Page 72 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Google Ads
Google Brings Back Free Shopping Listings

April 30, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

This week, after a 12-year hiatus, Google reintroduced free listings to the shopping tab of search result pages. These free listings potentially fill a need that has been festering for years, enabling more ecommerce sites to compete in shopping searches.
Conversion
25 Global B2B Exchanges for Supply Chain Diversity

April 29, 2020 • Gagan Mehra

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted supply chains, forcing distributors and retailers to find alternative product sources. Global B2B exchanges have existed for years. What follows is a list of 25 leading B2B exchanges.
Marketing & Advertising
A Pinterest Strategy for Growing an Ecommerce Brand

April 28, 2020 • Kaleena Stroud

Pinterest users are primed and ready for purchasing. Getting more content in front of them will increase product visibility, referral traffic, and loyalty. It takes a careful strategy, however, which is what I'll address in this post.
Analytics & Data
Using Google Analytics to Respond to Covid-19

April 28, 2020 • Morgan Jones

Google Analytics can identify pandemic-related problems and opportunities for your ecommerce business. I'll explain in this post.
Design & Dev Tools
15 New Video Tools for Creating, Editing, Sharing

April 27, 2020 • Sig Ueland

For merchants who want to create, edit, and share videos, there are plenty of new innovative online tools for little or no expense. Here is a list of recently released tools from online video platforms and social media applications.
Business
Coronavirus Shutdown Drives Click-and-collect Ecommerce

April 27, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Even before the coronavirus-induced shutdown, click-and-collect ecommerce was growing quickly. But now as many Americans stay at home or keep their distance to flatten the Covid-19 curve, some unexpected businesses are taking online orders for pick up, too.
Analytics & Data
How to Manage, Visualize KPIs for Ecommerce

April 26, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

This post will offer a framework for identifying, tracking, and visualizing key performance indicators. It applies to all company sizes — big and small. Start by establishing the most important metrics for your business.
Marketing & Advertising
How to Write Better SMS Marketing Messages

April 24, 2020 • Armando Roggio

SMS messages are powerful for transactional communication. The messages are easy to write when the content contains only a shipping notice or an access code. But composing marketing SMS messages can be much more challenging. Here are four tips for writing better SMS messages for marketing.
Customer Service
Need Sales in the Pandemic? Boost Customer Service

April 23, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

As the coronavirus keeps millions of people at home, traffic to online stores continues to increase. According to Statista, even non-essential purchases are shifting online. The keys for businesses are two-fold: encourage sales during the shutdown and retain as many new customers afterward.
Business > Merchant Voice
Planning my business for a new world

April 23, 2020 • Richard Stubbings

Journalists in the U.K. keep pressing the government about ending the Covid-19 lockdown. Governmental leaders prefer not to say, concentrating on the here and now. A business, however, should plan now for the end of the lockdown. How will your company operate?
Design & Development
Capture Gmail Messages in a Google Sheet

April 22, 2020 • Armando Roggio

With Google Apps Script, marketers can capture Gmail messages, parse them for relevant information, and add them row-by-row to a Google spreadsheet. This can be especially helpful for capturing leads or contacts.
Email & Text Marketing
5 Email Marketing Tips during the Pandemic

April 21, 2020 • Carolyn Nye

Most ecommerce companies rely on email marketing. But the Covid-19 shutdown requires an evaluation of email frequency and tone, among other tactics. In this post, I'll address how to manage email marketing during the pandemic.
Technical SEO
SEO: Target Informational Rankings with Pillars and Clusters

April 21, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Unless it's a major brand, an ecommerce site’s category and product pages may not rank organically for informational search queries. Creating pillar and cluster pages can help.
Google Ads
How to Use Competitors’ Names in Google Ads

April 20, 2020 • Robert Brady

A hotly debated topic in paid search marketing is bidding on competitors' names and phrases. The considerations go beyond legalities. Whether to do it, and how, is what I'll address in this post.
Business
‘High Quality, Low Volume’ Drives GouletPens.com to 35 Employees, 4,500 SKUs

April 19, 2020 • Eric Bandholz

Conventional ecommerce wisdom is that merchants should sell across multiple channels, manufacture or control their products, and scale. Don't tell that to Brian Goulet, president of The Goulet Pen Company, which sells high-end fountain pens and writing accessories.
Marketing & Advertising
Marketing in the Pandemic Creates Opportunities Afterward

