The Ecommerce Expert

Successful Ecommerce Businesses Start Here

Helpful Ecommerce Holiday Tips and Strategies

By Leave a Comment

With the holidays revving up I thought I would bring back a few older articles I wrote which tend to get buried beneath the rest of the articles here. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ve provided links to them below.

Complete Ecommerce Holiday Checklist
This article provides a checklist of 10 items you need to consider while preparing your store for the holidays. From technical considerations to social media and even simple navigational tweaks that help drive sales; this list covers them all.

Top 10 Days for Sending Out Holiday Emails
Quick listing of the top ten days for sending out emails. A handy reference for planning some of your email promotional and follow-up campaigns. These days are traditionally big days, so you also may want to consider testing other days when email volumes are lighter (possibly better ensuring your message doesn’t get hidden under a stack of other emails!)

Thanksgiving Signals Black Friday
This article provides information on what Black Friday is and how it started. It also provides a little information on a similar online ‘holiday’ called Cyber Monday. Links are provided in the article to help you gather more info on each and determine how you can use them to boost your sales.

Six Promotional Ideas You Can Use for Cyber Monday
10 ideas and strategies to get your brain stirring about how you can take advantage of the Cyber Monday craze, driving more visitors to your site, and increasing your slice of pie during the holiday shopping frenzy.

10 Ecommerce Shipping Best Practices
It’s no surprise that shoppers like free shipping. It’s a buzz term that gets shoppers excited and puts stars in their eyes. But did you know that during the holidays, shoppers put free shipping very high on their list of ‘what makes them want to buy?’

It’s true. A lot of buying decisions are made during the holidays based on the availability of free shipping or not. Shoppers even go so far as to search for ‘free shipping’ offers across the internet.

In this article you’ll learn ten best practices to help you fine tune your shipping and win more customers this holiday season (and throughout the year.)

Flash Promotional Banner Rotator’s

By 3 Comments

You’ve seen them on just about every big ecommerce site. Many banners have gone from static to rotating. The rotation offers an unlimited resource for promoting various items without taking up a ton of space on the page — and if done correctly, they look nice too.

In my last article I talked about some of the things that should be considered when developing an effective promotional banner. I want to follow that up with a short post here on how you can promote more in less space using flash for banner development.

Flash banners come in all shapes and sizes. As of this writing two example sites using them are Target and BestBuy. Screenshots of the home page for each are below as a reference point. The red outlined area in each indicates the area the dynamic flash banner is composed of.

Example of Target Flash Promotional Banner
targetbanner

Example of BestBuy Flash Promotional Banner
bestbuybanner

In today’s internet age, you do not need a whole lot of flash design experience to get these types of banners up and running on your site. You will need a little technical know how (or get someone that can do it for you) but there really isn’t much to it if you have the right tools.

The truth is, you can do this yourself with a number of free and/or affordable commercial options.

Below I’ve listed a number of links that will start you down the right path toward adding a professional looking flash rotating banner to your ecommerce site.


Rotate a Banner With These XML Banner Rotators

Free XML Banner Rotator

Free Flash XML Banner Rotator

As you’ll see, there are a number of options available to you. Keep in mind that the functionality of the banner should fit your needs. Don’t just choose a banner because it “looks cool.” Looking cool won’t get you sales. Make sure it is functionally correct and provides the opportunity to run your promotions in a way that benefits your bottom line.

Got anymore you think should be added to the list? Leave a comment below and let me know.

How to Design an Effective Promotional Banner

By 3 Comments

With the tools available today, just about anyone can design a graphical banner for a promotion. But designing a banner and designing a banner that gets results is quite different.

In general you want to design your promotion to work with the user eyeflow. Standard reading is left to right so this works best. Placement of elements within the ad also is important and should be considered.

Here are some things your promotional banner could (or should) include in order to increase it’s effectiveness.

1) If using photos the photo should reflect the promo to some degree and should have room to integrate headlines etc… without making it difficult to read. Oftentimes finding the right photo can be the toughest part. The photo should direct the eye to elements within the ad yet not overwhelm. Sites like iStock have a great selection at very reasonable prices.

Example of Good Photo Usage
bannerpromo-goodimage

Example of Poor Photo Usage
bannerpromo-badimage

2) A clear call to action. Examples would be “Shop Now”, “Start Shopping”, etc… Due to eyeflow, and depending on your layout, the best location for this is typically the right hand side of the banner (even bottom right corner is good), but that is not critical if you make it stand out and fit it within whatever eyeflow you choose for the promo.

Take note of how your eye flows and is drawn to the call to action in the following ad.

Example of Good Call to Action
bannerpromo-goodcta

Example of Poor Call to Action
bannerpromo-poorcta

3) A primary heading or focus area that grabs attention and conveys what type of promotion or message you want to deliver. Things like “24 Hour Sale”, “Grand Opening Sale”, “50% Off Sale”, “Storewide Clearance”, “Free Shipping Now Thru ‘xxx'”, “Holiday Blowout”, “Everything Must Go”, etc…

Oftentimes, but not in all cases the photo can play a role in delivering a primary focus area as seen in the examples below. The more active the photo (and with no clear “text area”) the harder it is to create focus and flow. A good ad gives the eye a starting point and then directs it in a specific pattern toward the call to action.

Example of Good Primary Focus Area
bannerpromo-badimage

Example of Poor Primary Focus Area
bannerpromo-badimage

4) Benefits to the customer. (i.e. what do they get from the offer and/or product). This is often best completed in short text or bullet point descriptions. Give them a reason to click.

