Pamela Hazelton
Pamela Hazelton is a senior contributor to Practical Ecommerce, providing actionable articles and webinars since 2005. She's a pioneering online business consultant, marketer, and speaker.
She is the author of The Official Guide to Miva Merchant books and additional ebooks on the topics of shopability and security.
Pamela resides in Florida with her husband, Joe, her red beagle, and a black cat.
Her site is PamelaHazelton.com. Email Pamela.
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Conversion
Mobile to Dominate Ecommerce Conversions
January 8, 2018 • Pamela Hazelton
For years, we’ve been hearing about the importance of responsive design and mobile-friendly features. Many small business etailers remained unconvinced of the power of mobile users as buyers. This made some sense, as data often showed that the majority of smartphone users were using devices primarily for research, and then finalizing purchases on tablets or desktop computers. This all changed during the past holiday season. On Cyber Monday 2017, mobile saw its first $2 billion day.
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Conversion
6 Ways to Use Shoppers’ New Year Resolutions to Increase Sales
December 24, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
With a new year come millions of people striving to keep their resolutions. Less than 20 percent will succeed, though — according to U.S. News & World Report, 80 percent ...
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Product Pages
7 Ways to Capture Last-minute Holiday Sales
December 6, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Monday, Dec. 11, will mark the busiest shopping day of the year for many online retailers. “Green Monday” typically takes place the second Monday of December. The term was coined by ...
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Photography & Video
Missing Image Attributes Can Hurt Holiday Sales
November 22, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
The holiday shopping season is in full force. Etailers are hoping for big returns on their marketing efforts. But etailers often lose conversions due to missing title and alt attributes ...
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Customer Retention
How to Turn Seasonal Shoppers into Lifetime Customers
November 16, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
With the holiday shopping season upon us, getting more traffic and converting more shoppers into buyers is key to reaching sales goals. Don’t miss out, though, on the potential icing ...
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Product Pages
Careless Product Descriptions Can Cost Big Money
October 23, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
When it comes to describing the products you sell, it pays to use the right words — not just the best trigger words that encourage purchases, but also the proper ...
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Product Pages
8 Ways to Supercharge Calls to Action, for Ecommerce
October 6, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
A primary call to action is essential on product and landing pages. It’s easy for add-to-cart buttons to get overshadowed by other necessary options, such as adding an item to ...
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Product Pages
5 Must-haves for 2017 Holiday Sales
September 21, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
The 2017 holiday shopping season is around the corner. Selecting products and deals to spotlight — beginning November 1 — is key for most online businesses. Grabbing the attention of ...
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Product Pages
4 Ways to Explain How Products Solve Problems
September 7, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
The most successful companies make or distribute products and services that solve common problems. The smartphone, for example, solves many problems, such as not being able to check email while ...
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Customer Service
Live Chat Is Best Tool for Conversing with Shoppers
August 22, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
When it comes to helping shoppers, there is no better tool than live chat. It can increase trust, keep visitors on the website, and close sales. Live chat supersedes conversions ...
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Product Pages
Optimize These 12 Types of Conversions for Ecommerce Success
August 8, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
There are many types of “conversions” on ecommerce sites. Certainly a purchase is a conversion. But there are also newsletter signups, account creations, social shares, and other actions that indicate visitors’
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Conversion
9 Category Features that Boost Conversions
July 23, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
If you put a great deal of focus on social media, organic search, and online advertising for incoming traffic, there’s a good chance you’re not putting enough effort into a ...
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Conversion
5 Groups of Shoppers You’re Likely Ignoring
July 6, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Every business has at least one target audience — a key group of people who want or need the products it sells. These audiences are defined by standard factors, such ...
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Product Pages
Need More Conversions? Review Your Calls to Action
June 21, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
I’ve said many times that store pages need a definitive call to action. I fear, though, that I’ve been remiss in explaining what a CTA is and the importance of ...
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Photography & Video
11 Ways Photos Harm Ecommerce Conversions
June 6, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
High-quality product photos are critical for conversions. Without photos and video, it’s nearly impossible to compete for sales. There are exceptions to every rule, however, and it’s no different when ...
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Customer Retention
Default Category Sorts Can Harm Conversions
May 23, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Trying to figure out why your store’s conversion rate is so low? The order in which products are displayed on categories is a major culprit. While “relevancy” is a common default ...
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Customer Retention
Site Search: A Navigation and Conversion Tool
May 9, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Online shoppers who find what they want tend to spend more money. And site search helps them locate what they’re looking for. According to a study by WebLinc, an ecommerce platform and consulting firm,
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Shipping & Fulfillment
7 Elements of a Return Policy That Sells
April 25, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Merchants give so much thought into making the sale that they tend to forget some of the post-sale components that savvy shoppers look for first. One of these is the returns policy ...
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Photography & Video
8 Types of Videos That Convert Shoppers into Buyers
April 7, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
With more than 7 billion videos watched daily on YouTube and Facebook, it’s no surprise that video content is the number one method to sell products and services. Descriptive media ...
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Checkout Tactics
Boost Site Search Results with Unique, Trendy Keywords
March 21, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Most every online store needs a robust site search feature. Potential buyers need to find things quickly and easily. Search result filters are vital to help guide shoppers to exactly ...
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Product Pages
How to Sell High-priced (and High-quality) Products
March 6, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
In the 1950s, most products were built to last. Companies knew that manufacturing long-lasting products would spread word-of-mouth referrals, which meant sales. The focus was on the lifespan of a ...
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Checkout Tactics
7 Reasons Customer Service Agents Lose Sales
February 24, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
After eavesdropping recently on a conversation between two people in a restaurant, I realized I’ve been remiss in talking more about “front of house” tactics as it relates to converting ...
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Checkout Tactics
Track Micro Conversions to Increase Sales
February 7, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
Typically when we talk about ecommerce conversions we are referring to sales. After all, the primary goal of any online store is to sell product — hopefully a high volume ...
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Customer Service
Want to Please Shoppers? Respond Quickly
January 19, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
In “5 Ways to Draw Shoppers In, and Keep Them,” one of my posts last year, I addressed how you have about eight seconds to get an online shopper’s attention.
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Checkout Tactics
7 Ways to Accelerate Your Online Store in 2017
January 11, 2017 • Pamela Hazelton
More than half of Americans would rather shop online than in physical stores. For the younger crowd, that number is larger — up to 67 percent for consumers in their ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
3 Shipping Policies That Anger Customers
December 23, 2016 • Pamela Hazelton
Shipping costs are a primary reason for cart abandonment. But cost is not the only shipping issue that can harm your business. What happens after a customer makes a purchase is ...
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Design & Dev Tools
Simple Ways to Note Glitches during Holiday Rush, to Fix Later
December 8, 2016 • Pamela Hazelton
Last year I addressed ways for ecommerce merchants to keep the momentum going in January. Tips include changing up the home page, using section headers, and running the best types of sales.
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Product Pages
5 Tweaks to Key Products to Spur Holiday Sales
November 23, 2016 • Pamela Hazelton
It’s time. By Thanksgiving Day, online shopping will kick into high gear. And Cyber Monday may be your store’s biggest revenue day of the year. While time has run out for ...
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Checkout Tactics
8 Ways to Harness Holiday Conversions
November 4, 2016 • Pamela Hazelton
The holiday shopping season is already here. If you have ignored many of the urges over the past few months, get ready. There are a few things you can do ...
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Fraud Prevention
9 Ways to Recover Sales after a DDoS Attack
October 24, 2016 • Pamela Hazelton
If yours was one of the thousands of online stores that suffered from the October 21 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, you likely saw a decline in sales. Hopefully,
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