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Cart of the Week: VevoCart

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. This week, we'll hear from John Panyavorachart, co-founder and CEO of Vevo Systems, developers of VevoCart. The company is located in Bangkok, Thailand, and its shopping cart currently serves around 6,000 users. We'll also hear from a VevoCart customer, Stephen Bowden, director of marketing and operations for Tres Beau, a site that sells wedding accessories. Practical eCommerce: Please provide some general background on the cart. John Panyavorachart: "...

Ask an Expert: Tools to Encourage Customer Feedback?

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about how to encourage customer feedback. It comes from Rita Perdue, CEO and owner of Pick My Decor, an online store that sells home décor products and collectibles. For the answer, we turn to Paul Chaney, Internet marketing director for Bizzuka, a content management software company, and a longtime contributor to Practical eCommerce. He is an expert in social media marketing and the author of a book on social media marketing entitled The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media. If you’d like to submit a question, email Kate Monteith, staff write...

Accessibility Review: Target.com

Target.com is well known in the world of web accessibility. It was sued in 2006 by the National Federation of the Blind, Bruce F. Sexton, Jr., and the National Federation of the Blind of California because its website was not accessible to visually impaired shoppers. The lawsuit was ultimately settled in 2009, and Target Corporation was required to make its website accessible to the blind. How Target.com Fares Today In February 2010, the National Federation of the Blind granted Target.com “Nonvisual Accessibility Web Certification,” asserting that the website is now equally usable by blind and sighted users, making Target.com one of the first major retail websites to implement web accessibility. Since implementing the required rev...

Chart of the Week: Social Media Access via Mobile Devices is Rising

The number of people accessing social networks via mobile devices has generally increased in the past year. According to comScore, 11.8 million people used a mobile phone to access their Facebook accounts in January 2009. The number of people using mobile phones to access Facebook in January 2010 grew to more than 25.1 million users, a 112 percent increase. The number of people accessing MySpace via mobile phone has dropped over the last year, however. 12.3 million people accessed MySpace via mobile browser in January 2009. By January 2010, MySpace had lost 7 percent of its mobile audience. Facebook was exceeding MySpace's mobile phone audience by February 2009. Twitter’s mobile audience increased the most, skyrocketing 347 percent...

Quick Query: SoundsTrue.com Sells Educational Products in Multiple Formats

Sounds True is a Colorado-based provider of products and services to enable spiritual development. It was founded in the 1980s, and its business model is both interesting and sophisticated. It sells products via wholesale channels, it publishes a catalog, it offers online courses, and it has an ecommerce site with a custom platform that sells both physical and digital products. The web manager of Sounds True is Theresa Fox and she joined us recently to discuss it. PeC: What does Sounds True sell online? Theresa Fox: "Sounds True is a spiritual book publishing company and we primarily emphasize audio books, which is a bit different than books on tape. We also have DVDs, we have physical books and we do online courses and live ev...

February Survey Results: Social Media in Ecommerce

Social marketing experts have been trumpeting the advantages of using social sites such as Twitter and Facebook to promote ecommerce businesses. We wondered how many of our readers are using social media sites as a marketing channel and whether it has helped or hurt their businesses. Our February 2010 reader survey addressed the present and future role of social media in ecommerce. The survey consisted of four questions and a comment section below each question. Readers who completed the survey and then provided us with their names and email addresses were automatically entered in a contest to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate. The contest winner, chosen by a random number generator, was Hope Ann Hackett of NexTag. Facebook and Twitte...

The Metrics for Video Success

Many online stores have begun to include product videos aimed at boosting sales conversions, reducing shopping cart abandonment, and lowering product return rates. But not all product-related videos are the same, and merchants will need some metrics for measuring which videos are, in fact, helping the bottom line. The video trend makes good sense for ecommerce in general. For example, there is plenty of evidence that potential Internet shoppers are comfortable with online video. Late last year, comScore found that nearly 85 percent of U.S. Internet users had watched online video. But marketers should be careful. Product videos that do nothing more than show still images set to music could be off-putting. What's more, Forrester Researc...

