Category

Design & Development

The nuts and bolts of an ecommerce site are design and development. We address design innovation and trends — including layouts, colors, photography, logos, video, and more. We explain the basics of code — HTML, CSS, JavaScript — as well as platforms, themes, plugins, open source, and related topics.

Code | Design & Dev Tools | Platforms & Apps | Schools & Resources | Typography & Fonts | User Experience

Platforms & Apps
The PEC Review: Comodo Dragon, A Web Browser

August 2, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce merchants are digital natives. They live, in a sense, online, operating their businesses, marketing, and even servicing customers on the World Wide Web. But the Internet can be a wild place, and sometimes digital natives become a little too comfortable with their surroundings...
Design & Development
Great User Experience Is More than a Pretty Ecommerce Site

July 29, 2010 • PEC Staff

Many ecommerce merchants think of user experience in terms of the user interface. They take great pains to optimize the aesthetic appearance of their sites with the goal of increasing conversions. Yet, it’s often the less sexy backend issues that are driving customers away, and increa...
User Experience
Screen Readers: Eight Frequently Asked Questions

July 27, 2010 • PEC Staff

Editor's Note: The article below discusses screen readers, the software that reads aloud text on a computer screen. Screen reader software allows visually handicapped consumers to use Internet sites. To help text-reading consumers understand what a visually-handicapped user experiences,...
Business
The PEC Review: IETester for Browser Testing

July 19, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce entrepreneurs and marketers must pay careful attention to website analytics. Like conscientious doctors watching a patient for any sign of improvement, site owners and marketers study many details of visitor data, including which web browsers those visitors are using. Thanks...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: nsCommerceSpace by Network Solutions

July 16, 2010 • Kate Monteith

There are nearly 600 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. This w...
Design & Development
Not PCI Compliant? No Problem

July 14, 2010 • Kerry Murdock

By Practical eCommerce's count, there are nearly 600 English-language shopping carts. These include hosted carts, licensed software carts and open-source carts. There are small ones with just a few clients, and large ones with tens of thousands of clients. But, as of July 14, only 40 o...
Design & Development
8 Questions on Cloud Computing

July 13, 2010 • PEC Staff

Traditional web hosting assumes that customers pay for a fixed amount of storage space and a fixed amount of bandwidth. But the traffic to many websites varies, and storage and bandwidth needs fluctuate over time. For those websites, cloud computing, or cloud hosting, could save them ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: FatFreeCartPro by E-junkie

July 9, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Robin Kohli, founder and lead developer for E-junkie, the company behind FatFreeCartPro, an online shopping cart. E-junkie is headquartered in New Delhi, India, with its support team based in Tucson, Ariz. According to Kohli, there are roughly 9,000 merchants using FatFreeCartPro, “As well as a couple thousand other users who are in the trial period
Schools & Resources
Booklist: Invodo CEO Craig Wax

July 6, 2010 • Nic Murdock

In “Booklist” we ask Internet professionals about the books and blogs they read, and why. For this list, we asked Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo, an ecommerce video company. Wax leads ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Digital River’s CCNow

July 2, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Brant Pallazza, vice president of marketing for Digital River, the parent company of the online shopping cart known as CCNow. Digital River is based in Minneapolis, Minn., and its CCNow ecommerce platform serves roughly 10,000 users. We'll also hear from a CCNow customer, Buddy Carr.
Platforms & Apps
The PEC Review: Magento 1.3 Sales Tactics Cookbook

June 28, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Magento's Community Edition appeals to many small businesses because it offers an excellent range of features and it's free. But not everyone that downloads Magento can, frankly, figure it out since the platform's effectiveness comes with certain a level of complexity. For these reas...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: DesignCart

June 25, 2010 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. Thi...
Design & Development
What’s a Video Codec?

June 21, 2010 • PEC Staff

Editor's Note: Most observers agree that video enhances an ecommerce site and likely increases its conversion rate. But there are many different video formats, and the terminology surrounding the use of video can be daunting. To help us sort through some of these complexities, we contin...
Design & Development
Prebuilt Ecommerce Templates Save Money, Says AlgoZone’s CEO

June 17, 2010 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce merchants frequently incur development fees to obtain specific features or appearances for their websites. But there are also prebuilt templates that can do this, at prices much less than custom-built solutions. One maker of these is AlgoZone. It offers hundreds of ready-mad...
Code
What Are AJAX and Dynamic JavaScript?

