Page 253 – Practical Ecommerce

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Code
Video Tutorial: CSS Positioning

September 12, 2008 • Brian Getting

The transition from using tables to create a page layout to using Cascading Style Sheets can be difficult to grasp at first, particularly when it comes to positioning elements correctly on the screen. In this video tutorial by Practical eCommerce's chief architect Brian Getting, we wil...
Conversion
Landing Pages: Five Pointers to Boost Conversions

September 11, 2008 • Lee Goldberg

Website traffic is up. Your pay-per-click (PPC) ads are receiving traffic, and you’re reaching your monthly budget. Sounds like your paid search campaign is working well, right? Well, not necessarily. If you’re like most Internet advertisers, you’re not investing in a paid search campa...
Design & Development
PCI Report Card: Merchant X (A Photography Accessory Retailer)

September 10, 2008 • Tim Erlin

Welcome to the inaugural PCI Report Card. In previous Practical eCommerce report cards, we’ve always been clear about the name of the merchants we’re grading. However, when dealing with security issues, such as compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, some discr...
Social Media
Social Media Marketing

September 9, 2008 • Paul Chaney

Something my employer at Bizzuka said recently sparked my thinking. "What you're doing (in terms of marketing) will not just help us create greater awareness among prospects, but among those considering coming to work for us," he said. It caused me to realize that marketing, especial...
Marketing & Advertising
SEO Report Card: Starwest-botanicals.com

September 8, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

Starwest Botanicals’ home page begins with this statement: “Starwest Botanicals is your on-line supply source for bulk herbs and natural products. Bulk organic herbs, organic spices, loose leaf organic teas, organic essential oils and aromatherapy supplies are part of the almost 3000 na...
Marketing & Advertising
Cleverbridge VP On Selling Digital Products

September 5, 2008 • PEC Staff

Craig Vodnik is vice president, North America, for Cleverbridge, an ecommerce platform that helps online merchants sell software, music and other digital products. Vodnik joins Practical eCommerce’s Kerry Murdock,
Keyword Research
Keyword Research: Wordpot Rivals KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker

September 4, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

While website architecture, link building, and template coding all affect search engine optimization, keyword research and placement is perhaps the easiest SEO attribute to implement. It is often the low hanging fruit of an SEO campaign. To that end, a few months ago, I wrote about Goog...
Conversion
Employing Social Media

September 3, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

This job posting arrived in my email inbox yesterday: “Responsibilities: Create and maintain MySpace, Live Spaces, Facebook, Bebo, MOG, Twitter, Loopt, Wikipedia, and other profiles; gather content for social profiles; and report on the effectiveness of social site placement.” Pay is u...
Business
Profile: Credit Card Veterans Will Target Experienced Merchants

September 2, 2008 • Michael A. Cox

If you’ve got John Waldron and Sloane Bouchever in a three-way on the phone, the best strategy is try and stay out of the way and take copious notes – better yet turn on a recorder. When these two highly successful and motivated online business pros get to talking about merchants and cr...
Design & Development
Comodo CEO On EV SSLs, Site Seals

August 30, 2008 • PEC Staff

Melih Abdulhayoglu is founder and CEO of Comodo, a firm that provides Internet-security and fraud prevention services to ecommerce and other web-based firms. Adulhayoglu received in 2008 an Ernest &
Design & Development
The Challenges of Extended Validation SSLs

August 27, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

This piece, part two in Practical Ecommerce’s series on the new Extended Validation SSL certificates, looks at the challenges still to face for consumer-wide adoption of EV SSL. Part one of the series is an interview with an EV SSL expert at Comodo, an EV SSL issuer. Online shoppers kn...
Business
Video Tutorial: Assessing Accessibility

August 26, 2008 • Brian Getting

There are a number of compelling reasons to make sure that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. In some cases meeting accessibility compliance standards is a legal obligation. However, in most cases (such as ecommerce merchants) it is just a good idea. Not only will...
Code
David Heinemeier Hansson, Ruby on Rails Creator

August 25, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

David Heinemeier Hansson created the Ruby on Rails software framework. He’s also a partner in 37signals, producers of the popular Basecamp suite of online collaboration tools. In this excerpt from a longer audio interview, Heinemeier Hansson discusses the state of ecommerce. PeC: What...
Design & Development
Interview: Comodo Exec On Extended Validation SSL Certificates

August 22, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

Like its SSL precursor, EV SSL certification encrypts customer inputted information and marks the page with a yellow padlock icon. Unlike SSL, this new form of certification comes with much more vetting and a bonus “green bar” in the URL area of most web browsers that clearly indicates ...
Business
Order Fulfillment: Keep It Simple And Beware Of All The Costs

August 21, 2008 • Maxim Mironov

I used to manage the fulfillment operations of a mid-size online retail company. We adopted the “Why” method to correct and eliminate fulfillment errors and complexities. That is, each time a new fulfillment glitch arose, we asked ourselves, “Why?” The “Why” method in practice Here’s ...
Conversion
Expert Reviews Usability Of Practicalecommerce.com

