MH Web Consulting

National Mentoring Month and Small Businesses

via — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

January marks the celebration of the 15th annual National Mentoring Month!

Created by MENTOR: The...

4 Smart Marketing Resolutions for 2015

via — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year! Have you resolved to take your small business to bigger and better heights in 2015? Then one of the best moves you can make is to upgrade your marketing.

15 Ecommerce Resolutions for 2015: Part 2

via — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 08:04:57 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Continuing our 3-part series of ecommerce resolutions for 2015, here are resolutions 6 through 10:

6. Mobilize your mobile strategy

Before declaring the 10th Annual Year of the Mobile (kidding), let's all agree mobile is no joke. 2/3 of email is opened on mobile. 60% of social networking happens away from desktop, and ComScore reports 60% of search traffic comes from mobile. Depending on the study, the average ecommerce site receives 30-50% of traffic from mobile.

There's simply no rationale for deferring investment a mobile-friendly site. If you don't, that's job #1.

Assuming you have a mobile-friendly solution, consider 2015 your “year of the contextual mobile experience.” Investigate what role mobile (both smartphone and tablet) plays in customer acquisition, how it supports discovery, research and consideration and purchase contexts. Know thy customer and when, where and why he or she is accessing your site through these devices. Challenge yourself and your team to rethink navigation, merchandising, design and content for each context, be it device type, referral source/campaign, location (including in-store and near-store) or persona.

7. Optimize email delivery

Despite the popularity of social, email is not dead:

91% of consumers use email at least once a day
Every day, US consumers interact with ~11 brands through email vs. 9 through Facebook, 8 through Twitter
Email is approximately 40 times better for customer acquisition than Facebook and Twitter and converts 3 times higher
90% of consumers prefer email to Facebook for receiving updates from a brand
44% of consumers made at least one purchase via an email campaign

Unfortunately, not all email makes it to its destination. Make sure your 2015 email program is optimized for delivery and engagement (+ re-engagement).

1. Scrub that list. Make sure hard bounces are removed immediately and soft bounces are flagged, monitored and ultimately removed. Identify any issues that may trip spam filters. Attempt to re-engage subscribers, but when these efforts fail, remove what's stale.

2. Improve unsubscribe. Though nobody wants to see subscribers go, there is a case for making email unsubscribe easy for customers. This not only cleans your list for you, but taking uninterested subscribers gives you a more accurate picture of open rates, engagement and conversion.

3. Get permission Make sure you're not duping uninterested subscribers into joining your list by getting permission. Spam reports hurt your sender reputation, which affects deliverability across the board.

Make it easy for subscribers to add you to their address books – and include a prominent call to action in every message.

4. Use smart segmentation Improve engagement by sending more relevant messages. One way to target content better is to segment your list upon sign-up. Keep in mind that asking too much up-front can negatively affect opt-ins.

Revisit your general email segmentation, understanding that the rules and strategies of last year may not be optimal this year. For example, consider segmenting customers who always open and click on mobile into their own campaign, with content, landing pages or purchase journeys that better fit the mobile context (e.g. send to a single product page rather than a category).

8. Vamp your value proposition

It's not enough to have a value proposition, it must be compelling, match the motivations and desires of your customer, and be communicated clearly throughout the customer experience (including marketing campaigns like PPC). And it must go beyond low prices!

There is perhaps no more prominent proponent of value propositions than Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments / Marketing Sherpa. Even if you think you've got a good value prop you should take notes on this lesson which includes 6 techniques you can use to differentiate your business in highly competitive markets.

You can also download Marketing Experiements' Value Proposition Worksheet.

9. Audit your customer service

What's your CSQ (customer service quotient)? Find out with our downloadable Customer Service Scorecard and assess your experience from entry page to checkout.

10. Perform a checkout check-up

Make sure you're not committing any of these checkout sins, and revisit your A/B and multivariate testing strategies.

We'll wrap up our resolutions on Friday, resolve to join us for tips 11-15!

Getting Your Small Business Website Right

via — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Can you believe that in this day and age, only about half of all small businesses have websites?

15 Ecommerce Resolutions for 2015: Part 3

via — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 08:09:33 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Today's post concludes our 3-part series on ecommerce resolutions for 2015. If you missed them, check out part one and part two.

11. Optimize for international customers

Leverage geo-IP tools to detect location to at a minimum eliminate country-selector splash pages, and even better – to serve relevant language, product catalog, pricing and content.

Segment your email list by geography You may use this segmentation to avoid sending Thanksgiving promotions and 4th of July sales to international customers (for example), or promoting items in your catalog that can't be shipped outside of your country. You can also optimize message delivery time, rather than sending in the middle of the night.

Understand local language. Which products have country/culture-specific jargon? For example, a vest in the UK is not a vest in the US. One man's slow cooker is another man's crock pot. Ensure your search engine accommodates these synonyms, and if possible, label your categories and product pages appropriately for each market.

If your site handles multiple languages, consider using local copy-writers for not only product descriptions but also PPC ads, emails and social media campaigns.

Usability-wise, ensure that shipping policies are easy to find (where do you ship and what do you charge), provide shipping calculation tools before checkout, and suppress free shipping banners to regions it's not offered. (Don't be a tease!)

12. Stop making A/B testing mistakes

Resolve to run more effective conversion experiments by going beyond the basics of make-sure-you-have-enough-traffic, let-your-test-run-long-enough, know-whether-to-use-MVT-or-A/B. Conversion optimization can underperform when:

1. You're testing minutiae. Don't start testing button shape, size and color when greater gains can be achieved by radical redesigns and fixing known and suspected conversion issues.

2. You're testing for the sake of testing. Don't bother running tests unless you have a clear hypothesis based on fixing an assumed problem or settling a design debate. Don't just test for the sake of curiosity (red or blue? image one or two?). Unless you have a hypothesis to prove or disprove, you learn nothing more than Version X beat Version Y.

3. You're not segmenting your test or your results. Averages hide insights. Think about which visitors should be excluded from each test — returning visitors, international visitors, traffic from certain referral sources, mobile visits, etc. And consider segmenting your test results to understand which tactics to roll into personalization and targeted selling strategies.

13. Revisit your social strategy

Image credit: Brand Camp

Social strategy is hard. It converts far less than email and search marketing. Social networks are constantly changing the rules of engagement and even making it harder and harder to reach your fans organically (cough, Facebook), and it's tough to figure out how much attribution to give to social media exposures.

Image credit: Brand Camp

Besides throwing more resources at social, how can you improve your campaigns this year?

1. Break down silos between social and other marketing teams. Social can be a powerful ally to branding, content marketing, PR, email marketing, in-store promotions, merchandising, etc. If there's not a tight integration of communication between social and other functions, you miss the opportunity to fully get the story told across channels, and some teams can go rogue – off brand and off campaign. Communication is key — especially if you outsource your social marketing in any way.

Image credit: Brand Camp

2. Have a channel strategy. Understand the nuances, strengths and limitations of each social channel (e.g. earned audience/reach, character limits, media types permitted, paid post opportunities, type of engagement, etc) both at the brand and campaign level (and in some cases, by persona). Armed with this insight, determine each channel's ultimate goal in the “big picture.”

Determine which types of content are most appropriate to each channel, at what time, in what context. Not every piece of content makes sense for every channel.

The channel strategy works best with a non-siloed approach to marketing. Social marketers that are aware of what's produced by other teams can most effectively feed it through the appropriate channel, and can better feed back response to these efforts.

3. Don't start 2015 with “business as usual”. Take a good, honest look at campaign performance. Did you meet your goals for audience, engagement, sales and customer service for each social network? Do you need to revisit your attribution model in analytics? Do you need to increase or reduce spend in Facebook? Were opportunities missed in 2014 (e.g. leveraging the Pinterest API)?

Challenge your strategy from last year, and determine what needs to change this year. Don't just throw more money at social!

