Never underestimate the fashion buzz and eye-grabbing power of a celebrity’s fashion, accessories and footwear designs.

Famous faces of films, TV and music don’t always have what it takes to design women’s strappy sandals, sundresses, casual dresses good enough for work or weekend knock-around capri pants and T-shirts. But they sure do attract attention, copycat clothes and media. These days, celebrity designer lines also come at ALL price points … not just up-market and high-priced lines.

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Bitten. Sex sells; Sex In the City sells even better to fans of the TV show (now a major film) in which Sarah Jessica Parker plays New York City fashionista and lonely hearts advisor Carrie Bradshaw. Most unexpected was the price-point and retail chain through which SJP decided to market her very own Sex In the City women’s wear style — the Bitten brand. All those puffy skirt and fitted bodice sundresses, sophisticated cut-off pants, midriff T-shirts and the shoes. Oh, those shoes! (Parker held onto her high-priced Manolos from the TV show wardrobe mistress for SIX years.) Sarah Jessica Parker negotiated in-store boutiques for her Bitten design line with Steve and Barry’s – the young and casual retail chain known for cut-rate logo T-shirts and discount priced tween, teen and 20-something clothing. All part of Parker’s ethic: On A Budget But With Style.

Rental Designer Handbags are another buzz point where art (Sex In the City film) imitates life. If you see the film, listen for Carrie Bradshaw’s on-a-budget assistant who points to her designer handbag and says, “It’s mine till Tuesday, baby.” One such rented chic site is BegBorrowOrSteal-dot-com.

Amanda Bynes Goes “dear.” Another star-powered fashion line called “dear” distributes through youth apparel, shopping mall-sited Steve and Barry’s, noted above. Amanda Bynes developed her “dear” line with lots of horizontally-striped, plunge-necked, push-up sleeve sweaters, in school bus yellows and robin’s egg blues. Bynes stays en-“dear”-ed by black, stretch leggings (the Spandex look but looser) and high, black stiletto heeled shoes.

Lohan Likes Black Leggings, Too. The Lohan line, called 6126, for reasons we cannot divine, hit stores in June 2008. Her stretchy black long leggings feature slit or zipped cuffs to fit over very high strappy heels.

The Cruz Sisters do it Shapely. Star Penelope Cruz with sister Monica built their MNG line of women’s wear for the huge Spanish chain store Mango. Think Vintage Clothing based on the vintage styles pulled from Las Hermanas Cruz wardrobe – satiny dress fabrics; stretchy jersey-like fabrics for sleeveless unitards, and a simple skimmer dress with beadwork at the scooped neckline. Oh … and black. Lotsa black.

Bubble Skirts Times Two.J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez, and Teen Vogue designer turned fashion designer in her own Lauren Conrad Collection, both feature Bubble Dresses. Whether strapless or slung over one shoulder, these celebrity bubble dresses are short hemmed, poofy and either shirred or drawn in over the hips. Jennifer Lopez features hers in “Just Sweet,” which targets a higher-priced line of women’s clothing. (The bubble silhouette doesn’t mix with weight-loss wannabes; skinnies only.)

Natalie Portman Does it With Attitude. Actress Portman is well known for her vegan and animal-lover lifestyle, from home furnishings (no rainforest mahogany or leather couches) to fashion. No surprise that Portman designed the Te Casan line, featuring very high, spindly-heeled, open-toed, cross over the toes sandals. Bright colors. Leather free. Te Casan is billed as “cruelty-free footwear.”

So, a few months ago, I promised Shawn Saba from US Style, Inc. that we would consider letting him write a guest post here and sharing his knowledge with all our readers. I never got around to posting it and he called me today saying I’d better put this up before he and Sam came down to San Diego and kick my butt back to Connecticut. Just kidding…I think I can take them anyways so their threats were falling on deaf ears But seriously, ApparelUS.com is one of the leading online resources for great deals on wholesale fashion and we welcome the knowledge of experts like Shawn any day. Shawn, I should have gotten this up back in Feb. but thanks for your work.

Shawn writes:

Every four years we add one extra day in the month of February in order to
re-synchronize our calendar with the seasons. This year, 2008, is a leap
year, which makes it the perfect opportunity to re-synchronize your clothing
collection with current fashion sense. Because fashions are sometimes as
fickle as the changing weather patterns, it‚s important to update your
clothing inventory periodically. There‚s no better or more economical way to
do that than by shopping wholesale online.

