The new EU Cookie Law will be coming into effect on the 26th May 2012 and we’ve had a number of clients asking what they should be doing to ensure they are complying with the new rules.

Although the cookie law came in last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided to give websites a year to implement the rules - the deadline being the 26 May 2012.  If your website does not comply with the new law by this date you could be fined upto £500,000.

However there is still a lot of confusion as to how the rules should be interpreted and what do websites need to do to comply. As a result a lot of the industry has taken a ‘wait and see’ approach, however with the deadline now approaching it is important that we do something, doing nothing is not an option.

Your website will probably use cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers downloaded on to a device when the user accesses certain websites. Usually they are used to monitor visitor numbers and visitor  behaviours as they trawl through your site eg like Google Analytics. They may also be used for marketing purposes to display relevant adverts to visitors.  Also if its an ecommerce website cookies will be used as part of the shopping solution. 

Previously the rules required websites to tell visitors about cookies they used and advised them how to ‘opt out’ and most companies complied by adding this information to their Privacy Policy, however, now, according to the new rules, this is not enough.

Over the next few days Net Digital will be offering you a solution to the new EU Cookie Law, so that you are able to notify your visitors that Cookies are being used.  We will also provide you with example wording for your Privacy Policy. 

Further reading can be found here :- http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx 


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According to recent figures from IMRG, UK Shoppers spent £5.8bn online in March, a rise of 14% compared to the same time last year and of 9% compared to the previous month, February 2012.

Key driving forces for March’s strong performance was helped by Mothering Sunday, with the gifts sector seeing a 48% increase compared to the same month last year with online shoppers buying presents for Mum as well as the health & beauty sector seeing an increase of 19% compared to last month and 22% year on year.

As more and more of us are using tablets, smartphones etc, we are using these mobile devices for our online shopping – as a result of this mobile commerce has seen rapid growth – an amazing 254% up on March 2011.  This means m-commerce is averaging 300% year on year growth for Q1 2012.

Online sales are continuing to outperform the high street, with overall online sales hitting a growth increase of 13% year-on-year during the first quarter of 2012.

In summary

• Online Shoppers spent £5.8 billion throughout March; representing a year-on-year increase of 14% and 9% increase on February
• 13% growth in 1st quarter compared to 1st quarter 2011 representing online sales of £17 billion
• Mothering Sunday online sales helped to boost the gift sector as well as health & beauty sector
• Sales via mobile devices sees growth of 254% compared to last year



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Internet, mail order and telephone sales rose by 18.5% in December compared to Dec last year and both John Lewis and M & S reporting a huge increase in online spend from their websites, with ecommerce sales rising by more than 27% and 22% respectively.

Taking just 5 of Net Digital’s ecommerce websites, Xmas sales increased by an average of 25%.

Already a survey carried out in Dec 2011 has reported that ecommerce sales this Dec 2012 will be between 18% and 22% higher than last year.  The data gained over the Dec 2011 period found that 26% of online shoppers said they would spend even more over the internet next December than they did this year.  Although a decline was not expected, it was also not expecting the indication of growth to be so high. 

Ecommerce is going from strength to strength and with more people using Ipads, tablets and mobile phones to browse and make their online purchases.

Driving factors encouraging ecommerce purchases were :-

 - low-cost delivery options 57%
 - money-saving offers 48%
 - improved payment options 46%
 - improved stock availability 45%

Talk to us today to discuss your Ecommerce plans for 2012.

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Marketing Banners are not just for the home page – are there key areas in your web site where your marketing banners can entice your consumers with more bargains, services and/or products?

Promotional Codes, buy 1 get 1 free, discounts on orders over, Gift Vouchers etc – at this time of year everyone wants a bargain – introduce discounts and promotional codes to encourage spend

Refer a friend and receive % off your next order! An excellent way to encourage new customers to your web site

Free Shipping goes down a treat at Christmas time! 

