Elastic Path is running an Ecommerce Tip of the Week series on the Elastic Path home page, with archives on our Youtube Channel.
This week’s video is on mobile websites vs. mobile applications and features Elastic Path’s Peter Sheldon.
RSS and email subscribers, can’t see video? View this post on the web.
Video Transcript:
Mobile commerce is growing…
February was a short month, but there was no shortage of great articles popping up around the blogosphere. Blogger’s Digest is Get Elastic’s monthly roundup of can’t miss posts from Linda’s RSS reader.
This post is a recap of yesterday’s webinar Ecommerce for Technology Vendors: Maximizing Your Online Channel. The replay is now available on-demand at www.elasticpath.com/software/.
The webinar is the first in a series of software and technology related topics based on the top issues we have found working with and speaking to enterprise firms in this industry. In the webinar we took a deep-dive into the issue of “owning the conversation” and bringing all relevant content and information to bear on each transaction…
Those moving to cloud computing are doing so around the promise of more effective and efficient computing. Indeed, cloud computing is not a revolution in computing, but a simple platform change that holds the potential to reduce our need for a huge amount of software and hardware to support our ecommerce systems. However, the intersection is a bit more difficult to find.
First, since this is really the first blog to explore the value of cloud computing within the world of ecommerce, let’s put forth a general definition of cloud computing…
Product configurators are becoming more and more common as manufacturers take advantage of consumers’ hunger for personalized goods. One category where this is particularly popular is shoes.
Brands like Vans, K Swiss, Etnies, Shoes of Prey, Puma, Converse, Reebok and Timberland are a few examples.
I while back I had a chat with Heather Frost, Ecommerce Merchandise Manager from Timberland to discuss Timberland’s product configurator…
Persuasion Architecture, developed by conversion optimization gurus Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, is a persona-based approach to marketing. If you know a customer’s “buying modality” (Competitive, Spontaneous, Methodical or Humanistic), you can tailor your design, copy and direct marketing to best persuade that type of personality.
It would be ideal to segment an email list by personality type…
I received an email from Esprit, one of the apparel few retailers I have bothered to sign up for a loyalty card with. Upon sign up I was opted-in to Esprit’s email program, and received this offer yesterday:
What’s wrong with this picture?
Esprit is offering 30% off all items, including new arrivals. While this looks like a sweet deal for me, it makes me shake my head at Esprit…
According to a study by the e-tailing group on consumer comparison shopping:
63% of consumers say they would like to see competitors’ prices on a retailer’s site
78% would likely return to a site that shows competitors’ prices
36% would be “much more loyal” to a retailer who displays price comparison
“Savvy consumers are using the Internet to find [...]
…
Buried within every analytics tool is an often overlooked piece of data – the breakdown of operating systems your visitors are using. Most web analysts don’t pay much attention to it. Some web designers use it as a reference, web pages may look different on different operating systems, and it’s good to know which are important to test before launch.
But this data has great application for software and technology vendors who sell products that have operating system requirements…
The long wait is over, the New Get Elastic (as promised last September) is ready to launch on Monday. Not only have we given the blog a glamorous makeover (including a new logo), we’re very excited to announce we are diversifying our topics to include technical content of interest to ecommerce developers. You’ll be hearing from our Chief Technical Officer, Michael Vax as well as rock star columnists David Linthicum and Armando Roggio…
Had to pass this along, an excellent presentation by Dr. Flint McLaughlin of Marketing Experiments from the 2010 Marketing Sherpa Email Summit: The Five Best Ways to Optimize Email Response.
In just 45 minutes you’ll see case studies for email creative, sending frequency, subject lines and headlines and some valuable live optimization for Summit attendees. You’ll be surprised which tests drove the highest click through and revenue – which is what your email marketing ultimately is trying to achieve…
As a thank you to our valued Get Elastic readers, we’re offering you our Friends and Family discount code for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store.
The code is good for 15% off any purchase, no minimum! (Excluding Red Mittens, Petro Canada glasses and video games. Ends February 14th.)
For our US readers, use the code EPFRIENDS2010US at the US Olympic Store.
The rest of the world, use EPFRIENDS2010 at the Olympic Store…
I recently caught the replay of a web clinic presented by Marketing Experiments titled Affiliate Marketing: Tests and tactics that increased clicks and leads by 165%. The presentation is full of great tips for both retailers and affiliates and I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but there was one point that stood out as a really novel idea:
“Solicit advice from your affiliates, many are seasoned online marketers who can offer you valuable insight on what does and does not work…
No shortage of amazing blog posts to link to this month, was tough to narrow it down. Here’s a list of my favorite ecommerce related posts in January. Enjoy.
Rishi Rawat of the Retail In The Eyes of the Everyday Customer blog posted a very thought provoking idea on his blog earlier this week: Could a retailer improve its natural search rankings by asking its email subscribers to Google its most desirable keyword phrase and click on its listing in search (especially if it’s on the second page of results)? Rishi calls his tactic “email marketing optimization” or EMO (not to be confused with emo or Elmo)…
This post is a recap of Elastic Path Software’s January webinar Bridging the technology and marketing divide for ecommerce success ( …
Elastic Path Software and Get Elastic are looking for ecommerce professionals to join our Research Panel. We want to hear your opinions on a variety of topics and concerns for upcoming blog posts and research reports.
