

Passpoint also identifies the user, so the wireless operator can provide value-added services such as additional content without having to resort to a cellular connection, but that's of unknown value for the moment at least.

Devicescape will be announcing the successful seduction of a U.K. operator in the next week or two, providing a launch platform, while Passpoint is at least a year away from wide-scale deployment.

Technically speaking, the solutions can happily co-exist, but with such divergent business models, it's difficult to see users embracing both.

source:- http://www.wirelessindustrynews.org/news-aug-2013/3513-08252013-win-news.html

Google Seeks Home-Field Advantage in UK Privacy Suit

A group of UK-based Safari users have filed suit against Google, claiming that it undermined Apple's browser settings to secretly track their online usage. Google, however, refused to receive notice of the suit in the UK. "This matches their attitude to consumer privacy," said plaintiff Judith Vidal-Hall. "They don't respect it and they don't consider themselves to be answerable to our laws on it."

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Google is contesting the right of UK Safari users to bring a case against it in the UK, according to a statement from the plaintiffs' law firm.

To emphasize its stance, in fact, the search engine did not accept notice of the lawsuit in the UK but forced the plaintiffs to file in California instead -- a jurisdiction in which their case, which alleges privacy violations, is much weaker.
The plaintiffs filed suit in January seeking damages for Google's alleged bypass of Safari's security settings. This allowed Google to track their usage online, the plaintiffs claim.
"Google's position on the law is the same as its position on tax: they will only play or pay on their home turf," said Judith Vidal-Hall, one of the claimants. "What are they suggesting -- that they will force Apple users whose privacy was violated to pay to travel to California to take action when they offer a service in this country on a .co.uk site?
"This matches their attitude to consumer privacy," Vidal-Hall added. "They don't respect it and they don't consider themselves to be answerable to our laws on it."
Google declined to comment for this story.

One Research Study, Lots of Trouble

The issue at hand first surfaced for Google in February 2012, when Stanford Universitygraduate student researcher Jonathan Mayer found that Google had circumvented privacy settings on iPhones and iPads and was tracking users of these devices -- contrary to what it said in its privacy policy.
That same month, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office announced that it was investigating whether or not Google had broken UK law -- namely, the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.
The Federal Trade Commission also investigated the issue, which resulted in a settlement for a whopping US$22.5 million -- the largest ever levied by the agency.
The suit was filed by UK law firm Olswang LLP at the beginning of the year on behalf of 12 claimants. The case is becoming a Group Action, which similar to class action in the U.S., according to the law firm's website.

A Deaf Ear

This suit is still in its early days, but Google's approach to date suggests the search engine is tone deaf when it comes to the rising protests in Europe against its attitude toward privacy.

"Basically, Google has been thumbing its nose at the EU about its privacy policy from the very beginning," Scott Cleland, president of Precursor LLC, told the E-Commerce Times.
Precursor has several Google competitors for clients.

In general, Google's approach to global litigation is very aggressive, Cleland said: "They don't question their own actions or try to compromise. Their MO is to take no quarter and push their own agenda relentlessly."

Not that Olswang and the claimants are rolling over on this issue. According to the law firm's website, the firm intends to push for a hearing to discuss the jurisdictional issues, "and the outcome of that hearing will determine whether or not the case moves forward." 

source:- http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/78771.html

Guidelines for enhancing ecommerce site conversions

The main aim of any ecommerce site is to convert visitors to customers. For an enhanced conversion rate, the site should offer its customers a pleasant user experience. Therefore, before designing your ecommerce site, take time to consider the needs of your prospects. This way, you will be able to build a site which is customer-friendly, thus improving your conversion ratio.

The following are some guidelines which will help you enhance conversions on your ecommerce site:

1. Display high quality product images
   
   When it comes to ecommerce sites, product images are very important. Be sure to use high quality images which show the products in a crisp way. It would be advisable to display several shots of the product taken from different angles. A zoom feature would also be very useful for helping customers have a better idea of what they are getting. 
   
2. Understand your audience
   
   Online shoppers usually make a decision to buy based on various variables. Some are influenced by the product descriptions, while others are more influenced by visuals. Therefore, understanding your target audience will play a key role in the success of your ecommerce site. What are their shopping habits? What elements in your site can influence a buying decision? Once you have answers to such questions, you can give your customers exactly what they are looking for.
   
3. Post elaborate product info
   
   Besides displaying high resolution product images, it is also important to have detailed information about the product. This can be a very effective way of improving conversions. The information should not only be relevant, but also engaging and comprehensive. Don't just mention the features of the product; explain how customers can benefit from it. Before publishing the product copy, take time to check for spelling and grammatical errors. 
   
