Page 229 – Practical Ecommerce

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Payments
Credit Card Veterans Focus on iPhone, Mobile Payments

May 26, 2010 • PEC Staff

The rise of mobile devices is affecting ecommerce. More consumers are using these devices to shop online and more merchants are using them to collect payments. Two experts in the ...
Marketing & Advertising
Too Much Social Media?

May 25, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons

Social media can be an excellent way to forge relationships with customers. It can also fall short on expectations of greater traffic or increased sales to an ecommerce site. I spoke with ecommerce marketing expert Michael Stearns about this topic. Stearns is a and CEO of HEROweb Mar...
Technical SEO
Google Changes Search-Results Page, How Merchants Can Benefit

May 25, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Google has made some major changes to its search results recently, adding more options for searchers. These are not changes to search algorithms, which determine the websites that show up, and where. Rather, the new changes give searchers options that allow them to tailor the type of s...
Design & Dev Tools
The PEC Review: Buffalo Technology’s HD-HX2.0TU3 External Hard Drive

May 24, 2010 • Armando Roggio

One of the computer industry's greatest apocryphal tales has Microsoft founder Bill Gates telling a newspaper in 1981 that "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need." The story is false, and Gates has been adamantly denying the quote for nearly three decades. But false as it is,...
Social Media
Ecommerce News Around the Web for May 21, 2010

May 21, 2010 • Paul Chaney

"Ecommerce News Around the Web" is our weekly review of articles, blog posts and other news items that could interest ecommerce merchants. Symantec Set to Acquire VeriSign Security Business - Symantec Symantec has apparently signed an agreement to acquire VeriSign’s security busines...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: CashCowCart

May 21, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Bernard Kohan, chief business development officer and co-founder of Comentum, a software development company. It offers a hosted ecommerce solution called CashCowCart that serves around 2,000 online merchants, as well as a customized ecommerce solution called Comentum Custom Cart. We'll also hear from a CashCowCart customer, Alec R. Lopez, CEO
Business
3 Keys to Exporting: Fulfillment, Language, Payment

May 20, 2010 • PEC Staff

If you’ve been selling online for any period of time you’re probably selling to at least some international customers. The good news is you’ve broadened your reach. The bad news may be lower overall customer satisfaction. Like domestic customers, international customers appreciate fr...
Conversion
4 Tips For Language Translation, Optimization

May 20, 2010 • PEC Staff

There’s a limited number of potential customers online for each language. And by some accounts, up to 85 percent of consumers won’t buy from a site if they can’t read about the product in their native language. One solution is to go multilingual with your online reach and expand into ot...
Customer Retention
Using Offsite Trust Marketing to Build Site Traffic

May 19, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Consumers buy from online retailers they trust, and unfortunately, nearly half of American consumers probably don't trust your business. Data from the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that in 2009 only 36 percent of Americans surveyed said that they thought U.S.-based companies were trust...
Business
Market Improving for Selling Ecommerce Businesses, Expert Says

May 19, 2010 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce merchants run businesses that can be bought and sold. There's a market for these businesses and Mike Handelsman is an expert in the buying and selling of them. He's general manager for BizBuySell.com, a leading business-for-sale marketplace, and he recently talked with us abou...
Business
Website Terms and Conditions: Overstock.com Case Highlights Enforceability

May 18, 2010 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

Using terms and conditions on your website can be an effective way to protect your business from lawsuits, set shipping terms, and describe additional charges. Generally, website terms and conditions, or terms of use, state that users of the website are bound by such terms just by thei...
Social Media
Practical eCommerce Extends Presence within Social Media

May 18, 2010 • Paul Chaney

Practical eCommerce recently hired me to help the company build a strong presence inside the social media universe. My initial efforts have been focused on building a solid foundation of participation inside Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Even though we are just getting started (or re...
Conversion
4 Video-Sourcing Methods: Pros and Cons of Each

May 17, 2010 • Justin Foster

Ecommerce merchants that are serious about creating winning video strategies need to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each production and sourcing method. The benefits of each could depend on the retailer’s goals for its video program. For many retailers, the goal is an increase...
Technical SEO
The PEC Review: Speedtest.net

May 17, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Most ecommerce merchants are digital natives, spending hours each day online, managing orders, marketing, or just staying ahead of the competition. When so much of your working day is spent on the Internet, even modest changes in upload and download speeds can have a major impact on pr...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: LiveMerchant by BB Design

May 14, 2010 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. Thi...
Checkout Tactics
Conversion: Technology, Customers, and ‘Embraceability’

