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eCommerce - Monday, September 28, 2009

When eCommerce, Mobile & Social Collide

We talked with one eCommerce vendor at Shop.org's annual event in Las Vegas who said that one of his clients (Steve Madden Shoes) was doing roughly 25% of their sales via their iPhone apps. Granted, such shoes appeal to the same demographic that needs an iPhone but still that's a very high number. Also eBay's CEO chimed in saying that eBay users shopping and bidding via iPhone have generated more than $400M in sales for the online marketplace since its iPhone and iPod touch application first launched in mid-2008 (in fact one consumer purchased a $350K Lamborghini from their iPhone.)

Such stories have the eCommerce sector on edge. For the past few years they have been able to get by making a number of major site tweaks each year and then to lock down code for the holiday season. But this year challenges are compounded by the fact that sites need a killer mobile strategy and they need to tap into Facebook and Twitter.

Given all these changes, its going to be a challenging period for eCommerce. The good news is that for those that have brick and mortar counter-parts, the eCommerce divisions are generally stealing the show.

This video at Shop.org was meant to wake up the audience to social media. But it seems everyone there was already dialed-in.