Category

Design & Development

The nuts and bolts of an ecommerce site are design and development. We address design innovation and trends — including layouts, colors, photography, logos, video, and more. We explain the basics of code — HTML, CSS, JavaScript — as well as platforms, themes, plugins, open source, and related topics.

Code | Design & Dev Tools | Platforms & Apps | Schools & Resources | Typography & Fonts | User Experience

Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: May 16, 2018

May 16, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-May from companies that offer services to ecommerce merchants. There are updates on analytics, automated campaigns, search, customer communication, and artificial intelligence.
Design & Dev Tools
Google Lighthouse: Monitor Site Performance, SEO, Accessibility

May 8, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Lighthouse is Google’s free, open source, and automated site monitoring tool. It can help ecommerce businesses track site load times, accessibility, and search engine optimization. Lighthouse is available in a few ...
Design & Development
WompMobile CEO on PWAs and AMPs

May 2, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Not long ago mobile optimization could provide a competitive advantage. But as the mobile internet has grown, responsive websites are no longer optional. They are essential to doing business online. WompMobile ...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: May 1, 2018

May 1, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late April from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on A.I., category search, online advertising, cyber ...
Design & Dev Tools
Pointers on Backing Up Ecommerce Data

April 29, 2018 • Eric Davis

Backups are an insurance policy for your ecommerce store that you hope never to use. Unfortunately, many backups aren’t adequate. The purpose of a backup is to recover the code and ...
Design & Dev Tools
16 Tools for Website Accessibility

April 23, 2018 • Sig Ueland

"Web accessibility" refers to content designed so that people with disabilities can access it. Accessibility involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological. Here is a list of tools and plugins for website accessibility, including plugins and ecommerce themes for WordPress.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: April 17, 2018

April 17, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-April from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on video content and format, accelerated mobile pages,
Platforms & Apps
11 Free WordPress Ecommerce Themes for 2018

April 9, 2018 • Sig Ueland

The world’s most popular content management system, WordPress, has a lot to offer anyone who wants to open an online store. There’s a constant stream of new themes, many of ...
Design & Dev Tools
20 Helpful Alexa Skills for Merchants

April 2, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Alexa skills are voice apps that enhance Alexa-driven devices. With the right skills enabled, Alexa can help merchants tracks sales, get industry-related news and tips, monitor communications, organize tasks, and ...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: April 1, 2018

April 1, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for March from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on artificial intelligence, subscription services, new marketplaces, shopping actions and experiences, delivery tracking, and augmented reality. IBM launches new artificial intelligence platform. IBM has launched Cloud Private for Data, an integrated data science, data engineering, and app-building platform, along with Data Science Elite Team, a no-charge consultancy that advises clients on their artificial-intelligence roadmaps.
Design & Development
Are PWAs the Future of Mobile Commerce?

March 29, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Compared to a typical, mobile-optimized web page, progressive web apps may give mobile shoppers a better browsing and buying experience while helping online sellers earn more sales and profit. It is for these reasons, progressive web apps — PWAs — may be the next phase of mobile web optimization.
Schools & Resources
Reading List: Roxanne Abercrombie with Whoson

March 28, 2018 • PEC Staff

In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded with Roxanne ...
Design & Dev Tools
3-part Plan to Minimize the Impact of Site Outages

March 26, 2018 • Eric Davis

“The site is down.” Few things worry developers as much as outages, especially on ecommerce sites where every minute represents lost revenue. But outages happen. To minimize their impact, plan for them.
Design & Development
6 Plugins to Automate a WooCommerce Store

March 20, 2018 • Curtis McHale

There is so much to manage with an ecommerce store. You need to maintain adequate stock. You have customer issues, server and hosting issues, and software bugs. A store owner should focus on the big picture items, not managing every detail. In this post, I'll address six WooCommerce plugins that can automate details of your store management.
Schools & Resources
11 New Ecommerce Books for Spring 2018

March 19, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Spring is here. And so is a new batch of ecommerce books. There are titles on digital marketing, LinkedIn ads, brand development, standing out in a crowd, and artificial intelligence. I compiled this list using Amazon. From Amazon’s “Books” category, I selected “Business & Money.” From there I chose the “Processes & Infrastructure” sub-category and selected “E-commerce.”
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: March 18, 2018

