Let’s start with a little background.  Market research is usually divided into two types based on the methodological approach used: qualitative and quantitative research. Both of these approaches have their key advantages and disadvantages. As such, some types of data can be easily obtained from one type, while it may be downright impossible to identify from the other.

With quantitative research, a person can easily obtain data from a large sample group and focus their inquiries to get very objective responses. Thus, conclusions based from quantitative research have a high degree of probability and often hold true to the entire population. However, there are also several downsides to quantitative research. These can be classified into three general areas: complexity, cost, and time. Conducting quantitative research often requires a high degree of proficiency, as well as costly and time-consuming data gathering methods. Moreover, because of the objectivity of the responses required in quantitative research, the participant can often feel constricted in the answers he can give. Take a simple survey for example. In a question where a participant must check off one or more reasons why he dislikes a particular product, what if the participant’s reason is not provided in the given check list?

Open-endedness is the primary advantage of qualitative over quantitative research.  If you’ve ever been interviewed for a job, then you’ve participated in qualitative research. Moreover, this type of research is also much cheaper and can also be conducted much faster than its more rigid counterpart. However, the precision of the data gathered through qualitative research rests largely on the ability of the conductor. In a job interview for example, the interviewer will often base his conclusions on not only the interviewee’s answers, but also on how he says them, his body language, and other nonverbal cues.

The traditional focus group

A focus group is form of qualitative research that essentially functions like a group interview. The participants are often asked open-ended questions on their opinions on a product, service, marketing campaign, or any other company concern. According to Lindlof and Tylor, authors of Qualitative Communication Research Methods, one of effects of group discussions is that it produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants. This is also known as the group effect where group members engage in “a kind of ‘chaining’ or ‘cascading’ effect; talk links to, or tumbles out of, the topics and expressions preceding it.”

The online focus group

Thanks to recent advances in technology, conducting online focus groups has been a growing trend in market research.  These online group discussions work by inviting a random sample from a large group of pre-screened individuals that represent the target market to log into a web conference with a focus group moderator. Once the group has assembled, the moderator then guides the flow of discussion using a set of prepared questions and unscripted ones. Meetings usually last from around sixty to ninety minutes, and are often viewed from a virtual backroom by other company representatives acting as observers. If the market research was outsourced, the research company’s clients would act as the observers. The observers in the virtual backroom are invisible to the participants of the web conference.

The benefits

There are several benefits online focus groups have over traditional (face-to-face) ones. Here are a few:

• Cost. Online focus groups are often much cheaper since it eliminates the need to transport, lodge, and feed participants. Savings are most significant when company’s actually need to a focus group of participants from different parts of the country.
• Time and convenience. Since everything is done in front of a computer screen, the researcher and participants will no longer need to travel to the research venue. They can, therefore, avoid a lot of wasted time and inconvenience involved in travelling. Moreover, this also makes the research much faster to conduct. Time saved from research can often mean a strong competitive advantage for the client if he gets to introduce a new product or service to the market before his competitors.
• Suitable for some products and services. Conducting interviews via computer can easily help you get closer to a specific market demographic: technology-savvy individuals. If you want to conduct market research for a website or other online service, online focus groups can help you get very accurate results.  Participants are even known to answer personal questions more freely when in an online focus group. This has mainly been attributed to the anonymity participants often feel when they’re behind a computer screen.

The downside

However, because of the limited interaction of online focus groups, moderators will often find it harder to interpret nonverbal cues from the participants. This is especially true when trying to interpret body language. Unlike traditional focus groups where the moderator can easily identify cues like seating position (whether laid back or listening in) and hand gestures (whether crossed or open armed),  he is only confined to facial expressions and speech patterns.

Pro Tip: Usertesting.com

At Redstage, we have had a very high level of success with this variant of online focus grouping.  For only $49 each, you receive video and audio of a live person combing through your website and discussing any problems they face.  You can provide questions and scenarios to guide the test and even narrow down the users who will perform the tests based on demographic information.

