61% of shoppers use a search engine when they shop online, study says

94% of shoppers conduct research online before making an eCommerce transaction, according to the “Compete Shopper Intelligence Study.”

And, overwhelmingly, they turn to search engines. 61% of shoppers say they always or often use a search engine when shopping online. That outpaces coupon sites (35%), retailers’ marketing e-mails (29%), online reviews (24%) or shopping comparison sites (22%).

However, the survey also found tremendous variability in the sources shoppers turn to before making a purchase.

For instance, among the sources shoppers turn to before making an apparel purchase are:

• Retailers’ marketing e-mails, 38%
• Retailers’ web sites, 26%
• Online advertisement, 18%
• Search engines, 12%

Among the sources shoppers turn to before making a consumer electronics purchase are:

• Retailers’ web sites, 59%
• Search engines, 45%
• Online professional reviews, 29%
• Online consumer-generated reviews, 21%

“It is essential for retailers to understand how consumers in their space shop online in order to effectively retain and acquire customers,” says the report. “Instead of trying to utilize all available outlets, retailers should understand their particular customer niche and develop strategies unique to them. In an environment with tight consumer wallets and even tighter marketing budgets, retailers can’t afford to invest their money in resources their customers don’t use.”

If you as a retailer need assistance to develop those online marketing strategies, Gproxy's Consulting Team can assist you in many ways. Click HERE to contact us and learn more about our eCommerce Business Strategies or call us to 1-800-814-4761.

Source: Internet Retailer

INTERNET MARKETING: Conversion Optimization Strategies

Conversion optimization was born out of the need of lead generation and e-commerce online marketers to improve their website's profit. As competition grew on the web during the early 2000s, online marketers had to become more measurable with their marketing strategies. They began testing with website design and content variations to determine the layouts, text, offers and images to improve their conversion rate.

Frequently, when marketers target a pocket of customers that has shown spectacular lift in an ad campaign, they belatedly discover the behavior is not consistent, with online marketing response rates fluctuate widely from hour to hour, segment to segment and offer to offer.
Conversion optimization methods, are then taken a step further to run in a real-time environment. The real-time data collection and subsequent messaging as a result, increases the scale and effectiveness of the online campaign.

As part of our Consulting Services, we offer a Conversion Optimization Program to our clients who want to learn more about their visitors to improve their conversion rates and overall ROI:

• Analyze your existing traffic in your Google Analytics account. This includes looking at the keywords, entry pages, exit pages, bounce rates and the conversion goal funnel. This will help the expert working on your site, to better understand your overall traffic and also help determine what areas we focus on when we setup visitor tracking on your site.
• Setup Visitor Tracking Analysis. You can monitor and record visitors browsing sessions. This is an incredibly powerful service that you can continue to use together with A/B, Multivariate testing as your toolset to further optimize your landing pages, maximize conversions and minimize shopping cart abandonment. This will give you the capability of watching “movies” of your visitors’ browsing sessions and analyze their behavior, and seeing heat maps showing where visitors click, where they look and how far down they scroll.
  

Find more about this and other Services from our Consulting Department here or visit our website at www.gproxy.com. Alternatively, why not call us directly on 1-800-814-4761 or click here give us your contact details and we will call you back.

Source: Gproxy Consulting Services and Wikipedia

Gproxy Design: Global Online Services

Over the years Gproxy Design has grown to form a very cosmopolitan team of professionals from North America, South America, Europe and Australia. This has helped us get a global view of how to care for our customers and work more effectively with our wide range of partners.

Our awareness of the key differences in the way people do business, communicate and interact has helped us grow from a company focused on the needs of the US market into a provider of services for businesses of all sizes and all industries globally.

We currently supply our design, programming, development and SEO services to companies on five continents and we are continuously working hard to learn more and improve on what we already do well.

We have implemented a range of strategies that mean our clients receive the highest quality of service and the clearest information about their websites development throughout each step of the web design process, regardless of location or time zone.

If you are looking for a partner to provide web design services, SEO or online marketing strategies and your company are thinking globally, then please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@gproxy.com or take a tour of our website at www.gproxy.com.

Ecommerce Trends – The Multi-Tab Store

One of the latest trends in the ecommerce industry is to have one store with a multi tabbed approach to different verticals or brands within that store.

This technique allows store owners to display different ranges of products with a strong brand identity while linking them into the same inventory management system.

A good example of this can be found at www.silkystore.com.


As you can see the site showcases the products on offer from Silky Saws, but by selecting the second brand name, shoppers can check out what is on offer from Kask.

This site was designed by our team at Gproxy Design, if you like the idea of this innovative approach to website design and layout and would like to find more then why not visit our website at www.gproxy.com or click here to see our portfolio.
Alternitavely, why not call us directly on 1-800-814-4761 or click here give us your contact details and we will call you back.

