Page 187 – Practical Ecommerce

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Social Media
How to Create a Google+ Community

December 11, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Google+ is growing. According to a Google executive, more than 500 million people have set up profiles, 235 million actively use Google+ functionality such as Hangouts (its video chat feature) and sharing links (via the +1 button), and 135 million use Google+ as a stand-alone social net...
Business
Lessons Learned: Licensing a Language Platform Is Ecommerce Success

December 11, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Dan Roitman founded his education-focused ecommerce company, Stroll, while he was a student at the University of Maryland, studying international business and German, in 2000. He financed his fledgling business on his credit card, leveraging $70,000 to take the company to profitability...
Photography & Video
3 Video Trends to Watch in 2013

December 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers will be using video in 2013 to increase sales, find new potential customers, and build brand relationships if key streaming-video trends continue. Internet video consumption edged out television watching in 2012 for some groups, according to Nielsen's Global Survey of ...
SEO
The SEO Benefit of Infographics

December 7, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization professionals don't usually recommend creating more images, but infographics can have a real benefit to SEO. Typically, images are used in place of textual content to convey the same message visually. Consequently, images tend to be viewed as detrimental to SE...
Email & Text Marketing
Email, Mobile, On-site Driving 2012 Holiday Sales

December 6, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Retail holiday sales for 2012 from the first of November through Cyber Monday rose 16 percent year over year to more than $16.3 billion. Email marketing, mobile shopping, and on-site promotions have all played an important role in online sales. The 16 percent boost in early holiday ret...
Conversion
Marketplace Mania, Part 4: Leveraging Technology

December 6, 2012 • Dale Traxler

This is "Part 4" in a four-part series on using marketplaces to help your ecommerce business. In "Part 1: Reviewing the Buying Experience" and "Part 2: Buying Unique, Niche Items," I examined marketplaces from a buyer’s perspective. In "Part 3: Choosing the Right Marketplace," I focused...
Design & Development
Mobile Commerce Blurs Online, Offline Retail

December 5, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets allow shoppers to look for products or compare prices from just about anywhere, including right in the middle of a brick-and-mortar store. These devices are changing how people shop and blurring the distinction between buying online or off. R...
Social Media
Designing a Facebook Marketing Campaign in 4 Steps

December 4, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Marketing on Facebook involves four basic steps: Build, Connect, Engage and Influence, a process Facebook now refers to as the BCEI framework. This article outlines these four steps and explains how ecommerce merchants can use them to execute an effective Facebook marketing campaign. ...
Social Media
6 Sites to Monitor Facebook Changes

December 4, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook is notorious for making changes to its platform. Often, such changes are made with little notice or fanfare, unless you know where to look. Staying abreast of such changes is important to any merchant who wishes to use Facebook marketing more effectively. In this article, I p...
Finance
Analyzing Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Overall Retail Sales

December 3, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Cyber Monday online sales reached $1.47 billion, up 17 percent over last year, representing the heaviest online spending day in history, according to digital tracking firm comScore, which also reported that Black Friday sales reached $1.04 billion, besting last year's amount by 28 perce...
Schools & Resources
16 New Ecommerce Books for the 2012 Holidays

December 3, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Here are new ecommerce and Internet-marketing books for winter 2012. There are new titles on social media, conversion optimization, entrepreneurship, email marketing, and content creation. I compiled this record using Amazon’s "Books" category. I selected “Browse Subjects” and chose th...
Business > Merchant Voice
Minimising “lost” Deliveries over Christmas

December 1, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

One of the often forgotten costs of Ecommerce is theft. Either in transit, or “never arrived”. In the current recession too many chancers try to fund their Christmas from the retailer's pocket. Obviously we do everything we reasonably can to minimise this, but no matter what we do, ther...
Keyword Research
Using Keyword Research beyond SEO

November 30, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research is one of the foundational pieces of search engine optimization because it illuminates the exact words real-life customers use to search for the products we sell. But why stop there? The insights that keyword research provides can inform other many other areas of the bu...
Influencers & Affiliates
Launching a New Affiliate Marketing Program, Part 1: Tracking Platforms

November 29, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

Editor's Note: This is "Part 1" of a three-part series on launching a new affiliate marketing program. "Part 2" and "Part 3" we published subsequently. There are four steps involved in launching an affiliate program. They are: (a) evaluating potential affiliate networks and tracking p...
Design & Development
Mobile Devices Capture Increasing Share of Holiday Shopping

November 29, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

While overall online commerce showed impressive gains over last year's Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday, the real standout this year was mobile commerce. Compared with the same period in 2011, mobile grabbed a much larger share of both shopping and actual purchases. According to IBM’...
Google Ads
7 Last Minute Holiday Marketing Improvements

