About Forrester
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Shar serves Marketing Leadership professionals. She is a leading expert on how businesses can leverage interactive marketing channels and technologies to drive sales and deepen customer relationships. During her 12 years with Forrester, Shar has been instrumental in the development of many of the company's interactive marketing program evaluation methodologies, training courses, and marketing planning tools and has also been part of Forrester's sales and consulting organizations.
Shar's research focuses on overall interactive marketing strategies; crafting efficient, effective interactive programs; organizing for interactive marketing; and integrating interactive channels into the rest of the marketing mix. Specific subjects addressed in Shar's research include email marketing, online advertising, search engine marketing, ad serving and targeting, interactive budgeting and forecasts, and interactive marketing organizational models.
Shar returned to Forrester in 2004 after several years away working in marketing consulting. Shar served as research director for marketing research boutique, TideWatch, where she led internal strategy efforts and client strategy projects. Shar was also a consultant with Carlson Marketing Group's Business Strategy Consulting team, developing CRM and email programs for clients including British Airways, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and Home Depot. Shar began her career at Forrester in 1997 during the early days of the Internet and has written research on customer loyalty, ad networks, and marketing measurement and planning.
A popular speaker, Shar has been seen on stage at ad:tech, MITX, DMA, and the Email Service Provider Coalition events, among others. She is on the board of SEMPO — the search engine marketing professionals organization — and is also widely quoted in the press including such media outlets as BusinessWeek, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and is a frequent guest on CNBC and National Public Radio.
Shar is a graduate of Harvard University.
I was thrilled to be back in São Paulo last week visiting with different companies in the eCommerce space. I met with over a half dozen online retailers, as well as other players in the...
Back in September, I wrote up a few of my findings from meetings with companies in the eCommerce space in Rio and São Paulo. We’re fielding an increasing number of questions about...

Navigating The Centralized Versus Localized Approach
Back in 2010, we wrote a report that looked at how and where US online retailers were expanding internationally. Today we published a related report that focuses on brands that have extended their...
FiftyOne, the company that provides globalization and international logistics services to US-based online retailers such as Gap, Pottery Barn, and Crate & Barrel, announced today that it is acquiring...
Together with our colleague Manish Bahl in Forrester’s New Delhi office, we just published our first report analyzing the eCommerce landscape in India. The report looks at the changing demands...
I’m currently finishing up my presentation for the Internet Retailer Conference & Expo in June: I’ll be presenting on the non-US marketplace options for brands as part of the global...
We just published our new Latin American Online Retail Forecast, 2012-2017 which forecasts growth in Brazil, Mexico and, for the first time, Argentina. In the report, we analyze the B2C and C2C...
I recently joined two of my analyst colleagues - Jennifer Belissent from Forrester's Vendor Strategy role and Jan Erik Aase in Sourcing & Vendor Management - in Brazil to speak with companies in...
Navigating The Centralized Versus Localized Approach
Today's global eBusiness executives are struggling to organize eBusiness operations that effectively support increasing international revenues. Companies have experimented with a variety of...
To conduct our global eBusiness research at Forrester, we rely heavily on support from our multilingual group of Research Associates and Researchers. Recently, one of our Research Associates, Lily...
We just published a report on the online luxury shopper in China, Selling Luxury Goods To Online Shoppers In China. The report looks at the demographic of the online luxury shopper in China and the...
After years of looking at how the online markets of Asia Pacific are emerging from an online shopping perspective, we are thrilled to announce our first online retail forecast for China, Japan, South...
Markets Pass Through Four Phases On The Path To Maturity
Today, a growing number of eBusiness professionals are eyeing emerging eCommerce markets around the globe. eBusiness professionals, however, do not always have a framework to assess how typical...

Executives at digital businesses cite a wide variety of challenges when expanding globally, but “finding the right talent to run our organization” inevitably factors high on their...
An Analysis Of B2C Manufacturers' International Expansion
Global brands are increasingly looking to sell direct on their own websites — and not just in their home markets. After examining the global direct-to-consumer sales presence of manufacturers...

In 2012, online retailers continued to expand into new geographic areas, with many eyeing eCommerce markets beyond those of North America and Europe. Local partnerships and adaptations were key: In...
A Look At Growth In Five Markets With A Focus On China, Japan, And Australia
Nowhere in the world is online shopping exploding as quickly as in Asia Pacific. This region now includes more than 40% of the global online population, and with the growing percentage of online...
One trend over the past year has been a growing interest in markets outside of North America and Europe. We're getting an increasing number of inquiries about markets in Asia-Pacific,...
The past couple of months have seen a number of new initiatives and shifts on the global online retail front: Zara went live with a series of eCommerce sites (in five languages in Spain...
Understanding The Opportunity On China's Largest B2C Website
Taking a business online in China is intimidating. Seemingly endless red tape, a diverse online population, and differences in consumer behavior are all issues a company must carefully consider....
Online retailers are rapidly adding emerging markets to their list of new global opportunities to explore, as these markets are set to take a growing percentage of global eCommerce sales going...
Over the past year, we’ve worked together with the forecast team at Forrester to help eBusiness professionals understand the size of different online retail markets around the globe. Last year...