Category

Conversion

Fewer than 5% of visitors to an ecommerce site typically convert to customers. In this Conversion category, we offer insights to increase that percentage. Our expert contributors address ratings and reviews, social proof, site search, product page enhancements, product descriptions, checkout options, live chat, and much more — anything to help close online sales.

Analytics & Data | Checkout Tactics | Customer Retention | Customer Service | Photography & Video | Product Pages

Conversion
Envisioning Your Business in 2022

October 17, 2012 • Dale Traxler

I delivered a speech last week to a group of ecommerce business owners about the process of developing business strategies. As I was preparing my presentation, I tried to envision what an online shopping experience might be in 10 years — in the year 2022. Last week, in "Descriptive Pr...
Conversion
2 Keys for Terrific Ecommerce Customer Service

October 16, 2012 • Shirley Tan

Acquiring new customers is much harder than keeping existing ones. Providing terrific customer service will encourage repeat orders, and loyalty. This article will address two key components of effective customer service for ecommerce businesses: telephone accessibility, and creating a ...
Product Pages
3 Tips for Encouraging Product Reviews

October 15, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Online product reviews can be an influential form of marketing, with the potential to help merchants make more sales. Properly encouraging reviews includes making reviews obvious on a site, giving reviewers expert status and prestige, and making it very easy to review products. There i...
Conversion
Marketing to the Online Hispanic Consumer

October 11, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Can you afford to ignore 33.5 million U.S. Internet users? Probably not. It might be a bit more difficult to market to the Hispanic population but it's certainly worthwhile. Hispanics have substantial purchasing power and they shop online. Over 50 million people in the U.S. are of Hispa...
Customer Retention
5 Ways to Attract New Customers

October 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

For ecommerce merchants, new customers mean new business. There are many customer-acquisition tools available to online retail marketers. Five of the best can be pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, marketplaces, and contest marketing. 1. Buy Pay-Per-Cli...
Business
Descriptive Product Content Produces Sales

October 9, 2012 • Dale Traxler

My wife and I are opening a new business. We are buying a lot of equipment, and I’ve spent more time shopping on ecommerce sites than I have in several years. As a former merchant, I judged those sites themselves almost as much as I did the products I was researching. And I was amazed a...
Conversion
6 Essential Google Analytics Features for Every Retailer

October 4, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

Google Analytics can help focus your business on its most profitable areas, and can also help attract more customers while spending less money in the process. Here are six valuable features that Google Analytics can provide your online retail operations. With these tools, you can make ...
Conversion
Multichannel Selling a Necessity

October 3, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Selling products across multiple channels is a growing trend for ecommerce merchants. If you rely on a single online store, you will likely to be left behind, because consumer-shopping behaviors are changing rapidly. This article examines sales and marketing channels that are now ava...
Conversion
Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel, Part 2

September 27, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part two of a two-part series on improving the conversion rate of an ecommerce site by managing its sales funnel. Part one, "Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel," we published previously. An ecommerce sales funnel refers to the steps involved in converting a tar...
Conversion
Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel

September 19, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part one of a two-part series on improving the conversion rate of an ecommerce site by managing its "sales funnel." An ecommerce business has a sales funnel. Business-to-business sales funnels are generally more complex than business-to-consumer ones. But the bas...
Conversion
Using Lookbooks to Inspire Shoppers

September 18, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Lookbooks are collections of photographs complied to promote a particular clothing or product line. In the past, fashion designers, photographers, and other artisans have used lookbooks to promote their work, get jobs, or just plain sell. But more recently lookbooks have evolved a bit t...
Customer Retention
Supercharge Your Search Results Page

September 17, 2012 • Armando Roggio

An effective on-site search experience will likely help Internet merchants sell more products. About 43 percent of online shoppers will use a site's own search to find products and make buying decisions, according to a study from Marketing Sherpa. Separately, a Jupiter Research study s...
Conversion
Understanding Affluent Male Online Shopping Behavior

September 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When ecommerce was in its infancy, consumers used the Internet to purchase basic items such as books and CDs that usually didn't involve size, quality, color, or style issues. Shoppers knew what they were getting and choices were based almost solely on price. Slowly, the array of goods ...
Conversion
Using Real-Time Data in Google Analytics

September 10, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

One of the downsides to Google Analytics was that, until last year, it provided historic, day-old data. Google corrected that when it released "Real-Time" as part of its broader analytics package. Here’s how you can use Real-Time to improve your retail performance. Using Real-Time A...
Customer Service
Live Chat Can Improve Service, Sales

September 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Live chat can be an effective ecommerce conversion tool, providing customers with answers and help just when they’re making a buying decision, and for support questions. For example, "Laura" wanted to buy a shirt for her husband, but did not understand how the color and size options wo...
Conversion
8 Free Lead Generation Services

