Peter O’Neill says, “Last month, I enjoyed working with my colleague TJ Keitt as he prepared his report “B2B CX Professionals: Find The Full Range Of B2B Customers”, now published for customer experience professionals who are Forrester clients. As he writes, “Despite the clear benefits of improving B2B customer experience, there’s a hitch: Before B2B CX professionals can help their customers, they have to identify them. But at most of the B2B firms we spoke to, it’s hard for CX professionals to locate and engage customers other than the complex groups of decision-makers... [...]

Arie Shpanya says, “The ecommerce landscape is a competitive one. To guarantee success online, retailers can get help from various resources that will improve their presence. This help usually comes from third party add-ons that specialize in different aspects of an ecommerce business. Selling online can feel like a juggling act. You have to manage your inventory, your pricing, your marketing efforts, and more, while somehow fulfilling orders in an efficient manner to prevent angry customers. Entrusting your data to an outside source can help automate processes that may have been previously... [...]

John Dukes says, “One of your goals as an ecommerce store owner is to remove as much friction as possible, right? When you know where your customers are hanging out, you should be able to set up shop right there. That’s why the Facebook store option is such an important opportunity. Rather than crossing your fingers that your Facebook fans will remember to slip on over to your ecommerce site to purchase the products you introduce there on social media, what if they could just buy it right away? That’s how powerful the removal of friction can be, and that’s why you might just want to... [...]

Marina Iermolaieva says, “Upselling and cross-selling are popular approaches to increasing average order size and total revenue. Customers, too, are amenable to such tactics because they discover products they need or will need in the near future. The market is full of similar products, with many brands offering the same products; recommendations and cross-sell tactics can help get additional revenue from each customer. But, first, it’s essential to understand the difference between cross-sell and upsell. An upsell is when you offer an upgrade to the existing product; you convince the... [...]

Brendan Miller says, “My mission at Forrester is to help ebusiness executives transform the role of payments from financial utility into an engine for customer engagement, revenue growth and improved customer experience. A barrage of new innovation and business models are upending how consumers and businesses make and receive payments.  If merchants and businesses do not consider or implement these new innovations they risk losing customers and ultimately relevancy. Customer obsessed businesses can turn payments disruption into business advantage.  Success hinges on making technological... [...]

Thomas Smale says, “Whether you’re a bootstrapper or an investor with a bit of extra money to start a new enterprise, ecommerce is a great field to get into, especially today. Even as a beginner in ecommerce, the tools and resources are all laid out for you. All you need is a strong work ethic and a desire to succeed. Here are five reasons to start an ecommerce business now. 1. Worldwide, ecommerce is expected to grow by as much as 13 to 25 percent. Projections from eMarketer are showing rapid worldwide ecommerce growth through 2018. This year is expected to peak at nearly $1.6 trillion... [...]

Patrick Stox says, “Many companies don’t understand why visitor data and e-commerce sales are underreported in Google Analytics, and this tends to cause confusion. In this article, I’ll explain why what you see in Google Analytics doesn’t jibe with what you view in server logs and sales data. Google Analytics doesn’t have access to the actual sales data, only the data that is reported to it. While the Google Analytics data should not be used for financial reporting, it is a good indicator of sales and useful for data analysis. Here are some reasons why the data is not accurate. Missing... [...]

Morgan Jacobson says, “Whether you want to start an ecommerce endeavor or just expand the products you offer, keeping up with inventory is a definite concern. Whether you need the space or the manpower to keep all your products within reach and accounted for at all times, the fact remains that this particular concern could shut you down before you even get started. Unless you discover the beauty of dropshipping. What Is Dropshipping? When you outsource your shipping responsibilities to the manufacturer of your ecommerce goods, that’s drop shipping. In other words, you sell the products... [...]

E-Commerce sales in the U.S. totaled $306 billion in 2014 and are projected to pass $494 billion by 2018. With numbers like this, it is safe to say that e-commerce is here to stay and is only becoming more powerful by the minute. You might already run your own e-commerce store or are about to launch one from scratch; either way, there are six principles every e-commerce website should follow. 1- Clean Visuals Visuals and the overall look of your website are one of the most important elements in building trust with potential customers and in increasing their engagement on your site. If a website... [...]

Nina Zipkin says, “If you’re starting a new company, you want to make sure that your product gets in front of as many interested potential customers as you can. One way to make that possible is to make it available on Amazon, which gets an influx of about 75,000 new products each day. The process, as outlined in an infographic from new product development firm Idea Buyer, takes 10 simple steps. Start by figuring out how many units of your product you intend to sell, and connect with with GS1, an organization that provides barcodes to retailers and businesses, to get a UAN or EPC barcode.... [...]