This past month, I’ve been asked to critique several online store websites (click here to read some of my past online store writeups). These days, I rarely have time to take a look at random reader’s websites simply because I’m swamped with other things and taking care of little people aged 3 and below. Also, since I run an ecommerce course, I reserve most of my non-family time for my students.

But I felt compelled to respond to these review requests because all of them had the same or similar mistakes.

Source/Read More: MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

Mobile commerce is one of the biggest trends to affect small business owners, and it hasn’t even fully arrived yet. Consider this: between 2010 and January 2011, the number of Americans that owned smartphones grew from 45.5 million to 65.8 million. And those Americans are doing more with their smartphones than just talking, texting and watching YouTube videos. According to a ComScore survey, 48 percent of them — that’s more than 31 million people — are shopping, too.

Source/Full Article: Small Business Computing

Based on an April poll by Newtek Business Services of approximately 1,200 independent business owners, small business owners apparently lack e-commerce initiative. The low percentage of clients taking payments online—20 to 25 percent—suggests that many business owners do not know that their site can be a useful tool for selling merchandise as well as collecting receivables and payments for service.

Source: eWeek.com

Recently launched CreditCardProcessing.org is here to provide business owners with necessary information on the different merchant account services available. Additionally, the site describes what to look for when choosing a credit card processing company for your own business. It is known that merchant services can be confusing and frustrating to understand, so if you are a business owner that is considering hiring or even switching merchant service providers CreditCardProcessing.org is a great resource for you. Jon Queen, the creator of CreditCardProcessing.org and CEO of the successful marketing company El Toro Interactive, launched this site with the main goal of helping business owners pick the right credit card processing company for them. At the same time he hopes to save people money by teaching them to avoid tactics that processing companies will use to charge you more than is necessary.

Click the link below for the complete article!

CreditCardProcessing.org, the Newest Tool for Small Business Owners Seeking Credit Card Processing Companies

On the Internet, consumers love finding things for free. They want to get the biggest bang they can for no bucks at all. Open source software is often a good option because it’s developed and continually refined by a community of users and developers. Last week, I wrote about an entry-level open source shopping cart solution called ZenCart. That program provides ecommerce store owners with basic features, many of which are available out of the box.

As I have said in my books, it pays to plan for success. When you’re just starting out, it often makes sense to obtain software that will enable your business to grow. Many large, high-profile businesses use an open source shopping cart package called Magento, which is developed by Varien Software. Magento obviously has all the features businesses need to become highly successful. It’s used by companies such as Homedics, British handmade clothier Gieves & Hawkes, and the publisher of city guides TimeOut, to name just a few of 60,000 merchants around the world who actively use the product. According to Varien’s CEO Roy Rubin, those merchants have generated $25 billion in sales with Magento.

Click the link below for the complete article!

Shopping Cart from Magento Helps Entrepreneurs Launch Ecommerce Websites

Here’s what the lucky winner will get:

• BigCommerce diamond store ($7,198 value – 2 year subscription)
• Professionally crafted store design ($5,000 value)
• Migration of existing store to BigCommerce ($2,000 value)
• MailChimp 25,000 subscriber plan ($3,600 value – 2 year subscription)
• ROI Revolution Google AdWords audit ($975 value)
• Sales Rescue Team 4 hour consult ($500 value)
• FanAppz Pro license ($600 value – 1 year subscription)
• Various PR opportunities (approx $2,000 value)
• Case study posted on BigCommerce.com (approx $1,000 value)

Four runner-ups will receive ecommerce packages valued at $5000 each. To enter, polish off your video skills (nothing major) and head over to this website. The deadline for submitting a video is June 15, 2010.

Click on the image below to go to the video on SBTV.com.

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If you’ve done any shopping online, you probably do it as well: browse through the reviews associated with a product to find what other shoppers who have purchased it have to say. And it’s easy to do:

Inviting your customers back to write a review after a purchase by sending them an email (commonly called a post-transaction follow-up email), is the proven method to generate the most reviews on your site from a very credible source – your own customer community. One of our clients was able to increase their review volume by 26 times their average review collection rate by implementing the follow-up email.

Our recommendation is that clients send the follow-up email to all past purchasers from the previous 6 months prior to launching reviews on their product pages. Within the first month, 20% of all total SKUs should have at least 1 review, with 100% review coverage for top sellers.

A study conducted on Netshops (now known as Hayneedle) reveals that the number of reviews per product drives sales uplift, with 4-7 reviews per product being enough for 75% of shoppers to “have sufficient confidence to judge the product” (etailing group study of 1200 typical internet shoppers).

And if you’re fearing negative reviews, don’t. These are actually one of the strongest tools you could generate for your business, uncovering weaknesses and ways to greatly improve what is already working.

Source: AuctionBytes.com

While smaller online businesses reported drops in both sales and revenue, larger sites thrived thanks to the use of new technology and deals.

Online shops know what their customers are looking for. Over the holidays, they offered more deals than ever before, though the discounts were smaller than last year. They used social networks like Facebook and Twitter to publicize deals. They also adjusted to free shipping becoming “another fact of life,” in the words of Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore.

Thirty six million people visited coupon sites in December to get discount codes for e-commerce sites. Private, limited-time sale sites, led by HauteLook and Gilt, had huge increases in traffic and attracted a surprisingly broad cross-section of shoppers.

Mom-and-pop shops online lost business last year as customers flocked to the big sites like Amazon.com and HSN.com, probably because those sites could afford to keep advertising during the recession, Mr. Fulgoni said.

One of the surprises: online buying of apparel fell, as did the sales of home and garden supplies, furniture, video games, flowers and toys. Check out this NY Times Bit Blogs article to find out what was selling, and much more.

With the price of gas being what it is (and, seemingly, will be), it comes as little surprise that malls are seeing fewer and fewer shoppers. But how are online retailers fairing? Not badly, according to a recent article in the NY Times. Particularly when they link additional strategies with the lure of gas-free shopping:

A number of retailers — including Gap, Victoria’s Secret and J. C. Penney — are experiencing double-digit sales growth at their shopping Web sites, creating a surprising bright spot during an otherwise gloomy time for sales in brick-and-mortar stores.

One popular strategy for getting shoppers’ attention is offering free shipping, in contrast to many other businesses, like airlines, that are adding surcharges and other fees to offset their higher costs.

The Web sites of Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Bon-Ton Stores, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Target and Kmart were all offering a deal on shipping this week.

A very informative and vital read for anyone who is selling online!

Source: NY Times