Keeping up to date in the constantly changing trends in ecommerce can be overwhelming. It can be difficult to monitor so many new ideas about usability, design, SEO and general consumer behavior when you are worried about getting all of your orders processed in a day.

Fortunately, there are tools out there to make keeping up with the times much easier. Here are just a few ideas to keep current in industry trends:

1.) Set up a gmail account just to receive “Google Alerts.” Google Alerts allow you to track stories pertaining to certain keywords you would like to track. For example, if you sell iPhones, you could track keywords such as “iPhones”, “cellular phones”, or “internet phones”. You can also track your competitors by entering keywords such as “Google phone.” Any time Google finds a story pertaining to your keywords, it will show up in your gmail account as an alert.

2.) Find industry specific blogs that you like and sign up for their RSS feeds. RSS feeds will send any blog posts directly to your email address.

3.) If you find yourself overwhelmed with RSS feeds and Alerts, set up an account with iGoogle. iGoogle consolidates your RSS feeds with your Alerts into one clean interface. You will also receive news and the weather in your area. Logging into iGoogle at the beginning of each day can help you prioritize what is important for you to know for your work day.

4.) If going online is not enough, go to industry specific conferences and seminars. Conferences and seminars cost more than reading a few blog posts, but generally speakers at these events are industry influencers and can help you get in ahead of the curve. If you are looking to get an edge over a competitor or need to learn a lot of pertinent information in a short period of time, this is a good route to go. These events generally send useful information well after the event, so bear this in mind.

Keeping up with trends in magazines and newsletters can be a chore, but getting effectively organized and setting up a little time each day can mean the difference between staying on top and getting overrun by competitors.

Want some good marketing tips? To read more about search engine optimization or search engine marketing, take a look at tools for marketing in our blog. To read more about email marketing, we have a email marketing section in our blog about that as well. Make it easy for yourself by signing up for Volusion’s RSS feed today.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist
http://www.volusion.com

Technorati Tags: Competitive Intel, Marketing Current Events, Small Business Trends, Tools for Marketing, sell online, create online store, volusion

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Austin, TX (PRWEB) October 29, 2007 — Volusion Ecommerce continues to push the limits of online commerce by offering dimensional shipping in the latest version of its ecommerce solution.

Dimensional shipping allows merchants to enter exact dimensions for all of their online stores’ products. This is an improvement over the typical internet shipping module available in most shopping cart platforms, which only allows for an item’s weight. Shipping companies charge more for oddly shaped items than boxier items of the same weight. Calculating shipping by weight for these oddly shaped products ends up costing a merchant money any time one of these items is ordered from his or her site. With the option for dimensional shipping, merchants will no longer have to absorb these costs.

Volusion’s CEO Kevin Sproles is optimistic about Version 5’s added shipping benefits. “Creating dimensional shipping was a difficult task given the amount of programming it requires, but our developers managed to include it as a shipping option while still speeding up Volusion’s shipping calculation. Overall I feel our merchants will be very satisfied with this feature,” said Sproles.

Version 5 is now available to all Volusion customers and also features a more CSS-driven layout, XML feeds, StoneEdge integration, and the ability to print shipping labels directly from the Administrative Area. For all of Volusion’s capabilities, take a look at the eCommerce Shopping Cart Software Features list on their website.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist
http://www.volusion.com

Technorati Tags: Dimensional Shipping, Ecommerce Software, Sell Furniture Online, sell online, shopping cart software, volusion

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Volusion 5 Delivers the Goods So You Can Too
by Wayne Kawamoto

“In our 2004 review, we said that Volusion offered comprehensive features for e-commerce, and now the platform provides even more. With some 40 new features in its latest version, Volusion 5 now comes with stronger product and category management tools, advanced order processing and shipping features and new CRM tools…”
VOLUSION REVIEW

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If you’ve embraced the concept of Web 2.0 by creating a blog for your online business, you can pat yourself on the back for evolving with the ever-changing internet. It’s likely that your blog was created for your customers, to engage and inform about topics of interest regarding your product line or range of services. By giving your blog more exposure, you can help to gain more of these potential customers.

Here is a list of some of the top directories on the web for submitting your blog.

Answers
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Best of the Web
Submit
Page Rank: 5/10

Blogdigger
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Blog Hop
Submit
Page Rank: 6/10

BlogPulse
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Boing Boing
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Digg
Submit
Page Rank: 8/10

FeedBurner
Submit
Page Rank: 8/10

Findory
Submit
Page Rank: 6/10

Google Blog Search
Submit
Page Rank: 8/10

IceRocket
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Kinja
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Plazoo
Submit
Page Rank: 6/10

Reddit
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

The Technorati Blog Directory
Submit
Technorati Ping
Page Rank: 8/10

Yahoo! Publisher Network
Submit
Page Rank: 7/10

Haven’t created your Blog yet?
See Using Blogs to Gain Influence in Your Industry for some insight on how to create a blog, and how it can benefit your online business.

-Stacie Leonard, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

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If a customer drives to your brick and mortar store, gets out of their car, and walks towards your shop door, chances are they will at least browse through your items for sale. If a customer opens your website in a browser, he or she can exit that site in less than a second. This is especially true if they found your site through Google, which also lists hundreds of other sites related to yours that are just as easy to access.

Since you literally have less than one second to impress your customers, spending a little time tweaking your homepage to look as professional and usable as possible is in order. Here are a few tips to ensure your homepage helps convert visitors into buyers:

1.) Include a tagline with a brief summary of what your company does. Be sure that this is in a font that anyone could read.

2.) Use stock graphics sparingly. Your homepage graphic is the first thing your customers will notice on your site. Shouldn’t it fully encompass everything your store is about? Use this graphic to show how your product or service offers value or sets you apart from competitors. A customer should be able to tell what you sell just by looking at your home page without scrolling below the fold. This means a customer shouldn’t have to scroll at all to see pertinent information, so use this real estate wisely.

3.) Put your phone number somewhere within the template itself. A good place for a phone number is the upper right hand corner. The template is written in css and is the frame of your site. If you put your phone number within your template, your customer will not have any issues contacting you, which can help close sales.

4.) Include plenty of whitespace. Whitespace doesn’t have to be white—it is just the term for blank space on your site. Modern design dictates that less is more. Design is meant to accentuate the content of a page, so design overkill can really overwhelm your customer.

5.) Use soft, neutral colors for your background. Again, less is more. Scaring away a customer because they think your website background is obnoxious really isn’t worth it.

6.) Don’t overwhelm your customer with navigation menus. What does a customer truly need to see right away, and what can you tuck further into your site simply by using intuitive navigation? Your customer doesn’t need to see all of your inventory—they just need to trust your site as well as get a good sense of what you sell.

7.) Don’t forget to include keywords on your homepage. There is a fine balance between being user friendly and SEO friendly. Look at your search logs to see what people truly want to find on your site. Use keyword tools to see what consumers are searching. You can find more tips for this process by reading these tips for choosing the right keywords.

8.) Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. If you are a Volusion customer, you can ask for feedback using the “Review My Site” section. If not, there are many good forums on the web that have similar sections.

Don’t let your homepage design become a barrier to more sales. Want some ideas? To find some good examples of modern homepage design, check out this article on Web 2.0 design from Website Design from Scratch.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist
http://www.volusion.com

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