June 16, 2010 • Joseph C. Dolson

Editor's Note: Ecommerce merchants operate businesses using complex technologies. We launched our "Need to Know" series to help merchants obtain a basic understanding of these technologies, recognizing that most merchants are not web developers or programmers. In this installment, contr...
Code
HTML5 Video: 12 Frequently Asked Questions

June 14, 2010 • PEC Staff

Editor's Note: Many observers believe the new version of HTML, called HTML5, will change online video because of the <video> tag that the new version contains. But, there are many unresolved details involving HTML5 video, and we asked a video expert about some of these. The exper...
Code
HTML5: The Future of Online Video?

June 9, 2010 • Justin Foster

If you pay attention to online video, chances are you’ve heard of HTML5. It could be the next big technology that will change online video as we know it. Apple’s Steve Jobs famously stated several weeks ago, in his "Thoughts on Flash" letter, that Apple prefers HTML5 video to Adobe’s F...
Design & Development
May Survey Results: Analytics, Gmail Most Popular Google Products

June 8, 2010 • Nic Murdock

A monthly survey conducted by Practical eCommerce polled readers about the importance and trustworthiness of Google products. The May 2010 survey asked four questions about Google products, with a comment section for each response. Readers who completed the survey, and then provided us...
Design & Development
Ten Steps to Migrate Your Site to a New Ecommerce Platform

June 7, 2010 • Michael Stearns

A milestone in the growth of your ecommerce business is when you realize you have outgrown your current web platform and need to upgrade. Maybe you nailed it the first time around and picked a terrific, scalable platform. But oftentimes, first-time site owners opt for the low cost, set-...
Design & Development
Mobile Payment Processors Extend Reach with AppNinjas

June 2, 2010 • PEC Staff

The rise of mobile devices is affecting ecommerce. More consumers are using these devices to shop online and more merchants are using them to collect payments. We recently spoke with two experts in the credit card business about processing payments on mobile devices. They are John Waldr...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: King Cart Services

May 28, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Marshall Dudley, the founder and owner of King Cart Services. The company is based in Knoxville, Tenn., and its ecommerce platform currently serves roughly 1,000 users. We'll also hear from a customer, A. P. Jones of All Predator Calls, an online store based in St. George, Utah that sells a variety of wildlife calls and related hunting accessories.
Design & Dev Tools
The PEC Review: Buffalo Technology’s HD-HX2.0TU3 External Hard Drive

May 24, 2010 • Armando Roggio

One of the computer industry's greatest apocryphal tales has Microsoft founder Bill Gates telling a newspaper in 1981 that "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need." The story is false, and Gates has been adamantly denying the quote for nearly three decades. But false as it is,...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: CashCowCart

May 21, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Bernard Kohan, chief business development officer and co-founder of Comentum, a software development company. It offers a hosted ecommerce solution called CashCowCart that serves around 2,000 online merchants, as well as a customized ecommerce solution called Comentum Custom Cart. We'll also hear from a CashCowCart customer, Alec R. Lopez, CEO
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: LiveMerchant by BB Design

May 14, 2010 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. Thi...
Business
Ecommerce Video Production

May 11, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Product videos have been shown to increase conversions rates on ecommerce sites. Online retailer eBags famously tested some 210 product videos on its site beginning in 2007. The test compared conversion rates for products with video against conversion rates for the same products withou...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Veracart

May 7, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Joel Otterstrom, co-founder and CEO of Veracart, a software development company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to Otterstrom, Veracart currently serves around 2,300 customers. We'll also hear from a Veracart user, Kamien E. Carter. She is product development manager for Flower Patch, a flower and gift shop based in Salt Lake City that uses the cart to process online sales.
Code
What Is HTML 5?

May 5, 2010 • Joseph C. Dolson

Editor's Note: Ecommerce merchants use complex technologies in their businesses. A working, "need to know" understanding of these technologies can help merchants. To address this, we've launched our "Need to Know" series, whereby we'll address complex topics in a manner that can benefit...
Business
The PeC Review: AVG LinkScanner Identifies Malicious Code

May 3, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Seventy-one percent of websites that contain malicious code or malware are actually legitimate sites that have been compromised, according to web and data security firm, Websense. What's more, 61 percent of the top 100 sites on the Internet were infected at some point in 2009. Malware ...
Design & Development
Need a Five-Pound Gummy Bear? Try Vat19.com

April 30, 2010 • Kerry Murdock

An ecommerce merchant in St. Louis launched his business in 2006 after having written the programming code for his own shopping cart. That business, called Vat19, sells offbeat gifts (such ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: AAcart

April 30, 2010 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. Thi...

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