Charles Nicholls

Articles by: Charles Nicholls

Charles Nicholls

Charles Nicholls is founder and chief strategy officer of SimplicityDX, an edge experience company. He is an ecommerce pioneer, social commerce expert, and board advisor to several startups.

In 2003 he founded SeeWhy, a real-time personalization and machine learning platform, which he sold to SAP. He then served as SAP's senior vice president of product and built SAP Upscale Commerce, an ecommerce platform for direct-to-consumer brands and the mid-market.

Over the years Charles has consulted on strategy and projects for leading ecommerce companies worldwide, including Amazon, eBay, Google, and many others.

Contact Charles on LinkedIn.

Influencers & Affiliates
Influencers Are Remaking Product Discovery

December 9, 2024 • Charles Nicholls

Influencers are no longer just trendsetters; they're remaking how consumers discover and choose products.
Customer Retention
Holiday Gift Guides Drive Long-Term Revenue

October 23, 2024 • Charles Nicholls

Gift guides encourage considered shopping rather than impulse buying, leading to fewer returns, happier customers, and repeat sales.
Marketing & Advertising
Optimized Landing Pages Reduce Ad Costs

September 5, 2024 • Charles Nicholls

Algorithms on Google, Meta, and others evaluate an ad and its linked landing page, assigning a relevancy score that influences cost and performance.
Social Media
Robert Cialdini on Social Commerce

May 2, 2024 • Charles Nicholls

The author of "Influence" sees big changes in how consumers decide what to purchase.
Customer Retention
How to Break Even on Customer Acquisition

December 5, 2023 • Charles Nicholls

Increasing first-time order values can recoup the cost of acquiring that buyer.
Customer Retention
Ecommerce Profitability Revisited

June 26, 2022 • Charles Nicholls

In 2013, most ecommerce merchants generated losses from first-time shoppers. It's the same for 2022, although the circumstances differ. Contributor Charles Nicholls revisits the drivers of ecommerce profitability: 2013 vs. 2022.
Customer Retention
Online Shopping Has Shifted to the Edge

April 26, 2022 • Charles Nicholls

In a bygone era, shoppers entered an ecommerce site directly or via a search engine. No more. In 2022 it's social media that increasingly starts the process, creating opportunities and challenges for merchants.
Conversion
Online Grocery Lessons from Covid-19

July 7, 2021 • Charles Nicholls

Covid-19 greatly changed the grocery industry, perhaps more than any retail sector. Years of projected evolution occurred in three months as the pandemic altered consumers' lives. eMarketer now estimates that 12.4% of total U.S. grocery sales in 2021 will be online.
Business
Do Consumers Care about Green Commerce?

March 21, 2021 • Charles Nicholls

Covid-19 has shone a light on the next big crisis: the environment. Younger consumers are especially sensitive about global warming and the world they are inheriting. Does it affect the way they shop? What can merchants do to make their operations greener?
Conversion
Mid-market Merchants Lag on Holiday Mobile Sales

December 3, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Several shopping trends are already emerging from this year’s holiday season. The big story is that U.S. ecommerce sales on mobile are up by a whopping 50 percent. The bulk of the increase has gone to the largest merchants. Mid-market merchants have struggled on mobile.
Business
3 Quick Fixes for Greener Ecommerce

October 3, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Ecommerce is not very eco. It’s frequently the opposite. A next-day delivery — where a driver travels 45 minutes each way for a $7 item in a single-use plastic package — makes no sense for the planet. Here are three quick fixes.
Local Business
3 Lessons from Running Pop-up Stores

June 4, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Pop-up stores are a familiar sight in malls and events, but adding a digital component is relatively new. I've just completed a series of pop-up experiences for my company and for merchant brands. In this post, I'll share my lessons and observations.
Conversion
4 Online Merchandising Hacks to Increase Profits

April 3, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Retailers seek to avoid markdowns and sell out of the season at full margin, but it isn’t easy to predict how much inventory to acquire. In this post, I'll address four online merchandising tactics that balance consumer demand with inventory levels, to maximize profits.
Conversion
Getting Started with Continuity Ecommerce, Part 2: Steps to Success

February 5, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Continuity ecommerce generates recurring revenue via a combination of connected devices and auto-ship functionality. It's subscriptions on steroids. In "Part 1: Approaches, Expectations," I explained how continuity ecommerce can build high-margin revenue streams. In this article, I’ll focus on how to make continuity programs a success.
Conversion
Getting Started with Continuity Ecommerce, Part 1: Approaches, Expectations

February 3, 2019 • Charles Nicholls

Continuity ecommerce combines recurring revenue, connected devices, and auto-ship functionality. It's subscriptions on steroids, and it's becoming big business. In this article, I'll explore how merchants can implement continuity programs...
Conversion
3 Ways to Narrow the Mobile Commerce Gap

