Page 69 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Business
Covid-19 Accelerates Retail’s Digital Transformation

July 16, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Retail's digital transformation, which is the concept of using new digital technology to address business performance, has been ongoing for decades. Covid-19 has forced retailers to invest more money into new technologies and implement those technologies much more quickly than otherwise planned.
Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Germany: Opportunity Amidst a Pandemic

July 15, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Germany hosts Europe’s biggest economy and, with 83.7 million people, its second-largest population after Russia. It is the fifth-largest ecommerce market in the world and the second-largest in Europe, behind the U.K. Eighty-five percent of the population has Internet access. Germany represents a good opportunity for online sales.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: July 15, 2020

July 15, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-July from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on social commerce, live streaming, payments, experience optimization, and augmented reality storefronts.
Schools & Resources
To Master Data Visualization, Start with These 3 Books

July 14, 2020 • Rebeca Pop

Your boss requested an urgent report that shows the trends of key metrics in Google Analytics. You need to locate the data and create a few charts. What kind of charts should you choose? What colors? Here are three books to get started with data visualization.
Schools & Resources
13 Free Themes for Publishing on Ghost

July 13, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform. Started as a Kickstarter campaign by a former developer with WordPress, Ghost offers simple content management and built-in features for search engine optimization and email newsletters. Here is a list of free templates to publish content on Ghost.
Keyword Research
SEO How-to, Part 7: Mapping Keywords to Content

July 13, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words that consumers use to search for your products on Google and other search engines. Keyword mapping assigns those terms to pages on your site. This is the seventh installment in my "SEO How-to" series.
Shipping & Fulfillment
USPS Woes Could Impact Ecommerce SMBs

July 12, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The United States Postal Service reported a $4.5 billion loss in the fiscal 2020 second quarter, which ended on March 31. Democratic members of Congress have proposed investing $25 billion to help the USPS. Whatever happens to the agency will likely impact small and mid-sized ecommerce companies.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Entrepreneur Sells the Most Competitive Product on Amazon, and Thrives

July 10, 2020 • Eric Bandholz

What's the most competitive product on Amazon? Smartphone cases. What does Matt Altschul's company, Smartish, sell? Smartphone cases.
Google Ads
3 Ways to Scale Ecommerce with Data

July 9, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Scaling an ecommerce business requires insights into the market, consumers, and products. In this post, I'll address each aspect and how data can help.
Technical SEO
Understanding Core Web Vitals for SEO

July 8, 2020 • Bill Sebald

On rare occasions Google provides expectations of upcoming algorithm changes. For example, Google alerted us to the mobile-first index change and, also, the inclusion of SSL signals. Once again, Google has given us a heads-up with Core Web Vitals.
Design & Dev Tools
Drag-and-drop Ecommerce Tools Are on the Rise

July 8, 2020 • Armando Roggio

For years, ecommerce platform providers have sought to make it easy for SMBs to present and sell products online. Current offerings from Shogun, BigCommerce, and Wix demonstrate that ease-of-use and lack of coding are still in demand.
Analytics & Data
Using Google Analytics to Track Site Changes

July 7, 2020 • Morgan Jones

The ability to measure changes to pricing, shipping, and other items is essential to successful ecommerce merchants. Google Analytics has features to document and track changes to provide critical feedback. Annotations in Google Analytics allow you to document change history.
Product Pages
Tailor Product Descriptions to the Channel and Audience

July 6, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

Product descriptions are vital to attracting website traffic and closing sales. But the type of description to use depends on your target audience and the channel, beyond your own ecommerce site. Potential customers are everywhere, waiting to be found.
Business
Letting Workers Go Because of Covid-19

July 5, 2020 • Armando Roggio

During the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many retailers have furloughed or laid off workers. While this is never an easy process, good communication may help make it relatively less emotional and painful for everyone involved.
On-page SEO
SEO How-to, Part 6: Optimizing On-page Elements

July 3, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research can help improve your organic search performance. Search engines attempt to sync the words and intent of consumers' queries with web pages. Ecommerce merchants should therefore align their pages using the right keywords to convey the proper intent.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for August 2020

