Get twenty different search marketers in a room and you’ll often get twenty different opinions on a subject; but there is a growing consensus that some tweaks were made to the Google Algorithim in the last few days of April to first few days of May. This has become known as the Google May-Day Update. Read the full article here.

Online sales hit three-year high. Internet sales grew in July at their fastest pace since before the recession, as wet weather encouraged home shopping, a survey suggests. Online sales grew by 18% in the month compared with a year earlier, the biggest jump since 2007, IMRG said. Read the full article here.

How to reduce checkout abandonment and increase customer registrations. In an ideal world most, if not all, retailers would like their new customers to register when they place their first order, thus opening up the potential of a building a more meaningful long-term relationship with the customer. Unfortunately most new customers want to avoid registering and just checkout as quickly as possible, so how can retailers encourage more registrations without deterring customers? Read the full article here.

Checkout abandonment on the rise. Thanks to a range of factors, including increased customer expectations, as well as behavioural factors such as comparison shopping, basket and checkout abandonment rates are rising. A recent Forrester survey found that 88% of consumers have abandoned shopping carts, and named the top five reasons given by customers. See the top 5 reasons here.

IMRG Online shopping reaches highest growth rate in two years.

The Sellerdeck survey shows that although online sales are growing faster than in the high street, the average shopping cart value has declined slightly from £87.09 in Q2 2009 to £72.35 in Q2 2010. This decrease means e-retailers had to work harder to achieve the increase in revenue with promotional offers, discounted lines or focusing on lower value items. On average an extra 262 orders were processed by each e-retailer during the quarter when compared to the same period the previous year.

Jez Hall, director of garden machinery supplier www.mowermagic.co.uk comments: “We have noticed a shift in customer purchasing behaviour for the second quarter of 2010, due to the economic climate. Our range of garden machinery is still selling well but we have experienced a significant increase in spare part sales as customers, make do and mend, rather than replace garden equipment. This trend has helped our bottom line as the margins we can achieve with spare parts can be higher than selling the larger ticket items such as lawn mowers.”

He adds, “Without wanting to put a dampener on this year’s long hot summer, the lack of rain does mean gardens are not flourishing. However with our sales revenues up 12% on the second quarter of 2009 figures, we are not complaining.”

Nick Kington, managing director at Sellerdeck says, “This is another impressive performance by online sellers in the SME market and in line with Sales Index figures reported by the IMRG in June. Despite the economic climate many Sellerdeck retailers are seeing very positive signs that consumer confidence and online spending in particular is on the increase.”

Online retailers lose sales with poor customer services. Online retailers could boost sales by brushing up their customer support, a new survey has found. Poor customer care and a lack of quality guidance could be driving potential web shoppers to the high street, the findings suggest. Read the full article here.

Silver Surfers make up 53% of new UK internet users. Nearly two million more UK residents accessed the internet during last year, according to a new report. Read the full article here.

Top 12 books every SEM needs to read. There’s no substitute for hands-on experience when it comes to online marketing but if you want to really rise above the competition, you’ll devote some time to reading insights from the experts. Read the full article here.

Frustrated online shoppers abandoning stores with poor returns processes. Poor returns experiences lead to 58% of online shoppers permanently shunning outlets. New research released by Collect+ sends a warning to retailers of the cost of failing to provide an effective returns process. The poll of 2,000 online shoppers reveals that 58% of shoppers, once they have had a bad experience with deliveries or returns will abandon that online retailer permanently. More details here.