We advise that you purchase at least 10 users for the test, which puts the entry cost for online focus grouping at a very low $500.   Visit usertesting.com here.

With Intelligence Events, Google Analytics allows you to quickly view and define big events in your website’s traffic. Pair this service with Custom Alerts which let you receive timely notifications whenever these events occur, and you’ve got a very efficient virtual assistant that’s on the job 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

The Google Analytics blog defined the services as:

Analytics Intelligence: We’re launching the initial phase of an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine to Google Analytics. Analytics Intelligence will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago. Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insights that could affect your business. Now, you can spend your time actually taking action, instead of trying to figure out what needs to be done.

Custom Alerts make it possible for you to tell Google Analytics what to watch for. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly triggers on different dimensions & metrics, and be notified by email or right in the user interface when the changes actually occur.

Intelligence Events

In other words, Intelligence Events has two very important functions: it analyzes the data for you and calls your attention to the most relevant ones. Although we haven’t found much information on how the Intelligence Events algorithm works, it’s clear that the system takes a lot of variables into consideration, which really isn’t surprising when you consider that the system was made by Google. What’s more is that the system’s design and user interface, also sticks to what Google does best: simplicity and intuitiveness.

Custom Alerts

Custom Alerts is also a very useful service. In the age of information, speed and accuracy are everything. Custom Alerts keeps you informed of anomalies in your websites traffic all day, every day. This means that you’ll be able to take quick action whenever you might experience a sharp rise or drop in traffic.

If you use Google Analytics, you should really try giving both Intelligence Events and Custom Alerts a shot!

Are Men and Women equals when it comes to shopping?  The answer, unsurprisingly, is – definintely not. While much has changed in recent years, there are still some behavioral aspects that set these two genders apart. What this article is primarily tackles though is the difference between online buying behavior between men and women.

Despite the apparent gender equality in the workplace, stereotypes are still very prevalent in the household. A lot of families still see the male as the provider, while women (although they may also work) are still tasked with shopping for the family. As such, it really is no surprise that women dominate online retail.

Women spend approximately 20% more time browsing through shopping sites online than men. While some key categories like sports, electronics, and outdoor goods are still predominantly controlled by men, women lead almost every other retail category.

What’s more, women don’t just spend more time shopping online. They also spend significantly more money on most categories for online purchases.

As an e-commerce retailer, it’s important to not only know who your audience will most likely be, but also the factors that will affect their purchase decisions. If you’re targeting women for example, you should know that women take coupons much more seriously than men. In fact, 68% of women shoppers (vs. 60% of male shoppers) are likely to use coupons when they want to save money while shopping online. They are also more likely to shop when there are sales (49% vs. 36%), and sign up for incentive programs (33% vs. 23%).

However, one of the advantages men hold over women when it comes to online shopping is their dominance of the m-commerce market. Although there are several factors that affect this, such as the fact that men are more likely to own a smartphone than women, the point is that e-commerce merchants who focus their efforts on the mobile market should definitely cater their services to better deal with the needs of the male audience.

The two genders also approach online shopping differently. Males tend to stick to whatever mission they assign themselves when they shop online, whereas women tend to wander among different product categories. Before deciding on a purchase, men tend to search for information on the particular product’s page, while women tend to just scan the information before moving on to the next potential product. This often leads to more impulse purchases from women than from men.

Additionally, women also depend on social media more than men when making a purchase decision. Women are also much more likely to recommend a product to friends and family on a social networking site (35% vs. 28%).

Lastly, despite the apparent differences in shopping behavior though, Shoppercentric, a UK based research firm, claims that the younger shoppers, whether male or female, display mostly identical shopping patterns.

So what do all these facts and figures mean for an e-commerce merchant?

