By Susan D
October 10, 2012

These days, marketing can make or break an online business so it’s important to pick an eCommerce solution that has a robust set of marketing tools.  Every business has different needs, of course, but our ZippyCart team of experts has compiled a list of the general favorite marketing tools of online business owners.

1. Social Media Marketing – Social media marketing is a fairly new type of marketing that has taken the eCommerce world by storm.  Small business owners can do their own social media promotion and drive visitors to their website for ‘free’ but medium business may want to invest in a social media specialist, as there can be a lot of work involved to reach the full potential.  Great social media tools to look for include an RSS subscription, a store blog, ‘Sharing’ and ‘Liking’ products on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest, and the ability to Sell on Facebook with a free FB application or storefront.
2. Mobile Commerce – Having the ability to browse a store through a smartphone is becoming an expectation so today’s eMerchants had better be prepared.  It’s best to find be partnered with a shopping cart software that gives you this feature for free in all packages so that you won’t have to worry about extra costs adding up.  The opportunity to reach more than 1/3 of the USA population and many others throughout the world can greatly increase your sales.  Look for companies who offer free applications that support all smart phones and tablets, including the iPhone, iPad, Android devices and Blackberry.
3. Cart Abandonment ReMarketing – Shopping cart abandonment is the Achilles Heel of eCommerce and a huge problem for eMerchants.  There are many reasons an online shopper may leave in the middle of a sale so it’s important to have the opportunity to pull them back in with special offers and other incentives.  Check the marketing features of any eCommerce solution to make sure they offer cart abandonment remarketing.
4. Email Marketing – Occasionally emailing your existing customer base is a great way to keep them informed on any promotions, sales and coupon offers you may be having.  Offering these unique perks and incentives is also a great way to encourage customer loyalty and get return customers.  The key here is balance… be careful you don’t email too often!   Make sure that your shopping cart software offers email marketing or is integrated with a company such as Mail Chimp or Constant Contact.
5. Customer Product Reviews – Clients love to read what other buyers have to say about a product they’re considering and reviews are said to help make a final decision for many online shoppers.  Moderated customer reviews are great for the online shop, too, as they offer a ton of new content, which helps with SEO and ranking.
   
6. Business Blogs – Another great way to get the word out about new products or promotions is through your store’s blog.  Write up some unique content, share it through your social media and watch it drive traffic to your online store.  Like customer reviews, a blog is another great way to increase your sites content and improve SEO and ranking.
7. Special Offers – Almost everyone loves a good deal so making sure your shopping cart software allows you to feature things such as coupons, buy 1 get 1 free, seasonal promotions, discounts based on total shopping cart sale, and free shipping will help create a sense of urgency and deliver a positive response from your target audience and increase revenue.   All of the better quality eCommerce solutions should cover these basics but it’s best to check and be sure of the cart you’re looking at.

It’s easy to understand why these 7 marketing tools rank amongst the top favorite for eCom owners today.  No online store should be without them as they make life easier for both the eMerchant and the online shopper!

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

By the ZippyCart content team
August 23, 2012

As the owner of an e-commerce site, you spend your day acquiring products, marketing them beautifully, targeting your customer base, and fulfilling sales. You don’t have time to mess around on Facebook.

If you feel this way, you may be missing out on a huge opportunity to boost your bottom line.

Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Facebook has always been good at keeping people connected, no matter how busy or far away they are from each other. Now, savvy companies and advertisers are starting to utilize this connectivity to link their products with Facebook’s millions of users. This shouldn’t be surprising; after all, word of mouth is usually the most effective type of marketing. So if someone buys your product and discusses it on Facebook, his or her friends and followers are probably more likely to purchase it as well.

So how can you leverage the power of Facebook for your e-commerce business?
Using Facebook for E-Commerce

The most basic way is to incorporate Facebook’s Like, Share, and Review “buttons” into your own e-commerce site. Each time that a shopper Likes one of your products, Shares it with their friends, or writes a Review about it, your product will be splashed across the News Feeds of the shopper’s Facebook Friends. (Click here to get started.)

Another option is to use Facebook’s advertisements to promote your products and your e-commerce site. Facebook is constantly improving its ad offering to allow you to better target the right customer by location, age, gender, and interests. (Click here to get started.)

You can also choose to take your business’s relationship with Facebook to the next level. There are plenty of applications that allow you to conduct e-commerce directly on Facebook (which is becoming known as “F-Commerce”). Some of these apps provide turnkey e-commerce solutions directly on Facebook while others simply let you turn Facebook into a storefront for your products, then direct buyers to your site for payment processing (like BigCommerce, PinnacleCart and CoreCommerce). Consider app pricing, customization capability, and technological compatibility to determine which app is right for your business.

