eCommerce and

• By now most of us have heard the news of Michael Jackson’s death, what really surprised me was the way in which many of us found out about it…. Twitter.  Twitter may be having a far greater impact than we may even know.


• This title speaks for itself: Amazon: “A Search Engine With A Warehouse”.


• We know that load times affect user behavior, but would you say that fractions of a second could have a billion dollar price tag?


• Are you ignoring important landing pages?


• Apparently there is controversy over personalized ads, but are we really surprised that people don’t want to share their social security numbers?

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

I finally get to say it, “The Lakers are NBA Champions!”  I did so much smack talking last year that I ended up losing my bet and the Lakers lost in the finals, so this year I decided to not say anything until it was all over.  So, Father’s Day is this weekend, and other than that it’s time to move on to the week in eCommerce.

• Google changes public stance on PageRank Sculpting with nofollow, Matt Cutts gives a detailed analysis here and Marketing Pilgrim gives a synopsis here.  Changes to be aware of: Distribution of link juice is either passed on or it vanishes, SEO’s no longer have the ability to allocate PageRank value using nofollow.


• Has Bing raised public interest?  Yes.  Does Google fear Bing, like the New York Post reports?  I doubt it.  I tend to lean more towards Clint Boulton’s opinion that Google’s respect for Bing was revealed when they launched “Explore Search”, a page that features many of Google’s functions in an easy to read format.



• Online shoppers plan to spend more on dear old Dad this Father’s Day than offline shoppers.


• Social media can be used by marketers to engage and acquire focus groups. 


• Writing headlines sounds so simple, but getting started can be the difficult part for the writer; Copyblogger offers nine proven formulas for these troublesome times.
  

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

• Tim Berry and his wife Vange collaborated on what they have learned over the last 22 years as small business owners and came up with a list of ten lessons they learned.  They point out that these lessons may not work for every business but in my opinion Tim and Vange may be too humble about their list.  Businesses are still failing today because they either don’t know about the topics discussed in this article or they choose to ignore them.  I chose three points to reiterate for our audience:
  • 2. We built it around ourselves
    Our business was and is a reflection of us, what we like to do, what we do well. It didn’t come off of a list of hot businesses.
  • 5. We spent our own money. We never spent money we didn’t have.
    We hate debt. We never got into debt on purpose, and we didn’t go looking for other people’s money until we didn’t need it (in 2000 we took in a minority investment from Silicon Valley venture capitalists; we bought them out again in 2002). We never purposely spent money we didn’t have to make money. (And in this one I have to admit: that was the theory, at least, but not always the practice. We did have three mortgages at one point, and $65,000 in credit card debt at another. Do as we say, not as we did.)
  • 7. We minded cash flow first, before growth.
    This was critical, and we always understood it, and we were always on the same page. See lesson number 5, above. We rejected ways we might have spurred growth by spending first to generate sales later.
    
    

• The Palm Pre comes out this weekend, and I am quite excited about it!  Search Engine Land reports on Google’s excitement for the release of this smartphone that has Google Search, Maps and YouTube already built into the device.  What’s important about this article is the trend toward mobile apps and how advertisers will choose to plan for future PPC campaigns.


• Bing seems to be the word of the week and (#badabing) the tweet of the week.  Bing even managed to become the number two search engine for a day, which isn’t all that surprising considering the dollars that Microsoft is tossing at their ad campaign, but will it last?  Some think not, and I tend to agree.  I tried to use Bing for a day, but I couldn’t even make it that long.


• Adobe BrowserLab is making it easier for developers to test cross browser compatibility.
  


• We pride ourselves on being problem solvers, in fact that is how Gordian Project came to be our name.  We go about discovering problems and implementing solutions in various ways, but I enjoyed this simple outline for those in their infancy of tackling issues.
  

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

• Dear Jane is working on an experiment that deals with brand perception.  She put together a visual representation of the brands she uses on a typical day and her findings were quite interesting.  She is also asking the community to participate.


• The search engines are improving search capabilities but are we the users capitalizing on them?


• Decency as a sales tool…. What a concept!


• Friendly fraud, online retails equivalent of shoplifting or consumers just gaming the system?


• Social networking is taking off, so don’t walk into the process blindly, let those who have learned their lessons along the way provide some assistance.
  

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and, American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Jeremy Schoemaker seems to be getting somewhere with his trademark infringement case against a Google employee.  Search Engine Land has embedded the documents which show the Judge has ordered Schoemaker be given access to the AdWords account in question.


• Understanding shopper motivations can help retailers customize promotions to fit their target audience according to recent studies.


• When Google goes down it takes others with it.


• New data shows that 2009 is seeing a large decrease in paid search traffic from search engine visits.


• 10 Reasons Craigslist Is in Legal Jeopardy. 

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

Don’t forget Mother’s Day on Sunday!  For now let's review the week in eCommerce:

• Speaking of Mom… Search Engine Guide recommends using the “Mom Test” if usability is a concern.


