• by Jess Nelson , September 23, 2016

Weebly released the fourth iteration of its Web-building platform on Wednesday, adding email marketing into the mix to boost retail sales.

New Web site design features introduced in Weebly 4 include video backgrounds and designer-built templates, but the real excitement lies in the company’s ecommerce updates.

Weebly has unveiled a real-time shipping estimation calculator, digital gift cards and coupons, tax calculator and automated email marketing services. Weebly users can now set up automated triggered emails, such as when a shopping cart has been abandoned, and analyze the performance of campaigns with new analytic features.

In addition, Weebly has unveiled Smart Email Suggestions to help marketers create emails with recommended content and actions proven to drive sales. 

This is a timely announcement for Weebly as marketers gear up for the busy retail holiday season. Weebly offers a platform where small businesses can create an online marketplace of their products or services, and the tools to promote their storefront and drive customers to make sales. 

Email played a major role in retail sales during the 2015 holiday bonanza, accounting for more than a quarter of online orders on Black Friday and 22% of online orders during Cyber Monday, according to Custora’s E-Commerce Pulse benchmarking data.

Adobe estimates that $660 million of the $3 billion in total online sales on Cyber Monday originated in an email inbox.

Email-driven purchases for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday more than doubled in 2015, according to an analysis by Yesmail. Email-driven Cyber Monday purchases grew 129% while Black Friday purchases originating in email jumped up 162%.

Email has become such a keystone of holiday retail marketing. Salesforce claims more than 191 million emails were sent from its marketing cloud in under one hour on Black Friday 2015. In addition, 62% of retailers sent more than one email on Cyber Monday 2015 according to Bronto Software.