You are running an online store, but how do you know if you are running it well? Are you up to date with the current trends in ecommerce, or are you spinning your wheels with little results?

Aside from Volusion’s blog, there are many resources online to help you get ahead in online business. Here are just a few that we recommend:

DESIGN:
http://www.alistapart.com
Advanced blog about current style of design

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm
Visual guide for modern style of design.

http://www.unmatchedstyle.com
http://cssvault.com/gallery
Two great galleries of web 2.0 style designs. Unmatched Style includes Wordpress themes for your blog as well.
SEO and SEM:
http://www.seochat.com
SEO site with current trends in ecommerce, tips, and a useful forum.

http://www.searchengineland.com
Current tips and trends in SEO and SEM. Check out their crazy keywords!

http://www.sempo.org/learning_center
Organization completely dedicated to search engine marketing.

MARKETING and PR:
http://www.micropersuasion.com
Steve Rubel’s blog that features current on technology and how it can help you market your product. Pretty good with stats too.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com
Site full of useful marketing studies. Some studies are free; others are available for purchase.

http://www.gladwell.com/
Good to read to understand the psychological aspects of marketing rather than the technical. Check out Gladwell’s books too.

http://www.theb2blead.com/b2b-marketing-podcasts/the-b2b-lead-podcast-2-%E2%80%93-whurley-on-the-power-of-social-media/
Great podcast featuring William Hurley of BMC about the power and nature of social media.

NEWS AND MISCELLANEOUS:

http://www.ecommercetimes.com
Helps you keep up with the players and trends in ecommerce.

http://www.webmasterworld.com
Another means for keeping up.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com
Magazine completely dedicated to online stores.

Rather than reading a bunch at once, take a little time every day to gain knowledge about running an online business. You can make this easier by subscribing to these sites’ RSS feeds. Taking the time each day to understand the industry will help you take your business in the right direction.

Is there a publication that has helped you sell online? Share it by posting a comment.

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

Technorati Tags: Ecommerce Blogs, Ecommerce Magazines, Ecommerce Resources, Learn to Sell Online, volusion

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Roger decided that unlike shopping on larger sites like Amazon, he had the unique ability to offer valuable insight to customers as they shopped. “When you shop on Amazon, they don’t give you a lot of information about the music you buy. You have to know what you want before you shop. When we set up our Volusion store, we set up categories to explain the different organs and musicians. Categories allow us to make many associations within the site to provide a rich browsing experience for someone who wants to learn and discover our music.”

Roger and the staff at gothic-catalog.com not only improved the quality of the content on the site, they improved the usability of the site by separating categories by artist and organ. “On our web site you can browse ‘Featured organs’, find a specific instrument, see a picture and essay describing it, and then see a list of all the recordings made there. You can do the same thing for an organ builder (“All Schnitger organs”), and of course, for all artists. Previously, we would include detailed information on the organ in the printed booklet for every CD we recorded there. This bloats CD booklets, and cost. Now, with each organ having its own home page, we simply point to that page in our booklet.”

Roger has received considerable positive feedback from customers since making the switch to Volusion. He attributes the success to starting simply. He began by setting up better categories, and his next step is to set up downloadable tracks on gothic-catalog.com, an option he did not have as a Yahoo store owner. “Implement one new feature at a time and do it well before going on to the next. Volusion is a rich environment, and no web site I know could possibly use them all.”

You can find Roger’s store of choral and organ recordings, including holiday recordings, at gothic-catalog.com.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist

Technorati Tags: Ecommerce Usability, Gothic Catalog, Niche Marketing, Online Business Marketing, volusion

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Click to View Volusion Newswire - October 2007

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Have you ever missed a sale because you didn’t know about it in time? Have you ever lost out on a limited edition product or missed an event because you weren’t in the loop? Chances are that if you have a product that people desire, your customers have missed out too.

Twitter has created a product that makes it fun and easy for you to keep up with your customers. Rather than posting entire blog posts or newsletters that can take up valuable time and resources, Twitter will allow you to send and receive short messages with other people using Twitter. You can receive messages via text message or email, and you can send messages with Twitter’s easy-to-use website or even your cell phone.

