15
May
How To Capitalize On The Growing Online Retail Industry
There is new great news for online retailers! Research firm eMarketer estimates that apparel and accessories will grow by 20 percent, to $40.9 billion this year, up from $34.2 billion in 2011.
So if you’re an eTailer, you’re in the right industry at the right time. But of course, the growing market opportunity doesn’t necessarily mean your online apparel store will automatically see more sales. But with a little hard ( and smart) work and the right eCommerce provider, your potential success is limitless!
So what are some things you can do to ensure eCommerce success for your retail store?
Create a branded experience.
We are visual creatures, we are persuaded, enticed and sold by visuals everyday. Just think about the importantance of a brick & mortar store’s window displays: They pull you in, entice you and give you a quick understanding of the brand & its inventory. The same should be true of your online store.
Choose a shopping cart that gives you the ability to feature daily deals, upload plenty of product pictures, configure your checkout page for different payment options and customize your website in a way that represents your brand well.With 3dcart, you’ll get easy ways to customize your site design without a lot of programming knowledge. You want the look and feel of your site to reflect your products. Here are some great examples of some 3dcart etailers that woe customers with an enticing, branded beautiful store.
Educate your customers with effective product details.
Take multiple pictures of your products. But don’t just focus on pictures of your jewelry resting on tables and stands; show the product in action. Use photos of necklaces draped across necks, bracelets hanging luxuriously over wrists, and rings gracing fingers. For more tips, see our extensive list of ideas of presenting more effective product information.
Set your brand apart with product videos.
Making product videos is a great way to effectively convey information, show products in use and create trust with the customer. And with YouTube now being the second most popular search engine in the world, your product videos can even bring you new customers in addition to adding value to your existing ones. For tips of creative product videos that covert online browsers into your new customers see our tips for effective product videos.
Promote your products and brand on comparison sites.
How do you trump a major online retailer? Offer your products at a lower price, of course. A great way to introduce your brand to new customers and drive higher sales is to list your products on comparison shopping sites like BizRate or NexTag. That way, savvy shoppers will find your store and take advantage of lower deals. It’s just another way that some of the best apparel retailers show the world how to sell apparel online.
Research the competition—especially the big boys.
Some online apparel stores get it right, and that’s why they’re on top of the industry. Checking out the design and layout of stores like Nordstrom.com or DavidsBridal.com is a great way to get ideas on how to set up your own store. They get a lot of traffic and tons of sales for a reason, and borrowing successful elements is a great way to get started on the right track as you learn how to sell apparel online.
Protect your margins.
When you are thinking about starting your online apparel store, you will notice there are some popular options with small start-up costs which may seem tempting, but you should always take a look at the benefits. For instance, if you are looking to sell T-shirts, you may consider already established t-shirt brands like CafePress or Zazzle. While these sites offer you the opportunity to promote your products under a popular brand, they also take a massive cut of your sales and leave you with a small percentage of the profits.
In comparison, shopping cart software with 3DCart will only cost you a flat $19.99 monthly fee and gives you the ability to use built-in marketing features. You’ll have to print the shirts on your own, but the revenue potential with 3DCart is much, much higher. No matter who your provider is, sales are hard, so you shouldn’t give your provider a cut of your hard work. When you protect your profit margins, 10 sales have the value of 15 or 20 sales of those who did not.
26
Apr
What Is Web Accessibility?
When designing your store, you obviously should be focused on your customers’ experience, but what some merchants and designers forget is that not every customer is the same. Beyond just design preferences, a portion of your potential customer-base has different abilities and needs when it comes to being able navigate and interact with the Internet. That is why designing with web accessibility in mind is so important.
What is web accessibility?
Accessibility is the practice of enabling users of all abilities and disabilities to consume content. Individuals with impaired vision, hearing, motor skills, cognition, or some combination of these can require special hardware/software to navigate the web.
The Web Accessibility Inniative defines it as:
“Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.”
The definition of accessibility has been widened to incorporate other factors that can hinder the experience of a user that does not have a disability, like those who:
- don’t have the latest browsers and plug-ins;
- have slow modems, or live in rural areas with limited Internet
- browse without graphics, using text-only browsers or subscribe to non-graphic services
Why is it important?
7% of the US population is hearing impaired and 4.5% are visually impaired. First and foremost, your customers matter. Every good business puts their customers first and so should your store. Secondly by making your store accessible to all different types of people you open your business up to new customers who appreciate the easy experience you’ve provided.
What can you do?
Here are some simple things you can do today to make sure your store is accessible.
- Write Meaningful Page Titles – If you name your pages generic names like ‘Home’ or ‘Main’ a blind person that enters your site will only hear the words “home” or “main” and won’t be aware of the true nature or contents of the site.
- Describe Images: use alternate text to describe them
- Use Well-Structure Form: Use headings, lists, paragraphs, to structure your copy
- Explain Links: Add a description to every link on your page to tell the visitor where the link will take them.
- Work With JavaScript Disabled/Without Other Plugins – When you make using a plugin or Javascript mandatory, you loose out on users who don’t have the latest updates or are using Browsers that do not allow Javascript.
