The not to-do list is often as important as the to-do list. As you begin planning your web strategy for 2010, consider making these new year’s anti-resolutions:

Stop relying on discounts: Pretend that for the next year your business had to survive selling only full price products or services. Would you survive? What does your answer [...]

Most online transactions are fast, efficient, and completely lacking human contact. Why not shock your customers once in a while with a truly personal online experience? Below are 13 ways to get personal (in a good way) with your customers.

Shock your first time customers by calling them within a day of their order. Ask them [...]

In the early days, online retail built itself upon the foundation of convenience and value. It was easier to buy online, and many times cheaper. With the astonishing growth of e-commerce, and the unique combination of an always on store with relatively low overhead, some online store owners would assume they’ve got a leg up [...]

For the last several years, I’ve had the privilege of directing the e-commerce site for C28, an online Christian clothing store. In the last 3 1/2 years, we’ve been fortunate to experience a 1600% increase in sales.
I’ve recently been reflecting on lessons I’ve learned through this exciting but tumultuous experience. What follows is a list [...]

As much as customer service is all the rage, and heralded as the new marketing, it’s still viewed as a cost-center by most online businesses. This I believe, is entirely due to a defensive approach to customer care.
Defensive customer service can be defined as any type of reactive customer servicing such as answering calls, responding [...]

It’s staggering to consider how many marketing failures are the result of broken promises.
We rarely think of it this way, but every button, every subject line, every headline on our website is a promise. Whether or not that promise is kept determines whether we win the trust of our visitors, or lose them for good.
To [...]

If you have any experience working in eCommerce, I’m going to bet you can list 10 mistakes you’ve made, or have seen others make while running their online store. Or maybe you’re currently setting up shop online, and need some advice on what pitfalls to avoid.
Below are 10 eCommerce startup mistakes I’ve encountered while working [...]

I’m making the list, be sure to check it twice to ensure success for your e-commerce website this holiday season.
Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Your site will be flooded with traffic this holiday season. How can you harness that traffic to create year long business? Consider offering a good discount incentive for customers to come back [...]

There’s a very good chance you won’t finish reading this blog post. Why? Because you’re constantly bombarded with distractions and options.
You have plenty of other blog posts to read or emails in your inbox beckoning for your attention. Even if you commit to reading this you may be distracted by a ringing cellphone or a [...]

Stop for a moment and consider the goals of your website. Regardless of whether it’s a purchase through a shopping cart, a lead generation, white paper download, or a email opt, I’m going to bet every one of these actions requires a customer to use a web form.
With web forms playing such an important role [...]