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<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 <![endif]–> You may recall two flash surveys that we conducted during the 2008 Holiday Season to get a sense for how retailers’ top line Web sales were growing compared to the year prior. Conducted in partnership with Forrester Research, the results of this anonymous, one-question survey provided a snapshot in time of this one metric as a gauge for our industry. We asked retailer participants also to add some free-form comments if they so wished, which provided a trove of insight into how conversion, AOV, and other metrics were trending during that all-important season.
Retailers have asked us for more timely insight into how online retail is doing – voilà, the Shop.org-Forrester Quarterly Online Sales Flash Survey is born. Launching this week, we’ll follow much the same format as we did during the holidays: an entirely anonymous survey that asks retailers how their growth for calendar Q1 2009 compares with the same period a year earlier. Free form comments and two optional demographic questions round things out. In all, it should take a retailer approximately one to two minutes to complete this survey. The survey closes this Friday, April 3, and we’ll post the aggregated results on our Web site next week. We’ll then follow up with much the same survey every quarter going forward to provide a sense of how things are trending over time.
Like everyone else, we’ve been fairly well preoccupied with the global economy and how online retail is managing in the face of ever-tighter budgets, cash-conserving customers, unsettled markets, and a generally foggy horizon. As many of you saw, my Content colleagues, Larry Joseloff and Artemis Ebneyousef, took the proverbial bull by the horns with the theme of “Opportunity from Adversity” for the Strategy & Innovation Forum in early February. Since then, our team has focused on an ongoing series of Webinars, coast to coast regional retailer dinners, Tweet Ups, expanded ways to connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, the Shop.org weekly blog poll, and a new interview series profiling members of the online retail community. We’re excited to launch this quarterly flash survey to augment the picture.
Retailers, please drop me a line if you’d like to participate in this survey. And as always, please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or feedback.
Many thanks. –Fiona
