Page 242 – Practical Ecommerce

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Conversion
Four Steps to Effective Display Advertising

July 14, 2009 • Lisa Wehr

We’ve known it all along. So the studies recently released demonstrating the value of display advertising came as no surprise to us. One of these studies performed by the Online Publishers Association and comScore found that display ads can have a significant impact on search and consu...
Conversion
Research Your Competitors with These Three Steps

July 13, 2009 • Greg Laptevsky

Competitive research is necessary for many ecommerce businesses. Larger companies reportedly employ many people to research and analyze what their competitors are up to. Below is a list of three steps to help research your competitors. Step 1: Identify Competitors and Industry-relevant...
Platforms & Apps
Google Operating System May Speed Mobile Ecommerce

July 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Google recently announced that it had begun work on a computer operating system that might accelerate interest in the popular mobile Internet device market. Mobile Internet devices (MIDs), which are sometimes called netbooks, are physically small and application-lite laptop computers d...
Schools & Resources
Ten Inspiring Ecommerce Site Designs

July 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Creating a great (and successful) ecommerce site requires a mix of terrific products, strong marketing, informative content, and strong site aesthetics. In this article, I have located ten ecommerce sites that offer inspiration for the site aesthetics portion of this mixture. Certa...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Vendio

July 10, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management 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 an...
Marketing & Advertising
Blogging Builds Trust, Demonstrates Expertise

July 9, 2009 • Sarah Worsham

Blogging is extremely important to ecommerce businesses. It's one of the easiest ways to update the content on your website, and it also demonstrates your expertise about your products. When done correctly, blogging can complement your products and offer a reason for people to return to...
Business
Lessons Learned: Keepsakes Etc Owner Bob Shirilla

July 9, 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 Bob Shirilla and his wife JoAnn who own and operate the online gift store Keepsakes Etc and the tote bag store Simply Bags. Keepsakes Etc was ...
Code
Web Design Tips: Mobilizing Your Site Using CSS

July 8, 2009 • Armando Roggio

With a second style sheet and minor changes to a page's HTML, many online stores can offer an excellent mobile shopping experience without creating a second web page or registering a mobile specific domain. Mobile Internet use is on the rise. And online merchants presumably want to pro...
Business
Quick Query: Microsoft Bing Exec “Maniacally Focused”

July 8, 2009 • PEC Staff

Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing, on June 3, 2009, and many observers consider it an improvement over Microsoft's previous search engine platforms. We were curious about how Bing differs from Google, and the advantages of advertising on Bing over other search engines. To l...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Mobile Commerce in Four Steps

July 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Internet-enabled mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices, and new wireless broadband standards are all making it easier for consumers to shop online while on the move. So, is your store ready to serve these mobile customers? In the evolution of modern shopping, consumers have very rec...
Schools & Resources
The PeC Review: MIT OpenCourseWare A Great Educational Resource

July 6, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the leading universities in the world, offers free online courses that can provide ecommerce business owners and managers with MBA-quality course material. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides open access to the MIT faculty’s course ...
Conversion
The Landing Page as a Multipurpose Tool

July 6, 2009 • Jeff Muendel

Landing pages are always worth a review because their use is often misunderstood. A landing page is any web page to which users are sent for a particular presentation, result, and/or measurement. Landing pages, in short, have uses beyond simply presenting information. People sometimes...
Business
BabyAge.com Co-founder Cites 10 Guiding Principles

July 3, 2009 • John W. Dawe

When BabyAge.com co-founder Jack Kiefer worked for one of the first video conferencing companies in the early '90s, he thought commerce online had possibilities. By 1999, Kiefer had co-founded BabyAge.com. He is now its CEO. Fast forward to 2008 and BabyAge's gross revenue reached $30 ...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Tiger Commerce

July 3, 2009 • Kate Monteith

There are more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management 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 an...
Conversion
Field Test: Conversion Strategies Part II

July 2, 2009 • PEC Staff

Practical eCommerce periodically gathers seasoned ecommerce merchants and asks each of them the same questions around a given topic. We publish their responses in "Field Test," and the topic in this installment is conversion strategies. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave N...
Design & Dev Tools
The Shopping Experience: Icon Dock Excels at Downloadable Graphics

July 2, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Icon Dock is a beautifully designed, easy-to-use online retailer specializing in downloadable, vector graphic icons. Each month, Practical eCommerce sends me shopping. I make a purchase from a real online merchant—like Icon Dock—and report back to you about the overall checkout process,...
Conversion
Ten Great New Ecommerce Ideas for July 2009

