The day of love is just around the corner so we want to show your store some 3dcart love! We’re compiling a directory of all the 3dcart stores running Valentine’s Day specials to help promote our clients and to showcase some awesome deals!
If your store is running a special in the name of cupid, let us know by filling out the below form and you will be added to the directory!
The leader of your book club shops online. Your 13-year old middle-schooler shops online (hopefully with your consent). Your grandmother shops online. Online shopping isn’t just for the tech savvy anymore, but just WHO is the new mobile shopper? Just HOW connected are they?
A new infographic by Zmags sets out to answer just that and there are some important take-aways.
She’s a soccer mom. 52% of ‘connected consumers’ are women with an average age of 40. Yep, despite generational stereotypes the connect consumer is NOT a millennial!
Inbound marketing focuses on getting found by customers and not forcing them to look at you through advertisements (outbound marketing). Inbound marketing is permission marketing centered on relationships and natural SEO.
As an inbound marketing software, Hubspot is obviously all about ‘inbound-marketing’ but they have good reason to be. The impact word-of-mouth and customer reviews on online sales is immense! Just check out some of these facts:
PPC: Only 41% of people believe that ads ( Google Ads etc) are a good source of product information & 75% don’t accept ads as ‘truth’.
SEO: 61% of consumers use search engines to research products before a purchase
SOCIAL MEDIA: 90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends. Thats 20% more than those who believe general consumer opinion
CUSTOMER REVIEWS : Products with over 50 reviews create greater return, 65% more than products with fewer than 5.
(PRLEAP.COM) To enhance shipping for small and midsize customers,OrderCup today announced a tight integration with leading ecommerce software provider 3dcart to provide a hosted shipping management service that handles shipping, order tracking, returns and more through leading carriers USPS, UPS and FedEx.
OrderCup offers a simple, easy to setup, affordable and customizable solution for 3dcart customers that manages the entire shipping process end-to-end, without signing up for supplemental services. Additionally, through OrderCup, 3dcart customers gain access to many value added services like discounted postage and insurance, free address validation and returns processing. You can visit the following link to learn more about the key capabilities provided by this integration.
“OrderCup automates administrative tasks like sending order tracking information to the customer, handling returns if needed and managing split orders, saving time and money for 3dcart customers,” said 3dcart CEO Gonzalo Gil. “With the holiday season approaching, OrderCup will greatly ease the shipping burden for online merchants.”
Because the service is web-based and fully integrated, customers can easily generate and print shipping labels for product returns through an online store, helping build brand loyalty and return customers-especially around the holidays. The rest of the feature set is equally simple to use for online merchants.
“As a trusted leader in ecommerce, 3dcart gives us the ability to expand our target audience and reach a community of more than 10,000 online merchants looking to bring greater efficiency to their businesses,” said OrderCup CEO Aloke Nath.
To learn more about how OrderCup can help 3dcart customers streamline their shipping operations, visit http://blog.3dcart.com/streamline-shipping-like-the-pros/
Can you believe that it was only 150 years that the first transcontinental telegraph was sent? Wow, it just shows how far we’ve come and how FAST! For online merchants, cloud computing isn’t A PART of business, it IS business!
Check out this infographic by Salesforce on illustrating our expedition in communication technology .. all the way to the cloud!
‘Abandoned Cart’ - the words are enough to send chills down a merchant’s spine.
Every online retailer fights the good fight of skittish shoppers and abandoned orders. But when merchants arm themselves information on WHY customers click off without checking out, they can win the battle!
Here’s what we know:
- The average conversion rate for ecommerce websites is anywhere between 1-2%
- The average shopping cart abandonment rates is around 60-70%
- A study conducted by PayPal and ComScore found that 45% of consumers abandoned carts more than once with an average abandoned order of $109.00
- 37% of consumers abandoned a shopping cart because of comparison shopping.
- 27% abandoned a shopping cart to search for coupons
- 24% abandoned because they wanted more payment options
- 22% abandoned because were not able to easily find contact information for the merchant
Knowledge is power, but without action that power fails to pack a punch. Here’s some easy fixes that will help you convert higher:
Reach Out
If most cart abandoners are repeat offenders, catch them before their second round. Set email auto-responders to reach out to customers who have abandoned their cart reminding them of their cart AND offering a coupon.
Be Bold
Savvy shoppers will comparison shop. No way around it. If you feel that you REALLY are the best deal in town or that you offer the best value ( price, store security, loyalty points etc), be bold. List your competitions prices and explain how you are the best deal.
Show them the coups’
Customers don’t like to play hide the coupon. Display the actual coupon or a link to the coupon page on the product page as well as the check out page.
Tip: List ALL coupon codes and corresponding items on the checkout page. Unable to resist a good deal, savvy shoppers will add additional items to their cart.
Be Flexible
Don’t let payment options stand between you and a good deal. Check out 3dcarts 100+ payment solutions.
Don’t Hide
Be easily accessible.Give customers all options of communications: phone, fax, email, livechat – maybe even your Skype name. Display contact information at the top of the pag – every page.
