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: 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...
Design & Development
The PeC Review: Magento User Guide eBook

June 2, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Magento Commerce is becoming one of the most popular and, perhaps, most exciting ecommerce platforms available. But with all of its online retailing prowess comes some level of complexity that at least a few merchants find daunting. A new ebook seeks to make using this powerful ecommerc...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Cloud Computing in the Ecommerce Forecast

June 1, 2009 • Armando Roggio

If meteorologists predicted ecommerce and computing trends, the forecast would be at least partly cloudy as more computational and transactional applications join the cloud computing front. But are the wispy clouds on the near horizon the harbinger of a gentle, growth-encouraging rain o...
User Experience
New Accessibility Guidelines Part IV: Robustness

May 22, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson

This is the fourth article in my series on the new WCAG 2.0. The previous installments are "A Welcomed Update," "Part II: Operability," and "Part III: Understandability." In this article, I'll addresses “robustness."
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Microsoft Tool Helps Designers with Internet Explorer Compatibility Problems

May 18, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Designing for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser has always been a problem as designers were forced to choose between widely accepted Internet standards and what would work in IE. This problem has been exacerbated by the complexity of designers having to maintain various generat...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Shop-Script, by WebAsyst

May 15, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this weekly “Cart of the Week” feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile Shop-Script by WebAsyst, based in Delaware. WebAsyst offers...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: eCommerce Framework, by Mediachase

May 8, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this weekly “Cart of the Week” feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile the ASP.NET eCommerce Framework (ECF) by Mediachase. The Lo...
Schools & Resources
12 Good Ecommerce Resources

May 6, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce entrepreneurs frequently earn their profits in small margins, where slight competitive advantages can be the difference between flourishing and floundering. Gaining a competitive advantage can be as simple as trying a new marketing tactic, making a subtle adjustment to your w...
Code
Web Design Tips: Adding A Featured Section to Your Site Using jQuery and jFlow

May 6, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Smooth content sliders are widgets that can show clickable product images, Adobe Flash, HTML, or other content, effectively creating a "featured section" in a small amount of space. After researching several "easy" solutions (most of which did not work), I tried the jFlow plugin that ...
Platforms & Apps
Interview: Miva Merchant CEO, EVP on Moving to a SAAS Business Model

May 1, 2009 • PEC Staff

Miva Merchant is among the most prominent ecommerce brands. The company was launched in 1995 as HTMLScript Corporation, and it’s one of the early day shopping cart providers. It rose, and then fell, with the first dotcom boom and bust. In 2005, the company sold to Findwhat.com, a publi...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: RomanCart

April 30, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this weekly "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile RomanCart, a U.K.-based hosted cart solution, offering cart...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: ProductCart

April 24, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile ProductCart, by Early Impact, Inc. Based in Mission Viejo,...
Code
Web Design Tips: Converting an Older Table-Based Email Template To CSS

April 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Many email templates were developed using older table-based layouts that "break" easily and are very complicated to maintain. Tables in HTML are fantastic for displaying tabular data. But as a layout tool they interfere with some dynamic and rich media elements, cause accessibility cha...
User Experience
New Accessibility Guidelines Part III: Understandability

April 22, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson

This is the third article in my series on the new WCAG 2.0. The previous installments are "A Welcomed Update" and "Part II: Operability." In this article, I'll addresses “understandability."
Design & Development
Video Ideas: 4 Ways to Engage Visitors and Increase Sales

April 21, 2009 • Jan Riley

Nearly 80 percent of U.S. Internet users spent roughly 5 hours watching videos in December 2008, with an average view time of 3.2 minutes per video, according to a study by comScore. Here are four ways your ecommerce business can use video to engage your visitors and increase sales, n...
Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: “Remember the Milk” A Helpful Organizing Tool

April 20, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce entrepreneurs are busy people who manage suppliers, web marketing, merchandising, accounting, and more. Many of these entrepreneurs keep lists on legal pads or stick dozens of yellow Post-it notes to the sides of their monitors like a mane on a lion. Australia-based Remem...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Shop2Cart

April 17, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile Shop2Cart, a Boca Raton, Florida-based hosted cart. We ask...
Design & Development
Mobile Broadband Growth Slowed in Fourth Quarter 2008

April 14, 2009 • PEC Staff

The growth in new mobile broadband subscriptions fell significantly in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a new report. The total mobile PC data card subscriber base grew 5 percent in the final three months of 2008, compared to 22 percent growth in the prior quarter, according to...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: GoECart

April 10, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile GoECart, a hosted solution with two tiers of pricing, one ...
User Experience
The Shopping Experience: Source 1 Medical Offers Easy Navigation, Good Service

April 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Each month, Practical eCommerce sends me shopping. I make a purchase from a real online merchant and create both an article and a video of the shopping experience. My goal is to report back to you about the overall checkout process, customer service experience, website aesthetics, and d...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: AspDotNetStorefront

April 3, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile AspDotNetStorefront’s ML shopping cart. We asked COO and E...

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