Whether it's a loose wheel that always seems to be faced in the wrong direction or a wheel so sticky that it'll barely turn, a wonky shopping cart can ruin a trip at the store. And the same goes for online shopping. If a website's shopping cart doesn't function properly and doesn't follow best practices, an online experience can easily be spoiled. Because eCommerce spending is capturing more retail market share every year, and because there are so many new players coming on...

One of the greatest qualities of the web is its free and open nature. For the nearly 2.5 billion people that are connected to the Internet today, gaining access to a bulk of the world’s information is just a mouse click away. Of those 2.5 billion individuals, however, approximately 15 percent of them or nearly 375 million people have a disability that could complicate the task of accessing online information.     But thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the...

Back in February 2014, headlines about 11Main.com, Alibaba’s way of entry into the U.S. online marketplace scene, were popping up all over the web. At that time, however, the soon-to-be-released eCommerce site was only in preview mode. The glimpse inside revealed high-quality photography of boutiques and small indie-style shops, causing sellers and buyers alike to wonder what was in store – literally. But now that several months have passed, the waiting period has come to a close.   Today, those who provided...

The old adage of persistence pays off is often attributed to achieving an individual’s goals. And although it’s often tied to offline aspirations, it’s also a mantra that holds up in the digital world. When persistent connections, also known as HTTP keep-alive, are enabled on a website, its performance will benefit, helping to drive a business’s growth initiatives.  According to the World Wide Web Consortium, or the W3C, before the days of persistent connections, a separate TCP connection had to be...

In a news released dated June 25, 2014, IBM announced that it leads in private and hybrid cloud services for enterprise organizations. In fact, IBM was placed in the top three providers in the cloud market for the first quarter of 2014 with nearly 14 percent of worldwide revenue market shares from the third quarter of 2013 through the first quarter of 2014. This is according to global analysis conducted by the Synergy Research Group, a business focused on emerging IT...

According to an article that appeared in the May 5, 2014, issue of Forbes, “Wayfair is as much a data miner as it is a retailer. It constantly probes and processes information about its customers to interact with them, anticipate their wishful thinking, personalize their home pages and turn search into a form of entertainment.” And that was the exact message that Wayfair.com CEO and co-founder, Niraj Shah, told attendees at the 2014 Internet Retail Conference & Exhibition in his keynote...

In a back issue of Real Simple, a popular monthly magazine for today’s modern woman, the editors presented readers with tips and tricks to “outsmart the Internet.” With the goal of getting what you want when and how you want it, Real Simple explained that online shoppers should play hard-to-get. In the article, readers were clued into the idea of abandoning a cart in hopes of getting a follow-up e-mail that would offer a discount if they went back to the...

Nearly 10,000 attendees visited the Internet Retail Conference & Exhibition, held in Chicago from June 10-13, 2014. The strong attendance numbers speak to the importance of the event for those in the eCommerce industry. As has been the case over the past 10 years, IRCE 2014 served as a pedestal for leaders in online retailing to showcase their new products and expert services. With more than 600 exhibitors at the show, there were countless products to learn about. One, however, stood...

Making customers create an account to shop on your website can be incredibly tempting. The lure comes in the form of capturing e-mail addresses to grow a contact database – one of the most valuable assets for any retailer. When marketers are able to gather shopper contact info, they can reach out to consumers – again and again – in hopes of gaining repeat business and creating a customized shopping experience. However, research has shown that forced registration can be a...

At the IRCE 2014 eCommerce trade show in Chicago, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, chairman and founder of Joyus.com, talked about her newest love: video commerce and video shopping. Not only is it her newest love, it’s the driving force behind her new company, Joyus.com, which uses video from the top of the sales funnel all the way through conversion and retention. As the content and commerce convergence came into light, Cassidy recognized that the stage had been set for her to launch her...