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
Mobile Commerce: Website or App?

January 1, 2013 • Dale Traxler

According to Forrester Research, mobile commerce sales will grow from $10 billion in 2012 to $32 billion in 2016, accounting for more than 7 percent of total ecommerce sales. With the adoption of smartphones and tablets accelerating worldwide, that percentage could be even higher. For...
Schools & Resources
Reading List: WarehousingAndFulfillment.com’s Will Schneider

December 24, 2012 • 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 Will ...
Design & Development
6 Tips for Newsletter Subscription Forms

December 21, 2012 • Drew Coffin

An email list is one of the best ways to connect with shoppers, announce new products, and promote sales. A key part of building a mailing list is having a compelling newsletter signup form. While different sites display newsletter signup forms in different ways, examining newsletter signup forms from around the web reveals several common practices.
Design & Development
Mobile Commerce Blurs Online, Offline Retail

December 5, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets allow shoppers to look for products or compare prices from just about anywhere, including right in the middle of a brick-and-mortar store. These devices are changing how people shop and blurring the distinction between buying online or off. R...
Schools & Resources
16 New Ecommerce Books for the 2012 Holidays

December 3, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Here are new ecommerce and Internet-marketing books for winter 2012. There are new titles on social media, conversion optimization, entrepreneurship, email marketing, and content creation. I compiled this record using Amazon’s "Books" category. I selected “Browse Subjects” and chose th...
Design & Development
Mobile Devices Capture Increasing Share of Holiday Shopping

November 29, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

While overall online commerce showed impressive gains over last year's Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday, the real standout this year was mobile commerce. Compared with the same period in 2011, mobile grabbed a much larger share of both shopping and actual purchases. According to IBM’...
Schools & Resources
5 Sins of Retail Site Design in 2013

November 20, 2012 • Armando Roggio

A great retail site design is aesthetically pleasant; it reflects current trends; and it includes the best and often latest in functionality. When these areas are ignored the resulting design can be downright sinful — even harmful to the bottom line. To some extent, site design is subj...
Design & Development
3 Tactics for Mobile Commerce

November 16, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Mobile shopping may be the fastest growing retail trend this year and next. How merchants market to mobile shoppers could soon have a significant impact on sales and customer loyalty. There is no question that shoppers are using mobile devices — smartphones and tablets — to research bu...
Design & Dev Tools
29 New Tools to Develop Your Site

October 9, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Website owners interested in developing their sites can always find a variety of new resources online. Here is a collection of recent tools to develop your site. There are resources to monitor activity, such as backlinks, downtime, and customer behavior. There are wireframe and mockup...
Platforms & Apps
10 Free Content Curation Platforms

October 8, 2012 • Kevin Webster

Many businesses are embracing content curation — the process of collecting, commenting on, and linking to the content of others. The premise is find relevant articles, tips and tools that your prospects and customers would find valuable, and then share them on a platform that you brand.
User Experience
3 Tips for Better Online Merchandising

October 8, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The way that products and buying opportunities are presented on an ecommerce site can have a significant impact on sales. Making good merchandising choices especially around how search results are managed, how complementary products are displayed, and how the site's hierarchy is arrange...
User Experience
Smartphones, Tablets Account for 1 in 8 Visits

October 5, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

One in eight pages accessed on the Internet in the U.S. today are viewed on mobile devices, according to a report by comScore. Mobile phones account for 9 percent of Internet visits and tablets make up another 4 percent. It begs the question: What sort of experience are those mobile use...
Typography & Fonts
17 Typography Resources

October 1, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Your customers spend time looking at your site's text, so you'd better make sure your fonts look the way you want. Here is a list of typography resources and tools. There are sites to purchase fonts and access free fonts, typography resources to inspire your design, CSS tools to style ...
Design & Development
Top Retailers Going Mobile Fast

September 24, 2012 • Armando Roggio

America's top retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target, are enjoying significant mobile traffic as 4 in every 5 smartphone owners access retail ecommerce sites in a typical month. Internet trend tracking firm comScore reported the results of a July 2012 study last wee...
Design & Development
Choosing an Integrated Ecommerce System; 4 Steps

September 14, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part three of a three-part series on the advantages of an integrated, all-in-one ecommerce platform. The previous installments, "The Benefits of an Integrated Ecommerce System" and "Defining Your Integrated System Requirements," we published previously. Last week...
Schools & Resources
Learning from Bad Web Design