4. Use product videos
   
   Adding product videos is one of the best ways of making your site interactive. Since customers cannot touch the product, videos give you the opportunity of demonstrating how a product works and its benefits. This makes it easier for the customer to make a buying decision, thus enhancing your conversion rate. 
   
5. Offer a free trial period
   
   Prospects are usually wary about spending their money on a product they are unsure about. This is why offering potential customers a free trial version is very important. Once they have tried out the product and experienced its benefits, they are likely to pay for it. MotoCMS website templates is a good example of an online store which offers a 30-day free trial period for its products. 
   
6. Offer free shipping
   
   Most customers would prefer free shipping rather than get a discount on products. Therefore, offering free shipping is a sure way of boosting your conversion rates. However, if you decide to go for this option, you cannot afford to charge very low prices for your products. Take time to work out a price which will allow you to make a profit while offering free shipping. 
   
7. Display featured products on your homepage
   
   Many people will not have a clue where to start when they visit your ecommerce site. It is therefore advisable to display specific products on your homepage. This will give visitors a good idea of what they could buy. You can enhance your conversion rate further by offering discounts on these products.
   
8. Offer advanced search
   
   A search bar is a very vital element for the success of any ecommerce site. Having an advanced search feature will make it much easier for visitors to find products in your store. When the shopping experience is simplified, customers are more likely to make a buying a decision.

source:- http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/87/98941.html

Seminar on Success in eCommerce

HONG KONG, Aug. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The jewellery trade platform JewelleryNetAsia will offer a new edition of its successful briefings "Success in Jewellery eCommerce" during the September Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair 2013. Based on the overwhelming success of the recent run during the June Fair, the seminar's speakers will be experienced professionals right from the jewellery business.

(Logo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/2010/04/19/20100419602891.jpg )
(Logo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/2010/06/15/20100615135013.jpg )

"The last seminar on eCommerce was met with overwhelming interest -- the room was bursting at its seams. For many attendees the key issues are how to attract and retain online buyers and also how to tie in with social media properly. With the leaders behind Leibish & Co and Pearlparadise we have again two outstanding speakers. Also we are very lucky to have an opening presentation by Mark Smelzer, who is publishing JCKOnline," said Jerome Hainz, manager of eBusiness at UBM Asia.

Jeremy Shepherd is the founder of the jewellery retail website Pearlparadise.com, turning over USD 20m on the internet. The business was launched as an online business right from the beginning.

Itzik Polnauer, eCommerce Director of Leibish & Co, the company behind Fancydiamonds.net will be talking about the transition from a traditional diamond business to one integrating online and offline channels .

The sessions will be moderated by Jerome Hainz, Manager of eBusiness in charge of AsiaFJA.com and JewelleryNetAsia.com.

The seminar will take place in Room S226 of the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center. Seating will be limited and online pre-registration (https://www.ubmonlinereg.com/Registration/default.aspx?fid=208&lang=en) is recommended using the links at JewelleryNetAsia (http://www.jewellerynetasia.com).  A fee of US$20 (US$15 for pre-registered) will be charged at door. The seminar will run from 9:15 a.m. to 10:30 on September 16^, 2013.

For further information contact marketing@jewellerynetasia.com or call +852-2516-2173.

SOURCE UBM Asia Ltd

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1433193#ixzz2d8ozXuE5

Helpful e-commerce app Slice snags $23M from Rakuten, Lightspeed, and others

We’ve all been there before. It’s the moment when you realize a package is probably sitting on your doorstep right now, and you’re not there to pick it up before someone else does. It’s unsettling.

The designers behind the ecommerce-focused app Slice set out in 2011 to not only make sure that scenario doesn’t happen again but also to help consumers make better sense of their spending habits. Now the Slice team has closed a sizable $23 million funding round to help it continue its mission of inventing new ways to help consumers with their purchases.

One of Slice’s most popular features is giving people push notifications when their packages are out for delivery or have been delivered. Another is the capability to look over all the receipts in your e-mail box and show you your spending history. Slice has parsed more than 90 million items since its launch, helping explain more than $3 billion worth of transaction.

“Users have had all of this info in their e-mail boxes,” Slice CEO Scott Brady told VentureBeat. “Now we’re making that information more compelling and useful. It’s all in a single location, and we’ve built experiences around that.”

On top of the main Slice app, the company also recently launched a “social book network” called Bookshelf. That app supposedly helps you find and share books with friends.

Today’s funding round was led by Rakuten, the largest e-commerce company in Japan. Others participants include new investors Russia Partners and NPD Group and existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM, and Innovation Endeavors. Including the new round, Slice has raised $32.4 million to date.

This new cash will help increase Slice’s marketing budget and help it find ways to monetize the app. Brady said the company will soon be partnering with some “big names” that will pay to use Slice’s API, which generate much more revenue than it currently is. He believes the API will be attractive to e-commerce players, financial service companies, and “broader Internet companies.”

