Douglas P. Clement
Douglas P. Clement is principal of Boardwalk Media + Communications, a Connecticut-based provider of digital content, branding, social media management, strategic communications and more. Previously Senior Editor and Digital Editor of Connecticut Magazine, and Executive Editor of The Litchfield County Times publishing group, he was named national Editor of the Year by a leading journalism industry group in 2005, won the nation’s top award for lifestyle journalism from the University of Missouri Schools of Journalism seven times, and has covered arts, culture, design and theater regionally for The New York Times.
Total ecommerce sales hit $26.93 billion over Cyber Weekend, according to data from Adobe Analytics, as stores went in the opposite direction. Cyber Monday’s online spending reached a record $9.4 billion, up 19.7%, making it the largest online shopping day of all time in the U.S. Store sales dipped nearly 1%, according to RetailNext.
Twenty-nine percent of holiday shoppers in the U.S. aged 18-34 plan to spend the most in physical stores this season, a number that rises to 39% for all age groups, according to a new study from Capgemini. The survey showed 37% of younger consumers overall would spend on retailers giving them access to multiple brands.
Target’s strong Q3 performance, with 31% growth in ecommerce sales – just under the 34% in Q2 – continued the trend of same-day order fulfillment services driving growth. Target is the first to offer curbside pickup in all 50 states. In Q3, sales volume fulfilled by Shipt more than doubled, while curbside sales grew by more than 500%.
Visa is warning ecommerce merchants about a new JavaScript skimmer targeting customer data entered at the point-of-sale (POS) in payment forms on sellers’ websites. Pipka is able to remove itself from the HTML code after it is successfully executed, thereby avoiding detection. Visa is giving merchants a list of mitigation measures.
With ecommerce, catalog and other merchants still wrestling with the impact of the June 2018 South Dakota vs. Wayfair decision, some states are retroactively seeking sales tax from out-of-state online sellers. California, South Carolina and Louisiana are separately seeking taxes as far back as five years. Some question the legal justification.
U.S. shoppers wants lots of choices, great deals and delivery reliability over speed this holiday season, according to a survey of more than 3,000 consumers by ecommerce platform provider CommerceHub. 68% of respondents said they were either very likely or somewhat likely to shop on the major deal days, a 25% increase over 2018.
Short-form mobile video app TikTok is expanding its ecommerce footprint by testing a new feature allowing users to add a shoppable URL to their bios or videos, creating an online store where consumers can shop in the app. TikTok is also reportedly talking with Sony and Warner about licensing deals for a new streaming music service.
SheerID, whose software quickly verifies a person’s status as a member of a particular consumer “tribe,” has raised $64 million in an equity round. It defines identity marketing as a form of personalization focused on winning over consumer tribes that align with the brand’s promise. Clients include Target, Amazon, Lowe’s and Urban Outfitters.
Ecommerce in the United States is growing faster than in China, which remains ahead in terms of overall sales volume, based on client data from payment services firm Payoneer, and the UK is growing faster than both. With the exception of Japan (3%), companies in the top 10 for ecommerce sales all saw strong Q3 double-digit growth.
A study commissioned by PayPal shows consumers are shopping on smartphones more than ever but remain concerned about mobile commerce security. The global study across age groups found 80% of consumers have shopped via smartphone, but only 63% of ecommerce businesses are optimized to accept mobile payments.