Armando Roggio

Articles by: Armando Roggio

Armando Roggio

Armando Roggio is the longtime senior contributor to Practical Ecommerce. He's a global ecommerce authority and a practicing merchant, developer, and journalist.

Since 2008 he's written over 1,300 articles for Practical Ecommerce addressing all matters of ecommerce and presented dozens of webinars.

His previous positions include director of ecommerce for a regional retail chain and marketing publications manager at Micron Technology, a publicly-traded computer-chip manufacturer. He holds a B.A. in English Writing and Journalism from The University of Pittsburgh.

Contact Armando via email or LinkedIn. Follow his ecommerce tweets at @ecommerceboy.

Business
How Do You Define Ecommerce Success?

December 12, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Entrepreneurs can feel inadequate — stressed, overworked, and defeated. But how you feel about your business — good or bad — depends on the rules you use to define success. You may be setting yourself up for failure.
Business
Apply a ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ for Objective Business Decisions

December 11, 2019 • Armando Roggio

A "Blue Ocean Strategy" can help businesses identify market opportunities. But it can be misused — in a good way — to identify brand characteristics, resolve tactical conflicts, and help a business see itself from a customer's perspective. I'll address those misuses in this post.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2020

December 3, 2019 • Armando Roggio

In January 2020, use historical events such as Utah's statehood, the introduction of the iPhone, or the first Super Bowl to inspire your company's content marketing. Done well, content marketing can help a business build lasting customer relationships. But it requires a stream of new content ideas.
Schools & Resources
Ecommerce Design Trends for 2020

November 27, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Dark mode, accessibility, and simple layouts with plenty of white space may be among the most popular ecommerce design trends for 2020. Most of the more than 20 ecommerce professionals contacted for this article believed that 2020 held few significant design-specific trends.
B2B
Ecommerce Helps Retain B2B Customers

November 21, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce can help retain business buyers via expedited reordering, real-time reporting, and improved customer service. B2B retention is often a combination of product quality, consistent delivery, contractual relationships, competitive negotiated prices, and close ties between sales representatives and their buyers.
SEO
How to Monitor SEO Topic Clusters, Silos

November 18, 2019 • Armando Roggio

An internal linking strategy around topic clusters or silos can improve site architecture and help search engines understand your content. But topic clusters are not a set-and-forget strategy. They require monitoring.
B2B
Legacy Software Holds Back B2B Ecommerce

November 11, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Some B2B companies are relying on legacy systems that are not capable of providing the modern ecommerce experience professional buyers seek. There is a myriad of problems with old, out-dated B2B software. But four categories could describe them all.
B2B
What’s the Best B2B Ecommerce Platform?

November 7, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Some estimates suggest the global business-to-business ecommerce market will be more than twice as large as retail ecommerce in 2020. Despite the market's size, many B2B sellers lag behind B2C in ecommerce technology, features, and performance.
B2B
B2B Buyers Have High Ecommerce Expectations

November 6, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Manufacturers and distributors know that they need to offer their products online for easy, self-service ordering. But many of those same businesses fear they won't be able to meet customer expectations.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for December 2019

November 4, 2019 • Armando Roggio

In December, your company’s content could round up 2019’s top stories or trends, look ahead to what 2020 holds, or cover seasonal events and how-tos. Content marketing is the act of ...
Business
How to Find a Manufacturer for DTC Ecommerce Products

October 29, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Entrepreneurs and established retailers are developing their own private label, direct-to-consumer products for ecommerce. But most of these DTC sellers don't plan to manufacture those items in their own facilities with their own workforce, tools, and materials. Rather these businesses need a manufacturing partner.
Business
3 Tips for an Ecommerce Marketing SWOT Analysis

October 28, 2019 • Armando Roggio

A SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — can help an ecommerce business improve its marketing, find new ways to promote its brand, and avoid competitive threats.
Marketing & Advertising
Fundamentals of Ecommerce Marketing for 2020

October 23, 2019 • Armando Roggio

New technologies and evolving consumer behaviors are impacting ecommerce marketing at its core. Some of the changes affect established tactics, such as search engine optimization. Others, such as developing and managing chatbots, are new. All require ecommerce marketers to master important new skills.
B2B
The Full Cost of a Direct-to-consumer Product

October 17, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Deciding if your direct-to-consumer product would be profitable is more than subtracting the product's unit cost from the planned selling price. It requires estimating the full cost of bringing the product to market, selling it, and delivering it.
Marketing & Advertising
Try a Dwindling Discount for Black Friday Ecommerce Sales

