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Does your site maintain its usability across many browsers? If not, you could end up leaving money on the table this holiday season. Browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (which comes standard on Macs) now make up about 30% of the browser market. Firefox alone enjoys 20% of the overall market share.

Matt Poepsel, vice president of Gomez, Inc., whose services test and monitor the performance of websites says that the increase of non-Internet Explorer browsers could cause some e-tailers grief.

“This year more than ever, websites can look and function differently from one browser to another. Online retailers can no longer assume that all shoppers are using Internet Explorer. They must ensure their sites look good and work well across a wide range of browsers - or risk frustrating customers and losing the sale.”

Okay, I understand that we’re all trying to “give a jolt” to the economy. But I was still surprised today when Lycos provided a list of Christmas gift ideas two days before Thanksgiving Day. Aren’t we all supposed to wait until Black Friday?

Nevertheless, for shoppers who like planning ahead — or for online retailers and etailers looking for what will be hot this holiday season — Lycos just announced its ninth annual list of the most popular toys and video games, based on web search activity.

(For a complete list and commentary of the Lycos Top Toys and Video Games of 2008, go to the Lycos 50. You can also voice your opinion on this year’s list, and weigh in on weekly Internet trends and pop culture on the Lycos 50 Blog or follow the Lycos 50 on Twitter.)

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Apple’s iPod holds the top spot as the #1 most-searched for toy this holiday season. But this year, the Apple frenzy includes hot-searched items like the iTouch and iPod Nano.

Harry Potter, at #11, makes a fifth consecutive appearance in 2008, with Harry Potter games, books and DVDs dominating Harry Potter-themed searches.

New in 2008 is KOTA, the Triceratops Dinosaur (#15), generating more search interest than Fisher Price’s New Elmo Live (#19). Meanwhile, not so hot in 2008 are Hannah Montana-related toy items, which made a big splash in 2007, but fail to make this year’s list.

Spongebob Squarepants (#14) takes over as the top licensed character-themed toy of 2008. Spongebob was last seen on the Lycos Top Toy list in 2005. And when it comes to dolls, Barbie (#6) continues to reign, extending her run on the annual Lycos list of Top Toys and Video Games to nine consecutive years of appearing in the Top 10. But there’s not enough data on Caribou Barbie to see if that will be a big hit this year — let alone in 2012.

Gaming consoles see a big resurgence in search popularity in 2008, with the Nintendo Wii (#10) capturing the most search interest, generating 25% more search activity than the Xbox 360 (#12) and Playstation 3 (#13). Also seeing a resurgence in 2008 are old school classics like Monopoly (#17), despite the current housing market.

Five of the top 25 toys in 2008 originate from the popular world of anime including Naruto (#3), Pokemon (#4), Dragonball (#5), Inuyasha (#7) and Gundam (#16). Meanwhile, one new toy making the 2008 list may be unfamiliar to most adults, but if search activity is any indication, expect the Bakugan Battle Brawlers (#24) to be flying off the shelves this holiday season.

On the video game front, the massive multi-player game RuneScape (#1) scores big with web users for the fourth consecutive year as the most-searched video game of 2008, while Final Fantasy makes its first appearance on the list since 2005, with Final Fantasy XIII (#3). Also racking up points online, making first-ever appearances on the top video games list, are war-themed games including Call of Duty: World at War (#9) and Gears of War 2 (#14), while Guitar Hero World Tour (#8) and Wii Fit (#15) are the most popular Wii-themed games based on web searches in 2008.

Also new in 2008 are Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games Fable 2 (#17), Fallout 3 (#18), Street Fighter IV (#10), Dead Space (#19), Far Cry 2 (#22) and BioShock (#25). This also marks the fourth consecutive year the Madden football-themed games fail to make Lycos’s Top Toys and Video Games list.

As for me, I don’t do any Christmas shopping until the very last minute. That way, I don’t have to figure where to hide presents where my three kids (or wife) can find them before December 24th. Yep, when I say “last minute Christmas shopping” I mean last minute shopping. You’d be surprised how simple decisions are on Christmas eve.

