NetSphere Strategies and CoreMedia, a NetSphere Strategies partner, wrapped up their three-part webinar series last month with the third installment focusing on how to create microsites without the help of an IT team. Easy-to-Use Tools One of the goals for any company involved in eCommerce is to create an immersive experience for shoppers who search the site. With the right tools, technical proficiency isn’t even a prerequisite for improving site search and creating memorable and effective experiences. To drive conversions, retailers...

How well do you think you know your customers? According to a recent study, probably not as well as you think. IBM’s study, developed by Econsultancy, a firm that specializes in helping clients with digital business, marketing and eCommerce, surveyed marketers, 90 percent of whom said that in order to be successful, they need to personalize customer experiences in their marketing campaigns. It appears that only 10 percent of these marketers are doing it right because 80 percent of consumers...

Access matters. When it comes to eCommerce, reaching out to mobile users by ensuring their apps are up to speed and running efficiently is paramount to building up a bigger mobile marketplace. Any number of issues can plague an app, but if the developers don’t know about a bug, they can’t address the problem. In some cases, it’s the elderly and/or disabled that have issues with apps that work perfectly for others. However, the elderly and the disabled represent a valuable...

In a previous blog, the team at NetSphere Strategies covered the importance of tools for analyzing website data, focusing on Tealeaf, IBM's new customer experience manager. Today, however, we'll take a deeper look at what Tealeaf has to offer in more effectively pulling down actionable data related to how users interact with a website.  Any company with an eCommerce focus needs to ensure the visitors to their website are experiencing a smooth, hiccup-free interaction. Consumers have come to expect their web...

Across the nation, kids are tossing on their backpacks and hitting the books. School is back in session! As most parents know, though, straight As won’t just materialize out of thin air. They must encourage their children to employ hard-work and diligence at every turn.    Likewise, eCommerce website owners must be hard-working and diligent to ensure that their websites score well on tests like WebPageTest.org’s web page performance test. When a website scores well on performance tests, it will also...

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...

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...

A picture is worth a thousand words – and then some. For those in the eCommerce biz, the quality of a product picture can make or break a sale. Because online shoppers don’t have the opportunity to touch or feel an item before buying it, many rely on product images to help make purchase decisions.   That ability to touch and feel an item is a big part of the draw for brick-and-mortar locations. So recreating those in-store experiences is a...