Holiday Selling
-
Conversion
Analyzing Cyber Monday Sales
December 2, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
Black Friday and Cyber Monday were greatly anticipated by merchants and consumers and the results did not disappoint. Online sales on Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion according to Internet tracking firm comScore, making it the biggest online spending day in history. Revenues increase...
-
Platforms & Apps
15 Mobile Apps for Holiday Shopping
November 17, 2011 • Sig Ueland
There are many mobile apps to assist consumers with holiday shopping. There are deals and rewards apps, price comparison apps, and to-do and shopping assistant apps. Here's a list of 15 mobile apps that assist consumers. Review these apps to see the mobile-shopping options your cus...
-
Checkout Tactics
10 Quick, Easy and (Almost) Free Ways to Close Sales During the Holiday Shopping Season
November 16, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton
The highly anticipated holiday shopping season is already upon us. Active online stores are seeing more traffic, and price comparison sites have been feeding more data than in previous months. The big boost in traffic starts around November 19, and then skyrockets right after Thanksgivi...
-
Fraud Prevention
3 Types of ‘Return Fraud’ to Monitor this Holiday Season
November 14, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Return fraud, which is expected to cost brick-and-mortar retailers $3.48 billion this holiday season, could also snag online merchants — significantly increasing costs and chargebacks. Return fraud takes several forms but three stand out as real concerns for ecommerce. They are: (1) wa...
-
Google Ads
Pay-Per-Click Ads: 5 Tips for Higher Clicks this Holiday Season
October 28, 2011 • Scott Smigler
Google’s paid-click revenue grew by an astounding 28 percent last quarter, thanks in part to a 5 percent rise in click prices. It’s likely that Google will set ad revenue records this fourth quarter also, due to the increase in holiday ad spending. To online retailers, Google’s surge i...
-
Conversion
5 Holiday Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales
October 13, 2011 • Armando Roggio
The holiday shopping season runs from the end of October to the end of the year, and it can represent as much as 20-to-40 percent of a retailer’s total annual ...
-
Conversion
Holiday Sales to Grow 2.8 Percent?
October 10, 2011 • Armando Roggio
The National Retail Federation has estimated that overall 2011 holiday sales — brick-and-mortar and online — will grow 2.8 percent reaching some $465.6 billion compared to $453 billion in 2010. The NRF uses a complex economic model that includes data from across the U.S. and world econ...
-
Google Ads
Ramping Up Your Holiday Pay-Per-Click Advertising
September 29, 2011 • Scott Smigler
The holidays are coming. For many online merchants, this means dramatically increased revenue and conversion rates. Start ramping up for holiday pay-per-click advertising now to ensure that you maximize your profits — and build momentum for 2012. Below I’ve provided six tips that shou...
-
Business
OverstockArt CEO Critiques Holiday Sales Performance
January 27, 2011 • PEC Staff
The holiday selling season is important for many online merchants. This includes David Sasson. He is the founder and CEO of OverstockArt.com, a retailer of reproduced oil paintings. The company saw a 25 percent increase in 2010 holiday sales, versus 2009. We spoke with Sasson to see wha...
-
Social Media
Social Media’s Effect on Holiday Sales
December 2, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Ecommerce is playing an increasingly important role in holiday sales. But how much of that growth can be attributed to social media? I asked Hitwise, the competitive intelligence service, how much traffic ecommerce sites received from social media. A spokesman for Hitwise responded vi...
-
Product Pages
8 Last Minute Holiday-Sales Boosters
November 18, 2010 • Pamela Hazelton
I'll be honest. The key elements for increasing traffic and sales this holiday season should have been put in place by October 15th. That doesn't mean, however, that all hope is lost for those who've procrastinated or otherwise failed to implement seasonal changes. Whether you didn’t g...
-
Google Ads
Pay-Per-Click Advertising: 12 Tips to Boost Holiday Performance
November 2, 2010 • Scott Smigler
A well optimized pay-per-click advertising campaign can lead to gigantic increases in both revenue and profits. Conversely, a campaign that is neglected can lead to missed opportunities or significant financial losses. To help you prepare for this holiday season, here are 12 tips that ...
-
Marketing & Advertising
5 SEO Reminders That Can Drive Holiday Traffic
September 23, 2010 • PEC Staff
As we head into the holiday season amid mixed economic signals, merchants are looking to maximize visibility while keeping expenses in check. In a recent Practical eCommerce webinar we reviewed some easy-to-implement SEO tips with Andreas Ryuta Stenzel, online marketing manager with TRU...
-
Conversion
Increase Holiday Profits with Drop Shipping, Better Inventory Management
September 9, 2010 • PEC Staff
Holiday sales are vital for most ecommerce merchants. But the selling process can be a management headache when a merchant is juggling many different suppliers, sales channels, and stocking requirements. Couple those challenges with trying to decide which products to promote, and what t...