What other ways can you increase your average order value – upsells and related products see to be the norm but what about impulse buy at checkout?

Can you make the whole buying process easier?  Is it as fast as it could be? What is your analytics telling you?  What is your conversion rate? Would a single page checkout be beneficial?

What about a google adwords campaign for a particular product or a particular service

Google Shopping Feed – get your products to the top of google! Cost effectively!

Email marketing campaign – its not just for promoting your news, new products and services – have you thought about sending your Christmas Card via email this year.  Show your customers how valued they are and include a promotional code to encourage consumer spend either now or in the new year.

10 Quick Tips for last minute online Xmas Marketing ideas for both B2B and B2C markets. 

Talk to us today.

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IMRG anticipate that this Christmas will be the year that Mobile Commerce really breaks through and their research has found that 35% of shoppers plan to make their purchases this way this year, however currently only 4.8% of retailers have optimised their websites for mobile commerce.

The survey also found that tablets were also a major driving force in the growth of mobile commerce.  Recent research by WorldPay found that 39% of smartphone shoppers were frustrated by the length of the buying process via their mobile and 38% were irritated by the amount of information that needed to be entered.

With Mobile commerce on the increase have you considered a mobile version of your website?

Talk to us today to discuss how your website can be ready for the mobile market.

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IMRG anticipate that this Christmas will be the year that Mobile Commerce really breaks through and their research has found that 35% of shoppers plan to make their purchases this way this year.

Online retailers are starting their Christmas push with well named brands such as John Lewis and Amazon starting their Christmas advertising campaigns.  Amazon predicts that Monday December 5 at 9pm online UK Christmas shopping will peak.  The online retailer has used its own previous experience to predict ‘Cyber Monday’ will fall on this date.

Managing Director of Amazon.co.uk, Christopher North says: “In recent years, the first Monday in December has been Amazon.co.uk’s busiest day, with orders for over 2.3m items being placed on Monday 6th December last year..... Mondays remain the busiest shopping day in the run up to Christmas, but every day of that week will see high sales as more and more people have immediate access to shop online via home broadband and, increasingly, mobile devices.”

Are you ready for Christmas?  Talk to us today to discuss your Christmas Email Marketing Campaigns, Christmas promotions and how your web site can take advantage of the Christmas spend.
 

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This is due to a number of factors of which include increasing use of fraud detection software, chip and pin technology, the use of MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa by online retailers, as well as increasing numbers of online retailers implementing the cardholder data protection processes required of them through the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

At Net Digital we recommend Secure Hosting & UPG for credit card processing.  For the processing & storage of card information they have been audited and validated by Qualified Security Assessors to the highest possible standard available under the PCI DSS scheme.

Also at Net Digital we offer PCI Compliant Website hosting in our secure UK, London Docklands data centre. This business critical service is perfect for eCommerce clients who utilise single page checkouts in their ecommerce websites providing the necessary security to comply with SecurityMetrics security scans and enables you to display compliance logos on your websites to give customers that extra level of trust.

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Go to PCI Compliant Hosting for further information.

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Net Digital - experts in Web Design, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing.

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The most popular online purchase in 2011 at 46% of all Internet users was clothes and sporting goods, with films/music coming in 2nd at 40%.

The Office for National Statistics - Internet Access - Households and Individuals, 2011 report showed that those aged 65 and over were the only age group not to report clothes/sporting goods as the most popular purchase. Instead, 29 per cent of Internet users in this age group favoured the online purchase of ‘other travel arrangements’ which includes flights, car hire and other transport tickets. Holiday accommodation was also popular, with over a quarter (26 per cent) of this group using the Internet to book this.

Interestingly there have been big changes to the way that people connect to the Internet now with almost half of all Internet users in 2011 connecting to the Internet by way of mobile phone while away from the home or office.

There were 17.6 million mobile phone Internet users in 2011, representing 45 per cent of Internet users, compared to 8.5 million users (23 per cent) in 2009.

