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
Create Google Docs from a Google Sheet

February 8, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Your business can use Google Apps Script to pull data from the rows and columns of a Google Sheet and create individualized Google Docs that include only the information needed. This can make your business and the folks running it more productive. Here's an example.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for March 2018

February 4, 2018 • Armando Roggio

March is prime time for information about nutrition, success, humor, and being outside. So why not create seasonal content that will help your business build customer relationships and make sales? Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and distributing articles, podcasts, or videos with the aim of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. It works on the principle of reciprocity — exchanging things for mutual benefit.
Shipping & Fulfillment
New Electronic Logging Mandate May Increase Shipping Costs

January 30, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Critics of a new logging mandate for freight carriers claim it is creating a shortage of drivers and increasing shipping costs in many industries, including retail. Beginning December 2017, the U.S.
Keyword Research
How to Identify Keywords That Signal Shoppers’ Intent

January 23, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Keyword phrases are the fuel that drives many online marketing efforts, including search engine optimization, paid search advertising, and even content ideas. If marketers do a better job in selecting keyword phrases, they may do a better job promoting their products and content.
Marketing & Advertising
Will Customer Profiles Replace Marketing Personas?

January 15, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Emerging technologies make it possible to move segmentation and personalization models beyond marketing personas to distinct, individual customer profiles. The ability to collect customer information — and organize it (i.e., big data) and draw insights from it (i.e., machine learning) — makes it possible for marketers to evolve. This evolution from buyer personas to individual profiles can provide superior personalization and an enhanced experience for shoppers.
Keyword Research
How to Build an Ecommerce Keyword List

January 9, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Keywords are an important building block for ecommerce marketing. Developing and maintaining a keyword list may help an ecommerce business understand shoppers and do a better job of marketing to them. In the context of search engine optimization, searchers' words or phrases summarize their thoughts, questions, or needs. Those keywords represent the language people use to ask for help finding resources online.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for February 2018

January 3, 2018 • Armando Roggio

Valentine's Day dominates the retail calendar in February, driving more than $18 billion in consumer purchases in the United States alone, including, by some accounts, $5.4 billion in ecommerce sales. Valentine's Day spending often includes dinner out, movie tickets, and flowers. But there is still plenty of opportunity for online retailers. The challenge is in how to attract those purchases. One solution is content marketing.
Marketing & Advertising
Live Streaming Can Promote Ecommerce Products

January 2, 2018 • Armando Roggio

From demonstrating intricate products in real-time to broadcasting webinars and conferences, live streaming is a natural progression of an ecommerce business's video marketing. It is an important tool for engaging customers. The technology behind live streaming is not necessarily new.
Fraud Prevention
7 Telltale Signs of Payment Card Fraud

December 26, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Purchases made with stolen payment cards cost the ecommerce industry billions of dollars a year worldwide. But, in at least some cases, merchants could have avoided losses had they recognized ...
SEO
Voice SEO: What Marketers Know Now

December 20, 2017 • Armando Roggio

How should your business optimize for voice search? The answer may be that the search engine optimization community doesn’t really know yet. In fact, perhaps the best thing your marketing department ...
Business
4 Challenges for Mid-market Ecommerce in 2018

December 18, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Changes in shopper behavior, improvements in technology, and pricing policies meant to “protect” small, brick-and-mortar retailers all represent significant challenges to mid-market ecommerce and mid-market omnichannel retail businesses in 2018. These ...
Conversion
Encourage After-Christmas Customer Reviews

December 14, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Customer reviews may boost ecommerce conversion rates and make product pages more findable on search engines. Combine this fact — that reviews improve search engine optimization and conversions — with the ...
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2018

December 11, 2017 • Armando Roggio

The beginning of a year represents new opportunities for content marketers. In January, help potential customers get started on their new hobbies and activities, celebrate one of the greatest Americans,
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Trends to Try in 2018

November 29, 2017 • Armando Roggio

The line, if there is one, between content marketing and publishing will continue to blur in 2018, as businesses produce high-quality articles, books, and broadcasts to attract, engage, and retain ...
Schools & Resources
5 Ecommerce Site Design Trends for 2018

