The recession is forcing online retailers to change their marketing tactics in order to acquire and retain customers.
Those findings are from The State of Retailing Online 2009, an annual commissioned by Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, a trade group of merchants; the study was conducted by Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge.
"The survey of 117 online retailers also found that while the number of companies focusing on customer retention has nearly doubled in the past year, many retailers see the recession as an opportunity to capture market share from weakened competition," Shop.org said in a press release.
The press release included a statement from Sucharita Mulpuru, the principal analyst at Forrester who authored the report.
"Because consumers continue to spend online, interactive marketing spend to drive web sales remains a lucrative investment," Mulpuru said.
The report was released in conjunction with an online marketing workshop that Shop.org is conducting in Arizona.
Shop.org noted that earlier this year, Forrester forecast that US online retail sales in 2009 would grow by 11 percent to $156 billion.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff) via boston.com