eCommerce Blog

Imagine visiting Molly Moon's Ice Cream in Seattle, Washington. You made the trip because Food & Wine magazine said Molly Moon's is one of the best ice cream parlours in the entire United States. You're even going to take the magazine's advice and order a double scoop of the Stumptown Coffee ice cream.

"Do you want regular or decaf?" the ice cream scooper asks.

"And what roast? We have Hair Bender, Cantillo Family, Trapper Creek, French Roast, and Holler Mountain."

"And did you want the sweet[...]

What Does E-commerce Mean: A Quick Definition

Picture this - you walk into the largest store you’ve ever seen. At first glance, it’s filled with endless rows of shelves, drawers, and tables, all holding a limitless array of objects. From clothes to food to electronics, anything you could ever desire sits right in front of you, just an arm's length away.

Now take away the physical aspect and consider the Internet as that massive expanse of a store. Instead of buying the objects in person, you[...]

Email is vital for business. Even if you don't rely on email to communicate inside the office, it's your primary means of communication with your customers. Order status updates, back-in-stock notifications, shipping updates and more are all most efficiently managed through email.

Email is also one of your most important marketing tools. Even with the increased usage of text messaging, social media, and live chat in eCommerce, email marketing remains essential for reaching your audience.

Email[...]

In the past years, we've seen the internet grow exponentially, and at the same time we've also witnessed similar growth in the area of eCommerce. Every year, more businesses open websites of their own in order to stake a claim on the World Wide Web.

For the most part, people have come to accept websites as a necessity, but there are a few holdouts remaining who don't see the need. "Websites are expensive," they argue. "I don't know how to make one," they say. "It can't really make that much of[...]

The landscape of eCommerce is always changing, and it's important to be aware of the emerging trends that make up its overall evolution. B2B merchants in particular need to pay close attention to new information that can help them develop their sales and marketing strategies, since the higher stakes of B2B mean a smaller margin for error.

If you sell B2B, you're already targeting a market that's more difficult in quite a few ways, e.g. dealing with more sophisticated buyers and sometimes an[...]

Ecommerce Automation - it’s a phrase that is generally brought up in online market discussions, and is a critical component to a company’s success. However, do you know what this term means, and more importantly, what it means for your business?  People love the term ‘automated,’ because it means that something is going to happen automatically without some sort of manual work being done. It is supposed to save time, and ultimately, money.

Let’s take for example a young aspiring entrepreneur,[...]

On June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) repealed a long-standing physical presence rule that for decades has protected remote sellers from being taxed by other states.

The Supreme Court found the physical presence rule to be “unsound and incorrect,” in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. It also determined “economic and virtual” contacts between a business and a state to be sufficient grounds for nexus — the connection between a state and a business that triggers a tax[...]

If you’ve just launched an online business, you know how crucial attracting and retaining customers is. However, the world of e-commerce is increasingly competitive as customer expectations for speed, price and service continue to increase. When you’re just starting an e-commerce business, take special care to avoid common mistakes that are known to drive online shoppers away — and are easy to remedy.

Here are some typical mistakes online sellers make that lead to lost customers, and how to[...]

The consumers today are not only well informed, but also have a smart buying approach. Instead of putting their trust solely on brands, they actively research and make their buying decisions through extensive feedback, reviews and user-generated content. According to a study done by Google, in the past 2 years there has been an 80% increase in the ‘best’ search phrases on mobile devices. Hence, it becomes imperative for e-commerce businesses to understand the consumer behavior. So how do you[...]

The design and functionality of your ecommerce website have a major impact on your online sales. If customers cannot easily find the products they’re searching for, there are a plethora of other online stores that they can opt for. Plus, once consumers have decided that they must fulfill a need, patience for a poorly designed ecommerce website will be nonexistent.

If you have a great ecommerce website design, shoppers might not even notice; however, this is actually a good thing. A successful[...]

With so many logins and passwords to remember, it's easy to lose track of something. Even if you have the world's best organizational skills, you're going to end up using tons of different websites — especially if you run a business. Making things even more difficult is that some websites don't make their login pages easy to find, so signing into your account can be frustrating.

This article collects some of the most common login pages from websites you're likely to use while managing your[...]

If your website is well-optimized, the content is of good quality and the clicks are off the charts, then you must be swimming in a pool of money. However, if you receive massive traffic but only a small number of those visits buy your goods or services, then you need to find tools that can convert them into customers.

Turning visitors into short-term or long-term buyers requires both strategy and extensive testing.

Borrowing a leaf from others who succeeded at this is recommended. However, you[...]

As someone with an interest in selling online, you're probably aware of SEO (search engine optimization) as the process involved with getting a website ranked higher in search results provided by Google and other search engines. But did you know you can use certain SEO techniques to increase the visibility of your eBay listings? You can — and you should!

Here are the SEO techniques you can use to optimize your eBay listings.

SEO is no walk in the park.

In fact, as far as online marketing is concerned, it’s easily one of the most intimidating disciplines.

High price tags, technical jargon, and esoteric “rules” prevent many ecommerce store owners from even getting their feet wet. If you’re among their ranks, we don’t blame you!

That being said, search engine optimization doesn’t actually have to be as confusing as it often seems.

In fact, you’ll likely see the most benefit from employing only the most fundamental[...]

Did you know that people are 4 times more likely to buy a product when it is referred by a friend? That is according to Nielsen. In fact, 92% of their respondents trust the referrals of the people they knew. This means that they trust people who are closed to them more than your cold caller marketer.

Implementing a referral program in your ecommerce website is one of the best decisions you can do for your business. Not only can a referral program massively increase your traffic, it can also[...]

In the world of e-commerce, money is everything. But don’t make the mistake of thinking your revenue is the most important number.

Although it might be nice to see huge numbers of sales coming through, at the end of the day, it’s your overall profit margin that determines the success of your business.

Think about it like this.

• You sell pens for $10 each.
• You sell 100 pens.
• That gives you a revenue of $1000.

However, what you haven’t factored in is that it costs you $9.00 to buy the pens from[...]

3dcart is pleased to announce version 8.2, the latest upgrade to our industry-leading eCommerce platform. This upgrade includes a variety of improvements and new features that make it even easier for online sellers to build a powerful online store and manage their business. We've improved several integrations, added new functionality into the software, and redesigned the admin panel for smoother online store management.

This new upgrade to the 3dcart software will provide online sellers with[...]

An ecommerce-enabled website is the foundation of every online seller's business. A key component in how well that website performs and how much it costs to maintain is where the site resides.

At present, there are four ways a website can be hosted, including on-premises with a business' own server, in the cloud, with a hosting service, or through a software as a service (SaaS) provider.

Let's define each of these approaches and consider some of their advantages and disadvantages.

It's obvious that for creating an Ecommerce website we already have a great solution – Shift4Shop. But what should users do who need a free and easy website without the need for electronic commerce? Just for them, we've created a review of the best free website builders which can help novice webmasters build their first free website.

In fact, with some website builders providing free plans and thanks to cloud hosting support, web space is not a concern. You simply need a computer, a working[...]

If you start your own business, you're going to find yourself faced with a lot of questions. Who are your customers? What's your unique value proposition? What type of structure would be best? And should you incorporate?

Incorporation is the act of establishing your business as a corporation, of which there are two types: a C corporation and an S corporation. Both offer advantages, and depending on your business might be the best option for you. But there are downsides, too, which is why you[...]