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
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...
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...
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, ...
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...
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...
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...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Use 99 Designs for Crowd-sourced Graphics

July 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The appearance of your online store matters. Customers use a store's logo and website design to judge its trustworthiness and professionalism. But ecommerce storeowners and managers are businesspeople, not necessarily graphic or web designers. So their expertise is in merchandising, bu...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Should You Host Your Own Website?

July 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

For some ecommerce businesses, operating an in-house HTTP server and the associated server software can improve website performance, increase data security, and lower overall costs. But hosting your site yourself is not for everyone. Ecommerce businesses rely on the Internet. It is the...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Squirrelcart

July 17, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management 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 an...
Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: “The Unofficial Magento User Guide” Helpful for Novices

July 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Magento Commerce, the open source ecommerce platform, has a massive following and an engaged development community. So it is no surprise that one of its devotees has released an unofficial users' guide designed to help do-it-yourselfers implement this powerful platform. James D. Ballo...
Design & Development
Thirteen Great Flash-based Ecommerce Sites

July 15, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Adobe Flash platform is bringing stunning new examples of rich media to ecommerce sites. New site design techniques make Flash, Flex, and ActionScript, all from Adobe, very viable choices for adding video, audio, or just plain aesthetic awesomeness to any website's design. In this ...
Platforms & Apps
Google Operating System May Speed Mobile Ecommerce

July 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Google recently announced that it had begun work on a computer operating system that might accelerate interest in the popular mobile Internet device market. Mobile Internet devices (MIDs), which are sometimes called netbooks, are physically small and application-lite laptop computers d...
Schools & Resources
Ten Inspiring Ecommerce Site Designs

July 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Creating a great (and successful) ecommerce site requires a mix of terrific products, strong marketing, informative content, and strong site aesthetics. In this article, I have located ten ecommerce sites that offer inspiration for the site aesthetics portion of this mixture. Certa...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Vendio

July 10, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management 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 an...
Code
Web Design Tips: Mobilizing Your Site Using CSS

July 8, 2009 • Armando Roggio

With a second style sheet and minor changes to a page's HTML, many online stores can offer an excellent mobile shopping experience without creating a second web page or registering a mobile specific domain. Mobile Internet use is on the rise. And online merchants presumably want to pro...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Mobile Commerce in Four Steps

July 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Internet-enabled mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices, and new wireless broadband standards are all making it easier for consumers to shop online while on the move. So, is your store ready to serve these mobile customers? In the evolution of modern shopping, consumers have very rec...
Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: MIT OpenCourseWare A Great Educational Resource

July 6, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the leading universities in the world, offers free online courses that can provide ecommerce business owners and managers with MBA-quality course material. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides open access to the MIT faculty’s course ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Tiger Commerce

July 3, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management 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 an...
Design & Dev Tools
The Shopping Experience: Icon Dock Excels at Downloadable Graphics

July 2, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Icon Dock is a beautifully designed, easy-to-use online retailer specializing in downloadable, vector graphic icons. Each month, Practical eCommerce sends me shopping. I make a purchase from a real online merchant—like Icon Dock—and report back to you about the overall checkout process,...
User Experience
Web Accessibility and the Law

June 30, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson

The state of legal requirements and protections concerning the accessibility of websites is far from uniform. Many countries have some form of web accessibility laws in place, but the extent of those laws is radically variable. Furthermore, as many websites serve multiple countries, the...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Tradingeye

June 26, 2009 • Kate Monteith

At Practical eCommerce, we are aware of more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart f...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Adobe Kuler Creates Stunning Colors for Websites

June 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Adobe Kuler is a free web application that can help ecommerce site designers select beautiful and communicative color palettes, earning it four-and-a-half stars in "The PeC Review." "Color is such a pervasive part of everyday life that one tends to take it for granted," wrote Ayn E. Cr...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Picking the Right Shopping Cart

June 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An online retailer is an online marketer. Often the difference between a successful online business and a failed one is not the product or products available for sale, but how the product is promoted. As an example, consider the case of Marcel Salathé, a Swiss artist and theoretical bi...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Flying Cart

June 19, 2009 • Kate Monteith

At Practical eCommerce, we are aware of more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart f...
Typography & Fonts
Web Design Tips: Cufón is a Fast Font Replacement Solution

June 17, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An easy-to-implement JavaScript called Cufón allows web designers to quickly embed visually interesting fonts on their web pages, opening up new opportunities for typographical design elements. Every medium has constraints. For print, there are things like size, ink density, and paper ...
Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: KompoZer is a Capable, Free Web Authoring System

June 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio

KompoZer is a complete, open-source, and free web authoring system that combines web file management, coding hints, and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) page editor that is easy for non-technical site owners or designers to grasp. The KompoZer editor has an interesting history...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Shopster

June 12, 2009 • PEC Staff

At Practical eCommerce, we are aware of more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week, we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management and a customer. "The Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping c...
Design & Development
Alternative Payment Methods Part II: How To Evaluate

June 8, 2009 • Michael E. Shatz

Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series on alternative online payment methods. The author is Michael E. Shatz, a consultant and an expert on online payments. Part 1, "Alternative Payment Methods Part 1: What Are They, How Do They Work", defines alternative payment methods and...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Merchant Metrix

June 5, 2009 • PEC Staff

There are over 350 online shopping carts by Practical eCommerce's count. We feature one of them each week, by interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer of the cart. This feature is not a review or an evaluation. This week we profile Oklahoma-based Merchant Metrix. The compa...
User Experience
Web Design Tips: The Laws of Ecommerce Navigation Design

June 4, 2009 • Armando Roggio

CSS, Flash, jQuery, and an arsenal of other powerful web techniques and technologies have unbound website design, creating the opportunity to develop either exceptional user interfaces or really frustrating ones. Furthermore, the growth of "cookie-cutter" ecommerce templates (i.e., “i...

« Previous 1 2 3 … 42 43 44 … 49 50 51 Next »