Kurt Bilafer says, “When it comes to online commerce, the point at which money changes hands has often been the moment a sale falls apart. What was a carefully crafted brand experience becomes off-putting and complicated. There are confusing redirects, forms that clash with the rest of the design, and a lot of sensitive data that needs to be entered. But that’s now changing, and fast. Innovative companies have stepped up their game, using technologies that make a much easier payment experience possible. That, in turn, is changing consumer expectations about what a payment transaction should... [...]

Jimmy Rodela says, “The sales that you had been getting from your eCommerce site for the last 6 months is a nightmare. It had plummeted to the deepest depth of the planet, and it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of recovering. As you browsed the internet for ideas on how to fix your dreaded rock bottom sales, you came across a survey saying 96 percent of Americans are in fact coupon users. You then say to yourself, “This it! With the use of discount coupons, I’ll surely be able to get better sales.” I don’t doubt you for one minute. True enough, using discounts coupons can... [...]

Darren DeMatas says, “85% of ecommerce brands are looking to add value to customers beyond discounts and promotions. Yet, 97% of rewards programs are transaction-based. Giving discounts to attract customers is often a knee-jerk reaction to boost sales. But competing on price is a race to the bottom.  Most ecommerce businesses can’t survive by giving deep discounts to one-time customers. To succeed in the long term, you have to shift your focus to customer retention. Loyalty programs can drive high margin repeat business, but most programs fail to add value to the customer experience. To... [...]

Greg Randall says, “The topic of placing products on the homepage always comes with debate, but when thinking in the context of customer experience design, the reasons against presenting products are straightforward.  I’ve previously taken an in-depth look at product page design, and now it’s time to turn the spotlight on the homepage. Purpose of the homepage The purpose of the homepage is to maintain a consumer’s ‘buying momentum‘. Buying momentum is characterised by a series of micro-actions consumers take in their journey leading to a macro-action (a purchase). The... [...]

Matt Mansfield says, “From merchant accounts to product images, product descriptions, add-on apps and possible integration with your existing website and back-end systems, there are a lot of details to stay on top of when you build an eCommerce site for your small business. Interestingly however, one of the most critical decisions you need to make is what your new eCommerce site will look and feel like (i.e. its theme). Why is selecting a theme so important? It’s all a matter of cost. The Cost of Customization The truth is, there are many eCommerce storefronts you can add in minutes. Each... [...]

Everett Sizemore says, “If there has been one “SEO tactic” that we’ve seen work consistently throughout 2015, it’s the idea of pruning underperforming content out of Google’s index. Sometimes it is a result of outdated SEO tactics like article spinning, or technical issues such as indexable internal search results or endlessly crawlable faceted navigation. Other times there are thousands of products with little or no content, or manufacturer-supplied product descriptions. This is why it’s important to make distinctions between pruning off the site (i.e. removing) and... [...]

Ben Davis says, “I enjoy shopping, but a lot of the fun is missing online. The majority agree with me, they miss the crowds, the serendipity, the buzz and the changing rooms. I was re-reading our ecommerce predictions for 2016 and it struck me they are all pragmatic, about devices, delivery, CRO, third-party solutions etc. Only Matt Curry of Lovehoney mentioned ‘super rich experiences’, which I think is somewhere close to a definition of fun. So what does fun look like? Fun is dangerous Before we try to picture what fun looks like in ecommerce, we need to warn ourselves of the... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “It’s tough to get links to product pages for an e-commerce site. That problem is one of the main reasons companies contact us. While you do see some great links to a product page here and there, it seems that most of these pages simply don’t give us enough of a reason to link to them. The same can be true for category pages, too — and all of this means that clients struggle to find alternative ways of generating links to pages other than their home page. Let’s take a look at nine ways clever companies have created highly linkable internal pages“. 9 Examples... [...]

Thomas Smale says, “Putting up a website isn’t really the hard part. Just about anyone can launch an online store and start selling products in a very short amount of time. But, there’s potential bad news here, as well. As the common saying goes, the devil is in the details. In fact, there is so much more to ecommerce than just selling products online. You have to build trust with your customers, streamline your order fulfillment process, secure your website, create and follow a content marketing and SEO strategy and much more. The good news is that you can always learn from... [...]

Allison Enright says, “Investors and buyers put more than $32 billion into the industry last year, a 145% jump year over year. E-commerce companies saw a lot of green last year. High-dollar investment rounds and billion-dollar-plus acquisitions led to the sector nabbing $32.45 billion from investors and acquirers, a leap of more than 145% compared with 2014, according to investment firm Petsky Prunier’s 2015 summary of merger and acquisition and investment activity. In 2014, the comparable amount was $13.22 billion. Deal and investment activity in the sector increased to 475 deals in 2015... [...]