Hot Trends for 2009
Posted by administrator on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Trends for 2009
E-Commerce: Online Stores Have An Advantage
Because of the slowing economy, sales were lower in every sector last year. Although this trend may continue for a good part of 2009, there's some good news: consumers are looking more at online e-tailers than ever before. Amazon.com, arguably the largest online retailer, had its very best Holiday season yet, selling on average 72.9 items per second at their peak (that's 6.3 million orders in a 24 hour period)! [1] While the traditional retail sector dropped 4% in sales this past holiday season when compared to last year, online retail was down only 3%. The 1% difference is significant and is a large chunk of the national economy. In general, online retailers have higher profits because they have lower operating costs.
Trends For The Quilting Industry
There is a neat website called "Google Insights For Search" [2]. This site will give you a general idea of what people are searching for. The premise behind the use of this research is that the more interest there is in a given subject, the more people that will use Google to learn more about it. Typing a search in the Insights site for a term, such as "Quilting", shows the following top nine topics related to quilting that are quickly rising in popularity:
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quilting blogs, 5000%+ increase in popularity
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quilting blog, 400%
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quilting treasures, 170%
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fons and porter, 100%
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quilting services, 90%
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quilting gifts, 70%
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free motion quilting, 60%
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quilting ruler, 40%
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longarm quilting, 40%
I believe 2009 is to be the year of the quilting blogs. If you do not have a quilting-related blog, here are a few free resources to help you get started. If you have a blog related to quilting, list it here with 200+ other quilting related blogs: http://quilterblogs.com.
The Insights For Search site also shows an increasing demand for t-shirt quilts and quilt covers. I also learned that people use Google to search for quilt patterns more than they do for quilt fabric.
Comparison Shopping
As more purchases are made on the Internet, there is a steady trend for people to use comparison shopping websites. A comparison shopping website is a website that has product information from many online retailers. People use the website to compare prices and availability of products without needing to hunt for the information by visiting dozens of websites themselves. For example, one may use a comparison shopping site to find the best price for the latest Apple iPod. The comparison shopping site will list online stores that carry the product in its search results, and sometimes extra information such as available coupons and shipping costs. I believe you will see an increase trend of new comparison shopping sites coming online to assist shoppers find the best deals for what they are looking for. If you run an online store, I suspect you will find opportunities to join comparison shopping websites to steer more traffic to your website.
Lower Online Advertising Costs
As large companies pull back on their online advertising budgets due to the recession, here's an opportunity for us to get good rates on online advertising. When there's less demand for online advertising, costs go down. For example, popular keywords that used to be expensive may not be so expensive as there are fewer companies going after the same keywords.
Shipping Discounts
USPS, UPS, and FedEx will increase their shipping rates in 2009. As shipping costs rise, shoppers will look out for places that offer shipping discounts. Take advantage of this trend to win more business. Even if you are a long arm quilter, offering discounted priority mail shipping may appeal to those choosing a quilter in a distant city.
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