In addition, you also have the ability to track the performance of your collaborative efforts with Facebook. If you already work with an e-tracking system like Google Analytics, you can use it to monitor pages within Facebook to identify traffic, trends, and revenue. But Facebook has its own analytics software known as Facebook Insights. This service can show you Likes, Shares, Reviews, and other Facebook-specific aspects, as well as the standard metrics that are monitored by traditional reporting programs. Whichever choice you make, an examination of the social media data provided by Facebook will allow you to more sharply identify your customer base and tweak your marketing strategies accordingly.

Helpful Hints

If you do choose to link your e-commerce site with the world of Facebook, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Make sure it’s still easy for customers to make purchases. Since F-Commerce is still in its infancy, some of the apps may be a bit more cumbersome than hosted shopping cart solutions that are found on traditional e-commerce portals.
• Be aware of customer privacy. Sometimes, involving Facebook in a purchase from your site may spur Facebook to send information to other users that they may not want published (for instance, if they are buying underwear online, or making a gift purchase for one of their Facebook Friends). To the extent you are able, you must monitor Facebook’s privacy settings to ensure that your customers’ confidential information remains private.
• Monitor your marketing costs. If you advertise on Facebook, you can target your ads based on many demographic factors. But as your potential customer base grows, your marketing expenses will, too — so keep an eye on that periodic payment that you submit to Facebook.
• Get creative. Think outside the box and come up with ways to use Facebook to generate business. Examples may include daily deals, Facebook Like contests, posts/links on your Facebook page’s Wall, and even discounts for buyers’ Facebook Friends (its Buy With Friends program can help with this).

Facebook isn’t just a time waster anymore. If used properly, the social networking site can be a major source of revenue for e-commerce business owners, while using its metrics to target your chosen demographic audiences with pinpoint accuracy.

Photo credit: MoneyBlogNewz

By Catherine Gluckstein
Sept 3, 2012

We all know that the winter holidays are the busiest shopping period of the year and the time that retailers offer the biggest discounts, but did you know Tuesdays were the day to find the best deals?

Guest Author Catherine Gluckstein runs Business Development for SumAll, a NYC based start up. SumAll is big data for small businesses. ~ SumAll has a mission to bring the full power of business intelligence to small and medium sized companies. Today, only the largest companies have access to the kind of tools that let them leverage their data to make better decisions and more money. Our vision is to bring these tools to everyone by making data beautiful, affordable and accessible.

By Chris Martin
August 27, 2012

You’ve come up with a great idea for a new blog, website, or e-commerce site. You’ve spent countless hours formulating content, tweaking your design and layout, and maybe even promoting it on social media sites. But when you check back in a week or so to see how many people have visited, you’re dismayed at the small number of page views. What happened?

Did you neglect to optimize your new address in cyberspace for search engines? Because if you did, the chances of Web surfers stumbling on to your site are about as good as finding a needle in a haystack.

That ain’t easy to do.

Like it or not, the vast majority of computer users turn to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to find what they are looking for. And if search engines don’t know where you are, then neither will potential viewers, followers, or customers.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, often called SEO, is the process by which you make your site visible to these search engines. When it comes to most search engines, they tend to see text and links better than graphics, images, or videos. The search engines have different algorithms that identify and compute information in order to form page rankings. These page rankings determine which page of the search engine your site will appear on – and how high up on the page it will appear.

Let’s take a closer look at understanding the ins and outs of SEO.

Keywords

One of the basic building blocks of SEO is the keyword, which consists of either a single word or a short phrase. Search engines look for text with recurring keywords, and then they direct traffic to sites that have these keywords. So if you were writing a blog about creating a scrapbook on a budget, an appropriate keyword might be “cheap scrapbooking.”

Links

Another key component that search engines look for is the number of links. Generally speaking, the more links to other pages and articles that a site has, the greater the chances are of search engines recognizing them. And the more times users click on links that lead to a given site, the more popular that site becomes in the eyes of search engines.

Tags

Tags are phrases, keywords, or sentences that are inserted into the code of your website but not necessarily its text. These tags can be read by search engines even if users don’t see them. They’re identified by their location; for instance, title tags are those that appear in the title of the site.

Metadata

Metadata is data that are embedded in the header of the page. Meta tags generally contain keywords as well as the name of the website. Meta descriptions provide a short description of what can be found on the site. All of this information helps search engines find and rank your site.

SEO Tips

Here are a few suggestions for integrating SEO into your website:

• Identify a few keywords that you think users will type into a search engine box to find your site. Then include these keywords in the title tag, meta tags, and meta descriptions.
• Sprinkle the keywords into the text two or three times per page, making sure they appear near the top of the page at least once.
• Don’t put too many keywords into one page, and don’t place them in spots where sentences don’t make sense. That’s known as keyword stuffing, and search engines can spot that and will reject your website if you do this.
• Put links into your website, and try to get the linked sites to do the same for you.

You don’t have to be an SEO expert in order to use it to drive traffic to your site. But a little search engine optimization will go a long way toward making your site one of the most popular on the Web.