July 2, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Content may well be one of the most powerful forms of modern marketing. When a business creates content, publishes that content, and then promotes it, it has the potential to attract, engage, and keep customers. What follows are five content marketing ideas your business can use in August 2020.
Business > Merchant Voice
How I maintain mental and physical health (to grow my business)

July 2, 2020 • Peter Keller

Managing a fast-growing ecommerce business is not for the faint of heart. I've picked up a few practices over the last decade to keep my mental and physical health while scaling FringeSport.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: July 1, 2020

July 1, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late June from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on website builders, logistics tools, free product listings, predictive artificial intelligence, product recommendations, social commerce, and shoppable videos.
Google Ads
The Anatomy of a Text Ad

June 30, 2020 • Matthew Umbro

Google and Microsoft advertisers have had to rethink quality copy with the format of expanded text ads and responsive search ads. But the principles of the copy are the same for all pay-per-click ads: include the searcher's query, the product's value propositions, and a clear call-to-action.
Business
June 2020 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

June 30, 2020 • PEC Staff

We publish roughly 45 articles each month, hopefully helping ecommerce merchants improve their businesses. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in June 2020. Articles from early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Amazon & Marketplaces
20 Top Private Label Brands from Amazon

June 29, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of top private label brands from Amazon. The brands are sorted by the total number of customer reviews, as on average 3 to 5 percent of units sold generate reviews for these brands. I also used the Jungle Scout Chrome extension for additional research.
Payments
Are QR Codes an Option for Contactless Payments?

June 29, 2020 • Mike Eckler

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, many physical-store merchants considered contactless payments to be a fad. My previous article addressed near field communication, the technology that powers most contactless payment methods in North America. In this post, I will examine an NFC alternative: QR codes.
Social Media
Advanced Strategies for Selling on Instagram

June 28, 2020 • Kaleena Stroud

Last month I addressed content ideas to maximize an Instagram feed to attract followers. In this post, I'll discuss strategies to optimize Instagram posts to retain and engage an audience of potential buyers.
Business
Shopify’s App Store Is Good and Bad, Says ‘Unofficial’ Expert

June 26, 2020 • Eric Bandholz

Kurt Elster's "The Unofficial Shopify Podcast" has been downloaded more than 1 million times. His agency, Ethercycle, helps Shopify merchants drive revenue and profit. You might call Elster the unauthorized Mr. Shopify.
Marketing & Advertising
What’s Your Plan for Measuring Marketing Outcomes?

June 25, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Once it defines the objectives of its business or marketing campaign, an ecommerce company should decide how to measure outcomes. Planning and documenting how to measure outcomes should include specific metrics in Google Analytics.
Business
Ecommerce Briefs: Walmart and Shopify, Physical Store Outlook, Instagram

June 25, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

“Ecommerce Briefs” is my occasional series on news and developments that impact online merchants. In this installment, I’ll report on Walmart's partnership with Shopify, the struggles of brick-and-mortar retailers, and Instagram's ecommerce efforts.
Design & Dev Tools
3 Excellent Performance Testing Tools from Google

June 24, 2020 • Armando Roggio

How quickly a web page loads and becomes interactive is closely related to user experience and conversions, and thus sales and profit. Google has three helpful testing tools to understand how well a website is performing and, also, how to improve it.
Technical SEO
Assessing Google’s ‘Core Web Vitals’ on Shopify Themes

June 23, 2020 • Hamlet Batista

Google recently announced "Core Web Vitals," which are new performance metrics that will become a search ranking signal next year. Google displays the new metrics in Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and the Chrome User Experience Report. “Page Speed Scores of Every Shopify Theme,” my article in April, included a table of those speeds at that time.
Product Pages
6 Ways to Drive FOMO on Ecommerce Pages

June 22, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

The "fear of missing out" is nothing new. Humans have always coveted what others possess. FOMO marketing is about urging shoppers to buy what is popular or in high demand. What follows are unique ways to trigger shoppers' FOMO on ecommerce pages.
Business
Will the Pandemic Impact Christmas 2020 Ecommerce Sales?

June 21, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic that shuttered much of the worldwide economy in the first half of this year may yet impact Christmas 2020. In this post, I'll address a few coronavirus-related scenarios and offer suggestions for how ecommerce merchants can assess the potential impact on their company's holiday sales.