September 14, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Recognizing bad web design is often easy. But it can be difficult to know what makes it bad. In this article I will give you examples of bad web design and explain what good design practices could be used instead. Note that many of these examples are extreme cases of bad web design and there is more than one mistake in each example image.
Platforms & Apps
18 Gmail Productivity Plugins

September 11, 2012 • Sig Ueland

The right plugin can transform Gmail from a standard email program into a productivity powerhouse, capable of managing your communications and professional networks. Here is a list of productivity plugins for Gmail. There are plugins to schedule emails, track correspondence, manage so...
Design & Development
Defining Your Integrated System Requirements

September 6, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part two of a three-part series on the benefits of an integrated, all-in-one ecommerce platform. The first installment is "The Benefits of an Integrated Ecommerce System." The final installment is "Choosing an Integrated Ecommerce System; 4 Steps." There are clea...
Platforms & Apps
Installing Software on Ubuntu Linux

September 3, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The Ubuntu Linux software installation process is more like visiting a mobile app store than following a traditional Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X process. “On Windows, you might have to root around on a website to find an .exe file to download or go to a store and buy a CD with ...
Platforms & Apps
The Benefits of an Integrated Ecommerce System

August 30, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part one of a three-part series on the benefits of an integrated, all-in-one ecommerce platform. The second installment is "Defining Your Integrated System Requirements." The third is "Choosing an Integrated Ecommerce System; 4 Steps." I am consulting with a com...
Platforms & Apps
Touring the Ubuntu Unity Desktop

August 27, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ubuntu 12.04 is an alternative to the Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems. It features a functional and intuitive desktop environment. Ubuntu's Unity desktop has similarities to both Windows and OS X, meaning that users considering the switch to Ubuntu should not have m...
Design & Development
The Case for Building a Mobile Ecommerce App

August 24, 2012 • Gagan Mehra

In "Getting Started with Responsive Web Design," my previous article, I stated that there are instances when building a separate mobile app can be beneficial for your ecommerce business. In this article, I will expand on that to present instances where building a mobile app is a good op...
Platforms & Apps
17 Ecommerce Themes for OpenCart

August 20, 2012 • Sig Ueland

OpenCart is an open-source shopping cart system that is feature-rich and user-friendly, with a large variety of payment gateways and shipping method integrations. OpenCart features many high-quality ecommerce themes to ...
User Experience
Evaluating Mobile Strategies for Ecommerce Sites

August 15, 2012 • Dale Traxler

This article is my annual check-in on the evolving impact of mobile technologies on ecommerce. I wrote a blog post, "Going Mobile - A Year Later," in August 2011 as a follow-up to my post from May 2010 titled "Going Mobile" when I first realized that mobile shopping was becoming a reali...
Platforms & Apps
Microsoft Office Alternatives for Ubuntu Linux

August 13, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Maintaining spreadsheets, composing business documents, or even building slide-style presentations are a mainstay of modern business, including small and mid-sized online retail operations that often depend on the Microsoft Office suite to compete these tasks. The dependency on Office ...
Platforms & Apps
16 Responsive Ecommerce Themes on WordPress

August 6, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Responsive design allows a business to reach computers, tablets and smartphones from a single website. Here is a list of responsive themes on WordPress for ecommerce sites. Many of these themes are designed to be used with specific ecommerce plugins. All are premium themes, though r...
User Experience
10 Tips to Freshen Your Ecommerce Site

August 2, 2012 • Dale Traxler

One important strategy to grow your ecommerce revenue is to keep your store fresh and vibrant. That includes your content, products, and promotions. It may also mean regularly refreshing your navigation, themes, and other design elements. When was the last time you really looked at you...
Business
5 Reasons to Consider Ubuntu for Your Small Business

July 24, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system focused on ease of use, simplicity, and security. This operating system is a good alternative to either Microsoft Windows or Apple's OS X, and may help small businesses get improved performance while saving money. Although some small business ow...
Schools & Resources
16 New QR Code Campaigns in 2012

July 24, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Quick Response (QR) codes continue to appear in creative and inspired marketing promotions. Companies are finding new uses for the codes, as well as new ways to display them. Here is a list of new QR code campaigns in 2012. Some of the QR examples are remarkably inventive, such as Ema...
Design & Development
18 Websites Featuring Beautiful Illustrations

July 24, 2012 • Drew Coffin

In "10 Web Design Trends for 2012," I listed large illustrations as a growing trend in web design. Website illustrations can add personality to even the smallest sites and invite visitors to stay awhile and explore. Here are 18 websites with compelling illustrations.

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