-
Conversion
Ten Must-Do Items This Holiday Season
September 7, 2010 • PEC Staff
It’s September and the holiday season has already begun for merchants and shoppers. In a recent Practical eCommerce webinar entitled “Ten Ecommerce Strategies for Holiday Success,” Make-a-Store Chief Marketing Officer Derek Stringfellow offered 10 tips merchants can apply now for more s...
-
Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 5
August 27, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, we are publishing a few good holiday-selling tips, from experienced ecommerce professionals, each week. Our fifth, and final, installment is below. Anticipate Microsoft, Yahoo! PPC Integration "Build out and optimize your Mi...
-
Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 4
August 20, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, we are publishing a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our fourth installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Test for Usability Issues “Find usability issues by using new crowdsourcing servic...
-
Conversion
Nuts and Bolts of Holiday Selling
August 18, 2010 • PEC Staff
The factors that determine a successful holiday season are oftentimes not the creative or extravagant ones, but rather the nuts and bolts of addressing critical areas of your business. We've identified 10 such "nuts and bolts" strategies to contemplate in “Ten Ecommerce Strategies for ...
-
Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 3
August 13, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is publishing a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our third installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Be Everywhere “Signup and post products in shopping comparison en...
-
Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 2
August 6, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is publishing a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our second installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Plan Ahead for Holiday Rush “Make sure all of your website improve...
-
Conversion
10 Holiday Ecommerce Pitfalls
August 5, 2010 • Michael Stearns
Holiday sales are vitally important for most ecommerce businesses. And yet, in my years of helping hundreds of merchants, I've seen them frequently make the same mistakes that negatively impact a successful holiday sales season. Here's my list, updated for 2010, of common pitfalls to a...
-
Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 1
July 29, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce will publish a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our first installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Create Holiday Landing Pages Create custom landing pages for your em...
-
Conversion
Gearing Up for the 2010 Holiday Season
July 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
If you haven’t started thinking about the 2010 holiday season, now is the time. The economy is still shaky, customers remain fickle, and if you’re not prepared you could miss out on the most important shopping season of the year. Thanks to technological advances, we now have more info...
-
Conversion
Ecommerce Know-How: Think Negative to Realize Positive Holiday Sales Growth
December 2, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Two recent studies on holiday ecommerce spending provide important insights for small, online merchants wanting to achieve positive growth over the same period in 2008. The studies from comScore, an online tracking firm, and Forrester Research, indicate the economic climate is improvin...
-
SEO
SEO Report Card: WisconsinMade.com Needs Quick Tweaks for the Holidays
November 10, 2009 • Stephan Spencer
As we enter into the holiday shopping season, it's all hands on deck for merchants selling gift baskets. The Wisconsin specialist e-tailer Wisconsin Made is no exception. The challenge is to make an impact in what little time is left in the year. Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't i...
-
Conversion
Holiday Sales: Four Ways to Capture the Budget-driven Consumer
October 28, 2009 • Lisa Wehr
The marketplace has been changed by the recession. Consumers have become increasingly frugal and they're probing for the best deals they can find. Ecommerce merchants need to adjust accordingly. Retail sales took a hit in 2008, even though online traffic rose 10 percent. That's presum...
-
Conversion
Holiday Sales: Three Tips to Turn Browsers into Buyers
October 6, 2009 • Lisa Wehr
The holiday shopping season is upon us. Based on a 2008 study of more than 1.5 million people who used the Internet for holiday shopping, we found that the first week of October marks the start of the shopping season. That means it’s time to make your keyword list for both organic searc...
-
Business
>
Merchant Voice
Prioritizing for the Holidays
September 1, 2009 • Ken Kikkawa
I'm a merchant at heart. I love merchandise. It probably goes back to over 20 years ago when I was an assistant buyer for May Company department stores. Part of our responsibility was to work out in the stores during sale periods in November and December. It gave me a chance to get ...
-
Conversion
Holiday Marketing: What About “Talk Like a Pirate” Day?
February 25, 2009 • Michael Stearns
If you think holiday marketing begins on Halloween and ends on New Year’s Day, think again. The prime holiday marketing season actually begins on January 1st, and doesn’t stop. For a retailer, gift-giving occasions throughout the year shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s Easter, St. Patrick...
-
Conversion
Holiday Sales: Make Your List, Check It Twice
October 29, 2007 • PEC Staff
1. Target The Right Buyers Selling more effectively throughout the holidays means targeting the right person, with the right offer, at the right time. Pretty easy in theory, right? In practice it’s a lot more difficult. Most e-tailers, through trial and error, get in a rut of going wit...