Shop Talk
Retailers, consumers and prices
from MediaFile:
Mobile sales are helping eBay, but is it enough?
eBay said Wednesday that the value of goods sold in the U.S. through its mobile applications surged 133% to $100 million during the month before Christmas. Globally, the growth was even stronger: Up 166% to $230 million worth of goods.
That is good news from one angle. eBay is having success using mobile devices to sell goods during the busiest retailing period of the year. But it obscures another fact: Mobile sales may be a growing market, but it's a tiny portion of eBay's overall sales. And overall sales don't appear to be growing nearly as fast.
eBay's Gross Merchandise Volume (the total value of all goods sold through eBay) was $48.3 billion in 2009, excluding car sales, and that figure is likely to top $50 billion in 2010. The $230 million GMV of mobile sales is equal to only 0.5% of eBay's total GMV last year.
Put another way, the volume of goods sold through mobile devices during the holiday season is about 6 percent of the average volume of goods sold each month on eBay.
Overall, eBay's holiday business grew but not as fast as other online retailers. According to ChannelAdvisor, a software company working with online retailers, eBay's holiday business increased 11% during the busy Thanksgiving weekend, lagging the 68% growth rate for Amazon and the overall e-commerce growth rate of 27%.
eBay has a chance to use the growing popularity of its mobile apps to boost that growth rate in coming years. But if it wants to grow as fast as the rest of the e-commerce industry does during the Christmas season, it needs to find some additional incentives.
from MediaFile:
Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference LIVE BLOG
Apple is expected to announce a fix for the iPhone 4's reception problems, rather than a recall, at a surprise press conference on the device on Friday. The event, which comes only days before Apple reports its quarterly results, may find the company offering hardware or software tweaks, ranging from a rubber bumper case to something more drastic. Or perhaps no fix at all.
Reuters is live at the event, and we are hosting a live blog with updates as fast as we get them. Stay tuned for more, and please post your comments about Apple's decisions.
Check Out Line: Borders launches e-bookstore … finally
Check out Borders Group finally launching its e-bookstore.
The No. 2 U.S. bookstore chain’s electronic bookstore comes nine months after rival Barnes & Noble debuted its Nook e-reader and three months after Apple introduced its popular iPad tablet computer, allowing both companies, and Amazon.com, which sells the Kindle e-reader, to get a head start.
No worries, says Borders, which saw sales at its namesake superstores open at least a year and on its website fall 11.4 percent in the first quarter.
“We’ll take market share just by turning it on,” said Mike Edwards, president of Borders Inc, the company’s main operating business.
Edwards said Borders had data and email addresses for the 38 million customers in its loyalty program and about 700 stores at which to promote its virtual bookstore, which will help it catch up. The company’s goal is to secure a 17 percent share of the e-book market by July 2011.
“A lot of people have said, ‘You’re kind of late to the game,’ and I’m saying, ‘the game actually just started,’” Edwards said.
However, larger rival Barnes & Noble recently said it has already won 20 percent of the U.S. e-books market since launching Nook, exceeding its share of the physical book market.
World Cup is no March Madness in sapping productivity
It may be the World Cup, but when it comes to sapping productivity in the United States the global soccer tournament still has a thing or two to learn from March Madness and the National Football League.
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which often measures lost workplace productivity, said many U.S. fans will tune in for the quadrennial soccer tournament, which kicks off Friday in South Africa, but the event still trails the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, dubbed March Madness, and other events.
“Soccer simply has not caught on with the majority of American sports fans, Challenger CEO John Challenger said in a statement.
“However, the World Cup is a unique event and could attract a lot of viewers who might not typically go out of the way to watch a match,” he added. “Even as the sport grows in popularity, though, it will have far less of an impact on workplace productivity than the March Madness basketball tournament, for example.”
In Challenger’s nonscientific, nonbinding ranking of sporting events with the most potential to affect workplace productivity, the World Cup ranked No. 4:
No. 1 — NCAA men’s basketball tournament (aka March Madness): Widespread office tournament pools and the fact that about half of the first 32 games are played during working hours makes this “the granddaddy of productivity sappers,” the Challenger firm said. Proof of that was the use of the ”Boss Button,” which instantly hides the webcast behind a fake spreadsheet, 3.3 million times this year.
No. 2 — NFL fantasy football: Millions of fantasy football participants manage their teams from their office. Talk about drafts and trades adds up over the 17-week season, the firms said.
No need for a man purse, wear an iPad vest instead!
You’ve got the hottest new gadget in town. Now where do you put it? Inside an iPAD-compatible vest, of course. Ketchum, Idaho-based Scottevest, which debuted a line of clothing in 2005 that was compatible with the smaller iPod, has introduced “outerwear” with a large interior pocket that holds Apple‘s latest device securely without damaging the screen.
“If you’re going to carry it around all the time, you don’t want to carry it in a purse,” said Chief Executive and Founder Scott Jordan. “I don’t think men want to carry around a purse.”
The jackets and vests, which cost about $100 and are based on the humble yet practical fly-fisherman’s vest, can also tote Kindles, magazines, or legal pads. Making apparel compatible with technology is nothing new. In 2005, companies like Scottevest and Kenpo in New York introduced jackets that hid unsightly iPod wires and allowed users to access the device’s controls.
Despite what Jordan called a $1 billion market for iPod accessories, he saw greater opportunity in travel goods, where travelers need extra pockets for books, cameras and other items.
