Ecommerce Blog

In the first of what we hope to be a series of retailer interviews, I caught up with Zachary Applegate of PlumberSurplus and OutdoorPros:

Tell us a little about yourself and your company:

My name is Zachary Applegate, I am the Search and Marketing Manager for the Gordian Project which is currently the parent company for two ecommerce websites PlumberSurplus.com and OutdoorPros.com.

PlumberSurplus.com has been live since August 2004 and offers tens of thousands of plumbing, home improvement, and building products in a range of categories including Kitchen and Bathroom, Water Heaters, Lighting, Pumps, Tools, Access Doors, Valves, Commercial and more. OutdoorPros.com went live in March 2008 and offers outdoors products, outdoors equipment, and outdoors gear in a range of categories like Apparel, Camping, Cutlery, Gifts, Lighters, Lighting, Optics, Outdoor, Safety and Duty Gear and Skateboarding. We are continuing to both build out our current ecommerce websites and look for new opportunities as we grow and evolve as a company.

With the slower economy, and with DIY/trade purchases likely slowing down at this time of year, what kind of things are you doing to weather the season - if you’re affected at all?

Earlier this year we focused on making profitable decisions as a company. Along with streamlining a lot of processes and costs, we evaluated things like our pricing philosophies, marketing philosophies and shipping philosophies. Those improvements have made an impact and facilitated the company’s continued growth while boosting the overall health of the company. We have also focused heavily on supply, varying product offerings and diversification in order to hopefully limit any issues which may face.

I noticed you actually have a free shipping section customers can browse. How do you determine which products qualify? Do they stay the same all year round or are they dependent on other factors?

We think that for certain products free shipping can be a very big carrot for customers, because of that we have many ways with which we determine whether products get free shipping or not. Sometimes we partner with manufactures or suppliers for free shipping, sometimes it’s part of a promotion we might be running and other times its self funded. So for all of those reasons we have some products, which more often than not, always have free shipping and others which may only get it for a certain period.

Although we have found our current free shipping logic works well, we are thinking about moving away from specific product based free shipping to more of a cart total based free shipping logic to see if that works better.

How do you make sure you can afford a shipping promotion?

When its funded by a partner that’s great but we also want to make sure there are not other opportunities which might be better than free shipping when discussing that. If it’s co-funded or self-funded we often look at the products which will be effected by free shipping and what we think we might get charged on average to ship those products. Currently this is done on a product by product basis to make sure that we can afford to run a promotion like this for each specific product.

What’s your take on nurturing loyal relationships with shipping carriers
vs. rate shopping?

Our Supply Chain Manager, Jeff, does a fantastic job working with UPS and other carriers to build healthy relationships, and negotiate fees and rates. For PlumberSurplus.com, one of our biggest shipping issues is freight or LTL (Less Than Truckload) charges since we sell a lot of larger items which cannot be shipped via UPS or FedEx. Getting a handle on those charges and evolving our shipping philosophies and rates has helped us a lot and made it so that we can pass on good shipping rates to our customers.

Do you have any tips for negotiating with shipping carriers? (Keeping in mind UPS’ planned rate hike of 5.9% in January)

While Jeff handles much of the negotiations I can say that while negotiating your rate is important, volume and ancillary charges also seem to make a big difference. Regardless how a shipping account is setup make sure that you can ship as much as possible or consolidate accounts or carriers to allow for more negotiating power on rates. Many carriers especially freight carriers have a lot of ancillary charges they tack on which can get expensive. Often times these can get negotiated down or removed depending on the volume and types of shipments you are shipping through a carrier.

You also run an outdoor gear site called Outdoor Pros and link to it from PlumberSurplus. Have you reached out through email or other means to existing PlumberSurplus customers and converted them to OutdoorPros customers for the holidays?

We have, along with some cross site banners and information we promote each site in the others transactional e-mails we send out to promote cross site purchases.

