Charles Nicholls - Practical Ecommerce

Influencers Are Remaking Product Discovery

Charles Nicholls — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:02:35 +0000

Influencers are no longer just trendsetters; they're remaking how consumers discover and choose products.

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Holiday Gift Guides Drive Long-Term Revenue

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 10:41:05 +0000

Gift guides encourage considered shopping rather than impulse buying, leading to fewer returns, happier customers, and repeat sales.

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Optimized Landing Pages Reduce Ad Costs

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 16:36:19 +0000

Algorithms on Google, Meta, and others evaluate an ad and its linked landing page, assigning a relevancy score that influences cost and performance.

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Robert Cialdini on Social Commerce

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 02 May 2024 10:18:21 +0000

The author of "Influence" sees big changes in how consumers decide what to purchase.

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How to Break Even on Customer Acquisition

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:52:01 +0000

Increasing first-time order values can recoup the cost of acquiring that buyer.

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Ecommerce Profitability Revisited

Charles Nicholls — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:34:38 +0000

In 2013, most ecommerce merchants generated losses from first-time shoppers. It's the same for 2022, although the circumstances differ. Contributor Charles Nicholls revisits the drivers of ecommerce profitability: 2013 vs. 2022.

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Online Shopping Has Shifted to the Edge

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 13:31:19 +0000

In a bygone era, shoppers entered an ecommerce site directly or via a search engine. No more. In 2022 it's social media that increasingly starts the process, creating opportunities and challenges for merchants.

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Online Grocery Lessons from Covid-19

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 13:10:00 +0000

Covid-19 greatly changed the grocery industry, perhaps more than any retail sector. Years of projected evolution occurred in three months as the pandemic altered consumers' lives. eMarketer now estimates that 12.4% of total U.S. grocery sales in 2021 will be online.

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Do Consumers Care about Green Commerce?

Charles Nicholls — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 13:13:51 +0000

Covid-19 has shone a light on the next big crisis: the environment. Younger consumers are especially sensitive about global warming and the world they are inheriting. Does it affect the way they shop? What can merchants do to make their operations greener?

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Mid-market Merchants Lag on Holiday Mobile Sales

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 21:15:28 +0000

Several shopping trends are already emerging from this year’s holiday season. The big story is that U.S. ecommerce sales on mobile are up by a whopping 50 percent. The bulk of the increase has gone to the largest merchants. Mid-market merchants have struggled on mobile.

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3 Quick Fixes for Greener Ecommerce

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 14:17:09 +0000

Ecommerce is not very eco. It’s frequently the opposite. A next-day delivery — where a driver travels 45 minutes each way for a $7 item in a single-use plastic package — makes no sense for the planet. Here are three quick fixes.

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3 Lessons from Running Pop-up Stores

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 16:10:47 +0000

Pop-up stores are a familiar sight in malls and events, but adding a digital component is relatively new. I've just completed a series of pop-up experiences for my company and for merchant brands. In this post, I'll share my lessons and observations.

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4 Online Merchandising Hacks to Increase Profits

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 14:46:47 +0000

Retailers seek to avoid markdowns and sell out of the season at full margin, but it isn’t easy to predict how much inventory to acquire. In this post, I'll address four online merchandising tactics that balance consumer demand with inventory levels, to maximize profits.

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Getting Started with Continuity Ecommerce, Part 2: Steps to Success

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 18:49:14 +0000

Continuity ecommerce generates recurring revenue via a combination of connected devices and auto-ship functionality. It's subscriptions on steroids. In "Part 1: Approaches, Expectations," I explained how continuity ecommerce can build high-margin revenue streams. In this article, I’ll focus on how to make continuity programs a success.

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Getting Started with Continuity Ecommerce, Part 1: Approaches, Expectations

Charles Nicholls — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 11:00:58 +0000

Continuity ecommerce combines recurring revenue, connected devices, and auto-ship functionality. It's subscriptions on steroids, and it's becoming big business. In this article, I'll explore how merchants can implement continuity programs...

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3 Ways to Narrow the Mobile Commerce Gap

Charles Nicholls — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 19:38:43 +0000

A study in 2017 revealed a massive "conversion gap" on mobile. Responsive design relies on concepts from a different era, when most shoppers navigated a website with a mouse. What follows are three ways to prompt more mobile conversions.