October 14, 2019 • Armando Roggio

A dwindling discount that starts high and diminishes every few hours from Thanksgiving through Black Friday can create urgency and drive ecommerce sales.
Design & Development
Add a Web App Manifest for an Ecommerce PWA

October 10, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Creating and loading a web app manifest file is among the first steps toward transforming an ecommerce website into a progressive web app — PWA — that can be installed on a mobile device, similar to a native app, with an icon on the home screen.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for November 2019

October 3, 2019 • Armando Roggio

In all of its forms, content marketing is one of the best ways to engage customers and create a bond that could lead to repeat sales. What follows are five content marketing ideas your ecommerce business could try in November 2019.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Copywriting Tips for Amazon Product Pages

September 27, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Well written product detail pages can convince an Amazon shopper to buy your business's mattress topper, omega-3 supplement, or wooden bocce set — instead of your competitors'. Here are some tips to improve your company's Amazon product pages.
Content Marketing
Here’s Why Your Content Marketing Is Failing

September 25, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Done well, content marketing can be an important and effective promotional channel. If content marketing is not performing for your company, one of the following reasons could be the culprit.
Social Media
An Ecommerce Social Media Plan for the Holidays

September 19, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Social media posts can play an important role in a retailer's holiday promotions by engaging, informing, and encouraging potential shoppers. Social media is typically most effective when marketers plan and schedule well in advance. For your company's holiday social media campaigns, consider the following questions.
Customer Retention
6 Customer Retention Ideas for the Holidays

September 16, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The holiday shopping season from October to December is a boom time for most retailers. Sales are up. New customers are plentiful. What follows are six ideas to retain holiday shoppers after the busy season.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Retail Arbitrage as a Closeout Strategy

September 12, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Retail arbitrage is a booming business. Some practitioners are making six-figure incomes buying low-priced or clearance items and reselling them on Amazon. Mimicking or encouraging the practice could help retail merchants manage closeouts.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for October 2019

September 8, 2019 • Armando Roggio

For some business, the challenge is not understanding how content marketing is supposed to work, but rather knowing what to write about or what to make a video about. Thus, this article offers five content marketing ideas for October 2019. You are welcome to use these ideas for your business.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Write Amazon Product Titles That Drive Clicks

September 3, 2019 • Armando Roggio

On Amazon's marketplace, a product's title can be the difference between getting a click or being ignored. Next to a compelling product photo, a title is likely the most important aspect of the description. Amazon emphasized this when it enacted new product title requirements in June 2019.
Business
3 Predictions for the 2019 Holiday Shopping Season

August 29, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Many trends will emerge from the 2019 Christmas shopping season, but I believe three will be prominent. First, click-and-collect may encourage shoppers to wait for last-minute deals and convenience. Second, mobile commerce will come into its own. And third, Amazon will account for nearly half of all online holiday sales in 2019.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Ads Boost Marketplace Search Rankings

August 27, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Amazon Ads will not only help spur marketplace sales but could start a virtuous cycle of revenue growth. Amazon favors high-converting products on its search result pages. One of the ways to improve a product's conversions and sales is to advertise it on the platform.
Marketing & Advertising
How to Launch Facebook Ads from Your Business Page

August 23, 2019 • Armando Roggio

There are many good reasons to use Facebook ads, not the least of which is its continued focus on the advertising model. A company can create an effective advertising campaign directly from its Facebook business page. I'll describe the process in this post.
SEO
Use ‘Barnacle SEO’ to Drive Traffic without Ranking

August 21, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Using so-called "barnacle SEO" tactics, an ecommerce business may be able to put its products and its brand in front of many potential customers without ranking its website for a target phrase. The idea is to place content on large established domains to win one or more spots on the search engine results page for your company's most competitive keyword phrases.
Link Building
SEO: A Common Sense Assessment of Link Quality

August 14, 2019 • Armando Roggio

A quality backlink pleases both humans and search engine algorithms. It is editorial in nature. It comes from a well-respected source, and it is relevant to the topics covered on both the linking and linked websites.
Business
‘California Consumer Privacy Act’ Impacts Ecommerce Businesses

August 13, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The California Consumer Privacy Act raises the bar for privacy protection in the United States. The CCPA is a significant step toward protecting consumer data, including the personal information most every ecommerce company collects.