Online Merchant 365 - Online Retailers Fight Sales Tax

Online Merchant 365 - Industry titan Amazon.com is resisting the push for sales taxes on Internet transactions despite proof that the impact of the tax on consumers would be small.

Amazon is fighting legislation proposed in California and North Carolina that would charge shoppers sales tax if the e-commerce company has marketing affiliates who get commission in the state.

Amazon claims that the taxes are "unconstitutional" and would compel it to cut ties with many of its marketing partners. Similar legislation is pending in Hawaii and Connecticut.

Most experts contend that the addition of an online sales tax would have a negligible effect on revenues. For large merchants like Amazon, the revenue decline would most likely be in the low single digits.

Online Merchant 365 - Online Customer Service More Important Than Ever

Online Merchant 365 - Studies show that customer service is more important than ever for online shoppers during tough economic times.

One Forrester study concluded that an emphasis on customer service can result in a difference of almost $200 million for a large Internet retailer. This is not surprising considering how often Internet shoppers contact customer service.

In fact, about 42% of online shoppers report having contacted Internet retailers about their purchases in the last six months. Market analysts conclude that customer service is especially important now that consumers are being careful with their spending.

"Gaining and retaining customers is even more critical in tough economic times than in easy ones," explained Forrester analyst Chip Gliedman.

Online Merchant 365 - Shipping Costs Hurt Online Sales

Online Merchant 365 - A new survey by Paypal found that hidden shipping costs ruin over half of online sales. In other words, surprise shipping costs discourage consumers from consummating the sale.

Paypal suggested that online merchants need to be more candid about their shipping costs in order to get consumers to go through with the purchase. Otherwise, 56% of shoppers will cancel the order if the shipping costs are higher than expected.

"To reduce cart abandonment, merchants should provide this information sooner in the checkout process," explained Darrell MacMullin, a PayPal manager.

Customers abandoned their orders because of high shipping costs even if they had purchased from the site previously, the study found. This is in addition to the existing anxiety shoppers already have about buying online. In fact, about 51% of shoppers report some concerns about shopping online.

Online Merchant 365 - Virtual Dressing Rooms Help Online Shoppers

Online Merchant 365 - One of the biggest obstacles facing online clothing retailers is that shoppers don't like to buy clothes they haven't tried on. Virtual dressing rooms are helping to change that.

These dressing rooms use motion-capture technology to allow shoppers to gauge how garments will look on them. Some virtual dressing rooms work with web cams to allow shoppers to cut and paste the clothes onto their digital images.

One of the drawbacks of virtual dressing rooms is that the clothes sometimes appear ill-fitting and lumpy. However, the virtual dressing room at least gives the shopper some idea of how the clothes will look.

Other virtual dressing rooms use an avatar to represent the shopper's dimensions, such as height, weight, etc. Shoppers then have the option of placing their face on the avatar for additional accuracy.

Online Merchant 365 - Online Retailers with Best Conversion Rates

Online Merchant 365 - In the world of e-commerce, a conversion occurs when a visitor to a site becomes a buyer. For example, a conversion rate of 5% would mean that 5% of the site's visitors end up buying something.

Going by conversion rate, ProFlowers.com is the top online merchant. ProFlowers has a conversion rate of 31%.

The online retailer with the second-highest conversion rate is LL Bean, with 25.7%. Amazon.com is a close third with a conversion rate of 23.7%.

Conversion rates are often the focus of online retailers' marketing efforts. Their goal is to turn first-time visitor traffic into customer traffic.

Online Merchant 365 - Ecommerce and You

Online Merchant 365 – Ecommerce is a great way to make money. The internet has limitless potential for new ideas, products, and so forth. Online mercantilism has grown immensely over the years, and today it is a huge money making market.

If you are interested in learning about Ecommerce, there are plenty of books you can read up on. There are even books you can order off the internet. Simply download the text from sites like Amazon, and you will receive a copy of the book via computer.

There is a widget on this page for downloading the book “Creating Your First eCommerce Site!”

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