Page 171 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
Third-party Cookies vs. Consumer Privacy

November 26, 2013 • Dale Traxler

In “The End of Third-party Cookies Should Not Hurt Retailers,” we addressed how third-party cookies affect privacy and ecommerce. After reading that article, I reviewed privacy issues and what other ...
Email & Text Marketing
Email Spam Traps and How to Avoid Them

November 25, 2013 • Pamella Neely

Spam traps regularly catch well-meaning email marketers who would never think of themselves as spammers. Don’t let yourself be one of the marketers who will get stung by a spam trap this year, or in 2014. They can hurt your deliverability statistics badly.
Email & Text Marketing
Last-minute Email Checklist for Thanksgiving Week

November 25, 2013 • Carolyn Nye

It’s finally here, the busiest shopping week of the year. In this article, I’ll review some last minute email marketing reminders and tips to make this season successful. Manual Abandoned-cart Reminders If ...
Schools & Resources
16 Free Online Tools for Small Businesses

November 25, 2013 • Sig Ueland

Whether you’re starting a small business or you’re just thrifty, you can likely benefit from some free online productivity tools. Here is a list of online productivity tools for small businesses.
On-page SEO
To Improve SEO, Focus on the Page

November 22, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you want to drive more natural search visits to a page, you need to improve the relevance and authority of that page. That’s SEO 101. But one of the ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Amazon Prime, ShopRunner Forcing Faster Free Shipping

November 22, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Amazon Prime and ShopRunner, which both offer online shoppers free two-day shipping with an annual membership, are changing customer expectations and forcing small and mid-sized online retailers to consider faster ...
Content Marketing
Gated vs. Ungated Content

November 22, 2013 • Pamella Neely

Imagine you are finishing up your latest content marketing project. Let's say you have a terrific new ebook, video, or recorded webinar that you know your prospects will love. You upload this content to your site. You set up the landing page. Now you add the form to the landing page so you can build your list and follow up with people who downloaded this content.
Conversion
Alternative Payments and Ecommerce Conversions

November 21, 2013 • Charles Nicholls

There’s no shortage of alternative payment choices: eBay’s PayPal, Google’s Wallet, Visa V.me, and MasterCard MasterPass, to name a few. There is also a proliferation of alternate contenders, as mobile ...
Marketing & Advertising
The Most Powerful Word in Ecommerce Marketing

November 21, 2013 • Armando Roggio

The word “no” may be the most powerful marketing tool available to ecommerce owners and marketers. If used properly, the word “no” emphasizes planning, encourages making good choices, provides freedom ...
Platforms & Apps
4 Managed WordPress Hosting Providers

November 20, 2013 • Joe Robison

Managed WordPress hosting came about because many WordPress sites, from small time bloggers to large businesses, wanted more security and support than was provided by standard hosts. They wanted expertise ...
Social Media
7 Ways to Make Holiday Sales More ‘Pinteresting’

November 20, 2013 • Paul Chaney

The holiday season is upon us and merchants are looking for innovative ways to market their products. Pinterest is one of those ways. Its emphasis on the use of visual imagery,
Conversion
Top 5 Things to Test in Ecommerce Websites

November 19, 2013 • Chris Goward

Back in the day, circa 2008, testing an ecommerce site meant having to write a lot of custom code to run the test and track the results. But now, with ...
Analytics & Data
3 Google Analytics Reports that Hinder Analysis

November 19, 2013 • Feras Alhlou

There is an abundance of analytics data for ecommerce businesses. Finding actionable insights, however, requires persistence and hard work. But it pays off handsomely. In this article, I’ll describe three standard ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Focusing on the top 20 percent of your customers

November 18, 2013 • David Sasson

By segmenting customer lifetime value and identifying the top 20 percent, an ecommerce company can develop a focused marketing effort to increase revenues with limited additional spend. As online merchants we ...
Marketing & Advertising
9 Holiday Retail Marketing Campaigns

November 18, 2013 • Sig Ueland

The holiday season is here, and so are the holiday marketing campaigns. And thanks to social media and some creative online applications, companies now have many ways to engage customers ...
Platforms & Apps
Hosted Mobile Platforms Quick, Easy to Implement

November 18, 2013 • Dale Traxler

Consumers increasingly conduct product research on smartphones. But actual online purchases are typically done on desktops, laptops, and, now, tablets. There are many reasons for this, but mostly it is that ...
SEO
Google Helpouts Can Share your Brand’s Expertise

November 15, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

Most every ecommerce business can claim expertise in something. You wouldn’t be in business if you weren’t at least knowledgeable — and likely passionate — about the products or services ...
Staffing
How to Hire Holiday Ecommerce Help

November 15, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Booming holiday sales require online retailers to pack and ship more orders, respond to more chat sessions, emails and calls, and closely manage marketing campaigns like pay-per-click advertising or promotional ...
Payments
Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?

November 14, 2013 • Phil Hinke

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission included merchant account providers in two separate lawsuits it filed against telemarketers earlier this year. The ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Data Feeds Critical for Multichannel Success

November 14, 2013 • Dale Traxler

What do Amazon, TheFind, Sears.com, Rakuten.com, Shopping.com, Google Merchant, mShopper, Nextopia, SLI Systems, Catalogs.com, Shopzilla, Commission Junction, and Vendio have in common? They all require a data feed of your products.
Business
5 Steps to a More Productive Ecommerce Business

November 13, 2013 • Jerry Jao

Ecommerce owners and managers seek improved productivity. Whether you’re looking to scale your business faster, launch new features, or streamline your operations, here are five productivity tips that I practice ...
Social Media
Twitter Redesign: Photos and Vine Video

November 13, 2013 • Paul Chaney

Twitter recently made a substantial design change by showcasing previews of photos and the first frame of Vine videos in user timelines. Previously, users had to click a link to ...
Finance
Equity Crowdfunding Edges Closer to Implementation

November 12, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been widely criticized for dragging its feet in issuing implementing regulations for equity crowdfunding, which was enabled when the Jobs Act was signed ...
Marketing & Advertising
6 Ways to Capture Cyber Monday Sales

November 12, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Cyber Monday ecommerce sales are expected to reach $2.2 billion this year, according to a new report, making the Monday after Thanksgiving one of the most important days of the ...
Business
Large Retailers Redefining Ecommerce

November 11, 2013 • Dale Traxler

When showrooming became popular a few years ago, brick-and-mortar retailers realized they needed to change, to compete with lower-priced online stores. Amazon became the target of many brick-and-mortar companies. But ...
Social Media
5 Holiday Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Merchants

November 7, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media sites may play an important role in how 2013’s Christmas shoppers find and buy presents on the Internet and in store, potentially making ...
Business
Why some owners sell sooner, not later

November 7, 2013 • Manish Shah

When Sam Hogg went into business for himself, he probably never really expected the company he founded to take off as fast as it did. Launched in late 2008, his ...
Marketing & Advertising
7 Online Marketplaces: Pros and Cons

November 7, 2013 • Dale Traxler

I’ve previously suggested that online merchants and brand manufacturers sell their products on marketplaces to expand their reach and increase their revenues. Marketplaces attract more visitors than a smaller online ...
User Experience
9 Ecommerce Lessons from NFL Online Shops

November 6, 2013 • Armando Roggio

The National Football League, its teams, and its licensees collectively sell more than $2 billion per year in merchandise, including shirts, hats, key chains, and golf tees just to name ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Further Christmas thoughts

November 5, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

It is impossible to ignore Christmas this time of year. It is the single most important season for most ecommerce sites. This is why there are already two excellent columns ...