“We want to invest in the Slice product,” Brady said. “There are many opportunities to use this technology, and we can’t do it all.”

Brady also opened the door for a new version of the Slice app that targets small businesses. Ideally, Slice could be a small business-focused solution that would help track spending, package deliveries, and more.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based Slice launched its flagship app in 2011 and the company now has 50 employees. Check out the video below for more.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/23/slice-23m-funding/

Understanding the Multi-Channel Shopper

Consumers are making more of their purchasing decisions on mobile devices – whether on a smartphone or tablet – in addition to making it one of their primary channels to research products.

A recent survey by Telemetrics and xAd showed that 50 percent used their mobile devices to start the discovery process and 46 percent used mobile exclusively when performing research online. Even Google noted last year that 65 percent of online searches began on a smartphone.

This emerging multi-screen reality has led to CMOs worldwide to begin their own research – how do we capture and convert multi-channel shoppers? Good question.

The mobile shopper can act much differently than one browsing off of a PC. They're at restaurants, on buses, or even in stores – often with only seconds to check out (and not necessarily "checkout") a product out before moving on to the next task.

Tolerance for irrelevant content and slow/bad site-search functionality is much lower for mobile shoppers. Couple that with the fact that they move between devices, and you have a recipe for significant losses because even one bad experience at one of the points of discovery or conversion can lead lost customers.

However, before you even begin to execute any strategy of customer segmentation, you have to understand the different profiles of multi-channel shoppers and consider the right tactics to monetize each profile.

What follows are five distinct profiles of multi-channel shoppers, as well as some methods to convert them to customers. Please note that each profile isn't mutually exclusive – many shoppers can exhibit behavior of multiple profiles, which is why gathering data across devices, channels and sessions is imperative to predicting what will be the most relevant content to present at this moment.

1. Need-It-Now Profile

This shopper has discovered the specific product they want and is ready to make a purchase; however, they'll almost certainly want to find a physical retailer that has that product in stock or that can get it shipped very quickly, like Amazon's same-day delivery service.

Having fresh web pages with the most up-to-date information is imperative.

For example – if a consumer is presented with a mobile search result for a "red strapless dress" that is on sale for $50, you better have location-specific data that this is, in fact, true. This means that your inventory information should be as close to real-time as possible.

Also, these users have very specific long-tail searches, making predictive-search capabilities extremely important. If available, know their browsing history and ultimately have their query available in a drop-down menu within a few taps. Typically, this is the profile of someone who shops on Amazon.

2. Bargain-Hunter Profile

This shopper uses their smartphone to compare prices either before or while they are in your store. Commonly referred to as "showroomers," they are extremely price-sensitive and have very little brand loyalty.

It's important to offer as much incentive information as possible. So, they should be provided with any warranty information or in-store special promotions.

Anonymously identifying and matching IP addresses of store Wi-Fi to see if they are in a store while accessing your mobile site is a good way to track these types of shoppers. Capture the data and track the behavior of other shoppers who visited your site while in store to gain invaluable insight.

3. Right-For-Me Profile

These shoppers visit your site at home on a desktop or laptop, on their smartphones and while in-store, and express very specific and consistent intent signals. They often search for and purchase certain sizes or brands/designers at specific price points.

It's important to piece together individual experiences and present them with the most relevant content based off of their habits. You can compare the behavior of your authenticated users on mobile and web to learn about their preferences, and then try to apply it to their content.

Offering "More like this" widgets that take into account all of the previous expressions of intent can help keep that customer converting.

4. Time-to-Kill Profile

These shoppers are most likely your exploratory buyers, with a little extra time, where easy navigation and visual design elements that create a "fun" experience are important.

Using social-network data from Pinterest or Facebook, consider creating landing pages of popular or emerging products that can turn a browser into a customer. They're going to explore more pages and provide you with a lot more data about what products could be linked.

By tracking bounce rates and time-on-page metrics, you can learn what products make better sense to present together.

5. Most-Valued Customer

These shoppers are the ones that engage with you the most across multiple channels or devices. They click through emails and discover a lot of your content, and should be the most important.

These customers shouldn't be treated like any other customer – you should understand their intent and present them with the right offers at the right time. What time of year do they normally buy gifts, are they tied to a holiday, and are they only selecting sale items? While this may sound like something very simple, actually tracking this data at a granular level to scale for potentially thousands of people while knowing which product is right based on their previous history across devices – all accurately – is a tremendous task.

Summary

Understanding, processing and acting on all of this available data is a problem well beyond the scope of humans – it's an issue for big data science. Amazon is doing a great job to capture the shoppers frustrated with experiences on other retailer's mobile sites.

