Ecommerce

Expedia CruiseShipCenters will launch an online booking tool in December aimed at growing the brand's customer base and building consumer loyalty. The brand is using an e-mail effort to promote it. The company will launch the tool in time for cruise-booking season, traditionally January and February.

Amazon Payments LLC, an Amazon.com company, released a mobile payment system on October 5. Amazon Mobile Payments Service lets the company's merchants process transactions via mobile phone and allows consumers to check out using Amazon's 1-Click.

Online purchases grew again in 2008, but retail sales were flat and call center sales declined, according to Epsilon Targeting, a recently formed data division of Epsilon. These were among the findings in its Annual Multichannel Trend Report, which is based on aggregated merchandise purchase data from the Abacus Cooperative database.

FedEx and the US Postal Service have partnered to allow FedEx customers to send packages back to retailers this holiday season via the USPS' Parcel Return Service. The agreement takes place as the agency attempts to diversify its revenue stream.

USAA, a provider of financial services to current and former members of the US Armed Forces and their families, has launched an online loyalty program called USAA MemberShop. The program, created with loyalty shopping solutions provider Mall Networks, enables consumers to earn between 1% and 20% of their cash back or points on each dollar spent online with nearly 500 brand-name merchants.

EBay announced it will launch a program to promote its top rated sellers this October. The e-commerce giant is planning the launch to coincide with the upcoming holiday shopping season. EBay sellers who deliver the highest level of customer service, as rated by buyers, will be promoted with a special "eBay Top-Rated Seller" badge, receive 20% discounts on their final value fees, and be elevated in search, eBay said. Buyers will be able to more easily identify sellers that consistently deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction.

People know to look for the gold padlock when transacting online. E-commerce stores know they need an SSL certificate to get the gold padlock. It's something consumers have been told numerous times whether it was from a pre-holiday news special about protecting yourself online or from the family member that thinks they know everything about technology.

Black-out sales, free shipping days, search engine optimization, strategic link baiting—all are proven methods that can, when timed and executed well, ratchet up Web traffic. But if unprepared, dramatic traffic increases can lead to delays, hang-ups, outages, and even outright system failures that can negatively impact campaign success, as well as customer satisfaction and corporate revenue.

It's pretty bleak out there, and some are predicting that the economy will get worse before it gets better. In this sort of environment, e-commerce marketers need to take a look at the ROI of their outbound marketing, and how effective their Web site is at converting customers coming to the site. Traffic generation spend is wasted if that traffic does not convert, and average conversion rates hovering at 3% or so seem to indicate that the selling conversation that we are having with our customers leaves something to be desired.