14. Close the content + commerce gap

Ecommerce isn't just confined to the online catalog anymore. Social networks, micro sites, interactive widgets, lookbooks, video, apps and digital-in-store all present opportunities to merchandise beyond the storefront, but to truly close the gap between content and commerce requires bringing commerce functionality to these experiences.

15. Update your site footer

Not mentioning any names…I've spotted many top ecommerce sites still say 2014 in the footer. While this is perhaps the least significant piece of your site, it's just a friendly reminder!

Using GeoIP Context to Vamp Your Value Propositions

via — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 08:04:33 +0000

By Linda Bustos

In the cut-throat world of ecommerce, where your competition is just a Google search away and Amazon outsells all 12 of its closest competitors combined, you need a strong value proposition to survive. And it's not just enough to have one, it must be over-communicated throughout your site. You can't just hide it behind your Customer Service links, or say it once in a rotating home page banner!

Recently spotted were 2 online retailers baking in a bit of geographic relevance into their value prop call-outs.

The first comes from Vineyard Vines, which lets customers in tax-free states know. Hat tip to Rishi Riwat for catching this example and including simple instructions on how to do this geoIP look-up with a free piece of javascript code.

The second example was spotted on Mr. Porter. As a fervent online shopper from Canada, I can't tell you how helpful it is to know up-front when a site ships to Canada (rather than finding out the hard way – in checkout). Knowing that instant-gratification of next-day delivery is available to my city is even better. If you don't tell folks, how will they know?

This is the type of site enhancement you can safely add without needing to test, though testing can satisfy your curiosity as to how much lift the tactic provides.

5 Pillars of Small Businesses Success

via — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

What does it take for a small business to achieve success?

Cultivate Your Audience & Drive Engagement on Social Media

via — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:10:12 +0000

By Volusion

Is your online business active on two or more social media networks? This infographic teaches how to customize your content for each social media channel and yet create a unified brand experience.

It is important for your online business to have a cohesive brand identity on different social channels that you are active on. But it can become difficult to create a unique experience for your followers on each of those channels. Our Marketing Services team has designed this infographic to provide you with tips for creating a comprehensive social media plan to reach your target audience on the different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Need help improving your social media campaigns? Contact our marketing services experts to learn about social media marketing.

Click the image below for the full-sized infographic.

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

Contextual Email Marketing: The Age of the Real-Time Inbox

via — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:50:13 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Time limited coupon codes, promoted deals of the day, loyalty program events, new product launches – these are staples in retail email campaigns.

But email response is strongly determined by relevance, and there's no better way to become irrelevant than for content and offers to expire before an email is read.

Your own list behavior may vary, but you likely don't have 100% open rate within 24-72 hours. For example, Hubspot analyzed 6.4 million emails and found only 50% were opened within the first 24 hours. 80% of emails were opened within 12 days.

When email marketing expires

Consider holiday marketing…

Avon's deal-of-the-day creative is only relevant the day it's deployed. Imagine if the same email updated itself dynamically to reflect the right feature at the right time?

Dick's Sporting Goods asks subscribers to “check back daily” (click through to the website). What if Dick's could nix the friction and pull the daily deals right into the inbox? (Remember, Web users are lazy.)

Sevenly's is another example of daily-changing featured products. “See today's designs” wouldn't require a link to the site.

To encourage repeat visits throughout December, Sephora's 26 Days of Delights unveiled a new free deluxe sample-with-purchase daily, with all samples available from date of reveal until sold out. (For example, on day 14, samples from days 2, 3, 8, and 10-14 may all still be for grabs). But to see what was still available on any given day, a customer had to enter a coupon code in checkout, triggering a pop-up. With dynamic email, a customer could check the daily deal right from a daily email, with available items populated in real-time.

Of course, it's not just holiday marketing that can benefit from real-time creative. Consider any of the following applications:

Count-down timers for sales, product launches, events and coupon offers

Product availability (show offers now sold out to create urgency and prevent click-and-cry)

Accurate and current pricing (especially when using dynamic pricing tools)
Current customer context (points balance, offers already redeemed, sales history, current cart contents)
Device-targeted messaging optimized for behavior/mindset behind each device, such as evening tablet use on a couch vs. morning commute on a smartphone)
Content tailored to time of day, geolocation or local weather

Smart, geotargeted campaigns that update when forwarded to a friend in another state or country?
Post-purchase thank-you messages that pull current shipping status and order tracking information

And imagine a campaign that optimizes itself in real-time based on the engagement of other recipients (via A/B testing and analytics)? Rather than analyzing the campaign post-snap and optimizing the next blast, the most clicked products become most prominent for later-openers within a single campaign.

Is this even possible?

The right message to the right person at the right time in the right context…far-fetched vendor-speak?

The problem within most organizations is “that sounds great, but we can't do that.”

In most cases, anything beyond basic list segmentation, A/B testing or broad rules-based targeting simply can't be done. And campaigns can't be optimized while in-play – marketers must wait until the “blast is past” before analyzing results, hoping to get the next campaign just a little better.

Though some solutions exist for count-down clocks and dynamic updates for inventory (we covered Tiger Direct's dynamic campaign nearly six years ago), these tools can't combine with additional pieces of context to target to segments or individuals.

360-degree, contextual, real-time email requires a tight integration between email campaign tools and other sources of data: CRM profile data, transaction history, site search and navigation, predictive analytics, in-store behaviour gathered through apps and iBeacons, Web analytics stitching together engagement across social campaigns, affiliates and paid search touches – and don't forget A/B and multivariate testing tools to validate personalization strategies.

At Elastic Path, we're excited to share an announcement fresh out of the NRF Big Show that recent integrations developed within Adobe Campaign and Adobe Target can now deliver dynamic real-time, contextually relevant email targeting that goes beyond simple segment-and-send. An industry-first, it facilitates personalized email on steroids.

Elastic Path Commerce for Adobe Marketing Cloud brings commerce functionality like merchandising, monetization and customer management into Experience Manager, Target, Site Catalyst and Adobe Campaign. Contact us to learn more.

3 Ways to Convert Shoppers with Effective Website Navigation

via — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:17:33 +0000

By Guest author

Nextopia's CEO, Sanjay Arora gives you tips to make your customers happy and increase conversions on your ecommerce website with a customer-oriented navigation menu.

When a customer visits your ecommerce store, there's a good chance they already have at least some idea of what they are looking for. In these instances, their attention goes directly to one of two things: your search bar or your site navigation tool. Which one they use depends on how specific their needs are; a shopper with a particular item in mind will gravitate towards the search bar and type in a product, a brand, or maybe even a SKU number. On the other hand, someone who has only a vague idea of what they want (e.g. “I need sunglasses”) might prefer to use the navigation tool, refining product groupings, such as brand and color as they go.

At Nextopia we often publish blogs about the importance of investing in optimized and full-featured site search. As the other primary reference point for your site's most driven and motivated customers, your navigation tool deserves the same level of attention and care. It should be specifically designed with your customers in mind, and tailored to meet their unique and changing needs. Thoughtful and well-implemented site navigation will generate significant ROI for your site. On the other hand, if shoppers are unable to find what they are looking for, you will see a high bounce rate accompanied by low conversions.

With this in mind, Nextopia is pleased to offer you our list of three ways to keep your shoppers happy and boost your conversion through customer-minded navigation.

1. Be consistent

An ideal site navigation tool is completely integrated and intuitive. It is always accessible and yet stays out of the way; it is innovative and yet still predictable. If this sounds challenging, that's because it is. Great navigation has to be developed carefully and deliberately. However, the overarching theme here is a simple one: the navigation experience needs to be consistent, both in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).

A consistent UX refers equally to consistency throughout your site and consistency with what users are experiencing elsewhere on the internet. The former point is pretty self-evident; no matter where on your site the user is (homepage, product pages, search results), they should be faced with a uniform set of navigation options, generally presented as a bar across the top of the site. If the navigation format is constantly changing, your customers may be confused or even left with the impression that they have been moved to another site.

