As Web merchants head into the holiday season, e-tail marketers are looking at a whole bunch of skittish and penny-pinching consumers — and trying to figure out how to get them to purchase gifts online.
No matter how much the analysts say it is not so, the expectations and forecasts for 2001 holiday revenues reflect a weak economy and theaftermath of September 11th. However, most e-tailers are stillcounting on the annual influx of cash.
“To combat sluggish consumer spending, onlineretailers will be forced to come up with innovativeapproaches to getting customers,” Yankee Group analystPaul Ritter told the E-Commerce Times. “In many cases,those tactics will prove too costly for many retailersalready operating on slim margins.”
Free shipping, credit lines, multichannelfulfillment, and other frugal promotions are likely toresonate with cost-conscious consumers, analysts said.
Ship Shape
According to Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR), this year’s online holiday revenues will be aboutUS$11 billion, 10 percent more than last year.
“People are going to be buying gifts for more peoplewith the same budget,” Forrester analyst JamesCrawford told the E-Commerce Times. “So it’s smallerbasket sizes and more transactions to make up theholiday volume.”
To capture more of those little baskets, many e-tailers areslashing shipping fees to appeal to budget-wary customers.
Open Season
For example, Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) is waiving shipping chargeson selected items and on purchases of $99 or more. Likewise, Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) promises free shipping to customers who order two or more items online.
Discount e-tailer Overstock.comis also offering free shipping — in its case, to first-time buyers. However, the site plans to rely mostly on word-of-mouthrecommendations to attract its share of the holiday shopping crowd, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne told the E-Commerce Times.
Forrester’s Crawford said that although “free shipping will help overcome one barrier for some shoppers,” e-tailers have to make sure to follow through on delivery.
“If you miss promised delivery dates aroundthe holidays, it is the kiss of death for an e-tailer’s reputation,” Crawford said.
Credit as Lure
In addition to free shipping, some e-tailers aretackling spending barriers with credit lines and delayed payment schedules.
Amazon recently released its virtual credit card,giving buyers the option to pay for their purchases at a later date.
As a holiday hook, Amazon will entice its credit-account customers with three months of no payments and interest-free holiday shopping on orders over $200placed through January 31st.
“The ability to postpone the repayment of debtincurred over the holidays until some time during the next quarter will resonate loudly with many consumers,” said Yankee Group’s Ritter. “If Amazon is able to transfer the credit risk to Citibank, then it may be one of the primebeneficiaries of online (holiday) spending.”
E-Mail Bait
Multichannel retailer The Spiegel Group (Nasdaq:SPGLA) has offered three-month delayed billing on Spiegel.com and inits catalogs for all of 2001, and will promote thefeature with a holiday e-mail campaign.
“[We] will conduct targeted promotions, based on pastpurchasing history or targeting new customersspecifically,” Spiegel spokesperson Allison Scherertold the E-Commerce Times. “E-mail promotions willfocus on easy returns, Christmas guaranteed delivery,[and] delayed billing.”
Similarly, Spiegel-owned clothing retailer Eddie Bauer willrely on targeted e-mails and banner advertising topromote new online shopping tools, such as a gift finderand wish list, Scherer said.
Swimming with Channels
Like other multichannel retailers, Spiegel will likely work hard to leverage its catalog and its brick-and-mortar Eddie Bauer stores to serve customers this season.
Indeed, some retailers are seeing 9 or 10 times more revenue from customers who shop via three channels than from shoppers who buy through just a single channel, said Ritter.
“Spiegel communicates with its customers via catalogand will follow up with an e-mail that reinforces theoffer within the catalog, and visa-versa,” said Scherer.
Come and Get It
Other retailers will promote offline fulfillmentchannels to cut costs and to accommodate surgingcustomer demand for in-store product pickups.
To tap into this valuable hybrid customer base, Toys ‘R’ Us will offergift wrapping to entice online gift givers to select anearby store where recipients can pick up their presents.
Retailers who offer in-store pickups will win holiday shoppers over, suggested Crawford.
“Not only can customers get the items the same day and without shipping cost, but the retailer can leverage their brick-and-mortar fulfillment channel even more heavily,” the analyst said.
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