Social Media

Instead of sending holiday cards, retailers with physical stores may want to send texts, instead.

According to the new seventh Annual Holiday Research Study from e-commerce technology platform MarketLive, 78% of shoppers are likely to visit a store as a result of a text promotion or alert via mobile device.

In addition, 56% of shoppers look for gift ideas on social sites like Pinterest, and 55% are now comfortable with sharing their preferences with retailers in exchange for convenience and personalized product recommendations

Food Lion has come up with an artistic way to connect with the communities it serves and feed the hungry at the same time.

The retailer is inviting kids ages 5-14 to participate in its Food Lion Feeds "Summers Without Hunger" Design-a-Reusable-Bag Contest. The winning design will be featured on next year's Food Lion Feeds reusable bag, which will be sold in more than 1,100 stores in June. The campaign is anticipated to help provide another 1 million meals to families and children in need. 

The world’s largest social network is testing new e-commerce eatures, including a dedicated shopping section, Re/code reported. Facebook’s push comes as other social sites, including Twitter, are exploring social shopping.

Social commerce is finally here.

Various retailers and social media platforms have been experimenting with letting consumers make purchases directly from social networks for some time. But in the past few weeks a flurry of new and expanded social commerce options have been introduced.

The retail revolution may not be televised, but it will be digitized.

The new Q3 E-commerce Pulse from predictive analytics platform provider Custora shows that e-commerce revenue grew a healthy 11.8% year-over-year in third quarter 2015. E-commerce transactions rose an almost identical 11.6%.

Mobile continued to grow in significance as a channel for e-commerce in the quarter. Phones and tablets made up a combined 28.7% of e-commerce transactions, up from 23.1% of orders during the same time the prior year.

It’s not quite a “dislike” button, but Facebook is expanding how users can respond to posts.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook is testing “Reactions,” a set of six emoji that expand upon the “Like” button, in Ireland and Spain.

Brevity is the soul of online retail.

According to a new survey of more than 300 consumers from checkout optimization provider PCA Predict, 84% of U.S. consumers stated they would abandon their e-commerce order if presented with complicated or lengthy Web forms.

Asked about their experience with retailers failing to deliver, an overwhelming 95% of U.S. consumers said that they would be unlikely to shop with a retailer again if an order failed to arrive.

Not only is a picture worth 1,000 words, but it may be worth $1,000.

A new survey from Adobe shows that consumers have a very positive response to “shoppable media” – online images and videos that serve as direct transactional tools.