Could you comment on the challenges/benefits of running multiple stores?

It’s been very interesting to say the least to run two ecommerce websites. Many of the things we have learned directly cross over to the other, however we have come to learn that each website represents an entirely different market. People buy and look for items differently, the way we promote and market in some places has had to change and while we are going to continue in this direction of additional websites the important thing for us is to take stock of the wins and losses across all websites to build a broader knowledge base and a more robust ecommerce solution.

Big thanks to Zachary. If you’d like to be interviewed for future installment of “Interview with the Retailer” drop me a line at linda dot bustos @ elasticpath.com.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander &amp Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• New Ecommerce Blog By Retailers For Retailers
• Thoughts on Shipping from StartUp Nation
• Yes Virginia There Is a Santa Claus & He Searches for Free Shipping
• Bloggers Digest 10/31/08
• Text Message Marketing Provider Roundup

Original post by Linda Bustos

We just had a meeting with our UPS rep today. Luckily we switched just before DHL decided to stop all US domestic operations. Ironically our UPS rep helped a DHL truck driver uninstall their drop-box from our office building. He also got a picture of him helping DHL on his cell phone which I can honestly say was was of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.

Anyway, if you’re using DHL for your shipping, and you’re not looking for a new provider, you need to get moving. DHL stops all domestic US operations on January 30, but most of the drop-boxes are already gone.

We haven’t seen or heard of any UPS or Fedex price gouging, which is very nice to see, since shipping costs are at an all-time high. I strongly recommend looking into UPS, Fedex, and possibly USPS if you were using exclusively DHL. The time to switch is NOW, as the holiday season is approaching, and this normally isn’t an overnight process. Get it done before things get too busy.

Good places to start:
UPS for DHL Customers
Fedex Welcomes DHL Customers
USPS for DHL Customers

Original post by jestep

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

The economy is top-of-mind for everyone involved in online retail, as evidenced as I went over my picks for the week - the majority are related to the tough times consumers and retailers are facing this year:

• I was interviewed last week by Plumber Surplus about my thoughts on how online retailers can ride out the economic swell, check out Preparing Retailers for the Economic Downturn.

• Blue Acorn offers Tips for Boosting Average Order Size, which is very important in troubled economic times…

• Maxim Mironov offers 3 suggestions on how you can cut costs, rather than cutting employees.

• Remember Prisoner’s Dilemma from Microeconomics 101? The Rimm-Kaufman blog relates this to the Promotional Dilemma — how the pressures for retailers to offer free shipping may lead to profit losses for everyone (not to mention solidifying customer expectations for the future). Will free shipping become the standard?

• On a positive note, Bryan Eisenberg has compiled a list of 33 tools to make your website better, including Kampyle’s suggestion-box tool.

• You can be successful this holiday despite the doom and gloom — Justin Palmer presents a checklist for holiday ecommerce success.

• While Valentine’s Day is till many moons away, the Bronto Blog uses a cute dating analogy to explain best practices for welcome emails.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Bloggers Digest 11/28/08 Black Friday Edition
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Earlier this year, Lauren Freedman of the e-tailing group teamed up with the Acquity Group to survey 24 merchants with questionnaires and in-depth interviews to put together a white paper and webinar called No Retreat! Investing in eCommerce Despite the Times.

The study set out to discover how multi-channel and pure play merchants are positioning themselves for growth while still addressing the bottom line during an economic slowdown and their challenges, asking hard-hitting questions like “Will you have the guts to make the necessary investments in the tough times?”