First off, if you are providing a product or service primarily for men, it’s better if it’s within the male-dominated categories. When presenting your product, make sure to give accurate and detailed descriptions of your product. Show why you are superior to your competition and provide customer reviews and testimonials proving it.

On the other hand, if you’re product or service is for the female demographic, it might be better to make your site more interactive. Give the users a chance to communicate with one another via chat, forums, or reviews. Pay particular attention to ease of navigation, filtering, and sorting. You might even want to pay more attention to creating promotions and sales in order to give female purchasers more incentive to choose your product over your competitors.

If you are catering to younger shoppers, you might want to give them detailed product information, customer reviews, and opportunities for social interaction.

As the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. So why focus all your marketing efforts on a single distribution channel?

There are several compelling reasons why you should choose to make your product available on several channels. It will not only allow you to expose your products to consumers from different markets, but will also make it easier to do branding and positioning. In this article, we’ll focus our discussions on the effectiveness of using eBay as a supplemental channel for your existing e-commerce website.

First off, let’s discuss a few basic facts on what is largely considered to be the world’s largest online marketplace, eBay. The company has enjoyed a considerable rate of growth since its establishment in 1995. By 1996, the site hosted the sale of around 250,000 items. Just a year later, it hosted more than 24,000,000 auctions. The resulting growth rate was a staggering 9600%! In 2011, eBay online marketplace boasted a total payment volume of $33.86 billion, and a user-base of over 200 million, approximately 102.4 million of which are active.

As impressive as these facts and figures are though, there is no point to investing your time and effort on eBay if your products don’t fit the market’s demand. Now this isn’t to say that you can’t sell some types of products on the site, but it’s just advisable that you focus your resources on channels that give you the most bang for your buck. To help you make a better decision, here are the top 10 item categories on eBay based on popularity.

For the foreseeable future, the site will continue to be among the most popular market places on the web. For a large number of people that want to buy something online, they will turn to long-trusted websites like eBay. So if you don’t have an eBay store for your e-commerce website you may want to seriously consider it starting one. Do not underestimate the potential of eBay as an alternative channel for selling your products.

It might not be easy, but investing on your eBay store can have some real potential to turn a hefty profit.  To set you apart from your competitors, you will have to put some effort in, including:  eBay listing optimization, trendy listing designs, and eBay integration with your existing e-commerce website.

When you start selling on eBay, you may notice that the site does not allow you to use a direct link (to your own website) on your eBay product listing. This is because direct links adversely affect the traffic of the site. In addition to this, they may potentially lose some of their fees if the customer directly deals with you. If you want to attract traffic to your e-commerce site, the only way is to indirectly refer customers to it.

Since eBay allows sellers to watermark the photos of their products, use this opportunity to place your site’s URL on the watermark. This can be used to both claim ownership of the photo and indirectly refer your customers to your e-commerce site.

The only real problem with having both an e-commerce site and eBay store is the amount of time and effort required to maintain the two. Luckily though, there are several companies that provide eBay integration services that can be found online.

Let’s talk technology

Since we specialize in Magento here at Redstage, we’ll focus on technologies that integrate with Magento.

Another note: eBay now owns Magento, so the integration landscape is bound to improve very quickly from where it is now.

The easiest option will be to get set up with m2ePro, which is now free thanks to eBay.  We have quite a few clients using the system, and it seems to work well for most.

Another option is to integrate with a more robust software solution, like ChannelAdvisor.  The current integration on the Magento Connect site made by DevGento has been very poor in our experiences.  You will likely have to invest in your own integration.

Then there’s the solutions that are not quite ready, but we’re looking forward to.

1. ChannelUnity is by the makers of the Camiloo Amazon connector.  It promises to be a very robust system to integrate eBay, Amazon, and possibly other venues
2. eBay and Magento are creating their own integration through the new x.commerce platform.

