Results are already pouring in from yesterday’s Cyber Monday sales. While sales were expected to fall compared to last year, they actually grew 13.7%, a significant increase considering the current economy.
The report comes from Coremetrics Inc, a web analyst company based out of California. The report also indicated that people spent more money for online sales Monday, compared to Black Friday. (more…)
PayPal announced Wednesday at the PayPal X Innovate 2009 conference in San Francisco, that the company has developed a new global payment platform being dubbed PayPal X. The new software will provide new APIs, a new developer portal, and some introductory services pricing, designed to help web-developers take advantage of PayPal X to build small businesses by integrating PayPal easily into third-party applications.
Currently, consumers who use PayPal are directed off the current site or application they are on and transferred to PayPal’s actual site. But the developers want to engage customers directly within third-party applications so users won’t be transferred to PayPal’s site. Consumers who do not have a PayPal will be able to sign up for PayPal within the third-party application and begin making PayPal payments immediately from the third-party application. (more…)
Google has released yet another new feature that should help with online businesses. Earlier this week, Google announced a new Google Checkout feature, which allows users to enable a checkout button on the site to promote sales. Now, the Google Commerce Search tool will be useful for online businesses by improving product searches on their site, along with possibly increasing sales and reducing bounce rates. The search is almost identical to Google’s main search, but it’s geared specifically toward business websites. The idea is to help find products being sold. Google is expecting the tool to grow significantly in the new few weeks, as businesses prepare for the upcoming holiday season.
“Visitors spend an average of just eight seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website,” a Google rep said. “So having a good search tool is important for turning visitors into buyers.” (more…)