The webinar and white paper address topics like the Macro State of Retail, Defining and Driving Your Multi-Channel Strategy, Investing in eCommerce and Roadblocks to Success:

Can’t see video? View this post at GetElastic.com

You can download the companion white paper here.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, &quotBranding Only Works on Cattle&quot
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Do You Know How To Write An Ecommerce RFP?
• The Importance of Web Accessibility for Ecommerce
• AJAX Magazine on EP’s Board and Achievements
• Blogging for Retailers White Paper - Why it matters and how to get started
• Spreading the Checkout Report and Gearing up for the Webinar

Original post by Linda Bustos

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

• Ed Henrich has teamed up with the e-tailing group to track the top 100 retail sites’ shipping promotion trends (graphically displayed in pie chart form). Go check out the stats which will be updated each week (great incentive to subscribe to Ed’s blog, is it not?)

• If you’re running more than one analytics tool, you need to read Avinash Kaushik’s tips for reconciling the data discrepancies because let’s face it, you’ve got ‘em.

• While we’re talking analytics, do you know how to track email campaigns with Google Analytics?

• Are your retail emails best-in-show? The Email Experience Council is now accepting entries for its annual People’s Choice Award: Best in Email.

• How do you determine the optimal “cookie window” for your ad campaigns? In other words, how long after someone clicks on an ad should that ad be credited for driving a sale? Alan Rimm-Kaufman explains 3 approaches to tackling this question.

• Kevin Hillstrom introduces the concept of the Net Google Score (think Net Promoter Score that takes the sales generated from SEO and PPC, and subtracts the sales Google ends up taking from you) — a performance metric for how well you’re working Google.

• Speaking of working Google, how do you manage your PPC spending in a bummer economy? Alan Rimm-Kaufman shares words of wisdom.

Upcoming Ecommerce Webinars:

Multi-Store Retailing Online: Perks and Pitfalls
Jason Billingsley, VP of Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 @ 12pm ET, 9am PT

Powerful Value Propositions, Part II: Live Optimization
Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Marketing Experiments
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 @ 4pm ET, 1pm PT

10 Crucial Changes to Energize Your Holiday Marketing
B. Thomas Romeo, MerchantAdvantage and Joanna Estacio, Smarter.com
Thursday, November 13th, 2008 @ 2pm ET, 11am PT

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander &amp Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, &quotBranding Only Works on Cattle&quot
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Bloggers Digest - 8/1/08
• Bloggers Digest 8/8/08
• Bloggers Digest 10/10/08
• Bloggers Digest 2/1/08
• Bloggers Digest 10/24/08

Original post by Linda Bustos

I’m not sure if there is an authoritative guide on a website’s contact form, so here’s my take on the picture.

A contact form is a seemingly simple feature, that most websites mess up. While a broken or poorly designed contact form may not be the end-all problem with a website, there’s no reason that it shouldn’t work correctly.

What a contact for must contain:

1. Name, email, (optional: phone), and message fields
2. Shouldn’t Contain… A ridiculous captcha verification script
3. Confirmation / feedback that the form was properly submitted
4. An email response that the form was successfully received
5. Finally… A response from someone that read the form (If necessary)

1.) Name, email, and message fields.

This is the one part that is rarely messed up, but often far overdone. A phone field is often useful but you will rarely need an address or any anything more personal than a person’s name, email, phone, and whatever they want to tell you. This is not a application form, it is a contact form! You shouldn’t be trying to qualify your customer in some way with a contact form.

The more fields a customer has to fill out, the less likely they will use your contact form, and the more likely they will call you for something that can be handled over email.

An example of a horrible contact form!

Shouldn’t Contain… A ridiculous captcha verification script!

Captcha scripts can help reduce email spam from bots and automated programs designed to spam you. They also make it a complete pain to get through. Captcha itself is virtually impossible to get through at this point.

Use alternatives that are actually readable or ones that make a user solve a simple math problem to proceed, or use nothing if spam isn’t a huge problem.

USE THIS:

NOT THIS:

Requiring anyone to decipher an unreadable image of text is not a proactive customer service approach and will undoubtedly end with frustrated and confused customers.

3. ) Confirmation / feedback that the form was properly submitted.

DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT simply dump your customer into a another page or refresh the form itself without a clear message that the form was submitted. This is a sure way to get multiple emails from your customer, each successive one showing more frustration than its predecessor.

Ideally, you should have a dedicated thank you, or confirmation page that the user is redirected to once the form is submitted. This is a better method than displaying an in-line message on the same page because there is no question that the form was properly submitted. This is one area where Web 2.0 is killing usability, because on-page changes are very often hard to detect and are not what a user is expecting.

It’s also a good idea to include links to informational pages, FAQ’s, and other areas of your website that could answer a question that a customer might have.

4.) An email response that the form was successfully received.

More than half the sites that I ever have contacted do not provide immediate email response when using their contact form.

You should always provide an immediate confirmation email that the message has been received. This will reiterate the response in the previous step, and makes your business look much more professional. Even a generic message is much better than no message. The message is a great time to provide alternate / emergency contact information in case they really need to get a hold of you, or provide links to FAQ and informational pages about your services or website.

You can setup a automated email response on just about any web server. It’s free and takes no human interaction to send an automated response email. There’s simply no reason not to send one.

6.) Finally… A response from someone that read the form (If necessary).

I put this on here because a huge number of customer inquiries are never responded to. Actually get back to your customer, by email, phone or whatever method you can. You don’t need to reply to spam, but you’re probably in business because you have customers. Providing unmatched response times is one of the best ways to set yourself apart from your competitors. Seriously, shoot for five or ten minutes during normal working hours.

Only when you customers reply with “wow that was fast”, is your response time prefect!

Contact forms are a cornerstone of online customer service and there’s absolutely no reason to mess them up. Stick with these steps and you can’t go wrong.

Original post by jestep

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

• Being Halloween and all, let’s start off with Negotiate FAK or Bleed to Death - the latest entry by Maxim Mironov who blogs regularly about how to save millions by optimizing your ecommerce fulfillment. Don’t be scared if you don’t know what FAK stands for, Maxim explains it.

• Alexander Interactive examines several recent articles regarding free shipping this holiday season, including USA Today, the New York Times and Ad Age and provides 8 solid recommendations in its white paper Free Shipping: Holiday Hit or Headache?. (This link points to the online version, no download required).

• On the Practical Ecommerce blog, Brian Getting tackles the web designer’s nemesis - cross-browser compatibility problems with his own 3 group approach to hacking CSS to display nicely for all visitors.

• Amazon gets innovative with its new microsite WindowShop. You really have to visit the site to get the idea of it, but e-Consultancy has a good overview of the WindowShop concept.

• Khalid Hajsaleh from Invesp Consulting shares what he’s learned from 12 years of building ecommerce websites.

• Not only does web analytics have 8 stupid things and 3 things to die for, it also has 7 deadly sins courtesy of Bryan Eisenberg.

• Is your site optimized for short attention spans? Justin Palmer provides tips for preventing controllable distractions, creating urgency, recapturing lost opportunities and more.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Bloggers Digest 10/3/08
• Bloggers Digest 8/8/08
• Bloggers Digest - 7/18/08
• Bloggers Digest 11/14/08
• Bloggers Digest - 3/21/08

Original post by Linda Bustos

Last Halloween we actually commissioned a local caricaturist to cook up something out of his Doodle Labs, and the result was “Ghoulgle!”

Since we have about 5,000 more subscribers this year than last, I figured we could get away with posting this one again. (If you caught this in your feed reader the first time around, we thank you for pulling through an entire year with us, and if you email your physical address to linda.bustos @ elasticpath.com, I’ll pull a Rackspace and send you a hand-written note).

Although today’s posts are a departure from our usual content here, don’t worry - we’ll be back tomorrow with regularly scheduled programming (Friday’s Blogger Digest) and ecommerce tips, tricks and treats (I mean, trends) on Monday.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

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Original post by Linda Bustos

It looks like Google’s shopping cart got some upgrades this week. Google introduced their cart about 6 months ago and just added some new features this week.