August 21, 2008 • Alan Cox

Practical eCommerce is a website with the purpose of providing down-to-earth advice to help smaller businesses succeed online. Advice comes in the form of easy to follow articles, podcasts and regular newsletters as well as blogs that allow readers to communicate with each other. The b...
Business
Video Tutorial: Batch Processing In Photoshop

August 20, 2008 • Brian Getting

Got a lot of product photos? Processing a large amount of images in Photoshop can take up a ton of time, and be an extremely boring task. Luckily, Photoshop provides a way to automate repetitive processing, which Practical eCommerce's Chief Architect Brian Getting illustrates in this v...
Business
Sales Tax: Frequently Asked Questions

August 18, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

Sales tax is a confusing concept for ecommerce merchants, and many consider Internet sales to be a sales tax-free domain. However, this is not the case, and ignoring sales tax can have severe consequences for merchants from whom it is due. Unfortunately, many states have confusing and ...
Conversion
Conversion: Seven Variables That Affect Sales

August 18, 2008 • Lisa Wehr

Most online merchants want to increase sales, grow their business and increase profits, but few know the secrets to doing so. For many merchants, the dollar amount of a sale is the only metric they track. But successful merchants track many more variables than just sales. Here are seven...
Business
Practical eCommerce Increases Digital Offerings, Drops Printed Magazine

August 15, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is dropping its printed magazine to focus exclusively on the digital delivery of its editorial content. The company began in July 2005 with a mission to publish easy-to-follow articles and advice that help businesses succeed online. This editorial content was origin...
Platforms & Apps
Cart Of The Week: Shopify

August 13, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

We count over 300 shopping cart platforms. This includes licensed carts, hosted carts, and open-source carts. In this, our new "Cart of the Week" feature, we’ll profile a specific shopping cart and ask its personnel about its strengths and weaknesses.
Design & Development
Safe Ways To Accept International Payments

August 13, 2008 • Hal Selim

Many ecommerce businesses receive international orders for both single items as well as large quantities. These businesses usually take credit card payments for the orders, which puts them at great risk of incurring chargebacks, especially for large ticket items and large transactions. ...
Business
Quick Query: 1&1 CEO Oliver Mauss

August 13, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

1&1 Internet is among the world’s largest web hosts with 55,000 servers and 7.46 million customer contracts. Recently, the company surveyed 1,025 U.S. consumers about website communication and loyalty. We asked 1&1 CEO Oliver Mauss about the survey and what it means for small to...
Business
Video: Overview of Practical eCommerce Podcasts

August 11, 2008 • Brian Getting

This explanation is for anyone interested in the audio podcast content of the revamped Practicalecommerce.com. Practical eCommerce features three unique podcasts: The eCommerce Minute, eCommerce Conversations and eCommerce Articles. With the redesign of the website came a dramatic cha...
Conversion
Offer Multiple Currencies To Facilitate International Sales

August 8, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

To cater to an international clientele, multi-currency processing is the way to go. “In addition to Internet usage growing much faster outside the U.S., countries that have the strongest purchasing power are also outside the U.S. – like those in the European Union,” says Melissa Jones...
Conversion
Decline In Dollar Creates Opportunities For U.S. Merchants

August 6, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

With the U.S. dollar’s decline, buying American-based products online just got a lot cheaper for the rest of the world’s slew of Internet shoppers. Internet users outside the U.S. now account for 80 percent of the world’s online population, with rapidly developing countries experiencin...
Marketing & Advertising
SEO Report Card: Littlepixiegifts.com.au

August 5, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

I don’t spend a lot of time shopping on baby-oriented gift sites, but I get a lot of requests for report card reviews from them. This will not only be the first time I’ve reviewed a baby site, but an Australian site as well. I was taken with the pleasant design, especially the cute baby...
Business
Tutorial: Understanding Photoshop Layer Styles

August 4, 2008 • Brian Getting

Learning how to use Photoshop can be a very intimidating experience. In most cases, you have an idea of what you want to accomplish but you don't know how to use the available tools to get it done. In this video tutorial Practical eCommerce's Chief Architect Brian Getting provides a br...
Marketing & Advertising
Google Knol: An SEO Perspective

August 4, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

I first wrote about Google Knol here at Practical Ecommerce in January 2008, before it was open to the general public. Now that it is live, the Knol project is worth revisiting because of its potential search engine optimization ramifications. As has been well documented, Knol is a n...
Conversion
Do You Knol What I Knol?

July 30, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

There are many niggling questions that keep me up at night. How many different kinds of acne are there? What’s the tastiest flavor of freezie in the LA Times’ basement? Thanks to Google Knol, I can rest easy knowing that there’s an expert out there waiting to inform. I can sleep k...