Conversion
Fewer than 5% of visitors to an ecommerce site typically convert to customers. In this Conversion category, we offer insights to increase that percentage. Our expert contributors address ratings and reviews, social proof, site search, product page enhancements, product descriptions, checkout options, live chat, and much more — anything to help close online sales.
Analytics & Data | Checkout Tactics | Customer Retention | Customer Service | Photography & Video | Product Pages-
Photography & Video
Web Design Tips: Use this PNG Fix for Attractive Images in Older Browsers
May 20, 2009 • Armando Roggio
For most website designs, the portable network graphic, or PNG, is simply the best available image format. But older, noncompliant versions of the Internet Explorer browser (IE) poorly managed this extensible file format's powerful transparency capabilities, making it hard to design for...
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Conversion
Take the Survey and Predict the Future of eCommerce
May 14, 2009 • PEC Staff
What do you think will happen in ecommerce over the next five years? A Practical eCommerce survey asks if big box stores such as Walmart will overtake small-to-mid-sized online retailers. Do you believe leading brands will eventually dominate the web? And, which technologies do you thin...
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Product Pages
Ecommerce Know-How: Writing Product Descriptions that Sell
May 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio
An ecommerce website, boiled down to its dry essence, is a virtual salesman at best and a slow-to-deliver electronic vending machine at worst. Consciously or not, online stores are conceived, designed, and created to sell products while making as little personal contact with a customer ...
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Conversion
Social Media: Create a Strategy for Your Online Store
May 13, 2009 • Sarah Worsham
Most of us are familiar with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other social networking sites. There has been quite a bit of coverage on how to use them, but how should an online merchant create an overall social media strategy? First, Determine Your Goals The first step to any social medi...
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Conversion
Survey Results: Advertising is Important, Pay-per-click Most Effective
May 11, 2009 • PEC Staff
Respondents to an April 2009 Practical eCommerce survey overwhelmingly said that pay-per-click advertising was an effective way to promote an ecommerce store and improve sales. Those same respondents also declared advertising an important part of their ecommerce business. The survey fo...
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Analytics & Data
The PeC Review: Woopra Promises Real-Time Web Analytics and Behavior Tracking
May 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Woopra is an innovative web analytics suite that promises to vastly improve the information that website owners can collect and monitor. As customers return to your store, Woopra begins to track behavioral profiles, allowing online merchants to monitor individual customer behavior o...
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Customer Retention
Ecommerce Know-How: Six Ways To Improve Your Online Store
May 4, 2009 • Armando Roggio
An online merchant's most important marketing and sales tool is a content-rich, visually interesting, and factually accurate website. In this edition of "eCommerce Know-How," I am going to propose six ways to improve your site, and I am offering these methods exactly five months before...
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Conversion
Online Marketing Overview: Where to Best Invest
May 4, 2009 • Jeff Muendel
I was contacted by a gentleman in the music industry who wanted advice regarding online marketing for his website. He seemed to have strong old-school marketing ties, but also knew that efforts surrounding social media and search engine optimization were important things to consider. ...
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Conversion
Conversion Review: “It’s In The Stars” Needs Help
May 1, 2009 • Alan Cox
"Conversion Review" is a high level evaluation of a website that a company has submitted for assessment. When doing a review, we analyze the website as if we were a potential customer with a typical usage scenario. We then assess how well the site does at converting visitors into buyers...
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Conversion
Ten Great New Ecommerce Ideas for May 2009
April 29, 2009 • Ankush Agarwal
Each month, Practical eCommerce asks industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the May 2009 installment. Optimize Comparison Shopping Engine Feeds "Start inexpensively with Google Base. When the fee...
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Conversion
Amazon Reports Q1 2009 Sales, Asks “What Recession?”
April 29, 2009 • PEC Staff
Last week, Amazon.com announced quarterly sales of $4.89 billion, up 18 percent from the first quarter of 2009. While many factors contributed to the company's strong quarter and more than $1.14 billion gross profit, Amazon executives pointed to strict inventory management and better th...
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Conversion
Link Article Marketing to Purchase-Related Keywords
April 28, 2009 • Jan Riley
Article marketing has been around since the beginning of the Internet, seemingly. It is practically free (if you write the articles yourself); it builds trust; and it attracts customers and influences people while they are in the process of making a buying decision. The Proof is in th...
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Analytics & Data
Ecommerce Know-How: Four Ways to Measure Print Advertising Effectiveness
April 28, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Print advertising is a waning media vehicle. It has become less effective in the post-interruption era. However, in spite of this decline, printed display advertising and classifieds can still provide a solid return on investment (ROI) for some ecommerce merchants willing and able to me...
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Conversion
eBay Earnings Release Not Entirely Good News
April 27, 2009 • PEC Staff
Last week, eBay announced first quarter 2009 revenue of $2.02 billion, a $171.6 million year-over-year decrease. While PayPal, Classifieds and Skype performed well, according to eBay, delivering year-over-year revenue growth, text and graphical advertising revenues were flat compared to...
