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eCommerce Weekly Roundup Volume 1 Issue 5

[May 23rd-May 29th, 2009] volume 1 – issue 5

This is a light week on the articles and news with Memorial Day this past Monday. There is still some good information to check out below though. If you have suggestions, articles, etc. please send them to me via twitter or email me at dustin[at]dustinfisher[dot]com.

Improve Your eCommerce Site Now With These Articles

Use Conversions To Generate More Conversions (via smashingmagazine.com) – This is the third and final aritlce in the website conversion series that Smashing Magazine did. This is a shorter article, but still has some good tips to consider.

Mobile Commerce Usability (via getelastic.com) [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] – This is a 4 part series. Good info to consider when taking on the project of optimizing your eCommerce shop for mobile phones. With all the smart phones out companies can’t afford not to optimize for the mobile web. It looks like the last part in this series will be posted next week.

Four Steps To Optimization Success (via grokdotcom.com) – Using a exercise/weight loss analogy they give a plan to optimize your site.

12 Tips For Designing an Excellent Checkout Process (via smashingmagazine.com) – A lot of shopping cart software out there won’t let you change much in the checkout process, but if your software allows you this is a great article to read and implement.

Whiteboard Friday – Path to Conversion (via seomoz.org) – Great video to watch on conversions. What your analytics tell you is the top revenue generating keyword is not always the case.

Interesting eCommerce Articles of the Week

How To Protect Your Brand Under Google’s New Trademark Policies (via searchengineland.com)- Most people know now that Google is removing it’s trademark policies pertaineing to Adwords. This is a great article explaining what they are removing and how to protect your brand.

Social media doesn’t drive purchasing decisions: report (via marketingpilgrim.com) – Knowledge Networks did a survey on social media and they found that less than 5% of social media participants turn to social sites for guidance on purchasing decsions. Not sure how much I agree with these results, but an interesting read.

Shopping Study: Product Videos Should Last 90 Seconds (via optaros.com) – Study done that shows where the audience drop’s off when watching product videos online.

Email Marketing: Split Testing Improves Results “Up to 191 Percent” (via practicalecommerce.com) – Article detailing why you should split test your email campaigns.

Verified by Visa: a conversion rate killer? (via ecounsultancy.com) – Article talks about the problems customers are having with credit card verification schemes.

Demandware gets Round D funding of $15MM and works to answer SaaS ecommerce challenges (via hubtechinsider.wordpress.com) – Good read on reasons why a large corporation would be against the SaaS eCommerce model.

CHART OF THE DAY: Amazon Runs Away With Retailing (AMZN) (via businessinsider.com) – Good chart to look at to see how dominating Amazon has been in retail sales over the last 5 years.

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing.com was revealed to everyone. It does not go live for everyone until June 3rd. If it gains any traction in the market it could be interesting for eCommerce shop owners on how it does search.

Ecommerce Know-How: Alternative Financing (via practicalecommerce.com) – If you are just starting up an eCommerce shop this is a good article and video to watch on two alternative finance options to look at in this down economy.

eCommerce Weekly Roundup Volume 1 Issue 4

[May 16th-May 22nd, 2009] volume 1 – issue 4

Welcome to this weeks edition of the eCommerce Weekly Roundup. This edition wraps up my first month. More people everyday are starting to discover this blog and this series. I hope everyone is finding it useful and helping you along in your eCommerce journey. I know I have learned a lot from doing this. If you have suggestions, articles, etc. please send them to me via twitter or email me at dustin[at]dustinfisher[dot]com.

Everyone involved in eCommerce needs to read this article below about PA-DSS. We all know about being PCI complaint, but in about a year or so it could get ugly in the land of eCommerce. This article from The Merchant Account Blog explains it a little better and explains what could happen. [Article]

Improve Your eCommerce Site Now With These Articles

Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (via moskalyuk.com) – Great article that can give you some very good tips on getting people to buy your products using persuasive techniques. After this article I am going to have to go out and buy the book. It has some great research you can implement in to a website.

Is Social Media Marketing Right for You? (via palmerwebmarketing.com) – Good article on questions you need to answer about your business before taking on social media.

6 Powerful Principles of Persuasion for Influential Internet Marketing (via winningtheweb.com) – Good tips on getting people to follow your brand and to sell more of your products.

Poor conversions: the usual suspects (via econsultancy.com) – They list 6 reasons why you are not converting your visitors into customers. I like the last one on pricing gaps. That is a big conversion killer.

Ecommerce Know-How: Improve Cash Flow by Delaying Suppliers (via practicalecommerce.com) – This article explains the idea of cash flow and how to make it work for your eCommerce operation. This is geared towards the newer crowd to the business arena. Good info nonetheless.

Tracking Transactions back to the Initial Referrer with Google Analytics (via roirevolution.com) – Article shows you how to get Google Analytics to show you the initial referrer for the transaction than the default last referrer.

Attract Qualified Traffic with Content Syndication (via practicalecommerce.com) – Great article on focusing on one specific set of customers that come to your website. The technique in the article will help you develop some good content for you website and then show you how to syndicate across multiple places for the most exposure.

Multichannel 2.0: Are You Ready for the Next Generation of Commerce Channels? (via getelastic.com) – Good overview of the new commerce channels that are emerging and how to prepare for them.

7 Tips for Effective Calls to Action (via hubspot.com) – Some good tips you can use on your product pages to get your visitors to make that purchase.

Optimizing Website & Landing Page Copy – A 10 Step Process (via grokdotcom.com) – This has a video presentation on it and it is only viewable until June 3rd. The article also lists the 10 step process. It is a good process to step through when optimizing your eCommerce site landing pages or product pages.

Interesting eCommerce Articles of the Week

Shopping 2.0: Current E-commerce Trends (Redux) (via readwriteweb.com) – This was a podcast from last December. They are re-posting it, so in theory it is now part of this weeks eCommerce now. It has some good info on current eCommerce trends.

Just Browsing? A Web Store May Follow You Out the Door (via nytimes.com) – This is a New York Times article on the new service Abandonment Tracker Pro, by SeeWhy. This service tracks abandoned carts on your site in real time. This allows you to act on it quickly.

Can Bad Assumptions Lead to “Gorilla Marketing”? (via grokdotcom.com) – Goes over some assumptions on online retailers tactics with abandoned cart marketing.

Social Publishing Site Scribd Adds E-Commerce; 80% Revenue To Publishers (via forbes.com) – It will be interesting to see how this does and how far it can reach into the mainstream.

Disney Launched a new eCommerce site. (Disney)

Studies show the genders really are different online. (via money.cnn.com) – Good article showing data on how men and women use the internet.

Q1 web sales decline for Barnes & Noble (via internetretailer.com) – They went down 6.6%, 99.6 million to 93 million.