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-
Design & Dev Tools
10 Editors for Ecommerce Audio
August 3, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Adding audio to your ecommerce site is a great way to engage customers. With audio features — such as podcasts or audio product descriptions — you create a rich experience as you inform and captivate your shoppers. And audio is a manageable and cost-efficient alternative to video. ...
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Design & Development
13 Social Shopping Sites for Ecommerce Merchants
August 1, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Social shopping combines product sales with consumer recommendations in a social network environment. The concept centers around communities of people who share similar interests and who rely on the opinions of fellow members to influence purchase decisions. Some sites are completely ...
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Design & Development
Can a Chromebook Do Real Work?
August 1, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Google Chromebooks are fast-loading netbooks running the new Google Chrome OS. Chromebooks depend on web applications for everything from word processing to spreadsheets. These browser-only devices are supposed to provide a better user experience for common tasks like reading email or s...
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Design & Development
Low-Price Acer Chromebook: What a Computer Should Be?
July 28, 2011 • Armando Roggio
The Acer AC700 Chromebook is an excellent, lightweight, and fast booting computer that just might have users thinking about computers in a complete new way. This Acer computer is the least ...
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Schools & Resources
Reading List: Josh Colter of Elias Interactive
July 27, 2011 • PEC Staff
In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite recent books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded with ...
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Platforms & Apps
Goodsie Helpful for Beginning Entrepreneurs
July 21, 2011 • Armando Roggio
A new ecommerce platform helps novice ecommerce entrepreneurs get up and running quickly, but it limits choices and, perhaps, creates some marketing challenges. Goodsie — which costs $15 per month — uses a simple web interface and a well-defined set of options to help would-be merchant...
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Schools & Resources
Reading List: Steve Castro-Miller of Bold Software
July 20, 2011 • PEC Staff
In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite recent books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded with ...
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Design & Dev Tools
10 Handy Web Templates from Google Sites
July 15, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Google Sites is a portal for creating websites. It offers a gallery of templates, including business and collaboration designs, where you can make a site public or just open to ...
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Design & Development
5 Gmail Techniques to Boost Productivity
July 14, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Gmail is full of time saving features and capabilities that can make you more productive. In this article, I'll review five Gmail techniques that will help you master your inbox. It is important to note, before exposing you to these productivity-boosting wonders, that Google actual...
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Design & Development
6 Google Templates to Mobilize Your Business
July 7, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Mobilize your business. Google has introduced six mobile templates for Google Sites, Google’s portal to assist with the creation of websites. Businesses can now create mobile websites or landing pages ...
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Schools & Resources
25 Top-Selling Ecommerce Books
July 4, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Assembling your reading list for a summer getaway? Don’t forget to pack the ecommerce books. Here is a list of top-selling ecommerce books. There are general books on ecommerce and social media for businesses. And there are books on specific ecommerce subjects, such as search engine op...
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Design & Development
The Four P’s of Mobile Commerce
June 28, 2011 • Gagan Mehra
Mobile commerce is growing. And consumers' use of mobile devices is growing. But mobile commerce is not for all ecommerce merchants. This article will help answer the question, "Is mobile commerce important for my site?" Merchants can analyze the applicability of mobile commerce to the...
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Platforms & Apps
15 Mobile Retail Apps that Enhance Customer Experiences
June 24, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Retail businesses are building mobile apps that do much more than just display products for sale. Mobile apps can shape the in-store experience, empower the purchasing process, and create interesting and dynamic ways to interact with the customer. Here is a list of mobile apps created ...
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Design & Development
OverstockArt.com Goes Mobile; CEO Explains
June 23, 2011 • PEC Staff
Most every ecommerce merchant is at least contemplating a mobile strategy, whether a specialized mobile app or a mobile optimized site. Mobile development is the topic we discussed recently with David Sasson. He is the president of OverstockArt.com, an online retailer of original paint...
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Platforms & Apps
34 Ecommerce Themes for WordPress
June 22, 2011 • Sig Ueland
A WordPress ecommerce theme can take a regular blog and transform it into a dazzling online storefront. Find the theme that’s right for you, then customize it to create your unique store. This is a list of ecommerce themes for WordPress. There are free themes, if you’re just getting st...
