Fewer than 5% of visitors to an ecommerce site typically convert to customers. In this Conversion category, we offer insights to increase that percentage. Our expert contributors address ratings and reviews, social proof, site search, product page enhancements, product descriptions, checkout options, live chat, and much more — anything to help close online sales.
Online shoppers need guidance about finding what they need, and information about the pages they are viewing. We get so used to all our friends and family being online, we take for granted that each and every day, thousands of people use the Internet for the very first time. This leads ...
Something that I often suggest is that companies give something away on their website. I believe that this is essential even for websites that are primarily ecommerce in nature. The reason is to provide a low-commitment next step, for potential customers that aren’t quite ready to buy. ...
If you thought the back-to-school season meant little more than pencils and paper, backpacks and new school clothes, you'd be highly mistaken. In the ecommerce community, it provides us a subtle reminder as to the power of teaching our customers about our products and services.
That's ...
As online business owners and marketers, you've heard the staggering statistics regarding Internet usage among Hispanics in the United States. Almost 16 million Hispanics will be online by 2007, and their collective buying power is already nearing $600 billion.
Why is it that only one-...
Imagine this. You're the publisher of a metropolitan newspaper, tasked with gathering statistics on how many people read your publication on a weekly basis. Of course you count your subscriber base and your newsstand copies sold, but do you include those folks who only glanced at the ne...
An oft-repeated military slogan is “know your enemy.” I’m not too sure if it was first espoused by Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or Machiavelli, but I’m on board with the theory. If Sun Tzu (or whoever) were alive today, he’d probably be a web marketer, and his mantra would be “know your target.”...
The web has been spoiled by scams, fraud, identity theft, phishing, email address harvesting, and spam-mail. At this point, we are all very wary of disclosing our (somewhat disposable) email address, let alone our physical address and credit card information. We’ll call this buying resi...
The retail business model that is practiced in thousands of shops and strip malls in cities all over the world is widely understood. However, many fail to understand that the Internet e-tail business model is substantially different. Some of these differences are obvious, while others only become clear later -- sometimes when it is difficult to respond to them.
Sometimes your head can be so abuzz with all these Internet marketing details that you feel overwhelmed. You don't know where to start. You can't see the forest for the trees. While there is a lot of depth to be understood, I think that Internet promotion can be distilled down to eight essential types.
When it comes to e-commerce, sometimes our normal terms become inadequate. Here are some definitions: retail, wholesale, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer.
"Internet product sales are easy," said Bob Simple, when he first set up Bob Simple's Online Shoes. Now he's not so sure. He had found three quality shoe manufacturers who agreed to ship shoes to his customers as soon as he faxed them the order."
When you go down to your local grocery store, you'll probably find Jif® peanut butter, and maybe Planter's®, and then perhaps a store brand, and possibly a generic brand (though generics are pretty well gone).
If you've studied marketing in the 40+ years since E. Jerome McCarthy originally wrote his classic Basic Marketing, then you're familiar with the "4 Ps of Marketing."
Restaurants ought to make bigger napkins since some of the most productive business ideas seem to come to mind over a meal. The SWOT analysis technique lends itself to napkin planning and snapshot insights.
Planning to start a new online business? I'm in the process myself, and thought it might be instructive to talk you through the seven steps necessary to launch an e-business. Since we're talking about a launch, we'll begin our countdown with step seven and end with the blast off.
The man is studying a narrow segment of modern anthropology, the science of shopping. The fieldwork methods are adapted from those of environmental psychology, Underhill's field when he began studying shopper behaviors 20 years ago for major retail chains.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Web Marketing Today. Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today in 2012. In 2016, we merged the two sites, leaving Practical Ecommerce as ...
To succeed, a small business website must be a carefully targeted, wisely designed, pay-its-own-way tool which adds to the bottom line. To achieve this you need to ask: What is the purpose of our Web site?
To succeed, a small business website must be a carefully targeted, wisely designed, pay-its-own-way tool which adds to the bottom line. To achieve this you need to ask: What is the purpose of our Web site?
Too many marketers work on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model. They won't. Once you build a Web site you must give them a reason to come. A Web site is a passive form of marketing: providing a signboard which points visitors to your products and services.