Do your homework. With a few mouse clicks and keyboard strokes you can easily find one that can suit your particular needs.  After that, prepare to invest quite a bit of energy into getting up and running.  Luckily, you’ll get almost an instant response as eBay’s hundred million customers are already shopping the site!

Facebook is widely considered as the world’s largest social network, so unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, the company really needs no introduction. However, for the sake of better understanding the importance of the later portions of this article, let’s take a quick look at the company’s profile (forgive the pun).

The company was established in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, and was initially designed to be an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was an instant hit and period of rapid growth soon followed. During such time, several offers were made to buy out the company. 2006, in particular, marked a significant milestone for Facebook. On this year, one of the biggest names on the internet, Yahoo, made an offer to buy the company for $1 billion not once, but twice! It was in rejecting the offers that Mark Zuckerberg earned notoriety as the “kid who turned down a billion dollars”.

By 2011, the social network could boast an active user-base of 400 million, with over 50% going online every day. It is mainly with these impressive figures that internet marketers, especially those that focused on social media marketing, turned their attention on the potential goldmine. In fact, by the same year there were already 3 million active pages on the site. Roughly 1.5 million, or half of these pages, were owned by local business owners.

Moreover, the social network has a user-base that extends to more than a hundred countries all over the world. In fact, 70% of Facebook users reside outside the United States, and the popular website is translated in over 70 languages.

Despite all this success though, the social network never really took a step in monetizing its operations until 2006, when it struck a deal with J.P. Morgan Chase to promote a product of theirs using banner ads. Nonetheless, this deal paled in comparison to Facebook’s biggest revenue model, Facebook Ads and Pages for Brands, which launched in the last quarter of 2007.

Later on, through much study and experimentation, social marketing experts found that users did not want to leave Facebook just to explore an externally-linked ad. In fact, a recent study by a reputable research company, Forrester, shows that only 1% of a typical site’s visitors come from a social media URL. Another study shows that e-mail marketing produces a click-through rate of 11% and a conversion rate of 4%, while Facebook only generates 1% and 2%, respectively. For internet marketers, this meant attempting to sell their products mainly through the Facebook platform alone, or to at least build a fan page to improve the brand’s positioning. The new social marketing channel is known today as F-Commerce.

F-commerce has been defined as the use of Facebook as a platform for facilitating and executing sales transactions. As an e-commerce marketing tool, it has had mixed reviews. Some claim that it has the potential to be lead internet marketing to new and exciting grounds. Its transactions were even predicted to supersede those of the internet giant, Amazon, within the next five years. That’s a revenue stream of approximately $34 billion!

On the other hand, there are also several studies discounting its effectiveness. A report in Bloomberg was even jokingly entitled “An ‘F’ for F-commerce?” Other studies claim that the positive reviews for F-commerce were outlandish and far-fetched. While the aforementioned Bloomberg report claims that F-commerce doesn’t work, some people might be inclined to disagree.

First off, let’s talk about, Wharton School of Business Professor, Stephen Hoch’s comment detailed in the report. Prof. Hoch says, “Whereas [brand] websites can categorize and organize social media, blogging and other engagement devices in a form that is easily navigated and searched, this is not true of Facebook, where all relevant postings are listed in a linear order based on time of posting. My guess is that Facebook is actively working on how brands can better link their brand pages to their [own] websites.”

A person marketing on Facebook will be quick to point out that the professor’s claim to a linear and chronological arrangement of posts is wrong. Facebook actually uses Edgerank, a system similar to Google’s acclaimed Pagerank system, to sort information based on relevancy. While we are definitely not discrediting Prof. Hoch’s proficiency in traditional marketing, it is fairly clear that he just misses the whole point of F-commerce. The marketing channel exists to keep users on Facebook. It is not there to encourage externally-linked ads. If it were so, they wouldn’t charge 45% less for clicks that keep users on the social network.