November 28, 2012 • Scott Smigler

Christmas is less than five weeks away. Here are seven last-minute holiday marketing improvements you can make to maximize sales. 1. Shop Your Site from Mobile Devices Smartphone and tablet users accounted ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
3 Tips for Holiday Returns and Exchanges

November 28, 2012 • Armando Roggio

When the giddy days of holiday sales end, online retailers frequently need to deal with the inevitable returns and exchanges barrage. But when customer contacts are seen as opportunities, even returns can be a tool to improve an ecommerce business. Online returns and exchanges are a po...
Conversion
Marketplace Mania, Part 3: Choosing the Right Marketplace

November 27, 2012 • Dale Traxler

This is "Part 3" in a four-part series on using marketplaces to help your ecommerce business. In "Part 1: Reviewing the Buying Experience" and "Part 2: Buying Unique, Niche Items," I examined marketplaces from a buyer’s perspective. This installment focuses on choosing the right marketp...
Conversion
4 Ideas for After-Christmas Sales

November 27, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The first quarter of the year can be a slow time for online merchants, especially in the wake of robust Christmas sales. Fortunately, offering after-Christmas specials may boost revenue, reduce inventory, and make for happy customers. The buying frenzy that began seemingly right after ...
Social Media
Amazon and Pinterest Add Business Pages

November 26, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ have their own versions of business pages. Now, Amazon and Pinterest do, too. Amazon Marketing Services Amazon has quietly launched what it refers to as Amazon ...
Conversion
Marketplace Mania, Part 2: Buying Unique, Niche Items

November 23, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is "Part 2" in a series on buying and selling products on marketplaces. "Part 1: Reviewing the Buying Experience" we published previously. Last week, I examined the buying experience in the larger marketplaces: Amazon, eBay, Buy.com, Sears.com, and Newegg. They all ...
Marketing & Advertising
9 Creative Websites For Marketing Inspiration

November 23, 2012 • Kevin Webster

Your business's website needs to be fresh, bold, and worthy of a visitor’s time. Reading about your industry — or visiting business blogs — sometimes isn’t enough to inspire or help generate ideas. If you feel as though you are in a rut, there are many ways to generate creative thinking. Here’s a nine websites that can help.
Social Media
Top 10 Social Sharing Buttons for Your Website

November 21, 2012 • Paul Chaney

One of the best ways to get traffic to your website is through the use of social sharing buttons. The problem, however, is that while many social sharing options exist, their features vary. Some offer fewer sharing options, some only work on WordPress, and some require more technical ex...
Conversion
Translation: Understanding Per-word Rates

November 21, 2012 • Rebecca Ray

Language translation is a professional service, similar to the ones provided by accountants, lawyers, and designers. However, unlike those services, translation is generally priced by the word, rather than by the hour. In this post, I will share some factors that affect translation pricing and suggest how you can negotiate with prospective translation providers.
Email & Text Marketing
Automated Email Marketing Drives Ecommerce Sales; 4 Tips

November 20, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

Email marketing is becoming increasingly automated. Recent acquisitions by ExactTarget, a leading email service provider, of iGoDigital and Pardot, for $21 million and $95 million respectively, illustrate this trend. iGoDigital is a platform that helps online retailers offer product re...
Schools & Resources
5 Sins of Retail Site Design in 2013

November 20, 2012 • Armando Roggio

A great retail site design is aesthetically pleasant; it reflects current trends; and it includes the best and often latest in functionality. When these areas are ignored the resulting design can be downright sinful — even harmful to the bottom line. To some extent, site design is subj...
Social Media
Pinterest Releases Business Accounts

November 19, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pinterest, the popular image and video sharing site, now allows for specific business accounts that have a separate set of terms and conditions and may eventually include promotional options not currently available on the platform. "Thousands of businesses have become part of our commu...
Analytics & Data
Analyzing Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics; 5 Questions

November 16, 2012 • Tim Wilson

According to published reports, there were 20 million iPhones, 18 million Android-based Samsung Galaxy S3s, and 17 million iPads sold in the third quarter of 2012. The mobile channel, as such, can’t be ignored. But, “mobile” is complicated. It covers a wide range of devices and experien...
Design & Development
3 Tactics for Mobile Commerce

November 16, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Mobile shopping may be the fastest growing retail trend this year and next. How merchants market to mobile shoppers could soon have a significant impact on sales and customer loyalty. There is no question that shoppers are using mobile devices — smartphones and tablets — to research bu...
Business > Merchant Voice
Building traffic the right (aka hard) way

November 16, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

Building an online business starts with traffic. Without traffic, you have no purpose. So, how does one do this? It will take a long time, a lot of hard work, and probably a bit of luck. But you can do it. My website currently receives nearly 50% of its visitors via direct traffic. Thi...