While you can modify your navigation's UX, there are certain features that shoppers are used to dealing with. Be sure any changes you make to the navigation maintain some standard elements so that it remains familiar—otherwise, you risk ending up with very confused shoppers who are unable to find their products.

The other element of navigation consistency involves your UI design. Specifically, your navigation should look and feel at home within the context of your site. It will likely take some extra time and effort, but is well worth it.

2. Know your customers

Once you have a user-friendly, well-integrated navigation tool in place, the next step will be making modifications to meet the very specific needs of your customers. Navigation is far from a one-size-fits-all operation and the best way to improve your site is to gain an intimate knowledge of your customers' needs, and assess problems and pain points from this perspective.

Understanding your customers begins with understanding the products that they are looking for— the products you are selling. For example, a key aspect of your navigation's functionality involves the refinement options. While a user browsing for shoes may want to filter their options based on color, someone else who is shopping for automotive engine parts won't need this option. Getting these contextual variations right is a step your customers will thank you for.

The only way to really get to know your customers, however, is to be actively and constantly keeping a finger on the pulse of your site. There are several ways to go about doing this, the most fundamental being the use of analytics. Ensuring you've enabled analytics on your site and monitoring these closely can give you detailed information about how your customers are using your navigation tool, which features are used most, and which are not working.

Finally, the most direct way to glean information from your customers is to simply ask. Well-designed feedback campaigns which respectfully ask for participation in a short survey (or even for a response to just a single question) let your customers tell you directly what you're doing well, and what needs to change.

3. Streamline your buying process

After developing and maintaining a visually and experiential consistent navigation solution, that is optimized for the specific needs of your products and customers, the final step to increasing conversions is to focus on the buying process itself.

For the most part, this involves simplification — you want to remove any distractions that might deter your customers from their path to conversion. Such as removing the unnecessary refinement options from your navigation. Other considerations here include maximizing the use of space above the fold, and displaying the right product information on a navigation page.

A more immediate way to shorten the conversion path is to introduce “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” buttons for each product, allowing customers to skip the product page altogether if they so choose. It may not sound like much, but removing even that one click between your customer and their purchase can make a big difference in your conversion rate.

So there you have it, three ways to approach building a powerful, customer-minded, conversion-boosting navigation tool for your eCommerce store!

—

About Nextopia: With over 1,600 customers, we're the #1 global provider of ecommerce site search and navigation solutions. Our powerful technology streamlines and supercharges your sales and merchandising efforts, provides vital customer data through our back-end analytics, and improves your customers' shopping experience. Visit www.nextopia.com to request a demo today!

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

5 Things to Know About Guaranteeing Your Company’s Debt

via — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When your company needs financing, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain it unless you give your personal guarantee. This means if the company fails to pay its debt, you're on the hook.

Small Businesses Create Nearly 2 Million Jobs

via — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Last week's jobs report offered more evidence that our economy is gathering a head of steam as we ring in the New Year. Last month, American businesses added back 252,000 jobs and our unemployment...

Register for Volusion’s 2015 Ecommerce Predictions Webinar!

via — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:57:29 +0000

By Matt Winn

With the new year in full swing, now is the best time to plan your online store's strategy for the coming months. Join our free webinar to learn the top ecommerce trends and tips to help you succeed in 2015!

Ecommerce Predictions for 2015

Register Now

The new year is well under way, and it's the perfect time reflect on the biggest trends and events of 2014 and plan an effective strategy for the coming months. To get your creative juices flowing, join me, Matt Winn, as I review the top developments of the past year and share bold predictions for 2015.

In this free webinar, you will also learn:

Top ecommerce events of 2014 and a look at holiday performance
The increased effects of mobile on consumer shopping
The biggest SEO trends and how to increase your rankings in 2015
Social media: how to distinguish reality vs. hype
How to deliver WOW experiences among customers with increasing expectations

The new year is shaping up to be another record-breaker. Start it off right by joining me for an insightful webinar to help you plan a solid strategy for your online business in 2015. Seats are limited – reserve your spot today!

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

SBA Offers Online Training for HUBZone Status Protests

via — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently introduced another online training module to help small businesses and others to better understand the HUBZone program and status protests. ...

Small Businesses Create 2 Million Jobs

via — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Last week's jobs report offered more evidence that our economy is gathering a head of steam as we ring in the New Year. Last month, American businesses added back 252,000 jobs and our unemployment...

SBA Underscores President’s Cybersecurity Plan; Provides Resources for Small Business Owners

via — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Cyber-attacks against business and government seem to be unending, and recent hacks to Sony and Central Command have elevated our need to safeguard against potential threats to our online...

How Retailers Can Meet Omnichannel Expectations [Infographic]

via — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 08:04:06 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Are you ready to get phygital?

The term means what you think, phygital marketing spans the digital and physical world. Consumers are armed with the Web-in-their-pocket and are actively researching,

Click to enlarge infographic

Tweetables

42% of US and 46% of UK consumers think retailers offer different prices online and offline Tweet this

47% of US and 48% of UK consumers think retailers don't offer the same promotions in-store as they do online Tweet this

52% of US and 28% of UK consumers believe stock availability in-store is an issue compared to online shopping Tweet this

26% of US consumers and 21% of UK consumers think retail staff are poorly informed Tweet this

Because we like to have phun at Elastic Path, this week's inphographic Phriday includes a bonus graphic, courtesy of our own David Chiu.

Faith in Our Entrepreneurs Honors MLK’s Legacy

via — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, faith leaders and parishioners in communities across this country gathered to reflect on the teachings of America's most important civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who...

Meet Carolyn Annette Reed, a Guest of the First Lady at the State of the Union

via — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: This blog first appeared on WhiteHouse.gov.

...

3 Beacon Trends to Watch in 2015

via — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:05:07 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Mobile is not just another access point for your online business, it's an in-store shopping aid. According to SapientNitro, 53% of consumers prefer shopping in-store vs other channels. 81% of these shoppers want to interact with their phones in-store, and 61% want to use “any device” (PC, smartphone or tablet) to help them shop. And beacons are one of the ways to play in the phygital age of retail.

What are some of the retail beacon trends to watch this year?

Passive Beacons

MobileShopTalk's Beaconing by Request Enters the Market outlines 3 different types of beaconing: active (opt-in push messages), passive (interacting with a phone's beacon without pushing content to the phone) and requested (customer requests beacon content).

Most retail beacon implementations require the shopper to interact with an app, sending content and offers to a device when a shopper hits a certain location or dwells near a certain product.

Passive beacons tap directly into phones, whether in hand, pocket or purse, and use location information and past behaviors to personalize content on nearby display screens. The shopper doesn't need to engage their device at all — an innovation introduced by SapientNitro at the NRF Big Show last week.

Requested Beacons

An example of requested beaconing is GameStop's Shelfbucks pilot, which places beacons front-and-center with a prominent call-to-interact (as opposed to out-of-sight active and passive beacons).

The beacons serve as an access point to additional information, relevant to the product in question (with less friction than QR codes or looking up reviews on a mobile app). Requested beacons also have the ability to tap into user's context to personalize content and recommendations, while collecting relevant data to add to the 360-degree view of the customer.

With 26% of consumers under the impression that retail staff is poorly informed, easy-access pull content is a great customer service value prop.

GetElastic contributor Kevin Lindsay recounts his holiday shopping experience with GameStop's beacons, commenting that the technology was ‘seamless, well constructed, and designed to self-improve the more I engaged… (it) made me want to keep browsing, reading, and playing around with their app.'

iWatch Beacons

iWatch won't hit the shelves till Spring, but supermarket chain Marsh is wasting no time, setting up iWatch-ready beacons. in all of its 75 locations. Marsh's mobile app already boasts 33 million active users; iWatch users can receive offers and recipes, for example, or tap into shopping lists created in the app with a hands-free experience.

Conde Nast and WebMD are rumored to also be rolling out iBeacon-iWatch projects. Will more brands and retailers follow? We'll be “watching.”

