Τι αλλάζει στους κανόνες για το ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο

Αλλαγές επήλθαν στο θεσμικό πλαίσιο που αφορά στις εταιρείες οι οποίες δραστηριοποιούνται στον τομέα του ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου, ενώ όπως έγινε γνωστό από τις 13 Ιουνίου οι κανόνες για το ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο γίνονται πιο αυστηροί.

4 Ways E-commerce Can Drive Conversions From Green Initiatives

Going green, online—is it worth it? The short answer is yes. Many marketers may not realize that catering specifically to this type of consumer can actually increase conversion rates, while maintaining your image as a green-friendly organization. And when applying some personalization to the mix, can also help keep your green friends very, very loyal.

Whether retail or hospitality, certain brands are continuously striving to maintain relevancy for a certain subset of eco-conscious customers—both offline and off. So, if you want your brand to be top-of-mind with the green-friendly, your website needs to follow a certain aesthetic—just like your products and physical locations. 

Sales Productivity

I firmly believe the market today is unlike any we've seen in a long time, if ever. It's a zero-sum market in which many niches are saturated and success involves taking something away from a competitor -- and sometimes the competitor is yourself. This kind of market resembles retail, where most niches are also filled and securing a place for your product or brand may mean displacing another on the store shelf.
We are at it again -- and why not? It's the start of another year, and people are doing predictable things like having kickoffs of all sorts of things. I just launched a new website and several new initiatives in research and thought leadership, so I am no exception.

5 Ways To Increase Conversions From Google Shopping

This is a guest post by Bob Lang, leading up to our January 24th Webinar at 11 am PST with ConversionIQ on how to increase conversions. ConversionIQ, a ecommerce conversion rate optimization agency, will be teaching merchants how to increase conversions on their websites, and we’ll be talking about how to use Google Shopping effectively and how to increase conversions there.

Bob Lang has over 20 years experience managing multi-channel businesses. For the past 5 years he has been focused on helping other businesses optimize their on-site revenue performance. Earlier with HiConversion and now with ConversionIQ he has worked with 100s of small, medium and large enterprise ecommerce teams to improve conversions by doing in-depth analysis, gaining insights and validating results using a broad range of optimization tools.

At ConversionIQ we do in-depth analysis into visitor segments and make data driven recommendations to improve conversions based on customer motivation and behavior.  We have found that visitors who come in from product feeds are motivated but skeptical.  Here are 5 things you should focus on to improve conversions for your product feeds:

How 100 retailers responded to a mystery shopper's Contact Us query

How do you respond to the customer enquiries through your Contact Us page?

Do you take them seriously? You may be leaving your customer's money and their goodwill on the table.

A friend of mine has just launched a baby t-shirt product so out of curiosity and solidarity, we arranged that I would contact 100 US and UK baby retailers over the New Year break via their Contact Us page.

The retailers were either bricks-and-mortar stores with an online presence, or pure-play ecommerce merchants.

Personalizing the Customer Experience

I recently shopped for a new wallet in several online stores. Later that day, I saw ads for one of the same wallets on The New York Times' website and Facebook from eBags.com. Since I had shopped at eBags.com, I knew that it was not a coincidence. It was a remarketing ad. In this case, it was a highly personalized ad featuring one of the wallets I looked at.

Did you know that Google personalizes your search experience based on past search history? You can turn that off in Google if you choose, but it's there by default as a way to match your search with, presumably, your interests.

The reality is that businesses of all types are using technology to personalize their customer experiences. Top retailers use platforms like Oracle Endeca to personalize customers' experiences based on where they came from, what they have been shopping for, past sales history, what’s in their cart, and so forth. Retailers can even use that information to choose which products are in a specific promotion based on margins and profitability. As a result, they have a higher conversion rate, fewer bounces, and in many cases, a more satisfied customer.

SEO for Ecommerce Websites – Managing the Duplicate Content Beast

The rise of ecommerce websites has heralded a new era of convenience for consumers, as well as the most powerful tool for retailers since electricity. However, ecommerce sites bring with them a host of SEO challenges that can quash any hopes of being found in organic search.

Fortunately, with a little foresight and a bit of technical knowledge, ecommerce retailers can maximize their SEO potential and literally rise above the competition (in the search results), resulting in more customers and increased sales.

Duplicate Content

Customer Service Key for Ecommerce; 6 Pointers

As ecommerce business owners, we tend to think in terms of policies, inventory, and operations. But the most important part of our businesses is customers. A customer-centric organization considers how every decision will impact the customer experience.

Here are some ways good customer service can be incorporated into your store policies.

Make It Easy to Return Products

If you know a customer bought a product from you, don’t require him or her to produce a receipt or prove they purchased it. With today’s sophisticated customer relationship management systems, it’s imperative to know the buying history and habits of your customers. A robust CRM will come in handy in so many scenarios.

2013 and the Rise of Ecommerce 3.0

From the ever-increasing adoption rate of smart phones to the rise of China and India as top-ranked global internet users, 2013 holds promise for fascinating trends to emerge across industry sectors and across the globe, giving rise to what can only be seen as Ecommerce 3.0.

Ecommerce 1.0-2.0

    Ecommerce 1.0 was all about discovering the web and setting up the first online shops. They were imitations of the offline world, with virtual shelves providing breadth and depth of product. Version 2.0 saw these websites transformed into clover multimedia portals that tried to engage users. They were not just about “pull,” where shoppers searched for a specific product and bought it, they were also “push” – convincing customers to snap up that special deal, to follow an impulse.

Ecommerce 3.0 will be defined by a seamless customer experience across all devices and touchpoints as well as unprecedented rate of change as new business models and capabilities arise.

