Page 196 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Conversion
Publishers to Become Ecommerce Merchants?

May 16, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Trends in online commerce, content marketing, and advertising sales may have set the ecommerce and publishing industries on a collision course as both strive for trust, relevance, and profits. U.S. online sales in just the first three months of 2012 were more than double American newsp...
Business > Merchant Voice
10 Ways to Make Your Video Not Suck

May 15, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, I know a few things about video production. Photography and videography are a passion of mine. So, listen up, please! Nearly every tutorial that explains “how” to create a video is dead wrong. Crumple them up and toss them in the bin. Why? Be...
Business > Merchant Voice
10 reasons your mother makes your best beta tester

May 15, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you sell B2C products and/or services, your mother (or grandmother) could be your best beta testing panel member ever. Here's 10 reasons why. 1. Number one advocate Can you imagine a more fervent supporter of your work? It's like a grown-up version of her wanting to hear what you'...
Platforms & Apps
Bing Goes Social with New Redesign

May 15, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Microsoft's Bing search engine will get a major redesign in the next month, extending the tool's integration with Facebook and introducing a new feature to help searchers get more done. “In 2009, we launched Bing with a simple proposition: people should expect more from a search engine...
Schools & Resources
10 Photoshop Skills for Beginners

May 14, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Adobe Photoshop is an incredibly powerful program that allows you to do professional grade image manipulations and adjustments. Whether you want to work with product images or design website layouts, Photoshop has the tools you need to get the job done. However, Photoshop is so powerful...
Conversion
Using Google Analytics Advanced Segments to Find Actionable Data

May 14, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

Editor's note: We welcome Jaime Brugueras as our newest contributor. He's the co-founder of Mineful, a marketing and data-analysis firm. For us, Brugueras will address analytics, measurement and conversion matters. His first piece, on creating "Advanced Segments" in Google Analytics ...
Keyword Research
SEO: How to Amplify Keyword Signals

May 11, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization is all about "signal" and "amplification." The signal is simply using relevant keywords. Amplification is about how to use those keywords and encourage linking and sharing. Think of the keywords as the voice of a site and the amplification as a megaphone. The ...
Conversion
Online Apparel Sales Explode

May 10, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Books, music, software, and consumer electronics have been the mainstay of ecommerce transactions since online sales began. Apparel is now the fastest-growing segment — by growth percentage — in ecommerce thanks to the greater sophistication of shopping tools, free shipping, and more fl...
Email & Text Marketing
How to Choose an Email Service Provider

May 10, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

Selecting an email service provider can be a daunting task. With so many potential providers — and a vast range of pricing options and levels of service — how do you know which providers are the best match for your ecommerce business? In this article, I'll address five keys to help yo...
Design & Development
How to Generate Phone Calls from PPC Ads

May 10, 2012 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

In this interview, Internet marketing expert Joseph Kerschbaum explains how phone ads work, that display phone numbers -- and allow customers to click to call — in a PPC ad.
Inventory
Inventory Rules Are Changing, Says Dropship.com CEO

May 9, 2012 • PEC Staff

Drop shipping is the process of selling an item that is then shipped by a manufacturer or wholesaler. Many ecommerce merchants utilize drop shipping, at least in part, to reduce inventory costs and to expand their product offerings. But drop shipping can be complicated. We addressed s...
Conversion
Choosing Sales Channels to Reach Target Consumers

May 9, 2012 • Dale Traxler

In my previous three articles, I explored the importance of developing effective strategies for your ecommerce business. This starts with knowing who your customers are and what products and services they buy from you, and why. Those three articles are: Who Needs an Ecommerce Strate...
Conversion
Drop Shipping: The Good and The Bad

May 8, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Drop shipping may help online retailers increase sales and profits. But the strategy is not without problems — ranging from gathering product information, managing orders, providing good customer service, and removing poor-performing items. As a business model, drop shipping has online...
Social Media
8 Social Shopping Sites for Ecommerce Merchants

May 8, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Today's social shopping sites are the online equivalent of old-fashioned swap meets and flea markets. They bring thousands of buyers and sellers together in a social environment where shoppers can rely on friends to help them shop and connect with merchants. These social marketplaces ...
Social Media
20 Most-Shared Marketing Videos

May 7, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Online viewers share compelling content. A marketing video that makes an impact can go viral, whether the video is funny, sad, inspiring, or cheaply produced. Here is a list of the most-shared marketing videos, based on the amount of times content is shared on Facebook, Twitter and in ...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
Magento, Multi Store and SEO

