Shop.org Blog

Last week, Shop.org announced that it is co-producing the inaugural Global E-Commerce Summit, scheduled for October 27-29, in one of my favorite European cities – Amsterdam.

This global event is being organized by the leading e-commerce associations from North America and Europe. Shop.org is launching this event in partnership with the European E-Commerce and Mail Order Trade Association or EMOTA, which is a federation of 23 associations representing 22 European countries including bvh in Germany, La Fevad in France and Thuiswinkel.org in The Netherlands.

Shop.org and EMOTA have been very busy the last couple of months.  We are excited about the line-up of speakers, which includes industry leaders from Germany, the United States, Belgium, France and The Netherlands, Canada and Austria.  More speakers from other parts of the world will be announced soon.

Last March, Shop.org hosted networking dinners in London and Paris.  I had the opportunity to attend these dinners and one thing was clear: there is no room for borders when it comes to the sharing of information and best practices.  This is the primary reason why Shop.org has taken this first step of expanding its presence beyond the United States.  We are also launching this event because we know that the online retail leaders of tomorrow will be global. 

If you are one of the many online retailers that is currently operating internationally or considering international expansion, I hope you’ll join us in Amsterdam at the end of October.

Greetings

The content team is hard at work putting the finishing touches on our upcoming merchandising workshop and also working hard on putting together the agenda for our Annual Summit.  This is a busy time for Shop.org, and coming right at the nick of time I would like to introduce Artemis Ebneyousef.  She is our new content manager who started on May 1 and has already taken Shop.org by storm.  If you would like to email her, you can reach her at ebneyousefa@shop.org.   

To further meet the content needs for our membership, Shop.org is going to begin a quarterly webinar series and we are hoping to have our first installment in the next few months.  We think this is an additional way to add value to your Shop.org membership and also continue the information sharing that occurs at our events. 

We would like to ask the community if they have any ideas for topics that they would like us to cover in our first few webinars.    You can either use the blog to make any suggestions or write me directly at joseloffl@shop.org.

Thanks and enjoy the long weekend.

Larry Joseloff

VP, Content, Shop.org

This year marks the third anniversary of Cyber Monday, a term coined by Shop.org. It’s had quite an active life in its first three years. I am a proud supporter of Cyber Monday because I think it’s good for the online retail industry. It creates excitement about the online holiday shopping season and it supports Shop.org’s Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund. And, as long as the data support the Monday after Thanksgiving as an important day for online retail, I plan to support and, if necessary, defend Cyber Monday.

As background, Shop.org coined the term Cyber Monday in 2005 based on the results of our eHoliday survey in which 77% of retailers told us that their sales increased noticeably the Monday after Thanksgiving. We gave it the Cyber Monday name and were as surprised as anyone at the media coverage that has followed the past three years.

Cyber Monday has come to represent the ceremonial kick-off of the online holiday season marked by many online retailers offering specials and promotions. It was selected as the “kick off” day because it represents the first significant spike in online holiday spending.

Yet, each year, Cyber Monday faces naysayers, who I like to call Cyber Monday grinches. These Cyber Monday grinches include columnists, reporters, bloggers, Wikipedia contributors, researchers and others. Why they are inspired to discredit Cyber Monday is a mystery to me. But, I thought I would use the Shop.org blog to dispel some of the common criticisms of Cyber Monday.

Criticism #1 – Cyber Monday is *not* the biggest day for online shopping.
This is absolutely correct. If anyone can tell me who has made this claim, I’d like to hear from them to understand why they believe this. Fortunately, this criticism has been mostly clarified. I saw a number of Cyber Monday stories this year clarifying that the biggest online shopping day comes later in the season.

Criticism #2 – Cyber Monday is an outdated concept because there is no reason to shop at work when so many people have broadband Internet access in their homes.
This is a logical argument. However, based on the data from our BIGresearch study, the percent of people planning to shop online at work during the holiday season is increasing despite more broadband access in homes. This year, according to a BIGresearch survey conducted for Shop.org, 54.5 percent of office workers with Internet access, or 68.5 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work, up substantially from 50.7 percent in 2006 and 44.7 percent in 2005.