September 7, 2012 • Kevin Webster

Quality leads are the lifeblood of any sales organization. But identifying the names and contact information of those prospects is time consuming. There are companies that supply targeted lists — for a fee. However, here are eight web based lead services that offer — as of this writing — free trials, affording you the opportunity to fill your pipeline with new prospects.
Conversion
3 Ideas for Halloween Marketing 2012

September 4, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Halloween is typically the second most important holiday for retailers. It is expected to drive more than $7 billion in U.S. retail sales beginning in September, if 2011 was an indicator. The ghoulish holiday is not limited to costumes, candy, and the odd decoration; rather America's o...
Analytics & Data
How to Measure Website Load Times

August 28, 2012 • Tim Wilson

Consumers are increasingly impatient when it comes to waiting for their web browsers to load content. Measuring and monitoring how long it takes pages on your site to load — from desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones — enable you to take corrective action when any one of d...
Conversion
Is Marketing Killing Your Ecommerce Business?

August 22, 2012 • Shirley Tan

Editor's Note: We welcome Shirley Tan as our newest contributor. She is a seasoned ecommerce owner, having founded, built, and then sold AmericanBridal.com, a leading wedding-goods supplier. She now consults with ecommerce merchants on improving the operational aspects of their busines...
Customer Retention
QR Code Mobile App Encourages Repeat Ecommerce Orders

August 15, 2012 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce merchants strive for repeat business from existing customers. We recently spoke with Dr. Alex Heiphetz, owner of AHG, a company that has produced a mobile app, based on QR codes, to encourage repeat orders. The mobile app is QRwave. Practical Ecommerce: What exactly is a QR...
Conversion
How to Use Google’s Remarketing Platform

August 10, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

It's frustrating to online retailers when potential customers visit their websites, browse product pages, and then leave. There’s no sale made, and money is spent serving ads and hosting content to those visitors. This is how a lot of visits end up for online businesses. That doesn’t me...
Conversion
Tips for a Successful Seasonal Marketing Campaign

August 9, 2012 • Dale Traxler

One strategy for increasing your website traffic and sales is to run integrated campaigns on seasonal merchandise. Almost any type of business-to-consumer — and even many business-to-business — stores sell items that are more appropriate for various seasons or holidays. This article e...
Conversion
Observations on Marketing to Men

August 7, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Male shoppers may be more difficult to reach with Internet marketing than their female counterparts in an era focused on social sites and so-called gender-neutral media. Sites like Facebook and Pinterest have rightly become a major focus for Internet marketers. In the case of Facebook,...
Conversion
Launching a New Ecommerce Business

July 20, 2012 • Dale Traxler

I am helping a friend who is considering setting up a new ecommerce business. Even though she has done it before, we are both reminded of all that is involved. My ...
Conversion
7 Strategies to Grow Ecommerce Revenue

July 17, 2012 • Dale Traxler

As an ecommerce business owner, I focused on growing revenue. With increasing competition in most markets, ecommerce merchants need to continually grow revenue to add stability to their businesses and to cover rising operating costs. Recall from my previous articles — such as "Who Nee...
Customer Service
Be a Customer Service Superhero, Like Ron Burley

July 16, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Customer concerns, complaints, and problems give online merchants an opportunity to build lasting customer relationships and boost word-of-mouth marketing. Providing super customer service can make your business a hero to your customers. The classic “Adventures of Superman” television ...
Analytics & Data
Google Analytics: 3 Tests to Ensure Your Checkout Process Is Working

July 13, 2012 • Tim Wilson

There’s a reason that an ecommerce site’s checkout process is one of the most popular analytics topics. Once a person initiates a checkout, she has self-identified herself as a visitor with a high intent to purchase. Chances are, you’ve already spent money acquiring that potential custo...
Analytics & Data
Google Analytics Jumps into Mobile Metrics

July 11, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

Google Analytics is finally jumping into mobile data metrics. Google recently launched "Mobile App Analytics" as a part of its Analytics web app suite. Analytics is already used by almost a fourth of Internet Retailer’s Top 500 online retailers and more than half of its “Second 500.” Wi...
Conversion
Google Shopping: Preparing for Paid Listings

July 3, 2012 • Jody Isaksson Hartwig

It’s been a month of heated debate and speculation since Google announced its intention to phase out free listings on its comparison shopping engine, Google Product Search, and transition to paid listings built on Product Listing Ads for its new initiative, Google Shopping. Google expla...
Conversion
Tablets and Phablets Could Boost Value of Ecommerce Video

June 11, 2012 • Armando Roggio

New research shows that tablet users are more likely to watch video. Separately, a new and potentially popular smartphone category may be similar to tablets in video consumption. A report released June 8, 2012 from trend-tracking firm comScore found that tablet users in the U.S. are th...

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