Page 186 – Practical Ecommerce

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Design & Dev Tools
8 Tools for Managing Multiple WordPess Sites

January 7, 2013 • Sig Ueland

Managing multiple WordPress sites is getting easier. With the release of WordPress 3.0 and its multisite feature, you can run multiple sites from a single WordPress installation and create a network of sites. However, if you run several websites with a variety of requirements, your need...
User Experience
5 Ways to Enhance an Ecommerce Site for Tablets

January 7, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers must design sites that work well and look great on tablets as those devices emerge as a favorite for online shoppers. Designing for tablets include adaptive layouts, touch-sensitive navigation, great images and graphics, and fast load times. Some 25 percent of American...
Business > Merchant Voice
Learn from your Christmas Experience

January 5, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

Its January. The Christmas rush is over. The Christmas money has been spent, and the website sales are slowly dying. The number of orders have dropped off the proverbial cliff, as expected. Now is the time to review the web site. Taking into account the previous year's business and how...
SEO
SEO New Year’s Resolutions for 2013

January 4, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown

With a new year ahead, it’s time to think about New Year’s resolutions. What do you want search engine optimization to do for your site in 2013? The most likely goals for any ecommerce site revolve around driving more traffic and converting more visitors. Let’s look at some steps for an...
Photography & Video
10 Compelling Product Video Examples

January 3, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Product videos may attract additional shoppers, encourage sharing, and increase sales for online retailers. So it is little wonder that so many leading retailers are using product videos now. Relying on data aggregated from several sources, SundaySky, a video-platform provider, reporte...
Google Ads
Pay-per-click Advertising: 7 Predictions for 2013

January 3, 2013 • Scott Smigler

2012 was a big year for pay-per-click advertising. Many online retailers saw their PPC budgets, conversion rates, and return-on-ad-spend grow nicely. At the same time, cost-per-click rates dropped precipitously for Product Listing Ads and mobile ads. Looking forward, here are my top sev...
Platforms & Apps
7 Must-have WordPress Plugins for Business Sites

January 3, 2013 • Armando Roggio

WordPress plugins extend the popular content management system’s capabilities and, in many cases, improve its performance. While each site may wish to use a different combination of plugins, there are simply some of these extensions that every business must have.
Social Media
Using Instagram for your Ecommerce Business

January 2, 2013 • Paul Chaney

Popular photo-sharing app Instagram — which Facebook acquired earlier this year — is now used by businesses. Of 100 leading brands, 54 have incorporated Instagram, according to Simply Measured, an analytics firm. Here is how you can start using Instagram to market your products and ser...
Design & Development
15 iPad-friendly Retail Sites

January 2, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Apple's iPad tablet computer is changing the way that many consumers connect to the Internet, stay informed, and shop. A tablet-friendly website is thus a new imperative for online retailers. One out of every four adults in the U.S. owns a tablet computer like the Apple iPad or similar...
Platforms & Apps
Mobile Commerce: Website or App?

January 1, 2013 • Dale Traxler

According to Forrester Research, mobile commerce sales will grow from $10 billion in 2012 to $32 billion in 2016, accounting for more than 7 percent of total ecommerce sales. With the adoption of smartphones and tablets accelerating worldwide, that percentage could be even higher. For...
Business
25 Top Articles for 2012

December 28, 2012 • PEC Staff

As 2012 draws to a close, we've compiled a list of the 25 most popular Practical eCommerce articles of the year, based on the number of page views. Pinterest was a trending subject among readers in 2012, taking 4 of the 25 spots. Other subjects of interest included search engine optimi...
Conversion
5 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Online Retailers

December 27, 2012 • Armando Roggio

As 2012 comes to a close and the year's robust holiday season is over, small online retailers will have a bit of time to reflect on how to improve business in 2013. The coming year is likely to see growth in overall ecommerce spending, increased competition for loyal customers, and adv...
Social Media
10 Ways to Encourage Customer Ratings and Reviews

December 26, 2012 • Paul Chaney

According to Nielsen’s "Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages" report, which surveyed more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, 92 percent of consumers said they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. From an ecommerce ...
Conversion
How to Get 1,000 Visitors to your Website for Free

December 26, 2012 • Aaron Houghton

Your website is where you turn Internet surfers, readers, and tire-kickers into new sales leads and customers for your small business. To get more leads and customers, you need to get more visitors to your website.
Schools & Resources
Reading List: WarehousingAndFulfillment.com’s Will Schneider

December 24, 2012 • PEC Staff

In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded with Will ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
10 Drop Shipping Resources

