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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Volusion Customer Care Representative Kate Polito did know that her company offered the best all-in-one shopping cart solution on the market. What she didn’t know is that it could burst with so much cheddar cheese flavor.

“I noticed that all of my Cheetos that day were broken into smaller pieces. I was a bit disappointed, but not really surprised as it was the last snack bag from the box. But I noticed that there was one perfectly intact one right in the middle. I pulled it out and instantly knew I was working in a great place,” said Polito.

Polito decided to preserve the Cheeto on a Post-It note on her desk. “I would have liked to have eaten it, but that just wouldn’t be right. It’s one thing to get an unbroken Cheeto. It’s another thing when that Cheeto represents your company and the people that work for it. It’s a source of pride.”

Other online companies have attempted to duplicate the snack-as-branding phenomenon with little success. eBay CEO Meg Whitman tried to muster support around the eBay Gardetto Pack, which was ultimately thwarted by the online community due to high listing fees. Yahoo’s Jerry Yang gained some traction with the Yahoo Funion complete with ad space for potential bidders, but the Funion’s shape and limited size ultimately left it too vulnerable to Sergey Brin’s widely popular Google Pringle pack. Steve Jobs offered Polito $50,000 to rebrand the Cheeto before it was released to the public, but Polito decided she had other plans.

“In the end, when you find a Cheeto that looks exactly like your logo, you just have to hold on to it. There are just some things money can’t buy.”

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

Technorati Tags: Cheeto, Ecommerce, Kate Polito, online shopping cart, sell online, volusion

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If Home Depot or Macy’s had to physically pick up as many abandoned shopping carts as online merchants face everyday, they would have to hire employees to do nothing but stack shopping carts.

Fortunately for online merchants, there is no issue of clutter in the eCommerce world. Shopping cart abandonment is a serious problem though. Andersen Consulting and Forrester Research both show shopping cart abandonment rates at 25 percent. eMarketer’s research shows the rate as 32 percent. NetEffect and Greenfeld Online report shopping cart abandonment as high as 67 percent. Shop.org research goes as high as 75 percent.

While there seem to be as many different abandoned shopping cart statistics as there are marketing research firms, these statistics are not very favorable to online merchants. Understanding the causes can help any online merchant convert more visitors to buyers.

According to Forrester Research, the top reasons sited for cart abandonment are as follows:

* 57% - Didn’t want to pay shipping costs
* 48% - Total cost of purchase was more than expected
* 41% - Used the shopping cart for research
* 19% - Didn’t want to wait for the product
* 18% - Purchased offline instead
* 15% - Checkout process was too complicated
* 12% - Other reasons

How can you as a merchant prevent these reasons from getting in the way of a sale? Here are a few suggestions:

• Offer and advertise free or discounted shipping: Although this is perhaps easier said than done, it really is a great closing tool. If you cannot afford to offer free shipping, be sure that your shipping costs are not inflated beyond what a customer would expect to pay to ship it on their own.
• Take a look at the best shipping option for your business model. Options include flat rate shipping, free shipping, shipping by weight, shipping by price, live shipping rates, and live shipping rates using dimensional shipping.
• Simplify the checkout process. A checkout should take no more than three steps. If you are using Volusion’s One Page Checkout, this should be no issue, but many sites on the web still do not abide by this principle.
• Do not ask for customers to register before purchasing from you. Would you do this in a brick and mortar store? It is much easier for a customer to leave your online store than your physical store, so it’s not worth the risk.

In addition to our One Page Checkout, Volusion’s eCommerce platform now offers abandoned/live shopping cart statistics to manage and lower cart abandonment rates. If you are a Volusion customer, you can read about setting this up in our knowledge base article on abandoned/live shopping cart reports.

How do you try to handle the dilemma of lowering shipping costs? Share your ideas by posting a comment below.

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

Technorati Tags: Conversion Tactics, Lowering Cart Abandonment, One Page Checkout, One Page Ecommerce, shopping cart abandonment rate, volusion

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In this recent American Express ad, John McEnroe comes to an epiphany that credit card “dispute resolution” is easier than he’d ever realized. The commercial ends with McEnroe hugging after resolving a tiff with Klauss Umlauf, his former nemesis and referee at the U.S. Open. The announcer then reminds us how easy it is to resolve credit card disputes with American Express. Unfortunately for merchants, disputing a charge really can be that easy for customers. That is why merchants should take every precaution to be prepared for them should they arise.