- Add Audio To CAPTCHA – You should avoid using CAPTCHA when possible, but if you do use it make sure to include an an audio alternative for people with incapacities.
23
Apr
Ask The SEO Experts: Photo-Sharing Links, Redesign Affect On SEO
3dcart’s CMO Joe Palko & SEO Manager Bryan Falla answer SEO, PPC, and conversion questions questions submitted by 3dcart merchants. To submit your questions fill out this form: http://blog.3dcart.com/get-your-seo-questions-answered-by-3dcarts-seo-experts/
Q. Which major photo-sharing sites (i.e. Flickr, photobucket, deviantart, imageshack) allow outgoing links?
A. In terms of dofollow links, most don’t. There are basically two reasons: They are protecting their own “link juice”, and also preventing people from wanting to use them only for the benefit of outbound links. The exception to that rule is Deviantart whose links are dofollow, however a landing page is put between deviantart and your target page which makes it not as valuable.
BUT that doesn’t mean there is not ways to use photo-sharing to build high-quality links: You can upload original images to Flickr’s creative commons and ask that if bloggers use your image or photo to place a one way back link to your blog or site. For example:
“Feel free to use this image for your website or blog as long as you include photo credit with a clickable (hyperlinked) and do-follow link to
blog.3dcart.com.”
It’s the same concept as the embed code used for “sharing” infographics, which pretty much tells people “fee free to share this graphic on your website with this code” and within the code there’s a do-follow backlink embedded.
So you can definitely build backlinks through these sites, but it’s important to understand that it’s more through networking than simply by posting. The backlinks won’t come from the sites themselves but from the people who use these sites.
Q. I’ve recently acquired a website that I feel is a bit too busy and might be confusing for some guests. I’m planning to do a redesign and streamline the site, making it more user-friendly. What are the risks in a redesign and what should I concentrate on when rebuilding with SEO in mind?
The only major risk is that the search engines won’t be able to find indexed content. Avoid this by
1. Try to keep the same URLs and site architecture
2. If that’s not possible, make sure all your indexed pages are redirected properly to their new URLs using 301 redirects
As long as the content is the same, you should be fine. On a side note, often times after redesigning a website, rankings will often increase, especially if the site is structured well, gets improved content, and is coded using best practices. I’ve found a nice list of best practices… http://terrymorris.net/bestpractices/
Make sure to register for 3dcart’s free webinar: The New Rules of SEO and check out 3dcart’s SEO services which can help you fast-track your optimization efforts.
3dcart’s CMO Joe Palko & SEO Manager Bryan Falla answer SEO, PPC, and conversion questions questions submitted by 3dcart merchants. To submit your questions fill out this form: http://blog.3dcart.com/get-your-seo-questions-answered-by-3dcarts-seo-experts/
18
Apr
3dcart & Red Peach Designs Introduce 8 New Premium Templates
3dcart is happy to announce eight new templates in our premium template store. The The three beautiful “Stationary” templates were designed by RedPeach Designs and the five others come the design team here at 3dcart. Give them a look and tell us what you think in the comments!
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- Bjewelry
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- Beach House
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- Handmade Gifts
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- GameHub
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- Campout
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- Stationary – Pink
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- Stationary – Eco by RedPeach Designs
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- Stationary – Aqua by RedPeach Designs
26
Mar
40% Of Consumers PREFER To Use Social Logins
With the introduction of 3dcart’s Facebook Connect add on, we’ve written about how Facebook Connect can help your online store raise conversions and explained best practices of using social logins. So when we came across this great infographic from Monetate, we knew we had to share. Not only does their research reinforce how important it is for merchants to consider Facebook Connect, they share some interesting statistics on how customers PREFER social logins.
Here are few interesting take-aways from the below infographic.
40% of consumers PREFER to use social logins for creating accounts and 60% of shoppers say they use Facebook Connect most frequently! Consumers are getting more and more use to logging in with Facebook, making it seem even more laborious when they have to go through the process of filling out lengthy forms on other sites. Make it easy on your customers and you will see happier customers, and less abandoned carts.
50% or more of consumers say they use social networks to provide feedback. I think that if more stores used Facebook Connect, this number would be higher! When you make it easy for customers, they are happy to give you feedback on your products and company and when they do it on social networks, they share it with all of their friends ( see next stat!).
60% of consumers go to social networking sites to read product reviews. As a merchant using Facebook Connect to encourage social sharing, this is amazing!
21
Mar
Facebook Connect: When, Where And How To Connect With Customers
Now that you know the advantages Facebook Connect offers your online store, we wanted to give you some tips on how to best leverage the social feature.
WHEN:
Knowing when & where to use Connect is key to leveraging it’s social power for your store. Don’t jump the gun with an early pop-up window for two reasons:
- 99.9% of users HATE pop-up windows.
- Asking users to connect too early may cause more of them to decline because they are still checking out your site; they aren’t committed to the process yet.
Instead, encourage users to Connect with a less forcefull call to action further down the purchase/ interest process than your homepage.
