euroblaze | OXID e-Commerce User Blog

According to the Retailer Association of Germany (Handelsverband Deutschland), the 2010 e-Commerce market segmentation has been as seen below.

Translation for English readers below:

• Bücher = Books
• Spielwaren = Toys
• Sportartikel = Sports Products
• Bau- und Heimwerkerhandel = Construction and Home Improvement
• Haushaltswaren, Glas, Porzellan = Home Appliances, Glass and Porcelien
• Elektronische Erzeugnisse = Electrical Components (Guessing this is statistician-speak for computer components as well)
• Möbel, Einrichtungsgegenstände = Furniture & Decoration
• Bekleidung = Clothing / Fashion

According to the media research and consulting company BIA/Kelsey, social media advertising revenue will presumably increase by 300% compared with 2010 and hit the $8.3 billion mark in 2015. This would mean an annual growth rate of 31.6%. In this study, social media spending is defined as money spent on advertising formats across all social networks. Display ads, known from Facebook for example, will be the predominant ad format in 2015. Also non-display ads – for instance Tweets – will play a significant role accounting for about $600 million of the entire social network ad spending in 2015.

What this study is not taking into account, is the customer behaviour in 2015 and whether this increase in ad spending is going to bring the desired success to the ad spenders. It is also risky to assume, that the social media landscape and the role of Facebook will be the same in 4 years.

Source: Internet Retailer

According to the latest statistics, the e-commerce did much better last year than the classical stock market as a whole. As you can see in the graphic to the right, the Online Retail Index, which measures the growth of online shopping based on data collected from online shoppers, easily tripled the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which reflects the stock market. I am curious about how this proportions will develop in the end of 2011!

The local shopping startup Milo has recently been acquired by eBay – for 75 million dollars. Milo connects the worlds of online and offline stores by searching local store shelves in real-time to find the best prices and availability. The business concept of Milo is to show you what’s in-stock where, and tell you how much it costs at that very moment. Milo also allows insight into detailed product information and user reviews. In short, Milo makes it easy to access both online and offline shopping in one place.

For eBay, Milo represents just another way to get into the $917 billion market of online research to offline buying. And Forrester estimates that this will eventually reach $1.3 trillion and account for nearly 50% of total retail sales by 2013.

eBay plans to bring the inventories of its sellers to Milo. The company will also integrate Milo’s local product feeds into both its online marketplace and mobile applications. eBay’s barcode-scanning iPhone application RedLaser will also feature Milo local results.

According to a report from Germany-based payment processor Deutsche Card Services, part of the Deutsche Bank Group, women account for 58.9% of purchases, but men spend more and are more likely to pay with a credit card than women.

“Overall, online purchasing and payment has become more of an everyday occurrence for customers, who use the Internet more and more for buying household goods,” says Jens Mahlke, a member of the management board of Deutsche Card Services in introducing the company’s “E-Retail Report 2010.” The report is based on an analysis of 7.5 million online purchases processed by Deutsche Card Services between October 2008 and September 2009.