The E-Commerce Blog

Are you ready for the holiday shopping season? Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here soon, and you better have your site ready now because people are out in force shopping online so they don’t have to get stuck in traffic jams and hectic malls getting last-minute gifts.

Here are a few tips to help you get ready:

• Make sure your website is error-free.
  There’s nothing worse than getting halfway into the busiest season of the year only to find out that you have an error on your shopping cart pages. Test your entire site for errors, misspellings and inaccuracies.

• Make sure your website is error-free
  There’s nothing worse than getting halfway into the busiest season of the year only to find out that you have an error on your shopping cart pages. Test your entire site for errors, misspellings and inaccuracies.

• Review your Pay-Per-Click Campaigns
  Check your Pay-Per-Click campaigns to make sure that you are bidding on all the appropriate terms, and make sure you have conversion tracking setup to test your campaign’s effectiveness.

• Dust off your email list
  If you haven’t seen an email newsletter lately, now is the time. Make sure you have an opt-im list and start promoting your seasonal specials to your customers and newsletter subscribers.

• Check your search engine rankings
  Check your ranking in the major search engines. It’s a little late to get a large improvement before the holiday season, but you can make small changes that will have an impact. Even moving up one position can make a big difference in overall sales.

• Check with your suppliers
  Make sure your suppliers have ample inventory for the holiday season, and place orders to fill in any inventory you are low on now. As December comes closer, many suppliers will begin having shortages and will be shipping slow because of the volume.

• Update your return and shipping policies
  Let your customers know about your holiday return policy and shipping policy. When is the last day they can order and still have their items for Christmas? What if they need to return after the new year?

• Update your home page
  Make seasonal changes to your website and home page layouts to show off new colors and specials. Show your customers your holiday spirit.

Here is a great post on why confirmation emails are so important.

Lesson: Don’t miss a chance to connect to your customers! Use every communication to build that relationship.

Do ugly websites sell more than professionally designed websites? Some people tend to believe that ugly websites are as effective, or more effective, than their professionally designed counterparts.

I think good design is more than just graphics - user interface, layout, typography, graphics, content and usability all work together to make a design good or bad. Still, the number of successful ugly ducklings out there suggest there is something more that affects conversion. Most professionals the e-commerce and web development will tell you the design and marketing of a website determine its success, but that’s just not the case.

First and foremost, the product determines a website’s success. If the website’s product or service appeals to people, it will probably be successful (unless it’s just too hard to use).

So if you’re concerned that your conversion rate is low and nothing you do to your design seems to help, take a look at your products and target market. Do they match? Do people want what you’re selling?

As both an e-commerce store owner and e-commerce & online marketing consultant, I face e-commerce issues from two sides daily. Since 1999 I have been building and managing e-commerce businesses for myself and clients, and I have decided to share some of the knowledge I have acquired.

This blog will be focused on e-commerce and will provide reviews, tips, articles and news related to running a successful e-commerce business. I will write about everything from warehousing and drop-shipping to pay-per-click marketing.

I will share my personal experience (including failures) and from time to time, I will bring on experts and industry leaders and interview them to get their insight.