The Forrester Blog For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Forrester Research is hiring — become a senior analyst on our global eBusiness team

Brendan McGowan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:49:33 -0500

by Patti Freeman Evans

If you see how fast corporate digital commerce is changing, it won’t surprise you to learn that Forrester is hiring.

We’re hiring for the position of Senior analyst. This is a key job, because it will put you right in the center of transformation that’s happening as companies begin to embrace digital commerce enablement.

This job is truly diverse in its scope and has been the most rewarding one I have ever had. You’ll spend your time speaking with people in companies who are actually driving eBusiness innovation; gathering information about what works, what doesn't, and where the industry is going. These in-depth interactions, combined with our extensive consumer research data, form the basis of our research content. You write documents on topics of interest to clients or work with clients on how to build these applications.

In the analyst job, we’re looking for people with real experience building eBusinesses — either at a company, in an agency, or in a technology vendor.

Our current analysts on this team are working in Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco; New York; and London. For this position, due to the need to collaborate freely, we're most inclined to hire analysts who can work in London or Amsterdam.

Forrester is an extremely collegial place, with analysts around the world collaborating freely with one another. We keep driving forward into new areas of knowledge. Working here is a blast.

Here's how to apply: Click to see the description for the Senior analyst position. Then click “Apply for this job.” I hope I get to work with you.

US and Western European online retail will grow double digit year-on-year over the next five years

Brendan McGowan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:01:00 -0500

By Patti Freeman Evans

Forrester has just released its US Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014 and Western European Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014. Both reports reveal that online sales in both the US and Western Europe will remain robust: US online retail sales are projected to rise from $155 billion in 2009 to $249 billion in 2014 – that’s a 10% compound annual growth rate (CAGR); and online retail sales in Western Europe will rise from €68 billion in 2009 to €114 billion in 2014 – or a 11% CAGR.

In the US, three product categories will continue to dominate online retail: apparel, footwear, and accessories; consumer electronics; and computer hardware, software, and peripherals. Together, those categories represent more than 40 percent of total online retail sales in the US today.

In Western Europe, books, event tickets and clothing will top the categories purchased online.

In Northern European countries, markets where online retail sales are more mature, growth will be slower relative to Mediterranean countries. The UK will remain the largest market, worth an estimated €40 billion – or a 35% share of the total Western European market.

So, what makes online retail so strong?

Convenience, selection, value and price drive online shopping behavior.
Enhanced technologies, like innovative and rich content improve customer experience.
Improvements in the supply-side increase customer satisfaction and drive growth: Some sophisticated retailers have implemented tactics to increase customer engagement and to develop better cross-channel executions, leaner inventories, and social shopping tools.

Multichannel is crucial for future retail growth

If retailers want to thrive, they will have to take and win the multichannel challenge. Over the next five years, much of the overall retail sector’s growth in both markets are indeed planned to come from the Internet. eBusiness professionals must make the most of this growth by facilitating a multichannel strategy that addresses consumers’ expectations, focusing on their need to move between offline and online channels and their increasing mobile and social behaviors.

Want more details? High-level forecast numbers are now are available to Forrester RoleView™ clients. For more detailed US and Western European forecast numbers, please contact Forrester’s ForecastView.

Participate In Our First Ever Australian Online Retailing Study!

Kate van Geldern — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:53:56 -0500

By Patti Freeman Evans

Forrester just kicked-off our first-ever Australian Online Retailing Study. This survey looks at Australian online and multichannel retailers' organizations and topics relevant to the challenges currently facing their roles including:

· eBusiness technology decisions

· Social media and mobile trends

· Online merchandizing tactics

· And more!

The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete and all of the data will be used anonymously and in aggregate. And as a thank you for completing this survey, you will be able to access the data to help benchmark against your peers once the survey is closed.

The results from the survey will serve Forrester's eBusiness and retail research agenda; we look forward to sharing our insights from your response!

If you're an Australian online retailer, click here to participate!

A Happy Holiday For Retailers?

Kate van Geldern — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:21:18 -0500

[By Patti Freeman Evans]

There may be some optimism in the air for retailers this holiday. U.S. retail sales rose 1.3% in November according to the Commerce Department, marking the third increase in the past four months, and the Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment for December rose to 73.4, up from 67.4 in November. The ICSC-Goldman Sachs chain store index, which includes about 30 retailers, was up 2.4 percent last week from the same period a year ago. Good news was also delivered to eCommerce retailers: Cyber Monday sales appeared strong.

The National Retail Federation, in a report released earlier last week, said that on average, consumers had completed less than half of their holiday shopping and 19% still haven't started. As shipping deadlines come to a close, last minute-shopping could provide retailers a final boost to close out the year.

Forrester predicted in our 2009 US Online Holiday Retail Forecast that online retail sales would reach $44.7 billion during November and December, a year-over-year increase of 8%. The hopeful numbers surrounding consumer sentiment, retail sales, and holiday shopping provide an upbeat outlook for those forecasted numbers, and sets an encouraging tone for the retail space in 2010.

Online Holiday Sales Are Looking Pretty Bright After All

Brendan McGowan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:51:21 -0500

By Patti Freeman Evans

Overall, Christmas 2009 may be far better for retailers than expected, following a turbulent year for the retail sector. Many retailers have successfully adjusted their tactics to maximize sales and margins — such as reworking their assortments around lower price points. According to Kelkoo, sales in the six weeks to Christmas are expected to reach £44.7 billion this year and account for 18.5% of total annual retail spending. And the best bargains are likely yet to come in the final week before Christmas.