Wholesale clothing shopping online allows you to shop for and buy the
hottest new fashion designs at a fraction of their retail price. Shopping at
online wholesalers cuts out the middlemen, which allows you can spend as
little as possible. The less you pay wholesale, the more you profit in the
end. Another great thing about wholesale clothing shopping is that the
fashions are constantly being updated, so you can always choose from the
most contemporary styles.

When you purchase wholesale clothing, you can afford to completely redo your
clothing collection to fit with the modern fashion landscape. Many of the
newest fashion trends can be found at Apparelus.com, the best source for
wholesale clothing and accessories on the Internet. They offer their
customers a wide range of top-quality clothing and accessories at steeply
discounted prices. With exclusive contracts from many of the hottest
designers and manufacturers in the market, Apparelus.com always has the best
wholesale prices.

Apparelus.com has thousands of different clothing pieces you can choose
from. Their departments include tops, pants, dresses, skirts, jackets and
more. They even have hundreds of accessories like shoes, handbags,
sunglasses, belts and jewelry. No matter what style of clothing or
accessories you‚re after, you‚ll probably find it for pennies on the dollar
in their extensive collection. You‚ll be amazed to see that the unit prices
for most of their clothing items are just several dollars when they could
easily be sold for 5 times more. So, visit Apparelus.com to take advantage
of this once in a leap year opportunity to do yourself a big favor and give
your clothing collection a total overhaul. Your bottom line will thank you.

As you may or may not be aware, Valentine’s Day is a mere calendar month away from today. It’s time to roll out the champagne, laced hearts and velvety chocolate! If you have little ones at home this may mean going out in search of Hannah Montana or High School Musical Valentine’s cards and those candy hearts with corny messages of amor sprawled across them. Or, if you’re like me and other Martha Stewart aficionados, you know that this is a very opportune time to get crafty!

Making your own Valentine’s cards and gifts is a breeze to do. Plus it’s a great creative outlet and has the added benefit of good ‘ole fashioned r & r. Not to mention that you’ll save some green in the process. (Score!) If you have the time (and patience) to make your own creations, my best advice is to purchase wholesale craft supplies from an authorized dealer. Popular Valentine’s materials include fabrics embossed with floral patterns, elegant embellished laces, crimson silks or velvets in various shades of red, and anything that shimmers. Nothing says “I love you” like a whole lot of sparkle! Sequins also work well, and you can never go wrong with pink. Silk flowers—roses and baby breath in particular—are also crowd pleasers. You can easily find wholesalers who will sell these products to you, even if you are purchasing for private use.

You don’t have to be a creative genius to come up with ideas for homemade gifts. I once made my hubby a Valentine’s teddy bear with a little box containing coupons I made for him with tickets for things like “1 free hour-long massage”, “1 candlelit dinner made with love and featuring the food of your choice”, “1 day of hogging the remote for the whole day” and other things that are lovely and free. The best part? These one-time use coupons never expired. My hubby still has a few of them left, and that was nearly six years ago. All it took was a plain, plush bear, some lace & fabric, a little bit of hot glue and a whole lot of imagination. That was the cheapest Valentine’s Day ever, and it had the greatest impact of all of them.

If you’re a little lacking in the art department, fret not. You can still find some great deals for wholesale Valentine’s Day gifts without having to spend the time and energy on artsy, time-consuming projects. Check out TopTenWholesale.com today for a list of wholesalers near you.

