Corey Beale says, “The latest trend in ecommerce and marketing images is pretty obvious, especially if you’ve visited the Apple website lately. They’re not the first or the only to use hero images, but they’re one of the most visible—and they use them a lot. If Apple uses them, they must work, right? Before you embark on a mission to change everything on your website, let’s take a look at some important information. What Are Hero Images? If you’re not sure what hero images are, take a quick look at Apple’s website, Tommy Hilfiger’s, or Ulta’s. The first thing you see on... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “I like working with my colleague Tim Harmon, our coryphée on channel enablement on the B2B marketing research team, one reason being that he works from his home office in Half Moon Bay, Northern California, and I can visit him for meetings. I know the area well because I lived there myself for three years back in my HP days. In 2000 and 2001, I had an exciting project managing several experimental joint ventures with companies like Ariba, Bank of America, Broadvision, and Yahoo. We wanted to offer an enterprise version of Yahoo.com to be integrated into company... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Former Yahoo executive Anand Chandrasekaran is leaving India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel after just 13 months for Snapdeal, Mashable has learned from sources familiar with the matter. Chandrasekaran, whose last day with Bharti Airtel is Wednesday, confirmed his departurefrom the business to Re/code in May but did not specify then where exactly he was headed. His move is significant given the companies involved and their positions in India, which is the world’s best-performing emerging market last year, followed by the Philippines and Indonesia“. Former... [...]

David Moth says, “Another month has passed so it’s time to round-up the most interesting and useful digital marketing stats from APAC. This time around we’ve included WeChat, ecommerce in India, Alibaba getting sued, Aussies shunning wearables and a whole load of m-commerce stats. And for more insights on this market, download our State of Ecommerce in China Report. UK retailers eye up Singapore Singapore is a promising ecommerce market for UK retailers looking to sell abroad, according to a report from Borderfree. The country is seen as a “very attractive” market for cross-border... [...]

Joe Victor Behar says, “Retailers, take note. This is the year to be in e-commerce. So says Bigcommerce, as its research found that e-commerce is one of the fastest growing industries within the retail world. What’s more, Bigcommerce found that there is just as much opportunity for small retail businesses as larger operations. “As recently as 10 years ago, starting an e-commerce business required significant capital, as well as an army of technical, marketing and financial experts to build the necessary infrastructure,” said Eddie Machaalani, co-founder and CEO of Bigcommerce.... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “How can you attract more traffic to your ecommerce store? How can you improve conversion on the traffic you’re currently getting? At IRCE (Internet Retailer Conference + Exhibition) 2014, we sat down with 39 marketers and ecommerce experts to bring you actionable ideas to improve your results. To help you prepare for IRCE 2015, today on the MarketingSherpa blog I’m taking a look back at a few of the key lessons I learned from the interviews at last year’s event. Lesson #1: User-generated content is not free labor for marketers User-generated content. Community-sourced... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “E-commerce sales for U.S. retailers grew 13.6 percent to $261 billion in 2013, up from a revised $229 billion in 2012, according to the latest annual report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Taken from a compilation of survey data, the E-Stats 2013: Measuring the Electronic Economy report shows retail sales accounted for 5.8 percent of total sales in 2013, up from 5.3 percent in 2012. Total sales increased by 3.8 percent to $4.5 trillion in 2013 from a revised $4.3 trillion in 2012. The largest retail merchandise category for e-commerce sales in 2013 was Clothing and Clothing... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “I’ve recently been looking at how ecommerce sites are using content, and Coggles is one that we picked out as as example.  I’ve been talking to Clare Potts, Head of Search, Social and PR,  Prestige Luxury at The Hut Group, which looks after Coggles. Clare talked about the brand’s content strategy, the part that SEO plays, and howCoggles measures content… How long has Coggles’ Life section been running? The editorial section of Coggles has been running as long as the ecommerce site has been live, editorial content is at the heart of the... [...]

Jerry Low says, “At this point, all of us have had at least some experience shopping online. Chances are, we’ve also all experienced an e-commerce site that had a pretty terrible experience—one that might have even led you to abandon the effort all together and go elsewhere. This is the experience you want to avoid at all costs, and is why design is such a vital part to success in e-commerce. An e-commerce site that is easy to use ensures that consumers can find the products they want and need, and purchase them. Sounds simple, but in reality, it’s a challenge for all e-tailers. How... [...]

William Johnson says, “yber-attack – the event and its consequences are not new to online merchants. Most of those who promise secured transactions to customers have had an experience of customers complaining about faulty transactions and other security breaches. Magento, Joomla and even any ecommerce platform including CMS, plugin and extensions are susceptible to such phishing attacks. Unlike the traditional phishing techniques through social media and emails, hackers are now finding new ways to add a bunch of malicious codes to the ecommerce sites and thus bypassing all the sensitive data... [...]