A blog about ecommerce marketing, running an online business and updates to Shopify's ecommerce community.

Marty Note
We agree with all 7 of these "product page best practices" such as:

1. Powerful product descriptions (tell a short story and use language from reviews). 

2. Clear Call-To-Action (CTAs).

3. Size Chart (we love the Johnny Cupcakes graphic).

3. Include Stock Levels (and use Amazon's only 4 left language).

4. Great Product shots.

5. Social Share buttons (with feedback loops for # of shares, look at SumoMe.com for the best social share widget).

6. Shipping & Free Shipping info clear and easy to find.

7. Relevant to what is happening now (Holiday theme).

8. Remove background (this one was new to us, but we get it).

& The forgot 2 of our favorites:

9. Reviews - voice of the customer is the most convincing and begins to create online community.

10. TEST - we've only beaten a red "Add To Cart" button once, but we only knew we beat it because we tested.

Designing Tomorrow's Ecommerce Today
Added artist Sara Havey's magical knitting gnome to the fastest "views" Haiku Deck I've ever created (300+ in 24 hours) because it is a perfect example of the New Ecommerce's crowdsourcing and DIY future.

The deck is divided into three sections:
* Current Ecommerce Best Practices.
* Rise of the Social / Mobile Web & Social Shopping.
* Crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing and DIY.

Is it possible to create tomorrow's ecommerce website TODAY? Is Sara's gnome knitting? You bet!

Netflix data shows "binge watching" is up. How do we create content marketing to encourage a binge?

Creating Binge Worthy Content for Ecommerce sites helps master the New SEO, but the process is different than for B2B because:

* B2C ecom content needs more UGC (User Generated Content).
* Ecom content needs to tell great stories fast so VIDEO.

* UGC needs engagement support so gamification.

* Tribal key for ecommerce, so needs to be highly social.

* Don't like to pull attention away from HERO, so selectively visual.

* Need to curate more "binge worthy content" from UGC and social. 

That last bullet demonstrates the core difference. B2C ecommerce is an act of curation as much as creation. Customers trust each other often MORE than the websites they visit. The more UGC an ecom website has the richer it is.

UGC can take many forms on an ecommerce site such as:

* Reviews. 
* Profiles (MyAccount). 
* Comments. 
* Response to contests and games. 
* Review the reviewer (was this review helpful?). 
* Social shares.
* Blog or social commentary (use only with permission as you will have to rake into your website with an Online Reputation Management tool). 

Stories and content are no less important to an ecommerce website, but there are distinct difference in the type of content that will help and not hurt conversions.