The Bloomberg report proceeds to quote, Forrester Research analyst, Sucharita Mulpuru saying, “But [selling on Facebook] was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”

To that we simply say, “so what?” Throughout the years, businesses have been able to sell products to people while they are “hanging out with their friends at the bar.” Take hanging out at Disneyland for example. Sure you are there to have fun and relax, but at the end of the day, how much did you spend on memorabilia, food, and other purchases that were made on a whim? We could go on to discuss how people spend money while window shopping at the mall, watching popular sporting events, and attending concerts, but you probably got the point from the Disneyland example alone.

People trap themselves in Disneyland much like they trap themselves on Facebook. The consumer’s aren’t there to buy products, but they do so nonetheless.

The other facet of F-commerce is actually inserting your e-commerce store straight into facebook.  There are a number of services and software packages that can accomplish this goal.  The few clients of ours that have tried it have reported lackluster results.  They will point out, though, that they’re still making some sales; however, the costs of implementation plus monthly fees from the F-commerce software are currently wiping out any profits.

Like internet marketing once was, F-commerce is still an evolving marketing channel. Sure there are a few things that need some tweaking, but as long as it persists, it definitely has some great potential. The Bloomberg report condemned it right away. That’s where it went wrong. It is premature and much of the data that has been presented there might not apply a few years from now.

F-commerce enthusiasts just need to remember to stick to the basics and concentrate on the 4P’s of marketing. Price and product already need to exist before attempting F-commerce. The place needs to be Facebook, and much like any other e-commerce store, you need to follow some rules on customizing and utilizing the features of your page. Nonetheless, the most important P to remember in F-commerce is promotion. It isn’t as simple as posting daily status updates and shout-outs. Like any other traditional marketing effort, it needs to be innovative and immediately catch the reader’s attention. A marketer, especially an internet marketer, has the responsibility to be creative and brainstorm newer, better ideas.

Like any other e-commerce effort, F-commerce simply needs time, attention, and a healthy marketing budget for it to be effective.

A little backstory…

A year or so ago I was telling clients NOT to invest in mobile websites.  Why?  Because there was no ROI in ecommerce from mobile development.  Sure, everyone’s been talking about mobile commerce as the greatest thing since sliced bread…for about 5 years now!  That’s great and all, but the money just wasn’t there for anyone but the top 50 brands.

That’s all changing…

The fact is that 87 percent of the world’s population now has mobile phone subscriptions. This brings the total to right around 5.9 billion people worldwide. This figure will only go higher in the foreseeable future considering that mobile phone sales are still on the rise. Android is growing at a rate of a staggering 886 percent per year, and activates 160,000 new mobile devices per day. In the US, with 9 out of 10 people owning mobile phones, individuals are more likely to own mobile phones than books! With these statistics alone, why wouldn’t e-commerce enthusiasts consider in investing in good quality mobile apps, or upgrading their website to be mobile-friendly? Well, the fact of the matter is that mobile ownership doesn’t necessarily mean that much if it doesn’t entail mobile internet usage.

According to The ITU, there are currently 1.2 billion mobile web users all throughout the world. In other words, 17 percent of humanity is accessing the internet through their mobile device! In relation to this study, Starcounter claims that these mobile web users account for 8.49 percent of website hits. In addition, most of these mobile web capable devices are smartphones.

Ok, let’s look more practically at the phones that will be widely used to make purchases: the smartphone.  At the current rate of growth, eMarketer estimates that smartphones in the US will number more than 115 million units by the end of 2012. Several studies agree that more than 50 percent of these smartphone users will use the devices to make actual purchases, and a similar, albeit smaller, percentage will use these devices to help them make an informed decision while considering the purchase of an item.

To add some real world experience, we’re seeing some of our clients hitting 10% and up to almost 20% of their traffic from mobile devices.  This is a drastic change from a year ago.

