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.

Fraud Prevention
Ecommerce Fraud Detection during the Pandemic

April 13, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic has led to significant changes in consumer purchase behavior and raised concerns about ecommerce fraud. Fortunately, overall ecommerce fraud does not appear to have risen disproportionately to the number of online purchases.
Business
Optimize DTC Profits with Price Elasticity Analysis

April 9, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Direct-to-consumer companies, including Amazon sellers with private label products, can use the price elasticity of demand to determine the optimal price for a given product and, thereby, potentially increase revenue, profit, or both.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2020

April 5, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic will almost certainly be the top news story in May 2020 as it was in March and April. But there are still opportunities for marketers to publish content that will attract an audience.
Business
Covid-19 Grants, Loans Could Help Ecommerce Companies

April 1, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Grants and loans from the U.S. government, state and local governments, Facebook, and Google could help small businesses during the Covid-19-induced economic slowdown.
Local Business
Covid-19 Is an Opportunity for Some Local Merchants

March 30, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic is bad news. It has shut down a significant portion of the world's economy and killed far too many people. If, however, you're willing to hunt for a silver lining, the shutdowns and social distancing could be an opportunity for some brick-and-mortar companies to finally get online.
Google Ads
Performance Marketing in the Coronavirus Downturn

March 25, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Even in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, ecommerce merchants should optimize advertising campaigns. That includes performance marketing, which is online promotions that cost the advertiser only when a potential customer takes some action, such as clicking a pay-per-click ad or starting a chat on Facebook Messenger.
Business
The Coronavirus Could Drive Car Dealers to Ecommerce

March 19, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Managing the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has led to temporary store closures, social distancing, and economic concerns. People and industries are affected, including car dealers.
Inventory
How to Calculate and Interpret Inventory Turnover

March 18, 2020 • Armando Roggio

How quickly a business sells its inventory is typically a strong indicator of efficiency, cash flow, and general well being. Thus inventory turnover — and the related inventory turnover ratio — is a powerful key performance indicator.
Conversion
U-shaped Marketing Attribution for Ecommerce

March 13, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The so-called "u-shaped" marketing attribution model emphasizes a shopper's first and last marketing interactions before a conversion. The model can help identify the marketing tactics that are closing sales.
SEO
Should Internal Search Results Pages Be Indexed?

March 10, 2020 • Armando Roggio

No, your website's own search results pages should not be indexed by Google and other search engines in most cases. Long-standing search-engine-optimization wisdom says the results pages from your site-search should block search engine bots and not be included in a search engine's index of pages.
Design & Development
Brave, a Privacy-focused Web Browser, Attracts Techies

March 6, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Brave is a niche web browser popular with tech enthusiasts for its privacy, ad blocking, and unique crypto-currency-based advertising and rewards system.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for April 2020

March 4, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The goal of content marketing is to attract and engage customers for your business. It can also build organic search traffic. Achieving these ends, however, takes compelling topics. Here are five content marketing ideas your business can try.
Staffing
What to Do When an Employee Leaves

February 28, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Employees quit. It is a reality of every business. Large companies with dedicated human resource teams have a process or checklist they follow when someone decides to leave. But small and mid-sized firms may not have a plan in place.
Content Marketing
Tips on Writing from 4,700 Articles, 24 Years of Journalism

February 25, 2020 • Armando Roggio

While much could be said about the writing process, in this post I'll share five tips from my own experience as a writer. These tips I've have developed from more than 24 years of journalism and more than 4,700 published, bylined articles. Perhaps at least one of these tips will help you.
Shipping & Fulfillment
First-party Logistics Could Transform Ecommerce

February 19, 2020 • Armando Roggio

In 2020, Amazon will deliver roughly 3.5 billion packages in the United States — more than FedEx. That could signal a trend toward first-party logistics, price pressure, and fragmentation in the package delivery industry.
Business
Managing Custom Prices in BigCommerce

February 18, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Not every customer pays the same price. Online merchants sometimes offer different prices to different sorts of customers. Businesses on BigCommerce's Enterprise plan can assign prices to customer groups, such as wholesalers or retailers.
Content Marketing
5 Helpful Chrome Extensions for Content Marketers

February 11, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Content marketers who research topics, look for guest post opportunities, compose articles, and even make instructional videos could improve their productivity with a few helpful Chrome browser extensions.
SEO
Compare SEO Stats for Acquisition Candidates, Guest Post Options

February 7, 2020 • Armando Roggio

There are plenty of instances that require an in-depth analysis of organic search performance. But other times a quick overview is enough. An example of the latter is a brief comparison of multiple domains. In this post, I will address the benefits of contrasting SEO across multiple domains.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for March 2020

February 5, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing is the act of creating content and then publishing and distributing it with the goal of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. To help achieve these ends, here are five content marketing ideas your company can try in March 2020.
Content Marketing
Analyze Competitors for High-traffic Content Ideas

February 3, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce competitors can be a good source of inspiration and ideas. Analyzing a competitor's content could generate ideas for your own company's articles, videos, podcasts, or similar. In this post, I'll look at a simple way to produce content marketing ideas from your competitors.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Q&A: ‘Can We Reduce Shipping Costs?’

January 29, 2020 • Armando Roggio

If you've ever wondered whether your ecommerce store could afford free shipping, or if you have been frustrated by poor shipping estimates at checkout, this post is for you. I'll address four common ecommerce shipping questions.
Business
DuckDuckGo Attracts Privacy-conscious Shoppers

January 24, 2020 • Armando Roggio

DuckDuckGo is a general-purpose search engine that shows results from its own index and about 400 trusted sources. It does not collect or share users' personal information. This single fact could make it popular with tech-savvy, privacy-conscious consumers.
Marketing & Advertising
Done Right, Customer Profiles Drive Revenue

January 23, 2020 • Armando Roggio

A good customer profile relies on objective information to describe shoppers, often segmenting them around the reasons they choose a company or product. In this post, I'll offer tips for building and using customer profiles.
Product Pages
Customize Shopify Product Pages with Metafields

January 17, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The standard description field on a Shopify product detail page is a monolithic block of content. Adding different sections to this block is possible, but the process is not ideal.
Conversion
Site Search Tested across 10 Retailers

January 14, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The search engines found on leading retail websites easily understand common misspellings, butchered brand names, and typographical errors. Your company's site search should too.
Marketing & Advertising
Essential Tasks for a New Ecommerce Marketing Manager

January 9, 2020 • Armando Roggio

There are at least seven tasks that could help a new ecommerce marketing manager during, say, the first 60 days. A new hire who tackles these tasks is likely to enjoy a successful relationship with the company.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for February 2020

January 5, 2020 • Armando Roggio

To attract and engage customers in February 2020, develop content that praises your products, helps shoppers along the buying journey, or connects sporting events, movies, or history with your business.
Analytics & Data
Using COUNTIF, COUNTIFS in Google Sheets to Sort, Analyze Data

December 31, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Whether you're researching keywords, reviewing lead sources, or analyzing customer attributes from a CRM export, Google Sheets' COUNTIF and COUNTIFS formulas can help. Recently, a multichannel retailer wanted to analyze five years' worth of lead and conversion data.
Platforms & Apps
Are Big Changes Coming to the Ecommerce Stack?

December 22, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Headless content management systems and site generators are driving a new content-centric web. The changes could be coming to ecommerce, at scale, very soon.
Google Ads
How SEM Agencies Help Ecommerce Businesses

December 19, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Search engine marketing is an important sales driver for the ecommerce industry. But as an online business grows or faces new competitive challenges, it may need outside marketing expertise. What follows are several good reasons to consider an SEM agency.