Tips for Start Up e-Commerce Businesses

The barrier to entry for starting an e-Commerce business is incredibly low, but that doesn’t mean that the chances of success are high.  According to research conducted in 2010 by the Small Business Administration, more than 70 percent of new online businesses fail within the first ten years, and that figure is probably higher now that there are so many "one click setup" online store packages available.

How to Avoid Adding to the Failure Statistics

Making The Best Out Of Your Mobile eCommerce Application

You would be a really bad player in this racy eCommerce arena if you had paid $200 for a Mobile eCommerce App for your brand and have ended with a crappy app which is worth hardly a $50. This mostly happens with eCommerce business owners who are not that tech savvy about the developmental technical of the Mobile Commerce Application, so the developer could easily get away with it. The most mistakes happen because of the ‘bad choice’ of Mobile Commerce Application developers that you hire to develop your app. In order to kick start your brand right in the Mobile eCommerce App arena, the checkbox indicating your technical knowledge about the mechanics should have a bold tick mark.

Multilingual e-commerce: US and UK trends

US internet retailers are more likely than their UK counterparts to target Brazilian and Chinese markets in the next year.

However, all agree that use of social media networks and website translations are fundamentally important tools for making progress into international e-commerce markets.

L2 Collective: U.S. E-commerce 2012

Today (June 21) is an exciting day at L2, because it marks the release of the first installment in the L2 Collective, our newest suite of research reports. Similar to our Digital IQ Index® and Prestige 100® studies, the L2 Collective assesses luxury brands’ performance across several defined areas. Unlike those reports, however, the L2 Collective does not include rankings or even mention brands — all of which voluntarily participated in the study — by name. By gathering closely-guarded internal data from some of the luxury industry’s most prestigious (and most private) brands, L2 Collective reports offer insight into the state of organizational structures, compensation levels, even supporting resources.

What is the Best Strategy for Ecommerce Copywriting?

It might not seem like much, but ecommerce copywriting is an important strategy that helps you rank high in search engines. Quality ecommerce copywriting can actually have a higher rate of converting traffic into sales.

Writing a unique copy for each product can actually make a huge difference. Even though the manufacturer’s copy contains all the accurate information regarding the products, it still is better to write one of your own. The only problem with the manufacturer’s copy is that every other merchant selling that product will have the same text and the search engine will not rank every website with the same content. Also, at times it is too technical for a buyer to understand.

Top Three e-Commerce Platforms for 2012

Are you looking for the next step to take with your small business? If you are, then an ecommerce site may fit perfectly with your plans.  An ecommerce site is relatively inexpensive to start up; most of the cost is in the software. Having an ecommerce website gives you an advantage over your competitors that do not, especially if you have integrated shopping cart software. Shopping cart software built into the software platforms is a great feature tha can be included when setting up a retail site. Shopping carts make it much easier for customers to make their purchases online, and a shopping cart-enabled site will have more sales than an identical site without one. Here are the three most popular online ecommerce platforms right now:

Large Retailers Say Social’s Biz Impact On Par With E-Commerce

When asked about the digital marketing channels having the greatest impact on their businesses, 58% of senior executives working for large retailers point to social media, per KPMG survey results [pdf] released in June 2012. Interestingly, this puts social media’s impact on par with online shopping, which was cited by 59% of the respondents. It also means that more retailers see social media as having had a great impact on their business than email campaigns (49%), mobile shopping (36%), and mobile promotions (28%).

6 Hot Trends Driving Men’s Ecommerce

When it comes to ecommerce categories like grooming and fashion, the women’s market has long been the focus of marketers. And who can blame them. Women historically make upwards of 80% of the purchase decisions in the home, they’re statistically more active online, and tend to maintain longer session times on websites. Plus, they’re natural ‘window shoppers’ — in the physical and virtual world.

That said, in the past year, the men’s ecommerce market has seen more than a half dozen ecommerce launches, including Mr. Porter, Birchbox Man, and Dollar Shave Club. Here are the six major trends driving this growth.

1. Purchase Power

Mobile commerce is not mobile at all !

Honestly speaking do you purchase stuff online on the go? Stressing from one place to another with more or less stable internet connection nobody likes to make decisions about the next investment into new clothing or electronic equipment. I only found myself using the eBay app to make a last second bit in an auction I wanted to win desperately. However, eBay “forced” me to shop mobile as I was on the go at the time the auction ended. In any other case I used the smartphone for comparison or to get direction but not to actually place a transaction.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Sites

Social media is impacting how we do business online in new and exciting ways. Customers are sharing more and more data about what they’re doing online and the things they like. Getting people to share your products on social networks is a great way to bring in traffic and find new customers.

But ecommerce sites are stuck in a hard place because the number one goal of an ecommerce site isn’t sharing, it’s selling.

Take the “King” of ecommerce sites, Amazon.com, as an example. They have sharing tools on their product pages, but it’s not quite what you’d think:

While the sharing links are above the fold, they’re in the bottom-right corner of the screen. And you can bet that Amazon has tested that spot and found that it’s the best place for those links.

It’s hard to know how to promote your products and brand on social networks, without sacrificing potential sales. Along the lines of Michelle’s sage advice on 5 Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Marketing, here are 10 ways that you can improve social media efforts on ecommerce web sites without sending away buyers.

