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.

Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce Know-How: Translate Your Ecommerce Site

August 19, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Language translation is an increasingly important part of ecommerce marketing, as many small- to mid-size businesses seek non-English-speaking customers. But translating a product detail page into Spanish, French, Czech, or Chinese is, frankly, not as simple as hopping over to Google, ...
Platforms & Apps
Twenty Design Examples of Magento Commerce-based Stores

August 14, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Magento Commerce is perhaps the most popular open-source ecommerce platform available today because of its rich feature set, excellent backend, and extremely flexible theme structure. Magento's theme structure is of particular interest to ecommerce web designers because it allows for a...
Analytics & Data
PeC Review: Clicky Web Analytics

August 12, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Web analytics newcomer Clicky offers real-time site data, Twitter activity, and custom data tracking for a nominal monthly fee, making it an attractive choice for some ecommerce businesses. Web analytics have become the definitive means of measuring marketing campaigns and search engin...
Social Media
PeC Traffic Report: Generate Buzz and Traffic With Contest Marketing

August 11, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce marketers can use contests to boost traffic and improve sales. If I guaranteed you an additional $10,000 in annual sales just for reading this article and posting a comment, would you do it? What about if I said you had a 1-in-100 chance of getting an additional $10,000 in a...
Customer Retention
Ecommerce Know-How: Marketing to the Hispanic Community

August 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Hispanic community is one of the fastest growing online consumer segments in the U.S. It represents some 11 percent of the total U.S. online market and it is, therefore, an important segment for ecommerce marketers to consider. According to comScore, an Internet trend tracking firm...
Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: Silkfair Is An Easy and Flexible eCommerce Platform

August 5, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Silkfair marketplace and ecommerce platform gives small ecommerce entrepreneurs an easy to use and flexible solution. It could have some online merchants selling in less than an hour without a single dime in out of pocket costs. Silkfair's market shops, which are somewhat analogo...
Staffing
Ecommerce Know-how: Selecting a Search Engine Optimizer

August 3, 2009 • Armando Roggio

A steady flow of organic search engine traffic can be the difference between a successful ecommerce business and a failed one. Thus choosing a professional to help optimize your online store is a critical business decision. But how will you decide which SEO professional to hire? But how will you decide wh...
User Experience
The Shopping Experience: Gap.com

July 31, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Gap.com provides a positive online shopping experience that emanates professionalism, trustworthiness, and quality. But it is an experience that even small ecommerce businesses can emulate. In 1996, the actress Sharon Stone wore a black Gap turtleneck to Hollywood's grandest gala, ...
Code
Web Design Tips: jQuery UI Accordion Widget

July 30, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Adding an interactive accordion widget to your ecommerce site can provide a great design feature that conveys professionalism and makes your content more readable. There are plenty of instances in website design when we would like to have a lot of content on a page, but, unless you are...
Email & Text Marketing
The PeC Review: GetResponse Is A Capable Email Campaign Tool

July 28, 2009 • Armando Roggio

GetResponse 6.0 is an easy-to-use email campaign management tool that makes customizing HTML newsletters and email promotions relatively simple. It will also automatically update a blog or Twitter account with newsletter content. GetResponse has an impressive design and a number of fe...
Technical SEO
Ecommerce Know-How: Adobe Flash vs. Search Engine Optimization

July 27, 2009 • Armando Roggio

New technology, user demand, and search-engine-optimized design are making it possible for search engines to index, rank and display sites developed completely with the Adobe Flash platform. To be sure, rich Internet applications (RIAs), like those created with Flash and Flex, are a ch...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Use 99 Designs for Crowd-sourced Graphics

July 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The appearance of your online store matters. Customers use a store's logo and website design to judge its trustworthiness and professionalism. But ecommerce storeowners and managers are businesspeople, not necessarily graphic or web designers. So their expertise is in merchandising, bu...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Should You Host Your Own Website?

July 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

For some ecommerce businesses, operating an in-house HTTP server and the associated server software can improve website performance, increase data security, and lower overall costs. But hosting your site yourself is not for everyone. Ecommerce businesses rely on the Internet. It is the...
Technical SEO
PeC Traffic Report: Searches for “Saving” Words Slowing in 2009

July 20, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Google search queries for "saving" words like "coupon" and "discount" were relatively flat in the first half of 2009. This is in spite of a U.S. national unemployment rate that has risen 69.6 percent in a year and the remaining effects of widespread recession. Relative data from Google...
Google Ads
Survey Results: Online Merchants Likely to Use Bing Pay-per-click Advertising

