Pinterest

While paid search and email marketing still top retailers’ lists of effective customer acquisition channels, social media has moved up the ranks to become an important tool for engaging with and attracting new customers.

Washington, D.C. - While paid search and email marketing still top retailers’ list of effective customer acquisition channels, social media has moved up the ranks to become an important tool for engaging with and attracting new customers. According to the State of Retailing Online 2015 report, conducted by Shop.org, Forrester Research Inc. and Bizrate Insights, 25% of retailers surveyed cite Facebook as a top acquisition platform.

Advertisements and valuable content can bring your audience to your website, but what is driving them to your store? Even though customers are able to view and purchase items online, more than 90% of consumers are still more inclined to buy at a physical location.

Some techniques — like direct mail and business cards — are old-fashioned ways of driving your offline sales, but modern strategies are offering more advanced techniques for connecting with your consumers digitally. Keep up with your audience and build on-site relationships with these four tips.

New research from global marketer Epsilon sheds fresh insight on how to influence shoppers on an increasingly convoluted path to purchase.

The firm surveyed 2,800 consumers for its “The Digital Shopping Tool Impact Study 2015” which examined how people are shopping, what’s guiding their purchasing decisions and what tools they are using before, during and after purchase. The research revealed a noticeable shift towards mobile and social digital tools that is changing the very nature of the shopping process.

Dallas – A retailer’s social media activity has a greater impact on shoppers than the company’s website.

That’s one of the findings of the Digital Shopping Tool Impact Study 2015 from marketing technology provider Epsilon. The platform shoppers cite as most influential to their shopping decisions is Facebook, although Pinterest and Google+ are strong contenders.  

Pinterest is rolling out its “Buyable Pins” feature, which allow consumers to purchase items directly from Pinterest visual displays, to users of its iPhone and iPad apps. This gives retailers a new avenue to engage digital consumers, while e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, Google and even Wal-Mart Marketplace have a new competitor.

San Francisco -- Pinterest on Tuesday officially started its foray into e-commerce.

The social networking giant has started rolling out a “buy it” button on its pins on iPhone and iPad apps.  It also is launching new shop categories, including "Shop our picks," a curated selection of seasonal goods, and "Shop" for the latest buyable Pins.

Edison, N.J. - Consumers are turning to user-generated social media images and videos to help them make purchasing decisions. According to a new study of more than 500 online shoppers from Dotcom Distribution, more than half of respondents (54%) have used social media to find photos or videos of a product they were thinking of buying within the past year.