Example of Good Benefits
bannerpromo-goodbenefits

Example of Poor Benefits
bannerpromo-poorbenefits

5) Avoidance of centered text. Centered text is hard to read. You want all text to be preferably left aligned and in some cases right alignment might work. The only time you should use centered text is in headers — and that too depends on the layout of the photo and message. When in doubt, left align text.

Example of Good Alignment
bannerpromo-goodbenefits

Example of Poor Alignment
bannerpromo-badtext

The above is just a very brief sampling of ad concepts. Again, placement of these items is important and should be considered during development. Promotions can vary widely and should be based upon your individual goals and objectives. Testing is key and what works for one company many not always work for another.

Got any additional insights to share? Let me hear them below.

Last Day to Get 50% Off Ecommerce Amplifier

By Leave a Comment

Just a reminder here for any store owners looking to get into the summer session. Today is the last chance you have to get 50% off your first month as a member of my exclusive online coaching program Ecommerce Amplifier.

If you’re still on the fence thinking about it, now would be a good time to take advantage of this proven system. Remember, it is a month to month program (no long term commitments) that you can easily cancel at any time from within your members area so you have nothing to lose. My system works with any shopping cart system you are using (open source, custom, hosted solutions, etc…), and don’t forget, as a member you get access to me as your personal mentor to help guide you toward success with your ecommerce business.

This offer is strictly limited and the 50% off coupon expires tonight. Once it expires the offer is closed.

Current store owners that have been a part of the system have seen fantastic results and continue to rave about it. Here are a few testimonials:

"This is The Real Deal"

"I find that there is a lot of professional know all’s and “crapologists” in the ecommerce game with a lot of theories and potential’s at the end of the day. There are very few who have the runs on the board. What I like about you, your news letters, website’s and emails is that this is what I need to understand the in’s and out’s and be good at what I do.

I am not the designer or techno person in the back I am the driver of the bus and have to make decisions on how, where and when we are going to get there. I am more interested in how we can sell goods and services online.

I joined this site as I believe what you do and tell us is factual and usable as you have runs on the board.

Thanks for your support."

Regards,

Dave

"Doubled Our Sales in Just 4 Months!"

"Well. I am swamped with orders and cannot do anymore work on my sites for now! I am having to work and keep production going and hired a helper full time (he was part time until a month ago). Your insight (which I only implemented some of the video review so far) has taken our orders from 40 to 45 a week last July to 83 last week. We are now hitting 20+ orders a day now (last Friday and then again Sunday). I hope to launch another 2 sites using your ideas and tips and hope to double or triple what we did last year. I could not have done it without you. You have taken us from struggling to a reality of owning a successful business.

I am trying to talk one of my friends into joining your site. I hope to get him to join up soon!"

Sean Taft

"My Conversion Rate Jumped in Just 7 Days…"

"Quick follow up…

As you know, I implemented all of the suggestions in the video review about a week and a half ago.

My conversion rate for the last 7 days has climbed to 3.86%!

I’m going to keep plugging away at the weekly lessons and hopefully that will help increase traffic and maybe nudge that number up a little more.

Thank you!!!"

Sarah Taylor-Salamaca

Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity. Let’s build your business together.

See you on the inside.

Get Your Mobile Feet Wet by Using QR Codes

By 2 Comments

qrcode

If you’ve been entertaining dreams of taking your website mobile, but weren’t sure where to start, consider getting your feet wet with QR Codes.

In the simplest terms, QR Codes are the 21st century version of the bar code. Standing for “Quick Response,”  these two-dimension pieces of matrix code are programmed to be used at high speeds.

QR codes got their start in the manufacturing industry, where users would point, scan, select and move on. Soon, retailers and other businesses caught on to the QR trend and began using them on everything from magazine ads and business cards to candy wrappers and store windows.

You may be wondering:  How would I scan one of these codes if I don’t have a trusty scanner like I see at the store?

I’m happy to say that if you have a mobile phone with a camera and a QR reader application, then you’ve got yourself a scanner.

Creating and using QR Codes is extremely easy.  All you need is a QR Code Generator. I’m personally a fan of Kaywa.com (//qrcode.kaywa.com); however, if you search for QR Code Generator in your favorite search engine you will likely find one that suits your needs.

Once you’ve arrived at your QR Code Generator page, decide what you want the eventual QR code to point to. Do you want to point people to your website? Maybe your phone number? Perhaps a text message? Whatever you choose, include that information and then choose the size of code you want. The code you see above is a size L; there are smaller sizes and an extra large size available.

After you’ve indicated the size and destination of your code, select the Generate button. You’ll see code that you can then plug into a website, blog, or other documents.

You can also save the image (right click > Save As) to use the QR code on a business card or other print out.

Now that you’ve created the QR code, how can you use it to go mobile?

Remember, I said we’re just getting our feet wet. These codes won’t magically produce a mobile app for you. What they will do is help act as an extra calling card or marketing tool for potential customers who can’t make a purchase right that very instant.

As an e-commerce retailer, consider adding QR Codes to specific pages or products on your site (for example: discounted merchandise, new products, a “Don’t want to miss this!” product or page). Again, think of QR codes as an electronic flier that your customer can have handy on their mobile phone.

If you want to test if your codes are working, consider creating a special URL on your site for QR Code related items. Anyone that arrives at that page did so through a QR code.

This might be a little new fandangled for most people, but QR codes are quickly becoming the next big thing according to many industry experts.

About

The Ecommerce Expert offers products and services that help move ecommerce businesses toward growth and success. Our products and services help store owners maximize their ROI, decreasing expenses and increasing revenue. The net result is sustainable growth and stability with above average results.