U.S. Retail Is Booming

By now everyone knows that retailers had a great holiday season in 2006. The US Census Bureau reports that U.S. retail ecommerce sales (excluding travel) were the highest in four years during Q4 2006. The figures below exclude travel and are preliminary for 2006.

Q4 2006 sales (nearly $33.9 billion) were up approximately one-third from Q3 2006.

Shoe Dreams and Fantasies

Every woman loves shoes. Some collect them and even fantasize about them. Freudian analysis of dreams ascribed a dream of red shoes associated with Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, The Red Shoes, to neurotic conflicts.

No, today’s women are not neurotic; however, many are addicted to shoes. Everybody has a story about their favorite pair of shoes. For some women, shoes are the stuff of dreams and they can’t have enough pairs in their closet. That’s why retailers are always on the hunt for shoe fashion ideas and a good shoe wholesaler.

One such wholesaler/importer is Shoenet, which recently announced the addition of more than 150 new spring wholesale boots, wholesale sandals, wholesale shoes and wholesale clogs to its website, www.shoenet.com. Additionally, this wholesaler added a Container Offer to its website, an option that allows potential customers to purchase wholesale shoes at various price points (e.g., $2.50, $5.00 or $10.00) in the container load.

Dollar Stores Hot Sector in Retailing

Dollar stores are one of the hottest high-growth sectors in retailing. This sector includes the one-price general merchandise stores and closeout stores and is responsible for sustaining the current momentum in retail sales.

Dollar stores have posted some of the highest growth rates across retiling in recent years, largely due to rapid expansion, solid sales gains and increasing consumer interest in this type sales channel. This retail sector has increased in sales growth since 2001 and is forecast to continue growing as dollar stores continue to make inroads into mainstream retailing.

Another Decade of Growth for Dollar Stores

A study by Retail Forward estimated that enough untapped and under-penetrated geographic markets exist in the U.S. to support another 15,000 dollar store retail outlets. Besides the new store expansion opportunities, the sales gains by existing stores factor into this growth equation.

New Contextual Ad Platform Gives Retailers Better Content Monetization

Coming up soon: a contextual ad platform from FAST that allows retailers to monetize content and serve advertisers without using third-party services.

Enterprise search firm FAST announced the launch of AdMomentum, a platform that allows publishers to manage and serve their own ads bypassing Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other third-party contextual advertising networks.

FAST believes this service can be a “revenue engine” for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and vertical search sites (VSEs), which are not well served by current contextual ad networks. FAST VP and GM, Media Solutions Perry Solomon believes SMEs need a “revenue engine” rather than a search engine to thrive in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, and this platform will help provide more revenue.

Soloman said AdMomentum was developed in cooperation with leading online media companies, retailers and telecommunications service providers for the purpose of integrating existing content management systems and site search systems.

New Technology Helps You Save on Shipping Rates

E-shipper, an online shipping and logistical services company, uses new online shipping technology that can save companies up to 50 percent on day-to-day shipping costs. You can save on all modes of transport and logistics such as courier, airfreight, trucking, warehousing and pick and pack services.

How can they do this? By forging long term (wholesale) relationships and partnerships with all the major airlines, express courier integrators, worldwide freighter networks, charter airlines, trucking systems and logistics suppliers. E-shipper offers preferential pricing and superior service to its customers online based on its large shipping volumes.

Imagine a change in the way you do your day-to-day shipping and warehousing. Traditional freight forwarders and warehouse operators cannot compete in the new online world if they don’t keep up with technology and client demands. E-shipper has invested in technology that gives you today’s modern shipping tools.