May 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

One of the biggest challenges to Search Engine Optimisation for any Ecommerce site is the range and variety in the stock. All SEO tutorials and teach yourself books seem to assume you are selling a small range. Typically 'widgits'. They talk about doing keyword analysis on widgets, find...
Business
Lessons Learned: Wholesale Butcher Becomes Prime Retail

May 4, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Australian Paul Tory studied accounting after leaving high school. But after “two very boring years,” he realized the profession wasn’t for him and decided to try a trade. He undertook a motor mechanics apprenticeship for five years before his father invited him in 1998 to join the fa...
SEO
SEO Professionals Can Harm an Ecommerce Business

May 4, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Like Bon Jovi’s song, “You Give Love a Bad Name,” some search engine optimization companies give that profession a bad reputation. Practical eCommerce recently fielded a question from a reader wondering why his site was being penalized for work his SEO company had done on his behalf. It...
Schools & Resources
Reading List: Neil Davidson of My Web Presenters

May 3, 2012 • PEC Staff

In “Reading List,” we ask ecommerce professionals to name some of their favorite recent books and blogs and tell us why they read them. For this installment, we corresponded ...
Business
What’s the Value Proposition of Your Ecommerce Company?

May 3, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Your company's value proposition is the reason consumers buy your products or services. You may have more than one value proposition, as every customer segment you serve may derive value from different aspects of your offer. You should be able to explain it in 30 seconds — the so-called...
Social Media
Using Twitter to Promote Your Ecommerce Products

May 2, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Twitter is a largely untapped promotional channel for ecommerce merchants. According to social commerce company ArgyleSocial, only 26 percent of retailers include calls to action such as "visit a website" or "purchase a product" in their tweets — here's ArgyleSocial's infographic. In a...
Social Media
Survey Says: Pinterest-like Sites Drive Sales

May 1, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Some 32 percent of respondents to a March survey reported making a purchase after seeing a product on Pinterest or a similar picture and video sharing social media website. Bizrate Insights, which sells customer feedback and ratings solutions to online retailers, surveyed 3,741 online ...
Influencers & Affiliates
Affiliate Marketing: Communicating with Your Affiliates

May 1, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

One of the important responsibilities of managing an affiliate marketing channel is communicating with affiliates. The most common form of communicating with them is an email newsletter. A question many affiliate managers ask is, “How often should I send a newsletter?” The concern is...
Product Pages
6 Product Page Factors that Drive Sales

April 30, 2012 • Pablo Palatnik

Among the most underrated aspect of ecommerce websites are product pages. When consumers consider actual items to purchase, it's the product pages that determine if they want to buy from your website, or not. Product pages, in my view, are where the sales are really made. 6 Product Pa...
Social Media
3 Examples of Contest Marketing

April 30, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Contest marketing seeks to give shoppers a positive retailer-related experience, create an affinity for the products a retailer sells, and collect information about shoppers that may help with future sales-oriented marketing campaigns. The idea of giving away hundreds of dollars worth ...
Technical SEO
Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty an Evolution, Not Revolution

April 27, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google’s much discussed over-optimization penalty turned out to be a moderate evolutionary step in Google’s site quality crusade. Launched April 24, Google wrote in a blog post of its update, “The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s quality gui...
Conversion
7 Things to Know about Your Customers

April 26, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Whether you are planning to launch a new online store, new product lines, or an entirely new business, you need to know who your target consumers are and how to reach them. These seven questions will help with that understanding. Why do customers buy from you and not a competitor? ...
Business
Ecommerce Owner Sells the Business; Explains the Process

April 25, 2012 • PEC Staff

Merchants tend to put a lot of thought into starting their businesses, but not so much into leaving. Having a proper exit strategy can allow merchants to sell their businesses much more effectively, as well making the process less emotionally taxing. We recently spoke with Dale Traxle...
User Experience
Emphasizing Site Search in Web Design

April 25, 2012 • Armando Roggio

A website's own search engine is fundamental to helping customers find products, make purchases, and have a positive shopping experience. Speaking at an ecommerce conference in Brazil, Ed Huffman, vice president of global sales and business development for SLI Systems, a site search pr...
Business
Managing Your Company’s Trade Secrets

April 24, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

Trade secrets are valuable assets that can be owned. Ecommerce businesses can create many types of trade secrets, including marketing techniques, supplier lists, business practices, and unique software processes. What may constitute a trade secret extends beyond what may be patentable,...