Page 143 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Marketing & Advertising
Launching a New Ecommerce Product? Research Marketing Options (Carefully)

July 24, 2015 • Armando Roggio

New product introductions require a blend of creativity and number crunching. Do it well and your online business will generate sales and profits; do it poorly and you could be wasting money on underperforming ads. Online retailers offering unique
Social Media
Ad Management Tools Can Save Time, Simplify

July 23, 2015 • Michael Stancil

Managing advertising campaigns across different platforms — such as Google, Facebook, Bing, and Twitter — can be daunting. Think about it, each platform has a different interface, different targeting options, and seemingly different goals.
Social Media
Facebook Marketing: 3 New Features for Page Owners

July 22, 2015 • Kristine Wirth

Facebook recently introduced three new features designed to help you market your business through your Facebook page more effectively: Saved Replies, Responsiveness, and Video Metrics.
Shipping & Fulfillment
My search for a third-party fulfillment company

July 22, 2015 • Kenny Kane

I can’t help but reflect on this time last year as one of my greatest ecommerce successes. The Stupid Cancer store had rounded a corner of success that there was ...
Business
Shoppers Turn to Small Online Retailers for Unique, Hard-to-find Items

July 22, 2015 • Armando Roggio

When online shoppers cannot find niche products at big box stores or large ecommerce shops, they seek out small Internet retailers. Online stores like Amazon and Walmart carry thousands of products. These and similar massive online retailers
Checkout Tactics
What to Include in Site Navigation, for Higher Conversions?

July 21, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

With the average attention span of online shoppers decreasing — reportedly, we now have no more than 8 seconds to inform web visitors of important details — the tried-and-true methods of navigation are changing.
Amazon & Marketplaces
7 Common Mistakes of New Amazon Sellers

July 21, 2015 • James Thomson

It’s easy for new Amazon sellers to get caught up in the excitement of 240 million shoppers. But, while Amazon recruits more than 100,000 new sellers each year to the ...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: Detailed Statements Essential for Merchants

July 20, 2015 • Phil Hinke

I presented a Practical Ecommerce webinar last month on lowering merchant processing costs. I’ve received several questions since then regarding my views on processing statements. Therefore, I want to address ...
Social Media
Marketing to the ‘SoLoMo’ Consumer

July 20, 2015 • Paul Chaney

Three characteristics define today's consumers: They rely on the influence of social network friends and followers when making purchase decisions; they shop locally as well as online, and they are increasingly dependent on mobile devices to find business information.
SEO Tools
10 Local SEO Tools for Small Businesses

July 20, 2015 • Sig Ueland

For online businesses with physical locations, optimizing for local search engine results is an important component of a marketing strategy. Ranking factors, such as contact details and customer reviews, help ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Drop Shipping: 5 Tactics of Successful Retailers

July 19, 2015 • Jeremy Hanks

In "Drop Shipping for Ecommerce, Part 2: The Basics," I explained that one of the challenges with drop shipping is sellers believe it will be easy to implement. It sort of oversells itself, in fact. Think of the powerful terms that are often used to describe it: “Inventory Free Retail,” “Endless Aisle.”
Conversion
7 Ways To Improve Ecommerce Category Filters

July 17, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Filtered navigation, which narrows search results or listings on a product category page, may help online shoppers quickly find or discover products, improving the shopping experience for
Email & Text Marketing
How to Determine Email Frequency, for Maximum Revenue

July 17, 2015 • Carolyn Nye

I am frequently asked by ecommerce merchants, "How often should I be sending emails?" I nearly always give the same response, "It depends." In fact, most
Design & Dev Tools
11 Online Video Creation Tools for Small Business Use

July 15, 2015 • Kathleen Fealy

Online video has become an integral part of the business marketing toolkit, especially in an era when the use of mobile devices is commonplace. Despite this fact, small businesses often consider the use of video to be a difficult and expensive undertaking. Business owners worry about everything from the skills needed to produce video content to camera-shy employees to promotion and distribution costs.
Business
Language Translation: Machines vs. Humans