Following The Franchise System Does Not Equal Instant Success

via — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Did you ever see the movie “A League of Their Own” with Tom Hanks? If not, you should. There's a great quote in it, and it pertains to owning a franchise.

Don’t Qualify for Conventional Business Loan? Understand Your Options

via — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

If you're looking to start or grow your business, unless you're fortunate enough to have a reserve of savings or a benevolent angel investor, then you're going to need a business loan.

So...

Benefits of Site Search in Google Analytics

via — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:15:17 +0000

By Ryan Noonan

As an online business owner, you are always looking to bring qualified traffic to your ecommerce website. And while this is of great importance, understanding what customers do when they arrive to the site is the crucial next step on the often difficult road to acquiring conversions.

To help drive more sales on your online store, the Site Search statistics can provide you with much needed insights to one of the many paths customers take when shopping. Using these insights can help you make meaningful marketing and website changes to tailor to your shoppers.

How to Set Up Site Search in Google Analytics

The first step to the joys of Site Search is to enable this feature in your Google Analytics account. You can do this by going to:
Admin → View Settings → Scroll to the bottom and turn Site Search ON.

In the query parameter box, you can enter the search query parameter used by your site. For example Google's is “q” as shown below:

Where as Academy's is “Ntt” as shown below:

To figure out your parameter, type something into the search bar on your site and it will be defined in your URL similar to the examples above. Once these steps are taken, Site Search will be active! The next step is interpreting the data.

How to Interpret the Site Search Data

In Google Analytics, under Behavior → Site Search, the overview tab has valuable data and it looks like this:

One can see that 7.82% of visits to the site result in site search. % Search Exits are exits from the site after performing a site search and % Search Refinements is the percent of time a user types an additional search after performing the initial search. You can also see that mulling is a popular searched term on the site. Using this information, a business owner could spend more time working on the mulling category and product pages by adding more mulling products and adding descriptive text if those pages are void of information. Also, it may be a good idea to test out some nice mulling product images on the home page, which leads us to another benefit of Site Search, the starting page of the search.

Start Page Details Data

Staying on the overview section of Site Search, this can be found by clicking on Start Page as shown below.

From here one can see the starting pages and the respective amount of searches for each starting page. As expected, the top starting page is the home page and based on the top search terms, testing that data on the home page with imagery and text is a good place to begin when optimizing for your customers.

If you want to dig in a bit deeper, you can click into an individual start page and then select the Secondary Dimension as Search Term. From here you can see the start page and each respective search term typed from that page. For example, from the image below of a spice blends category page, if you notice searches accruing in this category for certain products that you don't carry, if possible it would be in your best interest to increase your inventory.

Let's take a final closer look at what data is available after a Site Search has been performed.

Search Term Data

Under Site Search → Search Terms, by clicking on one of the search terms you'll see data regarding what a user does after typing in that search term.

The image above shows a search for popcorn and after clicking on that term one can see the average time spent on the page after the search as well as the average search depth, which is the number of pages viewed after getting results for a search term. Time after Search data is extremely useful in determining how well your products match up to a search. If a customer is searching and bouncing from the site after 10 seconds that's a fairly clear cut sign that they are not finding what they want. You can also look at this data along with % Search Exits as the two should correspond closely. A High % of Search Exits usually equates to a short amount of Time after Search.

Summary

Even though a small percentage of visits to your site may result in a Site Search, valuable information is always available. Customers that come to your site and search within your site often know exactly what they want to purchase, so using the Site Search data in Google Analytics to make sure your store is accommodating those searches can go a long way towards building a successful business.

Don't Miss This: A Starter Guide to Google Analytics

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

SBA’s Community Initiatives Advance Economic Opportunity; Key SBA Programs Cited in New White House Report

via — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The SBA's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which works to expand awareness, participation and success in America's small business landscape for underserved communities, ended 2014...

The Head to Toe View of the Customer

via — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 08:04:00 +0000

By Linda Bustos

We know about the 360-degree view of the customer: a unified account of interactions across digital and physical touchpoints. Omnichannel Nirvana. But when it comes to in-store analytics, the head-to-toe view of the customer may be what's next in one-to-one marketing. How are retailers using face and foot recognition to optimize operations? And how does this tie back into digital?

The ‘thousand foot' view of the customer

A 29-year old Master's student at University College London believes assumptions about gender and demographic segments can be made based on customers' footwear, and has received seed funding to develop his idea. Hoxton Analytics' system involves hardware (foot-level cameras at store entrance) and software that uses computer vision, machine learning and neural networks, gait analysis and depth detection. The algorithm can assess a customer's gender and direction they are moving.

Store management and marketers can use this data to make decisions on merchandising, inventory management, customer service and promotions, and answer questions like:

What percentage of our customers are male or female? Does this vary by location or time of day?
Does percentage of male/female change sea or during certain promotions?
What are customers' most likely income cohorts?
Which customer cohorts are buying what attracted to which displays?
Which stores are underperforming and what could be changed to improve sales?
Why is store A performing worse/better than stores B and C?
How are sales affected by nearby competitors' sales events?
Do shoppers spend more or less time in-store when foot traffic is high vs. low?
Do shoppers spend more or less money when foot traffic is high vs. low?
How does the number of available floor staff affect footfall and sales? Is there a positive or negative correlation?

While Hoxton places cameras at the front of a store, other solutions that use heat or video sensors can track movement throughout the store and determine:

How do customers navigate through the store? What are the most common paths?
What is checkout-line abandonment rate during sale events and when footfall is above average or unusually high?
Which displays and departments have the most throughput and longest dwell times?
Which stores could benefit from different merchandising strategies and layouts?
A/B testing: place product in 2 different locations and track dwell time in each location – where is it best noticed?
How does consumer behavior differ when shopping alone vs. with other?

Ideally, a merchant could combine both technologies to track demographic segments through the store via sensors placed throughout the store.

While this data is most useful for store merchandising and management, digital marketers benefit from an understanding of the differences in in-store behavior and online. For example, understanding the geographic market differences can help better target merchandising, offers and email campaigns. More footfall directly to the sale rack in Market A? More attention to new stock in Market B?

Though beacons can gather similar data, they're limited to the segment that opts in. Beacon data is great for personalizing an individual's experience. Footfall tracking is better for optimizing the overall experience.

Facial features

Is this scene from Minority Report far off?

Tesco's come close. Its petrol station facial scanners scan age and gender to target advertising on large screens.

FaceFirst lets you upload photos of known shoplifters and problem customers and even litigious customers, with the ability to send alerts to floor staff when such individuals enter the store (and conversely, alerts when your best customers arrive).

NEC's facial recognition product NeoFace claims to be able to identify returning customers even when facial hair, glasses or expressions change, keeping tabs on how frequently these shoppers visit a store and across locations.

Theoretically, a combination of these 2 technologies would allow a retailer to also flag “problem customers” that shoplift, return a large percentage of merchandise (or who frequently showroom).

To go even further, imagine apps and beacons communicating with facial recognition technology to apply real-time sentiment feedback to in-store personalization through SapientNitro's beacon-enabled displays, iWatch or other wearable. Mary's examining product A, but looks confused? Display additional product information. Mary has one item in each hand? Show review content. Mary's delighted as she handles a product? Show cross-sells and special offers.

This contextual data can be rolled back into the online/mobile experience, remarketing, social or email targeting. Did Mary buy the product she researched online? Add a burn pixel to your remarketing campaigns. Did Mary spend a lot of time in Department Z? Merchandise her online experience accordingly.

While the above use cases are all hypothetical, the technology is converging to make it possible.

The privacy pitfall

The technology for gathering a head-to-toe view of the customer is here (or rapidly approaching), but consumer backlash over privacy is a real concern. Just ask Tesco.

While facial recognition is in-your-face, footfall analytics vendors suggest their more anonymous approach is a step closer to privacy.

