Page 174 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Customer Retention
6 Ways to Market Gift Cards Online

September 24, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Gift cards can be an effective way to increase online sales, acquire new customers, and encourage return visits. Marketing gift cards can be easy during holidays, like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s ...
Business
U.S. Proposes ADA Compliance for Public Websites

September 24, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

When Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, the public Internet did not exist. Over the past 23 years, making the Internet accessible to those with disabilities ...
Conversion
5 Unusual and Effective Ecommerce Pricing Strategies

September 23, 2013 • Gagan Mehra

Most online retailers set pricing using the cost-plus or the value-based method. While these work well, there are several other ways to price products. Here I present five unusual and ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Adding a wedding category could produce extra sales — and headaches

September 23, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

You may think you can’t tap into the wedding market if you don’t sell venues, honeymoons, caterers, dresses, hair and make-up, invitations, flowers, cars, jewelry, cake, nor entertainment. However, there could ...
Business
Robust User Experience May Unlock Mobile Commerce

September 20, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Online sales from mobile devices are expected to exceed $41 billion in the United States this year, representing a significant opportunity for online sellers who are able to provide a ...
Social Media
Does Pinterest Help with SEO?

September 20, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

The intersection of organic search and Pinterest is actually very small. Still, Pinterest does have a place in search engine optimization as a way to expand a site’s search result ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Sell banner advertising? Yeah. Sell banner advertising.

September 19, 2013 • Jamie Salvatori

You should sell ads on your e-commerce site. I’ve yet to find evidence that putting banner advertising on your e-commerce site to be a bad thing. I know it sounds counter ...
Social Media
25 Helpful Facebook Insights Definitions

September 19, 2013 • Kunle Campbell

Facebook Insights offers metrics to analyze your audience beyond age, gender, country, city, and language. You can discover what your audience likes about your page, where the visitors were before they came to your page, and otherwise monitor reach, virality, and more.
Payments
Avoid No-detail Credit Card Processing Statements

September 19, 2013 • Phil Hinke

I have addressed the importance of understanding credit card processing statements in previous articles. However, I’ve recently seen statements with little or minimal detail that make it virtually impossible to ...
Business
Lessons Learned: Specialist ID Identifies a Niche

September 19, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Bartenders frequently ask young patrons to prove they’re over 21 to obtain liquor service. But there’s probably only one ex-bartender who has created a million-dollar business out of legitimate photo ...
Social Media
Twitter’s Lead Generation Ad Format Captures User Data

September 18, 2013 • Paul Chaney

In May, Twitter announced the release of Lead Generation Cards, which are designed to help advertisers highlight specific offers, products, or services and capture user interest directly from within a ...
Customer Retention
Marketing to Affluent Customers, for High Margins

September 18, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Many online retailers compete on price. But selling luxury products to relatively affluent shoppers with annual incomes above $100,000 per year is an exercise in brand building and content marketing. Shoppers ...
Email & Text Marketing
When Is the Best Time to Send an Email?

September 17, 2013 • Pamella Neely

"When is the best time to send an email?" is one of the most frequently asked questions about email marketing. After all the work of building a list, crafting a message, and designing the email, everybody wants to get the best results possible. Nobody wants to mail at the wrong time.
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketing for the Holidays, Part 2: Implementation

September 17, 2013 • Carolyn Nye

Editor’s Note: This is “Part 2” of a two-part series on email marketing for the upcoming holiday selling season. “Part 1: Preparation” we published earlier. In “Email Marketing for the Holidays,
Google Ads
24 Pay-per-click Advertising Tools

September 16, 2013 • Sig Ueland

Managing a pay-per-click advertising campaign can be time-consuming and expensive. Fortunately, there is a wide range of tools available to create efficient ad copy and to optimize your budget. Here is ...
Marketing & Advertising
Holiday Ecommerce Promotions to Prepare in September

September 16, 2013 • Dale Traxler

In “2013 Holiday Ecommerce Preparedness Checklist,” we addressed tasks to do now for the holiday rush. This article adds a few ideas that are more customer and marketing centric. Create New ...
Keyword Research
SEO: Is your Site Relevant for that Keyword?

September 13, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

Understanding the interplay between search relevance and intent can mean the difference between a well optimized site and a lot of time wasted chasing keywords for which you’ll never rank. Organic ...
Business
Top 5 Mistakes Ecommerce Owners Make When Selling their Businesses

September 12, 2013 • Manish Shah

Recently I stumbled upon an article on Entrepreneur.com titled “10 Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your Business.” I found myself relating to five of them, from my own experiences brokering ...
Marketing & Advertising
6 Ecommerce Predictions for the 2013 Holidays

September 12, 2013 • Armando Roggio

U.S. online sales are expected to exceed $61 billion in November and December, making the holiday shopping season vital to small and mid-sized retailers. Six trends — ecommerce growth, mobile sales,
Local Business
Reverse Showrooming: Pinterest Helps Brick-and-mortar Retailers

September 12, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

When consumers began using the sophisticated features of their smartphones to do price comparisons and make online purchases while browsing the aisles of stores, panic set in among brick-and-mortar retailers.
Inventory
7 Tips for Good Supplier Relationships

September 11, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Good supplier relationships may lead to favorable prices, generous terms, improved availability, and even the occasional buyback. With these sorts of opportunities at stake, it can be very important for ...
Social Media
Top 10 Social Media Marketing Application Providers

September 11, 2013 • Paul Chaney

I conducted a roundup of top social media marketing app providers nearly a year ago and much has changed since then. Many have added new features and apps, integrated with ...
Business
A Matter of Trust (Part 1)

September 10, 2013 • Jordan Lindberg

“I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business.” – Harvey S. Firestone. Years ago I had the good fortune to be able to take a two-day seminar in Chicago on ...
Business
Managing the Gross Margin of your Ecommerce Business

September 10, 2013 • Dale Traxler

The gross margin calculation of sales minus cost of goods sold is a fundamental key performance indicator of any business that sells products. It measures the profit generated from each ...
Influencers & Affiliates
The Rise of Data-driven Affiliate Marketing

September 10, 2013 • Carolyn Kmet

The concept of data-driven decisions has permeated the affiliate marketing channel. With tracking solutions providing access to deeper data, many brands are benefiting from insights into how affiliates are driving ...
Fraud Prevention
Apple Fingerprint Scanner May Boost Mobile Commerce

September 9, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Next generation smartphones or tablets equipped with fingerprint scanners may provide shoppers with greater security and boost both online and in-store mobile commerce. Leading mobile device makers Apple and Samsung are ...
Technical SEO
SEO Traffic Changes When URLs Change

September 6, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

You may have noticed that we recently updated Practical Ecommerce with a fresh, new design. Behind the scenes, a lot of things changed as we moved to a new platform,
Checkout Tactics > Merchant Voice
Reducing Cart Abandonment

September 6, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

The most important part of any ecommerce site is the checkout: the collection of money from your customers. You have spent time and money getting customers to your site, you ...
Social Media
Facebook Promotions Change Likely to Benefit Smaller Merchants

September 6, 2013 • Paul Chaney

Facebook recently announced a change to its promotions policy that is likely to have a major impact on the way retailers run contests and sweepstakes on the social network. Promotions ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba Attorney on Intellectual Property Theft

September 5, 2013 • PEC Staff

Most every ecommerce company owns intellectual property — photos, product descriptions, logos, brand names, designs. Many online companies have experienced the theft of their intellectual property from other websites, often ...