Merchant Voice
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Business
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Merchant Voice
7 ways to maximise distribution opportunities through other retailers
June 20, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
As an online retailer, you obviously have your own store. But what are some of the issues you need to consider when distributing your products and services through other online retailers? 1. Who are their customers? Presumably some of them are the same types of people who do business ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Shared hosting is best for Magento
May 30, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
Yes, you read that right. I firmly believe that the best hosting for most Magento sites is shared hosting. All too often when you look around for a host for your Magento store, hosting companies say things like “you cannot run Magento in a shared environment”, “Magento is resource hungr...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
One disastrous daily deal experience: What Not To Do
May 28, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
After experiencing one of the worst purchase experiences ever via a daily deal website which has broken nearly every retailing rule you can break, here is my What Not To Do post. On 19 January 2012, I saw a tempting offer from the daily deal website, Spreets to buy $100 worth of Elle M...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
10 Ways to Make Your Video Not Suck
May 15, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori
As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, I know a few things about video production. Photography and videography are a passion of mine. So, listen up, please! Nearly every tutorial that explains “how” to create a video is dead wrong. Crumple them up and toss them in the bin. Why? Be...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
10 reasons your mother makes your best beta tester
May 15, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you sell B2C products and/or services, your mother (or grandmother) could be your best beta testing panel member ever. Here's 10 reasons why. 1. Number one advocate Can you imagine a more fervent supporter of your work? It's like a grown-up version of her wanting to hear what you'...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
Magento, Multi Store and SEO
May 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
One of the biggest challenges to Search Engine Optimisation for any Ecommerce site is the range and variety in the stock. All SEO tutorials and teach yourself books seem to assume you are selling a small range. Typically 'widgits'. They talk about doing keyword analysis on widgets, find...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How we increased our international business 40%
April 18, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori
We increased our international business 40% recently. Our international packages, prior to this change, represented approximately 9.6% of all shipments. Since we made this change, they now account for 13.4% of all packages shipped. We accomplished this by lowering our shipping prices....
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Hotmail users unsubscribe most but most likely to convert
April 17, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Have you ever started signing up for a white paper, e-book or guide, entering your free web-based account in the email field, only to see they won’t accept anything other than a business address? So you reluctantly do so, most likely because if you’re anything like me, you rarely unsu...
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SEO
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Merchant Voice
SEO and Selecting a Magento Theme
April 7, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
One of the best ways to implement any cart is to select a template that is close to what you want your site to look like, and then use a professional designer to tailor it to your unique needs. Magento has literally thousands of templates and it can be a little daunting finding one for ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 ways expos are similar to online marketing
April 4, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
1. Go against type If you’re trying to get known for an unusual niche, don’t book the obvious, traditional expo category (in my case, New Age expos for astrology reports), in the beginning. You’ll compete as an also-ran against others with bigger wallets, better branding, bigger sta...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 free or low-cost ways to market your website
March 25, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Get the message about your business out there for next to nothing! 1. Print business cards with product descriptions Next time you print business cards, squeeze it in a catchy description and/or images of what your website sells to help jog people’s memories. Or create a tiny “brochur...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Daily deals: 6 ways they ruin your business, 3 ways they might not
March 19, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you’ve considered doing a daily deal with Groupon et al, first consider what do they do to your online business. 1. They massively lower profit There are so many daily deal websites out there that many consumers have signed up to three or more. But to create cut-through in their in...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How you can help customers going through a hard time
March 11, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If your customer isn’t going through a tough time, they definitely know someone who is. And I’m not saying this because I’m a doom’n’gloom kinda girl – if anything, I’m a bit of a Pollyanna. Of the 774 daily – OK, near-daily – blog posts I’ve written for the past three years, the most...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My Love/Hate Relationship with Product Reviews
March 7, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori
I don’t have product reviews on my website. I may add them at some point. However, I’m quite conflicted about it. My stance may seem odd since the big players in that space would cite years of research showing that adding product reviews to your website will increase your conversion r...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Put Retail back on the Agenda
March 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
The English have been called a nation of shopkeepers, and I guess that this is in part true. We still have a significant number of independent retailers surviving, even thriving, in spite of fierce competition from supermarkets and large national chains. We stay ahead of them because we...