A retailer will need to determine its own degree of opt-in and transparency about foot or facial tracking and weigh that against the risk of backlash. Even with permission and adherence to any legislated privacy guidelines, marketers will also need to carefully consider execution. Consumers have low tolerance for both ‘creepy' and ‘annoying.'

The technology gap

While marketing can dream it, it's IT's job to make it work. The challenge for most retailers won't be data collection, but data connection. Most businesses rely on multiple and disparate systems of record that make it extremely difficult to orchestrate the consistent experiences necessary to make these initiatives happen. That's why one of the most critical requirements for retailers will be to invest in commerce integration technologies such as unified APIs that make it possible to bring together customer and enterprise data sources in real-time so that they can be used in unison to inform and drive your marketing tools.

For more information on Elastic Path's commerce integration technology, contact us.

The Top 7 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Mentors

via — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A business mentor is someone with a lot more experience who is willing to teach you what they know.

Introducing SBIR Pulse – Real Stories and Impacts from America's Startup Seed Fund

via — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Editors note: This blog is authored by John Williams, Director of Innovation for the US Small Business Administration's Office of Investment and Innovation.

Welcome to SBIR...

The Power of Polyvore

via — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 19:02:26 +0000

By Volusion

Discover how the social commerce website, Polyvore can help your online business reach more shoppers.

Polyvore is a fun, image-based social media platform where users can interact with each other and — most importantly — shop. Polyvore users create magazine spread-style ‘Sets' that demonstrate how their products can be used and/or paired with accessories. Every product featured on Polyvore has a link back to the website where it can be purchased. This, and the fact that Polyvore users are often in a shopping state-of-mind, makes Polyvore a powerful place to build brand awareness and reach new customers.

To further its allure, Polyvore users are spenders and influencers. This social commerce network boasts an average cart size of $385, which is higher than other social media networks combined. When customers make a purchase, they spend more and are comfortable with higher price tags. This makes Polyvore the perfect playground for high fashion and luxury home goods. Polyvore users are also more likely to give fashion advice to friends, so reaching engaged users gives the added benefit of word of mouth marketing.

Getting started on Polyvore is easy as 1, 2, 3!

1) Create a profile for your business

Sign up for a Polyvore account and add your custom logo, tagline and About Me section to help people learn more about your brand. Filling out this information and including descriptive keywords in your content helps boost your profile and products' SEO, making it easy for users to find you. You can also connect your Polyvore account with Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger and WordPress to easily share new Sets and updates.

Quick Tip: Once you have everything filled out, go to Polyvore's contact page and select ‘Official Profile: I have created a Business Profile. Make me official!' so your profile shows as a business.

2) Add your products

Add the Polyvore clipper tool to your browser and use it to quickly add products from your Volusion store. Simply go to a product page and select your clipper bookmark. A Polyvore window will appear where you can choose the correct image and fill in the price.

Quick Tip: Be sure you add descriptive product names and tags to help people find your products when searching the site.

3) Create great sets and get them seen

Creating Sets is vital to your success on Polyvore. Sets allow you to add context to your products and help customers understand your vision. More importantly, Sets are more likely to be discovered, earn comments and bring in Polyvore “Likes” than standalone products or collections on the site.

Quick Tip: When creating a Set, simply drag and drop your products to arrange them into an outfit or display. Polyvore does a great job of removing a white background so you can layer products on top of each other with ease. While designing your Set, you also have the option to add text, borders and backgrounds, and you can easily search for additional items to pair with your own.

Bonus Tip: Your Sets will get even more visibility when you submit them to one of Polyvore's ongoing contests or groups that share your interests, so keep an eye out for contests where your products can shine. Looking for even more visibility? Polyvore allows businesses to promote products, collections and Sets through its advertising platform.

Polyvore is a great place to create content, drive sales and harness your creativity, so we hope you have fun using this social network to showcase your products. With these easy steps, you can get started and harness the power of Polyvore for your business!
Have questions about Polyvore or tips for fellow merchants? Comment below!

– Allison Smith, Search Marketing Specialist

Don't miss this: Cultivate Your Audience & Drive Engagement on Social Media

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

The State of Digital Marketing in 2015 [Infographic]

via — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:04:37 +0000

By Linda Bustos

This week's infographic dissects the state of digital marketing in 2015, from device usage, to customer lifecycle to digital marketing management. Courtesy of

Tweetables

80% of Internet users own a smartphone Tweet this
37% of consumers use game consoles to surf the Web Tweet this
34% of consumers use a smart TV, and 9% a smart watch to surf the Web Tweet this
Tablet and Kindle Fire add-to-cart rates are comparable to desktop Tweet this
50% of marketers report they have no defined digital strategy Tweet this
Marketers report SEO is the top rated digital channel for 2015 Tweet this

Watch Volusion’s 2015 Ecommerce Predictions Webinar!

via — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:12:14 +0000

By Volusion

Did you miss our 2015 Ecommerce Predictions webinar? Watch the replay for trends and tips to help prepare your store for the new year!

Visions of Success: Ecommerce Predictions for 2015

The new year is flying by, and now is a great time to reflect on the top headlines of 2014 and create an effective business strategy for the new year. With changes to SEO, mobile shopping, customer expectations and more, it's beneficial for your business to learn from the past and be prepared for the big events in the coming months. But where should you start? Watch Volusion's ecommerce expert, Matt Winn, for a recap of 2014 and a bold look into what the new year holds.

Looking for the slides to follow along? Download them here.

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

Why It’s Like 1995 on the Mobile Web Right Now

via — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:05:56 +0000

By Linda Bustos

Another post on mobile menus?

You may recall, GetElastic posted

Designing Your Menu Test

Even if you don't commit the above sins, consensus in the conversion community is you should be testing mobile menus. Menu labels tend to win over hamburger icons (as in this reader case study shared on GetElastic). So make sure your test includes a few different approaches to styling and at least one variation that uses a text label.

Measure bounce rate, page views, time on site, engagement with the menu (vs reliance on search) and of course revenue and conversion rates.

Need inspiration? Check out these approaches to mobile menus. Consider testing several of these.

How to Guestimate Your Starting Costs

via — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

CSS Selectors 101

via — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:07:30 +0000

By Volusion

One of our front end web developers teaches you the basics of CSS selectors to help improve your coding skills.

When creating a website there are two essential coding languages being used – HTML and CSS. Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, give your HTML layout, design, and display variations for various devices. By utilizing CSS selectors we can create a rule to target HTML elements that include properties to accomplish the desired design. We will cover what CSS selectors are, how to utilize them, and the types of selectors.

What is a CSS selector?

CSS selectors are part of a CSS rule that allows you to select the contents you want to style. In this post, we are going to look at the following types of selectors and see how we can utilize them.

Basic Selector Types

Type selectors
Class selectors
ID selectors
Universal selector

Type Selectors

Type selectors will match every instance of the element type (heading elements, p, span, div, etc.) in the document tree.

The following rule will target all H1 elements in the document tree:

h1 {
font-size: 26px;
}

Class Selectors

Class selectors are designated with a . (period) before the class name when being used in a selector. Suppose we have an HTML document that has the following snippet of code:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We can utilize the CSS class selector to target the .quote and .author classes to give the elements the desired styles like so:

.quote {
font-style: italics;
}
.author {
display: block;
font-weight: bold;
text-align: right;
}

ID Selectors

As opposed to class selectors, an ID selectors uses a hash (#) when being used in a selector.