Microsoft, Yahoo! Search-engine Partnership: Frequently Asked Questions

The agreement for Yahoo! to use Microsoft's Bing search platform has been approved by U.S. and European authorities. We wonder what this agreement means for ecommerce merchants. Greg Laptevsky, a Practical eCommerce contributor and a seasoned search marketing expert, provides some answers. Practical eCommerce: Please explain the newly formed partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo!. Greg Laptevsky: "Microsoft and Yahoo! announced in February that they received clearance from the U.S. and European regulatory authorities to move forward with a search integration deal. Here’s what we know so far: "This is a ten-year, search only (technology and traffic) deal; display businesses will remain separate. "Microsoft adCenter is going to be th...

The PEC Review: Chimpified Connects Two Powerful Platforms

There are thousands of ecommerce-related products and services that small- to mid-sized merchants can use to improve their businesses. But often the challenge to engaging these products and services is not funding, or even the products' capabilities. Instead, it is the difficulty associated with getting all of these diverse products or services to work together. I strongly believe that most small ecommerce businesses start for one of two reasons: (1) either the entrepreneur has web development skills and wants to use those skills to start an ecommerce business, or (2) the entrepreneur has marketing or product expertise and wants to sell online. In the latter case, the would-be merchant usually has to hire a developer, a web designer, o...

Ecommerce News Around the Web for March 5, 2010

"Ecommerce News Around the Web" is our weekly review of articles, blog posts and other news items that could interest ecommerce merchants. In this week's edition we are taking a slightly different tack and focusing on ecommerce and social media. Among other things, we have pulled together several articles that focus on creating a Facebook Fan Page that really works. Facebook Grows as Ecommerce Platform - EDL Consulting Since it achieved profitability in 2009, Facebook has begun a slow trajectory toward greater use of ecommerce. A deal with PayPal in February led to greater development of Facebook's virtual product sales, which in turn have led to the sale of consumer goods through brand fan pages. Procter & Gamble has become the ...

Cart of the Week: BV Commerce

There are more than 500 online shopping carts. And each week we feature one, interviewing both the cart's developer and a customer. "Cart of the Week" is not a review or an evaluation, but rather an opportunity to learn about a shopping cart from the people who build it and use it. This week, we'll hear from Marcus C. McConnell, founder and president of BV Software, the developers of the hosted BV Commerce shopping cart and a licensed ecommerce package called BV Commerce Toolkit. The company is based in Richmond, Va. and its ecommerce software currently has around 5,000 active users. We'll also hear from a BV Commerce customer, Charles Wolfinger, director of operations for eofficedirect.com, a site that sells office supplies. PeC: Ple...

Visual Search to Grow with Mobile Commerce

Visual search is a new technology that's likely to impact the mobile commerce space. It allows mobile users to snap pictures of just about anything on their devices and then search for relevant online content based on the photo itself. This technology is useful for mobile users who are on the go and seeking certain qualities in a product without knowing or caring about the brand name. For example, someone with an iPhone could see a shirt in a store and want to search for shirts with similar aesthetics. One person might describe a pattern in a shirt differently than another. Google Goggles Google is not the first to utilize mobile search, but it does provide Android users with access to the largest image database. Android users can u...

Order Fulfillment: "Kitting" Can Dramatically Slash Your Costs

The term “kitting” is order fulfillment jargon for preassembly of individual items into ready-to-ship kits instead of picking and packing those individual items as orders are received. If you ship similar orders in quantity, the savings potential of fulfillment kitting can be huge. A Real World Example Miles operates a web store specializing in nutraceuticals. He ships about 1,000 orders a week and offers a total of 25 different diet and health items. But 80 percent of his orders involve a popular three-for-the-price-of-two offer for his lead product. Prior to kitting, Miles had his fulfillment house pick and pack all orders as they arrived. The cost was $1.85 per order plus $.40 per item and, in the case of his buy-two-get-one-fre...