E-commerce on mobile devices most commonly takes two forms. The first, mobile applications, apps for short, are typically very company controlled. The developer often uses the app to create memorable customer reactions like games. Applications however, also typically have a shorter lifespan when compared to the alternative form of m-commerce, the mobile website. Mobile websites basically make the developer’s traditional website mobile friendly. This form of m-commerce is mostly used by e-commerce retailers, since this form offers more transactional abilities than mobile apps. To make the deal of investing in m-commerce opportunities even more appealing, a study by Mobile Commerce Daily claims that 41 percent of e-commerce merchants using the mobile platform have seen positive returns on their investment. Moreover, this number is even likelier to grow, considering that 32 percent of the percent measured didn’t even look into the return of their investment.

Entrepreneurs interested in utilizing m-commerce for their businesses, should consider a few things to insure a return on their investment in mobile devices.

M-commerce and e-commerce are similar in a very fundamental way. A good measuring point for the effectiveness of both approaches is to measure the traffic and time spent on a website. Even if the customers are not making actual purchases on their mobile devices, this doesn’t mean that the company doesn’t get any benefits from their visiting the website. Getting attention is also a part of effective marketing. The fact that the market knows a company even exists is already a relatively positive step in terms of marketing. However, if you are utilizing m-commerce and want to improve your interface to make the customer’s experience all the more pleasant to improve his retention and opinion of the company, simplicity is still the key. Studies show that m-commerce shoppers are more directed and have little patience for complexity. How much is the product? Does the company offer free shipping? Are there any product bundle deals? When they go online to check on a product or service m-commerce shoppers want to know the prime considerations for their purchase as quickly as possible.

Every merchant should consider all their options for marketing and distribution. M-commerce is simply one of them. However, according to the statistics, m-commerce will also be one marketing and distribution outlet that will definitely show massive growth in future markets. Take advantage of all marketing options available, be they digital or physical!

The Internet has long been held as one of the most innovative and influential modes of communication in history. Throughout the years of its existence, it has grown exponentially as a mode of communication, entertainment, and marketplace exchange. In fact, it now connects millions of people every minute of every day in a web of amusement, information, and commercial trade. However, this rapid growth has been accompanied not only by privacy and security concerns, but also those involved with the quality and actual delivery of goods involved in these e-commerce transactions.

It is sad to say that although the internet has established itself as a legitimate remote purchasing method along with such mediums as telephone and mail-order shopping, there is still a large amount of consumer perceived risk whenever they shop online.

Traditionally, these risks have often been managed by employing risk relievers. These include such concepts as payment security, cheaper price, and exchange options. However, there are other newer and better ways to manage consumer perceived risk in the online market place.

What is a Google Trusted Store?

The Internet giant, Google, announced its take on how to lessen consumer perceived risk in online shopping by introducing its new program – Google Trusted Stores. The program is designed to assist in the growth and development of e-commerce by endorsing exemplary online merchants that offer the most reliable online shopping experience, and best customer service.

The program was introduced back in October of 2011, and has since then admitted numerous e-commerce merchants into its ranks. The participating merchants are required to not only comply with Google’s strict standards on shipping, and customer service, but are also compelled to share data regarding these two factors with the internet giant.

These select merchants will be allowed to show off Google’s badge of trust on their website in order to take advantage of the positive reputation the company has long developed. The badge will serve as a testament to the company’s commendable ability to serve its customers well.

How it helps consumers

Aside from the obvious advantages to having a badge on a website the customer can trust, Google is also backing their claim on the website with a free $1000 lifetime purchase protection for selected products the merchant sells.

The purchase protection program also guarantees consumers the assistance of Google whenever a purchase goes awry, and a dispute arises between them and the merchant. Moreover, this dispute must be reported within 60 days after the purchase is made. More detailed information on the dispute resolution process can be found on their website.