July 17, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Two thirds of respondents to a June 2009 Practical eCommerce survey said they were either using or would use Microsoft's Bing search engine for pay-per-click advertising, and an additional 25.3 percent said they would consider Bing. Altogether, some 92 percent of survey respondents sai...
Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: “The Unofficial Magento User Guide” Helpful for Novices

July 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Magento Commerce, the open source ecommerce platform, has a massive following and an engaged development community. So it is no surprise that one of its devotees has released an unofficial users' guide designed to help do-it-yourselfers implement this powerful platform. James D. Ballo...
Design & Development
Thirteen Great Flash-based Ecommerce Sites

July 15, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Adobe Flash platform is bringing stunning new examples of rich media to ecommerce sites. New site design techniques make Flash, Flex, and ActionScript, all from Adobe, very viable choices for adding video, audio, or just plain aesthetic awesomeness to any website's design. In this ...
Customer Retention
Ecommerce Know-How: Turn Customers Into Members

July 14, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Focusing a portion of marketing efforts on reselling existing customers or acquiring frequent shoppers could help boost sales for many online merchants. Often online retail marketing focuses on increasing site traffic and converting visitors. This strategy is really the heart of sellin...
Platforms & Apps
Google Operating System May Speed Mobile Ecommerce

July 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Google recently announced that it had begun work on a computer operating system that might accelerate interest in the popular mobile Internet device market. Mobile Internet devices (MIDs), which are sometimes called netbooks, are physically small and application-lite laptop computers d...
Schools & Resources
Ten Inspiring Ecommerce Site Designs

July 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Creating a great (and successful) ecommerce site requires a mix of terrific products, strong marketing, informative content, and strong site aesthetics. In this article, I have located ten ecommerce sites that offer inspiration for the site aesthetics portion of this mixture. Certa...
Code
Web Design Tips: Mobilizing Your Site Using CSS

July 8, 2009 • Armando Roggio

With a second style sheet and minor changes to a page's HTML, many online stores can offer an excellent mobile shopping experience without creating a second web page or registering a mobile specific domain. Mobile Internet use is on the rise. And online merchants presumably want to pro...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Mobile Commerce in Four Steps

July 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Internet-enabled mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices, and new wireless broadband standards are all making it easier for consumers to shop online while on the move. So, is your store ready to serve these mobile customers? In the evolution of modern shopping, consumers have very rec...
Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: MIT OpenCourseWare A Great Educational Resource

July 6, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the leading universities in the world, offers free online courses that can provide ecommerce business owners and managers with MBA-quality course material. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides open access to the MIT faculty’s course ...
Design & Dev Tools
The Shopping Experience: Icon Dock Excels at Downloadable Graphics

July 2, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Icon Dock is a beautifully designed, easy-to-use online retailer specializing in downloadable, vector graphic icons. Each month, Practical eCommerce sends me shopping. I make a purchase from a real online merchant—like Icon Dock—and report back to you about the overall checkout process,...
Cross-border Selling
The PeC Review: Bing’s Language Translator

July 1, 2009 • Armando Roggio

In some ways the Internet is like a giant global mall, with shoppers from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico mingling with like-minded buyers from India, Japan, and Spain. To better serve that mall, many online merchants choose to present product information, site navigation, and store polici...
Checkout Tactics
Ecommerce Know-How: Identify Related Products and Boost Sales

June 29, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Good on-site marketing, such as related-product promotions, encourages emotion-driven "joy buying," potentially boosting per-customer revenue and profit. Online shopping can be both a practical and an emotional activity. Often buyers begin an online shopping experience because they see...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Adobe Kuler Creates Stunning Colors for Websites

June 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Adobe Kuler is a free web application that can help ecommerce site designers select beautiful and communicative color palettes, earning it four-and-a-half stars in "The PeC Review." "Color is such a pervasive part of everyday life that one tends to take it for granted," wrote Ayn E. Cr...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Picking the Right Shopping Cart

June 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An online retailer is an online marketer. Often the difference between a successful online business and a failed one is not the product or products available for sale, but how the product is promoted. As an example, consider the case of Marcel Salathé, a Swiss artist and theoretical bi...
Typography & Fonts
Web Design Tips: Cufón is a Fast Font Replacement Solution

June 17, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An easy-to-implement JavaScript called Cufón allows web designers to quickly embed visually interesting fonts on their web pages, opening up new opportunities for typographical design elements. Every medium has constraints. For print, there are things like size, ink density, and paper ...
Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: KompoZer is a Capable, Free Web Authoring System

June 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio

KompoZer is a complete, open-source, and free web authoring system that combines web file management, coding hints, and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) page editor that is easy for non-technical site owners or designers to grasp. The KompoZer editor has an interesting history...