eCommerce Blog

When you think of starting a new online business or making the transition to eCommerce, costs and fees may float around in your head. How much will you need to spend on building and hosting your online store? What extra fees will you need to account for?

At Shift4Shop, we want to ease those worries by providing you with a free eCommerce solution – no strings attached. We’ve worked to make eCommerce affordable so that any-sized business can take advantage of our platform.

While every business has its own unique way of marketing depending on its niche and method, today it’s almost impossible to not do some sort of marketing via social media. Not only do the biggest social media platforms (like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram) have a huge reach, but they make it easy for businesses to sort through accounts and find their exact right customers based on interests, stages in life, location, buying habits, etc.

One mistake that many businesses make is thinking that once they get a sale, their job is done. A confirmation email is defined as an email that buyers receive after completing a transaction, but it's much more than that.

Confirmation emails are another opportunity for direct communication with your customer. In this article, we’ll be looking at the best techniques to turn confirmation emails into more conversions.

Here's an alarming statistic: a staggering 88 percent of online shoppers claim they won't revisit a website after a bad user experience, according to Amazon Web Services. However, there's this common misconception that providing visitors with a good user experience equates to having a visually appealing website.

If you are like most people, you most likely assumed having an aesthetically pleasing website would suffice. So, how come you're still not generating as many leads, and your site's[...]

There is no better time than right now to start your own clothing line online. Not only are there more resources than ever to get you started in the right direction, but there are also endless ways to market your clothing line, which means it’s easier than ever to find your customers and put your products in front of them.

Of course, no matter how simple it might be to start your own clothing business online, there’s still plenty of work to be done. While anyone can have a good idea for a[...]

Rules and best practices surrounding eCommerce can be numerous. They can also be quite confusing and overwhelming to the uninitiated. If eCommerce isn’t something a person formally studied, it must be learned on its own, which requires guessing, testing and a significant amount of reading to ensure they are going about it the right way.

The words “the customer is always right” is a phrase that every retailer knows all too well. And whilst in reality, we know that this isn’t always true, we do know it’s vital to make sure the customer is happy. In a modern world, this means making sure you can provide a unique customer experience that makes your brand stand out from the rest.

Intent-based marketing is an excellent way to do this.

B2B eCommerce is a rapidly growing industry, with businesses of all sizes looking to capitalize on the benefits of online sales and distribution. In order to be successful in this highly competitive environment, it is essential for companies to have well-defined and efficient standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place.

As a business owner, generating and growing revenue is a top priority. If your company's revenue isn't constantly climbing, trouble could be on the horizon. Like many business owners, you probably know many ways to boost retention and revenue already. If not, you're missing out on a powerful way to grow and scale your business. By making brand value a cornerstone of your marketing efforts, you'll see revenue grow consistently and effectively – even during uncertain economic times.

Even if[...]

Whenever you think about starting an eCommerce business, warehousing, shipping, and fulfillment may come to mind.

Surely, creating sales is the interesting part. However, what happens after the order is made? Somehow your item needs delivering to customers' hands. One of the most popular ways to handle this part is to partner with an order fulfillment company. There are a number of fulfillment services that will store your products and pack and ship your orders.

In the online world, every day is a wacky social media holiday.

While the ‘holiday’ season is widely known for kicking off shopping frenzy around the globe, other international holidays like the National Pizza Day are gradually becoming popular in raking in the moolah too.

You might think “why should I spend time and resources building a full social media marketing and an online sales campaign around one day that falls in a ‘non-seasonal’ period? Wouldn’t I benefit more by focusing my efforts[...]

In the online age, there’s a long list of things you need to do to survive. Lead generation is one of them. Marketing, and ultimately selling, isn’t as simple as it used to be. With so many businesses online, the stakes are high when it comes to getting people to opt for you over your competitors. The hard-sell approach is outdated and lead generation has taken its place.

Because the landscape of how people buy has changed, marketing has shifted too. Successful online businesses now focus on[...]

Communication is everything when it comes to business. Not only will you lose sales if you can’t communicate with potential customers in a timely manner, but you also run the risk of earning negative reviews if you can’t answer your current customers’ questions as soon as possible. And because communication is so essential, making sure that you have a reliable way to communicate with customers is critical to your success.

The better you’re able to communicate with your customers, the better[...]

Getting visitors to your site is tedious, expensive, tiring, and all in all — extremely difficult. But it’s even harder to see them leave without making any kind of action.

It is said that, in 2020, eCommerce had grown in one year at the rate it would have in three years. Sure, having more traffic is great and it seems easier to make more sales when you have a traffic influx. But that is just one part of the success formula.

There is no need to point out that increasing your conversion rate[...]

In today’s online marketplace, customers more than ever are expecting brands to understand and anticipate their unique requirements and present them with targeted, specific advertising that meets these needs.

This is added to by the rise in social media marketing becoming the go-to place to get your message across. By targeting people in the places they spend their time (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.), brands can reach their target audiences in new and innovative ways.

But it’s not[...]

B2B marketing is a dynamic and ever-evolving phenomenon. Marketers in the B2B domain are always on the lookout for new and effective strategies because they understand that acquiring business clients happens both in the online and real world. Despite the stellar advances made by digital marketing in the last decade, B2B is one field where offline marketing is an equally important aspect of the overall marketing strategy. Traditional forms of offline and outdoor marketing constitute a sizable[...]

If your products are not easy to find, you’re losing customers in real-time.

According to Marketing Charts, 46% of shoppers say they go shopping online just for browsing.

Almost half of your traffic comes to your website, hoping that you’ll show them the right product for them.

What this means is… Are you optimizing your website for the people who still don’t know what to buy?

No matter the industry, success in the business world comes down to a company’s ability to serve and deliver value to the consumer.

To deliver this value, the team needs to understand their customers as best as they possibly can.

From their “on-paper” demographic information and their personality traits, to their personal and professional goals, to their tendencies and behaviors as a consumer, truly knowing your customers is the key to attracting, engaging, and retaining a loyal audience (and,[...]

At some point, every company faces the headache that is buyer’s remorse. It stands as an obstacle when we seek to build strong relationships between customers and our businesses. Buyer’s remorse lets you believe you have made a successful sale, only to find that your customer has flipped and is wanting a refund.

All too often, websites are built on a series of assumptions, eCommerce platform limitations and best guesses. No matter how you arrived at your current website, it's likely there is at least one element that drives you crazy or that makes you less confident you're operating at 100% effectiveness. Dynamic heatmaps are a powerful tool to help illustrate what’s actually happening on your website.