How it helps e-commerce sellers

Despite the fact that internet shopping has been gaining a little more trust from consumers nowadays, the fact still remains that majority of people surfing the internet have little to no experience in the online marketplace. In fact, a recent study has even shown that past experience in online purchases does not necessarily translate into the consumer perceiving the Internet as a less risky shopping channel. Now, merchants do have the option to just wait for these people to change their opinions through social forces and word of mouth marketing, but the fact is that this natural process takes up too much time – time that translates to dollars in opportunity cost!

A more cost and time-effective approach would be to take an active stand in lowering the consumer’s perceived risk in online purchases.

E-commerce merchants can now assist consumers that are worried about shopping at unfamiliar online stores, and are nervous about the reliability of shipping and dispute resolution by applying for certification as a Google Trusted Store. Less perceived risk means that the consumer is more likely to make a purchase at the store. Consequently, more purchases means more profit and more positive consumer reviews, which in turn means less perceived risk from other potential consumers!

Moreover, studies show that the success of trust marks and confidence-boosting badges largely rely on the entity backing the given badge. Considering that Google has made Buyology’s list of Top 10 Most Desirable Brands and Forbes’ Top 100 Consumer Brands, it’s safe to say that the weight accorded by Google’s badge is more significant than most.

The future of Google Trusted Sites

It’s hard to say whether or not Google Trusted Sites will play a major role in the future of e-commerce. There isn’t really much hard evidence to support either conclusion. Nevertheless, it’s a shared belief here at Redstage that this is one very valuable trust logo to have on your site.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you have probably already heard about the new sensation that’s been spreading across the internet like wildfire – Pinterest.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a new social network whose main feature is its ability to act like a digital scrapbook, bulletin board, or wish list. While there are several other websites that offer extensive image sharing capabilities, Pinterest has developed this as its main competitive edge against other more popular social networks. In fact, it has been so successful in carving out a niche for itself that in two short years after launching its private beta, it has skyrocketed. It is now ranked among the top 10 social sites, and is estimated to be worth around 500 million USD.

The company was conceived a while back in 2009. It officially launched its invitation-only beta in 2010. Right from the start, Pinterest’s client base has always been mostly composed of women. Its first frequent visitors were mostly interested in the recipes and stylish home decors they found on the site. This core group of people then spread the word to their friends, who in turn told theirs, and so on. Pinterest owes its marketing success to the quality of its content and the power of referrals. On July 2011, only 13 months after its launch, the company had already its 1 millionth unique visitor. This rapid growth has often given it the reputation of being the fastest growing internet site in history. In truth however, it is only second to yet another internet sensation – formspring.

Fast-forward 7 months later to February 2012. The company now has 17.8 million unique visitors in the US alone! This means that during these 7 months, more than 16 million people have visited the website at least once – an absolutely amazing feat. What’s more, Pinterest is still growing – fast. In the last month alone, the website has attracted roughly 52% more unique visitors than the month before that. This was been confirmed by the findings of comScore in its most recent report.

Why should you consider marketing at Pinterest?
Two words: referral traffic – lots of it. In fact, by February 2012 Pinterest surpassed Google+, Youtube, and Linkedln’s combined referral traffic. In the next month, Shareaholic, an online sharing tool, discovered that Pinterest now drives more referral traffic than Twitter. Yes, that’s right. Pinterest now brings in more traffic that Twitter – the very popular online sharing network that internet-aficionados rely on to get an accurate real-time flow of information.

Moreover, a very recent study by RJ Metrics has suggested that Pinterest users are starting to develop a more mass-market orientation.
When it started, Pinterest users were mostly composed of homemakers, and fashion and style enthusiasts. However, there are only so many people in these niche markets. As the site ascends into the ranks of the internet’s most prominent sites, its users’ interests will get more and more diverse. Topics everyone can relate to are starting to become more and more popular on Pinterest boards. Food, the 4th most popular category at the moment, is steadily gaining more and more interest from the users. In fact, food is the most re-pinned category on Pinterest to date. It generates roughly 50% more re-pins than the fashion and style category, the second most re-pinned category.