As consumers rapidly shift to mobile shopping on smartphones, Amazon is capturing an unbelievable 59.36 percent of mobile department store visits. And, they are investing a greater percentage of their revenue in technology and content – 7.9 percent up from 6.5 percent – because they realize that high-quality content that is relevant to each shopper is a problem that only a machine can address at scale.

In the last decade, search marketers have been faced with a gargantuan amount of online data and web analytics, and technologies that have helped process the information have barely allowed them to keep pace. Mobile data – and the different channels that it opens up – ups the ante exponentially. At the same time, consumers expect a seamless and relevant experience no matter their platform of choice.

The most successful companies will embrace a multi-channel initiative. Those that don't will only face a bigger digital divide between themselves and consumers – ultimately losing them to the likes of Amazon.

source:- http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2266909/Understanding-the-Multi-Channel-Shopper

Google Commerce Search 3.0 Brings Big Brains to Smaller Shops

Google announced Commerce Search 3.0 yesterday. In essence, this is a massive update to their search solution for e-commerce sites. The key features of this update are:

Instant Search: Every keypress starts streaming product results and search suggestions directly within the search bar.

Realtime Inventory Search: Users can see if an item is in stock in a nearby store. Again, streamed directly within the search toolbar results.

On-site Complimentary Product Promotions: Merchandisers can create banner ads for product offers related to the search query, which when clicked, land on a query-based landing page - essentially a search results page.

User Engagement Based Product Recommendations: Essentially a Google Labs experiment for a "users who viewed/bought this product also viewed/bought" type web app as is commonly found on many high end e-commerce sites.

The Good
The great thing about Google Commerce Search 3.0 is that it enables small companies and niche retailers to enjoy high-end e-commerce features as can be found on hugely successful online shopping companies such as Amazon and Zappos - without having to make the same kind of investment in a development team. The annual license cost for Google Commerce Search is just $25,000 - equivalent to an entry level salary of a new employee.

The HealthWarehouse case study details how the installation of Google Commerce Search took only three weeks and that a "machine learning" aspect of the service was able to recognize synonyms more quickly than they could be manually added. Put simply, every search improves the accuracy of the engine.

The BabyAge case study details how they were able to implement the service in just six days as they already had a feed created for Google Product Search.

The entire engine is hosted "in the cloud" which should significantly reduce maintenance costs. All the case studies listed above and also the Woodcraft Supply case study focussed heavily on the operational savings made form using a cloud based solution.

But besides the operational improvements, the functionality improvements really show the benefits of having Google's development expertise, as the features are particularly up to date with current online shopping trends.

Yes, social shopping is on the rise and most of us will be familiar with Amazon's recommendation engine, but a few of the trends identified in last years thanksgiving season (the one that saw record sales) were have been capitalized upon in this latest update:

A) Display ads and paid search ads combined tended to increase conversion and brand recognition - which is now something even small retailers and merchandizers can make use of with the built in complimentary product promotion feature.

B) Real-time stock checking was launched by Google last year alongside award winning startups like Goodzer. Not only is real-time stock checking a way to drive footfall traffic to physical locations but also a nifty way for offline retailers to compete on price with each other and also larger online retailers. However, the real secret sauce is the future of real-time inventory checking, which Goodzer are banking on being in the augmented reality and mobile comparison shopping space. Users will snap a photo of a product they like and compare prices with shops nearby and online, whilst in the store. With Google making huge leaps and bounds in the augmented reality area with Google Goggles, it's not far-fetched to think that the risk of relying on Google Commerce Search 3.0 now, could pay-off in the imminent m-commerce (shopping via mobile or smartphome) future many retailers have yet to face.
The Bad
It's really only a little gripe but - whilst the "all the action is happening in the search box" approach seems to be fashionable right now, is visually appealing and provides a strong amount of 'scent' or 'signal' to the user - I found the interface to be more awkward to use than I expected it to be.

It wasn't enough to truly deter me, because the toolbar type search box clearly showed that the retailer stocked the similar products and did also help me to discover a range of products simply by guessing names, I found it awkward that search suggestions appeared and could be scrolled through using the keyboard but to actually select stuff I then had to switch to the mouse. As I said, it's a minor gripe and probably something easily fixed but it did cause a moment of confusion with the ever shifting results.

babyage.png

The Results
All the results listed below are detailed in the case studies linked to above, but here are some interesting data points on how user behavior changed with the overall 'instant' approach of Google Commerce Search 3.0:

BabyAge said "Shoppers spent 21% less time searching, yet there were 58% more product searches."

HealthWarehouse said search volumes doubled and conversions increased by 19%.

Woodcraft Supply increased online conversions by 27.7% and increased search revenues 34%.

source:- http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049814/Google-Commerce-Search-3.0-Brings-Big-Brains-to-Smaller-Shops