Scottevest, which sells mostly online but also supplies the military and some corporations like Google and Microsoft (executives like to put their logos on the vests, Jordan says) is coming out with a “carry-on coat” that zips up into a carry-on bag this fall, and a full women’s line in the spring.
The company, whose sales are fast approaching $10 million, also has found an unlikely fan base apart from travelers and gadget hounds. “Poker players love our stuff. They have chips and iPods and gum and Visine,” said Jordan. “It’s bizarre. They gravitated to us without us even knowing about it.”
(Photo courtesy of Scottevest)
Better insulate the pocket. I gave up carrying my PDA’s in my pocket after the batteries did not seem to like body heat.
Check Out Line: Duke wins, but there’s another bracket to fill
Check out a different kind of tournament bracket still underway.
The Duke Blue Devils may have won yet another college basketball title Monday night, but consumers can still make their “Sweet 16″ picks in Consumerist.com’s annual “Worst Company in America” tournament, which runs through April 26.
In its fifth year, the website, owned by Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, lets consumers vote for their least favorite companies in matchups much like the NCAA tournament. Starting with 32 “teams,” the tournament pairs companies in votes in which the “winner” (think about it, in a worst company vote you want to lose) advances to face the next competitor.
In the first round this year, Bank of America beat Citibank, GM beat Toyota and in an “upset” Cash4Gold beat defending “champion” AIG. Other companies that advanced included Walmart, Ticketmaster, United Airlines, Best Buy, Apple and Comcast, which has lost in the title game the last two years.
In addition to AIG, past winners have included Halliburton, Recording Industry Association of America and Countrywide. In last year’s final, AIG whipped Comcast 3,528 to 1,968 as voters took their frustration over the recession out on a company that was bailed out by the U.S. government.
“They were just constantly in the headlines,” Consumerist.com co-managing editor Ben Popken said of AIG. “They became a real focal point for what went wrong with the economy.”
Consumers nominate companies to compete in the annual tournament, which was created as a tongue-in-cheek way for shoppers to “bite back” using social media and the Internet, according to Consumerist.com. To be considered for inclusion the website now requires that companies must regularly provide products or services to consumers.
Window shopping on the iPad, brought to you by eBay
Shopping in front of a computer or small hand-held device got you down? EBay says it has the answer with its new iPad app, completely redesigned for ultimate browsing on Apple‘s hippest new tablet.
The app has already been downloaded “tens of thousands” of times since the launch of the iPad on Saturday, said eBay’s vice president of mobile, Steven Yankovich. Currently, eBay is No 11 in the list of free iPad apps, he said.
The app allows shoppers to see high-resolution images of their favorite products, even in thumbnails, and an easy-to-navigate two screen system simplifies the buying process.
EBay expects to move some $1.5 billion in gross merchandise volume this year through mobile (it does not break out the percentage it makes from these transactions).
Reengineering its iPhone app for the iPad is worth it, say executives, given the potential footprint of the new device.
“I believe the 8 million to 10 million (unit) number for the year,” said Yankovich.
Although some analysts have predicted sales of as much as 10 million devices, others believe Apple will sell half that amount in 2010.
from MediaFile:
And the first iPad goes to…
...this guy in the hat. Sitting among Saturday strollers on New York's Fifth Ave. He's one of the 10 or so sitting in front of the Apple Store more than 18 hours before it will open for the first day of iPad sales. Oops, it looks like the dot.com ad on his hat is not the only surprise of the day. Sorry MediaFile readers, we only report the news. Sorry it wasn't the cute kid on the left.
Check out out live blog from the iPad launch today, which includes reports from Apple stores and a teardown of the tablet computer.
But this is not unusual for this store. People love to wait in line for these devices. This picture is from the same store in 2007. Is that the same guy? And yes, that a human in a bear suit.
Check Out Line: Best Buy, Apple to sell iPads on Saturday
Check out how the long wait for the iPad is nearing its end.
Best Buy and Apple’s own stores will begin selling the much-hyped iPad tablet computer on Saturday morning.
Apple said on Monday that versions of the device with Wi-Fi wireless Internet capabilities will be available in all 221 U.S. Apple retail stores and most Best Buy stores, for prices ranging from $499 to $699. Models using 3G wireless systems will hit stores in late April.
Not that the roll out of the iPad, Apple’s biggest new product launch since the iPhone in 2007, has been without hiccups – on Sunday, Apple said recent orders of the iPads will only be shipped beginning April 12.
Also in the basket:
Check Out Line: Want growth? Buy up.
Check Out retail strategy for growth.
A list of the top 10 companies from a “Hot 100 Retailers list” compiled by Planet Retail for the National Retail Federation showed that while a few companies grew organically, most grew as a result of a merger or acquisition.
Topping the list of companies that grew through a deal was DineEquity, which bought Applebee’s last year.
Others in that category include Susser Holdings after its purchase of Town & Country Food Stores and Village Market grocery stores, as well as the combination of fast food chains Wendy’s and Arby’s into Wendy’s/Arby’s.
Of the companies that grew on their own, Los Angeles-based American Apparel was “tops,” with revenue growth of 57.6 percent, the list showed.
Another not-so-surprising name in the top 10 was Apple, known for its iPod, Mac computer and one of the latest favorites in the market — the iPhone. “Still opening new locations, Apple also uses its stores as a way to build brand awareness,” according to the survey.
Some retailers actually managed to maintain growth, averaging a 10.8 percent compound annual growth rate, the list showed. Those on the growth chart include GameStop, Urban Outfitters, Best Buy and J. Crew to name a few.
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