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.

Inventory
Getting Investors to Buy Your Inventory

July 28, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When it comes to funding inventory, retail businesses can be creative, using loans, credit cards, supplier terms, and even advances from family. Whatever the method, however, raising the money can be a challenge.
Product Pages
The Full-funnel Product Detail Page

July 26, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Once found only at the bottom of a sales funnel, the ecommerce product detail page is evolving to address the entire buyer journey, from awareness to sale. Consider a free, basic theme on Shopify called "Simple." Its product detail pages are sales-focused, with eight sections.
Business
6 Things to Do before Selling an Ecommerce Business

July 22, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When it comes time to sell your ecommerce business, you may find you are not fully prepared for prospective buyers or your business isn't the smooth running machine you thought. The individuals considering your company may be looking for a new source of income or an addition to a portfolio of related businesses. These prospective buyers need assurances and info, to evaluate the potential.
Social Media
What’s the Future of Social Media Advertising?

July 19, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Many businesses recognize the need for social media advertising. But describing social media ads is a bit like counting raindrops in a thunderstorm. The trends are many, fast-moving, and often gone in a flash. At least one industry practitioner believes social advertising is growing in acceptance despite tracking concerns.
Google Ads
Need More from Pay-per-click Ads? Try Planning

July 15, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Pay-per-click advertising is essential for many ecommerce and omnichannel retailers. Google, Facebook, and other ad platforms have made it easy to set up a campaign. PPC success, however, often depends on careful planning and preparation, not rushing out to place ads.
Business
How to Track Profit from Products, Customers

July 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Unit economics provides ecommerce and omnichannel retailers with foundational intelligence that can identify break-even points and long-term sustainability. As the name implies, unit economics focuses on the value a single "unit" represents for the business. This unit can either be a product or a customer. Each of these reveals different, actionable information.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: A Process for SEO Link-building

July 8, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building could be the most daunting search engine optimization task. It requires near equal portions of research, creativity, and outreach resembling cold calls. It's also critical for prominent organic search rankings.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for August 2021

July 5, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In August 2021, ecommerce and omnichannel retailers have many topics to choose from for content marketing, including back-to-school shopping guides, informative ebooks, MTV's 40th birthday, presidential jokes, and items with an international flavor.
Platforms & Apps
Shopify Announces Online Store 2.0, More

July 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio

During its "Unite" event on June 29, Shopify announced significant changes to its ecommerce platform aimed at performance, ease of use, and empowering developers. The company also announced a new revenue-sharing model, giving app and theme creators 100% of revenue up to $1 million each year.
Business
Book Excerpt: ‘The Digital Seeker’

June 29, 2021 • Armando Roggio

We go to the internet because we seek something: love . . .adventure . . . education . . . opportunity . . . the hot new gadget . . . the must-have holiday toy . . . an escape from our daily life. But when we get there, we find the internet is a frustrating place — because when it comes to choices, the internet has outdone itself.
Email & Text Marketing
Apple’s iOS 15 Could Improve Email Marketing

June 24, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When it's released this fall, Apple's iOS 15 could make capturing some email marketing metrics more difficult, which might improve performance. On June 7, 2021, Apple described some of the new privacy features it would offer in its forthcoming operating systems for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac computers.
Business
Brave Launches Google Search Competitor

June 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Brave Search hopes to serve privacy-minded consumers worried about tracking cookies and invasive advertising. On June 22, 2021, Brave Search entered public beta, meaning that anyone can type in queries on the new search engine and see the results.
Business
An Arms Race of Ecommerce Data Is Coming

June 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Consumer brands and large retailers are creating data-driven infrastructure and workflows that could impact the entire ecommerce industry, according to a performance analytics firm.
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketers Should Know Subscribers Better

June 16, 2021 • Armando Roggio

How important is email list segmentation? Some leading retail brands and marketplaces are allowing subscribers to opt-out of Father's Day email promotions this year. Etsy, Free Fly Apparel, Tesco, and many others have asked subscribers if they want to receive marketing announcements for Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: SEO Link-building Is Hard

June 10, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building is among the most important search engine optimization techniques. It is foundational and essential. Just about every successful commerce business wants or needs to build links, but it is hard to do well. Moreover, there is no easy way to "hack" link building.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Get Ready for a Marketplace Bloodbath

