Online retailers are shifting their marketing from traditional advertising to less expensive tools like Facebook.com and Twitter and e-mail as they seek market share or just work to retain customers, according to an industry study being released Tuesday.

Conducted by Web analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org — the online arm of the trade group National Retail Federation — the survey found that merchants believe online business is better suited to resist an economic downturn than physical stores or

catalogs, though they acknowledge challenges for both.

The study involved 117 online retailers polled amoung Feb. 18 and April 1.

The companies, which Shop.org didn’t name, reported scaling back hiring and their increasingly expensive search marketing programs, which include paying for top billing in the results consumers see for their Web searches. Online merchants whose business is beating expectations will likely fuel much of the e-commerce investments in the coming months, the [...]

Orginal post by dhiram

No comments