Page 236 – Practical Ecommerce

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Conversion
Pay-per-click Report Card: BraDiva.com Managing Small Ad Budget

December 1, 2009 • Greg Laptevsky

BraDiva.com is a small ecommerce company run by two entrepreneurs who enjoy sports. The company's product line consists of brand-name sports bras in various styles and sizes. The site went live in early 2007. Bra Diva’s main advertising vehicle is Google AdWords. The average monthly ...
Checkout Tactics
The PeC Review: WinBuyer Puts Competitors’ Prices on Your Pages

November 30, 2009 • Armando Roggio

By some estimates, 94 percent of online shoppers will invest at least some time comparing prices before they make a buying decision. That comparison process often takes shoppers to as many as four different online retailers and a price comparison engine or two, but now one vendor is off...
Conversion
Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for December 2009

November 30, 2009 • 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 December 2009 installment. Shop First, Ask For Registration Later “Allow shoppers to check out before asking them to...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: PrestoStore

November 27, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 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
Merchant Talk: Self-published Author Migrates to Ecommerce

November 26, 2009 • PEC Staff

“Merchant Talk” is our weekly discussion with a practicing ecommerce merchant. For this installment, we visited with Jill Exler, the founder and CEO of Jexbo.com, an ecommerce site for ...
Business
Quick Query: Internet-related Patents In Jeopardy, Attorney Says

November 25, 2009 • PEC Staff

Doing business on the Internet requires the use of sophisticated software and complicated processes. Many of these innovative products have been patented. Google, Amazon and others hold many hundreds of patents, but the U.S. Supreme Court may be about to greatly restrict the issuance ...
Design & Development
PCI Compliance: Commonly Asked Questions

November 25, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen

Editor’s note: Payment Card Industry compliance is a requirement for virtually all ecommerce merchants. But it's also a complex and difficult topic to understand. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is teaming with Coalfire IT Audit and Compliance, a firm expert in PCI matters, in a...
Marketing & Advertising
Social Media Marketing: Four Steps for Getting Started

November 24, 2009 • Lawrence Cramer

Let’s take a moment to map out a cheap and effective social media strategy. Understand that cheap does not mean easy. This will take a dedicated effort and a lot of hours. But those hours could be more valuable than a high-priced advertising campaign. Step One: Commit Yourself to Co...
Conversion
Conversion: 10 Advanced Techniques to Turn Shoppers Into Buyers

November 24, 2009 • Darpan Munjal

If you are like most online retailers, roughly 97 out of every 100 visitors leave your site without buying anything. You can spend a lot of money on marketing, but those dollars will be wasted if you can’t convert visitors to buyers. There are countless articles that address ways to imp...
Business
QuickBooks 2010 Helps Merchants “Go Paperless”

November 23, 2009 • PEC Staff

QuickBooks is the leader in small-business accounting software. According to Intuit, which produces QuickBooks, nearly 50 million people use it or a similar Intuit product. Intuit releases a new version of QuickBooks annually. The 2010 version was just released on Intuit's site. The ...
Email & Text Marketing
Emailer Provider GetResponse Releases Robust API Library

November 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

GetResponse, an email marketing solution, announced a new application programming interface (API) aimed at helping small-to-medium sized businesses integrate their platforms with the company's email marketing tools. The new GetResponse Developer Zone includes some 30 API hooks that ma...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: FormSpring for Easy Form-building

November 20, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Read any online marketing book, blog, or journal—Practical eCommerce included—worth its salt, and you’ll be told to “know your customer.” In ecommerce, getting to know your customer and building rapport with that customer takes time. It also takes an exchange of information that is of...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Avactis

November 20, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 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 > Merchant Voice
UPS vs. FedEx vs. USPS. Which is best?

November 20, 2009 • Ken Kikkawa

The holiday craziness begins a week from today. But long before the anticipated ramp up in sales takes place, experienced merchants have already taken a look at an important component ...
Business
Bloglist: Sean Schofield, Creator of Spree Ecommerce

November 19, 2009 • PEC Staff

"Bloglist" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce professionals the blogs that they read and why. For this installment, we asked Sean Schofield, the creator of the Spree open-source ecommerce platform and a Practical Ecommerce blogger.
Payments
When a Shopping Cart is Not PCI Compliant: Three Options for Merchants

November 19, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen

Earlier this week, Practical eCommerce shared three important questions to ask about your shopping cart. Today, as part of our ongoing PCI compliance series, I’ll take a look at options for ecommerce merchants currently using a shopping cart that is not PA-DSS (payment application data...
Conversion
Video Helps Ecommerce Merchants, Expert Says