SearchIgnite has released data showing that the search ad spend for retailers is up 33% so far in the fourth quarter of 2008. The reason appears to be that multi-channel marketers are funneling more money to search, which has strong data on ROI.

“With the current economic climate leading up to the holidays, retailers are looking for ways to capture consumer spend and drive revenue in efficient ways,” said Roger Barnette, President of SearchIgnite.

Q4 spending is also up 58% over Q3 2008. Last year’s Q4 was up 40% over Q3 2007. And last year’s Q3 didn’t have an election to boost it’s numbers.

However, consumers are spending less per transaction. Still, the good news is that they are spending online at a steady rate of growth.

Related Reading:
SearchIgnite Releases Version 3.0 of Media Optimization Platform
SearchIgnite Releases Q1 Search Marketing Data

Yahoo! Shopping has launched a deal finding portal called Yahoo! Deals. You can access the portal at deals.yahoo.com.

It culls sales on various products across the web from sites such as Woot!, Amazon, and Deal News. It also finds coupons and storewide savings from a plethora of online retailers.

Yesterday, we talked about how women are looking to cut back on their holiday shopping. This is a great tool to help them maximize their shopping dollars.

Here’s a screenshot. Check out the site and come back and tell us about your first impressions in the comments.

Women are planning to spend less according to two surveys released today.

In a survey by the Marketing to Moms Coalition, moms plan to cut spending on holiday gifts. Offline is expected to be hit the hardest, with an 8% drop over last year. Online will decline by 2%.

• 87% of moms plan to shop at big discount retailers like Wal-mart and Target
• Department stores come in second at 37%.
• Shoe and specialty clothing retailers come in third at 35%.

“Older kids tend to want expensive presents like cell phones, video games, trendy clothes and computer equipment,” says Maria Bailey, a founder of the Marketing to Moms Coalition, and author of the book, Mom 3.0, Marketing with Today’s Mother by Leveraging New Media and Technology. “Moms are telling their older kids that this year, they’re just going to have to wait.”

Another survey from Frank About Women shows that women (not just moms) are planning to cut holiday spending. First on the chopping block? Themselves.

62% of women are asking friends and family to forgo buying them a gift this year due to the economy.

They asked survey participants who would be cut from the gift list that normally would be on.

• 57% of those who normally give gifts to their neighbors plan to forego the gift this year
• 53% will skip their bosses
• 52% will cut employees and service providers (i.e. hairdressers) from their list
• 50% won’t give gifts to co-workers this year

So, who is getting a gift this year?

• 96% said they won’t let a bad economy stand in the way of giving gifts to their kids
• 86% will give gifts to their parents
• 85% will give gifts to their spouse or partner (Stay out of the dog house, guys!)

“Not only are women planning to spend less on others, they are actively encouraging their friends and family to omit them from the gift list this year,” says Nicole Green, senior strategic brand planner at FAW. “This self-sacrificing mindset represents a significant cultural shift as a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility and frugality trump spending and splurging for many women. Marketers who speak to the real meaning of the holidays are more likely to resonate with women this season and benefit from their spending power.”

Related Reading:
Microsoft Study Reveals Online and Digital Behavior of Women
Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success
Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment

If you’re not familiar, CafePress is a site where you can purchase custom-designed apparel and gifts. There are many merchants selling their designs as well. Today, CafePress unveiled its new design, and it looks great.

But searching for a design you like can be a chore. That’s why I think CafePress should adopt an online ratings system to help the best designs be showcased first in their search results.

Yes, this can be abused, but it can also create a community, something that is currently only found in the CafePress forums.

CafePress competitor, Zazzle, which has experienced explosive growth in the past year despite higher prices and fewer products. What they do have is a 5 star rating system as well as the opportunity to leave comments on products. I think this helps customers better find what they’re looking for. If I had to take a guess, a customer would rather pay $5 for better design at Zazzle than a mediocre design at CafePress.

Don’t get me wrong, there are quality designs at CafePress, but finding them organically, like I said, is a chore.

Hopefully the next design update CafePress unveils is a techie-one that improves search.