December 3, 2018 • Charles Nicholls

A study in 2017 revealed a massive "conversion gap" on mobile. Responsive design relies on concepts from a different era, when most shoppers navigated a website with a mouse. What follows are three ways to prompt more mobile conversions.
Conversion
Ecommerce Profitability: The Critical Second Sale

December 9, 2013 • Charles Nicholls

Acquiring new customers is so expensive for retailers that it wipes out profits from a first-time sale. New analysis from my firm, SeeWhy, of data from Forrester and the U.S.
Conversion
Alternative Payments and Ecommerce Conversions

November 21, 2013 • Charles Nicholls

There’s no shortage of alternative payment choices: eBay’s PayPal, Google’s Wallet, Visa V.me, and MasterCard MasterPass, to name a few. There is also a proliferation of alternate contenders, as mobile ...
Business
Are Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode Conversion Killers?

June 14, 2013 • Charles Nicholls

No merchant wants to add steps in the checkout process that reduce conversion. However, merchants often don’t have a choice about 3D Secure, the payment industry program behind "Verified by Visa," "MasterCard SecureCode," and "Amex SafeKey." These programs attempt to reduce card-not-p...
Conversion
Do Digital Catalogs Drive Conversions?

March 26, 2012 • Charles Nicholls

Traditionally, catalogs are printed. They have an interruptive value as they arrive through the mailbox. They get read at the breakfast table, in front of the television, and in bed. They provide customers with a pleasurable way of browsing at their leisure, selecting products for a pot...
Customer Retention
3 Remarketing Email Campaigns to Grow Repeat Customers

December 15, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

Getting a first purchase from a customer is always satisfying. New data shows, however, just how hard it is to build repeat customers, those that buy over and over again. I’ve just completed one of the most extensive studies ever conducted into the purchasing behavior of website visito...
Conversion
Can Spelling Mistakes Impact Ecommerce Conversion?

December 7, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

There’s little research on the impact of spelling and grammar mistakes on conversion. But Charles Duncombe, CEO of JustSayPlease, a U.K.-based ecommerce and travel company, is a stickler for getting it right. He knows firsthand the impact of spelling mistakes on an ecommerce site. He sa...
Business
Selling on Amazon: Pros and Cons

August 2, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

The Harry Potter franchise of ebooks will not be depending on Amazon. Author J.K. Rowling has teamed up with Sony to launch a direct outlet, called Pottermore. If you’re in the ecommerce business, and have ambition, then perhaps like J.K. Rowling, you shouldn’t rely on Amazon. But if...
Email & Text Marketing
4 Ways of Capturing More Email Addresses and Increasing Conversion

June 14, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

There is a very strong link between website conversions and email. A recent study by my firm showed that once traffic has gotten as far as the shopping cart email was the largest source of ecommerce conversions, ranking above a direct entry and search. This is a useful reminder that the...
Design & Development
Ecommerce Sales from Smartphones Slow; 5 Suggestions to Help

May 20, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

It seems as if everyone’s talking about mobile commerce, but not many consumers are actually participating in it. It’s not that there is no mobile commerce happening on mobile-optimized sites; it’s just that it is very small. Two different estimates forecast the value of mobile commerc...
Conversion
Conversion Tip: Send Customers a Catalog

November 10, 2010 • Charles Nicholls

Editor's Note: Printed catalogs remain stubbornly effective for many online retailers. This week's "Conversion Tip" addresses that reality. The author is Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy.com, a conversion and cart-abandonment recovery firm. The problem wit...
Design & Development
Conversion Tip: Persistent Carts Help ‘Wish List’ Shoppers

November 4, 2010 • Charles Nicholls

Editor's Note: This week's "Conversion Tip" addresses the reality of shoppers that abandon carts, and then return to them later to purchase. The author is Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy, a conversion and abandonment-recovery firm. Research published by U...
Conversion
Conversion Tip: Dealing with Invalid Coupon Codes

October 25, 2010 • Charles Nicholls

Editor’s Note: We continue our “Conversion Tip” series with Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy.com, a conversion and cart-abandonment recovery firm. For this installment, Nicholls addresses the ...
Conversion
Top 10 Converting Websites: The 3 Common Strategies

October 7, 2010 • Charles Nicholls

This is the third article in my analysis of the top 10 converting ecommerce sites. The first installment, "Debunking Myths from the Top 10 Converting Websites," discussed seemingly unconventional conversion tactics that these sites use. The second installment, "Top 10 Converting Website...
Conversion
Conversion Tip: Calculate Your ‘Free Shipping’ Break-even

October 6, 2010 • Charles Nicholls

Editor’s Note: We continue our “Conversion Tip” series from Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy, a conversion and abandonment-recovery firm. For this week’s installment, Nicholls addresses the "free-shipping break-even" concept. If you’ve driven down your shi...