Though the government says consumers are reducing their spending, online retailers are reporting a year-over-year growth in sales for the first quarter of 2009. In fact, a majority of online merchants are predicting that the positive momentum will continue throughout the year.

These numbers were reported this week by Internet Retailer, as part of the publication’s new profitability and business development survey of 92 Web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers.

This is more great news for e-commerce merchants and we’re glad to hear that a majority of online retailers are faring well in these difficult times. We are also encouraged to see that very few retailers are planning cuts to their technology theater of operations. As Gene Alvarez, vice president of e-commerce research at Gartner Inc., says in the Internet Retailer article, companies that continue to invest in their Web sites through tough economic times are best positioned and prepared to capitalize on the economic turnaround when it occurs.

As such, we wanted to provide a couple of tips to help online retailers continue this growth in sales and power through these shifting times. The time to be a little creative and try new tactics is now, so you are well prepared as we head closer toward the holiday season:

• Deploy automated recommendations: Personalized merchandising services help quickly lift revenue by recommending the most relevant products from the catalog to each shopper. If your recommendations engine understands your catalog and gives you the control to balance automation with your merchandising strategies, you can use it to personalize merchandising across the site and across channels. Why not automate and personalize your top-seller pages, a slot on your homepage, or even create new pages such as gift guides or “just for you” sections? Our data shows that customers who extend recommendations across their site and across channels have a much greater revenue impact than those who use them for cross-sells alone.
• Implement live help with click to call and click to chat: These technologies can help quickly and measurably increase conversions, reduce Web site abandonment, increase order values, and improve customer loyalty and contact center efficiency. A recent report from Forrester Research finds that firms that are successful in implementing interactive help features like click to call and click to chat are quick to move shoppers from the Web to the phone. The more you can do to make experiences satisfying and consistent across channels, the more new and repeat customers you will earn.
• Try re-marketing techniques: One of the most recent trends we’ve observed with our customers is the growing use of re-marketing or “winback” features that proactively ask site visitors to provide their e-mail address when their online behavior indicates they may potentially abandon a transaction. You can easily do this with a proactive rules engine that you control, so you can offer this “winback” feature only to select visitors who exhibit common signs of abandonment, such as hovering on a page for too long. You can then re-market to those who opt-in, providing links back to carts and reminders to complete orders.