Security services firm ZScaler has recently released its report “State of the Web – A View from the End User’s Perspective.” The Zscaler report covers the fourth quarter of 2009, which as we all know is when most retail purchases are made. According to Zscaler, as a security services company they are in a unique position to observe millions of internet users across the globe.
Looking at the top 10 shopping sites, ShopLocal.com was the second most popular shopping website next to Amazon.com! Not surprising, Amazon.com being a large online retailer claimed 3.63% of the total retail traffic. In a close second is ShopLocal.com with 2.90% of the total retail traffic.
Looking at the numbers observed by Zscaler, it’s no wonder that ShopLocal.com recently won two Website of the Year awards for Best Price Comparison Website and Most Popular Shopping Site.
They say actions speak louder than words and shoppers have spoken — they prefer to shop online using ShopLocal.com.
Download the free report from Zscaler here.
If you’re looking for additional information, Sebastian Rupley has more info about the report on GigaOM.
So a few weeks ago within ShopLocal.com, a key switch was made to the method that most users of the site browse the weekly ads. The traditional HTML powered weekly ad experience was replaced with a CircularCentral powered experience. Whenever a drastic change is made to a core feature of a web site, there is always some real risk associated with user adoption and usage.
Here is the new CircularCentral based weekly ad viewer that is front and center within ShopLocal.com
Well the votes are in. Users are making their voices heard loud in clear, in terms of page views per visit (which is really a measure of content consumption). On average over a 25 day period (1/1/2010 – 1/25/2010), the users of the new CircularCentral weekly ad experience showed a lift of 160% in the number of pages views per visit.
Wow. For a publisher site (such as ShopLocal.com) that means real money. Every time a publisher can increase the number of page views that users create, that in turns creates more display ad inventory. Even if the inventory becomes remnant and monetized via ad network backfill, this is extra money in the pocket of the publisher (be it at a lower CPM that direct sold inventory).
And from a user perspective, it’s a win as well. Essentially what this change in weekly ad viewers did was to tear down barriers so as to make viewing and interacting with the weekly ads easier, faster and an overall richer user experience. Those are qualities that users will always reward you for, typically in terms of using and engaging with your product more.
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
The results are so clear - uses interact and consume more content within the new CircularCentral view - at an increased rate of 160%
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
The much overdue and heavily request multi-retailer API (the team calls it the ShopLocal Cross Retailer API or SCRAPI for short) is finally complete and live. Application development partners Spreezio and ReachEverywhere (more to come on what both of these firms are up to) played a key role in shaping and being alpha and beta release users of SCRAPI.
Basically what this new REST based web service that returns XML data allows is access to every last stitch of content that is currently displayed on ShopLocal.com. Or as one developer said, “its basically ShopLocal.com in a box”. This new API includes access to the following types of content:
- Circulars / FSIs / Catalogs / Weekly Ads (all localized)
- Run Of Press (ROP) Ads (all localized)
- eCommerce or Online Offers
- Retailer Store Locations
SCRAPI unleashes a serious punch of possibilities and access to the entire ShopLocal database
Within SCRAPI, all of the above content is normalized and fully loaded with rich meta data which allows for the following types of browsing and searching methods to take place, all via the powerful Endeca Site Search Engine:
- Guided navigation with attribute/filter refinements
- Browse by category or brand or retailer or location
- Keyword search with all the bells and whistles that great search engines utilize such as stemming, plurals, thesaurus, search re-directs, etc
- Popularity based result set rankings along with a ton of other sort orders
So for a quick recap, here is a list of all of the currently available ShopLocal API’s that trusted partners can be granted access to:
- SmartDelivery API – SDAPI – This is by far the most used, mature and deep API that ShopLocal offers. It is currently powering many different and diverse use cases across a plethora of digital mediums. It is limited however to only one retailer’s circular/FSI data set at a time.
- SmartCircular API – SCAPI – This is an API that offers that was built specifically to enable the building of an online circular web site. It is also limited however to only one retailer’s circular/FSI data set at a time.
