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
ProStores, Magento Add Features to Existing Platforms
October 14, 2009 • PEC Staff
ProStores, the eBay-owned hosted shopping cart, and Magento, the open-source ecommerce platform, have both announced new upgrades to their existing products. ProStores Adds Feeds, Other Features ProStores has added five primary enhancements to its cart. They are: Feeds to theFind.c...
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Schools & Resources
Booklist: NearbyNow.com Founder Scott Dunlap
October 14, 2009 • PEC Staff
Booklist is an occasional feature in which we ask ecommerce personalities about the books they read, and why. For this list, we asked Scott Dunlap, founder of ecommerce technology developer ...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: ShopFactory
October 9, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Auctiva Commerce
October 2, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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User Experience
Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com
October 1, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson
Disabled consumers often face great challenges when browsing and making purchases online. Perhaps as many as ten percent of online shoppers have a disability, such as low-or-no vision or an inability to use a keyboard, that can make it difficult to understand content and navigate websit...
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Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: BadCustomer.com Makes Good Business
October 1, 2009 • Armando Roggio
A free service protects merchants from bad customers—both malicious and foolish—saving time, frustration, and money. Ecommerce merchants love customers and love providing good customer service. It is at the industry's heart. But some customers are not so loveable and knowing who they ar...
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User Experience
The Shopping Experience: ChristianBook.com Needs Breadcrumbs
September 30, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Christian Book Distributors (CBD) and its website, ChristianBook.com, has become largest catalog and online seller of Christian books and products in the world. Two teenaged brothers, Ray and Steve Hendrickson, founded it in 1978, in Massachusetts. The brothers launched the company, ac...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: CartGenie
September 25, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: StoreSync Lets You Manage Your Ecommerce Business On Your iPhone
September 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce can be a 24 hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week business. For many small-to-medium sized merchants, providing great customer service means paying close attention to their businesses, even after normal business hours. A new iPhone application assists with monitoring orders, inventory,...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Shop Maker
September 18, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: NitroSell
September 11, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Code
Web Design Tips: Combining jQuery Effects and Plugins For A Great Marketing Effect
September 8, 2009 • Armando Roggio
The lightweight (small file size) and concise jQuery library makes it relatively easy to add interactive effects and merchandising to just about any ecommerce website. In this edition of “Web Design ...
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User Experience
Accessibility Review: LorisWigsite.com
September 6, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson
Disabled Internet users often face great challenges when browsing and making purchases online. Perhaps as many as ten percent of online shoppers have a disability, such as low-or-no vision or an inability to use a keyboard, that can make it difficult to understand content and navigate w...
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Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: PowerReviews
September 3, 2009 • Armando Roggio
The term "Web 2.0" has come to describe web design and architecture that facilitates user interaction. And on ecommerce sites, that interaction often takes the form of customer-generated product or service reviews. PowerReviews and PowerReviews Express offer online retailers—from multi...
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Design & Development
Ecommerce Know-How: Making Use of Use Cases
September 1, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Developing clear and concise use cases when you design or redesign your ecommerce website, can improve user experience and satisfaction, potentially leading to more sales and more profits. Use cases have their beginnings in software engineering, where they were used to visually or text...
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User Experience
The Shopping Experience: Newegg
August 28, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Newegg, the second largest ecommerce retailer in the U.S., provided a flawless shopping experience that made it easy to understand why the company has become one of the most trusted and respected electronics retailers, bar none. Newegg set an excellent example of how online retailers c...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: GoEmerchant
August 28, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: “Online Marketing Inside Out” Is a Helpful Book
August 26, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Boiled down to its essence, ecommerce is really about marketing. In the brick-and-mortar world, a small retailer might have a half-dozen competitors citywide, and location, longevity, and luck can be as important as marketing. For example, there is a small, dirty bike shop I know that ...
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Design & Development
Web Design Tips: Three Ecommerce Web Design Trends
August 25, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Like fashion and architecture, web design enjoys an ever changing ebb and flow as trends become popular, become mainstream, and then become passé. To maintain a modern and aesthetically-pleasing look, web designers should examine current trends, estimate their staying power, and impleme...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Beanbasket
August 21, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Design & Dev Tools
Five SEO Mantras for Website Redesign
August 18, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown
I’m often asked to make search engine optimization recommendations during a site’s redesign process. From the clients' points of view, they’re making a major investment and they need to safeguard their existing SEO success in addition to growing their natural, post-launch search traffic...
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Platforms & Apps
Twenty Design Examples of Magento Commerce-based Stores
August 14, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Magento Commerce is perhaps the most popular open-source ecommerce platform available today because of its rich feature set, excellent backend, and extremely flexible theme structure. Magento's theme structure is of particular interest to ecommerce web designers because it allows for a...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Fortune3
August 14, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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User Experience
Accessibility and the Checkout Process
August 11, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson
A crucial element of any ecommerce website is the ability for all customers to complete a purchase on the site, including those with disabilities. If a potential customer cannot navigate your online store's shopping cart or checkout process, it makes little difference what kind of acces...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: CS-Cart
August 7, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: Silkfair Is An Easy and Flexible eCommerce Platform
August 5, 2009 • Armando Roggio
The Silkfair marketplace and ecommerce platform gives small ecommerce entrepreneurs an easy to use and flexible solution. It could have some online merchants selling in less than an hour without a single dime in out of pocket costs. Silkfair's market shops, which are somewhat analogo...
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User Experience
The Shopping Experience: Gap.com
July 31, 2009 • Armando Roggio
The Gap.com provides a positive online shopping experience that emanates professionalism, trustworthiness, and quality. But it is an experience that even small ecommerce businesses can emulate. In 1996, the actress Sharon Stone wore a black Gap turtleneck to Hollywood's grandest gala, ...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Modular Merchant
July 31, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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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Code
Web Design Tips: jQuery UI Accordion Widget
July 30, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Adding an interactive accordion widget to your ecommerce site can provide a great design feature that conveys professionalism and makes your content more readable. There are plenty of instances in website design when we would like to have a lot of content on a page, but, unless you are...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: KonaKart
July 24, 2009 • Kate Monteith
There are more than 350 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 built it and use it. Thi...