We’re looking for:
By participating in our online and telephone surveys, you’ll get:
Topics include:
I’ve noticed a number of businesses that operate multiple stores under different brands are using the tabbed navigation approach to switch between stores:
American Eagle Outfitters, Aerie, 77Kids
Avenue, Avenue Body, Cloud Walkers
Sears, Kmart, The Great Outdoors, Land’s End
CSN Stores
The first time I saw the tabbed approach was on Gap stores: Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime (and now Athleta)
Gap’s innovation was to use one universal cart for all brands, for a seamless shopping experience and low flat-rate shipping…
Linda’s Note: The following is a guest post by Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy.
The shopping cart abandonment rate is a key metric every ecommerce team should track. When viewed across the ecommerce sector, changes in the abandonment rate give insight into mass changes in behavior which impact every website.
When we examine shopping cart abandonment rates across a large number of U…
For certain industries and product categories, product comparison matrices are very helpful for customers to make their decision between a small set of products. For example, most consumer software, telecommunications (mobile, telephone, TV and Internet) and consumer electronics sites offer product comparison. Comparison tools are helpful when the purchases are considered, where the customer is likely looking to make a purchase for one product/service only (vs apparel or food where you’re likely to make frequent purchases of the same or similar things)…
This post is contributed by Janis Lanka, who manages front-end development for Elastic Path Software.
A little while back, I wrote on Elastic Path’s Grep Community blog about our decision to change to a two-page checkout process. We piloted this checkout process on the Hockey Canada Store with the main goals being to reduce abandonment and to increase conversion. The results were extremely positive, but we weren’t content to sit on our laurels…
Is the Canadian market attractive for online retailers? Both US and Canadian businesses want to know.
Sadly, market size data is near impossible to find, as are conversion rate and average order value (AOV) benchmarks. The most recent analyst research that’s available (Statistics Canada, eMarketer, Forrester Research) dates back to 2007. Newer research should come out soon from both Statistics Canada and Forrester — we’ll keep you updated here on Get Elastic…
The stereotypical IT/Marketing feud has the visionary, revenue focused CMO barking orders at the process-oriented, cost conscious CIO. Perhaps you’ve heard horror stories of the CIO hijacking the marketing plan, refusing to implement it or worse, the entire IT staff quitting in revolt.
Hopefully it’s not that bad in your organization. The majority of eBusinesses do struggle with the IT/marketing relationship to some degree…
I’m spotting more and more video on ecommerce sites – and many of these are YouTube videos. For example, Ideal Case:
Shoeline.com:
And one of the funniest, Vat19 (yes they sell the 5 lb gummy bear):
Vat19 actually added a video gallery category, you can explore only items with videos.
But have you noticed anything about the above examples?
How about the glaring ad overlay that in some cases links to other retail sites? How about the related videos that distract your customer? Don’t underestimate the power of Youtube to activate CADD (Customer Attention Deficit Disorder)!
Though Youtube is quick and cheap way to include video content on your site, you run the risk of irritating customer with annoying ads, distracting suggested videos and performance issues if Youtube goes down for maintenance…
Did you catch the ecommerce tip on the Office last night?
Jim Halpert gave the office staff a quick update on business performance, mentioning that customers were using coupon codes online, but they were still having a problem differentiating between the letter ‘O’ and the number ‘0′. (Another tricky one is the number ‘1′ and the lower-case letter ‘l’…
I have to admit I’m a big fan of “hover” (or “mouseover”) features in web design. Anything that spares me a click or pop up window wins points with me as a shopper. I’ve spotted several retailers using this effect creatively, beyond the typical image zoom or flyout menu. Here’s a collection of my favorites.
Home Page and Navigation
Home Page Flash
Barnes and Noble augments its home page flash banner with product details and a cart button when you mouse over a product…
Unfortunately, the holiday season’s higher sales often precede high levels of returned merchandise in January. Not a great way to start the New Year. But there is a silver lining, you can glean some benefit from the return if collect the reasons for return from your customers. You may already have a policy where you always ask customers the reason for return for in-store purchases. If so, you’re sitting on a goldmine of information that can improve your product pages online…
1. Show visually where to find item numbers.
2. Provide instructions, but keep them short.
3. Allow customer to add extra input fields, or give instructions on how to add more items than your default form provides.
4. Allow customer to input quantity.
5. Watch your error handling…
It’s the end of another year, and I want to personally thank you for being apart of Get Elastic by subscribing, Tweeting, Stumbling, sharing posts with friends and co-workers, commenting and sending us your emails!
We’re looking forward to bringing you more ecommerce tips, tricks and trends in 2010 (and we’ll have a big surprise for you very soon).
Get Elastic will be taking the January 1 holiday, and will return January 4th…
You're looking at my set of tools. The custom search engine helps me find the answers to questions more quickly. The RSS aggregator keeps me updated with industry news that matters. And, in the near future, I plan on documenting the major steps and considerations used in SEM as a check list (although it will also work well as a list of tutorials).
While I built (and am improving) the above tools for myself, it seemed like a waste to keep them to myself. After all, good will breeds good will, and perhaps you'll even help me find more great blogs to follow.
In the name of good karma, all my outgoing links on this site are followed. Treat others as you wish to be treated, right? Besides, I think the authors who we read daily deserve all the thanks (links) we can give.
I hope you find the SEM News feed and the free SEO search tool helpful.
- Brett at SEMNewsDaily.com