- SmartBrand API – SBAPI – This is an API that is all about enabling cross-retailer searching and browsing for a pre-selected list of one or more brands/manufactures.
- ShopLocal Cross-Retailer API – SCRAPI – This API allows for all retailers content of any type to be browsed and searched across.
- ShopLocal API – SLAPI – This is a somewhat older API that offers access to a limited set of content which includes some premade ROP or FSI ad viewer widgets (JSON type HTML widget) and some ROP and FSI keyword search capabilities.
- Local Offer Management System API – LOMS API – This is the API that sits behind the new, very flexible local offer management system which allows advertisers (such as local Pepsi Bottlers or Lexus Tier 1) to retrieve product, store/dealer, offer or retailer data in a systematic way.
And yes, it’s somewhat confusing and there is tons of overlap between the different, poorly named APIs. The long terms vision is to fold all of these into one super-powerful global API that allows a user to access any type of content from any content silo. One day…
ShopLocal CEO, Vikram Sharma, was recently featured as part of a CBS Chicago segment about retail holiday sales. A story for all of the holiday shopping procrastinators out there. CBS2 reporter, Dorothy Tucker takes a look at 2009’s holiday shopping season and retailer discounts.
Click here to watch the CBS video.
“Across the board, the deals are not gonna be that strong,” said Vikram Sharma, CEO of Shoplocal.com, a website that features local store ads and analyzes shopping trends.
Sharma says the deals won’t be as deep this year because retailers don’t have as much merchandise to sell.
“Inventories are much tighter because they’ve been able to plan for a leaner shopping season,” Sharma said. “So they’re offering deals, but they’re 20, 30, 40 percent deals.”
Sharma says instead of waiting until a few days before Christmas to promote deep discounts, this year, stores like Sears took a different approach by offering one-day deals.
Tucker’s advice “if you see something… grab it. The chances of it being cheaper on Christmas Eve are slim. In fact, with less stock on the shelves, if you wait, that perfect gift could be gone.”
You can find the full website article (with video) here.
SHOPLOCAL.COM WINS TWO WEBSITE OF THE YEAR AWARDS: BEST AND MOST POPULAR SHOPPING COMPARISON SITE
Chicago, IL (December 21, 2009) — ShopLocal™, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) and the leader in multi-channel marketing services, has won two Website of the Year awards for its shopping and price comparison website, ShopLocal.com.
The Website of the Year awards (http://www.websiteoftheyear.us) have been organized by global online market research company MetrixLab since 2004, and they are the largest annual people’s choice website honors. Winners in other categories included Facebook, YouTube, PayPal and MapQuest.
ShopLocal.com provides consumers with fresh weekly store deals from the nation’s largest retailers including Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, CVS and Sears.The website beat out a number of major competitors to win in the shopping comparison website category. ShopLocal.com took home both the Best Website of the Year – provided to the website with the highest average score on content, user experience and design – and Most Popular Website, given to the website with the highest number of votes.
“We’re honored to be the people’s choice,” says ShopLocal CEO Vikram Sharma. “Now more than ever shoppers are using the web to search for deals, and we’re delighted that they find great value at ShopLocal.com.”
About ShopLocal
ShopLocal (www.AboutShopLocal.com), leader in multi-channel marketing services, offers a complete suite of innovative digital solutions that connect advertisers and consumers – online and in-store. ShopLocal’s industry-leading SmartProduct business solutions (SmartCircular, SmartCatalog and SmartDelivery) enable more than one hundred of the nation’s top retailers, including Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, CVS, Albertsons and Sears, to deliver highly interactive, targeted and localized promotions to shoppers through online circulars, display advertising, search, social media, digital out of home and mobile. ShopLocal is the retail division of PointRoll, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gannett Company.
About MetrixLab
MetrixLab is a global Online Market Research company that specializes in the areas of New Product Development, Brand Communication, E-Business Performance and Satisfaction Research. Over the past nine years MetrixLab has grown to be one of Europe’s leading online market research companies with offices in Rotterdam, London, Paris, Hamburg and Madrid.
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