eCommerce Blog

A website used to be a fun novelty for a business, but those days are long over. Today, a website is as essential as a business card. With the continual growth of eCommerce, businesses worldwide have discovered new ways to connect with customers far beyond the possibilities of traditional brick-and-mortar commerce. In turn, customers have grown to love the convenience of shopping online and using the internet to learn more about their favorite brands. Websites are what put the e in eCommerce.

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Ecommerce is booming, so much so that it was responsible for $2.3 trillion in sales during 2017. These days, if your business doesn’t have an online storefront, it’s suffering.  More people than ever before are shopping online. From literal glitter bombs to Mac & Cheese air fresheners, there’s something for everyone and someone for everything. At the forefront of this growth is the world’s favorite search engine, Google.

Google is the first place people go to find answers to their questions,[...]

Automation is the process of letting technology carry out a task with minimum intervention from you. While your tasks are automated, you're free to work on your core tasks. Let's get one thing straight before we go further: eCommerce automation is amazing. It makes your life so much easier, speeds up your tasks, and the upshot is that you get more done in a day. In fact, you even get more done while you sleep.

On the flip side, automation can be a dangerous game that actually harms your brand[...]

Everyone has an opinion, right? But when it comes to running your business, getting customers to express their opinions about it can be a key to online success.

Online reviews are of increasing importance in digital marketers’ search engine optimization (SEO) marketing efforts. Reviews not only signal consumers’ sentiment, but also influence the search engine rankings that can make or break a business.

When trying to start their own eCommerce business, you will inevitably consider which features you will need for your website. Given that you are almost certainly on a budget, you will likely separate these tools between which ones you need and which ones you do not need but might like to have. The idea here is that you keep what you know you will need, get anything else you can, and save anything else you might like for later.

However, before making any firm decisions, you must know what[...]

There's no doubt that eCommerce has grown exponentially and continues to grow every year. Today, we've reached an age in which a business without a website is at a severe disadvantage. But you shouldn't look at an eCommerce website as something you simply "need" to have in order to survive (although you do). Instead, look at it as a vast opportunity for your business to reach a level of growth and success that wouldn't have been possible before the advent of the internet.

A lot goes into [...]

The meaning of the term “website usability” seems fittingly obvious just from its name. It is the measure of the ease with which people can use your website. Less obvious is how one goes about measuring it.

In this article we'll provide more information on website usability, including why it is important and how you can test your own website for it.

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing entails testing a website for how easily it can be used. This can involve checking a wide range of[...]

When you invite someone to your home for the first time, you have to tell them how to find you. The easiest way to do this would be to simply give them your address.  From there they can navigate directly to your home.

Similarly, a domain is your website's address.  It’s how visitors will find their way to your website. Selecting your domain is an important step, as not only will it affect how easily your customers find you, but it can also help improve SEO for your brand.

Additionally, once[...]

Link building should be a fundamental stage of your SEO strategy. If you’re just getting started at SEO, don’t freak out! Building and conducting a link building strategy can be done smoothly with these practical tips.

The whole process of link building consists of manually getting links from other websites to your own with the ultimate goal of increasing both traffic coming from different parts of the web (referral traffic) and increasing the authority of a website.

To get started, let’s take[...]

The general answer for anyone who wants to run a successful online business is “yes.” Although it’s not a requirement for having a successful eCommerce website, a blog can do wonders to improve traffic and, therefore, sales and profits.

Before I even go any further, here are some interesting statistics to consider:

• More than 50% of blog readers are online shoppers.
• 61% of U.S. online shoppers gain more confidence about making a purchase based on recommendations they read in blogs.
• 60% of[...]

High quality web design is likely to attract more visitors and increase traffic to your website. For any website to be effective and successful, it is crucial to keep current with website designs and trends. A web page that looked modern and sleek in 2018 could be obsolete and outdated in 2019.

It is in this regard that web designers and eCommerce development companies are working round the clock to keep up with eCommerce web design trends in 2019.

Whether you own a small business or a large[...]

You’ve purchased a radio, but for some reason you just can’t get it to work. It’s still under warranty, so the logical thing to do is call the manufacturer.

After an hour on hold, listening to elevator music, you give up. You then decide to email the company but the email bounces.

As a last-ditch attempt you reach out via their Facebook page, only to be met with silence. Not even an automated acknowledgement of your message.

Infuriated, you vow to never, ever buy anything from this brand again.

Attract customers, attract customers, attract customers. That’s your main obsession, isn’t it? Of course it is – as an ecommerce owner, it’s impossible to forget that you need customers to increase your sales.

The question here is how? What’s the best strategy to sell online with an online shop? That’s precisely what we’re going to talk about in today’s post. Today we’ll share with you the two main concepts on which every sales strategy is based. And because of how well they combine and work[...]

One key part of marketing these days is web design.

What are the best ways to really create the best site that you can? Which elements should you implement in order to engage the user?

Here are the top web design strategies that will take your marketing business to the next level.

“Mobile isn’t just the future; it has revolutionized business. Mobile devices are a key communication tool for most consumers in the US and growing numbers worldwide.”  - Neil Patel

Like marketing expert Neil Patel said, the mobile revolution has completely changed the face of business. Today, it’s all about smartphones and the mobility they give us as consumers.

To illustrate, mobile marketing statistics show that there are now more global mobile users than desktop users. 95% of Americans own[...]

If you're getting ready to launch a startup, you're probably experiencing a great many things. A huge rush of excitement, anticipation, and probably some stress and uncertainty. After all, 80% of small businesses fail, and the initial steps you take pre- and post-launch are crucial to your long-term success. All too often, making a mistake can lead to backtracking that most businesses just can't afford. Starting a business always involves tons of decision-making, and to make the best decisions[...]

It takes a lot to succeed in business — the drive to excel, the dream of entrepreneurship, and a great deal of trial and error. Research is invaluable, of course, including market research and a solid understanding of your ideal target customer. But nothing beats experience, and as every smart business owner knows, the learning process must never stop.

That's why, as part of our celebration of International Women's Day, Shift4Shop went straight to the experts. We asked women in eCommerce to[...]

If you’re already using Google Shopping ads to promote your ecommerce store’s products, you know how powerful it can be.

Between 2015 and 2016, searches with Product Listing Ads (or PLAs) more than doubled. Google Shopping campaigns consistently outperform traditional AdWords text ads in both cost per click (CPC), where it averages 23% less, and conversion rate, where it runs 26% more effective.

As an ecommerce store, you get a lot of benefit just from using Google Shopping — but is that[...]

In the ever-evolving and growing e-commerce industry (i.e., purchasing a product before you can touch it, try it on, test it out, etc.) returns are unavoidable--expected, even.

As traditional brick-and-mortar stores move operations to the world wide web at an astoundingly rapid rate, the online shopping habits of businesses and customers alike are taking shape before our eyes--namely, the perception of returns.

In a world where purchases can be made at the click of a mouse, lax return policies[...]

For many entrepreneurs and prospective business owners, coming up with the name for your new venture can be comparatively simple and even enjoyable. It is true that this is not always the case, of course. Still, it is also true that “What business name should we use?” is one of the first questions that many people consider when starting a business. Sometimes, people even create a name first and proceed from there.

The emphasis that many place on this one aspect is not entirely without reason.[...]