The widespread popularity of the tablet has changed consumer behavior, and many online merchants are adjusting their ecommerce storefronts to adapt. Last year 66.9 million tablets were sold around the world.
Even in the days of massive retail sites with thousands of products that are often "bulk uploaded" from a database, product descriptions are still a critical factor in deciding whether a visitor to an ecommerce store buys or not.
For online retailers whose brands may not be as far reaching as the nationals, creating immediate trust is often the difference between clicking on a product or the back button. And while trust building should occur throughout the site, it's most critical when the user approaches the actual purchase.
If you're asking "what is fulfillment" and you are either an existing online merchant, or thinking about it, you may be facing a variety of situations. Read more to understand why and when you should look for a third party fulfillment partner.
The growth in online sales continues to attract more entrants to the segment. But as with any enterprise, there are keys to making sure that the effort is a successful one. Sadly, so often the basics that go into making an online success are ignored and the result is needless loss of time, investment and self-image.
By 2014 the affiliate channel is projected to reach $4 billion. What is affiliate growth attributed to Many online merchants who have taken advantage of this marketing approach have seen increased profits and brand exposure.
Embracing social media eCommerce and maximizing its advertising potential can catapult a business to financial success. With popular websites like Facebook and Twitter housing hundreds of millions of users, savvy companies now use these media platforms to communicate with their customers in a more regular and personal way than ever before.
With Americans spending nearly $31 billion dollars online during last year's holiday shopping season, many new ecommerce retailers are eager to solidify their shopping cart setup and begin advertising. Depending on the shopping cart setup approach chosen, learning curves can be steep. Merchants must have clear business objectives when researching different shopping cart platforms.
Attractive photos and compelling product descriptions are critical components of your shopping cart module, and can make a drastic difference to your conversion rate. When putting your content together, a shopping cart owner's aim should be to use words and images in their various modules which provide a customer experience as close as possible to buying in a physical store-a successful physical store that is. If your ecommerce site has tiny images which don't show the item off to its best advantage, or descriptions that don't match the image, leaving doubt about whether the product solves their problem, the customer could soon be clicking away empty-handed.
There's very few marketing approaches for online retailers as effective and cheap as email marketing. Shopping carts and e-mail marketing go together, but many companies are using different services for their shopping carts and their e-mail lists. This puts them at an extreme disadvantage since they'll have to pull together and maintain two e-mail marketing lists: one from the shopping cart and the other from the e-mail marketing campaign list.
Shopping cart design, a topic that seems to have a million answers, so which way do you go?
For many merchants, designing the shopping cart portion of their site is given to a third party, over whom they may feel they have little control. "Select and forget" may seem a comforting response. But even when a merchant has made a large commitment to a shopping cart design (and most do), there are elements that are in their control.
eCommerce SEO is not easy. Most merchants focus on their product listings, which of course is where the sales (or conversions) are. But for those who are truly seeking to gain those coveted free organic listings in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines, there has to be more than a product listing. The plain fact is that search engines reward sites who have content, "good" content, the more the better. So what exactly is good content from an SEO eCommerce point of view, and how do you achieve it without creating a second job (department, business, etc.) for yourself?
Hosting over 1.5 million visitors a day, Amazon.com has developed so formidable an ecommerce presence that it effectively absorbs its competition, trading high-profile exposure for its share of the overall revenue carried through this portal. The massive market potential tempts many ecommerce retailers to sell on Amazon. And while many companies do operate profitably on Amazon.com, as with any sales channel, it is essential that online merchants go to market correctly on this behemoth of a sales medium.
Pinterest has rapidly turned into the next ecommerce playground. Monetate reports that the same-store referral traffic from Pinterest for five specialty apparel retailers rose 389% from July through December of 2011. While Pinterest's user base is still primarily female, the site is driving enough ecommerce traffic for retailers to take notice and begin developing Pinterest ecommerce strategies.
There are extraordinary revenue and ecommerce marketing opportunities in the E-reader market with the growing ad option of E-readers and tablet computers such as the iPad. According to the Pew Internet Research Center's latest report ,29% of Americans own either a tablet computer or an E-reader—a 10% jump in roughly a month's time. In fact, Forrester Research predicts that 30 million people in the U.S. will own an E-reading device by 2015.
On average, 71% of shopping carts are abandoned. This observation is the chief concern among ecommerce retailers. But progressive online merchants and those companies which support them are tracking many online shopping behaviors to better align their services with new consumer trends. One of the key questions to answer is why consumers behave the way they do so they can determine how to incorporate digital media at crucial times to influence buyers' decisions.
Mobile devices boast the ability to keep people and their ideas connected. This promise has enticed millions of people each year to revere these devices as essentials, thus demanding online businesses adapt their websites to meet the mobile market. Instead of making online purchases strictly from a home desktop, mobile devices allow users to browse the web while they are riding a train to work, eating out, or sitting in a doctor's waiting room.
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide standards for the categorization. The following types of websites, portals and search engines are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by retailers when they want to be an affiliate marketer.
Video possesses unique social and persuasive powers. One Egyptian activist noted this power during the country's revolution in March of 2011: "We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.
Online merchants evaluate their ecommerce success with a flood of data recorded online. While the internet's impressive tracking abilities simplify data collection, it takes a motivated and committed site owner to regularly analyze the numerous variables of an ecommerce success strategy.
According to an ecommerce report released by the Virginia-based research firm ComScore, ecommerce spending rose 14% in the fourth quarter of 2011. U.S. online spending reached $161.5 billion last year, a 13% increase from 2010.
eCommerce opens up the smallest business to the global market. The prospects excite entrepreneurs who dream of maximizing their companies' exposure. But it takes more than merely owning a site to make this dream a reality.
Today's ecommerce market provides a wide selection of goods and services. Unless an ecommere merchant has the benefit of an established brand presence, their products will be competing with hundreds and thousands of similar items.
If you run (or are thinking about running) an eCommerce website that has the option of offering new products, there is always the question of which ones will sell and which won't. And it's not just an academic one.
For online businesses first engaging in ecommerce advertising, the options may seem daunting. eCommerce advertising on the web implements a variety of marketing techniques including email campaigns, pay-per-click ads, affiliate programs, YouTube channels, and an established social presence.
The majority of online customers want to use credit cards on the e-commerce sites they visit. Online merchants typically need to provide a simple credit card processing system that provides a simple way to manage transactions.
Whether you are now selling digital media or not, the advantages of either doing it exclusively or even adding it to a physical product line are big.
Everyone dislikes shipping costs. Customers dislike it. Companies dislike it. Despite rising postal prices, most consumers expect shipping discounts or promotions when they make an online purchase.
