Source Bizrateinsights.com

According to this, during Q1 2014, 7 in 10 Nordic residents purchased items online for a total value of nearly EUR 4.9 billion (SEK 44.2 billion).

"PostNord’s ecommerce-related B2C parcel volumes increased by 15% in the same time frame."

"75% of Norwegians shop online, while Finland records 66% of its consumers purchasing online in Q1 2014. Mailbox delivery is the most popular delivery alternative in all Nordic countries except Finland, where the preference is to pick up goods purchased online at a partner outlet."

"Out of the total EUR 4.9 billion, the report estimates that around EUR 1.1 billion (SEK 10.1 billion) was generated from ecommerce conducted by consumers via sites they consider foreign."

"33% of Nordic-region ecommerce mail items during the period came from foreign countries, according to consumer estimates. When Nordic residents shop online from foreign sites, they prefer sites from the UK."

More info here.

The Paypers published an interview with Marc Barach, Jumio, on the subject of payment security.

"As mobile consumers, we seem to have a voracious appetite to get the full range of life’s tasks accomplished on our connected devices. Conducting shopping, travel, banking, investing and more are now commonplace, but each one of these activities at some point requires the consumer to fill out long forms on their device. And that’s the problem. Numerous studies show that the more data a consumer must key enter in order to complete a process, the greater is their drop off. That’s something businesses cannot afford. Jumio’s mobile offerings use computer vision technology to scan and validate credentials obviating the need for time-consuming key entry. This allows consumers using our clients’ apps to speed though sign-up and checkout processes, which translates into higher completion rates and satisfaction. This service is offered through three of our products: Netverify, Netswipe and Fastfill."

"The challenges of payment security have always been a balancing act. The industry is often toggling between making the payment process as convenient as possible for the consumer yet safe for the merchant. If that’s out of balance, which is often the case, the merchant is always on the failing end from either losing customers or having high chargeback and fraud costs. The two objectives, ease-of-use and fraud control, have historically been at opposite ends of the continuum – typically when security goes up, the consumer suffers and, if security is lax, the merchant suffers. Jumio has developed a service that breaks open that paradigm – so that both security and consumer experience are improved."

"Companies such as Amazon pioneered the ‘one click’ purchase which is incredibly popular with consumers but, in our view, isn’t the end of the line. We’re working toward the goal of ‘no key entry’ transactions, which represents the next step on the ease-of-use trajectory. This means that real-time authentication activities need to take place behind the scenes while the consumer sails through the transaction. Online merchants spend so much time, money and energy getting people to their websites and apps and often forget that getting them successfully through the sign-up and checkout processes are just as important to meeting their revenue goals."

"Most security processes today use indirect ways such as knowledge-based authentication to authenticate the ID of the transacting customer. These can be effective, but none of them are as good as using the source document (passport, driver license, government ID) or as consumer friendly. Fast, easy and intuitive processes are what create great consumer experiences, which contribute to higher completion rates and revenue. As consumers become more sophisticated, especially on mobile, the tolerance for slow and complex processes is diminishing. At the end of the day, merchants have to figure out how to manage fraud without turning away legitimate consumers. Our whole business is built around making sure we do exactly that."

More info here.

According to this, in the North American ecommerce market, more merchants in the US offer free and same-day delivery options, while the larger ones are developing their own delivery fleets.

"fact is a result of demand of consumers for free and convenient delivery which is driving online retailers and delivery service providers to look for a wider range of delivery methods such quick delivery, growth of the free delivery option, and a movement of some retailers to establish their own logistics and delivery services."

"The same-day delivery has become a trend among cross-channel and online merchants. However, less than 10% of shoppers think that same delivery is a prime factor in shopping. More than three quarters of online shoppers are fond of free delivery more than same day delivery. Free or low cost shipping has been the most important aspect of the online shopping experience for the majority of online shoppers in Canada, also."

"Gamification has been adopted in one form or the other for years now. This phenomenon has given structure to the process by not only incorporating game-like techniques in the initial design process but also by quantifying the results and outcomes. This has been enabled by the coming together of analytics, automation and behaviour modification. Analytics is essential to fuel the change that gamification will bring about. It provides the tools and technology required to study the behavioral data being collected, to understand the modification taking place, how these aspects are affecting business and where we can make further refinements. As user interfaces change rapidly and new mobile devices flood the market expanding the range of business problems gamification can be applied to, analytics will allow gamification to be systematized into organizations at scale. This will also be key to proving if the detractors were right all along by calling gamification nothing but a fad that uses shallow and exploitative ways to propagate marketing ‘evil’."

“We predict that by 2014, 80 percent of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives, primarily due to poor design. This design includes defining business objectives…In the longer term, as design practices improve and organizations focus on defining clear business objectives, gamification will have a significant business impact.”

More info here.