May 13, 2010 • Pamela Hazelton

Conversion rates of an online store rely on many things, and that includes the technology used for graphics, video and interactive content. Cascading Stylesheets (CSS), JavaScript, and Flash have made the web a better, more interactive place. Next up is HTML5, which is the next major r...
Technical SEO
SEO MAYDAY: Analyzing the Impact of Algorithmic Changes

May 13, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google makes periodic adjustments to its algorithm that determines organic search results. It likely does this each day, using small adjustments, to avoid large-scale mayhem that infrequent adjustments would presumably cause. Recently, however, many SEO professionals have detected dram...
Conversion
When to Start an Affiliate Marketing Program

May 12, 2010 • PEC Staff

If you want to increase sales and broaden your reach without spending a lot of money, starting an affiliate marketing program may have occurred to you. Affiliate marketing can give you instant access to third party marketers who will help promote your products through advertising, emai...
Business
Merchant Grows Business by Focusing on Video

May 12, 2010 • PEC Staff

An ecommerce merchant in St. Louis, Mo. launched his business in 2006 after having written the programming code for his own shopping cart. That business, called Vat19, sells offbeat gifts and it has grown to more than 300 SKUs and up to 2,000 shipments per day. Its founder and owner, Ja...
Business
Ecommerce Video Production

May 11, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Product videos have been shown to increase conversions rates on ecommerce sites. Online retailer eBags famously tested some 210 product videos on its site beginning in 2007. The test compared conversion rates for products with video against conversion rates for the same products withou...
Fraud Prevention
Ask an Expert: How to Expedite Credit Card Fraud Detection

May 11, 2010 • PEC Staff

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about credit card fraud detection. It comes from Jamie Salvatori, the founder and owner of an online novelty gift store called Vat19. F...
SEO
SEO Report Card: Springbok-Puzzles.com

May 10, 2010 • Stephan Spencer

In this installment of "SEO Report Card," we'll be looking at Springbok-Puzzles.com. Springbok is a well-known brand among jigsaw puzzle aficionados. Allied Products is behind the Springbok Puzzles brand, having acquired the rights in 2002 from Hallmark, who used to sell the brand exclu...
On-page SEO
The PEC Review: Page Speed

May 10, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Site performance or speed is a key factor in improving sales conversions. How quickly your website loads may be the difference between making a sale or losing a potential customer. For example, 52 percent of respondents to a 2009 study from Akamai and Forrester Research said that page ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Veracart

May 7, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Joel Otterstrom, co-founder and CEO of Veracart, a software development company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to Otterstrom, Veracart currently serves around 2,300 customers. We'll also hear from a Veracart user, Kamien E. Carter. She is product development manager for Flower Patch, a flower and gift shop based in Salt Lake City that uses the cart to process online sales.
Marketing & Advertising
April Survey Results: SEO Is Top Priority

May 6, 2010 • Kate Monteith

A monthly survey conducted by Practical eCommerce polled readers about the importance of search engine optimization and how much they understand SEO. The April 2010 survey asked four questions about SEO, with a comment section for each response. Readers who completed the survey, and t...
Conversion
The Shopping Experience: Poorly Described Item Disappoints

May 6, 2010 • Jeff Muendel

Editor's Note: "The Shopping Experience" is an occasional feature whereby we purchase an actual product from an ecommerce merchant, and then critique the process. For this installment, contributor describes his attempt to purchase a book. I was searching for a book recommended to me b...
Conversion
Six Causes for Disappearing Ecommerce Sales

May 5, 2010 • Michael Stearns

A sudden stoppage in online sales can be scary. Hopefully you haven't experienced this scenario. But if you have, you know that empty feeling when your orders cease to arrive in your inbox. What to do? As in any time of crisis, take a deep breath, stay calm, and then get down to busines...
Code
What Is HTML 5?

May 5, 2010 • Joseph C. Dolson

Editor's Note: Ecommerce merchants use complex technologies in their businesses. A working, "need to know" understanding of these technologies can help merchants. To address this, we've launched our "Need to Know" series, whereby we'll address complex topics in a manner that can benefit...
Business
CyberSource CEO Addresses Visa’s Acquisition

May 4, 2010 • PEC Staff

There is no bigger name in the credit card business than Visa, and there are no bigger names in the payment gateway business than CyberSource and its subsidiary, Authorize.Net. Later this year, all of those companies will likely be combined as Visa and CyberSource announced recently tha...
Marketing & Advertising
Ask An Expert: Should I De-index Outdated Web Pages?

May 4, 2010 • PEC Staff

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about removing outdated web pages that are indexed on search engines. It comes from Biba Pearce, a web copywriter and search-engine-optimi...