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Design & Development
Staples.com Exec on Lessons from Mobile Website
June 20, 2011 • PEC Staff
Staples, the office supply retailer, recently launched a new mobile-optimized ecommerce site. The company designed the site to drive product sales across multiple channels, as well as to offer shopping tools to its small business customers. It's the second mobile site from Staples; the...
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Platforms & Apps
20 QR Code Tools and Uses
June 16, 2011 • Sig Ueland
With quick response codes, businesses and organizations are finding new ways to deliver information and interact with consumers. When you scan a QR code with your smartphone application, you can receive product information. But QR codes can also link to web content, video, social medi...
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Platforms & Apps
25 Great Magento Themes
June 15, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Magento is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms with thousands of live shops, including major retailers. The platform, which eBay recently purchased, also has a vibrant developer community that creates easy-to-integrate themes and modules. In this article, you find a list of 25 ...
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User Experience
Google Says Smartphone Sites Aren’t Mobile
June 14, 2011 • Jill Kocher Brown
Perhaps you’ve noticed the lack of mobile sites in your mobile search results. Most likely you’re using a smartphone. The two are closely related, and bode poorly for ecommerce companies focusing search-engine-optimization resources on their smartphone sites. In a recent question-and-an...
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Platforms & Apps
35 Android Apps to Run Your Business
June 10, 2011 • Sig Ueland
In this mobile world, iPhone gets all the love. There are over 400,000 different apps for Apple’s iOS, compared to approximately 200,000 apps for Google’s Android OS. However, according to a recent study by mobile analytics group Distimo, there are now more free apps available for Andro...
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Schools & Resources
Reading List: Tomer Tagrin of Yotpo
June 7, 2011 • PEC Staff
In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite recent books and blogs and tell us why they read them. In this installment, we corresponded with ...
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Platforms & Apps
24 Ecommerce Plugins for WordPress
June 2, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Once WordPress was just a place to blog. Then came over fourteen thousand plugins. Today WordPress is a highly customizable platform, with everything you need to run your ecommerce business. Here is a list of 24 plugins to help you run your business on WordPress. These plugins will hel...
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Platforms & Apps
10 Essential Shopping Cart Features
June 1, 2011 • Armando Roggio
There are hundreds of ecommerce platforms that online merchants can choose from. The differences between these carts can be significant, so knowing what features matter is important. In this article, you'll find a list ten "must-have shopping cart features" that either improve the shop...
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Design & Dev Tools
14 Online Task-Management Tools
May 26, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Whether you’re working on your own projects or collaborating with a team, you have to manage your productivity. With online task-management tools, you can organize tasks, collaborate in real-time, access your lists across multiple computers or mobile devices, and much more. Here is a ...
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Design & Dev Tools
31 Free Tools for Brand Monitoring
May 25, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Brand monitoring is an essential task for any company. By tracking what people are saying about your brand, and how often they’re saying it, you can ensure the right message ...
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Design & Development
Ecommerce Sales from Smartphones Slow; 5 Suggestions to Help
May 20, 2011 • Charles Nicholls
It seems as if everyone’s talking about mobile commerce, but not many consumers are actually participating in it. It’s not that there is no mobile commerce happening on mobile-optimized sites; it’s just that it is very small. Two different estimates forecast the value of mobile commerc...
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Schools & Resources
5 Free Business Training Opportunities
May 19, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce entrepreneurs are responsible for every area of their business, from accounting to order processing to website maintenance. So it is common for some small business owners to find that they need to learn new skills to either get their business started or help it grow. In this ...
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Platforms & Apps
16 Live Meeting and Webinar Platforms
May 18, 2011 • Sig Ueland
With web conferencing you can reach a broad audience, whether it’s a 25-person live meeting or a 2,500-person webinar. Here is a list of live-conferencing services. Many of these distinguish between smaller meetings and larger webinars, offering services for both categories. While t...
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Design & Development
4 Ways to Make Site-Search Effective
May 18, 2011 • Gagan Mehra
Search is the second-most critical function on an ecommerce site, after the shopping cart checkout. Shoppers use site search even if they are familiar with the navigation of your site. You can relate to this by thinking of all the instances when you have gone to Amazon.com looking for a...
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Schools & Resources
Reading List: HiConversion Founder Zee Aganovic
May 17, 2011 • PEC Staff
In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite recent books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded with ...