Page 82 – Practical Ecommerce

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Business
Miva CEO on Thriving in an Amazon-dominant Market

August 19, 2019 • Kerry Murdock

The rise of Amazon has prompted some observers to suggest independent ecommerce merchants are threatened. Rick Wilson, CEO of Miva, the ecommerce platform, disagrees. His new book "Dragon Proof Ecommerce," offers a roadmap for continued growth. I recently spoke with him about the book, Amazon, and the outlook for independent ecommerce.
Technical SEO
8-step SEO Crawl Audit for Ecommerce

August 18, 2019 • Jill Kocher Brown

Your site won’t rank if search engine bots can’t crawl it. And hidden doors that don’t impact human visitors can lock bots out. Use these eight steps to ensure search bots can access all of your ecommerce site.
Conversion
Useful (and Useless) Mobile Ecommerce Metrics

August 16, 2019 • David Shreni

In my experience, there are a few "cuts" of data that matter more for mobile than for desktop. Conversely, there are a handful of traditional metrics from desktops that are not as important on mobile or potentially difficult to optimize.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: August 15, 2019

August 15, 2019 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-August from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on augmented reality, subscription billing, fraud protection, product photography, real-time payments, autonomous deliveries, and packaging.
Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Russia: More Players, More Payment Choices, Better Logistics

August 15, 2019 • Marcia Kaplan

I last wrote about the Russian ecommerce market in 2014, in “Ecommerce in Russia: Another Emerging Market?,” where I addressed the limited payment options and primitive logistics infrastructure. Those conditions have gradually improved.
Link Building
SEO: A Common Sense Assessment of Link Quality

August 14, 2019 • Armando Roggio

A quality backlink pleases both humans and search engine algorithms. It is editorial in nature. It comes from a well-respected source, and it is relevant to the topics covered on both the linking and linked websites.
Analytics & Data
10 Ways Bad Data Hurts an Ecommerce Business

August 13, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Data is essential for ecommerce businesses. Order quantities, shipping addresses, sales history, marketing performance — all rely on accurate data. Thus missing or inaccurate data can harm a business. Here are 10 ways that poor data can reduce ecommerce performance.
Business
‘California Consumer Privacy Act’ Impacts Ecommerce Businesses

August 13, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The California Consumer Privacy Act raises the bar for privacy protection in the United States. The CCPA is a significant step toward protecting consumer data, including the personal information most every ecommerce company collects.
Analytics & Data
Using Google Analytics’ Learning Resources

August 12, 2019 • Morgan Jones

Google Analytics is sophisticated and comprehensive. Getting started — logging in, using the menu, viewing the reports — is straightforward. But interpreting the data can be difficult. Fortunately, Google Analytics offers many learning resources to help.
SEO
3 Tools to Find Broken Links on Your Website

August 11, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Finding and fixing broken links should be part of your company's regular site maintenance. Here are three popular SEO tools and instructions on how to use each to locate broken links.
Cross-border Selling > Merchant Voice
Is it time to reassess importing products from China?

August 9, 2019 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Like many online retailers, My Event Décor imports products from China. President Donald Trump’s recent swathe of tariffs on imported Chinese-manufactured goods, as well as the ongoing and increasingly violent street protests in Hong Kong over perceived Chinese interference, makes me nervous.
SEO
4 Ways Google Defines ‘Quality’

August 8, 2019 • Jill Kocher Brown

One of the most frustrating elements of search engine optimization has been Google's attempt to address quality. Now we have Google’s definition of “quality.” In a blog post this week, Google listed 20 questions that determine quality, across four key areas.
Product Pages
Simple Tweaks to Product Pages Can Drive Sales

August 8, 2019 • Pamela Hazelton

Adjusting layouts on a per-product basis is costly and time-consuming. It makes sense instead to focus on the most crucial elements of the page — to communicate benefits to the highest number of product-page visitors. Here are six ways to do that.
Business
Prioritize Ecommerce Tasks with the Eisenhower Matrix

August 7, 2019 • Armando Roggio

The Eisenhower Matrix organizes your to-do list based on each task's relative importance and urgency. The model requires you to think about how a task can impact the overall business. It can also encourage long-term planning.
Business > Merchant Voice
Migrating ecommerce platforms is more than moving data

