The evolution of FringeSport?s KPIs
March 16, 2016 3:06 pm
How do you run your business? What numbers are meaningful, and on what intervals do you review them?When FringeSport was a side project, I mainly looked at revenue and gross product margin after projected shipping costs. I reviewed revenue whenever we got excited, which was daily or hourly, and margin rarely ? usually only when we were pricing a new product.The reason we chose these two metrics was tha
20 Helpful Plugins for a WordPress Blog, for Ecommerce
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Writing a blog can be a good way of providing your shoppers with useful product information while also establishing your expertise.
Here is a list of helpful plugins to customize a WordPress blog. There are plugins to manage your content, improve your site speed, optimize your pages, engage your readers, and add ecommerce solutions.
Plugins for a WordPress Blog
Editorial Calendar. This editori
How to Make Videos Accessible for Blind, Disabled Users
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Making videos accessible for blind and disabled users involves three components: the visual content, the audio content, and the player itself. PayPal offers an accessible HTML5 video player, as does YouTube and several others.A video is a compelling option when you want to demonstrate a product or show off its features. But a video can cause accessibility challenges. They aren’t insurmountable, b
SEO: Getting More vs. Losing Ground
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Search engine optimization can create more traffic and sales. It can also provide insight for other, non-SEO activities. Google’s Keyword Planner can help with both.Every company needs more of something. Maybe your company?s goals focus on more customers. Or maybe it?s more conversions. Whether it?s more sales, more leads, more registrations, more items sold per transaction, it?s always more. Tha
SEO: AMP for Ecommerce
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
News on the mobile web is now four times faster, thanks to Google?s Accelerated Mobile Pages.
AMP, as the project is known, is targeted at Google mobile searchers looking for long-form editorial content. Mobile searchers experience AMP pages when they go to Google?s mobile search results, which?now show a carousel filled with AMP-enabled news content.
A sample?of a Google AMP search result. S
How to select a new ecommerce platform
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
In “Why change ecommerce platforms?,” my post last month, I discussed my decision to switch ecommerce platforms ? from Volusion to Bigcommerce ? in the fall of 2013. I made that decision based on several things that I felt were holding us back. Since the migration, I?ve talked to dozens of folks who have felt the similar pain points with their current provider. They’ve asked what they
What HTML5 Means for Ecommerce Merchants
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
What is one thing all?ecommerce stores have in common? They use HTML. In fact, just about every website uses HTML. That means when an update to HTML comes out, it has far-reaching effects.What Is HTML?HTML ??HyperText Markup Language ? describes how a web page is structured. A web browser ? e.g., Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer ? uses that description to render the page on your screen.For example, a
How to Run a Proper Online Contest
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Contests can build awareness and help grow lists for future marketing. Moonray’s, a seller of landscape accessories, runs sweepstakes on Facebook. Folks simply enter for a chance to win.A well run online contest can bolster your social media following, energize loyal customers, collect information about the folks who enter, and help build lists for further marketing.Contest marketing uses contest
Image Recognition APIs May Help Ecommerce
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
A pair of new image-analysis solutions could open the door for powerful ecommerce and retail applications that significantly improve shopping experiences or create new marketing opportunities.On Feb. 18, 2016, Google released the beta version of its image recognition service as a public, paid application programing interface called Cloud Vision API.Google Cloud Vision APIOpen to everyone, Cloud Vision
Pop-ups bad for the web, bad for business
March 14, 2016 4:24 pm
Our company is approached frequently by app makers that are selling pop-ups, or modals, for our ecommerce site. The pitch is usually the same: Use our pop-up to get more email subscribers, close more deals, and keep visitors on your website. But the question isn’t which app to go with. It’s whether we should use pop-ups at all.Let me first separate categories of pop-ups. There are user-expe