E-Commerce Blog

As the economy continues to decline, retailers are fighting a fierce battle for a share of the consumer’s wallet. Every customer counts, but the loyal customers are particularly valuable, especially when your competitor is just a click away. The Web gives consumers access to far more options than were available in pre-Internet days, but even with that explosion of choices, consumers don’t pick a different vendor every time they make a purchase. They often don’t pick the cheapest source either. That is, they have preferred merchants.

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To Keep Customers Coming Back, Get Personal

“Metamarketing” may not exist in Merriam-Webster’s files, but for a visual definition, all one has to do is check out the latest Apple ads that are all about — the latest Microsoft ads. If you’re a fan of the “I’m a PC, and I’m a Mac” ads featuring actor/writer John Hodgman as the Microsoft whipping boy and actor Justin Long as the epitome of Apple coolness, then you may have been waiting for this latest shot across Microsoft’s bow from Steve Jobs ever since the world’s largest software company pulled its expensive Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercials out of network rotation.

Apple’s New Ads Ridicule Microsoft’s New Ads

An independent software development company claims to have statistics showing that one out of three new enterprise PCs purchased are running Windows XP, not Windows Vista. The numbers from Devil Mountain Software, based on a study of more than 3,000 machines, found that enterprises are purchasing new machines with Vista pre-installed and downgrading them to Windows XP. The data, compiled by Craig Barth, chief technology officer at Devil Mountain, was culled from information provided by the company’s exo.performance.network project.

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Metrics Mavens: Vista Gets Dumped From One-Third of New Enterprise PCs

By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission has sharply rebuked Comcast for its network management practices. It found not only that Comcast’s practices were invasive, but also that the company was likely motivated by anticompetitive issues. “The Commission found that Comcast monitors its customers’ connections using deep packet inspection and then determines how it will route some connections based not on their destinations but on their contents,” said the FCC in a statement.

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FCC Gives Comcast a Good Scolding

One best practice forward-looking companies have adopted is being proactive with online conversations that criticize, question — or hopefully compliment — a company’s products or services. Not enough companies do this, of course, and of those that do, most do it more out of curiosity than anything else, said Kingsley Jegan Joseph, senior product manager of Successforce.com. Of those small percentage of companies that actively monitor the blogosphere for mention of their products and services, real value-add can be had by contributing to the conversation.

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Customer Conversations: Approach With Care