“Wow! Look at my web traffic now! SEO rocks!”

Photo credits: {make.me.a.vessel}, Merve Menekse

After slaving away in cubicles for years, guest author Chris Martin became a freelance writer so he could be his own boss. He now writes about topics ranging from information technology to consumer finance to home improvement.

By Jordan Foutz
Aug 20, 2012

There are many things that eCommerce merchants can do to boost consumer confidence in their businesses. One common practice amongst eCommerce webmasters is using graphic elements to help buyers feel at ease about making a purchase. Most if not all merchant account providers and processors offer merchants security seals, buttons, or graphics to indicate that all payments can be processed securely through the merchant’s website. Some of the biggest things you can do to increase consumer confidence in your site involve graphics, design, and messaging.

While offering live help isn’t necessarily a graphic element, it is another great way to make your audience feel at ease and secure with your site.  It shows visitors that they can get help quickly and reduce the time it would take to find something or get a response from a contact form. Additionally, it allows merchants to advance their message in a way that instills confidence that the business is a safe place to do business. It is essentially the same as hiring a greeter to say hello to your online customers.

Many big brands use live chat services for their own company websites and here are some rave reviews from them:

“Live help allows us to help our customers at the most important part of the sales funnel, in real-time. If there are questions, feedback or praise, we’re always there to help”

“Live help allows us to help our customers at the most important part of the sales funnel, in real-time. If there are questions, feedback or praise, we’re always there to help”

“Our sales team is extremely happy with our chat software experience. Their wickedly friendly setup, easy to navigate chat controls and outstanding customer support have increased our team’s sales productivity and close rate by over 35%! Our live chat leads are converting into sales efficiently and quickly. We couldn’t have made a better choice”

“If you are doing customer development, want to provide better customer service, or just want to increase conversions, you NEED to be talking to your customers. Engaging through live help is the best way to do that.”

Live chat can increase conversion rates as well as build audience confidence in your site.  In fact, there are many different reasons an online merchant would use live chat.  The biggest reasons are outlined below:

• Proactive outreach – Customers feel a greater sense of obligation if they feel someone cares about their needs. With most of the programs out there, you can easily and automatically generate a chat box that allows site owners to say hello to visitors. Operators can ask them anything from how did you find us, which isn’t incredibly clear with analytics at times,  to inquiries regarding product availability like “do you have the men’s XXL unicorn t-shirt in in lavender?”.
• Visitor Tracking – Many of the chat programs out there have very detailed reporting which includes visitor location/IP, referring pages, etc. which can help eCommerce merchants understand more about their traffic so they can fine tune their marketing campaigns.
• It is new technology leveraging old school principles of trust – The internet is a new thing for most people and they have a hard time trusting it. The reality is that if you, as a visitor, can sense that someone is there manning the controls giving you a warm fuzzy feeling that you’ll receive the  goods purchased on that eCommerce site, you’re going to see conversion rates and average order sizes improve dramatically.

Jordan Foutz is the Director of Marketing at Pinnacle Cart.  Pinnacle Cart offers eCommerce solutions to SMBs who are serious about selling their products online. Some unique features of Pinnacle Cart include a quick and easy Facebook store setup, a mobile web option for merchants, and adherence to the industry’s highest security standards: PCI / PA-DSS compliance.

Photo Credit

By Justin McCullough
Aug 13, 2012

Gasp! You just might be turning away great sales opportunities with your store due to some common and fundamental mistakes! While these items may read as obvious, be sure to take a look at your ecommerce site and spot check for them.  It’s surprising how often these five things happen and how easy they are to do without even noticing.

Let’s dive in.

1. Complicated Site Layout, Link Names, and Category Names

Don’t make me think about simple things like: Where I am in your site; how to get back to where I was; or where basic store tools are such as viewing cart, checking out, and returning to a product page.  If you have a wide assortment and a diverse customer base, then make sure things are standardized in some way and have good search functionality with results that make sense. Don’t ever hide critical links behind rollovers in ways the customer doesn’t know they are links until they rollover them.  Always make primary navigation elements useful, functional and focused on the customers interest.

2. Required Logins

What do you mean I have to login to search or to update my cart? Seriously, I have to create an account before I order and checkout?  Always look at accelerating the path to purchase.  Some of the best sales flow from dropping all barriers to checkout which is the primary reason “one-page checkouts” are so popular.  You do have a one-page-checkout page don’t you?  Also, refrain from asking for a lot of data that isn’t necessary to fulfill an order.  Trust me, getting the customer to checkout is more important than turning away customers in order to have a few added to your user base or marketing list.  Get them to shop first – easily.

