Walmart has purchased Kosmix, a start up social media company that is focused on e-commerce for an undisclosed sum of money. The founders of Kosmix are no strangers to being bought out. Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman started Junglee, another online shopping venture which was sold for $250 million in 1998. “We are at an inflection point in the development of e-commerce,” Mr. Rajaraman wrote on Monday in a blog post. “The first generation of e-commerce was about bringing the store to the Web. The next generation will be about building integrated experiences that leverage the store, the Web and mobile, with social identity being the glue that binds the experience.”
What are you doing to improve your shopping experience? What are you doing to help your customer?
Showing posts with label Ecommerce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecommerce. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Online Shopping for Valentine's Day
According to a report from eBillMe Online Spending Index, 32 percent of consumers plan to do their Valentine's Day shopping online this year, a 9 percent increase from 2010. There are definitely some online retailers who will be clamoring to get their share of those online consumer dollars. Here are some of my favorite sites for finding a great gift:
The place for unique and personalized gifts has a Valentine's Day Gift Guide to help you find the perfect gift for him or her. Choose from categories like bestsellers, flowers, jewelry and romantic.
Competing with Hallmark, Teleflora, FTD and 1800Flowers, this online flower retailer has a different spin. A lower price point and a do-it-yourself arrangement. I wonder which flower retailer will be the big winner this year?
These are my FAVORITE ecard characters. I don't know what my folks at American Greetings have to compete but these are my "go to" ecard guys. People love them!
Where will you be shopping this Valentine's Day?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Optimizing Your eCommerce Product Pages
Search Engine Land featured a post this week about optimizing an eCommerce product detail page, using a great, easy to understand visual, pointing out elements you should optimize.
I found these tips really easy to understand, but there are some other tips that one should consider when optimizing a product detail page.
If possible, try to have URLs without any variables, parameters or session IDs, but with keywords that describe that particular product. Popular shopping cart software come search engine friendly or includes search engine friendly plugins, so there are ways to do this.
Make sure product pages have unique title tags, meta description and keyword tags, as well as unique product descriptions to avoid duplicate content penalties in the search engines. Unique product descriptions are important also if there are competitors selling the same products you are.
Make sure you also have a sitemap that includes all your product categories, and even brand names. That way, the search engines are aware of any new pages that are generated and can crawl and index them.
Another way to get your products exposure in the search engine is to sign up for Google Base, which is a way to submit the products you sell and will show up in Google Product Search as well as main Google search. It’s free, and you can add attributes describing your content so it will be searchable.
I found these tips really easy to understand, but there are some other tips that one should consider when optimizing a product detail page.
If possible, try to have URLs without any variables, parameters or session IDs, but with keywords that describe that particular product. Popular shopping cart software come search engine friendly or includes search engine friendly plugins, so there are ways to do this.
Make sure product pages have unique title tags, meta description and keyword tags, as well as unique product descriptions to avoid duplicate content penalties in the search engines. Unique product descriptions are important also if there are competitors selling the same products you are.
Make sure you also have a sitemap that includes all your product categories, and even brand names. That way, the search engines are aware of any new pages that are generated and can crawl and index them.
Another way to get your products exposure in the search engine is to sign up for Google Base, which is a way to submit the products you sell and will show up in Google Product Search as well as main Google search. It’s free, and you can add attributes describing your content so it will be searchable.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Completing the Sale
In the world of ecommerce, it’s important for online stores to remember their purpose…to sell.
Many of today’s ecommerce websites are filled with interactive flash applications and complicated site structures that are filled with content that is skimmed over. Even though the content on a site will most likely not be read in its entirety, content should not be overlooked because it is vital factor for Search Engine Optimization.
If you browse many small businesses on the internet that sell something you will come across attractive images, logos, and content, but where is the hard sell? Definitely one of the most important, and forgotten, aspect of an ecommerce site is the sell, the content that tells the consumer exactly what to do. Most consumers are busy, they don’t have the time or patience to scour a site, it is up to you, the seller, to make all the information they need to buy your product accessible and easy to use. It doesn’t take much either:
For example: “Click the link below to view available pieces and prices, order some products, and have them shipped to you quickly.”
These are tried and true methods of advertising. Attract the customer, ask for the sale, and then make the transaction easy, predictable, and accessible. Do it! The results will speak for themselves.
Many of today’s ecommerce websites are filled with interactive flash applications and complicated site structures that are filled with content that is skimmed over. Even though the content on a site will most likely not be read in its entirety, content should not be overlooked because it is vital factor for Search Engine Optimization.
If you browse many small businesses on the internet that sell something you will come across attractive images, logos, and content, but where is the hard sell? Definitely one of the most important, and forgotten, aspect of an ecommerce site is the sell, the content that tells the consumer exactly what to do. Most consumers are busy, they don’t have the time or patience to scour a site, it is up to you, the seller, to make all the information they need to buy your product accessible and easy to use. It doesn’t take much either:
For example: “Click the link below to view available pieces and prices, order some products, and have them shipped to you quickly.”
These are tried and true methods of advertising. Attract the customer, ask for the sale, and then make the transaction easy, predictable, and accessible. Do it! The results will speak for themselves.
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