The BBC reminds us that writing compelling material starts with the headline. How’s this one for an example:
Great tits cope well with warming
That headline is currently the most read article on the BBC website. It’s captured so much attention that it’s already more read than articles many months older.
You can learn more about effective headlines here or in the magazine rack at the end of your local grocers checkout.
Add Your CommentsA ComScore report indicates that 2005 was another good year for e-commerce holiday spending. From November 1 to December 25, $18.1 billion changed hands in the US (not including travel or auctions), a 25% increase over 2004.
Some notables:
- the sale of gift certificates was up 19%
- top items include computer hardware, apparel & accessories, consumer electronics, books, toys & videogames, pet food (ok, kidding)
- top 10 vendors include eBay (non-auctions), Amazon, Wal-Mart, Apple Computer, Target, Dell, ToysRUs, Overstock.com, Best Buy, Circuit City
In other e-commerce news, L.L. Bean credits free shipping as the driver for record sales this year. As a company spokesperson told the Times, “free shipping clearly shifted traffic from our call centers to the Web.”
Yep - it’s official. Big banks move slowly. Nevertheless, TD has finally released a merchant solution for small businesses wishing to accept credit cards online. I spoke with a TD merchant exec this morning who notified me that her employer “has now realized there is a big market in dealing with E-Commerce.”
Well…better late then never. 
You can find out more about TD’s online merchant and storefront solutions here. Pricing starts at $99 for setup, $49 per month and $0.25 per transaction.
Other popular choices for Canadian companies include:
- Moneris (a BMO / Royal Bank company)
- Beanstream (a Simply Accounting partner)
- Paypal
- PSIgate
Personally, I’m using Paypal now because of its flexibility and lack of setup and monthly charges. However, if you’re a bigger company with a lot of transactions, I would think the Moneris or TD solutions are your best choice. Having it all run through your current bank account will certainly make your bookkeepers life easier.
Update: Just noticed that Beanstream is powering TD’s solutions as well.
ACNielson says that one-tenth of the world’s population, or 627 million people, are shopping online. Even more amazing, of those, 325 million have shopped online in the last month.
…Wow!
Not surprisingly, Europe and North America have the highest incidence of online shoppers, with Germany, Austria and the UK topping the list, with at least 95 percent of Internet users having purchased online. Here’s what people are buying:
- over 135 million people have purchased DVDs and/or video games;
- close to 135 million made plane reservations;
- over 128 million purchased articles of clothing/accessories/shoes;
- over 112 million paid for music downloads and/or CDs;
- over 106 million purchased electronic devices (including cameras, etc);
- close to 98 million bought computer hardware; and
- over 86 million consumers made hotel and/or tour bookings.
There’s been alot of rumors lately about a Google wallet of some type designed to compete with PayPal. Those are no longer rumors. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has confirmed work on an internet payment service. Details are still unclear but it seems the service is not going to offer person-to-person payments, which means it won’t compete directly with PayPal.
In a recent report, e-commerce company Ukash says that online retailers are missing crucial youth spend opportunities. It states that most retailers will not accept cash payment over the net and this is the reason why they could be losing out on ???2.5billion worth of potential sales.
If you count youth as one of your customers, the findings of this report are worth considering.
Business Week talks about how Baby Bandolier, a small company that makes baby accessories, has benefited from blogs.
Within a day of one of Baby Bandolier’s products appearing on gadget blog Gizmodo, traffic to their website increased dramatically and they sold nearly 60 pieces of the featured product within the next 24 hours, when they had been averaging about 100 per month.”
The Vancouver Sun says that “despite recent hype and the buzz about e-ordering, e-billing and e-payment, Canadian businesses are looking to five years from now for significant adoption of electronic commerce.”
Read the entire article (subscription required)
Here is some great advice from ISEBD about Internet Marketing:
“In reality, you need much more than merely getting clicks to make a profit, especially as competitive pressure builds up. As a minimum, you will need (a) good website design and information architecture, (b) reliable, safe, and easy-to-use ecommerce, (c) responsive support and (d) not just clicks, but highly qualified leads to load into your sales pipeline.“
According to a recent report from CyberSource, the more payment methods offered by e-commerce Web sites in North America, the higher the sales conversion.
