California Apparel News

Shopzilla.com, the popular comparison-shopping search site formerly known as BizRate.com, recently announced its sixth annual Circle of Excellence Award winners. The award recognizes the best online retailers in customer satisfaction, as judged by customers. This year, 50 online retailers (out of several hundred nominees) received the award, with the following apparel and accessories sites among those taking home honors:

Bealls Department Stores, www.beallsflorida.com

ChoiceShirts, www.choiceshirts.com

Hatworld, www.lids.com

Shoebuy.com, www.shoebuy.com

Shoes.com, www.shoes.com

Zappos.com, www.zappos.com

To look at these sites, none of them would win any awards for design or graphic sophistication. They are busy and cluttered with merchandise, but they function well, and Shopzilla’s emphasis is on customer service and what creates and cultivates happy repeat customers.

Shopzilla Chairman Chuck Davis summarized the program: “Smart retailers have long figured out that good service equals sales. If it were not for the exceptional quality of service these retailers have provided consumers, online spending would not have flourished to the extent it has over the last 10 years of e-commerce. The BizRate Research Circle of Excellence Awards serve to acknowledge those industry-leading retailers who make their customers a priority and raise the industry bar at the same time.”

Gauging Holiday moods

Shopzilla is not just a comparison-shopping portal. It also conducts online marketing research. Just released, the Online Holiday Mood Study reports that this year’s most popular promotion will be free shipping. Indeed, 79 percent of online retailers plan to offer free shipping during the Holiday season, according to the study’s findings, perfectly in line with consumers’ desires—79 percent said that free shipping is an important factor in making online purchases.

“Online shoppers are clearly motivated by promotions like free shipping, gifts with purchase and special online offers,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, the Washington, D.C.–based online research division of the National Retail Federation. “These promotions will enable customers to save money while helping retailers maximize their Holiday sales. And, because companies have planned for them as part of their overall marketing strategy, these promotions will not come at the expense of profits.”

This year, online retailers are expecting a very jolly Holiday, as all of the companies surveyed expect to see online sales increase over 2004. Some online retailers are expecting big gains, with 19 percent expecting Holiday sales to double over 2004. Another 54 percent expect to see growth of up to 20 percent.

Many multi-channel retailers said they planned to begin their Holiday marketing earlier this year, timing their promotions with the shopping patterns of their customers. According to the survey, 28 percent will have started earlier than last year, with 60 percent having planned to begin by the end of last month. This is closely in line with consumers’ shopping habits, as half of consumers surveyed said they start their online Holiday shopping by the end of October. And 21 percent of consumers said they planned to start their Holiday online shopping earlier this year than last.

More than half of consumers (56 percent) said they typically begin shopping for a particular item or gift at specific merchants’ Web sites, but another 37 percent said they would start with a search engine, comparison-shopping site or an auction site/shopping portal. In addition, 29 percent of online shoppers said they would start their shopping via stores or catalogs.

The advertising payoff

Recognizing that consumers are using a variety of tools to research products and compare prices, online retailers are raising their investment in search-engine marketing this Holiday season, with 70 percent of companies planning to increase their emphasis on paid-listing search-engine marketing.

“Consumers are getting smarter when it comes to how they use the Internet. Shoppers not only buy merchandise from specific retailers, but they increasingly research and compare prices using aggregator sites,” said Davis of Shopzilla. “Retailers understand that they need to focus some of their marketing efforts on online shopping tools, where many consumers start their shopping.”

Online retailers will not only rely on the Internet to market their Web sites during the Holidays, but according to the survey, 92 percent of pure-play (online-only) retailers will advertise offline this year, too, compared with 93 percent of multichannel merchants.

About 63 percent of online retailers will use catalog mailings, 61 percent will use in-store materials and 59 percent will use direct mail to drive traffic to their sites. Many online retailers will also be investing in print and broadcast media: 54 percent in magazines, 41 percent in newspapers, 35 percent in television and 32 percent in radio.