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Articles by: Pamela Hazelton

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Pamela Hazelton

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.

Customer Retention
To Grow Conversions, Cater to Target Audience

May 21, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Can you define your target audience? I’m not talking about who you want to buy your product — i.e., everyone — but rather who is likely to give you their business. Many small ...
Product Pages
How to Boost Sales on Gift-giving Pages

May 7, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

During the holidays, specialty stores often see boosts in traffic as people hunt for both common and unique gifts. Most other stores put a great deal of focus on the ...
Product Pages
Optimizing Price for Products with Attributes, Options

April 21, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Many products sold online come in different colors, sizes, and flavors. When it comes to displaying such items to shoppers, it is important to make clear the options as well ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
How Shipping Methods and Policies Affect Conversions

April 7, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Ask any group of online shoppers their top reason for abandoning a shopping cart and they’ll likely refer to shipping. However, it’s not always about the cost of delivery. The way ...
Checkout Tactics
How to Encourage Account Signup and Still Close the Sale

March 23, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Whether or not to utilize customer accounts is a never-ending debate. There are pros and cons to either method: prompting shoppers to create an account versus offering only guest checkout.
Checkout Tactics
How Landing Pages Convert Visitors into Educated Buyers

March 9, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

You’ve heard the term for years, but do you really know what a landing page is? More importantly, have you implemented any properly? To many storeowners, a landing page is a ...
Customer Service
Eliminate Dead Ends to Grow Ecommerce Conversions

February 24, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

When analyzing your ecommerce site, make sure that all pages can act as both a destination and a gateway to what shoppers really want. Dead ends leave shoppers wondering what ...
Product Pages
Look to Other Industries for Ecommerce Inspiration

February 8, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

When it comes to increasing the average time visitors spend at your online store, as well as the money they spend, look for non-related industries for ideas and inspiration. They ...
Product Pages
Drive Conversions with Supporting Product Content

January 22, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

When it comes to ecommerce, not all sites are created equal. The successful ones listen to existing and potential customers, and provide the information necessary to make an educated decision. Supporting ...
Product Pages
Increase Conversions for Shopping by Color, Size, Style

January 8, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Stores that sell products in various colors, sizes, or styles can benefit by offering navigational filtering when shoppers search or browse. This is most apparent for online retailers offering apparel ...
Customer Retention
How to Lessen the Post-holiday Sales Lull

December 22, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

Now that the rush of online holiday shopping is coming to a halt, it’s time to consider how to lessen the blow of the January lull. It happens every year.
Checkout Tactics
6 Checkout Changes to Minimize Abandonment

December 8, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

The average site’s cart abandonment rate this year was over 70 percent. That means, on average, less than 30 percent of shoppers who start to check out complete the process.
Customer Retention
Customize the Search Page to Increase Ecommerce Sales

November 30, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

One of the most ignored features of the online store is the search page. It typically provides too many irrelevant results, or worse, none at all. Even the biggest online ...
Checkout Tactics
10 Last-minute Ways to Increase Holiday Conversions

November 25, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

It’s crunch time. If you procrastinated the proper planning for this now-current holiday shopping season, not all is lost. While there’s no time to completely revamp the online store itself,
Product Pages
Visitors’ Devices Affect Ecommerce Conversions

October 24, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

Narrowing down the problem spots in an online store is not a simple task. While analytics shows us which pages and content performs better than others, we often miss the ...
Product Pages
Drive Ecommerce Conversions with First-person Statements

October 6, 2014 • Pamela Hazelton

If you want more people to create accounts, subscribe to your mailing list, and actually complete the checkout process, you have to stop telling them what they should do, and ...
Product Pages
Identifying Conversion Problems from the Product Page

February 21, 2012 • Pamela Hazelton

When vying to increase conversion rates, many storeowners mistakenly put primary focus on the checkout process. While a simplified checkout with ideal options — i.e. various payment and non-inflated shipping choices — will definitely help increase the percentage of visitors who complete...
Customer Service
Increasing Conversions by Referring Consumers Elsewhere