Critcism #3 – Thanksgiving and Black Friday, not Cyber Monday, are the “real” first spikes in online holiday spending.
According to comScore, Cyber Monday’s $733 million in online sales this year were 28% higher than Black Friday and 171% higher than Thanksgiving.

Criticism #4 – Increased shopping on Cyber Monday or any Monday is a “myth” because online shopping is stronger in the middle of the week.
Looking at comScore data again, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Two of the top three days of online retail spending in 2006 were Mondays. The biggest day was Wednesday, December 13, which was merely 1% higher than the second biggest day. The second and third biggest days were, respectively, Monday, December 11 and Monday, December 4.

Criticism #5 - Cyber Monday diminishes worker productivity because people are shopping at their computers when they should doing work.
There’s a great article from the Washington Post last November that provides a good perspective on this issue. The article argues that as work increasingly blends into employees personal lives via Blackberrys and home email access, employers have found that doing personal work, such as shopping, at work, helps increase productivity.

For almost 15 years, the online retailing industry has been part of the US economy. And, for the most part, our industry has stayed out of politics, which is quite a feat for an industry that will generate a quarter trillion dollars in 2007.

While many online retailers would prefer to continue to go about their business without meddling in politics (and I don’t blame them), there are certainly issues that are being debated in the U.S. Congress that will affect our industry. Instead of hiding from this reality, Shop.org is tackling it head-on.

With any maturing industry, the move toward advocacy becomes almost inevitable. As a result, Shop.org announced yesterday that it has expanded its mission to include a focus on advocacy. As a first step, we are forming a policy advisory group comprised of online retail operational executives from the Shop.org membership to serve as our “ear to the ground” for issues that will have the greatest impact on our industry.

There are two particular issues facing online retailers, in which Shop.org’s parent organization, the National Retail Federation, has been active, and that will be our focus as we enter the policy arena.

A “spyware bill” that has morphed into a general online privacy bill is being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives. It would essentially require consumers to “opt in” in order for retailers to collect any personal information on Web sites. Shop.org also plans to tackle credit card interchange, which requires merchants to pay a percentage of their sales back to the credit card company. This practice is especially damaging for online retailers who are required to pay “card not present” fees, which can be fifty percent higher than what traditional retailers pay. Despite paying higher fees, online retailers are rarely, if ever, reimbursed for merchandise shipped from order placed using a fraudulent credit card.

To learn more about these and other issues, I invite industry participants to join us for a policy brief at our upcoming Annual Summit in Las Vegas. The brief, which is scheduled for Wednesday, September 19, from 7:45 – 8:45 am, features Liz Oesterle, NRF’s VP, Government Relations Counsel and Steve Pfister, NRF’s SVP, Government Relations and chief lobbyist.

Please feel free to reply to this blog with suggestions for issues that Shop.org should address on behalf of our industry.

Welcome to the Shop.org blog. I’m excited for the launch of the Shop.org blog as another means for information sharing among the Shop.org community. I’ve said many times that Shop.org’s greatest asset is its members. Within our members lie a powerful collection of expertise, experience, lessons-learned and visions for the future. Shop.org’s job is to provide a forum to bring this information to our members to help them improve their businesses.

The Shop.org blog provides a platform for our members to share their ideas and opinions about the industry. To notify you when new information is available on the blog, we’ll include highlights in our weekly newsletter and the blog can also be available as an RSS feed so that new posts can we viewed along with other blogs and news sources that you follow on a regular basis.

A key attribute of the blog is openness. Any member is welcome to post an article and/or comment on an article. We envision the blog being used by members for a variety of purposes, a sample of which are below.

• Share ideas and opinions about industry trends and developments
• Provide advice on a new strategy or tactic
• Suggest ideas for future Shop.org programs and activities
• Validate a new idea
• Call on the industry to adopt best practices
• Comments on Shop.org programs and activities

I’m sure these uses are just the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to watching the Shop.org blog grow and bloom with the support and contributions of our community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Shop.org Director of Content, Larry Joseloff and ContentRobot, who did a great job developing the blog.

As always, Shop.org welcomes your input and feedback. And, now you have a new way to share it!

Scott Silverman
Executive Director, Shop.org