Cascading Style Sheets

Universal Selectors

Universal selectors will select all elements within a tag. The following example will select every element that is within a div.

div * {
color: gray;
font-size: 14px;
}

Advanced Selector Types

Pseudo-elements
Pseudo-classes
Attribute selectors

Pseudo-elements

Pseudo-elements permits formatting based on information that lies outside of the document tree. As of CSS3, in order to designate the difference between pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements are designated with two colons. For Internet Explorer 8 and below support, use a single colon. There are currently five total pseudo-elements:

::after
::before
::first-letter
::first-line
::selection

An ::after can be utilized for many things, including adding quotes to all q elements. For example:

q::before {
content: open-quote;
}
q::after {
content: close-quote;
}

Alternatively a ::before/::after can also be used to insert content like so:

p::after {
content: “The End”;
display: block;
text-align: center;
}

Pseudo-classes

Pseudo classes are added to selectors to specify a certain state of an element. The full list of pseudo-classes includes:

:link
:visited
:active
:hover
:focus
:empty
:target
:checked
:enabled
:disabled
:first-of-type
:last-of-type
:first-child
:last-child
:nth-child
:nth-last-child
:nth-of-type

Suppose we want our links to be dark blue, purple on hover, and red for visited links. We can achieve this with the code below.

a:link {
color: darkblue;
}
a:visited {
color: red;
}
a:hover {
color: purple;
}

Alternatively, if we wanted to override the link color for all links with a class of .external we can do:

.external:link {
color: lightblue;
}

Attribute Selectors

Attribute selectors are used to target elements based on the presence of and/or the value of HTML attributes associated with the element. These selectors are denoted with square brackets.

Using an link as an example, let's cover the seven ways we can target the link based on attribute of an anchor element.

a[href]
Represents an anchor with the presence of an href.

a[href=”http://www.volusion.com/”]
Represents an anchor with an attribute of href and a value of exactly http://www.volusion.com/. Note that this is case-sensitive.

a[title~=”Volusion”]
Represents an anchor with a title whose value is a white-space separated list of words, where one of which consists of the value Volusion.

a[title|=”foo”]
Much like the ~= operator, the |= represents an anchor with a title whose values are hyphen-separated lists that contain the value of foo.

a[href^=”http”]
Represents all anchors with an attribute of href that start with http.

a[href$=”.com”]
Represents all anchors with an attribute of href that end with .com.

a[href*=”volusion”]
Represents all anchors with an attribute of href that contains the word volusion.

Combinators

On particular occasions where we want to target elements based on their relationship with other elements, we will want to utilize combinators. Combinators are a lot like human relationships in that like human families, CSS has descendants, children, parents, and siblings. We will cover each of the four different combinator types in detail.

Descendant selector
Child selector
Adjacent sibling selector
General sibling selector

Descendant Selectors

A descendant selector can target all elements that are a descendant of a specified element. To select all

elements that are within a

, we can do the following:

div p {
font-size: 14px;
}

Child Selectors

A child selector is similar to a descendant, except it selects only immediate children.

Link

Link

div > a {
font-size: 14px;
}

Adjacent Sibling Selectors

The adjacent sibling selector is denoted using the plus symbol (+). This selector is used in cases where we want to target elements only when the element is immediate proceeded by another targeted element.

In the example below, the p element immediately proceeding the H1 will have the color of gray, while the color of the other p elements will be black.

p {
color: black;
}
h1 + p {
color: gray;
}

Title

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

General Sibling Selectors

A general sibling selector is much like an adjacent sibling selector, with the only difference being that it selects all elements proceeding a targeted element rather than one. The general sibling selector is denoted using a tilde (~).

In the example below, all p sibling of the H1 element will have the applied styles. However, the paragraph within the div will not because it is not a sibling of the H1.

p {
color: black;
}
h1 ~ p {
color: gray;
}

Title

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

– Alex Martinez, Front End Web Developer

Don't miss this: Web Development Apps: 5 Tools of the Trade

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

Dropping Like it’s Dot: M-Dot Sites to Lose 50% Share in 2015

via — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 08:05:48 +0000

By Linda Bustos

M-dot sites aren't dead, just dying.

A recent report released by Pure Oxygen Labs surveyed the Internet Retailer 500 Guide (2014) and found use of m-dot sites for ecommerce dropped from 79% in 2013 to 59%, with dynamic serving and responsive sites increasing 12% and 15%, respectively, with share shifting away from first-generation mobile solutions even further this year.

Dynamic serving is currently used more often than responsive among m-commerce sites, expected to pass 20% in 2015. Though responsive has several advantages, retailers are opting for dynamic serving to avoid responsive's performance drag (a major factor in bounce, conversion rate and customer satisfaction).

Responsive vs Dynamic

The main difference between responsive and dynamic (also known as adaptive) is adaptive allows you to target device-specific HTML, rather than load a single HTML file that uses CSS and media queries to format the experience.

Aside from being faster, the advantages of adaptive are:

You don't need a complete website overhaul

Responsive projects typically require a redesign from the ground up, and thorough testing across devices to ensure breakpoints don't become break points. Rather than using CSS and media queries, the adaptive approach uses device-specific HTML that's pulled by the device (client) or detected by the server.

It's likely better than SEO

A website can keep to one-URL (vs a m.site copy) for each page with either responsive or adaptive, but a faster page load speed is likely an edge over responsive to search engines, who do use page load speed and bounce rates back to search pages as ranking factors.

There are always exceptions. A responsive site can be optimized for performance, and an adaptive site can load slowly due to page weight, number of HTML options to load, or server/technical issues.

If you do use adaptive, make sure you follow Google's tips for getting your mobile version crawled and indexed, and to appear as a mobile friendly site in search.

You can design contextual experiences

While responsive design offers some ability to show and hide content to different screen sizes, laser-targeting to specific devices isn't possible.

You may want to show different content to Apple users vs. Android. For example, iOS8 has a horrid Price-is-Right feel to its menu selection. With adaptive, you could override the native selection tools for such devices to a custom method of input. If future OS versions correct the usability issue, you can still target that version to remaining iOS8 users.

Responsive wins back a point on being able to scale across devices without creating multiple layouts.

While both approaches can be labor intensive (vs. m.dot sites which can be done quick and on the cheap), dynamic/adaptive appears to the more popular choice of online retailers in 2015.

How to Guesstimate Your Starting Costs

via — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Trade Deals Would Open New Channels for Small Business Growth

via — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

During his State of the Union address, President Obama noted that “21st century businesses, including small businesses, need to sell more American products overseas. … 95 percent of the world's...

Get a Fresh Start for the New Year with SBA Resource Partners

via — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Each year the SBA helps more than one million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners with their business start-up and growth. If you have thought about starting your small business in...

Volusion Secures $55 Million in Financing To Accelerate Growth Plans

via — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:03:21 +0000

By Matt Winn

We're excited to announce a major financing deal worth $55 million to further expand our offering of ecommerce technology and services, including new additions to the Volusion and Mozu platforms.

Since 1999, we've been dedicated to connecting people and commerce, regardless of business size or experience. Fast forward to 2015, and we're thrilled to announce that we have secured a new round of financing worth $55 million to further accelerate the development of our two platforms, Volusion and Mozu, and ensure you have the Services and Support needed to further grow your business.

The financing, led by Main Street Capital Corporation, is designed to further modernize the Volusion platform, including the addition of an intuitive new admin and a sophisticated theme engine to be introduced later this year. The funding will also be used to further develop our new enterprise platform, Mozu, including the addition of new features, functionality and integrations. Finally, we're looking to expand our team of ecommerce experts to ensure we deliver excellent customer experiences for all of our customers and clients.

“This funding is a major milestone in taking our organization to the next level as we move toward an IPO,” said Clay Olivier, CEO. “We now have the additional injection needed to further disrupt the industry by widely expanding Mozu's modern technology while also better serving the small business community with Volusion. We couldn't be more excited about the opportunities in front of us.”

We look forward to leveraging this financing and working with all of our customers, clients, partners and networks to further grow your business as we continue to grow ours. Thanks, as always, for your continued support as we share this news – we couldn't have done it without you.

If you'd like to learn more, you can read the full release here.

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

Mucky Duck’s #GetCovered Story: Pub Serves Employee Health

via — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: this blog was originally published on HHS.gov.

By:...