1. Avoid blog naming trends. Thinking outside the box when naming your blog is not only encouraged, it’s often critical in creating a disposition distinct from other blog titles. A survey consisting of more than 33,000+ blogs taken by Elliot Back a few years ago discovered the most common words used in blog titles. I have listed Elliot’s findings of the top 10 names to avoid for your reference; blog, life, weblog, world, from, journal, news, thoughts, with, and daily. Although using these words isn’t exactly detrimental to your blog, it is by no means helpful. So the next time you’re thinking of a new blog title, utilize innovation over replication and ingenuity over monotony and you’ll be off to a good start.
2. Avoid the anonymous author route; no bio + no picture often = no credibility. People want to know about who is writing the content they’re reading and what better way to facilitate conversation with your reader than by an informal introduction. Readers also prefer to put a face to a name so don’t be shy when posting. BE picture friendly J
3. Avoid “long titles” or “humorous headlines” that out of context only add confusion to what may otherwise be “cream of the crop” content. A Title is the first impression of your blog aka the deciding factor to whether a reader chooses your site amongst the many other related findings.
4. Avoid writing a blog that you don’t want a future employer to read. Posting on the Web has revolutionized the publishing world so be sure to steer clear from rants and raves that may potentially cost you that dream job. Take precaution when overwhelmed by the need to put every thought on a platform for the world to see, as it may just come back to haunt you. When writing your next weblog, remember that savvy employers utilize the Web to profile perspective hires. Be wise when blogging and keep in mind that some things are simply better left unwritten.
5. Avoid all assumptions. Don’t assume your blogworms have read your past works. Add links to previously published pieces to paint a full picture of what you’re trying to portray and use navigating tools, such as “Read these First” to create a complete context for your readers. Also, don’t assume readers will flock to your blog just because you have something to say. Like all things that take on a life of its own blogs thrive when nurtured. They are organic by nature and as such require steady amendments to attract a steadfast consult.
6. Avoid vaguely titled links. Readers don’t appreciate being referred to links when they don’t know what to expect. Choose key descriptive words that give your reader the cognizance to make an informed decision on whether or not to click a designated link.
7. Avoid inconsistent publishing. By no means should you blog for the sake of blogging. The key is to strike a balance between long gaps in publishing that may cause you to lose faithful blogworms without using the web as a virtual wastebasket!
8. Avoid mixing multiple subject matters. A blog about wholesale apparel should not also give advice on dating do’s and don’ts. This style of blogging only serves to confuse your audience and inevitably decreases the probability of these users returning. Basically, readers are less likely to be loyal to a blog that is nonspecific in content and unfocused in material.
9. Avoid audience detachment. In other words, your blog should facilitate communication between you and your users. Responding to all comments effectively and efficiently is essential. Also, writing in a way that persuades readers to ask questions and post comments will inevitably create a conversation that flows lucid amongst writer and reader, and should be first and foremost.
10. Avoid “Lazy” blog writing. Publishing a blog takes time and dedication. Basically, the energy you put into blog writing often determines the level of commitment you receive from your readers. My rule of thumb is to write from the heart while keeping in mind the quality of content readers expect.

As with all things in life, SEO pro’s have to start out somewhere.  No one just wakes up one day and knows everything there is to know about SEO.  Mastery takes a lot of time, so those of you new to SEO shouldn’t fret.  That being said, newbies should still take special care not to make certain mistakes that could potentially undermine their own marketing efforts.  While the following list of SEO mistakes is by no means comprehensive, I still feel that it’s a good start. 

Mistake #1: Optimizing For Obscure, Long-tail Keywords
Ok, so you rank fairly high for “best search engine optimization company in Smalltown, USA”, but so what?  If no one actually takes the time to conduct such a search then your optimization for that particular phrase is pretty useless, isn’t it?  The trick is to take advantage of the many research tools that are currently on the market.  These tools can help you discern which keywords people are actually entering into the engine query boxes and therefore give you a better understanding of which words your site should be targeting.  Once you’ve discovered which keywords are most popular for your particular industry, go ahead and focus on those for your site.  That way you’ll actually get decent traffic from your optimization efforts.    

Mistake #2: Focusing Solely On the Homepage
It’s imperative that you don’t neglect your internal pages because more than likely visitors to your site will arrive there not by the homepage, but by one of these internal pages.  You should think of these pages as being just as important as the homepage itself because they are more often than not the gateways to your main site.  Make sure that each page has its own title, headers and content and that each page can stand alone as a good representation of your company and site.  Also, it’s important that each and every page is easily navigable and provides access to your homepage and other pages.  You don’t want your visitors getting lost because that will only frustrate them and cause your click-through rate to go up.

Mistake #3: Too Much Attention To Meta Tags
Once upon a time, long long ago in the magical world of SEO, meta tags were an integral part of any SEO campaign.  However times have changed and that fairytale has long been over.  Meta tags aren’t that important anymore when it comes to optimization because they were abused to death in the past.  They affect rankings very little, if at all, these days.  The only thing they’re really good for in this day and age is showing what a page will be about in the SERPs.  For this reason they should not be disregarded altogether.  But it’s unwise to give meta tags too much attention when there are other more important things to be focusing on.

Mistake #4: Disregarding Bounce-Rate When Looking at Site Traffic
It’s really easy to get over-excited about high volumes of Internet traffic, but if you’re focusing too much on numbers and not enough on analysis, you could be causing problems for yourself.  You can get tons of traffic all day long, but if your visitors aren’t sticking around and checking out your other pages, then what’s the point?  That’s why it’s very important to consider bounce rate when analyzing traffic rates.  Bounce rate tells you how many people are clicking links to your site but aren’t staying around long enough to convert.  If you see that a very high percentage of your visitors are bailing after visiting only one page then there must be something seriously wrong and you should be looking into it right away.  Experiment with ways to keep visitors wanting more.  It’s a lot easier to make site changes that’ll keep visitors lingering and viewing other pages than it is to optimize a site allover again for brand new visitors. 