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Conversion
Pay-per-click Advertising: Yahoo! Targeting Gets More Focused
April 17, 2009 • Lisa Wehr
Companies are frequently looking for ways to position their products in front of consumers that will most likely result in a conversion or a purchase. While there are several different options for targeting pay-per-click campaigns, the recent advances in Yahoo!’s audience targeting capa...
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Customer Retention
Ecommerce Know-How: Developing a Postcard Campaign
April 15, 2009 • Armando Roggio
A postcard marketing campaign can be inexpensive, and it could increase your store's sales next month. Almost every weekday at about 2 p.m., I trot out to my mailbox, wave at the retired Marine smoking cigarettes on his porch across the street, and collect my U.S. mail. I sort out the...
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Conversion
Selling (And Socializing) On Facebook
April 14, 2009 • Sarah Worsham
Facebook offers ecommerce companies an opportunity to both market their products and connect with their customers. Traffic to Facebook has increased by 149% from February 2008 to February 2009, according to Hitwise, and it’s not just from the young crowd. Visitors over age 35 have incre...
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Conversion
Survey: Ecommerce Merchants Report Extremes in Sales Growth
April 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Online shopkeepers willing to indicate how their sales were doing in 2009 generally reported extremes, with sales either rising or falling by more than 10 percent, according to a new Practical eCommerce survey. Practical eCommerce asked a group of its readers how their 2009 sales had f...
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Conversion
Is Twitter an Ecommerce Tool?
April 9, 2009 • Jeff Muendel
I hear it a lot. People say they know they should use Twitter for marketing purposes, but the idea of “Twittering” doesn’t sit well with them. On a personal level, I have no interest in letting the world know what I’m doing hour-to-hour, much less moment-to-moment. But Twittering on beh...
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Analytics & Data
Ecommerce Know-how: Setting SMART Goals and Measuring Success
April 8, 2009 • Armando Roggio
To really get the most from web measurements, online business owners need a clear understanding of exactly what they want to accomplish and how they will measure those accomplishments. No matter how objective the reporting of analytics software, the meaning divined from its numbers and...
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Conversion
Using Google Analytics for Keyword Segmentation and In-Depth Analysis
April 7, 2009 • Michael Stearns
Google Analytics provides a wealth of information. But many GA account holders do little beyond viewing their site's daily traffic and trying to understand terms like "bounce rate." In this article, we will learn to segment data in GA to determine the number of paying customers enterin...
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Conversion
Building Your Brand. Part 1: Defining Your Business Purpose
April 7, 2009 • Dan Wilson
You want your customers to remember the essence of your company, not just its public face. Your brand is not your website look and feel, your logo, or even your snappy slogan. These help clarify your brand and make it more memorable for your customers.
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Conversion
Ten Great New Ecommerce Ideas for April 2009
April 3, 2009 • Ankush Agarwal
Practical eCommerce recently asked industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce firm. Here’s what ten of them had to say. Rich Consumer Experiences Dominate "Focus on immersive branding and marketing techniques that create unexpectedly fast, fun, an...
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Conversion
Using Banner Ads to Promote Your Website
March 31, 2009 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
We are in a period when banner advertising seems to be on the wane. You know, those rectangular boxes on commercial sites.
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Conversion
Conversion Review: The Russian Store is Well Designed with Clear Navigation
March 27, 2009 • Alan Cox
In Conversion Review we visit a website as if we were a potential customer and assess how well the site does at converting visitors into buyers. For this review, we visited The Russian Store, acting as a customer who wished to purchase some Russian collectibles. Staff of The Russian Sto...
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Checkout Tactics
Ecommerce Know-How: Using a Variable Pricing Model
March 20, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Selling downloadable products online presents a number of special problems for ecommerce businesses, not the least of which is demonstrating the value of an intangible product that has no physical form and no glossy packaging. Certainly, software vendors and popular sites like iTunes ha...
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Customer Service
The Shopping Experience: SportsRCool Offers Exceptional Customer Service
March 19, 2009 • Armando Roggio
If you visit the "About Us" section on the SportsRCool website, you'll find a simple promise to offer the best possible products and customer service at the lowest available prices. And the company certainly delivers where customer service is concerned. Each month, Practical eCommerc...
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Conversion
Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Bid Management Strategies
March 19, 2009 • Greg Laptevsky
In a pay-per-click world where your Quality Score seems to be controlling the performance of your campaigns, there is one proven method to improve performance. It’s called ongoing bid management. Regardless of whether you’re using enterprise level bid management tools, such as Marin S...
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Conversion
Social Media: 4 Quick Tips for Getting Started
March 16, 2009 • Lisa Wehr
Any marketer that chooses not to embrace the changes encompassing digital media would be foolish. The truth of the matter is, search engine marketing and social media marketing have become one. People are likely talking about your brand online, or searching for your blog, and Google is ...
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Conversion
Ten New Great Ecommerce Ideas
March 12, 2009 • Ankush Agarwal
Practical eCommerce recently asked 50 industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce firm. Here’s what ten of them had to say. Check Your Impression Share “Take a long, hard look at the Impression Share of your paid search campaigns. It’s possible tha...