Understanding International Shipping Costs

International sales can offer a huge revenue increase for your business! But because shipping costs vary so greatly depending on your product, its destination and your choice of carrier, it’s more important than ever to know your shipping options and how they can potentially affect your bottom line. Here are some points to ponder.

International Shipping with USPS

Merchant Marketing Spotlight: Ocean Eyes Polarized Sunglasses

Many eCommerce stores are started by entrepreneurs looking to serve a niche market or fill a void in the marketplace. In the case of Skip and Karen Ledingham, they were shocked by the price of polarized sunglasses and set out to create a line of polarized eyewear that was not only stylish but realistically priced.

Ocean Eyes was born!

Started in 1998, Ocean Eyes Polarized Sunglasses began by selling their eyewear through a network of retail shops and recently decided to make their 60+ styles of sunglasses available for purchase online using the 3dcart eCommerce platform.

Holiday shopping online seen jumping 16% this year

E-commerce is expected to grow strongly this holiday season, spurred by early online deals, the continued proliferation of mobile devices and more free shipping offers.

Holiday sales will likely increase 16.4 percent from a year earlier, outpacing total retail sales, which are forecast to grow about 3.9 percent, according to analysts at Jefferies & Co.

Doug Anmuth, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, expects online purchases to top 10 percent of total U.S. retail spending for the first time in the fourth quarter.

Tα βήματα για τη δημιουργία e-shop

Μέσα στην κρίση της αγοράς, με αυξημένη την ανάγκη περιορισμού των λειτουργικών εξόδων των επιχειρήσεων, πολύς λόγος γίνεται για τη δημιουργία ηλεκτρονικών καταστημάτων στο Διαδίκτυο προκειμένου να αυξηθεί ο τζίρος. Ας δούμε, λοιπόν, το θέμα όσο μπορούμε καλύτερα.

Το πλεονέκτημα του ηλεκτρονικού καταστήματος είναι ότι πουλά για εσάς 24 ώρες/365 ημέρες τον χρόνο

Investing in Your eCommerce Project Where it Counts…

Have you ever sat on an airplane and wondered how many times the pilot has flown the plane? How many times they’ve taken off successfully, maneuvered through turbulence, and landed intact and at the right airport?

However, do you notice that no one ever starts their air travel experience hearing “Good afternoon everyone, please welcome your pilot Roy. Today is Roy’s first flight, and we have all the confidence that Roy is going to get us where we’re going, on time, and in one piece.” Inevitably, somewhere there is Pilot Roy flying his first commercial flight, but we, as passengers, never seem to ask if we’re the ones sitting on that plane.

BigCommerce Partners with SecureNet for Payments

At BigCommerce we’re always looking to simplify the process of starting a successful online business. We do this by creating an easy-to-use platform, integrating with the latest technology, and keeping fixed costs low for our clients.

One area that we know needs more simplicity is setting up a payment gateway for easily processing credit card payments. We searched high and low to find the right partner to help us streamline the process of applying and setting up a payment gateway. We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with SecureNet Payment Systems™ to provide this essential component.

10 Tips to Freshen Your Ecommerce Site

One important strategy to grow your ecommerce revenue is to keep your store fresh and vibrant. That includes your content, products, and promotions. It may also mean regularly refreshing your navigation, themes, and other design elements.

When was the last time you really looked at your online store with the same level of critique as you did when you first launched it? Are you featuring seasonal products in your featured items or are Mother’s Day gifts still at the top in August? Are your promo banners the same ones you used last month? When is the last time you created a completely new promotional idea? When did you last add a blog post? A Facebook wall post? Tweets? Do you have your “back to school” category created? Is your navigation optimized to get traffic to the right parts of your website?

Ecommerce for a Cause: 5 Ways to Make an Impact with Your Online Store

One of the best things about owning an online business is that you get to do what you love, everyday. Even better, you get to make an impact on the lives of others through the products and services you sell. Today, many companies are positively impacting their communities through relationships with non-profit organizations. You may or may not be already engaging in cause marketing with your online business, and today I’d like to share a few ideas with you about how to get started.

Top 7 reporting metrics for ecommerce store owners

Running an online store can be hard work. You spend so much time working out how to get traffic to your site and then watch the numbers dwindle down with low conversion rates, cart abandonment etc. But for this reason it’s crucial to keep an eye on a number of key measures to stay up to date with how your business is doing.

1.  Revenue and profit

The first thing to look at is revenue and profit. For any business online or not the lifeblood is cash-flow and revenue and profit should be monitored regularly. Pretty much every ecommerce platform will give you easy access to monthly revenue stats. Costs are harder to monitor and for that reason I like to use an online accounting platform like Xero or Wave Accounting so you can get your costs, revenue and full profit figures all in the one place.

One Kings Lane CEO: 5 current trends within the e-commerce space

After being the first to launch a flash sale site in the home market—an idea that not everyone thought would work—in 2009, One Kings Lane is now the second most-visited premium home décor site on the web.

With more than 5 million members, $100 million in revenue in 2011 (up 300% from 2010), One Kings Lane is a rocket ship of e-commerce success, and today at the Online Merchandising Workshop, attendees were treated to some insights from two of the leaders of its “e-commerce dream team”, CEO Doug Mack and VP of Marketing Jim Kingsbury.

More Google Shopping news: Comparison Shopping Engines are in the mix!

One of the e-commerce experts at ChannelAdvisor uncovered some interesting data that led us to an important discovery about the new Google Shopping / PLA.  Before we jump into the details, let me explain how we discovered it, the CSI work that led to it and then what it means for retailers.

How did we discover this?