June 9, 2021 • Armando Roggio

As the retail industry continues its digital transformation, consumer brands and traditional retailers are churning out Amazon-like marketplaces that could lead to new battles over products and customers. Oriental Trading Company, Inc., a discount party-supply chain, recently announced that it would launch an online marketplace.
Marketing & Advertising
CommerceCo Recap: SMS Marketing Fundamentals

June 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Text messaging can be among the most productive retail marketing channels, provided the workflows are automated and the performance is tracked. Entrepreneur Jordan West, the owner of an ecommerce marketing agency and an apparel company, uses text-message marketing to drive sales. He believes text messages are among his best marketing channels.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for July 2021

June 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In July 2021, your content marketing could focus on teaching a skill, showing off products via a live stream, celebrating UFOs, enjoying grandmothers, or reviewing an upcoming summer blockbuster. Regardless, remember that the purpose of content marketing is to attract, engage, and retain customers.
Customer Retention
Text Messages Are an Ecommerce Opportunity

May 31, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Many ecommerce and omnichannel marketers treat text messaging as pared-down email campaigns. But text alone is a powerful way to drive sales. Nearly everyone, after all, grabs their mobile phone the moment a message arrives.
Business
As Cookies Crumble, Fingerprinting Could Grow

May 25, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Privacy advocates, tech companies, and government regulators are all working to bring an end to third-party cookies. But even as the cookies crumble, some ad networks could turn to browser fingerprinting to track individuals.
Analytics & Data
‘Assisted Conversions’ in Google Analytics Are Attribution Gold

May 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Google Analytics "Assisted Conversions" reports are hidden attribution gold deep in the platform's conversion analysis tools. While most Analytics reports show the immediate source ("last click") of traffic and conversions, Assisted Conversions identify the relationship between all channels and conversions.
Business
CommerceCo Recap: Tailor-made Shopping Experiences

May 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When eBay and Amazon were founded, in 1995, ecommerce pioneers worried that pictures of products would never provide the same experience as handling a product on a rack. Ecommerce has generally overcome this challenge, but there are still products that are more difficult to present online.
Content Marketing
Using an Ebook for B2B Lead Generation

May 18, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Trading an ebook for a prospect's contact information is among the purest forms of content marketing. It's an effective way for B2B sellers to find their next customer. B2B companies supply the products that ecommerce and omnichannel sellers retail to the general public.
Inventory
Save Money on Inventory with EOQ

May 17, 2021 • Armando Roggio

An American production engineer developed the economic order quantity (EOQ) model to help buyers at manufacturing companies understand how much of a given raw material or part they should buy. Many companies now use EOQ to calculate the ideal amount of inventory to minimize costs.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Use Terapeak for eBay 2021

May 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The Terapeak research tool takes some of the guessing out of whether a product will sell on eBay. eBay acquired Terapeak in 2017, rolling the analytics tool into its Seller Hub and eventually making its product research function free to use. eBay sellers can look up individual products or product categories, discover sell-through rates, average prices, shipping costs, and more.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for June 2021

May 4, 2021 • Armando Roggio

From bicycles to Omaha Beach, June 2021 is full of international celebrations and historical events to fuel your company's content marketing. What follows are five content marketing ideas you can use for your business this June.
Business
Ecommerce Insights from China’s Pinduoduo

May 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

At the end of 2020, the five-year-old Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo had 788.4 million users and more than $9 billion in annual revenue. Pinduoduo's incredible growth may provide some insights into the future of ecommerce.
Business
The Retail Omnichannel Imperative

April 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In 2021 and beyond, successful retailers with physical stores will likely become powerful omnichannel sellers as shoppers choose merchants with superior end-to-end buying experiences. "The reason that omnichannel is critical for retailers in 2021 is because the customer demands it," said Jess Huang, a partner at McKinsey & Company.
Marketing & Advertising
Digital Advertisers Need to Pivot

April 26, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The end of third-party cookies and the beginning of opt-in user tracking in Apple's iOS devices have some advertisers worried, but pivoting toward first-party data and better customer experiences may lead to even more success.
Marketing & Advertising
What Google Chrome FLoC Says about Targeted Ads

April 21, 2021 • Armando Roggio

A proposed alternative to third-party cookies may provide insights into the future of targeted ads. Modern digital ad targeting relies on individual and personal information. An online retailer, for example, can use networks such as Google or Facebook to target potential customers.