3. Big Text and Promotions All Over the Place

Just as bad as scrolling ticker text, blinking text, and insistent pop-ups is the farmers market approach to your online storefront.  It is actually counterproductive to have attention demanding offers of all types in every nook and cranny of your site.   Bold claims that are actually awesome – yes – please tell me.  Silly “me-too-but-nothing-special” offers do not need to be peppered in every page.  Think of it like a nice shelf talker at a grocery store that actually brings your attention to a really good offer.  If every product on the isle has a shelf talker, none of them get your attention.  Lastly, use big loud text sparingly – it does work…  UNLESS OF COURSE EVERYTHING IS BIG LOUD TEXT.

4. Generic Description, Images, and Messages

Is 100% satisfaction guaranteed? Do you have everything to fit my needs? How about the best products, friendliest people, and decades of experience?  Is the picture of two hands shaking or jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together, or maybe the beautiful stock photo model on the phone just ready to answer your call really the best graphic to illustrate who you are? You see, these are ubiquitous and no doubt you recognized each of these examples yet it’s always a default approach to small and large ecommerce stores alike.  If you can be more specific, less generic, and more relevant then you’ll see more interest in your customers.  For example, which of these hats seem more interesting?

FH-953 Northview Dress hat

Material: Smooth Finish fur felt.  Brim: 1 1/2″ Snap brim. Crown: 4 ” center dent. Band: 1 3/8″ Grosgrain band. Colors: Black, Brown, Steel Gray (shown). Sizes: 6 5/8 – 7 5/8

Note: This hat has a leather sweat band and its satin lined

Price: $140.00

Versus this much less generic one:

Shark Bay Hat

You need two weeks, a geologist, a friend (could be the same), some single-barrel bourbon, a sense of intrepid adventure… and this hat.

Shark Bay Hat (No. 3906) is a crushable, water repellent, wool felt hat in a wide 3-1/2” brim with leather chin cord and grosgrain band.

Shark Bay Hat Roll it up, stuff in your pocket, and go, all year around. Imported. Sizes: M, L, XL. Color: Black, Olive. Item No. 3906

Price: $58

5. Reasons to Doubt

No phone number or clear way to contact you, dubious testimonials and reviews, unexpected changes of look or tone of voice, and overly simple or overly complex elements of the site are all examples of things that create doubt and frustration.  Don’t do things that reduce confidence or create unanswered questions.  Keep customers focused on their wants and needs, overcoming their concerns, and delivering them toward a checkout through a good online experience.

Have any of these issues turned up in your online store?  Have you already overcome some of these? Let us know your thoughts.

Guest author Justin McCullough @mccJustin is the World Domination Expert (aka the Biz Dev & Marketing Manager) of AmeriCommerce @AmeriCommerce where he helps internet retailers connect to the best-in-class ecommerce software that runs multiple stores, mobile stores, Facebook stores and allows products to be sold anywhere online… including non-ecommerce sites.

By Verity Batchelder
August 13, 2012

Everyone knows that online video is one of the most effective ways to market your products and services.  No longer a ‘nice to have’, eCommerce sites are now expected to have video! According to ReelSEO, web sites with video that come up on a Google search have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts.

The good news is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to produce effective web videos. You can do it yourself.

1.         Make your video look good. Almost any camcorder or video capable digital SLR on the market will work. You don’t need something expensive.   You should easily be able to pick up a good business camcorder for under $600. Just make sure it has optical zoom, a tripod connector, and jacks to attach an external microphone and earphone. Most small “pocket” camcorders are not really suitable for shooting good web video.

This means using a sufficient amount of light to make the images look sharp.  You don’t need a big, fancy lighting kit. A couple large reflectors or soft fill lights can do the job just fine. If you can’t afford lights, then at least turn on all the lights in the room and maybe aim a lamp at your subject.

Also, keep it steady.  For most business videos, jumpy and jiggling video looks awful. Buy a tripod and use it. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just strong enough to hold your camera steady. Make sure it is a video tripod – not a still camera tripod.

2.         Make it sound good. When you are shooting your video, make sure you use a good EXTERNAL microphone. It can be a tiny lavaliere mike attached via a cable to the camcorder, or a shotgun mike aimed at your talent. If the location is relatively free of radio frequency interference, you can use a wireless microphone to give your talent more flexibility and freedom to move around.

If possible, have someone listening in on headphones while your talent speaks. By monitoring the recorded audio they will be able to pick up on verbal flubs as well as any noise or mike crackles.  It is always better to catch audio problems during the recording session, rather than trying to fix them later.

3.         Keep the production simple. You don’t need fancy effects, lots of camera moves or a flashy background.   A nice pastel background with your company’s logo works fine. Keep the demo stage area clean and uncluttered. Just show what you have to show.

Video is all about close ups. If the video is all about how the product is used, stay tight on the product. If the video is all about the words coming out of your talent’s mouth, choose with a medium shot or a close up of your spokesperson. We don’t need to see the whole room.

Fancy video effects are fun but not needed. Most times they detract from the message. To transition between scenes, stay with straight cuts or very quick dissolves.