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Conversion
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Merchant Voice
How to reduce customer returns, refunds and resentment
March 4, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you can reduce returns and refunds, you make more money! Here are my tips from my business and personal consumer experience. 1. 100% money-back guarantee When you shop online, you probably don’t buy products from unfamiliar companies, without a 100% money-back guarantee. You might ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My Seven Big Mistakes
February 26, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
When people ask me what was the biggest mistake I have made with my luxury astrology report website business, I have to joke, “Which one?!” I have made so many... Big Mistake 1 My website Itsinthestarsonline.com was launched on 19 December 2006 after I interviewed seven website develop...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
There is no magic bullet for success.
February 9, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori
Soap box time! I feel like ranting a bit today. I really bristle when I read articles claiming “The 7 Tips to SEO dominance” or “10 ways to effectively market your business” or “Top 5 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Business”. It’s as if there are magic potions to running an online busines...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
Playing The Amazon Game
February 3, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
Sooner or latter every online retailer will consider selling on Amazon, or are already doing so. Amazon is a huge market, and it would be unwise not to consider it. There are other blogs covering the pros and cons, but none really cover what to do if you decide to take the gamble, and e...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My favorite tools and services
January 25, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori
I use a variety of software in my day-to-day activities running an e-commerce company. Here is a list of my favorites. Hopefully, it’s useful to you as well! Photoshop - If you don’t know how to use any flavor of image editing software, you shouldn’t be in the e-commerce game. As I’ve ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
January Blues
January 24, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
It's January and Christmas is over. The huge rush of orders has been picked, packed and dispatched. The first week or two of January is also busy with the customers spending their Christmas money. Then the credit card bills come in, the orders dry up, and the problems start. What separ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How we achieved 99% accuracy in order fulfillment
December 21, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
No matter how much time, effort, and money you put into promoting your business and converting visitors into buyers, you’ll never create repeat customers if you screw up fulfillment. This is partly why I hate out-sourced fulfillment and drop-shipping. Once you lose control over this mo...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
No Video is (far) better than a bad video
November 6, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
I know a few things about video. While my formal schooling taught me computer science, my father is a professional cinematographer. He taught me how to take photographs and eventually how to shoot and create video. Before I got involved in e-commerce, my business (for about 7 years) wa...
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Analytics & Data
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Merchant Voice
10 Web Analytics Solutions for Ecommerce Merchants
September 26, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Web analytics tools seek to monitor and report on the interaction between Internet users and specific websites or marketing initiatives for the purpose of improving those interactions. This definition is a ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
The Death of Free Shipping
September 21, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
My highschool economics teacher preached, “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch”. This holds true for shipping costs. In fact, the costs of shipping are rising faster than inflation. I see our shipping rates rising much faster than increases in the cost of our products. So, if you...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How to Make Your Customer Service Shine
August 19, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
As a small e-commerce store, you can’t compete against the big boys in many arenas. However, one arena where you can outduel them in is customer service. By definition, you are a specialist in your product category and therefore should be an expert in all things that you sell. You can...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Mistakes I Wish I Had Never Made
July 20, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
We all know the saying, “If I knew then what I know now, I’d be much better off”. I was thinking about that the other day and decided to put together a list of mistakes I’ve made during my e-commerce life. I had to shorten the list to just 6 items because there’s only so much room on th...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Top 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Outsource Fulfillment
June 10, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
The allure of outsourced fulfillment (such as Amazon’s FBA program) is strong. But, don’t get sucked in by the hype! In any business, you never outsource anything that you can do better or more efficiently yourself. If you don’t think you can make your fulfillment operation more effic...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
8 ways to uncover hidden money in your business
May 18, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
Increasing the “top line” of your business is always critical, especially for small businesses that might still be struggling to reach that magical break even point. But even if you’re making a nice profit, cutting expenses or finding ways to save money should be a monthly exercise. S...
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Checkout Tactics
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Merchant Voice
Pros and Cons of Checkout by Amazon’s Inline Checkout
April 19, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori
Checkout by Amazon allows your customers to use their Amazon login credentials to make purchases on your site. There are several different ways to integrate this into your store. The best “experience”, in my opinion, is their inline offering. In this method, your customers never leave...