December 24, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Drop shipping is an order fulfillment technique in which merchandise is shipped to the customer directly from the warehouse or supplier, rather than from the retailer. The merchant can offer a greater selection of products and test new markets, without the cost and risk of excessive inv...
Technical SEO
SEO: When Product Facets and Filters Fail

December 21, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Ecommerce sites rely on filtered or faceted navigation to make their product catalogs more easily digestible for customers. Depending on how filters and facets are implemented, however, they can either be fantastic for search engine optimization or a big failure. SEO is based on three ...
Design & Development
6 Tips for Newsletter Subscription Forms

December 21, 2012 • Drew Coffin

An email list is one of the best ways to connect with shoppers, announce new products, and promote sales. A key part of building a mailing list is having a compelling newsletter signup form. While different sites display newsletter signup forms in different ways, examining newsletter signup forms from around the web reveals several common practices.
Analytics & Data
Configuring Google Analytics, Part 1: Are You Taking Full Advantage?

December 20, 2012 • Tim Wilson

Editor's note: This is "Part 1" of a 2-part series on how to know if you are fully using Google Analytics for your ecommerce site. "Part 2: Advanced Capabilities" we published later. One of the first things I do with a new Google Analytics clients is log in to their accounts and do a q...
Business
Reviewing your Ecommerce Business at Year End

December 19, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Many ecommerce businesses owners will soon perform a year-end count of their product inventory. For many merchants, this process will determine cost of goods sold — and profit — for the year. Beyond your products, however, I recommend you critique your entire business. As you close you...
Email & Text Marketing
Remember a Holiday ‘Thank You’ Email

December 19, 2012 • Armando Roggio

As the 2012 Christmas shopping season comes to a close, online retailers should take the time to sincerely thank customers and offer appropriate holiday greetings. Email marketing often reaches its peak during the weeks leading up to December 25. Many, if not most, Internet retailers a...
Social Media
5 Sites for Consumer Product Discovery

December 18, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Social media has inspired a new kind of shopping that is based on peer-to-peer sharing of content on sites like Pinterest, Etsy, or Shopcade, and less known sites such as LoveIt or Wanelo. This consumer-driven trend is referred to as "discovery." For many consumers, shopping is as muc...
Email & Text Marketing
3 Common Email Marketing Mistakes

December 18, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

There were some fantastic email campaigns in 2012. And there were some ineffective ones, too. In this article, I'll address three of the top email marketing mistakes from 2012. Sending Emails Too Frequently As an email marketing professional, I subscribe to hundreds of ecommerce em...
Shipping & Fulfillment
30 Shipping Resources for Small Businesses

December 17, 2012 • Sig Ueland

The major shipping organizations in the U.S. — UPS, DHL, FedEx and U.S. Postal Service — provide many easy-to-use online tools and resources to help small businesses meet their shipping needs. In addition to shipping-management tools, the carriers also provide educational resources, and...
Conversion
Bad Marketers: 4 Evil Tactics from Marketing’s Dark Side

December 17, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce marketing can be competitive, as each online store strives to build customer relationships, boost incoming site traffic, and sell more. From time-to-time, marketers will step over an ethical line — sometimes without even realizing it. What follows are four tempting, but evil,...
Technical SEO
SEO: Working Around a Redesign

December 14, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

When a redesign or platform change looms in your site’s future, it’s easy to turn off all search-engine-optimization work and focus on planning the new site. After all, why bother making changes that will just be overwritten when you launch the new site? Focusing on a few key areas will...
Payments
How to Lower Credit Card Processing Costs and Obtain Better Terms: Follow-up

December 13, 2012 • Phil Hinke

Editor's Note: This is a follow-up article to the just completed four-part series on how to lower your debit and credit card costs and obtain more favorable terms and conditions. "Part 1: The Basics," "Part 2: Attitude," "Part 3: Preparation," and "Part 4: Negotiations" we published pre...
Business > Merchant Voice
Three small business customer service fails and one that works

December 13, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

In the lead-up to Christmas I realised how disproportionately annoyed customers can get with some of the businesses that are out there by experiencing unprofessional service first-hand - especially after comparing it to a first-rate one. Company A We're about to renovate our house so ...
Conversion
Analyzing B-to-B Ecommerce

December 12, 2012 • Dale Traxler

As sales channels become more complex, many business-to-business companies — including brand manufacturers — face the dilemma of whether to sell online directly to their customers. Likewise, there are many business-to-consumer stores that are large enough to command low inventory pric...
Email & Text Marketing
Transactional Emails: 5 Secrets to Improve

December 12, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Five relatively simple steps could help online retailers significantly improve transactional emails, and, perhaps, earn additional sales. Transactional or relationship email messages complete, confirm, or provide information about a previously agreed upon transaction. In the ecommerce ...