4.         The most important aspect is to keep your video concise. Keep it short – ideally between one and four minutes.  Spotlight one or two features that really set your product apart from the competition. If you have a complicated product, it may be more effective to do a series of short videos than a single one long video with lots of sections and elements.

Not only hip and cool, online video is becoming an essential to show that your eCommerce company is an industry and thought leader.

 Guest author Verity Batchelder is the CMO for Vzaar.com, an online video hosting service that offers its customers complete control and ownership of their content.  Founded in 2007, Vzaar is headquartered in London but works worldwide to provide quality, low cost services.
Batchelder was previously with HP’s online photo service, Snapfish, where she launched the Australia and New Zealand operation, before returning to London to head up the Snapfish UK team. Prior to this, Verity has held senior marketing roles at Amazon.co.uk and Yahoo! She holds an MBA from Melbourne Business School.

By Jim Dicso, president and chief revenue officer, SundaySky
July 9th, 2012

Relationship marketing strategies have permeated across all industry sectors. It is commonly accepted that fostering a better customer experience drives customer loyalty, which in turn increases a customer’s willingness to consider additional purchases and recommend the company to friends, as well as to build barriers against switching vendors. Satisfied customers help drive growth and, for customer retention-focused online businesses, satisfaction is critical.

Successful customer relationship strategies start with the first contact an organization has with a customer, but the first 90 days are the most critical. During this time period, the brand has the opportunity to turn a new customer into a brand advocate and upsell him value-added products and services. Delivering a poor experience not only results in missing out on these benefits, it is also likely to drive churn in the relationship.

In order to turn a customer into a loyal brand advocate, the online business needs to give him a reason. One of the leading indicators of a customer’s perception of a company is the quality of the organization’s customer support efforts. For example, when a company engages a consumer with a personalized email confirmation stating, “Hi, John. We are pleased to inform you that your size 12 blue running shoes shipped and will arrive tomorrow,” the consumer feels a sense of brand loyalty. Customers today demand a personalized, engaging experience throughout their lifecycle with the brand. However, many brands fail to provide that experience at one of the most recurring, complex touch points with a customer, the monthly bill.

Traditionally, the billing and payment process is difficult to understand. Customers often receive surprising or unexpected items on their bills without an explanation. This phenomena is usually referred to as bill shock. There are three reasons for this:

1. Customers are inundated with information and a commitment made three to four weeks ago can easily be forgotten.
2. Customers fail to read their statements in detail – most look for the amount due and when that number that doesn’t seem right, they respond (usually in a negative way).
3. The expansion of services, products, accessories, taxes and other fees result in, well, a confusing statement.

And let’s face it – scrolling through multiple pages of usage details, transactions and various charges (whether online or in hard copy) is not the most engaging experience. If a customer has questions about the bill, there is limited ability to address those questions. Yet, bill delivery is the primary recurring touch point that a company has with its customer.

Industry leaders are now turning the less-than-enjoyable bill, statement and invoice experience into a positive communication touch point with the use of online video.  Video is a more engaging format to present a customer’s statement than the traditional multi-page statement. The video can explain account and usage information to the customer in an easily digestible manner that is personalized in both the visual and narration elements. Personalized video bills set customer expectations upfront so there are no surprises, educates the customer so he knows exactly what he is paying for and why, and more importantly, delivers a “wow” experience that allows the customer to feel valued.

Consumers are more likely to look at a two-minute video rather than scroll through pages of data; and more importantly, the video can proactively address issues and frequently asked questions.  Viewers are also more receptive to promotions within a video bill, so new features and value-added services can be offered, such as paperless billing and autopay.  The delivery of video bills result in:

• A boost in customer satisfaction;
• Reduction in customer care costs, as video bills deflect bill-related calls from the company’s contact center and decrease time spent on such calls;
• Increased stickiness through uptake in value-added services;
• Increased retention rates because the bill-related engagement is no longer negative.

Delivering “wow” experiences communicate the importance of a consumer’s relationship with a company. It means treating the customer as an individual and being intensely relevant at that moment in time. Consumers respond favorably to such experiences, particularly when they balance information, entertainment, empowerment and satisfaction, as video bills do. The result:  consumers spending more, repeating purchases and referring their friends.

Guest author Jim Dicso drives the go-to-market strategy, sales execution, business development and revenue growth at SundaySky. In doing this, he helps support the growing market demand for the company’s solution among industry leaders. He received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and prior to joining SundaySky, Jim was executive vice president of sales and services at LivePerson, a SaaS-based provider of real-time online customer engagement solutions. During his tenure, he built the enterprise sales organization from scratch and LivePerson business solutions revenue grew from $17 million to $96 million and operating earnings grew from $2 million to $30 million.