A huge 91% of all 16 to 24 year old Internet users said they took part in social networking on websites such as Facebook or Twitter, interestingly, this was not an activity limited to the younger age groups, with almost 18% of Internet users aged 65 and over saying that they too took part in social networking on websites.

31% of Internet users (over 12 million people) used the Internet to sell goods or services online, compared to 7.9 million, a growth of 21% from 2010.

Net Digital - experts in Web Design, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing.

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Mobile search volumes have increased by 216% year-on-year.

A recent study has found that in the 2nd quarter of 2011 the total retail search volumes has grown by 27% compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

The Director of British Retail Consortium, Stephen Robertson said:

"While the retail sector as a whole is going through a difficult period, the boom in online retail continues. The star performer is mobile, with the number of retail searches being carried out on smart phones and tablets more than trebling for this quarter compared with the same period last year. Consumers are always looking for more convenient ways to shop. Retailers are making m-commerce easier all the time by offering mobile optimised websites, apps and transactional mobile platforms.

"There's clear evidence of how the changing seasons affect what people search for online. Garden furniture and DIY are high on the list of top 10 retail searches. Searches for electricals - such as the iPad2 and kindle - are also common, probably as shoppers compare prices and look for deals."

Is your website mobile compatible?  Would you like to make your website more appealing to your marketplace who are now searching and shopping via their mobile?  Contact us on 0845 6171717 or email us today to discuss the mobile market.

Net Digital - experts in Web Design, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder recently said that his engineers are to launch “something awesome” and this is it apparently.

Skype (who have recently been acquired by Microsoft) says “The partnership with Facebook makes fantastic business sense for Skype and gives us an unprecedented opportunity to offer Skype's voice and video calling products to more than 750 million active users on Facebook.”  

The tie-up comes just one week after Google announced its social service called Google+ to a small invited group of users.

Net Digital - experts in Web Design, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing.

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Google have said they are keen to make use of the latest capabilities in browsers and that required support for HTML5 technology.

With effect from this date Google will only support modern browsers, those that are current and major prior releases of Chrome,  Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari which will be able to support the functions that Google offers.

It will no longer support Firefox 3.5, IE7, Safari 3 or previous versions of those browsers.

When a new browser version is released, Google will start support for that updated version and then stop support for the third-oldest version.

Venkat Panchapakesan, vice president of engineering at Google, wrote: "These new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds."

Net Digital - experts in Web Design, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing.

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The findings from the study showed that almost half of shoppers still prefer hitting the stores (42%), and that about a third (30%) are now happy shopping via their mobile phone (30%) with 28% preferring to shop from their PC or laptop.

The report predicts that growth in the mobile shopping market will be an estimated £1billion by end of 2011.

Is your website mobile compatible?

Would you like to make your website more appealing to your marketplace who are now shopping via their mobile?  With 16 million UK consumers now using their mobile for shopping it would make sense to harness this form of buying technology.

Contact us on 0845 6171717 or email us today to discuss the m-commerce market.

The report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PwC showed that the increase in Internet advertising beat the rest of the advertising market.

Social Media advertising grew by 200% last year and video advertising grew a massive 91% to £54m which was due mainly to the availability of faster broadband services.

IAB chief executive officer Guy Phillipson says: “The power of online to build brands is clearly reflected in the spectacular growth of display, thanks to the popularity of social media and video formats.”

The IAB expects online spending to continue to grow.

This new advertising regulation is to ensure the same high standards as in other media. It will cover:

Advertisers’ own marketing messages on their own websites, regardless of sector, type of businesses or size of organisation
and
Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under the advertiser’s control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The primary concern of the regulatory system is to ensure that all advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Is there any misleading information in your website or Internet marketing?  Now is the time to change any marketing communications to ensure you are compliant when the new regulations come in.

A bumper Christmas for online sales

According to recent research UK online shoppers spent a total of £2.8bn over Christmas with 44% of the UK's online population doing their shopping online over the Christmas period.