Powell's adapts online

Powell's Books adapted its holiday marketing plan this year to keep up with the growth in online shopping.

The retailer offered free shipping coupons to its e-mail subscribers for Black Friday, with positive results.

"It's a new ballgame this year," said [eCommerce Marketing Manager Mark] Pennington, who began tweaking Powell's holiday plan after Thanksgiving. "It really comes down to grabbing attention at this point, and you just have to be that much better to stand out."

For good reason. This year, it seems, a good number of customers are finally feeling comfortable shopping online. Retailers have watched web sales slog along in recent years with growth in single-digit percentages. But this holiday season, retail researchers are reporting eye-popping figures, fueled in part by more varied discounts and shipping offers for the last-minuters that cut it much closer to Christmas.

Read more at OregonLive.com.

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