Image credit: sascian.blogspot.com
Loading time is an important part of any website’s user experience, but it is vital in eCommerce. Sometimes we can get caught in the aesthetics of a site and end up sacrificing speed. Unfortunately slow loading time, not bad design, is a leading cause of site abandonment. Check out KissMetric’s infographic below to learn more about the affects of a slow site. Then use our 3 tips to help better your load time and your conversion!
Check your Speed: The first thing you want to do is check your current speed. Luckily there are some great free tools that let you do this:
Rearrange your HTML Document: It’s important to place the Stylesheet References at the top of your HTML document and the script references at the Bottom.
Only two components per hostname are downloaded by browsers at a time. By placing the <head> of your HTML document st the top of your page, your site will load faster because it allows your pages to render the styles progressively. Thus by choosing to place the script references at the top, you block other mor essential elements from loading of the page.To quicken your load time, place script references before the closing <body>.
Optimize Your Images
File format can greatly affect your page load so it’s important to know when to use each file format:
- PNG: Use for high quality transparent image.
- GIF: Use for images with few colors like logos
- JPEG: Use for images with lots of color and detail like photos.
Use free services to help you optimize and shrink your images:
Tip: Avoid changing an images size using the width and height attributes of <img> elements in HTML. Use an image editor like PickNic to decrease load time.
infographic by KissMetrics
Creating a well-designed store with 3dcart is simple! With 3dcart, you can fully customize your online store using images, HTML/CSS, javascript, and flash so the design options are endless! Some other design friendly aspects of 3dcart shopping cart software are:
- Zoom Technology for Displaying High-Resolution Images: If you have high quality image of your products, your store can include a “Zoom” feature to each of your item’s images.
- Fully-Customizable Product Pages: 3DCart’s unique template design lets you have complete control over the layout of your product pages.
- Fully-Customizable Category Pages: 3DCart’s unique template design lets you have complete control over the layout of your category pages.
- Unlimited Images for Products with Flash Image Gallery: Upload unlimited images to each product and create an image gallery with the click of a button!
- Breadcrumbs and intuitive navigation.
- FTP Access to HTML Files
- Featured Products” on Homepage and Category Pages: Display items on sale on your home page and categories with the click of an option. Change items monthly, weekly or hourly if you like
- WYSIWYG Editor for Categories, Products and Content Pages: Use the built in web editor to add/edit content. Much like Microsoft Word, the editor is very simple to use and can be used to build and edit complex web-based documents without actually typing a word of HTML!
Learn more about 3dcart’s design features here!
We’re always trying to provide you with the best tips and advice to help you run your store successfully.
Here are 5 posts from the that you may have missed!
5 Questions To Ask Before You Send Your Newsletter
5 Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid
2011: A Year in Social Media [VIDEO]
The Psychology Of Social Shopping
Can You Make Free Shipping Work for Online Store?
Lets face it customer acquisition is hard and most likely expensive. Of course new customers are important, but what your store really needs is sales – no matter the source. Reaching out to your existing customers is THE way to raising your bottom-line without upping your marketing budget. Some studies have even found that it costs 4 times as much to get a sale from a new customer as from an existing customer.
One way to connect with old customers is sending out a monthly newsletter. While it may seem like an 10-minute task, a successful newsletter takes time and thought. Many stores think they have this covered, but its important to review your content to make sure you are converting as many customers as possible. Ask yourself these five questions to better plan your newsletter.
How does my content fit into our overall marketing strategy?
The best marketing campaigns leverages multiple touch-points with a consistant message. Remind customers about promotions you’re running, newly added features, and exciting company news! Don’t assume they have already heard it. Think about it: Do you read every tweet in your stream? Check a fanpage everyday? Even open EVERY email? By share your marketing resources across different channels, you’ll reach more your customers!
Am I just taking about my company or am I offering engaging content to readers?
A lot of merchants are apt to create a newsletter solely focused on company news—but the best newsletters also include relevant and engaging content. If you have a blog, feature a post somewhere in the body of the newsletter. Include promotions and coupons. Feel free to work in some company news, but feature your most interesting content at the top of the newsletter.
Can I use shared content or should I focus solely on original content?
While you want your newsletter to include mostly original content, including a link to a relevant article from a renowned media outlet is another great way to boost readership. Consider adding Must Read Articles from your industry with a snippet preview. It conveys thought leadership and industry knowledge and your readers will appreciate that you saved them time trolling through every related article. Solid content, original or not, incentivizes customers to to keep reading your newsletters.
Am I being as concise as possible?
No one wants to waste time, so don’t waste your customers. If you can consolidate two paragraphs into two sentences, do it. You’re not going to win any points for being long-winded. Your newsletter should provide short descriptions and link to most of the featured content. You may only have a split second to grab a reader’s attention, so take advantage of that second!
Am I being strategic?
While knowing general facts about the best time of day for open rate is good information to have, your customers are unique and need to be treated as so. Services like MailChimp and My Emma help you blast out stylized emails and deliver analytics on your readers so you can tweak your newsletter to be more effective based on reader response.