• Copyblogger is strategically helping others fight the blogging war for attention, and I do mean “strategically”.


• SEOBook challenges “What do your non customers have in common?”


• Andy is scratching his head over Google’s Chrome commercial that is scheduled to run this weekend.


• I actually haven’t read the Bruce Clay's blog in a while but this post by Virginia caught my eye.   She makes a few really good points about how annoying it can be when someone blatantly steals your content, but she also points out that you don’t have to stoop to their level.  I guess it hit close to home this week, considering when I checked out one of our competitors websites I found that they were using nearly our exact ad copy on one of their banners:

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

So we have finally started utilizing Twitter so feel free to follow us to keep up to date on our latest activities.

This week’s eCommerce review:

• According to a post by Bruce Temkin, as we add functionality to our websites we may be decreasing the ease of navigation, and according to his numbers it looks like there is plenty of room for improvement.


• To niche or not to niche, that is a great question, especially if your competition is trying to dominate you via SERPs!  Search Engine Land takes a look at microsites in relation so SERP’s.


• Tools every Google Analytics professional should have.


• Avinash, well known analytics guru, goes over the basics of daily, weekly, and monthly unique visitors.  The summary of the lesson is to pretty much forget those metrics, and instead look at absolute unique visitors over a given time period.  Gotta love simplicity.


• As someone who feels the need to justify reasoning, I can completely identify with this post from Future Now, On a Scale From 1 to 5 Surveys Stink. Here’s Why!
  

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

• eBay is scheduled to make quite a few changes this Spring.  Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor has prepared a White Paper on the changes for those of you still selling on eBay.


• Chris Barr highlights the importance of consumer trust.


• Rachel Hirsch reviews a recent eMarketer report and explains why men and women aren’t created equal, especially when marketing to each gender.


• SKTool, Google’s new search based keyword tool, was reviewed by Practical eCommerce and the assessment looks positive.
  


• Search Engine Land’s Just Behave column reminds us merchants that consumers are “more than skin and bones with credit cards”.
  

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

CBS News, The Consumerist and New York Post have all recently reported that tax free shipping online could soon be a luxury of the past.  A bill was expected to be introduced to congress on Monday of this week that would force retailers to start collecting sales taxes, regardless of the state in which the consumer and the merchant reside.  This is not the first time a bill of this nature has been presented to Congress.  Some speculate that state and tax officials have been trying to get Congress to pass such laws for as many as ten years for both internet and mail order sales.  While supporters have been unsuccessful in the past, they now believe that current economic conditions will force Congress to act in some way.  According to the New York Post, a recent study provides evidence in support of the bill.  “The study by the Rockefeller Institute, which is the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York, said that fourth-quarter 2008 sales taxes dropped by 6.1 percent, and that preliminary figures for the first three months of 2009 suggest even steeper declines.”  Information like this, combined with the ongoing recession, which will potentially cut deeper into tax revenues, have the National Conference of State Legislatures believing that they will not be defeated this time around.

The complexities associated with collecting state and local taxes are the main reason that online retailers do not currently collect sales tax on out of state orders.  Not only do the tax rules differ from area to area and state to state but they are updated on a regular basis and the definitions of taxable products are often completely ludicrous.  Take for instance information that James Turner presented in 2003, “a proposed definition of candy would have taxed the Milky Way Midnight candy bar but not the original Milky Way bar”.  There are talks of simplified tax rules and mandatory updates of tax changes by the states, but none of the proposals have shown enough simplicity to be supported by online retailers.  The New York Post does mention that online consumers are supposed to save receipts from their online purchases and pay their state when they file income taxes, but even those that aren't trying to abuse the system don’t know this.

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and, American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Google announced YouTube deals with a host of entertainment companies this week.  According to CNET deals were struck with MGM, CBS, Sony, Lionsgate, Starz and the BBC.  YouTube is planning on changing the layout of the website as well as offering professional video content.  Along with these changes users can expect YouTube to start charging subscription fees and showcasing online TV ads.  Some of the more surprising concessions were those that were made by YouTube to Sony.  YouTube has agreed that Sony features be displayed via Crackle, Sony’s video website, as well as control advertisements for the films and allocate all related traffic to Crackle.

• Twitter has grown by leaps and bounds in the first quarter of this year and it doesn’t look like the trend will slow anytime soon.  If you are newer to Twitter you may want to review PCMAG’s list of Twitter don’ts prior to tweeting away.  Some of my favorite don’ts are:
  • 9. Don't retweet something and leave off the original Twitter poster. Always give credit to those who wrote it first.
  • 11. Don't #hashtag every topic. After a while, your topics will be ignored.  

• If you find yourself struggling to decipher what these actually mean you will likely find the help you need on Twictionary, a Twitter Dictionary Wiki.

• Thanks to Seth’s blog I was able to view this experiment on the do’s and don’ts of job interviews, and I can’t help but love the time that was put into this.
  

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.