Welcome to the new edition of “This week’s news”, a selection of links to interesting articles and news from the worlds of blogs, commerce and e-commerce.
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Pinterest, the popular and steadily growing visual bookmarking site, has an increasing impact on e-commerce sales. ReadWrite published a nice piece explaining in detail why it is worth to have an eye on Pinterest and its future development. Already 70 million users strong, the site now sends more people to e-commerce sites than Facebook. Also, an average shopper visiting an online shop coming from Pinterest spends on average twice the amount of money than a user referred to a shop via Facebook. Have a look at the original article to learn more about the startup’s rapid growth.
This week, Pinterest also announced a new approach to improve personal recommendations for existing and new users coming to the site: The company now tracks visits of people to websites that have embedded the Pinterest button to understand their fields of interests and personal preferences. This data is then analyzed and will lead to improved recommendations within Pinterest. It remains to be seen whether this potentially sensitive feature that is set to be launched within the next weeks will lead to any protests among users.
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A survey showed: At least in the U.S., shoppers like to receive coupons on their mobile phones from stores near their current location. But most merchants seem to ignore this potentially effective instrument to attract new customers and increase sales. That is a bit odd considering that the technology needed exists. But terms like geo-fencing, geo-targeting, and indoor positioning are likely to confuse the average merchant. Streetfight.com has compiled a handy list of 8 tools that local retailers can use to satisfy consumer demand and drum up additional sales with mobile coupons.