Update Your Imagery When was the last time you updated your homepage carousel banners? Or changed your featured products? Does your Facebook or Twitter page still have the original cover image you uploaded when you created those accounts? Now is the time to update your high-visibility photos and images to give your brand an instant new look and re-engage returning customers and social media fans. Clear Out Old Inventory The more products you have, the…
Duck Soup Blog
Gift certificates are a great feature, especially for stores selling often-gifted products. However, online gift certificates can be a magnet for fraud. By changing the default gift certificate settings in your store, you can minimize the chances of getting hit with unwanted chargebacks. Because gift certificates are sent immediately to the recipient upon purchase, scammers are known to buy gift certificates with stolen credit cards and then quickly turn around and use the gift certificate…
If your store is on the Plus Plan or above, you’ll have access to a feature called Customer Groups. Customer Groups allow you to segment customers so that you can treat them differently. The most common use for customer groups is separating wholesale from retail customers so that you can give wholesale customers access to case-pack products or allow them to purchase at wholesale prices. But you can use customer groups for a variety of…
The following is an excerpt from my new book, 60 Killer BigCommerce Tips & Tricks for Managing Your Store Like a Pro, now available in paperback and Kindle format from Amazon.com. One limitation of BigCommerce that some store owners find frustrating is the inability to create additional content fields for products. For example, you may want to have a 1-2 sentence overview of the product at the top of the page while keeping the full…
BigCommerce is always adjusting how your store’s search box works, and while that may be outside your control, you do have the ability to make your search results more effective. Every product has a field for Search Keywords which hooks into your website’s search box. Many store owners misunderstand this field and think it’s related to SEO (search engine optimization) and helping products appear in Google or Bing search results. In reality, this field allows…
With the holiday shopping season just two months away, now is the time to get your store ready for increased traffic and sales. More people will be visiting your store between October and December, and by optimizing your BigCommerce website to increase conversion now, you can generate exponentially more revenue during this all-important time of year. Think about it – if you normally get 1000 visitors a day and have a 2% conversion rate, that…
In a retail store, customers can see products up close to better understand their quality and materials. But online, you have to rely on photos to make up for the fact that shoppers can’t touch or feel your products in person. Good e-commerce photography can make all the difference when it comes to converting shoppers to buyers. Here are five tips for making sure your online store’s product photos really sell. Be Consistent There are…
One of the most common situations my clients deal with is determining the best product categories for their e-commerce website. This is especially true for startups or new companies who aren’t as well-versed in e-commerce strategy or design. The following is a modified excerpt from my ebook E-Commerce for Everyone: How to Launch a Successful Online Store Using Bigcommerce (or Other Hosted Platforms), which outlines possible categorization strategies you can use to help shoppers find…