Basic Social Media Optimization for Ecommerce Sites

eCommerce Consulting

How an eCommerce Consultant Can Help Your Business

Internet retail makes up about 3% of all retail sales in the US and is expected to grow to at least 8% in the next ten years. What does that mean for online retailers? Quite simply, the market is growing, and is anticipated to at least double in the near future. With a growing market, comes growing opportunity.

However, that opportunity also attracts a large number of newcomers. Shopping engines such as Shopify.com and the like, make it easy for anyone to create their own retail website and sell online. This introduces a scenario where there is tremendous growth, but also very low barriers to entry, causing an influx of new retailers daily.

How Does eCommerce Benefit a Business?

eCommerce Makes the Entire Globe Your Showroom

    Exposing your products and services to potential customers is a critical component of success in business. ECommerce gives you the opportunity to showcase your products to the entire world of prospects. Imagine what it might cost your business to have stores or offices throughout the U.S. and in every country in the world. Compare that potential cost--probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars--to an effective interactive eCommerce website.

What Does the Future of F-Commerce Hold?

Source: eMarketer

The rising popularity of social networks and online shopping represents a significant opportunity for retailers with an ecommerce presence. Looking forward at projections for ecommerce predicted at 14% growth this year, there’s no doubt that online sales will continue to increase as more consumers jump on their laptops, mobile phones and tables to make purchases.  At the same time, an increasing number of people are involved in social media with Facebook taking the lion’s share of attention with 15% of all online time spent connecting with friends and family there.
Many retailers have looked to Facebook, or F-commerce, for that opportunity.

How to Offer Free Shipping without Going Broke

Is there really a way to offer customers free shipping without going broke?

The short answer is: it depends. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to free shipping. What works for one merchant may completely destroy the profit margins of another, and in some cases, offering your customers free shipping is simply not viable.

In this article, we're going to discuss the different aspects involved with shipping discounts, and review some of your different options.

Should You Offer Free Shipping?

Let's start with an obvious question: Should I Offer Free Shipping? A question that's just as important is: Can you offer free shipping? We'll get to that, but assuming it does in fact work for your business, let's first talk about whether or not you should offer free shipping.

It's hard to argue the significance that shipping discounts can have on e-commerce sales. Study after study has shown that higher than expected shipping and handling fees is one of the top reasons that consumers abandon shopping carts.

Social Gifting, Η νέα μόδα στο ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο

Πέρυσι αυτό που αποτελούσε την τάση στο Ίντερνετ ήταν οι προσφορές και τα διάφορα εκπτωτικά κουπόνια με ευκαιρίες αγορών. Η νέα μόδα «σκίζει» τα κουπόνια και μας βάζει σε… περιτύλιγμα. Ετοιμαστείτε να υποδεχτείτε τη νέα τάση του social gifting, μέσω Facebook, όπου ο ένας κάνει δώρα στον άλλο.

Free Apps To Help You Sell More: SumAll

SumAll is a data analytics tool that you can use as a BigCommerce client. It helps you use your own revenue data to make better decisions and make more money. It’s one of the most popular integrations from our integrations directory which is currently at almost 200 integrations (many free) and growing daily!
Your BigCommerce store can be easily synced up with SumAll and within a matter of minutes, realtime information about your revenue history, customer groups, sales patterns, and sales trajectory can be accessed. Here’s how it looks:

Expert Ecommerce Website Design Advice

From basic design tweaks to hiring a design firm, industry experts offer their best advice on getting the right ecommerce website design.

When it comes to ecommerce website design there are many options for getting a unique layout and feel that matches your small business brand and presence.
An ecommerce site design -- compared to other types of business sites -- has a very specific goal of converting a site visitor into a paying customer, and everything from writing an original product description to providing organized Ecommerce Website FAQs and custom shopping carts must focus on making that conversion happen.

Content and Ecommerce

Create an Ecommerce Site That Makes People Want to Buy

Why would content matter when you are running an e-commerce site? After all, you provide a product or service that people want to buy, so setting up your site to easily purchase should be your primary goal, right?
Not necessarily.
Let's look at some of the more successful e-commerce sites on the Web and see how they balance content with marketing and sales techniques to get people to not only return to the site, but buy.

Consumers Turn to Tablets to Research Purchase Decisions

Multidevice usage common among consumers researching products and services

Online’s role in researching products and services has been well documented, but a study from Local Corporation conducted by the e-tailing group offered greater insight into the role of mobile devices—particularly tablets—in the purchase-decision process.

Not surprisingly, desktop and laptop computers are no longer the only means of performing digital research. Findings showed more than 60% of North American consumers researched products or services multiple times a month via a mobile device, pointing to a growing trend among internet users to use various digital devices to inform their purchase decisions.

Six SEO Strategies for eCommerce Websites

Anyone who knows anything about search engine optimization understands that content is king.  The goal of search engine optimization is to climb to the top of Google’s ranking system and fresh content is at the top of Google’s list of reasons to boost site rankings.  The problem with employing search engine optimization for an eCommerce site is the lack of content.  At the end of the day, Google rewards unique and original content that provides value to readers.  SEO for eCommerce and related sales sites is possible and can prove extremely valuable.  Here are some great SEO tips for eCommerce sites.