Page 56 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
Brave Launches Google Search Competitor

June 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Brave Search hopes to serve privacy-minded consumers worried about tracking cookies and invasive advertising. On June 22, 2021, Brave Search entered public beta, meaning that anyone can type in queries on the new search engine and see the results.
Business
Post Brexit, U.K. Ecommerce Sales Remain Strong

June 22, 2021 • Richard Stubbings

January 2021 was the first month of the U.K. not belonging to the E.U. According to the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics, exports to the E.U. dropped 40.7% in January from December 2020.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How Amazon Sellers Combat Rising Ad Costs

June 22, 2021 • Chris Turton

Smaller advertisers can remain competitive by placing a maximum cost for a specific keyword on Amazon's "suggested bid" mechanism. But a key overlooked metric to a successful ad campaign is relevancy and the likelihood that the ad will convert into a sale.
Conversion
What Is Your Company’s Secondary Audience?

June 21, 2021 • Pamela Hazelton

Ecommerce sites rely on a primary target audience. These are the people who are most apt to purchase products and become loyal customers. It's the same audience marketers use for advertising. However, secondary audiences can be lucrative, too.
Schools & Resources
12 New Ecommerce Books for Summer 2021

June 21, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here’s a batch of new ecommerce books for your summer 2021 reading list. There are titles on cryptocurrency, customer experience, fulfillment, leadership, social media marketing, startup strategies, and building an online course.
Business
An Arms Race of Ecommerce Data Is Coming

June 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Consumer brands and large retailers are creating data-driven infrastructure and workflows that could impact the entire ecommerce industry, according to a performance analytics firm.
Business
Girlfriend’s Eyelashes Spur DTC Entrepreneur

June 18, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

What prompts an entrepreneur to enter the eyelash industry? For Jason Wong, it was watching his girlfriend apply makeup. Just 23, Wong is a Los Angeles-based serial entrepreneur and consultant. His latest company, Doe Lashes, launched two years ago as a direct-to-consumer seller of comfortable, lightweight eyelashes.
Influencers & Affiliates
Influencer Marketing, Part 3: Setting Goals

June 17, 2021 • Joe Sinkwitz

Now that you know what influencer marketing is and why you as an ecommerce brand should use it, the next step is to create campaign goals before spending your hard-earned budget. The ultimate marketing goal of ecommerce brands is, presumably, acquiring profitable customers. But there are many ways to do that.
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketers Should Know Subscribers Better

June 16, 2021 • Armando Roggio

How important is email list segmentation? Some leading retail brands and marketplaces are allowing subscribers to opt-out of Father's Day email promotions this year. Etsy, Free Fly Apparel, Tesco, and many others have asked subscribers if they want to receive marketing announcements for Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: June 15, 2021

June 15, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-June from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on pay-later financing, social commerce, B2B solutions, affiliate marketing, fraud prevention, and sales tax.
Email & Text Marketing
Apple’s iOS 15 Will Change Email Marketing

June 15, 2021 • Carolyn Nye

Apple recently unveiled its iOS 15 software, which rolls out this fall. Most of the new features focus on privacy, data tracking, and user security. Two features, "Mail Privacy Protection" and "Hide My Email," will dramatically impact email marketing.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Steps to Greener Ecommerce Warehouses

June 14, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

Ecommerce warehouses are often not environmentally friendly. They consume vast amounts of energy. Many pose hazards to their employees. Material handling equipment, lighting, heating, air conditioning — all create emissions, some of them toxic.
Design & Dev Tools
22 Free Web Design Tools from Spring 2021

June 14, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from spring 2021. There are icon libraries, gradient palettes, project boilerplates, feedback and collaboration tools, fonts, and more. All of these tools are free, though some also offer premium versions.
Business
Berlin Brands’ Exec on Ecommerce Acquisitions, Technology, More

June 11, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Berlin Brands Group started on eBay 15 years ago. It is now a global ecommerce powerhouse, with over $300 million in annual revenue across a dozen or more brands. Managing Director Christian Salza addresses the company's acquisition process, its focus on technology, and more.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: SEO Link-building Is Hard

June 10, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building is among the most important search engine optimization techniques. It is foundational and essential. Just about every successful commerce business wants or needs to build links, but it is hard to do well. Moreover, there is no easy way to "hack" link building.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Ramps Up Its Own Delivery Service