November 23, 2017 • Armando Roggio

New techniques, technologies, and user behaviors drive ecommerce website and application design every year. In 2018, expect ecommerce sites to employ the CSS Grid Layout, use mobile-friendly full-screen modal windows,
Marketing & Advertising
Coupon Codes Can Measure Ecommerce Marketing Results

November 20, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Coupon or discount codes your customers enter during the ecommerce checkout process can help your business monitor and measure marketing and advertising effectiveness and make better promotional decisions. For a professional ...
Local Business
4 Marketing Lessons from Opening a Brick-and-mortar Store

November 15, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Lessons learned from opening a brick-and-mortar retail store may apply to online merchants, providing insights about promoting products, driving sales, and engaging shoppers. On November 9 through 11, 2017, I helped ...
Marketing & Advertising
5 Unconventional Black Friday Marketing Tactics, for Ecommerce

November 10, 2017 • Armando Roggio

The competition for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales is stiff. Online sellers — from the smallest garaged-based startup right up through Amazon — are sending email messages, buying pay-per-click ...
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for December 2017

November 5, 2017 • Armando Roggio

From curated wish lists to telling your company’s story, December 2017 offers content marketers many opportunities to connect with shoppers. Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and distributing articles,
Content Marketing
How to Use Retail Co-op Funds for Content Marketing

November 3, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Manufacturers and distributors that supply mid-market and enterprise retail businesses will sometimes pay those retailers to place ads alongside content as part of a cooperative advertising program. The secret to ...
Code
Frameworks Such as PhoneGap and React Native Ease Mobile App Development

October 22, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Development frameworks such as PhoneGap and, more recently, React Native make it significantly easier for retail businesses to build and deploy mobile applications for consumers and internal teams. Radio-frequency identification readers ...
SEO
B2B SEO Requires an Integrated Approach

October 19, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Complex products and long buying cycles make search engine optimization for B2B sites different than for B2C. The difference, however, is not in the specific techniques, but in the way SEO ...
Code
A Short Introduction to CSS Grid Layout for Ecommerce Sites

October 13, 2017 • Armando Roggio

CSS Grid is a two-dimensional layout model that can be combined with CSS media queries to produce complex and responsive website layouts, including layouts for ecommerce stores. The Internet and the ...
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for November 2017

October 8, 2017 • Armando Roggio

From Thanksgiving how-tos and holiday buying guides to sporting events and odd observances, there are plenty of content topics your business can use in November 2017. Content marketing is the act ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
When to Use USPS for Ecommerce Shipping

October 4, 2017 • Armando Roggio

The United States Postal Service is a popular shipping solution for American ecommerce businesses. It stacks up well against other carriers in several situations. The USPS may be particularly effective when ...
Content Marketing
3 Ways to Integrate Products You Sell with Content You Publish

September 29, 2017 • Armando Roggio

There is a subtle art to content marketing, to balance the need to sell products while offering audience-centric, helpful information. The value of that content must take precedence over short-term product ...
Design & Development
6 Uncommon Marketing Tactics to Try This Christmas

September 26, 2017 • Armando Roggio

A good marketing plan can include a mixture of tried and true tactics and, also, somewhat unusual or uncommon promotions. With the 2017 Christmas shopping season closing in, your marketing department ...
Business
4 Predictions for the 2017 Holiday Shopping Season

September 24, 2017 • Armando Roggio

During the 2017 holiday shopping season, expect weather, mobile commerce, and self-gifting to contribute to an 18 percent growth in U.S. digital retail sales. For the last few years, I have ...
Platforms & Apps
From Shopping Cart to Ecommerce Platform and Back Again?

September 21, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Ten or 15 years ago many of the companies selling goods and services online would have described their ecommerce software as a “shopping cart.” Now, changes in software development could ...
Business
Using MoSCoW Prioritization for Ecommerce Projects

September 19, 2017 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce businesses, like all businesses, have tasks or jobs that need to be done. Organizing tasks into priorities may help ecommerce owners and managers improve how their companies operate and ...