The cart quickly integrates into your website and allows your customers to checkout through Google checkout. The cart is now a little more advanced, and stays on your website.

This should still be an easy means of adding a simple cart to a website. It is still limited by the fact Google Checkout is the only supported payment method, but it should suffice for smaller requirements and merchants that don’t want to use Paypal or a traditional merchant account.

Google Cart Links:
Google cart
Google cart demo store
Google cart getting started
Google cart API

Original post by jestep

It looks like Google’s shopping cart got some upgrades this week. Google introduced their cart about 6 months ago and just added some new features this week.

The cart quickly integrates into your website and allows your customers to checkout through Google checkout. The cart is now a little more advanced, and stays on your website.

This should still be an easy means of adding a simple cart to a website. It is still limited by the fact Google Checkout is the only supported payment method, but it should suffice for smaller requirements and merchants that don′t want to use Paypal or a traditional merchant account.

Google Cart Links:
Google cart
Google cart demo store
Google cart getting started
Google cart API

Original post by jestep

If you follow Get Elastic and the ecommerce marketing world, you won’t want to miss 2 back-to-back webinars by our friends at Sitebrand, Future Now and Marketing Experiments:

Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?

Presented by Sitebrand and New York Times best-selling author, Bryan Eisenberg
Thursday, October 30 @ 2pm EST, 11am PST

First time represent on average 60 to 80 percent of all visitors, with a conversion rate significantly lower than site average. They’re also the most expensive visitor to your site. So making your site the first time visitor friend versus foe needs to be a top priority.

Learn key steps to converting first time visitors, including:

1. Using data to build first-time customer personas
2. Building messaging that engages first-time visitor segments / personas
3. Mapping site real estate around your messaging
4. Launching your cycle, watching results, and planning for re-optimization

Sign up today for Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?

Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: 13 Ways to Maximize Revenue and Bbeat the Downturn

Presented by Marketing Experiments’ Dr. Flint McLaughlin, Jimmy Ellis and Aaron Rosenthal
Thursday, October 30 @ 3pm EST, 12pm PST

This clinic will introduce the “Ecommerce Holiday Playbook” – a series of action steps to help you prepare for this crucial season. Learn how to apply these ideas with a rapid-fire live optimization session featuring participants’ ecommerce websites.

Throughout this special clinic, the Marketing Experiments team will be available online to answer your specific ecommerce optimization questions.

Register today for Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?

Bryan Eisenberg and the Marketing Experiments team are always awesome. Please make the time to check these webinars out live or catch the replays.

You may also consider attending or sending someone on your team to Marketing Experiment’s next month’s Landing Page Optimization Workshop in Santa Monica, California. You can earn professional Landing Page Optimization certification, and have the experts look at your site’s landing pages and give you top notch advice.

And don’t forget our own Jason Billingsley will be heading up our next webinar on multi-store retail strategies on Wednesday, November 19. Even if you’re not running multiple stores now, you should attend to learn:

• Why multi-store retailing is gaining momentum
• The types of stores you must consider launching
• When it makes sense to launch additional stores
• How to avoid common yet critical mistakes

Register now!

Thanks for your time!

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Love Your Landing Page: Tips to Increase Ecommerce Conversion
• Checkout Process Split-Testing Tip from Bryan Eisenberg
• Conversion Optimization Series Coming Next Week
• Bloggers Digest 7/25/08
• Ecommerce Usability Study Shows Etailers Can Improve

Original post by Linda Bustos

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

• 2 of Elastic Path’s founders Harry Chemko and Jason Billingsley have been recognized by the Business Development Bank of Canada this week, winning the Young Entrepreneur Award for the Province of British Columbia. This article from the Vancouver Sun shares a bit of our company’s history and vision for the future. Oh yeah, and we’re also hiring for a number of positions.