By Tomer Tagrin
June 18th, 2012

No matter how you look at it, our friends’ opinions are used for help in making decisions. In our offline lives, we will often consult with close friends about our purchasing choices – the life altering ones as well as the irrelevant ones. From clothes to real estate, we seem to always have the need for a second opinion.

Much like the ‘offline’ world, the vast ‘online’ world is filled with purchasing decisions which force us to consult with our friends and others for their opinions. From the comfort of our living room to our virtual changing room, advice is given or we scan the web for useful reviews. Unfortunately, these important social reviews are running scarce as the web is full with opinion spammers and fake reviewers which are operating with their own agenda in mind.

Because of this, more and more brands are seeing the value of integrating software and apps that feed into their pre-existing web properties as a way to collect valuable feedback. But essentially, rather than creating a silo where the reviews seem to exist in a vacuum, these applications deliver added value in terms of engagement through user generated content, data and SEO.

Use the power of your reviewers

Imagine if there were a handful of things you could do right now to seriously mitigate the chances of your company falling victim to an opinion spammer nightmare? Imagine if proactively downloading an app would help you hear your customers in a way that is productive to the company, instead of potentially damaging?

While social reviews offer a unique index about your users, cannot fully rely on your reviews as they only vaguely reflect your customers’ demands and needs. This is where a new type of software comes into play; a technology that is being offered by Yotpo’s “Social Reviews System”.  With new technology, you can help revolutionize the way users will conceive social reviews by building a social graph of your reviewers which will help you measure your exact ROI in terms of money and engagement. Moreover, this tool will help you and your reviewers to get an original and innovative experience while turning your review space into an integral part of your ecommerce site.

In other words, you get reviews from real people, real customers, that you might even know from your social world and you can rely on their advice and expertise on the product that you want to buy.

Social approach

The more we seem to explore ecommerce’s place in the fast-evolving world of business, we realize that people become more and more able to collaborate, compete and share with others their opinions. That’s exactly why having a review system with a social approach is a clear advantage.  Let your users see who they is giving the opinion, whether it’s a real person behind the review or not, and his interests and hobbies are. Extras like this will enable the buyer to make the best decision.

To summarize, having a solution that puts a social layer on top of the review space will help your business and your users make the best decisions. This new approach opens a world of possibilities and experience.  For the first time, ecommerce websites can establish a social community and get true social data on their customers.

Guest blogger Tomer Tagrin is the CEO and co-founder of Yotpo, a social review solution for e-commerce website. Yotpo’s expertise is to generate more credible reviews and improving the review experience free of charge. Tomer is also a blogger at TNW where he writes on the life inside Yotpo.

By Nii A. Ahene
June 18th, 2012

The shopping search engine, Google Shopping, has made it easier for small and medium e-commerce websites to compete with large retailers by providing them with a level playing field on the platform. With Google Shopping, consumers can draw price comparisons between brands and products, without visiting multiple websites.

Google’s quintessential new marketing e-book, called the Zero Moment of Truth, indicates that users visit approximately 11 sources before making a final buying decision. One of the most visited sources is Google Shopping.

Your success on Google Shopping doesn’t only depend on getting your products listed. You need to constantly optimize product titles, refine product descriptions, and add new products, all this while ensuring that your products make it to the first page of search results.

Here are five tips to increase traffic to your website through Google Shopping. In time, these tips will also help increase in conversions.

1. Understand Google Shopping dashboard

One of the basic principles of being successful at anything is to spend time learning about it, and the same logic holds true for Google Shopping. The dashboard provides a snapshot of the account performance although it is recommended that advanced reporting options be used to understand account performance in a detailed manner.

The Google Merchant Center, Google Commerce Blog, and the Google e-Commerce Channel on YouTube are great learning resources to understand product search better.

2. Include highly relevant, high resolution product images

The difference between high resolution and low resolution product images is that of gourmet style food and a simple home cooked meal – both are the means to an end, but the former is guaranteed to appeal to your visual senses as well.

For Google Shopping, choose the image that best reflects your product or hire a professional photographer to create high quality pictures for you.

3. Refine product descriptions

Although consumers can read product descriptions on your website, a short snippet describing the unique selling points of a product helps them in making a quick decision. Include any specials or deals in this section.

The product title you choose should accurately describe the product you’re selling. For example, if you sell handbags, a product title “ABC Large Shopping Tote” is better targeted than “ABC handbag”. Make the best use of the 70 character space for product titles.

4. Optimize data feeds

For products to appear in Google Shopping searches, you must first upload a product feed through the Google Merchant Center. When uploading the product feed, you may encounter data feed errors and product crawl problems.

Once you correct these, try and optimize product titles and descriptions by adding extra attributes, such as brand, colors, sizes, and so on.

5. Track and analyze results

Your marketing efforts are redundant if you’re not tracking data. The best way to do this is through Google Analytics. Use the Google Analytics URL Builder to segregate Google Shopping searches from organic traffic. You will need to do this separately for all products.