July 1, 2009 • Ankush Agarwal

Practical eCommerce asks industry insiders each month to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company succeed. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the July 2009 installment. Focus on Upsell Products "To succeed with your ecommerce solution, it is extremely im...
Cross-border Selling
The PeC Review: Bing’s Language Translator

July 1, 2009 • Armando Roggio

In some ways the Internet is like a giant global mall, with shoppers from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico mingling with like-minded buyers from India, Japan, and Spain. To better serve that mall, many online merchants choose to present product information, site navigation, and store polici...
User Experience
Web Accessibility and the Law

June 30, 2009 • Joseph C. Dolson

The state of legal requirements and protections concerning the accessibility of websites is far from uniform. Many countries have some form of web accessibility laws in place, but the extent of those laws is radically variable. Furthermore, as many websites serve multiple countries, the...
Conversion
Pay-per-click Advertising: Bing Delivering Improved Results, Expert Says

June 30, 2009 • PEC Staff

Microsoft launched Bing, its new search engine, on June 3, 2009. The company is heavily promoting it in hopes of gaining ground on Google, the industry leader. Bing's revenue comes mainly from pay-per-click advertising, which many smaller ecommerce firms utilize. We asked a leading pa...
Checkout Tactics
Ecommerce Know-How: Identify Related Products and Boost Sales

June 29, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Good on-site marketing, such as related-product promotions, encourages emotion-driven "joy buying," potentially boosting per-customer revenue and profit. Online shopping can be both a practical and an emotional activity. Often buyers begin an online shopping experience because they see...
Conversion
Field Test: Conversion Strategies

June 26, 2009 • PEC Staff

Practical eCommerce periodically gathers seasoned ecommerce merchants and asks each of them the same questions around a given topic. We publish their responses in "Field Test," and the topic in this installment is conversion strategies. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave N...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Tradingeye

June 26, 2009 • Kate Monteith

At Practical eCommerce, we are aware of more than 350 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer or management and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart f...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Shipping Rates: Comparison Shopping Saves Money

June 25, 2009 • John Lindberg

Miscalculating your shipping rates can cost you some big bucks. No matter your shipping volume, it is a good idea to comparison shop between package carriers and the various carrier-shipping options. For example, a package weighing less than one pound shipped via U.S. Postal Service P...
Business
Lessons Learned: Online Stores Inc. Co-founder Kevin Hickey

June 25, 2009 • John W. Dawe

"Lessons Learned" is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences and advice. For this installment, we interviewed Kevin Hickey, vice president and co-founder of Online Stores Inc., headquartered in New Stanton, Pa. Online Stores currently includes eight ...
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketing: Optimize the New Subscriber Experience

June 24, 2009 • Matt Carroll

Response rates are almost always higher for new subscribers to an email list. According to the "Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" by MarketingSherpa, subscribers click through at a 25 percent higher rate in their first month than in their second, and 67 percent higher in the first month ...
Conversion
5 Ways to Improve Website Copy and Grow Sales

June 24, 2009 • Jan Riley

Ecommerce merchants have many pages to write copy for. Home and landing pages, category pages, product descriptions, articles, and shopping messages are just a few. This article will describe five ways to improve your web copy, and the concepts here can be applied to all pages on your e...
Design & Dev Tools
The PeC Review: Adobe Kuler Creates Stunning Colors for Websites

June 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Adobe Kuler is a free web application that can help ecommerce site designers select beautiful and communicative color palettes, earning it four-and-a-half stars in "The PeC Review." "Color is such a pervasive part of everyday life that one tends to take it for granted," wrote Ayn E. Cr...
SEO
SEO Report Card: SimpleFamilyLiving.com a “Train Wreck”

June 23, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

This month's "SEO Report Card" victim, er, volunteer, SimpleFamilyLiving.com, is quite simply, an SEO train wreck. The mission of the online business (to provide eco-friendly products that reduce landfill waste) is laudable, but its execution is seriously flawed. Putting aside the fac...
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Know-How: Picking the Right Shopping Cart

June 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An online retailer is an online marketer. Often the difference between a successful online business and a failed one is not the product or products available for sale, but how the product is promoted. As an example, consider the case of Marcel Salathé, a Swiss artist and theoretical bi...