March 18, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-March from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on artificial intelligence, last-mile delivery, seed funding, “under $10” products, and crowdfunding.
Code
Enable HTTP/2 for Happier Customers, Better SEO

March 12, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Enabling your company's website to use HTTP/2 could result in better performance, happier customers, and improved rankings on search engines. All of that, in turn, could help your site generate more traffic, more conversions, and more profit. The HTTP/2 standard is a significant update of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that has been used to connect computers via the internet since 1991.
Design & Dev Tools
19 Free Web Design Tools from Winter 2018

March 12, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Utilizing free resources from the design community is a good way to add value to your website. Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from winter 2018. There are designer and developer apps, fonts, content tools, and more. All of these are free.
Schools & Resources
Crisis Communications Checklist for Retail Businesses

March 7, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Has your business committed a social media faux pas? An employee, perhaps, did something embarrassing, or maybe your entire industry is getting bad press. How your company communicates through a crisis may impact the entire organization, including profitability and viability.
Design & Development
How to Automate Customer Recognition

March 6, 2018 • Curtis McHale

Consumers who interact with ecommerce companies have many milestones. They spend their first $100. They purchase their 10th product. They spend the 1 millionth dollar with your store. How do you recognize these milestones? What can you do to show appreciation?
Platforms & Apps
11 Product Review Plugins for WordPress

March 5, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Gathering reviews and testimonials from shoppers can generate leads and influence the decisions of others. For WordPress users, adding reviews to a website is as easy as adding the right plugin. Here is a list of product review plugins for WordPress.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: March 1, 2018

March 1, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late-February from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on free shipping, online and mobile payments, audience management, live stream purchases, and Amazon. Woot! offers free shipping to Amazon Prime members. Acquired by Amazon in 2010, daily deal site Woot! is now offering free shipping on purchases from its site to all Amazon Prime members.
Design & Dev Tools
Use Status Pages to Evaluate Cloud-based Vendors

February 27, 2018 • Eric Davis

Evaluating the performance of cloud-based vendors can be tricky. You can read reviews, but it's sometimes difficult to find unbiased opinions. One little-known method of evaluating cloud platforms is to analyze their status pages. They provide a high-level overview of the platform's operational status. Many status pages also include a history of incidents, including recent problems.
Platforms & Apps
15 Quality Themes for BigCommerce

February 25, 2018 • Sig Ueland

BigCommerce is a leading ecommerce platform, hosting more than 55,000 online stores, including prominent brands such as Martha Stewart and Toyota. With a large selection of high quality, premium themes,
Platforms & Apps
15 Popular Themes for Shopify

February 20, 2018 • Sig Ueland

With over 100 free and premium ecommerce themes, the Shopify Theme Store gives businesses a wide range of starting points to develop the right site and build a brand. Here is a list of popular themes for Shopify. There are themes for single products and small and large catalogs. Several themes can also be used for a crowdfunding campaign. There are free and premium themes.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: February 19, 2018

February 19, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for February from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on content creation, delivery, mobile messaging, and multiple updates from Amazon. Snap launches Snap Store. Snap has launched Snap Store in the Snapchat Discover section.
Design & Dev Tools
13 Tools for Responsive Web Design

February 5, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Responsive web design ensures a site renders well on different devices and screens. Use responsive design tools to make sure your users have an optimal viewing experience. Here is a list of responsive design tools. There are tools to build responsive web page elements, and tools to test your design on a wide variety of actual devices and screen sizes. There are both premium and free tools.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: February 1, 2018

February 1, 2018 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late-January from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on voice shopping, managed hosting, customer service solutions, personalized emails, and zero-fraud payments.
User Experience
SEO: 8 Ways UX and Design Could Reduce Traffic

January 29, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

For more than a decade I've optimized organic search traffic for big and small companies. They often come to my team with greatly diminished search performance stemming from decisions on overall strategy and design. The decisions resulted in changes to internal linking structures and reduced textual content, which affected the authority and relevance signals that search engines rely on to rank pages. Here are eight common strategy and design decisions that, in my experience, often harm organic search traffic.
Code
3 Steps to Minimize Technology Risks for an Ecommerce Store

January 24, 2018 • Eric Davis

Every business has risks. Part of what makes a business successful is how it eliminates or reduces those risks while still serving customers. The hardware and software that power your ecommerce store create risks. I'll call them technology risks. Some technology risks are benign and don't threaten the company. Other risks can have a sizable impact on the business.

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