Eric Davis - Practical Ecommerce

Articles by: Eric Davis

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Eric Davis

Eric Davis is founder and solo developer of Little Stream Software, which helps ecommerce entrepreneurs customize their Shopify stores using public, private, and unlisted Shopify apps.

He developed his first ecommerce store in 2005 and has since worked with various ecommerce and SaaS companies to build and systematize their business operations.

Eric created a free course to teach Shopify storeowners how private apps work and what they can and can't do — with more than a dozen examples of how they can increase your revenue.

Design & Development
Protecting Your Store from Cross-site Scripting Attacks

June 26, 2018 • Eric Davis

Security is vital for every ecommerce site. A breach of customers’ payment data or personal information could kill a business. But an ecommerce site has other security risks, too. A common ...
Design & Development
Despite the GDPR, Cookies Are Vital to Ecommerce

May 23, 2018 • Eric Davis

Cookies are in the spotlight with the E.U.’s new General Data Protection Regulation. It follows the E.U.’s “Cookie Directive,” which has been in effect for several years. Cookies are important for ...
Design & Development
Pointers on Backing Up Ecommerce Data

April 29, 2018 • Eric Davis

Backups are an insurance policy for your ecommerce store that you hope never to use. Unfortunately, many backups aren’t adequate. The purpose of a backup is to recover the code and ...
Design & Development
3-part Plan to Minimize the Impact of Site Outages

March 26, 2018 • Eric Davis

“The site is down.” Few things worry developers as much as outages, especially on ecommerce sites where every minute represents lost revenue. But outages happen. To minimize their impact, plan for them.
Design & Development
Use Status Pages to Evaluate Cloud-based Vendors

February 27, 2018 • Eric Davis

Evaluating the performance of cloud-based vendors can be tricky. You can read reviews, but it's sometimes difficult to find unbiased opinions. One little-known method of evaluating cloud platforms is to analyze their status pages. They provide a high-level overview of the platform's operational status. Many status pages also include a history of incidents, including recent problems.
Design & Development
3 Steps to Minimize Technology Risks for an Ecommerce Store

January 24, 2018 • Eric Davis

Every business has risks. Part of what makes a business successful is how it eliminates or reduces those risks while still serving customers. The hardware and software that power your ecommerce store create risks. I'll call them technology risks. Some technology risks are benign and don't threaten the company. Other risks can have a sizable impact on the business.
Design & Development
Pros and Cons of Hosted Ecommerce Platforms

December 19, 2017 • Eric Davis

I’ve addressed different options to host the code for your ecommerce site. In “Don’t Self-host an Ecommerce Store,” I addressed the risk and expense of owning and managing web servers.
Design & Development
Cloud Hosting the Best Option for Stores that Own Code

November 28, 2017 • Eric Davis

The concept of cloud hosting can be confusing. “We’re moving to the cloud.” “The cloud can scale this.” Or my favorite, from Microsoft about Windows 7: “To the cloud.” Cloud hosting ...
Design & Development
Comparing Web Servers: Dedicated vs. Virtual Private

October 25, 2017 • Eric Davis

In “Don’t Self-host an Ecommerce Store,” my previous article, I explained how owning and maintaining web servers are poor options for most stores. In this article I’ll address a better alternative:
Design & Development
Don’t Self-host an Ecommerce Store

October 11, 2017 • Eric Davis

Every ecommerce store needs to be hosted somewhere. But there’s little reason, in 2017, to self-host. In this post I’ll explain why. Self-hosting is where a company acquires physical servers and ...
Design & Development
Understanding Code Deployments, for Ecommerce

August 24, 2017 • Eric Davis

“Code complete” is a common saying among software developers when they have finished a development project. But code complete doesn’t mean everything is done. Once developers have written code for a ...
Design & Development
Confessions of an Ecommerce Developer

July 17, 2017 • Eric Davis

Web developers have standard processes and techniques to get their jobs done. They also have informal habits and opinions that influence their work — the kinds of things that no ...
Design & Development
To Prevent Software Failures, Use Automated Testing

June 22, 2017 • Eric Davis

The larger your ecommerce store grows, the more complex the software behind it becomes. Even if you outsource your store development or use a hosted platform, this complexity will affect ...
Design & Development
How to Implement Ecommerce Personalization

