Cover Story: The 50 Best Tips of 2014

11. Re-evaluate your IVR system. How many steps does it take to reach a real person? Can the steps be shortened? Can you do away with IVR altogether (do the math on this and see if your business can support a live operator)? Reaching a live person to direct your call has become the exception rather than the norm. Can you give your brand an edge by going back to live?
Jim Gilbert, Gilbert Direct Marketing, "Making a List and Checking it Twice," July/August, Retail Online Integration

E-Commerce
12. Understand the fees. All payment processors charge a small percentage of each transaction, but some also charge monthly maintenance fees, merchant account set-up fees, PCI compliance fees, downgrade fees and 1099 fees. While some of these charges may seem nominal at first, they can accumulate into thousands of dollars over the course of a year (or decade). Find a payment processor that charges no fees, hidden or otherwise. That way you'll know the true cost of your sales while saving on your operations.
Sean Edgar, 2Checkout, "5 Tips for Merchants on How to Choose a Payment Service Provider," Feb. 14, ROI Report

13. To create a true sense of urgency, demand should be transparent. Showcasing the number of current observers and recent purchases instills a feeling of scarcity in consumers and encourages them to buy now. Recent purchase information acts as a type of best-sellers list, causing people to flock to popular items and validating the purchase decision.
Graham Cooke, Qubit, "Personalization: Bridging the Gaps Between the Clicks and the Bricks," May 15, ROI Report

14. Summarize the best reviews. Aggregating and averaging star ratings is helpful and common, but shoppers want to quickly dig into the underlying details. Merchants should provide a summary sampling of the most popular comments so that shoppers can quickly scan to get the gist of opinions. The summary should be representative of the entire body of reviews for the product — good and bad — while showcasing the reviews deemed most helpful."
Ken Burke, MarketLive, "Keeping Pace With the Explosion in Popularity and Innovation of Online Consumer Reviews," Aug. 11, ROI Report

Email Marketing
15. Use order confirmations to drive future sales. Order confirmations are an underutilized marketing tool. You know what the email subscriber bought, so use this information to recommend other products they might like right in the order confirmation email. Once the rules are in place and the automation set up, it's an ongoing tool for driving additional sales and revenue.
Jeanne Jennings, JeanneJennings.com, "From Soup to Nuts," January/February, Retail Online Integration

16. Consolidate your customer data. If possible, integrate your email service provider with your CRM or online shopping cart provider so you can view all of your customer data in one place. This makes it much easier to segment messaging (e.g., by purchase or browsing history) to inspire new, tailored communications. It also helps you track purchase activity that comes from your email program so you can easily measure return on investment and adjust your strategy as needed.
Christopher Lester, Emma, Inc., "Making a List and Checking it Twice," July/August, Retail Online Integration

International Commerce
17. Think digital and physical. Launching an e-commerce site in an international market before opening a physical store can often be a lower-risk and lower-cost way to dip your toes in the water to see if the demand is there for further investment.
Jim Fielding, Claire's Stores, "How Claire's Stores Has Grown its Brand Internationally," Jan. 15, ROI Report

18. Tailor your website to international markets. If all your content leads to a .com domain, with pricing in dollars and U.S.-only contact information, your website will give overseas visitors the wrong message. While a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works, a more elegant solution is to build a separate website for each key market.
Christian Arno, Lingo24, "5 Best Practices for Marketing to International Consumers," June 6, ROI Report

Inventory Management
19. Leverage advanced shipping notices (ASNs) to communicate when new merchandise is on the way. Once the inventory is received, the fulfillment provider needs to electronically communicate inventory receipts along with any future adjustments to ensure inventory is in sync. Optimized product distribution also allows your organization to reduce the labor costs required to shift inventory to different locations while helping to minimize multiple shipments to fulfill an order. By maintaining seamless, real-time visibility into inventory, it's easier — and cheaper — to allocate the right products to the right locations.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "3 Ways to More Efficiently Manage Inventory," Jan. 24, The Art of Delivering Style blog

20. Consider returns in setting pricing and product assortments. While you can't eliminate returns, you can at least compensate for them. In product categories with significant return rates, make sure your initial markup is high enough to deliver acceptable profit after the full cost of returns (including processing costs and write-off of nonusable returns) is considered.
Joe Palzkill, Direct Tech, "Here They Come Again!," January/February, Retail Online Integration