• Make the most of your free shipping offers this Holiday season while you can —
  UPS announced a general rate increase of 5.9% The new rates will take effect on Jan. 5, 2009.

• Chad White writes for the Email Insider with 7 ideas for testing subject lines plus a bonus 4 ideas to get subject line inspiration.

• Another entry from Chad White, from his blog’s AM Inbox column explaining how Finger Hut uses post-header messaging effectively. I bet you’ve never heard of a post-header, so check it out.

• With this troubled economy and hundreds of competing online stores a click away, every online retailer should have a clear message that defines why a customer should buy from you and not another e-store. Problem is hardly any marketers really know how to write one. Hunter Boyle has compiled a nice list of value proposition resources on the Marketing Experiments blog, including a link to their recent webinar on the topic.

• Email Karma blogs about a Future Shop email campaign that creatively sends out a 10-day-deal-of-the-day email campaign — using only one email. The email updates itself daily with the current feature. Check it out:

• What can I say - it was a good week for email posts…DJ Waldow spotted a great re-engagement email from SideStep that is triggered when a subscriber goes without opening a SideStep message for a length of time. Even though technically image-off messages will count as “unopened” - DJ’s still a fan of the tactic.

• Kevin Hillstrom offers up 43 data mining attributes for lapsed buyers (customers who purchased from you a while ago, but nothing since). For example, Attribute #37 = Brands vs. Proprietary Product: When you sell branded merchandise and merchandise you sources yourself, you wind up with customers who have different interests. This can be a telling variable, all companies have different relationships. Lots of fodder to get you thinking about how you’ll start segmenting with the new Google Analytics Segmentation Tool.

Upcoming Ecommerce Webinars:

Multi-Store Retailing Online: Perks and Pitfalls
Jason Billingsley, VP of Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 @ 9am PT

Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: 13 Ways to Maximize Revenue and Beat the Downturn
Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Marketing Experiments
Wednesday, Oct 29th, 2008 @ 12pm PT

Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?
Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now Inc and Sitebrand
Thursday October 30th, 2008 9am PT

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Guide
• Bloggers Digest 10/10/08
• Free Holiday Email Marketing Resources
• Eleventh Hour Holiday Email Marketing - Great Example From Circuit City
• Bloggers Digest - 5/2/08

Original post by Linda Bustos

When Jason and I attend conferences like Search Engine Strategies and BlogWorld Expo - we don’t just collect trade show shwag and hand out business cards (or speak on panels, in Jason’s case), we also love to interview retailers like Ryan Douglas from PlumberSurplus, ecommerce vendors like Jay Schaffer from PowerReviews, and acclaimed authors like Avinash Kaushik and Bryan Eisenberg.

Sometimes we get in front of the camera for interviews - like with next week’s Solutions Stars Video Conference presented by Network Solutions. The live video conference will coach small business owners and entrepreneurs on how the Internet can benefit their business.

On Wednesday, October 29th from 10am PST / 1pm EST to 12:30pm PST / 3:30 EST you can tune in to us and a host of Internet experts, including:

• Tim Ferriss, Best Selling Author of Four Hour Work Week
• Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder, All-Top
• Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
• Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger
• Chris Brogan, Vice President of Strategy, CrossTech Media
• Rohit Bhargava, Author of Personality Not Included
• Wendy Piersall, CEO of Sparkplugging.com
• Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger, Dell
• Brian Solis, Author of PR 2.0, CEO of FutureWorks (FutureWorks)
• Steve Hall, Publisher and Editor of Ad Rants
• Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
• Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog
• Toby Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg Marketing
• Lee Odden, CEO of TopRankMarketing.com
• Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo! Developer Network
• Brett Tabke, CEO of WebMaster World
• David Alston, Vice President of Marketing, Radian6
• Jason Falls, Blogger, Social Media Explorer
• Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist
• Jennifer Openshaw, president of WeSeed.com
• Matt Dickman, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard
• David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy, 360i
• Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV
• Becky McCray, Author, SmallBizSurvival.com
• Warren Whitlock, Book Marketing Strategist, BestSellerAuthors.com
• Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Software
• Lorelle VanFossen, Author, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
• Dave Taylor, Head Strategic Marketing Director, Intuitive Systems
• Paul Chaney, President of International Blogging and New Media Association
• Jay Berkowitz, Author , Podcaster, and Keynote Speaker, Ten Golden Rules

