Sloan Center for Internet Retailing - University of California, Riverside

The Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, located at the University of California, Riverside, is the world's leading university research center dedicated to improving the effectiveness of online retailing.

Join the UCR eLab Panel and participate in our ground-breaking academic research (and win monthly cash prizes for doing so).

Below are the most recent posts of the Sloan Center blog. We invite you to browse.

eLab eXchange members were too optimistic in their predictions for the Facebook market.

The eLab eXchange predicted that Facebook traffic would grow 25% from October to December 2007. But Facebook traffic, measured in terms of growth of unique visitors from Nielsen Online's NetView audience measurement service, increased only 16%.

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The UCR Sloan Center for Internet Retailing is pleased to announce that it is co-sponsoring the Marketing Science Institute conference on "Leveraging Online Media and Online Marketing" to be held at the Hotel Miramonte Resort and the UCR Palm Desert Campus in Palm Springs from February 6-8, 2008.

 Visit MSI for more details.

The Sloan Center for Internet Retailing is very pleased to announce the selection of eLab City's development team:

Cezary Ostrowski, aHead
http://www.tutaj.com.pl/ahead/

Nadia Hennrich
http://nadiahennrich.com/

Visual artist and composer Cezary Ostrowski's aHead agency, based in Poland, has developed numerous sims in Second Life, including the newly opened Slang Life, as well as Digital Zion, Tuscany, De Lodi and Costa Smeralda.  Ostrowski/aHead will be responsible for builidng and scripting eLab City.  Nadia Hennrich has an extensive background as a film editor in Germany, Chicago, and Los Angeles, is an accomplished Second Life designer, and will serve as creative consultant. 

The Ostrowski/Hennrich team has begun development of eLab City - development of the islands eLab City West and eLab City East should take approximately two months.

The eLab eXchange has four exciting prediction markets geared to the online holiday season:

Online Holiday Sales
Most Popular Online Holiday Shopping Day
Most Popular Consumer Electronics Retailer
Most Successful Online Holiday Promotions

Try your hand at judging the impact of this year's holiday season!

Among the 14 websites in the eLab eXchange Social Shopping prediction market, our panel of experts judged ThisNext as the most engaging, although Kaboodle received the greatest number of positive tokens by eLab eXchange members. According to eXchange members, the top five social sites were Kaboodle, Buzzillions, ShopWiki, ThisNext and What’s Buzzing, respectively.

In arriving at the winner, the judges evaluated not only traffic statistics for each site (reach, page views, number of sites linking in), but also the customer experience offered on each site.

In terms of the traffic stats, Kaboodle topped the list, closely followed by ThisNext. Buzzillions, and ShopWiki were a distant third and fourth. Although Kaboodle is the top ranked social shopping site in our list, in terms of traffic, its average page views have dropped 15% in the last 3 months, possibly suggesting consumer fatigue. In contrast, average page views for ThisNext have dropped only 6% during the same period. (It's entirely possible that the entire category may need to be rethought, but we'll leave that for a different day.)

Our panel of experts judged Kaboodle good looking and easy to navigate. However,

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Ad Overlays on the Video and Company Sponsorships Chosen as Best Approaches

Among the 12 ideas in the Google/YouTube prediction market, our panel of experts judged the Ad Overlays on the Video for the First 10 Seconds or So and Company Sponsorhip of pages, categories, channels or communities as offering Google the greatest opportunities for monetizing YouTube through ads.

The eLab eXchange voted ad overlays somewhere around the video, not on the video itself as the clear favorite, followed by short pre-rolls,and company sponsorships.

Short mid-rolls received the most negative tokens from eLab eXchange members.

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eLab City is currently in the planning stages. Construction to begin late 2007.

eLab City will be a two-island sim in Second Life. It is being developed by the University of California, Riverside, Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, for the purpose of studying consumer behavior in virtual worlds. eLab City will be a “live-work-play” community, providing a working laboratory and subject pool for academic research. Most academic sims in Second Life are “virtual campuses” oriented to classroom instruction and course support. There are, however, no academic Second Life projects that study how consumers behave in virtual worlds.

For further details, please visit:  http://elabcity.com/

Novak, Thomas P., "Consumer Behavior Research in Second Life:  Issues and Approaches," (October 2007).

Presented at the Association for Consumer Research Pre-Conference, "Consumer Online:  Ten Years Later," Memphis, TN, October 25, 2007.

Download powerpoint sldes (long version of presentation)

Among the 14 companies in the eLab eXchange Virtual Worlds prediction market,our panel of experts judged the Toyota Scion as having the greatest chance for success in Second Life.

Scion received the greatest number of positive tokens by eLab eXchange members, and was the selection of the expert judges.

The judges considered both traffic levels in Second Life as well as the strategic approach and implementation taken by the companies.

In terms of traffic, Mercedes-Benz topped the list, followed by Reebok, Coldwell Banker, and then Scion.

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As mentioned in today’s New York Times article, “The Wisdom of Sales Trend Predictions,” the eLab eXchange (beta) is open and ready for you to start judging.

The eLab eXchange is a prediction market that allows you to judge the likelihood of future events in the Internet retailing space like which companies have the best chance of making it in Second Life, which social shopping sites are the most engaging or the percentage growth in online holiday sales this year compared to last.

Ready to start judging?  Sign up now - its absolutely free and only takes a few seconds to create an account.

As soon as you sign up, you can start making predictions about future Internet retailing outcomes and be on your way to winning cool prizes.