Social networking and mobile devices power dealers to occupy Christmas shopping season

The annual Christmas shopping season in the United States is just over, with Amazon led by the electric dealers to create more success. In the past few years, the development of the U.S. electric business has been tepid, but this year, mobile devices, social marketing, courier services, such as the maturity of the surrounding conditions has contributed to the U.S. online sales blowout.

As the economy recovers slowly, American holiday shopping is still weak overall. According to MasterCard, holiday spending in 2013 grew by only 2.3% per cent year-on-year, spurred by last week's low discount sales. In stark contrast, online consumption during the Thanksgiving period rose 21% from a year earlier. The electronic commerce to the traditional channel crowding out obviously. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Statistics, E-commerce accounted for about 6% of total retail sales in the United States. The United States Retail Federation said the Christmas shopping season this year's net purchases accounted for nearly 14%.

NET purchase growth overwhelming entity store

The big winners of last year's Christmas shopping season are still Amazon and ebay. Amazon sold 37 million items on the internet for Monday, 39% higher than the same day last year. ebay's sales rose by as much as 127% year-on-year.

The drop in shipping costs has become the "killer" of the electric dealers during the festival, during the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, 72% of all orders for businesses under ebay (including ebay, Toys "R" Us, Levi ' s, GNC, etc.) are free shipping, up 48% from a year earlier.

Amazon decided this fall to increase the minimum free value of premium express services for non-premium members from 25 to $35, attracting more senior members (Prime memembership, 79 dollars a year, free two-day shipping and other offers) and increased user loyalty. During the Christmas shopping season of 2013, Amazon had to limit its peak-hour membership to ensure that its existing membership would not be affected by a surge in the number of new members.

Mobile end of the proportion of the promotion of online shopping stimulation is also very large. Amazon announced that the Christmas shopping season this year, the use of mobile-side shopping for more than 50% users.

During the Christmas holiday, US entity retailers often keep the promotional prices secret in order to prevent the impact of the electricity dealers. Best Buy, for example, knows that consumers appear in stores only to announce preferential prices for major products such as Xbox One. But in the age of mobile Internet, this is obviously a bit outdated.

The PriceGrabber survey shows that 40% of consumers will be on the internet before entering the shopping season, and 50% of consumers will use smartphones to compare prices on the Internet.

According to the Adobe2013 Festival online shopping Forecast survey, about 4 shoppers in every 10 shopping malls will be shopping online at the same time. Physical retail stores are inevitably reduced to the display window of the electric dealer, only from the price and the electricity quotient competition.

Social networking sites become a marketing battleground

According to emarketer, a market-research firm, retailers spent 9.4 billion dollars on internet advertising this year, up 15% per cent year-on-year. In addition to Facebook and Twitter's two giants, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr have also become important marketing channels.

Twitter invested $350 million in September 2013 to buy MoPub (mainly engaged in online advertising, including video streaming ads). In addition, in the first half of 2013, Twitter also acquired a large data analysis company Lucky Sort, and reorganized it into a "revenue-generating project" team, targeting accurate advertising and electronic business integration marketing.

Video ads are the highlight of Twitter's Christmas shopping season. Sporting Goods company Rei released more than 100 videos of recommended gifts to help users choose the right gift. "The reason we like to use Twitter is because it provides very easy interaction, customers can make us understand their needs and interests in a very direct way, and we can respond quickly," said Annie Zipfel, vice president of REI Marketing. ”

Rei is just one of the many retailers using Twitter for marketing campaigns. Best Buy launches #trendingtech marketing campaign, posting a list of gift trends on Twitter; Retailer@yoox uses Twitter to increase the amount of online traffic. Retailer@yoox released 4 different styles of video, allowing users to shop directly in the video. Driven by the new tools, Twitter's advertising market share in the 2013 Christmas shopping season grew from 10% in 2012 to 30%.

Facebook is mainly working with big retailers. Wal-Mart began working with Facebook as early as the Christmas shopping season in 2012, signing a 50 million-dollar advertising contract. Posted on Facebook "My local Wal-Mart" (My locally Walmart) Web and smart shopping list apps.

Black Friday after the weekend, Facebook submitted to Wal-Mart on the Black Friday Day mobile advertising report, including how many people watching ads, sharing ads or like Wal-Mart ads, through the data report, Wal-Mart in the next two days to make rapid adjustments, such as, Wal-Mart found a pair of 88-dollar speakers in the "Black Friday" sales were not as good as expected, the company on the Facebook page launched the product of the sale, soon the product will be sold in the United States.

Stephen Quinn, head of marketing at Wal-Mart, commented, "Never seen such Tiffen Quinn."

Facebook also developed a cartwheel shopping application with Target, the fourth-largest retailer in the United States, and integrated cartwheel applications into its services. Cartwheel applications are expected to bring in more than 100 million dollars in revenue. "We have nearly 23 million Facebook fans, so we know that Facebook is a huge platform and needs to work with it," said Jeff Jones, Target's chief marketing officer, Jeff Jones. Through joint development and application, the cooperation between the two sides has risen to a new level. ”

In social marketing, the biggest problem with advertisers and social applications is the difficulty of balancing the user experience with the precise advertising. Attempts by Twitter and Facebook are gradually tackling the problem.

Although there are "big data" on social networking sites, it doesn't make much sense for advertising. Twitter and the payment company are tying up the account, and Facebook and the retailer are working together to develop applications primarily to capture consumer data. With the consumption of data in order to achieve accurate advertising.

The two social networking sites guide advertisers through community operations, marketing in a more acceptable way for users such as gift sheets and videos, and interacting with users to quickly adjust their marketing plans. These are places for Chinese social media and electric dealers to learn.