July 15, 2015 • Gagan Mehra

This is my third article in a series on operating an ecommerce business in multiple countries. In “Language Translation Tools for Ecommerce Sites,” I reviewed various translation platforms and services.
Content Marketing
Your Content Marketing Is a Joke (Or It Should Be)

July 14, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing helps many companies attract new customers, build lasting relationships with existing customers, and sell more. If your company is using content, but not
Analytics & Data
A Guide to Google Analytics Benchmarking, for Ecommerce

July 13, 2015 • Kunle Campbell

Benchmarking is an insightful tool in Google Analytics. It compares your site’s performance to previous results and to your industry’s average. It provides valuable context
Design & Dev Tools
10 Online Backup Services for Small Businesses

July 12, 2015 • Sig Ueland

For small businesses, online backup services offer more than just storage space in the cloud. Complete solutions provide a variety of features to protect your system, including file management, encryption ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Header Navigation Critical to Success

July 10, 2015 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization relies heavily on site-wide navigational elements to broadcast authority signals to the search engines. Pages linked to in the header, footer, and
Photography & Video
Online Retailer’s Guide to Photo Copyrights

July 10, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Using product or lifestyle images on an ecommerce site without permission from the photograph’s creator or copyright holder is a crime that — in the United States — carries up to $150,000 penalty. So the next time you’re tempted
Social Media
15 Facebook Marketing Tips for Realtors

July 9, 2015 • Kristine Wirth

Every day, real estate agents use Facebook to connect with prospective home buyers and to foster business relationships with peers. Maintaining these relationships, however, requires a bit of handiwork, which is where this article comes in.
Cross-border Selling
Canada: Opportunity for U.S., U.K. Ecommerce Merchants?

July 9, 2015 • Marcia Kaplan

Canada is the top choice of 84 percent of U.S. merchants who sell cross-border, according to the 2014 Multichannel Merchant Outlook report. Obvious advantages are a common language (most of ...
Business > Merchant Voice
What drives ecommerce sales?

July 8, 2015 • David Sasson

Presumably all online retailers want to increase sales. I know we do at overstockArt.com. I came to the office on a recent Monday and, as usual, I checked our sales from ...
Checkout Tactics
Increase Sales by Removing Gender-specific Elements

July 8, 2015 • Pamela Hazelton

Many major brands successfully market gender-specific products. Most of these items rely on trigger words and colors to make them stand out. For example, BIC produced its popular pens in pastel colors
Business
Free and Easy Returns Build Customer Loyalty

July 8, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Shoppers have generally come to expect online stores to offer returns, refunds, and exchanges for items that are defective, damaged, or otherwise not as expected. And when retailers don’t have ...
Business
5 Keys for Building a Global Ecommerce Site

July 7, 2015 • Gagan Mehra

In “Language Translation Tools for Ecommerce Sites,” my post in June, I described translation tools for different types of ecommerce platforms. But building a global site often requires more than ...
Business
Proposed U.S. Overtime Rules Bad for Small Businesses?

July 7, 2015 • Elizabeth Lewis

There has been much talk recently about the proposed federal rules in the U.S. regarding overtime pay. Many observers are confused about exactly who would be entitled to overtime and ...
Product Pages
How to Optimize Ecommerce Product Images for Faster Pages, High Conversion

July 6, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce product photography must convey an item’s value and functionality while inspiring shoppers to buy. Whenever possible, product images should also be lean and fast loading.
Social Media
How to Use Foursquare and Swarm to Promote Your Business

July 6, 2015 • Paul Chaney

Foursquare started the social "check-in" craze a few years ago. It has since changed its business model to become a recommendation engine based on user ratings and reviews, similar to Yelp.
Social Media
Which Social Media Sites Fit Your Ecommerce Company?

July 6, 2015 • Michael Stancil

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Yelp, and dozens more: There are so many social media platforms. Which ones should your company be on? If you sell drain cleaner, should your company be on Pinterest?