According to Wikipedia, here are reasons customers ask for a chargeback:

· Card holder requests a copy of the transaction receipt.
· Card holder did not authorize the transaction.
· Non-matching account number.
· Transaction was processed more than once.
· Transaction receipt was not imprinted.
· Refund not processed.
· No authorization.
· Customer never received merchandise/services.
· Card not used within valid expiration date.
· Services not rendered.
· Error in transaction amount.
· Transaction receipt is incorrect, incomplete, or illegible.
· Transaction processed for incorrect amount.
· Product different from what was described or promised.
· Counterfeit transaction.
· Transaction not processed within Visa or MasterCard time frames.
· Failure to obtain card-holder signature.
· Signature on the card was blank.
· Signature on receipt different from card.
· Card-holder never authorized transaction.
· Card-holder claims merchant changed transaction amount without permission.
· Merchant knowingly participated in a fraudulent transaction.
· Incorrect Transaction Date.
· Card-holder claims invalid mail or telephone order transaction.
· Card-holder was denied ability to return item.
· Transaction was not canceled successfully.
· Card-holder not satisfied with quality of product or services

As you can see, there are many reasons why a customer can request his or her money back. As a merchant, you probably realize that customers are not always being honest or fair when asking for chargebacks, so it is important to cover your bases in case you are hit with a potential chargeback.

John Conde of sitepoint.com laid out the chargeback process like this:

1.) A customer disputes a transaction by contacting the bank that issued the card.
2.) The card-issuing bank researches the claim to see if it is valid or not. If not, the customer is responsible for the charge.
3.) If the claim is valid, the issuing bank offers the customer a provisional credit. The bank then takes the issue up with the merchant’s processing bank.
4.)The merchant’s processing bank then researches the chargeback on their own. They can decide to decline the chargeback and send it back to the card-issuing bank.
5.) The chargeback amount is removed directly from the merchant’s account and the merchant’s processing bank provides written notification to the merchant.
6.) If there was a processing error that was not the merchant’s fault, the sale is presented back to the card-issuing bank for corrections.
7.) The merchant provides documentation to remedy the chargeback. If this documentation is satisfactory, the chargeback is declined and the customer once again is charged for the sale. If the documentation is unsatisfactory, the chargeback is successful and the process ends.

In addition to taking the steps to prevent chargebacks covered in our blog previously, you can also ensure that your phone number is on any receipt or packing list, and that you respond to chargebacks or return requests as quickly as possible. This will ensure that you stay under that standard maximum of one to two percent that allows you to still use your merchant account.

Interested in more data about merchant accounts in general? Read our blog post that explains how payment is processed on your site.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist

http://www.volusion.com

Chargeback Process, Chargeback Processing, Chargebacks, What is Chargeback, volusion

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You realize that relationships are give/take, and in this one, you’ve realized you are giving much more than you should be. It started off so great though. As time wore on, you found more and more demands made of you with so much less in return. Honestly, how much more can you really take?

It’s time to end your long relationship selling on eBay and create your own store.

Between listing fees, commission fees, and the other random fees that eBay manages to squeeze out of its sellers, deciphering an eBay seller’s invoice is about as easy as figuring out federal tax codes. As difficult as it is to figure out exactly how much it costs to sell on eBay, it is not difficult to see that sellers’ fees are higher on eBay than they have ever been. There is also no way to know when eBay plans to raise fees again.

As irritating as higher fees can be, coming into ecommerce from eBay can be intimidating. eBay hovers in the top 20 most visited sites on the web and doesn’t show signs of stopping. eBay sellers depend on this kind of traffic, but taking proactive steps to create your own traffic can make all the difference.

Here are a few steps you can take to ease the transition into your own store.

1.) Don’t quit eBay “cold turkey.” Building a strong presence online takes time. There aren’t many ways around that and stores that flourish immediately truly are the exception. Accept this and keep up your eBay store to get some sales. This will give you the time to start building up your store.

2.) Go after the easiest customers to reach—your own. Send an email to all of your existing customers to tell them about your new store. You might want to give them a coupon or exclusive offer to entice them to visit.

3.) Get an online presence outside your store as well. Post to forums and ezines in your industry. Create your own blog. Exchange links with related sites. (See: Using Link Sharing to Boost Search Engine Results). This will allow you to build up back links which will only help your site with search engines.

4.) Use an affiliate program to gain traffic from other sources. Find sites in your industry and pay them a small fee in exchange for sales coming from their site.

5.) Start a pay-per-click campaign. Pay-per-click ads can become expensive, but they also direct leads to your site that wouldn’t be there in the first place. Getting an initial customer base can make it worth the expense. Looking for an effective pay-per-click campaign? Sign up for a Fast Traffic campaign and let us take care of it for you.

So go ahead and make the change. After all, you deserve to get more out of selling online.

-Michelle Greer, Volusion eCommerce Consultant

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