There you have it! Five really simple and easy tips that can be used for long term Google Shopping success.

Bio: Nii is COO of CPC Strategy, a shopping feed management agency and is responsible for day-to-day business operations as well as the long term strategic planning for the company. He has been with CPC Strategy since January of 2007. Prior to working with CPC Strategy, Nii was a product manager at eBay working on algorithmic merchandising and reviews and guides.

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By Susan Delly
June 14, 2012

If you own a business with a web presence, you are probably looking for ways attract new customers and make the purchasing process easy for repeat buyers. In years past, eCommerce was easy. There was less web competition, so a company could create a simple web page or  storefront and buyers would naturally navigate there. Today, however, nearly every business has a web presence, so you must work a lot harder to reach those customers.

One of the easiest way to promote your web presence in today’s market is to link the shopping cart on your main web page with a mobile website and a FaceBook page. More people than ever obtain information and make purchases through mobile devices so utilizing social networks gives you a stronger connection with your customers. These simple steps will help you stay ahead of the competition when it comes to staying connected.

Mobile Site

A mobile website is a must in today’s competitive marketplace. According to Internet Retailer magazine, over 111 million smart phone users browse the web regularly on their phones. While many normal web pages will display on mobile devices, they do not always load properly. Additionally, the shopping cart software that works on your traditional eCommerce site may fail when a customer attempts to order from a mobile device. To combat these problems, create a separate mobile site and choose a shopping cart solution that works with your traditional web page.  Then, place a simple link to the mobile site on your main page, and customers that surf to the normal site can easily access the correct version.

FaceBook Page

A FaceBook presence is more than just a benefit, its nearly a requirement to remain competitive today. There are over 800 million active users of FaceBook and a huge percentage of these users spend an hour or more on the site each day. You can create a simple FaceBook page with no knowledge of HTML. Using that page, you will be able to communicate with your “fans” through posts and comments. FaceBook makes it easy to reach a targeted audience of customers that want to hear your message. Using a qualified eCommerce program allows you to sell to customers on this growing platform. You can easily share specials or provide links to your main ecommerce page through your FaceBook profile.

If you would like more information about which eCommerce solutions provide the technology required to get your storefront on FaceBook and in a mobile application, please check ZippyCart’s Top Ten Comparison Charts.

By Matt Bramowicz
June 6, 2012

For many years, English has been the predominate language of web content.  English speaking viewers made up the majority of the browsing audience, and there was never any need for businesses to extend beyond their native language clientele.

In recent years, however, online trends are shifting to a more diverse global audience.  As the internet reaches more and more users overseas and technology costs continue to decline, more varied language users are not only browsing the web, but contributing to it as well.

As an e-commerce business owner, you may be asking, “What effect does this trend have on my business?  Can’t I just target English language users?”

The short answer to this is no.

If your goal is to be able to maintain a sustainable and successful business, you must be able to adapt to the internet market trends.  Your competitors undoubtedly will adjust their marketing to include a multilingual approach to cater to a broader audience.  By doing so, they will be tapping into a significantly larger resource, allowing them to grow as a business and eclipse their competition.

With millions of options online, brand recognition goes a long way in determining which businesses succeed and which ones don’t.  Search engine optimization weighs heavily on the number of visitors to a site, and by not catering to other languages, you could end up being buried in the search results while your competition flourishes near the top.

In order to at least stay on the same playing field, you should adapt a globalized, multilingual strategy. While free machine translation tools seem like the most cost-effective solution, in the long run they can hurt your business.  Machine translators are inaccurate at best, and showcasing a grammatically incorrect and error-filled website to your foreign customers will only serve to give the impression that your company is unprofessional or even worse, not legitimate.

Although hiring a professional translation company to translate your website content does cost money, it is the only sure-fire way to put your best foot forward in a new market.  Translation is an investment.  You tend to get what you pay for in terms of quality, but in the long run, it will only serve to benefit your business.

The included info-graphic by Translation Cloud, a professional translation company shows how these emerging trends are affecting businesses on the web and the results they have on the translation community.

Guest author Matt Bramowicz grew up in New Jersey and attended Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, where he received a degree in English and minored in Fine Arts.  He now works as the head of PR/Marketing and as a graphic designer for Translation Services USA, a startup translation and technology company located in New York City.

Translation Services USA has developed social networking applications
such as TranslationCloud.net and Ackuna.com.

By Ken Levy
May 21, 2012

Product recommendations have come a long way since the beginning of online retailing. There are numerous recommendation types designed to convert browsers to buyers, increase order size and boost repeat shopping. Each type can help conversion when properly placed on the page. These high-selling tools can and should be visible from the moment a shopper lands on your home page, through to the shopping cart, and even beyond the purchase. Here are a 8 areas where recommendations can be used to engage your shoppers:
1) Product Detail Pages

This is perhaps the most common placement for product recommendations on retail sites. As shoppers look at the details of an individual item on the product page, recommendations can be used to help convert browsers to buyers with interest in similar (e.g. complimentary) products. In addition, cross-sell recommendations can help shoppers find additional products and increase order size.