May 24, 2017 • Eric Davis

Personalization is a growing trend in ecommerce. Shoppers want to see relevant marketing, products, and offers. When they receive them, they typically respond by purchasing more. The idea around personalization is ...
Design & Development
How a Web Developer Estimates Completion Time

April 26, 2017 • Eric Davis

It’s common for software developers to underestimate the time it takes to create a new feature. It’s one of the realities of software development. In this post, I’ll explain how a ...
Design & Development
Understanding HTTP Status Codes, for Ecommerce

March 28, 2017 • Eric Davis

An HTTP status code informs a browser about a web page or resource. When you click a link, your browser is asking the web server for the page that was ...
Design & Development
To Grow Search Traffic, Add JSON-LD

February 28, 2017 • Eric Davis

Presumably every ecommerce site wants to improve its organic search traffic. But a limiting factor with search engines has been their need to analyze huge quantities of HTML data, which is ...
Design & Development
Using Caching (and Hardware) to Improve Page Speed

January 25, 2017 • Eric Davis

In “3 Backend Fixes to Increase Page Speed,” my article last month, I explained that caching can be applied to many areas of an ecommerce website. In this post, I’ll ...
Design & Development
3 Backend Fixes to Increase Page Speed

December 30, 2016 • Eric Davis

Page speed is an important factor in search rankings and conversion rates. Every improvement to page speed will likely result in more sales. We’ve addressed page speed at, most recently, “10
Design & Development
Alternatives to Rebuilding an Ecommerce Store

November 30, 2016 • Eric Davis

In “How to Reduce Risks of an Ecommerce Rebuild,” my article last month, I described a process to rebuild an ecommerce store that reduces the risk of sales interruptions and ...
Design & Development
How to Reduce Risks of an Ecommerce Rebuild

October 25, 2016 • Eric Davis

Most every ecommerce storeowner, at some point, wants to completely rebuild her store. It’s usually for a number of reasons. Current store is too slow and is losing customers. Current store looks and ...
Design & Development
Glossary of Web Development Roles

September 22, 2016 • Eric Davis

Web development teams are typically complex and filled with a variety of people. It is often difficult for outsiders to understand who does what. Many roles in a development team are ...
Design & Development
Understanding 4 Database Types, for Ecommerce

September 5, 2016 • Eric Davis

As I wrote in “How Databases Work with Ecommerce Applications,” you’re likely using a database for your ecommerce store even if you don’t know it. Ecommerce sites typically use databases for: Transaction tracking; Product ...
Design & Development
How Databases Work with Ecommerce Applications

July 21, 2016 • Eric Davis

“Database-backed.” “Powered by PostgreSQL.” “Cloud database.” “Redundant, multi-zone NoSQL backend.” Those are all terms that describe ecommerce systems that use databases. But, what, exactly, do those terms mean? Is it good ...
Design & Development
How Backend Code Describes an Ecommerce Business

June 23, 2016 • Eric Davis

In “How Backend Web Applications Power Ecommerce Sites,” my article last month, I addressed web applications and explained how they can dynamically generate pages for your ecommerce store, eliminating having ...
Design & Development
How Backend Web Applications Power Ecommerce Sites

May 26, 2016 • Eric Davis

I’ve explained how a website is displayed in a browser — the front-end technology — in “What HTML5 Means for Ecommerce Merchants,” “What CSS Means for Ecommerce Merchants,” and “What ...
Design & Development
What JavaScript Means for Ecommerce Merchants

April 19, 2016 • Eric Davis

Web developers use three core tools when building ecommerce sites: HTML for content and organization, CSS for the design and presentation, and JavaScript for the interaction with backend servers. This article,
Design & Development
What CSS Means for Ecommerce Merchants

March 18, 2016 • Eric Davis

Last month, in “What HTML5 Means for Ecommerce Merchants,” I described the purpose of HyperText Markup Language, and how HTML5 is better than previous versions. In this article, I’ll review ...
Design & Development
What HTML5 Means for Ecommerce Merchants

February 25, 2016 • Eric Davis

What is one thing all ecommerce stores have in common? They use HTML. In fact, just about every website uses HTML. That means when an update to HTML comes out, it ...