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Ecommerce Profitability: The Critical Second Sale

Charles Nicholls — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 10:00:13 +0000

Acquiring new customers is so expensive for retailers that it wipes out profits from a first-time sale. New analysis from my firm, SeeWhy, of data from Forrester and the U.S.

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Alternative Payments and Ecommerce Conversions

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:33:43 +0000

There’s no shortage of alternative payment choices: eBay’s PayPal, Google’s Wallet, Visa V.me, and MasterCard MasterPass, to name a few. There is also a proliferation of alternate contenders, as mobile ...

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Are Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode Conversion Killers?

Charles Nicholls — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:34:51 +0000

No merchant wants to add steps in the checkout process that reduce conversion. However, merchants often don’t have a choice about 3D Secure, the payment industry program behind "Verified by Visa," "MasterCard SecureCode," and "Amex SafeKey."

These programs attempt to reduce card-not-p...

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Do Digital Catalogs Drive Conversions?

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:03:03 +0000

Traditionally, catalogs are printed. They have an interruptive value as they arrive through the mailbox. They get read at the breakfast table, in front of the television, and in bed. They provide customers with a pleasurable way of browsing at their leisure, selecting products for a pot...

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3 Remarketing Email Campaigns to Grow Repeat Customers

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:46:17 +0000

Getting a first purchase from a customer is always satisfying. New data shows, however, just how hard it is to build repeat customers, those that buy over and over again.

I’ve just completed one of the most extensive studies ever conducted into the purchasing behavior of website visito...

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Can Spelling Mistakes Impact Ecommerce Conversion?

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:02:26 +0000

There’s little research on the impact of spelling and grammar mistakes on conversion. But Charles Duncombe, CEO of JustSayPlease, a U.K.-based ecommerce and travel company, is a stickler for getting it right. He knows firsthand the impact of spelling mistakes on an ecommerce site. He sa...

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Selling on Amazon: Pros and Cons

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:31:13 +0000

The Harry Potter franchise of ebooks will not be depending on Amazon. Author J.K. Rowling has teamed up with Sony to launch a direct outlet, called Pottermore.

If you’re in the ecommerce business, and have ambition, then perhaps like J.K. Rowling, you shouldn’t rely on Amazon. But if...

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4 Ways of Capturing More Email Addresses and Increasing Conversion

Charles Nicholls — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:03:47 +0000

There is a very strong link between website conversions and email. A recent study by my firm showed that once traffic has gotten as far as the shopping cart email was the largest source of ecommerce conversions, ranking above a direct entry and search. This is a useful reminder that the...

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Ecommerce Sales from Smartphones Slow; 5 Suggestions to Help

Charles Nicholls — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:50:38 +0000

It seems as if everyone’s talking about mobile commerce, but not many consumers are actually participating in it.

It’s not that there is no mobile commerce happening on mobile-optimized sites; it’s just that it is very small. Two different estimates forecast the value of mobile commerc...

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Conversion Tip: Send Customers a Catalog

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:56:20 +0000

Editor's Note: Printed catalogs remain stubbornly effective for many online retailers. This week's "Conversion Tip" addresses that reality. The author is Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy.com, a conversion and cart-abandonment recovery firm.

The problem wit...

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Conversion Tip: Persistent Carts Help ‘Wish List’ Shoppers

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:13:45 +0000

Editor's Note: This week's "Conversion Tip" addresses the reality of shoppers that abandon carts, and then return to them later to purchase. The author is Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy, a conversion and abandonment-recovery firm.

Research published by U...

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Conversion Tip: Dealing with Invalid Coupon Codes

Charles Nicholls — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:31:27 +0000

Editor’s Note: We continue our “Conversion Tip” series with Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy.com, a conversion and cart-abandonment recovery firm. For this installment, Nicholls addresses the ...

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Top 10 Converting Websites: The 3 Common Strategies

Charles Nicholls — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:51:55 +0000

This is the third article in my analysis of the top 10 converting ecommerce sites. The first installment, "Debunking Myths from the Top 10 Converting Websites," discussed seemingly unconventional conversion tactics that these sites use. The second installment, "Top 10 Converting Website...

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Conversion Tip: Calculate Your ‘Free Shipping’ Break-even

Charles Nicholls — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:56:24 +0000

Editor’s Note: We continue our “Conversion Tip” series from Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy, a conversion and abandonment-recovery firm. For this week’s installment, Nicholls addresses the "free-shipping break-even" concept.

If you’ve driven down your shi...

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