Top Story

• Office Depot site redesign improves conversions
  Office Depot redesigned its Web site in April and has since seen an increase in conversions. The company is still making adjustments, but improved search functionality is among the new features. MediaPost Communications/Marketing Daily (9/25)

	5 Web Strategies for Gaining Market Share in a Rough & Tumble Economy In this time of conspicuous non-consumption, this report includes an overview of the state of ecommerce, then delves into five strategies for maintaining and gaining market share during this tough economy. Highlights include 12 tables and charts from the e-tailing group's 8th Annual Merchant Survey, plus 44 best-in-class website and email examples. Download the report.

Online Retail Trends

• How are retailers promoting their social-media pages?
  Many of the top online retailers have a Twitter or Facebook presence, but not all of them are promoting their social-media sites via e-mail. They are, however, promoting store-locator pages in promotional e-mails. eMarketer (9/28)

• Online grocery shopping fails to click with U.K. adults
  About 45% of British adults surveyed said they do not see the point of online grocery shopping, according to a recent survey from Mintel. The poll found that 11% of U.K. shoppers regularly buy their food online, while 35% do so occasionally. Most respondents said they like to see, touch and smell produce, while many are concerned with use-by dates. Retail Week (U.K.) (9/25)

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New Media & Technology

• Mobile coupons get customers to work for you
  Common Grounds Coffee House in Carbondale, Ill., is using mobile coupons as a way to get customers through their doors. Among the key elements of such coupon marketing is to have people forward the discount to friends, the owner says, noting, "They're doing all of the marketing legwork for us." Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale, Herrin, Murphysboro) (9/27)

• How to make a video go viral
  Making a promotional video is a cheap and easy marketing tool, but getting it to go viral is difficult. Wall Street Journal reporter Raymund Flandez offers three tips on getting people talking about your business video: Determine what message resonates with your audience, sponsor a video competition, and promote it on social-networking and clip-sharing sites. The Wall Street Journal (tiered subscription model) (9/25)

Live Chat Research Report: 58% of shoppers say they are more likely to purchase from websites that include live chat. Of those who've used live chat before, 72% say it influences them to buy. Packed with statistics like these, this new report includes 6 sections, 15 pages, 20 figures, and 5 critical conclusions every online business needs to know. Download now.

Hot Topics

Top five news stories selected by Shop.org SmartBrief readers in the past week.

• 6 things online retailers are doing right (Shop.org Blog)

• What Best Buy learned about negativity (Multichannel Merchant)

• Macy's CEO discusses "multichannel integration" (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

• How Gilt Groupe is innovating (Shop.org Blog)

• How have shopping habits of moms, teens changed? (Shop.org Blog)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

Companies in the News

• EBay breaks out m-commerce sales
  EBay's mobile commerce sales have reached $380 million so far in 2009. "There's no question m-commerce has arrived," said Steve Yankovich, vice president of platform business solutions and mobile at eBay. "We're changing the way people participate in commerce. If you are a retailer today and you're not offering the customer the ability to participate in commerce whenever and wherever they want and another retailer does, you're going to have a problem." InternetRetailer.com (9/25)

• Questions surround Amazon's holiday plans for Kindle
  While many say electronic book readers will be brisk sellers this holiday season, questions have arisen about Amazon's Kindle. Analysts and industry observers do not expect Amazon to launch a new version of the Kindle, but there is a chance that Amazon may open its e-reader up to third-party applications. NYTimes.com/Bits blog (9/25)

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Featured Content

Interactive Advertising

• More marketers using text mining to assess brand buzz
  Domino's, Cisco, Hormel and Microsoft are among an increasing number of top marketers using automated text mining to track virtual buzz about their products or company profiles. However, such automated tools have a mixed record of accuracy and can lead a brand astray if they're not calibrated correctly, according to this article. Adweek (9/28)

Shop.org Spotlight

• Scott Silverman reflects on the Shop.org Summit
  With general attendance up 9% and retailer attendance rising 16%, Shop.org's executive director reflects on the highlights of the Shop.org Summit. Silverman also highlights the contributions of individual team members who made this year's event the largest in Shop.org history. Read more.

• Shop.org SmartStat: Sept. 28, 2009
  Nearly three-fourths of Black Friday shoppers in 2008 said they used e-mails from merchants or stores to plan their shopping trips. Source: Shop.org

• What shoppers think about mobile applications
  While it's still early in the game for mobile commerce, a recent survey conducted by BIGresearch for Shop.org found that more than two-thirds of Americans regularly use a mobile phone or device. In a recent blog post, Shop.org's Fiona Swerdlow outlines survey findings of how shoppers feel about mobile shopping alerts and what features most resonate with mobile users. Read more.

SmartQuote

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." --Charles Dickens, English novelist