January 26, 2012 • Pamela Hazelton

Zappos.com's customer service is legendary. It's been known to order pizzas for customers, to take special product photos for customers, and to help customers match items and colors. It also refers consumers to competitors when they request products Zappos doesn't carry. Referring cons...
Customer Retention
7 Post-Holiday Revenue Generators

December 29, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

For many online retailers, the month of January is a slow one. Between consumers paying off Christmas purchases and those taking time to relax, the remaining online shoppers are seeking good deals on accessories and hoping to take advantage of clearance sales. There are ways, however, ...
Checkout Tactics
10 Quick, Easy and (Almost) Free Ways to Close Sales During the Holiday Shopping Season

November 16, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

The highly anticipated holiday shopping season is already upon us. Active online stores are seeing more traffic, and price comparison sites have been feeding more data than in previous months. The big boost in traffic starts around November 19, and then skyrockets right after Thanksgivi...
Product Pages
5 Simple Ways to Promote Multi-Item Orders

October 21, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Thanksgiving has nearly disappeared at many retail outlets, as companies push customers into holiday shopping even before Halloween candy has had a chance to be cleared from the shelves. Shoppers are quickly reminded that Christmas is less than 10 weeks away, and they’ll be combing on...
Product Pages
Best Policy for Inventory Stock Status? Be Transparent

September 20, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Most customers can deal with miniscule shipping mistakes. The majority are forgiving when damaged shipments are quickly addressed or replaced, and most will even return shop if their issues are fixed expeditiously. But what if the order is never fulfilled due to lack of inventory? Las...
Checkout Tactics
Wait List Notifications: ‘Old School’ Feature Still Drives Conversions

August 9, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

The "wait list" was first popular in the late 1990s — before comparison shopping and social media sites. — to allow shoppers to sign up for notifications about specific products. The concept is simple. When an item is on backorder, the shopper can enter his or her name and email addres...
Photography & Video
Using Video to Convert Shoppers; 8 Pointers

July 22, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Video is an effective way to attract more customers and close sales. Big business relies on video to further establish their brand of products. Small business ecommerce sites can benefit from the practice, provided streaming visuals are implemented properly. Zappos uses video to enhanc...
Payments
Increase Conversions with Alternate Payment Methods

June 24, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Ten years ago, PayPal was the ideal solution for small businesses that couldn’t justify the high costs of a merchant account. In its infancy, the growth of PayPal user accounts came from smaller merchants. PayPal later became the norm for eBay and large etailers because it allowed peo...
Checkout Tactics
11 Ways to Increase Conversions on Mobile Devices

May 27, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Last November, while stuck in a waiting room, I shopped for Christmas presents via my smartphone. Few of the stores I visited had a mobile site, making the navigation and checkout process time consuming and frustrating. I gave up on several, seeking out their competition. Some recent s...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Using the Return Policy to Convert Shoppers into Customers

May 19, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

It’s common practice to focus on trends, design and shopability to (hopefully) increase and maintain sales. For the most part, these topics play a major role in a site’s sell-through rate. Let’s not, however, overlook the less obvious reasons shoppers may be abandoning your online store...
Product Pages
Emphasize Key Details for Effective Product Descriptions; 5 Pointers

March 24, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

When describing products and services, remember that consumers want to know why they need those items. Use bullet points and lists to present need-to-know information in an easy-to-read format. Furniture stores, for example, would use bullet points to display measurements, color and mat...
Checkout Tactics
10 Ecommerce Checkout Strategies

February 24, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

When we hear the word “conversion” we often think landing pages, category and product page layouts and overall navigation. Let’s not forget the final point of conversion: the checkout process. The checkout page(s) are your last chance to seal the deal and complete a sale. The process i...
Product Pages
Volume Discounts: Choose the Right Words to Boost Sales

January 27, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton

Websites like Groupon, which allow people to “crowd purchase” products and services from local retailers, are becoming popular, mostly due to current economies. It makes sense for online stores selling items normally used in bulk to offer volume discounts, but what about specialty or hi...

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