The State of Mobile Commerce [Infographic]

via — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 06:51:25 +0000

By Linda Bustos

This week's infographic looks at the state of mobile commerce, created by

Tweetables

Mobile now accounts for 19% of all US retail ecommerce sales, 27% expected by 2018 Tweet this

This year's US tablet commerce expected to reach $52B, smartphone $22B Tweet this

Average desktop conversion %=2.06% vs tablet 1.54%, smartphone 0.55% Tweet this

Average order value via iPhone = $117.76, Android $111.70 Tweet this

Free Valentine’s Day Images for Your Ecommerce Website

via — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:58:52 +0000

By Volusion

Are you offering any special discount to your customers this Valentine's Day? Use these free images to help promote your offers on your website.

Our Design Team is excited to share these free Valentine's Day graphics that you can use on your online store to promote the offers or discounts. Incorporate these images in the Homepage Slideshow or on the “Sale” page to capture the shopper's attention and convert them into your customers. If you are interesting in getting any professional design work done for your ecommerce website, our ecommerce web design team would be happy to assist!

To download any image, click on any of the images to get the full-sized graphic, right click and save.

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

Ecommerce Links: January 2015

via — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 08:04:46 +0000

By Linda Bustos

It may be Groundhog Day, but make sure your marketing habits aren't on repeat like Groundhog Day. Friends-of-Get-Elastic Kevin Lindsay of Adobe and Brooks Bell of Brooks Bell Interactive are kicking off a 21-day Optimization Challenge to boot-camp your marketing habits. Each day reveals a new video of optimization tips, you can sign up and follow along here.

And in case you missed them, here are some of our favorite ecommerce stories from around the web in January.

Mobile Commerce Daily recaps the top 5 mobile commerce trends of 2014.

In Retail Online Integration magazine, our own Matt Dion answers the question will 2015 be the year the store of the future takes off?

Wider Funnel forecasts conversion rate optimization trends for 2015. Hint: expect more testing that fuels and optimizes personalization.

CIO.com speaks to how to be an effective omnichannel retailer.

94% of companies agree that personalisation is “critical to current and future success,” how are retailers bringing personalization into physical stores?

Get Elastic author David Chiu and I comment on how to storysell without annoying your customers in CMS Wire.

Let's get phygital, phygital… Marketing Pilgrim describes how phygital shoppers rescind the law of supply and demand.

What's Google's Physical Web and why should you care?

C-commerce: car commerce? Retailmenot partners with OnStar.

Adobe shares 2 less obvious ways to leverage beacons.

5 Tips for Selling with Facebook Ads for Valentine’s Day

via — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 17:34:01 +0000

By Julianne Coyne

Looking to give your business a boost this quarter? Consider taking advantage of Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is expected to bring in almost $19 billion in sales this year according to the National Retail Federation — that's second only to Christmas, meaning this holiday could mean big money for your store.

One easy and relatively inexpensive way to boost your sales for Valentine's Day is Facebook ads. Ads on Facebook have robust options for targeting your audience, which makes them perfect for selling Valentine's Day gifts.

1. Target Your Ads Appropriately

The biggest advantage Facebook ads have over other types of advertisements is that they can be targeted to the exact people you want to see your ads. Don't waste this opportunity.

Here are some options for targeting your ads:

Relationship status: Whether you want to target men and women in relationships or single girls looking to buy their friends a Galentine's Day gift, the ability to target by relationships is an invaluable tool for this holiday.
Gender: Your ads will likely perform better if you target one set of ads to men and another to women, especially if you're using gender to supplement your relationship status targeting. If your budget allows, consider creating separate ad sets for boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives. Remember: The more specific your targeting is, the more personal you can make the ads feel, which can help them perform better. More specific targeting can also help you know which ad sets are under performing so you can use your budget more effectively. For example, men spend twice as much on Valentine's Day gifts as women do, so you may get more bang for your buck by targeting boyfriends and husbands, rather than girlfriends and wives.
Age: Depending on the type of products you sell, you may want to target based on age. You likely know your target audience, and if 22 year olds aren't interested in your products, you don't want to waste money showing them your ads.
Remarketing: If you're already running a successful remarketing campaign on Facebook, now is a great time to create a few new ads using your data. Update your ads to reflect the upcoming holiday, and consider adding additional targeting options to show your ads to visitors to your site who aren't necessarily your typical customers. For example, a women's jewelry site that has been running a successful remarketing campaign for six months or more might consider creating a set of ads targeting men in relationships who have visited their site in the last 180 days, with the goal of capturing men who have visited the site looking for jewelry for their wives or girlfriends in the past six months.

2. Start Soon — It's Not Too Late!

Valentine's Day is right around the quarter, so it's important to start these ads as soon as possible and run them until your last shipping day before Valentine's Day. Don't worry about being too late, though! More than half of Valentine's Day gifts are purchased the week before Valentine's Day, according to Experian. Get your ads up soon to capture the more prepared shoppers, but be sure to keep them running as long as possible to get the business of the last-minute gift buyers.

3. Embrace the Color Scheme

There is no better way to catch the eye of someone looking for a Valentine's Day gift than with an ad that is clearly for the holiday. Use red or pink in your ad to remind the user that February 14th is right around the corner, which will help add a little urgency to your ad encouraging them to buy a gift for their loved ones now.

Of course, you don't have to feel cornered into only using red and pink in your ads. Sometimes, a touch of red or pink can be enough to remind the viewer of Valentine's Day without going over the top. Make the choice that fits best with your brand and you feel will resonate with your target audience the most. If you're unsure which way is best for your audience, consider A/B testing two ad images against each other by uploading two images when you make your ad. Facebook will automatically separate the images into two different ads so you can see which option performs better.

4. Offer a Discount to Encourage Quick Purchases

Consider creating a specific coupon code for Valentine's Day purchases. Coupons can help push potential shoppers over the edge to become customers, and they're great for encouraging users to make purchases sooner through the use of expiration dates.

The coupon can be a flat discount on all products in your store, free shipping or a free gift with purchase, among other options — just be sure the fine print is concise and easy-to-digest to accommodate the short time period in which you'll have Facebook users' attention.

5. Promote Shipping Options

Last-minute shoppers may be leery of ordering a Valentine's Day gift online out of concern that the gift might not arrive on time. Help ease their fears by including information about shipping in the ad text. Short sentences like “Order now for delivery by 2-14” can be a great use of your ad text space and help encourage a purchase.

If you're looking to harness the power of social media ads for your store, but you're not sure where to start, we're here to help. Check out our Ecommerce Marketing Services to get professional help growing your business.

How do you plan to promote your store for Valentine's Day? Let us know in the comments below!

Don't miss: Free Valentine's Day Images for Your Ecommerce Website

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

35 Tradeshow Essentials

via — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When I worked as an employee, exhibiting at tradeshows was part of my job.

Drain Strain is on Shark Tank Tonight!

via — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 16:16:59 +0000

By Volusion

Volusion merchant, Drain Strain is on Shark Tonight. Will they score a deal from one of the shark? Find out tonight at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT on CNBC.

Volusion merchant, Naushad Ali of Drain Strain will be on Shark Tank tonight, pitching his product – Drain Strain™ to the five sharks – Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Lori Grenier, Robert Herjavec and Kevin O'Leary.

Drain Strain™ is a replacement drain stopper for sinks and tubs that helps prevent clogging of the drains. The stopper has a basket underneath it to catch any debris or hair that could potentially clog the pipes. You can easily remove the basket to empty its content and replace it again. Naushad has the patented the “Turn, Lift & Click” mechanism of this never-clog stopper. Invented by Ali for his own personal use, he realized the potential of his product in millions of home. We don't know which shark will invest but we are excited to learn about it as you are.

Here are the details of the airing:

Date: Tuesday Feb 3rd 2015
Channel: CNBC
Time: 8 pm ET/ 7PM CT

Join us in wishing Naushad Ali and Drain Stain™ the best of luck for his pitch on Shark Tank. Will the sharks bite on this deal?

Visit the Ecommerce Authority blog for everything you need to cultivate a successful online business. Visit www.Volusion.com for a free 14-day trial of the world's best ecommerce software.