November 18, 2009 • PEC Staff

Video provides a compelling way for retailers to sell products. But is it for every ecommerce merchant and is it being fully utilized? One man who has a strong opinion on the matter is Justin Foster. He is the founder of The Video Commerce Consortium. It's a group of ecommerce profe...
Payments
PCI Compliance: Three Important Questions to Ask About Your Shopping Cart

November 17, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen

There are a number of matters an ecommerce business must address to become PCI compliant. For one, an online merchant’s shopping cart must be certified via the PCI's PA-DSS process. A merchant's web hosting environment and payment gateway have to be secure. And a merchant’s own inter...
Technical SEO
SEO: Forgotten Content Can Damage Search Performance

November 17, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown

Sometimes a site’s own past dampens its bright SEO future. The forgotten designs, old campaigns, and abandoned domains that accumulate unnoticed in a web server can have a negative impact on a site’s ability to rank and drive natural search-referred traffic and sales. Search engines ret...
Social Media
‘New Community Rules’ Is An Introduction to Social Media Marketing

November 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An increasing number of online retailers are recognizing that it is possible to earn more money and have happier customers simply by engaging those customers in authentic and personal ways. When an industry is in its infancy (such as ecommerce was just a few years ago) it is possible t...
Business
Quick Query: Shopping Cart Developer on PCI Compliance

November 16, 2009 • PEC Staff

Editor’s note: Payment Card Industry compliance is a requirement for ecommerce merchants. In an email to Practical eCommerce, PCI Security Standards Council General Manager Bob Russo stated, “All businesses that accept credit card data must be compliant with the DSS (Data Security Sta...
Business
The PeC Review: Onehub Enables Virtual Collaboration

November 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio

As an online merchant’s business grows, it is important to add new staff that will manage such things as operations, fulfillment, marketing, design, and customer service. But adding staff and growing an ecommerce business does not necessarily mean leasing office space and hiring locally...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Boss Cart

November 13, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 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...
Conversion
Microsoft Upgrades AdCenter; Eyes Further Growth of Bing

November 12, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen

Microsoft has upgraded adCenter with new features aimed at improving your Bing advertising campaign. The features include an ad preview tool and a search query performance report. To get a better understanding of the value of the upgrade, we contacted SEM/SEO specialist Greg Latpevs...
Conversion
Google Analytics on a Tight Schedule

November 12, 2009 • Michael Stearns

Google Analytics is a powerful website statistics program and a good resource for ecommerce merchants. But it can be difficult for a small business owner to keep up with his or her stats and make sense of the wealth of information available. Here's how to maximize your use of Google An...
Conversion
Top Ten Low Cost Ways to Improve Site Usability

November 11, 2009 • Darpan Munjal

I get called by online retailers very frequently who have done significant work in SEO, are driving quite a bit of traffic to their website, but seem to have hit a wall in increasing the revenue. They are baffled that despite all the good work in SEO and online marketing, they are unabl...
Business
Lessons Learned: Micheline Hellwege of The Collector’s Hub

November 11, 2009 • Kate Monteith

"Lessons Learned" is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences and advice. For this installment, we interviewed Micheline Hellwege, owner of The Collector's Hub, an online store based in Howell, Mich. The Collector's Hub sells collectibles, figurines and...
SEO
SEO Report Card: WisconsinMade.com Needs Quick Tweaks for the Holidays

November 10, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

As we enter into the holiday shopping season, it's all hands on deck for merchants selling gift baskets. The Wisconsin specialist e-tailer Wisconsin Made is no exception. The challenge is to make an impact in what little time is left in the year. Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't i...
Business
Merchant Talk: Cynthia Snyder of YonderStar.com

November 9, 2009 • PEC Staff

Merchant Talk is a weekly discussion with an actual ecommerce merchant. The new Practical eCommerce segment gives small, online business owners an opportunity to hear from their peers in the ecommerce space. For this inaugural Merchant Talk we spoke with Cynthia Snyder, owner of YonderS...
Marketing & Advertising
Ecommerce Know-How: Four Keys to Twitter, Facebook Success

November 9, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen

The debate over whether Twitter and Facebook are fads or sustainable businesses has yet to be resolved. Their popularity is indisputable but whether Twitter, in particular, can avoid erosion of its user base, let alone continue its impressive growth, has been questioned. But for the ec...