Online will be crucial this year. Consumers are expected to spend £8.9 billion online this Christmas, representing 20p in every £1 spent, and a 24% increase on previous years, according to research carried out by the Centre for Retail Research for Kelkoo. For example, UK internet shoppers are said to have spent £4,000 a second on Cyber Monday. John Lewis, for example expected sales of £4.5m on December 7 — five times more than a normal Monday. We anticipate a healthy Christmas for online, as 85% of consumers intend to maintain or increase their online shopping and more than a third (37%) will shop more online compared to last year, despite the prevailing tough economy.

For deal-conscious shoppers online retailers are increasingly offering online-only promotions and stealth reductions of up to 50%. Shoppers can find these deals through Web sites such as VoucherCodes which promote the special Internet deals and printable coupons from the likes of Argos, Tesco and Comet.

Calling All Online Retailers! We Want To Hear From You!

Kate van Geldern — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:23:50 -0400

[Posted by Patti Freeman Evans]

Forrester just kicked-off our 2009 Retail Executive Survey, and we want your input.

This survey looks at online retailers' organizations and topics relevant to the challenges currently facing their roles including:

· eBusiness technology decisions

· Globalization

· Social media and mobile trends

· Online customer service

· Online merchandizing tactics

· And more!

The survey takes just about 15 minutes to complete and all of the data will be used anonymously and in aggregate. And as a thank you for completing this survey, you will be able to access the data to help benchmark against your peers once the survey is closed.

The results from the survey will serve Forrester's eBusiness and retail research agenda; we look forward to gaining insight from your responses!

Click here to take the survey.

Affiliate Marketing Still Growing

Brendan McGowan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:49:43 -0400

Despite unfavorable economic conditions which have slowed affiliate marketing growth in 2009, US online marketers will still be spending a total of $1.9 billion of their budgets on affiliate marketing fees. Furthermore, we expect affiliate marketing to return to double-digit growth in 2010 and we anticipate affiliate marketing to become a $4 billion market by 2014.

Better affiliate site content and an increasingly transparent dialogue between affiliates and marketers act as growth drivers. But there is little evidence that the emergence of social networking sites will drive significant traffic for affiliates in the term of this forecast. Thus, the marketplace will remain closely tied to the search arena.

Over the next five years, financial service providers and retailers will remain the top affiliate marketing spenders, with online education following closely. Transaction-generating activity on affiliate sites will continue to be driven by paid or natural search results. Forrester believes that social networks will not bring lucrative leads to affiliate sites within the next five years.

For detailed findings, we encourage you to read the whole report.

Nothing Certain Except Death And (Online) Sales Tax (?) – Or is it?

Brendan McGowan — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:04:43 -0400

by Patti Freeman Evans

As we reported back in May, online retailers should prepare to charge sales tax in certain markets, even if they do not plan to do so across the country. Cash-strapped states are looking to tap any potential source of revenue (California, for example, has been working through an onerous $26 billion budget gap) and have in recent months been proposing legislation to require online retailers to submit tax in states in which they deliver.

Since the report’s publication, however, the governors of Hawaii and California have struck down the requirement for retailers to collect online sales tax with strokes of the veto pen. As a result, Overstock.com, which had dropped its online affiliates in California and Hawaii when the legislation still had a shot, reestablished its ties with its Californian and Hawaiian affiliates.

What all this boils down to is that the precedent that New York established by requiring the collection of use taxes on goods purchased by online shoppers within a state doesn’t appear to be gaining real traction —at least, not at present. Forrester will continue to monitor these debates, inarguably intensified by the current recession, and their potential impacts on eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals in the months to come.

Don't be distracted by headline-grabbing stats

Forrester Admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:39:14 -0500

Over the last week or so, a number of firms have published scary headlines and stats like, "Retail E-Commerce Growth Drops Sharply". We agree that it is a tough market all around and that the 12% growth rate we project for this holiday season is not what we might have projected had the economy not tanked. Today the Census Bureau's estat numbers for 3rd quarter 2008 online sales came out at only a 5% growth over last year. Not great and reflective of the very soft back to school season and all the uncertainly in the financial, housing, international and political markets. But also not the sole number to rely on. And, 3rd quarter is does not project fourth quarter directly and we do expect much stronger growth for the remaining holiday season. Online is still a good deal livelier than what we are hearing from offline sources. So, we still expect to see growth at the 12% rate this holiday season.

Don't let's let the news that is clearly trying for attention rather than realism sway us to alarmist reactions. For example, according to Hitwise traffic data- the share of traffic to retail sites is about where it was last year - so you could interpret that as no growth. But, reality says that other categories like News and Media and Financial have increased their share -due to the election and the economy mostly - that would affect the share of other categories -remember these are share numbers not total numbers. So, looking beyond the headline to what is real will help us not panic and to stay focused on getting the job we know how to do done.

Buy Now Pay Later Promos

Forrester Admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:08:37 -0500

This weekend, Saks Fifth Avenue ran a full page ad in the NYTimes promoting "The Gift of Time. Enjoy no interest and no payments for 12 months on item purchases of $2,000 or more." I'm not surprised. This is a great message for those who may not be as liquid as they once were and for those who hope this economic situation will abate in mid '09.

It also might hit home to wary older customers. In fact, according to our recent consumer survey, where we asked: Given the current state of the US economy, how are you planning to change your holiday shopping habits? Customers over 45 years old are more likely to say they will spend less overall and avoid any major purchases. So retailers whose customer base skews older, might try the same tactic Saks has launched.