For Online Commerce Net Neutrality is About Speed

via — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 08:05:04 +0000

By Linda Bustos

This post is contributed by Matt Dion, VP of Marketing at .

Retailers stand to be both winners and losers in on-going Net Neutrality fight.

The Internet has always been the great equalizer. With its global reach and ease of accessibility, the Internet offers retailers an opportunity to punch far above their weight class — to act like a much larger company selling online to a global market that they could not otherwise reach.

In fact, the Internet has become the preeminent engine of innovation and driver of economic growth. A 2013 economic study by the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, reported that the smartphone “app economy” is responsible for roughly 752,000 jobs in the United States alone, which is an increase from zero in 2007 when the iPhone was first introduced. This figure is growing rapidly — roughly 40% in 2013 over 2012. Overall, the Internet is a critical route of commerce, supporting an e-commerce marketplace that now boasts U.S. revenues of US$263-billion and growing fast.

But what would this robust Internet-driven economy look like if Net Neutrality did not exist?

Put simply, Net Neutrality is the notion that all bits are created equal. Proponents of Net Neutrality argue that Internet infrastructure providers — such as ISPs which provide home broadband Internet service — should not discriminate against the data that flows through its wires. For example, a consumer using the Internet to rent a movie should receive the same speed and level of service as a someone listening to streaming music or buying a pair of jeans from an ecommerce store. Boiled down to its constituent elements — data — these activities are all the same. Net Neutrality advocates think ISPs should simply provide a data service without slowing data down (or speeding it up, for that matter).

However, not everyone is happy with this scenario. Some companies, namely ISPs, want to be able to charge for faster Internet service or guaranteed service levels. After all, these infrastructure companies have very expensive networks to maintain and as Internet usage skyrockets, so too do costs associated with managing and building their networks. These groups are against Net Neutrality.

Take the example of Netflix, which has become a lightning rod for the Net Neutrality movement. During “prime time” hours (7 p.m. to 11 p.m) Netflix accounts of 34% of all downstream Internet use in the continental United States, according to network-equipment vendor Sandvine. The anti-Net Neutrality camp wants Netflix to pay extra for its popularity because, they argue, video downloads are gobbling up valuable bandwidth.

Netflix is targeted for another reason, too: More and more of its customers are cord-cutters — consumers who have canceled their cable TV subscriptions in favour of Internet-only video-on-demand. The same ISPs that sell Internet access are often the same companies selling cable TV service.

In the U.S., the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is in the midst of a fierce debate with lobbyists on both sides of the Net Neutrality issue (they're expected to make a formal announcement in early February 2015).

Should the FCC regulate the Internet just like telephones — which are protected and can't be sped up or slowed down — or should the FCC allow Internet fast lanes where big companies can opt to pay extra for faster speeds? The issue has reached such fevered pitch that even the U.S. President has weighed in on the issue (he's pro Net Neutrality). While the FCC ponders its decision, worried Internet entrepreneurs and major retailers are starting to imagine what life would be like if Net Neutrality fails. What impact would it have on their ecommerce business?

Without Net Neutrality, bigger retailers would, in theory, have an advantage because they'd be able to pay ISPs to guarantee the best available broadband speeds during peak selling times like Christmas, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc. These deep-pocketed online businesses would be able to secure faster Internet speeds, and thus provide a better shopping experience for customers at the expense of non-paying retailers, whose customers would likely be frustrated by a slower shopping experience.

Research shows that a 1 second delay in page response time can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. Put into perspective, if an e-commerce site is making US$100,000 per day, a 1 second page load delay could potentially cost US$2.5-million in lost sales every year.

Under this scenario, the Internet would no longer provide a level playing field to all businesses, removing an edge that many startups have relied on. Online shoppers would experience different speeds for retailers depending on whether they're paying-to-play or not. This would surely drive customers to online businesses that offer a superior buying experience.

Of course, all of this is in theory. No one knows for sure what ISPs may or may not do to the data flowing through their networks should Net Neutrality fail. And there's no guarantee that a pay-to-play scenario would unfold for online retailers. What's for sure is that speed is important factor in commerce and a faster digital experience has more potential to make money, so businesses should start optimizing their online businesses now for the best possible speed whether Net Neutrality succeeds or not.

Matt Dion is Vice President of Marketing for Elastic Path Software. Matt has more than 20 years of experience in marketing & partner strategy, business development, analyst relations, product marketing, product management, and strategic alliances. He can be reached at matt.dion@elasticpath.com.

Perfect Valentine’s Gift Ideas for Her

via — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 17:29:45 +0000

By Volusion

Looking for the perfect valentine's day gift for the women in your life? We have rounded up some of our favorites gifts sold by Volusion stores.

Seven Seas Pearls – Keishi South Sea Pearl & Diamond Necklace
Artware – Candles by Jason Middlebrook
The ZigZag Stripe – Rose Gold Watch
Robert Matthew – Robert Matthew Bella Floral Scarf
Soapmarket – Laurel Denise XOXO Tag Necklace
American Turquoise Jewelry – American Royston Turquoise & Sterling Silver Cuff Bracelet
Seven Seas Pearls – Tahitian Pearl Sapphire Solo Necklace
Stitch – Monogrammed Wristlet Clutch

Do you sell products that would be a great gifts for someone's wife/girlfriend/mom/sister? Share with us in the comments.

4 Hidden Tweaks to Turbo-Charge Your Ecommerce Store

via — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 20:25:24 +0000

By Linda Bustos

This post is contributed by Matt Dion, VP of Marketing at Elastic Path.

Speed is everything when it comes to digital commerce, and even small slowdowns can have a big impact on your bottom-line. For example, a 1 second delay in page response time can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. Put into perspective, if an e-commerce site is making US$100,000 per day, a 1 second page load delay could potentially cost US$2.5-million in lost sales every year.

With a decision looming in 2015 by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) over whether to regulate the Internet just like telephones — a concept known as Net Neutrality — the need to improve the speed of your ecommerce application has never been greater. If the FCC decides against Net Neutrality, this would mean that large retailers would, in theory, have an advantage because they'd be able to pay Internet Service Providers to guarantee the best available broadband speeds during peak selling times like Christmas and Black Friday. This could out-muscle some online businesses when it comes to speed.

There are the usual tricks to getting more speed from your web store, such as enabling webserver compression, minifying JavaScript and CSS, and using image sprites. Most businesses are already doing these things now. However, in the age of API-based applications, native mobile apps, and other non-web based commerce applications, these tricks will only get you so far.

Here are four ways to speed up your digital business that you likely haven't thought of yet:

1. Flatten your SKU data model

Simplifying your catalog SKUs can yield big performance gains. Even though your catalog may have many SKUs representing every product you have, you may be able to flatten it in the data model so that databases, in system memory and search algorithms, aren't overloaded. What is a SKU data model? Imagine a retail catalog with xs, s, m, l, xl sizes. Add to that men's and women's and then 10 colors. All of a sudden you have 100 SKUs for one product. Considering that you might have 2,000 products in total, pretty soon you have a large catalog to deal with in system memory, searches and the product information database. Some questions you might ask your IT team about flattening your SKU data model include: Can you merge SKU types? At what point in the order process do SKUs matter to the business? In the fulfillment system only?

2. Caching is your friend and potential enemy if you don't do eviction/expiry correctly.

Ideally, serving a product details page would not hit the database, except for price/inventory and even those should be in a short-lived cache for the product details page.

3. Push content forward.

You want content as close to the customer as possible – from an architectural layer perspective as well as geographically for global businesses.

4. High Availability (HA) systems generally support performance inherently due to horizontal scaling capabilities (that is, you can always add more hardware to the system to get more performance).

But a non HA system (such as an EFP system) in the mix can totally ruin speed. You would be surprised how often non-HA systems “need” to be involved in a commerce transaction. Isolating those systems behind an asynchronous integration is a good practice if you can't remove it all-together.

Depending on your business, these improvements can yield performance gains significant enough to increase revenue and improve the digital experience for your customers.