June 10, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Amazon Logistics provides shipping services to third-party sellers regardless of the sales channel. The program, called Multi-channel Fulfillment, is available to merchants who use Fulfillment by Amazon.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Get Ready for a Marketplace Bloodbath

June 9, 2021 • Armando Roggio

As the retail industry continues its digital transformation, consumer brands and traditional retailers are churning out Amazon-like marketplaces that could lead to new battles over products and customers. Oriental Trading Company, Inc., a discount party-supply chain, recently announced that it would launch an online marketplace.
Cross-border Selling
Charts: 2020 Cross-border Ecommerce Purchases by Country

June 8, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

Advances in technology and logistics have facilitated the growth of cross-border ecommerce sales. We've analyzed data from 2020 for the total retail ecommerce purchases by country versus the amount of cross-border purchases and the percentage of cross-border to the total.
Google Ads
Google Ads Updates Performance Max, Customer Match, Product Feeds, More

June 8, 2021 • Matthew Umbro

In its annual Marketing Livestream event last month, Google addressed updates to Google Ads, among other topics. Only a handful of the updates could produce noticeable performance changes for advertisers. I'll review the most impactful updates in this post.
Platforms & Apps
12 WordPress Plugins to Sell Digital Downloads

June 7, 2021 • Sig Ueland

WordPress is a versatile content management system with nearly 60,000 available plugins. If you are interested in selling videos, PDFs, photos, software, or other digital products, there are plenty of plugin tools to help. Here is a list of WordPress plugins to sell digital downloads.
Conversion
The 3 Common Mistakes of Ecommerce Launches

June 6, 2021 • Pamela Hazelton

I've consulted over the years on dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ecommerce launches. Here are three frequent mistakes in the building of online stores.
Business
Form Nutrition Finds Opportunity in a Crowded Market

June 4, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Is there a more competitive consumer market than nutritional supplements? I asked that question to Damian Soong, the co-founder of Form Nutrition, a maker and seller of plant-based proteins and food products, which launched in 2017. "Certainly it was a crowded space," he told me. "But the sellers were all doing the same thing."
Marketing & Advertising
CommerceCo Recap: SMS Marketing Fundamentals

June 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Text messaging can be among the most productive retail marketing channels, provided the workflows are automated and the performance is tracked. Entrepreneur Jordan West, the owner of an ecommerce marketing agency and an apparel company, uses text-message marketing to drive sales. He believes text messages are among his best marketing channels.
Payments
Will Central Banks Replace Cryptocurrencies?

June 3, 2021 • Mike Eckler

Last month, I explained why cryptocurrencies are not ready for mainstream retail. The reasons include rampant volatility, lack of regulation, and extraordinary risk. Aiming to bring stability, governments worldwide are considering central bank digital currencies — CBDCs.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: June 2, 2021

June 2, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late May from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on social commerce, product drops, live shopping, two-day shipping, fraud prevention, and long-term financing.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for July 2021

June 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In July 2021, your content marketing could focus on teaching a skill, showing off products via a live stream, celebrating UFOs, enjoying grandmothers, or reviewing an upcoming summer blockbuster. Regardless, remember that the purpose of content marketing is to attract, engage, and retain customers.
Business
May 2021 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

June 1, 2021 • PEC Staff

Since 2005, we’ve published thousands of articles, podcasts, and webinars to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in May 2021. Articles from early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Customer Retention
Text Messages Are an Ecommerce Opportunity

May 31, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Many ecommerce and omnichannel marketers treat text messaging as pared-down email campaigns. But text alone is a powerful way to drive sales. Nearly everyone, after all, grabs their mobile phone the moment a message arrives.
Google Ads
How to Show Product Ratings in Google Ads

May 30, 2021 • Robert Brady

I've been looking for a set of adjustable dumbbells for my home-based gym. I searched on Google and couldn’t help but notice the yellow rating stars for two of the advertisers. The stars are a strong visual contrast from the other search results.
Business
BOOM! Founder: Spend 30% of Revenue on Ads

May 28, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Ezra Firestone launched his first ecommerce business in 2007. It sold wigs. He has since owned multiple brands. BOOM!, which sells cosmetics, he co-founded in 2010. He focuses on key management metrics, such as spending 30% of ecommerce revenue on advertising.