Page 231 – Practical Ecommerce

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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: ozEcommerce Pro

April 9, 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...
Business
SLI Systems CEO on Sophisticated Site Search

April 8, 2010 • PEC Staff

A basic site search will match words and phrases, but a money-making site search will help consumers find what they are looking for and also suggest items they may not have known they needed. A leader in sophisticated site search is SLI Systems, and its CEO, Shaun Ryan, joined us recent...
Design & Dev Tools
Demandware Launches Marketplace to Speed Integrations

April 8, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Connecting and integrating an ecommerce platform with third-party services and solutions can be one of the most costly and time consuming parts of any ecommerce site development. This week, ecommerce platform maker Demandware launched a new marketplace called LINK, which gives develope...
Conversion
Online Shoppers Wait Two Days to Buy

April 7, 2010 • Armando Roggio

The average online shopper delays making a purchase by almost two days after initially visiting a retail site, according to data from a leading Internet security company. After monitoring the shopping behavior of 163 million consumers completing 2.52 million transactions, McAfee SECURE...
Design & Development
March Survey Results: Ecommerce Merchants Not Prepared for Mobile

April 7, 2010 • Kate Monteith

The use of mobile devices for Internet access is growing rapidly. This got us wondering how our readers are responding to the mobile boom, and how many ecommerce firms are truly prepared to meet the challenges of mobile commerce. Survey results indicate that practically everyone uses mo...
Business
Profile: Best Service Stores Grows to Twenty-four Ecommerce Sites

April 6, 2010 • PEC Staff

Running a single ecommerce site takes skill and hard work, but entrepreneur Brad Likens runs 24 ecommerce sites. Likens is co-owner of Best Service Stores, and the company has grown to over $20 million in annual sales in just four years. Best Service Stores does all of this from its hom...
Conversion
The Shopping Experience: MusiciansFriend.com

April 5, 2010 • Jeff Muendel

"The Shopping Experience" is our monthly description of purchasing a product from a leading ecommerce retailer and then critiquing the process. For this installment, we chose Musician’s Friend, one of the largest retailers of musical instruments and accessories. We chose Musician’s Fr...
Fraud Prevention
The PEC Review: CRE Secure Eases PCI Concerns

April 5, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Protecting customer credit card data and then telling customers that you're doing so should be a top priority for online retailers this year. First, protecting your customers' data is an ethical responsibility. If you're selling products online and accepting credit card data, you shoul...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: CompleteCart by Thin Air Media

April 2, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Marc Terrien, owner and president of Thin Air Media Solutions. The company is based in Crested Butte, Colo., and offers web development and design services and software, including its CompleteSite content management system and the online shopping cart module known as CompleteCart. Terrien estimates that the cart currently has around 30 users.
Marketing & Advertising
Video Strategies to Increase Your Site’s Exposure

April 1, 2010 • Michael Stearns

The cost of producing and deploying a reasonably high-quality video has dropped dramatically. Most every ecommerce business owner would therefore be smart to consider working video into his or her marketing mix. Assuming you can overcome the initial hurdles of video creation, let's look...
Content Marketing
Make Friends and Boost Sales with a Content Marketing Strategy

April 1, 2010 • Armando Roggio

More than half of consumers surveyed in a 2009 study said that how much they trusted a merchant affected how likely they were to make a purchase. The findings, which were part of a ChannelAdvisor survey, are not surprising. In fact, it is almost common sense that shoppers don't like to...
Technical SEO
Search Engine Optimization Overkill

March 31, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Editor’s Note: is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared on his website, BillHartzer.com. Are you using search engine optimization tactics that lead to overkil...
Business
March Top Ten: Our Most Popular Posts

March 31, 2010 • Kate Monteith

It is always interesting to learn which of the Practical eCommerce posts are receiving the most reads each month. Here are the ten most popular articles in March 2010, based on the number of page views. Ten Google Services to Help Your Ecommerce Business Google offers a number of free...
Design & Development
NetSuite’s View of Mobile Commerce

March 30, 2010 • PEC Staff

Mobile commerce will likely affect most every ecommerce merchant in one way or another. NetSuite is a leading ecommerce platform with many ecommerce customers. Malin Huffman is a principal product manager at NetSuite in charge of the company's mobile efforts, and he discusses NetSuite'...
Conversion
Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for April 2010

March 30, 2010 • Kate Monteith

Practical eCommerce asks industry insiders each month to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the April 2010 installment of "Great Ecommerce Ideas." Drive Short-term Sales "To drive short-term sales volumes, try ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The PEC Review: Shipwire Fulfillment Services

March 29, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Starting an ecommerce business is no small endeavor. A would-be online entrepreneur must manage every aspect of the business, from selecting products and vendors to marketing. What's more, there is significant competition. As marketing and business guru Seth Godin says, "You can't out...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: 1AutomationWiz

March 26, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Don Schnure, president of 1AutomationWiz.com. The company is located in St. Louis, Mo., and it provides online shopping cart software called 1AutomationWiz. According to Schnure, roughly 7,000 merchants currently use the cart. We'll also hear from a 1AutomationWiz customer, Kim Wilson.
Business
What Is a Denial-of-Service Attack?

