eCommerce Blog

The GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, comes into effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR is aimed at strengthening the privacy of personal information for everyone within the European Union. But, what exactly is the GDPR and how will it affect you as an eCommerce merchant?

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR is a new EU Regulation adopted on April 27, 2016 and set to become enforceable on May 25, 2018. The GDPR replaces the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive (DPD) with increased measures to protect[...]

Email marketing is the backbone of the e-commerce industry. Moreover, e-commerce email marketing is a fine balance of triggered and automated emails. No sooner does a customer register on your e-commerce site than they receive a welcome email. Next they browse and put something on their cart, and in case they forget to complete their checkout - moments later they are greeted with a cart abandonment email as a gentle reminder.

Want to fortify your customer relations? Send them a customer loyalty[...]

Sales on Amazon add up to almost half of all online retail sales, and that number is likely to continue to grow. For a large proportion of online shoppers, it's clear that Amazon is the first stop they make when they want to buy something.

If you're an eCommerce merchant already or if you're looking into getting started selling online, you're probably considering listing your products on Amazon.

Selling on this overwhelmingly popular marketplace can work out very well, but there are some key[...]

In this day and age, it's easy to assume that everyone prefers to use a credit or debit card. PayPal and other digital wallets are also prevalent, and for the most part, checks have become a thing of the past. However, that isn't always true.

Many people have negative associations with the word "check." The idea of checks brings to mind slow processing speeds, mental images of waiting behind someone in line as they painstakingly make one out… you get the idea.

It's easy to assume eChecks are[...]

For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of making an online purchase is eBay. Founded in 1995, eBay has become a major online marketplace for buyers and sellers in many countries all over the world. Every day, millions of people visit eBay to bid on auctions, make purchases, or sell their products and services.

As an eCommerce merchant, you have a very good reason to learn the ins and outs of eBay beyond the basics. Expanding your business into eBay sales can be a[...]

When it comes to shipping, a few inches can make a truckload of difference to your bottom line.

Inadequate or poorly designed packaging may seem like a small thing, but there are three costly side effects:

• You are likely paying more for packaging than you should.
• You could be paying more for shipping than you should.
• Items that aren’t appropriately packed can get damaged in transit.

Whether you’re shipping 10 packages a day or 10,000, choosing the right packaging for your products is[...]

Choosing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise ecommerce platform may be one of the best decisions your company makes this year.

Retail ecommerce sales grew 10.1 percent in previous years while the retail industry as a whole grew about 1.4 percent, according to data collected by professional services firm, PwC.

Essentially, ecommerce is growing more than seven times as fast of the rest of the industry. There are many factors contributing to this growth, including convenience, improvement in

"How much does it cost to set up an online store?" is one of the most important questions you can ask when getting into eCommerce.

In fact, costs are a main concern when anyone is starting a new business venture. Nothing worthwhile really comes for free. Your budget affects the majority of your business decisions, and laying out your costs as thoroughly as possible is a vital part of your planning.

A lot of factors are going to come into play. But your primary goal is to create an online store[...]

Getting Facebook ad ROI isn’t always easy.

It takes trial and tribulation - and, frankly, most people lose money at first.

But what if you could all but guarantee a strong ROI from the start? Or, if you’re already running positive ROI ads, what if you could get even more money from them?

Well, you can. And I’m about to tell you how.

So if you’re an eCommerce store owner who’s trying to figure out how to decrease CPC and increase ad ROI, you’re in the right place.

In this article, I lay down a[...]

In the ecommerce world, you’re only as good as your partners. The importance of partnering with strong dropshippers can’t be understated.

Finding the right dropshipper can be a difficult process, especially for entrepreneurs who are new to the world of ecommerce. It takes a discerning eye to find the most trustworthy dropshippers. This requires countless hours of research and communication.

Doba helps solve this problem by aggregating vetted suppliers and manufacturers into a single database,[...]

For all its strategizing and versatility, email marketing is pretty simple when you boil it down: find people who want to hear from you and send them emails.

It’s a simple concept but far from an easy task. People are everywhere online. They’re on your website, all over social media, scrolling through search results… The trick is finding the right people, who have a need for what you sell, and convincing them to hand over their email address.

No matter what kind of online business you run, context matters. In most cases, it’s your job as an online store owner to set the right context for your customers.

One of the biggest contextual areas websites take for granted is search context. You can put tons of resources into creating content in the hopes of building up your search ranking. But if you haven’t put thought into how your search result appears to a potential customer, content will only get you so far.

If you gauged e-commerce trends based on headlines alone, you might conclude that only a big marketplace or two run the industry. While major e-commerce platforms do hold some advantages over standalone sellers, 2017 has seen an increase in digital shopping activity across the board. As more brands offer perks such as free shipping and returns and use personalized strategies to keep customers on their sites, consumers have expanded the scope of their online purchasing options.

Merchants have always needed to evolve to meet the changing demands of their customers, and in the world of eCommerce, it's no different. In fact, it's even more important today to stay ahead of the game when it comes to serving your customers' needs. With millions of online stores available, customers have many more choices in front of them and competition is fiercer than ever.

One of the most important parts of attracting customers is providing them with a smooth, convenient shopping[...]

On January 21, 2018, all USPS shipping services are experiencing a rate increase averaging at about 6% across the board. The price of First-Class Mail Forever Stamps is also rising by one cent to $0.50. You can read the official USPS announcement here.

This rate increase affects all USPS services including Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, both weight-based and Flat Rate shipping, and all Commercial rates, however not all services are increasing by the same amount.

After these changes, you[...]

Choosing a domain name when creating an eCommerce website is one of the most important business decisions you can make. As the URL (web address) your customers type into the address bar of their browser, your domain name affects your branding, visibility, search rankings, and more. What with all the competition out there, you need to be memorable, and your domain name can do a lot to help or hinder that.

A bad domain name can make your site hard to find and impossible for customers to remember[...]

So, you've decided it's time to expand beyond eBay sales and build your own online store.

This is a great idea — your eCommerce website will serve as your unique presence on the internet, which opens up tons of new ways to establish your brand and enter the public consciousness.

Having your own online store provides you with several business advantages. And we'll cover them in this article.

As consumers increasingly prefer to shop online, more companies are joining the e-commerce landscape. But more e-commerce growth also means greater competition.

To keep customers coming back, many online retailers rely on free shipping. The strategy works: A whopping 9 out of 10 customers cite free shipping as their number one incentive to shop online more often, and 83% of customers will wait an additional two days for free shipping.

But how can your business compete with retail giants like [...]

Just two years ago, mobile ecommerce represented only 15% of dollars spent online, even though people spent an overwhelming amount of time on their mobile devices.

That number is rapidly changing, and it’s partially thanks to the work done on Google’s open source Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. Even if you don’t know what AMP is, you reap the benefits every day when you browse the web on your phone, where pages load much faster than they did just a few short years ago.

The internet’s[...]

If your ecommerce website could only do one thing well, it should be very, very fast.

The truth is an enterprise ecommerce website has to do a lot of things very well to provide the high-quality shopping experience modern consumers expect, and your enterprise ecommerce platform should handle them all.

But there is a strong relationship, or even correlation, between how fast your enterprise ecommerce website is and how much your retail business will sell.

A One-second Improvement Equals a[...]