By Adi Prabhat Jain, Associate Sales Manager, Infosys Technologies Limited

It seems that there is no end to the woes of brick-and-mortar retailers. In 2009, while total e-commerce sales were estimated to have registered an increase of 2%, the total retail sales decreased by 7%, according to the U.S Department of CommerceQuarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales. While online retailers have been dealing blows to brick-and-mortar retailers (for some time now) and driving prices down towards marginal costs, mobile phones threaten to slowly spell their death unless retailers do something radically different to connect with increasingly demanding customers.

Advertising and promotional campaigns on mobile phones are fairly common and shopping on the mobile phone is fast picking up, albeit concerns over security still persist. However, a host of mobile applications, with diverse value propositions, are fast gaining traction. These applications are often freely downloadable and allow customers to search products, compare prices and promotions, read reviews and check in-store availability. What really sets them apart from their counterparts on the Internet is the fact that all this can be done anywhere, especially, at the point of purchase decision.

In one of the most powerful combinations yet of social media and e-commerce, Amazon and Facebook have quietly launched a new integration which could make shopping a seamless part of the social experience.

The new integration is designed to allow users to link their Amazon and Facebook accounts to receive purchase suggestions based on their Facebook interests, see gift recommendations for friends with upcoming birthdays and browse items popular among friends.

The integration, which pulls data from movie, music, and book preferences, uses Amazon’s recommendations feature to suggest similar products. The integration gives new meaning to social shopping, as it enables shoppers to tap the “You Might Also Like..” approach for gift shopping, all within Amazon’s network.

JC Penney, Forever 21 and American Eagle have all tapped hauls to get a bigger bite of market share, as the National Retail Federation predicts back to school shopping for grades K-12 to reach $21.35 billion. JC Penny recently announced plans to give gift cards to teens who create haul videos after shopping at the store.

In an effort to track how shoppers are using retail web sites and define premium position within site search results new research found that 94% of shoppers click between one and 10 products, and from there, they look for price, product features and preferred brands as key differentiators.

Searchandise Commerce yesterday announced the results of an in-depth research study titled “The Value of Retail Search and Position,” which was conducted by comScore and co-sponsored by iProspect.

The study revealed that two-thirds of consumers begin the shopping process online, and that half convert offline. The path to purchase, in most cases, starts with a combination of search engine and site search on retail web sites for price, brand and feature information, as shoppers surveyed consult an average of 4.1 information sources during the process.  The study further highlights that rankings matter in site search much like they do in search engine marketing: shoppers associate relevance and quality with products on the first page of search results.