March 25, 2010 • Kate Monteith

Nothing is more frustrating for ecommerce merchants than website downtime. Untold sales may be lost while customers are unable access the merchant's website. But, occasionally it is not the fault of a hosting company, but of hackers who have perpetrated a distributed denial of service a...
Keyword Research
Test: Mobile Search Results For Popular Retail-Shopping Keywords

March 25, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons

The number of mobile users is increasing at a far greater rate, it seems, than the number of mobile sites. But some merchants have already begun reacting to the mobile web by optimizing their sites for these devices. In order to get a feel for the current status of the mobile ecommerc...
Code
Five Handy HTML Tags To Help Your Ecommerce Business

March 24, 2010 • Armando Roggio

There is an analogy between driving a car and operating an ecommerce business. With a car, you need to know a few basic things, like how to steer, accelerate, and brake. Likewise, the manager or owner of an online retail business really only needs to know how to process orders, manage customer service, and keep up with the accounting.
Email & Text Marketing
Think Twice About Buying Email Subscriber Lists

March 24, 2010 • Ankush Agarwal

Buying email subscriber lists is seemingly the quickest way to build your email list. But acquired lists frequently present problems that merchants should weigh carefully. First and foremost, the email list you plan to acquire must be obtained from a reputable company. There are many c...
Social Media
Social Media: The Mississippi Gift Company Uses Multiple Channels

March 23, 2010 • Paul Chaney

Editor's Note: Each month we highlight how an ecommerce business uses social media. This is the second of the series. I hail from the great state of Mississippi. Not only is my native state noted for its arts and culture, it is also the home of a very successful, long-standing ecommerc...
SEO
SEO Report Card: Hybrid-racing.com Combines WordPress, Magento

March 23, 2010 • Stephan Spencer

The co-owner of Hybrid-racing.com, Will Davidson, requested a search-engine-optimization site review. I'm happy to oblige. The first thing that struck me was that WordPress was the main "wrapper" for the site, powering the home page, tech articles, gallery, blog, and product informatio...
Business
Quick Query: ArtQuiver.com Delivers Original Art With Lifetime Guarantee

March 22, 2010 • PEC Staff

Entrepreneurs are using ecommerce sites in innovative ways. One of these entrepreneurs is Matt Schenck, who, out of personal frustration, decided there had to be a better way for consumers to purchase original art. That idea is now ArtQuiver, a groundbreaking site that offers original w...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: BigCommerce

March 19, 2010 • Kate Monteith

This week, we'll hear from Mitchell Harper, co-founder and product marketing manager for Interspire, the company behind BigCommerce online shopping cart. Interspire's North American headquarters are in Austin, Texas, with engineering teams located in Sydney, Australia and London, England. "BigCommerce is the SaaS [software as a service] version of our licensed ecommerce platform
Schools & Resources
Mobile Commerce: Four Good Examples

March 18, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons

Deciding what to do about the explosive growth of mobile traffic can be difficult. That’s why we’re bringing you some of our picks for the best of the mobile web, with mobile-optimized sites that bring a unique and useful experience for users. Some of these sites are from large retailer...
Cross-border Selling
SEO: Grow Multinational Sales With Geo-targeting “Signals”

March 18, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

Driving organic search traffic and sales through multinational search engine optimization requires a fusion of keyword relevance and geo-targeting to send location relevance signals. The search engines have to decipher a site’s geo-targeting signals to deliver the right page in the righ...
Design & Development
Take the Survey: Is Your Website Mobile Optimized?

March 17, 2010 • PEC Staff

Many experts predict that mobile commerce will eventually exceed traditional website sales. We wonder how many ecommerce sites are already optimized for mobile devices; and we're curious what your view of mobile commerce really is. The goal of this month's Practical eCommerce survey is ...
SEO Tools
Google Product Search: Creating a Data Feed

March 17, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Editor's Note: This is our monthly installment of "Everything Google," a feature on products and services from Google that can help ecommerce merchants. The author is Bill Hartzer, the owner of BillHartzer.com, a SEO, pay-per-click and ecommerce consulting firm in Dallas. Google Produ...
Design & Development
To Tap Mobile Buyers, First Determine Their Needs

March 16, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons

As the mobile user base swells, it is becoming easier to classify mobile users based on their attitudes towards their phones and the features they use most often. Merchants should consider how mobile customers will prefer to access web content. From that, merchants can decide what kind ...