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Business
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Merchant Voice
Comparing puppies to customers
July 29, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Last month, my husband and I began raising a black Labrador puppy. Next year, we will give one-year-old Whimsy to Guide Dogs Victoria for intensive training to help assist a person ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
5 ways to alienate your customers
June 22, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
In a single month, I’ve encountered the following five instances of poor customer service from online companies. All could have been easily avoided. Silence after a payment. If you don’t contact ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How I measure ecommerce success
May 5, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Most merchants measure ecommerce success by revenue. Shopify’s dashboard notes tell me my website is in the top five percent of those launched in the last 12 months. But I don’t ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Lessons from a corner shop closing down
April 4, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
You’ve likely seen a few brick-and-mortar shops go out of business in recent times. I recently saw hastily-printed sheets at local ice cream store — called Lick Me — thanking ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Could a new slogan increase sales?
February 19, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Decor has gradually evolved in the 10 months since I launched the site. Four weeks ago I made two simple changes that may have been responsible for increasing my ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
You lose money under-promising and over-delivering
January 2, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
There seems to be a well-meaning but misguided belief that as online retailers we should under-promise and over-deliver to make our customers more loyal. But I don’t believe this to be ...
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Conversion
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Merchant Voice
How I doubled my conversions in one month
November 25, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Decor turned seven months old on November 23. In the last month, advice from three sources — a wedding directory business development manager, a retailer on the Shopify forum,
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 tips for setting up gift certificates, for ecommerce
September 9, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
With the festive season fast approaching, setting up a gift certificate option on your website can increase sales. This is something I plan to add on my wedding decor site, like ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How 10 Shopify apps have impacted my sales
July 30, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I have installed 15 apps from the Shopify store since launching My Wedding Decor in late April. Here I examine the impact of 10 of those apps on my sales. Quantity ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
9 tips for working with suppliers
June 16, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I launched my third ecommerce venture, My Wedding Decor, in April. Since then, I have been working with over 40 wedding-product suppliers. Here’s what I’ve learned so far. 1. Maintain your ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
First 3 weeks of my new business
May 15, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
After eight months of planning, I launched MyWeddingDecor.com.au on April 23. I founded the business to appeal to Australian couples that seek personalized, unique, and unusual wedding decor. Today, May ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
The swift countdown to launching my new site
April 9, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Launching a new website takes a lot of preparation and planning. I first addressed my new ecommerce business, My Wedding Decor, back in February, in “Launching my third website business in 15
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Launching my third website business in 15 years
February 25, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
The countdown has begun: I launch my Australian wedding decorations website, my third ecommerce venture in 15 years, in eight weeks. And like many online retailers who sell items with ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Baking Site Says No to Shark Tank
February 11, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Many of the most successful online retailers sell products that solve problems. Daniel Rensing, who grew up in Levittown, N.Y., created a clever product that attracted press attention within 10 days ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
The benefits of free product samples
January 22, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Whether you’ve been in business for years or you’re just launching a new website, sending samples of your products can grab the attention of shoppers. In this post, I’ll review ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Paddle Board Company Encounters Sharks, Success
January 21, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Imagine seeing a group of sharks. Would you lose your nerve? Stephan Aarstol nearly did. He had nothing to lose but rejection by pitching his business, Tower Paddle Boards, to the ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Air Controller Directs Online Traffic
December 16, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Nathan Hartnett was an air traffic control officer in the Royal Australian Air Force in his hometown of Toowoomba (a city 79 miles west of Brisbane), Australia from 2001 to ...
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Local Business
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Merchant Voice
Brick-and-click stores should offer free pick-up
December 9, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Free shipping is commonplace for ecommerce companies. For brick-and-click companies — those with online and physical stores — free pick-up can be a helpful shipping option for ecommerce customers that ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Car Forums the Ramp to Ecommerce Success
November 20, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
As a boy in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s, Fredric Gwinn used to watch his father, a machinist by trade, work on the family car, doing everything from routine maintenance ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 ways to attract customers and boost sales
November 4, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
With the holiday period underway, you may be looking for ways to win new customers and boost sales. Here are eight ideas to consider adding to your ecommerce site. 1. Bartering.
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 ways to win ‘generation Y’ customers
September 29, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
As we get older, our customers get younger. Generation Y, born between 1982 and 2000, offer online retailers challenges and opportunities. Here are eight tips to acquire younger shoppers. 1. What ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Million-dollar Jeweler Launched with $300
September 8, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Robin Weber started his jewelry website when he was 18, with $300 from selling his high school textbooks and from tutoring classmates. He now runs a multi-million dollar business. In 1996,
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Business
Lessons Learned: MyFootShop.com Renewed by Tech Incubator
August 28, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Jeff Oster’s friends thought he was mad to give away health care information for free when he launched his podiatry website in 1999. This was at a time when the ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
13 tips for launching a new ecommerce business
August 14, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you’re planning to launch a new ecommerce business, you need to think ahead, save money, and make it profitable as soon as possible. I’ve launched two ecommerce sites, and I’ll ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Fashion Retailer Adds Ecommerce to Physical Locations
July 23, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
A third generation “rag trader,” Daylan James grew up in Melbourne, Australia but didn’t originally want to enter his family’s fashion business. After studying philosophy, visual arts, and marketing at Monash University ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
5 ecommerce tips (from tourists)
July 18, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you’ve been lucky enough to take a break recently, you may have visited a tourist attraction or two. What do tourists have in common with online shoppers? Quite a few ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Love for Pets Drives Online Vet Shops
June 20, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Steven Perissinotto and his brother Mark grew up with a menagerie of pets on their parents’ 1,200-acre property in Gympie in rural Queensland, Australia. Their pets included dogs, cats, fish, horses,
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How to close a website business
June 11, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
It’s a sad fact that not every website business can successful. Many ecommerce merchants close their websites out of exhaustion, loss of interest, insufficient capital, demand, revenue, or customers —
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Business
Lessons Learned: Entrepreneur Overcomes Penguin Update, Prospers
May 28, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Many men forget their partner’s birthday. But after London-born Jignesh Ghaghada upset his girlfriend by doing this, he created gift website TreatHer.com. Ghaghada grew up in West Africa, watching with fascination ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
12 tips to address declining ecommerce revenue
April 29, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
For many online retailers, business conditions are tough. What do you do when your sales are dropping and you can’t work out how to reverse the slide? Here are 12