Gproxy's Partner Fluid Inc. Joins Facebook® Preferred Developer Consultant Program

Fluid Inc. today announced that the company has been named to the Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant Program, along with a small group of leading agencies. Facebook created the program to match brands, celebrities, companies and organizations with the best resources available to build flagship applications, and employ best practices on the Facebook Platform. Focused exclusively in ecommerce, Fluid is an industry leader in the thoughtful use of social media to increase revenues and providing purchase validation to shoppers. Fluid delivers highly custom Facebook applications from its agency team and has developed Fluid Social, a productized solution for using social media to enhance an online store.

"We're extremely pleased to be a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant and to be part of a program made up of such forward-thinking, creative companies and people," said Amy Lanigan, Director of Client Strategy at Fluid. "Our work with a number of clients -- including Vera Wang Princess, JanSport and The North Face -- has demonstrated that the Facebook Platform offers immense opportunity for us to execute innovative and exciting solutions on behalf of our clients and their customers."

"Seeing Fluid on this list is no surprise to us," said Victoria Bluvstein, Director of Global Marketing at Coty Prestige. "Fluid created and implemented a custom Facebook solution for Vera Wang Princess that has engaged and resonated with our target audience and exceeded our expectations in terms of results."

Fluid Social was one of the earliest ecommerce implementations to utilize Facebook Connect. Seamlessly built into a retailer's site, Fluid Social enables shoppers to tap into their social graph for product ideas and purchase validation. Shoppers utilizing Fluid Social on JanSport average 59% more product page views and spend 147% longer on site than shoppers that do not utilize the product.

The initial program features 14 companies who have built flagship applications on Facebook and are well-versed in building Facebook integrations and offer solutions ranging from contests, polls and campaigns to deeply integrated social experiences. Fluid was chosen for the program based on the company's long history in the development of innovative, socially engaging online retail solutions for highly successful brands, including JanSport, AT&T, Calvin Klein Fragrances and others. The entire list of Facebook Preferred Developer Consultants can be found here: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Preferred_Developer_Consultant_Program

About Fluid, Inc.
Fluid creates engaging online retail experiences that drive conversion, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Founded in 1990, Fluid has a customer list that includes major online retailers such as Reebok, Lucky Brand Jeans, Diapers.com, Warner Entertainment and The North Face, among others. More information about Fluid is available at www.fluid.com.
Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.


To read full article, please click here.
Source: Marketwire

New B2B website design by Gproxy

Gproxy Design’s team are experts in ecommerce solutions for both B2C and B2B companies. Today we want to share with you our latest B2B site developed in NetSuite.

R&A has been Gproxy's client for 4 years and is constantly renovating their site with MMU (Maintenance Measure and Upgrade plan). This is a team of accountants who teamed up to open the firm R&A. Each of them focuses in their area of expertise, and they’ve been working with NetSuite for the past 7 years. They have recently activated the NetSuite shopping cart in order to provide and sell webinars and events.


R&A’s requirements for their ecommerce website design, was to have a corporate and user friendly look and feel. With that in mind, and always considering their brand image, our design team created a clean and intuitive website that is very easy to navigate, and allows R&A to display lots of information about their services.


Some NetSuite functionalities we’ve added to this site, are the newsletter sign up form, html form, among others.

This website is a great example of Gproxy’s expertise in B2B website design. Please check it out by clicking here.

Power your Mobile Channel

Gproxy announces its new partnership with Digby, industry leading mobile commerce suite.

With over 270 million mobile phone users in the United States, the mobile channel represents an exceptional opportunity to connect with new and existing clients, in ways that other retail channels cannot approach. Promotion, innovative merchandising and mobile marketing opportunities are growing the mobile ecosystem at an exponential rate. Mobile represents the biggest change and opportunity to retail since the Internet launched ecommerce and now Gproxy through its partner Digby has the key to success in mobile commerce.

MOBILE STOREFRONT
At the center of Digby’s Suite is the Mobile Storefront. This allows users to put your store in their pocket, turning your mobile initiative from an information source to a 24/7 revenue driver.

MOBILE MARKETING SERVICES
Before a user can buy a product from the mobile storefront, they have to know about it. The Digby Mobile Commerce Suite is complemented by a variety of Mobile Marketing Services. These services are aimed at helping you with activities like mobile marketing campaigns and managing application marketplaces so your mobile channel can be discovered.

Digby Mobile Commerce Suite Benefits

• Flexible Branding for direct and indirect redistribution

• Compelling message for retailers - write once, get: Blackberry, iPhone, Android.

Download Gproxy's & Digby's brochure HERE, or contact Gproxy for more information.