Related Reading:
SEO, Site Search, and Email Marketing Ranked as Most Important to Online Retailers
Make a Good Investment in In-Site Search Engines

E-tailers rate SEO, site search, and email marketing as the most important e-commerce technologies when it comes to promoting their businesses, according to new survey data released by SLI Systems.

• 91% of the retail companies surveyed cited site search as critical, very important or important to their online businesses.
• Of the retailers that have measured the impact site search has had on their businesses, 87% reported positive results.
• 54% saw an increase in sales as a direct result of adding new site search capabilities, while 44% experienced greater conversion rates and 40% cited better customer satisfaction.
• Of the retailers polled, close to 60% said they would be likely to consider a hosted (SaaS) site search solution over a traditional installed application to reduce costs, lessen the strain on IT resources and make for more rapid deployment.

SLI Systems’ CEO Shaun Ryan shares why this data is important to understand in view of the upcoming holiday retail season: “Adopting proven technologies that can guide shoppers to a merchant’s site in the bustling world of e-commerce will enable retailers to deliver a better customer experience and ensure the holidays are fruitful.”

Related Reading:
SLI Rolls Out Learning Search Update with New Auto Complete Feature
SLI Systems Joins Bazaarvoice Radius to Help Marketers Execute Integrated Social Commerce Strategies

Online marketing company AdEx has announced the acquisition of Bay Harbor, an online lead generation firm. Bay Harbor uses a proprietary software platform to perform behavioral targeting which identifies marketers’ best prospects in several financial services and other consumer interest segments.

“Bay Harbor’s lead generation platform allows us to capitalize on the ever-growing online financial services sector,” said Scott Rewick, Chief Executive Officer of AdEx Media. “This acquisition is synergistic with our existing business and will further enable us to meet the needs of our large customer base of advertisers, publishers, distributors, online retailers and consumers.”

Related Reading:
Consumers Ok with Social Ads, But Rarely Find Them Targeted
Online Promotions: The Sleeping Beauty of Online Advertising
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More retailers are turning to social media as part of their back-to-school marketing campaigns, according to Jupiter Research. From Facebook to widgets, from virtual worlds to online video, retailers are targeting youth, who may not share the same feelings as their parents about a tough economy.

“The back-to-school season has grown in importance for retailers and leads into the all important fourth quarter sales period,” explained Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director and Online Retail Analyst at JupiterResearch. “With the shaky economy expected to impact the amount of money consumers spend on back-to-school shopping, retailers are using social media to capture the attention of younger consumers.”

Examples of social media back-to-school implementation are JC Penny and Sears. Both retailers used integrated marketing campaigns, using tv ads to drive youth online where they can view tips on getting the same looks seen in the campaigns.

To promote its two new clothing lines, department store J.C.Penney created an online game called “DorkDodge” in which a girl has to navigate through a number of undesirable boyfriends to find her dream date. The retailer also launched an integrated marketing campaign showing teens how they can “get that look” with an array of clothing brands sold at J.C.Penney stores, featuring the theme of “The Breakfast Club.”

According to David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch, “Retailers experimenting with Web 2.0 experiences will largely find benefit from them in the form of branding and awareness building rather than direct sales as social media has shown little direct impact on actual online retail sales.”

What do you think of using social media in your seasonal campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Back-to-School Offline Purchases Influenced by Online Ads
Live Search Cashback Launches Back-to-School Rebates

Analytics firm Covario says Yahoo gained paid search advertising at the expense of Google in the second quarter of 2008.

Covario also said that paid search has gone through a “compression” period, where growth has declined from 52% to 43%.

“Our client roster inspired us to launch this analysis series due to our customers’ unique positions in the advertising ecosystem – they are US-based, but also global in the scope regarding their paid search advertising programs, so they tend not to be retailers or ecommerce vendors who focus on one geographic region,” said Craig Macdonald, vice president of marketing and product management at Covario. “It is very exciting for us to be able to observe first-hand such trends as the bucking of the biggest losing streak in the paid search market – the loss of market share by Yahoo to Google.”

Of course, Google has seen a decline in clicks and search ads they attribute to increasing quality of their ads. That reasoning worked for Q1 results, which blew away Wall Street expectations, based largely on analytical data. Q2 disappointed the street, but so did Microsoft and Yahoo.