2) Search Results

Search result pages represent a terrific opportunity to cross-sell and upsell merchandise.. Recommendations that are found here enable the search to be broader than the text description allowed for. For instance, if a visitor searches for sundresses, the recommendations show items similar to sundresses that may not include the term sundress, as well as products commonly bought with sundresses.

3) Shopping Cart

Don’t assume the shopping cart page means the online shopper has finished and is ready to checkout. You should always show cross-sell items, especially on quick cart views. People access this page for any number of reasons: to check the total price of their purchases, to make sure they’ve entered the correct colors, to ensure the sizes are correct, to mix and match accessories. Adding recommendations to your shopping cart adds another layer of interest for buyers and helps add dimension to their buying experience.
Conventional wisdom is to only provide check-out options in the cart. However, we’ve studied placing recommendations in the cart and found higher conversion versus shoppers that don’t have recommendations in the cart.

4) Billing and Shipping Emails:

Don’t just stop at the checkout!  Billing and shipping confirmation emails are other tools you can use to cross-sell your products. For instance, if you’re sending an email to thank the buyer for purchasing a child’s swimsuit, use this opportunity to offer up specials on additional merchandise like rash guards, goggles and sunhats.  This confirmation email can be used to offer recommendations for the next time they visit your store. While the buyer may be done with their shopping list for the present online session, adding recommendations to these pages ensure your retail site is top of mind when the customer is next ready to buy.

5) User Admin Pages

Recommendations should be used across and throughout the buying funnel, including after the shopper has completed their purchase and perhaps even received their order. Placing recommended items on user administration pages such as user account information, email preferences and shipping tracking pages allows you to catch them on both ends of the sales funnel. These recommendations are truly personalized and based upon the shopper’s complete purchase history and items in the cart. A note of caution – using recently viewed items or recent purchases in the cart reduces the effects of gift purchases on these recommendations.

6) Category Landing Page

For your category and sub-category landing pages, bubble up that category’s top-sellers. This gives your shoppers an easy place to start, particularly if there are a lot of products per category.

7) Home Page

For a repeat shopper, use personalized recommendations based upon their complete purchase history. If the shopper’s geo-location is known, suggest top sellers for shoppers from that location. For an anonymous shopper, show site-wide top-sellers on your home page. The goal is to get the shopper deeper into the site in order to analyze behavior and apply more personalization. 

8 ) Personalized Communications

Basically, put personalized product recommendations everywhere and anywhere you engage with your customers. Software providers are now testing automated product recommendations in mobile applications, customer emails, ads, online chats and even Facebook and social media pages. Each touch point you have with a customer represents another opportunity to make a recommendation and encourage an additional sale.

By adding recommendations for customers throughout the entire sales process: from search, to cart, to purchase, to follow-up, you should see longer page visits, higher conversion and a more loyal, engaged shopper.

Ken Levy, CEO and co-founder of 4-Tell, a product recommendation service, is passionate about helping his customers give their online shoppers the best experience possible. To reach him, email Ken@4-Tell.com or visit www.4-tell.com.

January 5, 2012
By Myron.com

The Internet is king these days, and fewer companies can come up with good enough reasons not to offer their products online. The few companies that haven’t adopted online shopping are more likely to lose business as the interest in shopping electronically grows.

Borders Bookstores, America’s second largest book selling chain, recently had to close its doors for good, due in large part to their late introduction into the online business. While Amazon grew in popularity due to its convenience and pricing, Borders failed to respond, and as e-readers began taking over large portions of the market, Borders ignored the warning signs. This all resulted in crippling debt that forced the major chain to liquidate and shut down.

Internet sales can contribute to a huge portion of a company’s profit. Conversely, the lack of that option can result in a loss of sales. It is important, therefore, to make sure that your business not only has an e-commerce component, but also that these sales possibilities are easily recognizable to the average consumer.

Consider getting the word out about your online department through the use of free giveaways and promotional products. By adding your URL to promotional products, you will give potential customers an easy way to visit and shop on your website.

It’s important to have the right address on the product. If your main web page does not have easy access to your online shopping section, it may be a better idea to print the URL for your online shopping section instead or fix your website to make it easier to navigate.

You should also make sure the promotional product you print the web address on is appropriate for the occasion. If your company sells paper goods but you print the URL on a coffee mug, the connection won’t be drawn and the URL will go to waste. Place it on something more applicable and useful, like a pen or a pad of note-taking paper. This will allow customers to write down what they’re looking for and have the address handy when it comes time to order.

Myron manufactures quality custom promotional products and works with closely with business to integrate these items in their marketing mix. Check out Myron.com to contact a customer representative or visit their blog if you have any questions on how you can promote your business.