Social Media

As the holiday shopping season rapidly approaches for marketers, a brand’s biggest challenge is to rise above the marketing noise and extend consumer engagement in ways that lead to purchase. How can you reward consumers while creating longer-term stickiness? Here are some of our favorite ways to drive return visits, increase brand-shopper interaction, and get on consumers’ nice lists this holiday season.   Holiday Gift Calendars

The dust is clearing from the aftermath of the second annual Amazon Prime Day, and the industry can now see how well the online sales extravaganza actually performed.  

Online checkout problems are indicative of heavy e-commerce traffic, but still were not what Amazon.com hoped to see in the first hours of Prime Day.   According to multiple media reports, a glitch was causing problems for some U.S. and U.K. consumers attempting to check out their Amazon purchases the morning of Tuesday, July 12. Numerous shoppers tweeted their frustrations using hashtags such as #PrimeDay and #PrimeDayFail. A sampling of tweet complaints includes:  

So far, it appears that some early Prime Day performance issues on the Amazon.com site gave way to much stronger results as the day continued.   According to multiple media reports, a glitch was causing problems for some U.S. and U.K. consumers attempting to check out their Amazon purchases the morning of Tuesday, July 12. Numerous shoppers tweeted their frustrations using hashtags such as #PrimeDay and #PrimeDayFail.  

While Amazon Prime Day got off to a bit of a rocky start, performance appears to be improving as the day goes on.   According to analysis from Clavis Insight, consumer electronics is the most popular category among Prime Day “spotlight deals,” promoted at the top of the page as especially in-demand items. As of 10 a.m. ET Amazon had run 21 spotlight deals, almost half of which were consumer electronics. At the same on the 2015 edition of Prime Day, Amazon had only posted 10 spotlight deals.  

The online space doesn’t have a lock on new retail concepts, but with its lower start-up costs and potential audience reach it has proved itself a great breeding ground for disruptive retailers.   Here’s a look at four innovative e-tailers that are generating buzz and revenue increases — enough to place them among the top 15 fastest-growing e-retailers in a recent study.*   Casper

The online space doesn’t have a lock on new retail concepts, but with its lower start-up costs and potential audience reach it has proved itself a great breeding ground for disruptive retailers.   Here’s a look at four innovative e-tailers that are generating buzz and revenue increases — enough to place them among the top 15 fastest-growing e-retailers in a recent study.*   Casper

Tuesday, July 12 marks the return of Amazon Prime Day.   Based on last year’s results, Amazon will grab a sizable chunk of all online sales that day. Special “countdown deals” starting July 5 will also help funnel more e-commerce traffic than normal in Amazon’s direction. Walmart is countering with its own July online sales event built around its ShippingPass free shipping program.