It is time to take our swiping discussion to the next level. I wrote part 1 way back in July of 2009 – please refer to it for basic swiping techniques and safety. I am going to break up part 2 into 2 parts. Part one of part 2 will cover more elementary advanced techniques, while part 2 of part 2 will cover middle, advanced-advanced and trick techniques. Then second half of part 2 of part 2, the advanced-advanced techniques, I will begin part 1 of my own past professional exploits. This will likely take 3 parts. The first part will be included in the second half of part 2’s second half – my amateur start and progression into the first part of my professional career. Part 2 of this 3 part series will focus on the second and most exciting part of my 3 part career, professional competition. Part 3 of the 3 part series will talk about the third part of my 3 part career, the last part of my competitive career and first 2 parts of my teaching career. I believe I still have one part of my third part of my 3 part career left to be told.

In the first part of part 1 we will be discussing elementary-advanced techniques and in the second part of each of the parts I will share some memories I have of these wonderful swipes.

Coremetrics, the web site sales tracking firm, announced some exciting numbers from Cyber Monday 2009. According to their numbers, consumers bought 30% more items on Cyber Monday 2009 than on Cyber Monday 2008! Moreover, total sales were up 13.7% when compared to 2008.

These are some incredibly encouraging numbers from the world of online retailing. However, not all of Coremetrics numbers were quite so good. One particularly important metric (shopping cart conversions) was 3.11% lower than in 2008. And both sports retailers and department stores saw their average order volume drop when compared to Cyber Monday 2008.

There seems to be a great divide amongst the general public about the relative safety of online shopping. There is one portion of the public that has become almost blaze about it, they trust the current system and simply couldn’t be bothered with the hype or perceived inconvenience of adding security. On the other side there is a large portion of the public who are so paranoid they refuse to make their first purchase over the internet. In its Fifth Annual UK Online Fraud Report CyberSource found that 41 per cent of people who do not currently shop online cite concerns about the security of online shopping as the reason.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about a bell curve of people with some on each extreme, but this debate seems to be greatly exaggerated at the two extremes with a disproportionate few at the (usually) reasonable middle portion. By middle portion I mean those that enjoy shopping online while taking precautions. I think the main reason most online shoppers implicitly trust the system, and, therefore, put themselves at risk, is because of a lack of education. Ironically it is also lack of education that keeps non-online shoppers from taking the plunge. So is education the answer to the continuing growth of the online channel? Well, not exactly.

According to Forrester Research, online retail sales are set to grow 11% in 2009. Even though this is smallest growth in a decade it is still growth in a recession. However, consumers are still hesitant to press the ‘submit’ button even though they are clearly looking to buy. The E-tailing Group reports shoppers are abandoning shopping carts at rates of 41% to 50% of the time. And Marketing Sherpa reports an average abandonment rate of 60%.

The top reasons why consumers are hesitating are security and privacy, comparison shopping, hidden return policies, confusion and impatience. These reasons are rational and ultimately predictable. It is obvious many consumers are still not comfortable with the online shopping process. Online retailers have done a lot to try and comfort customers about the security of their site with lock symbols and 3rd party endorsements, but it still seems like the Wild West.

Despite Americans’ widespread adoption of e-commerce, sometimes there is no replacement for the personal touch.

According to an August 2009 survey conducted by Harris Interactive for human-assisted shopping site IMshopping, 77% of US Internet users who made an online purchase in the past six months would be interested in help from a real person before buying certain things on the Web.