Twitter is fun for college kids keeping up with each other, but it can also be a useful tool for merchants. Do you have inventory that is frequently updated? Let your customers know when new shipments come in by sending them a message in less than five minutes. Do you have one or two day sales like many merchants had this past weekend? Announce them using Twitter. You can announce events like webinars, club meetings, parties, viral video releases, book signings, or really anything using Twitter. It can also be a useful tool to remind customers of these announcements, since people are inundated with messages these days anyway.

Twitter goes both ways though. Ask for feedback on a particular product. Ask what customers thought of an event, or ask for ideas for an event. Can’t think of a good blog post idea? Ask your customers what they want to know about using Twitter. The advantage of using Twitter is that you can reach your customers so quickly and unobtrusively.
How do you get customers to sign up for your Twitter updates? Here are some ideas:

1.) Remind them that it is really easy to sign up for Twitter. Unlike Myspace, a person can join Twitter AND invite all of their contacts to join Twitter in less than ten minutes.

2.) Export your contacts list into a Gmail, Windows Live, Yahoo or Hotmail account. Twitter will pull this contact list in and allow you to send invites to everyone on your contacts lists in less than a few minutes.

3.) Remind them of all the cool events or promotions they will receive by signing up!

Volusion microblogs in your Volusion Admin Area. How are you keeping up with customers? Learn how to write a blog for your store, and use Twitter to promote your blog and products.

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

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Click Here for Free Ecommerce Holiday Homepage Graphics

Click Here to Add a Christmas Countdown to Your Online Store

What the 2007 Holiday Season Has In Store for Online Stores
According to a recent Forrester Research report, online holiday retail sales in the U.S. are expected to hit $33 billion in 2007, a 21% increase over last year’s sales.
Included in Forrester’s report were the following findings:
Apparel and Accessories: This category will top holiday shopping lists.
(80% of respondents said that they will purchase something in this category online.)
Free Shipping: A majority of consumers still have interest in free shipping promotions.
(61% of respondents said they are more likely to shop online from a retailer offering free shipping.)
Less Flare: Fewer consumers are willing to pay for extras such as gift wrapping, or overnight delivery.
(26% of respondents said they would pay for expedited delivery prior to the holiday season, down from 45% who said they would do so in 2006.)

*Forrester defines the holiday shopping season as the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

ComScore, Inc. also released recent information and predictions regarding the 2007 holiday season. ComsScore, a global leader in measuring the digital world, projects that the months of November and December will see approximately $29.5 billion in online consumer spending.
2006 versus 2007
Non-Travel (Retail) Spending (Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases)
2006: Jan-Oct: $77.5 Billion
2007: Jan-Oct: $93.6 Billion
(21% Increase)
2006: Nov-Dec (Holiday Season): $24.6 Billion
2007: Nov-Dec (Holiday Season): $29.5 Billion
(Projected 20% Increase)

Their reports also show that the first eighteen days of the holiday season saw more than $7 billion in online retail spending.
Holiday Season to Date, 2006 versus 2007
Non-Travel (Retail) Spending (Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases)
2006: November 1-18, $6.01 Billion
2007: November 1-18, $7.04 Billion
(17% Increase)

“The online holiday shopping season got off to a slow start in the first week of November, but it has since picked up sharply,” notes comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Sales in the first ten days of November were up modestly versus year ago, but surged to levels in excess of 20 percent by mid-November. It’s likely that warmer than average weather at the beginning of November kept people outdoors and away from their computers, weighing down early holiday season sales, especially for key online categories like apparel. The growth rates during the second and third weeks of November are likely to be better indicators of how the remainder of the season will play out.”

Through hard facts and educated predictions, this holiday season is set to top the charts for online spending. Best of luck to you and your online store this holiday season!
When may your site see its peak day of online sales? For Volusion’s own prediction for the 2007 holiday season, see “Volusion Offers Merchants a Peek at 2007’s Biggest Online Shopping Day.”

-Stacie Leonard, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

Technorati Tags: christmas e-commerce, christmas ecommerce, christmas homepage, christmas homepage graphics, free christmas graphics, free holiday graphics, free homepage graphics, holiday e-commerce, holiday ecommerce, holiday homepage, holiday homepage graphics, homepage graphics, volusion

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