Web Optimization

Slow is the New Down
August 10, 2016 at 11:29 am

Every e-tailer fears its website going down, however, a website that’s been reduced to a snail’s pace because of a high volume of traffic can almost be more damaging. Today’s always-on consumers expect lightning-fast connections and load times, as if everyone can deliver the same user experience as Netflix. In fact, a study from Kissmetrics…

Creative Tool Helps New York & Company Drive Engagement, Revenues
July 25, 2016 at 3:12 pm

Operating in the highly competitive women's apparel space, New York & Company is fighting for online consumers’ attention and dollars. To help it gain an advantage in that quest, the retailer recently partnered with Zmags to help it create engaging and attractive web pages that garner the attention of busy shoppers. In episode 45 of Total…

Mobile, Payment Options Help Threadless Grow
June 27, 2016 at 10:37 am

Threadless, an online retailer of T-shirts, art prints, home decor items and more featuring the designs of its global artist community, is always looking for ways to improve the shopping experience for its customers, which in turn benefits the business. In episode 41 of Total Retail Talks, Jake Nickell, founder and CEO of Threadless, talks…

7 UX Tips to Improve Your E-Commerce Site
June 17, 2016 at 10:59 am

Most consumers shop online because they don’t want to go through the hassle of going to a local store. To that end, it’s crucial that e-commerce sites reduce customer confusion and make the shopping process as intuitive as possible in order to maximize conversion rate. This means that browsing, comparing items and checkout all need…

5 Habits of Highly Successful Product Pages
May 13, 2016 at 11:25 am

Not all product pages are created equal, but after examining thousands of them in hundreds of industries, and creating, testing and perfecting thousands more for clients, I’ve learned that successful product pages all have something in common. I call them the five habits of highly successful product pages:

5 Little Tips That Can Make a Big Impact in Your Checkout
May 13, 2016 at 10:12 am

“Details create the big picture,” said Sanford Weill, former chairman of Citigroup. In the e-commerce arena, this is most true at the pinnacle of your funnel: the checkout. Checkout is online retail’s make-or-break moment. It's the culmination of the customer journey — the moment when a shopper either feels comfortable enough to take out his…

Etsy Gets into the Store Hosting Business
April 6, 2016 at 9:53 am

Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson made it clear to Wall Street that he was looking to Seller Services to help monetize the site now that Etsy is a public company, and on Tuesday, announced a new offering that puts it in the store-hosting business. Pattern by Etsy is just like a seller's Etsy Shop, but hosted outside…

Amazon.com Goes Down for 20 Minutes, the World Freaks Out
March 11, 2016 at 8:14 am

Amazon.com went down for some users on Thursday afternoon for approximately 20 minutes before being restored. Users trying to access the Amazon website as well as the mobile app at around 2:20 p.m. ET were greeted with error messages. During the outage, many users took to Twitter to vent their frustration.

What E-Tailers Can Learn From Financial Trading Systems
March 10, 2016 at 11:51 am

From a revenue standpoint, what would you lose if your site was to go dark for 40 minutes? Where would your customers go? As we close the book on this past holiday season and look back on the e-commerce frenzy, I can’t help but reflect on this loss and how it might be avoided. To…

Why the Cloud is the Future of Your Online Store
January 29, 2016 at 11:59 am

Everyone has already heard how important the cloud is to the future of business, but that doesn’t just apply to the Fortune 500s. E-commerce companies of all sizes can get terrific benefits — e.g., reduced costs and quicker recovery times — from moving their website and back-end to the cloud. Most important of all however is that the…