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Summer means vacation and relaxation—and all that downtime is a great opportunity for online shopping. Increase your conversions with dynamite social media marketing and viral content, mobile user-friendly browsing features, and helpful hints from successful small e-business owners. Read the rest of this entry »

May is just around the corner and that means summer is almost here. Are you ready for the warm weather shopping season? If you’re not sure, this week’s round up may help. We’ve got tips on how to improve the results you’re getting with Google Shopping, ways to make your shipping practices better for  customers, how to get started with product listing ads, mobile commerce trends to keep an eye on, how to prevent order fulfillment errors and more. Let’s get started!

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Does your business need a new ecommerce platform? Re-platforming your business can help you better adapt to a more complex web, and stay ahead of the competition. By using the latest in ecommerce technology you can increase your site efficiency, meaning less customer support and maintenance needed, powering a higher ROI through better conversion rates and long-term growth in sales. Take a look at the infographic below for some tips on things to consider when re-platforming your website.

Click Here to Download the Hi-Resolution PDF!

A solid, fun and smooth user interface should be every ecommerce site’s top priority. Without it, your chances for success are slim. You need to make it easy and attractive to purchase from you. If you don’t, you give visitors a reason to check out your competition. For a successfully optimized user interface design, there are three things you need to focus on: user experience, information architecture, and usability.  Here’s a closer look at them. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is in full bloom and it’s time for another look at the week’s best ecommerce tips and tricks. No matter how happy you are with your site or how well it’s performing, there should always be room for a few new tips and tricks to make it even better. We’ve got a look at guest posting, tips on simplifying the user experience, new SEO practices to take a good long look at, tips for optimizing your site for mobile users, and lessons in content marketing from the most popular destination page on Facebook. Let’s get started!  Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is here and summer isn’t far behind. How’s your site doing so far? If you feel there’s room for improvement, check out this week’s round up. We’ve got ways to make your company news help people stand up and take notice, a look at SEO basics you should be paying attention to, why a mobile friendly site is so important, tools that make creating great content easier, and what you need to know about the pending Penguin update Google has on the way. Let’s get started! Read the rest of this entry »

We were quoted in a recent article in Ecommerce Times that discussed a piece of software that can change the currency on an ecommerce site to reflect the country a user is shopping from. This got us thinking about what other types of tips and tricks an ecommerce site may need to utilize when trying to reach a global audience.

Opening your doors to international customers can be intimidating, but it’s worth it. Oftentimes, foreign exchange rates make your offerings even more attractive than in the US. One of the great things about ecommerce is that it is global, and opens your doors to more customers than a traditional brick and mortar store could ever dream of.

Research

Start by looking at your traffic to see where your customers are coming from. Google Analytics is a great place to start. Log into your account and follow these steps:

Audience > Demographics > Location

From here you can figure out  how much of your traffic comes from international destinations, and even from what cities in each country. This will help you create an effective international ecommerce strategy. For now, it may be a good idea to stick to predominantly English speaking countries so you don’t have to worry about translating your site right away. However, if you notice a particularly large amount of traffic coming from a non-English speaking country, then by all means cater to it as best you can.

International Shipping

This is where things could get complicated and where you must take extreme care. First, find out how much and how long it will take to ship internationally. In many cases, USPS Global Priority mail is the best method. UPS and FedEx often slap the customer with huge brokerage fees, which may come as a very unpleasant surprise to them. You also need to know the import restrictions of each country. Some countries have few restrictions while others have a huge list. Make yourself familiar with them and then decide if some countries simply aren’t worth doing business with because of customs regulations. Below are tools to use to help you calculate how much and how long it would take to ship internationally by each of the top carriers.

• USPS – http://postcalc.usps.gov/
• FedEx – https://www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home
• UPS – https://wwwapps.ups.com/ctc/request?loc=en_US

Currency Conversion

Your international customers will appreciate being able to see your prices in their native currency, and there are programs that can do this on your existing site, saving you from having to create a brand new international website. In the Ecommerce Times article, they discussed how this type of software works well for Jildor Shoes:

“Shoe shoppers from Antigua to the United Kingdom, when visiting the Jildor Shoes website, can click a link for the “International Website” on the homepage and enter their country and currency. Immediately, the prices, shipping costs, duty fees and taxes for every pair of boots, pumps, and slippers on the site adjust automatically.”

That’s what you want for your site: International shoppers may already find shopping on websites outside their countries frustrating, so do everything you can to make shopping online easy.

International SEO

SEO is a valuable aspect of your ecommerce marketing strategy , and the keywords international customers search for may be quite different than your American customers. Keep in mind there are differences in slang terms and phrases. For example, a customer in London looking for a bathrobe would search for “dressing gown” and “trousers” when looking for pants. You need to know these terms and what other keywords your international customers are searching for. You can do this by using analytics again.

Audience > Demographics > Location > Choose Country > Secondary Dimension > Keywords

This will show keyword phrases that international users search for, but not always a full list. One suggestion is to use Google Trends to expand on these keywords. Type in the brand/products you would like to find keywords for.

• Select list button
• Select country
• To the right will show a list of related keywords

Create content that appeals to international customers and utilizes the phrases discovered in your keyword research.

Customer Service

No business will succeed if it doesn’t provide good customer service, and the same is true for international customers. This means providing your global clients with support in their native language when possible, and having availability in their time zones. There are two ways to accomplish this. You can hire multi-lingual CSRs that offer 24-hour support, or partner with a call center that can provide localized solutions for your business. You’ll have to research both options and decide which is best and most cost-effective for your specific business. Don’t skimp on these services; offer the very best customer service support you can and it will pay off in the long run.

You think you’ve done everything right. Your landing page is clear, polished, and easy to navigate. Your product descriptions and images sparkle, and you’re offering an irresistible promotion-but are you? You may be finding that people are putting things in their carts but never following through with the purchase. Why? The reasons for shopping cart abandonment are numerous, and some you can’t help. For example, a shopper simply changes their mind, their payment method is declined, or their internet connection goes down. But there are some reasons you can do something about, like design issues, support issues and technical problems on your site. Let’s take a look at some ways you can decrease abandonment at checkout by increasing shopping cart functionality. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is finally here, even though it doesn’t really feel like it in much of the country. If you’re waiting for the thaw out, take some time to warm up your sales and boost your traffic with this week’s tips and tricks. We’ve got tips on content marketing and building traffic, everything you need to know about dark social, things you should never have on your landing page and how to find success combining content with your commerce. Let’s get started!  Read the rest of this entry »

Daylight savings time is here, and as we struggle to adjust to that lost hour of sleep, Easter is just around the corner. This week we recap tips on how to use social media in your marketing plan with articles about crafting effective campaigns on Facebook, how sales can result from customer engagement on Google +, ways to make your content more effective, the latest AdWords trends, and ecommerce platform must haves. Let’s get started! Read the rest of this entry »