April 17, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Retail shopping habits have been upended. Businesses that attract new customers and retain existing ones — right now — could recover or grow quickly when the economy reopens and moves forward.
Finance
Impact of Covid-19 on 2020 Startup Investments, IPOs

April 16, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Initial public offerings underperformed in the last half of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. That set the stage for an undesirable climate. Then came Covid-19.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: April 16, 2020

April 16, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-April from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on email marketing, automated product recommendations, social media toolkits, logistics, social commerce, and tracking the digital economy.
B2B
Covid-19 Accelerates Change for B2B Distributors

April 15, 2020 • Lori McDonald

Last year, in "How to Prosper as a B2B Distributor," I addressed the urgent need for wholesale distributors to evolve. I explained the necessity of migrating to a self-serve digital shopping experience. Covid-19 has accelerated that need.
Customer Retention
Tips to Retain Online Customers after the Pandemic

April 14, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

The coronavirus is raising the visibility of ecommerce among consumers. Merchants, especially those selling so-called "essential" goods, have experienced a boost in sales. What follows are tips to consider now, to help retain those new customers when the pandemic passes.
Technical SEO
The Role of Accessibility in SEO

April 14, 2020 • Bill Sebald

In the early years, search-engine optimizers typically equated accessibility with rankings. We focused on algorithms. A website that's accessible to users with disabilities would also be accessible to Google. Or so we thought. Things are different today.
Business
11 Online Tools for Video Meetings

April 13, 2020 • Sig Ueland

The usage of video conferencing tools is exploding due to the surge in remote workers from Covid-19. Video conferencing can facilitate meetings, particularly when many platforms offer extensive features for free or very little cost. Here is a list of video conferencing tools to run meetings.
Fraud Prevention
Ecommerce Fraud Detection during the Pandemic

April 13, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic has led to significant changes in consumer purchase behavior and raised concerns about ecommerce fraud. Fortunately, overall ecommerce fraud does not appear to have risen disproportionately to the number of online purchases.
Technical SEO
SEO: Auditing Backlinks with Google Search Console

April 12, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

The best backlinks are the ones search engines know about. Four reports in Google Search Console help analyze the strength of your backlink portfolio. Search engines use backlinks — the links from other sites to yours — in their algorithms as measures of value and authority.
Business > Merchant Voice
How Covid-19 affects U.K. businesses

April 10, 2020 • Richard Stubbings

Unsurprisingly, many ecommerce businesses in the U.K. have reported an increase in sales during the pandemic. Sales of fashion, clothing, and luxury items, however, have dropped. The U.K. government has put in place measures that should help my business and many others.
Payments
Credit Card Processing FAQs, Part 3: Reducing the Cost

April 9, 2020 • Mike Eckler

Credit cards are the principal method of payment for ecommerce customers. But for merchants, the backend infrastructure of processing and collecting the funds is bewildering. This is the third and final post in a series in which I’ll answer frequent payment-processing questions.
Business
Optimize DTC Profits with Price Elasticity Analysis

April 9, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Direct-to-consumer companies, including Amazon sellers with private label products, can use the price elasticity of demand to determine the optimal price for a given product and, thereby, potentially increase revenue, profit, or both.
Google Ads
In Google Ads, Balance Automated Bids with User Control

April 8, 2020 • Matthew Umbro

In "3 Handy Google Ads Scripts to Automate Tasks," I addressed methods to expedite pay-per-click management. But, in my experience, advertisers should cautiously embrace Google's push to automate campaigns. The key is to find the right balance of automation and user control.
Schools & Resources
13 Free SEO Courses, Beginner to Advanced

April 7, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Being stuck at home due to Covid-19 is an excellent time to improve your search engine optimization skills. The following seven learning sites offer, collectively, 13 free SEO courses. Some include free certificates of completion to showcase your new skills on LinkedIn or elsewhere.
On-page SEO
Page Speed Scores of Every Shopify Theme

April 7, 2020 • Hamlet Batista

I recently worked with a developer to help a merchant speed up its Shopify store. We improved the page speed for mobile and desktop. But the biggest takeaway was how a Shopify theme impacts the page speed. This post lists page speeds of all 72 Shopify themes.