You can tune into individual videos based on the content you’re interested in, or view the entire conference. While the videos are streaming, you can even chat online with the Network Solutions team, other attendees and select interviewees through ooVoo video chat.

Here are the content areas:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

You can also check out the “Solutions Stars Video Conference” event pages on Facebook Event and Upcoming.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, &quotBranding Only Works on Cattle&quot
Register to Attend…

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• Meet at Online Market World in San Francisco
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Original post by Linda Bustos

According to the National Retail Federation, 40% of shoppers plan to begin their Christmas gift search before Halloween - have you started your holiday email campaign?

Here are some free resources that can help you with your email marketing campaigns this holiday:

• Tom Lindmeier of MarketPlanB Consulting offers a free white paper download that serves as a good introduction to email marketing: frequency, offers, segmentation and testing.

• Last November’s Elastic Path Webinar: 12 Can’t Miss Email Strategies for Online Retailers with Sitebrand’s Carolyn Gardner is worth a replay, and catch the text recap on our blog.

• Mark Brownlow from Email Marketing Reports has a 4-part series on holiday email marketing: Part I http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2008/10/holiday-email-marketing-i-getting-ready.html, Part II Frequency, Part III Last Minute Tactics and Part IV Not Everyone Celebrates Christmas.

• 12 Things Retailers Must Learn from Holiday ‘07 Webinar speaks to special event marketing in general.

• You can catch up on all previous and upcoming updates on what top online retailers are doing with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and Hanukkah campaigns at the RetailEmailBlog.

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Guide
• Holiday Marketing 2.007 - Nobody Waits for Black Friday Anymore
• Reminder - 12 Can’t Miss Email Strategies for Online Retailers Webinar Tomorrow
• Bloggers Digest 10/17/08
• 13 Ways to Categorize Gifts in Holiday Emails

Original post by Linda Bustos

If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

• e-Consultancy follows up on this week’s Free Shipping: If You Got It How to Flaunt It with some UK examples. (Did you know Amazon lowered its free shipping threshold to £5?)

• Ecommerce expert Sally McKenzie shares her tips for ecommerce platform selection in a 2 part series titled: Proper Prior Planning for Platform Picking. Check out Part One and Part Two.

• Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports posted parts 2 and 3 of a holiday email marketing series:
  Frequency and Focus and Final Days and Follow-ups

• Ann Smarty shares some ecommerce-specific link building wisdom at Search Engine Journal.

• DJ Waldow offers 4 reasons why your email campaign failed.

• Pretty much everything on GrokDotCom deserves a link this week, but I’ll point out 2 to get you started, and you can subscribe to GrokDotCom if you haven’t already. Book-Markable: Ultimate List of Google Analytics Hacks Just Remarkable: Why not send gift card holders to a special landing page/section?

Next Free Ecommerce Webinar…

Dangerous Marketing Ahead: How to Break Bad Habits and Survive a Deep Recession December 10th, 2008 @ 9am PT/12pm ET
Panelists: Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates, Inc.
Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Jonathan Salem Baskin, Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of the controversial new book, "Branding Only Works on Cattle"
Register to Attend…

You may also like these similar posts:

• Bloggers Digest - 7/18/08
• Bloggers Digest 6/27/08
• Bloggers Digest 11/28/08 Black Friday Edition
• Free Holiday Email Marketing Resources
• Bloggers Digest 8/8/08

Original post by Linda Bustos