August 6, 2019 • Richard Stubbings

The first question in selecting a new platform is to decide if it's worth the price. Set aside emotions. Does your ecommerce site make a decent profit? Will it make enough money to recoup the investment in a new platform? Does it have the potential to grow?
Conversion
9 Ways to Reduce Apparel Returns

August 6, 2019 • Viktoria Kanevsky

Four triggers cause apparel returns. In my years of running apparel boutiques, I used the following checklist. It kept returns to less than .5 percent (one-half of 1 percent) of overall sales.
Technical SEO
SEO Tips When URLs Differ for Mobile and Desktop

August 5, 2019 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you still have a separate mobile ecommerce site, meaning that you have different URLs for mobile and desktop, your search engine optimization requires extra effort.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for September 2019

August 4, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing requires a steady stream of material, such as guides, articles, and podcasts. Often this material is the result of dozens of ideas. For September 2019, your business might choose to write an article about procrastination. It could publish a useful guide, or it might even start a podcast.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: August 2, 2019

August 2, 2019 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late July from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on shipping in scale, managed deliveries, mobile commerce, invoicing, and personalized deals.
Business
Generation Z Is the Most Coveted Retail Demographic

August 2, 2019 • Marcia Kaplan

Generation Z is replacing Millennials as the most coveted retail demographic cohort. With $44 billion in spending power according to Forbes magazine, Generation Z is being courted by brands and retailers.
Business
July 2019 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

August 1, 2019 • PEC Staff

Since 2005 our mission has been to publish authoritative articles, seminars, and podcasts for ecommerce merchants. What follows are the most popular articles we published in July. Articles published early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Business
Thrift Books CEO on $150 Million of Annual Used Book Sales

July 31, 2019 • Kerry Murdock

Anyone who has purchased used books on Amazon likely encountered Thrift Books. It launched in 2003 as a pure-play Amazon seller. It is now the largest used-book seller in the world. I recently spoke with Thrift Books’ CEO, Mike Ward, about the company and the logistics of selling tens of millions of books every year.
SEO
SEO: That Blob of Text May Not Be Helping

July 30, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Adding on-site text for search engines and not users could confuse algorithms and may amount to keyword stuffing, according to a Google spokesman. The practice is understandable. Merchants seek to attract traffic from organic search. They know that search algorithms love unique content.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Don’t Bet Against Amazon in India

July 30, 2019 • Jaydip Parikh

Since entering India in 2013, Amazon has faced entrenched competition and restrictive government policies. In this post, I'll provide an overview of the ecommerce industry in India, including recent regulations, local competitors, and Amazon's performance to date.
Social Media
10 Impressive Social Media Campaigns from Brands in 2019

July 29, 2019 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of recent social media campaigns from large brands. Several of the campaigns revolve around broad social and cultural issues, such as climate change and the #MeToo movement.
B2B
Common B2B Mistakes, Part 5: Accessibility, Mobile, Localization

July 29, 2019 • Gagan Mehra

This is the fifth and final post in a series in which I address common mistakes of B2B ecommerce merchants. For this installment, I’ll review mistakes related to accessibility, mobile usability, and localization.
Technical SEO
SEO: Analyzing Googlebot Crawls for Problems, Inefficiencies

July 28, 2019 • Hamlet Batista

Crawl budget inefficiencies can affect organic search performance if new or updated content is not getting crawled and indexed. In this post, I will explain how to generate reports to help determine if your site has a Googlebot crawl budget problem.
SEO
Dissecting ‘Request a Quote’ in Google Search Results

July 26, 2019 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google is making it easier for businesses to collect leads. A new “Request a Quote” button is appearing in Knowledge Panels, the boxes on the right of search results.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Obtain UPCs for Selling on Amazon

July 25, 2019 • Armando Roggio

Amazon requires private label brands and direct-to-consumer manufacturers that sell on its marketplace to have universal product codes or similar for virtually all products. Fortunately, for as little as $250 just about any company can register a UPC prefix and obtain the required code.
Product Pages
5 Benefits of Ecommerce Loss Leaders

July 25, 2019 • Pamela Hazelton

Whether clearing out last year’s styles or promoting the latest gadgets, loss-leading strategies are used by companies of all sizes. There are good reasons for online stores to sell select products at a loss.