Quick Query: Restaurant Owner Uses Website to Facilitate Reservations, Promote Menu

Service-related businesses are finding new customers and new marketing opportunities online. This includes restaurants, which have increasingly embraced the web to promote menu offerings and dinner specials, and to facilitate reservations, provide directions and much more. A restaurant that has used its website to do all of this in an innovative way is manna, with a vegan-focused menu and located in the heart of London. Its owner is Roger Swallow and he spoke with us about it. Practical eCommerce: Why does your restaurant need a website? Roger Swallow: "How does a restaurant, or any business, exist without a website? We have been around for 43 years in the same location, and for people who don't know us, it's a perfect opportunit...

The PEC Review: RateVoice Offers Product Reviews with Social Twist

Adding product reviews to your ecommerce site will boost sales, drive additional traffic, and help you optimize your product catalog. In 2007, when PETCO added customer product reviews to its site, this purveyor of pet products enjoyed a 49 percent increase in sales conversions for its top rated products, according to a published report. What's more, shoppers that used the product reviews spent some 40 percent more than other customers. But not all customer review systems are the same. As a merchant, you want to choose a review solution that fits your business and your budget while providing the sorts of review features that increase sales, grow site traffic, and make the most of the products that you sell. RateVoice is a social produ...

Ten Google Services to Help Your Ecommerce Business

If you are an ecommerce merchant, your business likely cannot survive without search engine exposure through Google. But Google has over one hundred other services and products that have blossomed from its core web search tool. Just keeping up with the names of these products is challenging, let alone figuring out how you can utilize them to improve your bottom line. Let's take a look at the Google services most relevant to ecommerce site owners and some of the newer features that you can leverage for your business. Google Web Search Google's flagship search engine is still the go-to Internet entry point for much of civilization (with Facebook representing a worthy challenger). One of Google's more recent advances in search technology...

Tutorial: Sources for Free Stock Photography, Icons

Knowing where to find free stock photography and stock icons can be helpful when running an ecommerce website. In this video tutorial, I will review my top picks for websites providing free stock photography and stock icons. I will also briefly discuss the licensing that comes with stock content. [video] Stock.XCHNG Stock.XCHNG is a good source for free, high-resolution stock photography that can be used commercially. While a majority of the images available there allow for commercial use without attribution, it is always important to double-check the licensing associated with the image you plan to use. There are some images on Stock.XCHNG that require either permission or attribution. The site requires registration to download the i...

Chart of the Week: Google, Microsoft Gain Ground in Search Engine Market

At the end of January 2010, Google controlled 65.4 percent of the search-engine market, up 2.4 percent, from 63 percent, twelve months earlier, according to comScore, the web-tracking firm. Microsoft was the only other search engine that gained market share. Microsoft had a total of 11.3 percent of the market in January 2010, up from 8.5 percent in January 2009. Microsoft was losing share in the search engine market until it launched Bing in June 2009. In the following month, Microsoft increased share by .4 percent, according to comScore. Yahoo!, Ask Network, and AOL LLC Network each lost popularity in the last 12 months. Yahoo! was hit the hardest, dropping from 21 percent of the market in January 2009 to 17 percent by January of thi...

Ten Great Ecommerce Ideas for March 2010

Practical eCommerce asks industry insiders each month to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the March 2010 installment of "Great Ecommerce Ideas." "Add to Cart" vs. "Buy" "Use phrases like 'Add to Cart' on your buttons rather than phrases like 'Buy.' Consumers don’t like commitment. It is like saying 'Will you go on a date with me?' versus 'Will you marry me?' You are more likely to say yes to the date because less commitment is required." Stephanie Leffler CEO Juggle.com -- Watch PPC Metrics Weekly "If pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is part of your marketing strategy, establish a set of core performance indicators and pay attention to those metrics o...

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