WHERE:
If you need some ideas on where to place your call to action, just think about where the social feature makes sense.
For example:
- account creation page
- product review section
- post-purchase
- forums/community areas
HOW:
Facebook Connect has much more potential than just making a registration easier. It offers you tons of unique and interesting ways to connect with your customers and their social networks.
For implementation inspiration, check out how these eCommerce sites are connecting with their customers:
LEVI.COM – SOCIAL SHOPPING
When users come to levi.com, they are encouraged to shop socially by clicking on the “like-minded shopping starts here” call to action. By connecting with Facebook Connect, customers can share Levi’s products with their friends, “Like” them, or find “Top-Liked” products across their network.
AMAZON – SOCIAL GIFTING
Amazon uses Facebook Connect to make gift card purchasing as easy as possible. When a user Connects with Facebook, they can purchase gift cards for friends that will be posted to their friend’s wall on the day of their choosing, like their birthday. The beauty of this use of Connect is that users only have to complete three steps to purchase the giftcard: sign in with Facebook, create the card and then send it on.
HEINZ – SOCIAL EXCLUSIVES
Heinz used Facebook Connect to promote and create buzz for their new product. Who would talk about Ketchup on Facebook? Not many people. At least until, Heinz launched a limited edition flavor, but only allowed Facebook fans to purchase it before it went on general sale. Using Connect, Fans could purchase the new flavor and recommend it to friends. So how did the Ketchup Connec campaign do? Heinz sold 3,000 bottles of their flavor to Facebook fans, gained 14,000 new fans and the buzz they were looking for.
Interested in adding Facebook Connect to your 3dcart store? 3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
20
Mar
The Art of Color Coordination
Close your eyes.
- Think of Coca Cola? What do you see?
- Think of Groupon? What do you see?
What came to mind? A Logo? A Slogan? An experience?
Most likely, one of the companies visuals popped into your head. While looks aren’t EVERYTHING, your store’s appearance is your customer’s first impression of your brand and as you probably experienced, looks can make a lasting impression. Both Coca Cola & Groupon have simple logos, but incredibly memorable ones.
Why? Bold colors!
While you don’t always NEED to have bold colors to be memorable ( we love a good minimalist design), choosing bold colors for your store or logo definitely helps you make an impression. BUT using the wrong color combination can make your brand seem ameatuer.
Image courtesy of logodesignerblog.com
If you are trying to figure out the right combination of colors for your brand, look no further than KISSMetrics’s color coordination cheat sheet!
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15
Mar
Introducing: The 3dcart Template Store
Creating design templates for 3dcart stores can help supplement a designer’s resume and bring in extra income (30 percent of every template sold).
The 3dcart team is so excited to launch the 3dcart Template Store today which will grow the template store, help graphic designers reach out to new clients and bring more design options to 3dcart merchant! The new Template Store allows designers to submit their creations for 3dcart store themes and generate a steady stream of revenue.
Designers can register for 3dcart Partner Program, upload their online store template designs and earn 30 percent on every store template sold. We’re excited to offer designers an opportunity to connect with the more 15,000+ online stores across 12 countries currently on the 3dcart platform.
“The 3dcart platform offers merchants the best marketing features to attract visitors to their website – at the same time, the design aspect is vital for an online store to engage and convert these visitors into customers,” said Jimmy Rodriguez, CTO of 3dcart. “The new template store allows 3dcart merchants to launch their website in no time, with an affordable and high-end design created by professional designers.”
3dcart’s unique approach allows graphic designers with limited HTML skills to participate in the program because 3dcart handles the HTML/CSS implementation, as well as support issues. Assuming the template is accepted, designers earn their payout based on how many templates they sell—the better the template, the larger the payday.
“The new template program from 3dcart gives designers like us the opportunity to showcase our talent to the 3dcart user base,” said Danielle Stein of Boutique Design Studio. “The designer template program is so simple that we don’t even have to code the website. We just submit a photoshop file with our design. It’s an exciting opportunity to grow our design business.”
At $99 for regular and $199 for premium, smaller online retailers looking for a lower upfront investment often purchase store design templates rather than shelling out for custom design work.
The complete details about the guidelines for submission and registration process are available a thttp://www.3dcart.com/template-guidelines.html. Submitters should pay careful attention to guidelines around header features, side widgets, main navigation elements, homepage, featured products, footer navigation and file formatting.
20
Jan
Color & eCommerce: What Is Your Site Saying?
When it comes to eCommerce design, every decision matters because aspect of your design impacts conversion…even the colors. Offline merchants have been using color tactics for centuries to lure customers in with advertisements or window displays so it makes sense that online merchants use color to influence the consumer too.
KISSmetrics published this interesting guide to the affect color have on eCommerce:
11
Jan
How Messaging and Design Affect Conversion Rates
Zippycart’s infographic shows how design and messaging affect consumer shopping behavior aka online conversions! The infographic shares some really interesting facts and figures and the data reveals some really useful tips for merchants:
SISS- Say It Simple Stupid.
- Make copy simple and to the point. People want to know the who/what/when/where quickly and easily. Simple copy is effective copy.