Mistake #5: Believing That In-bound Links are the End-All, Be-All
Getting in-bound links is important because it helps search engine spiders find your site so that it can be indexed and ranked, but it’s not the only way to optimize your site and it can certainly be overdone.  If you have too many poor-quality, spammy-looking links pointed to your site, you make rank high for a short time, but you’ll ultimately tank in the SERPs.  Make sure you use legal, white-hat linking strategies and that you look at it as a piece of the SEO pie—not the end all. 
 

Advertisers pay for clicks, and publishers make commission on each click that their traffic source provides.  Yet the very model of pay-per-click advertising opens itself up to fraudulent activity, putting advertisers at risk of paying commissions to publishers with poor quality and/or synthetic traffic.

As a result of click fraud, advertisers suffer decreased ROI, and subsequently the entire industry is placed in jeopardy.  Advertisers may lower their bids or pull their PPC campaigns altogether.  Legitimate publishers are left with reduced commissions, and the result is that both sides of PPC networks deteriorate.  The entire industry is threatened.

Detecting and preventing click fraud is the only solution to this powerful and pervasive force that has tainted the PPC advertising industry to the detriment of advertisers, legitimate publishers and PPC search engines.  This task rests in the hands of PPC engines themselves.

And while no one organization will ever be able to say that they have completely eradicated click fraud from their networks, recently there have been considerable strides taken to combat click fraud, with many second and third-tier PPC search engines dropping significant portions of their syndication networks because of some blatant fraudulent activity.

PPC engines need to have the capacity to understand the value of their traffic and be able to distinguish high-quality traffic from poor-quality sources.  The development of proprietary tools to analyze traffic data for advertisers is the best way to deliver solid ROI consistently.  Nothing speaks louder than hard data that show conversions with traffic sources and the revenue this spend generates.  For example, GenieKnows.com employs a traffic-analysis team and the proprietary technology of the Genie Shield product to deliver conversion tracking, which eliminates automated clicking by detecting and removing paid-to-click traffic.  It also analyzes click patterns based on user activity and micro-manages traffic sources on a per-URL or per-IP basis.

With proactive measures in place, PPC engines are able to strengthen relationships with advertisers, optimizing their campaigns to ensure that their ROI continues to grow.  Naturally, if an advertiser is making a profit on their PPC campaigns, they will certainly want to reinvest.

There is a wealth of potential waiting to be realized in online advertising and within PPC advertising specifically.  While billions of dollars are currently spent annually, billions more are still waiting to be invested, provided that advertisers’ spends are met with profitable conversions.

Much has been written about search engine optimization (SEO) techniques by numerous different search engine experts, so it’s only natural that many of these tenacious myths occur at regular intervals.  Here are 5 misconceptions I have noticed with pretty high frequency:
 
1. Submitting my Website to search engines will bring me visitors.
Submitting your Website to search engines doesn’t automatically bring visitors to your site.  If your Website isn’t optimized for the search engines, chances are that it won’t be listed at all, and if it is, it’s probably somewhere at position 4,379 and beyond. You must make sure that your Website is optimized for your important keywords before submitting it to search engines.  Otherwise, you’re wasting your precious time and money.

2. I must submit my Website to 1,500 search engines.
There are only about 5 important international search engines and the same amount of country specific search engines that will bring you 99% of your search engine visitors.  Therefore, it’s utterly pointless to submit your site to 1,500 “search engines”.  Most of these sites aren’t search engines at all but rather free for all link pages that do nothing more than add your email address to a spam list.  Focus on the major search engines that Web surfers actually frequent.

Apart from that, if your Website has many incoming links, you don’t have to submit it at all.  Search engines are able to find your site automatically through the links and they’ll give it a higher value than a directly submitted page because other people linked to it.

3. META tags will improve my search engine ranking.
Most search engines don’t use the META Keywords tag anymore to determine the ranking of a Website because they’ve been abused too much in the past with the purpose of tricking search engines.  But the META Description tag is still useful because its description will be displayed on the query result page of some search engines.  Adding any other META tags like the META Author tag, the META Copyright tag, or the META Language tag means nothing to the major search engines so it isn’t worth your time.

4. Cloaking or doorway pages will get me a high ranking.
Techniques such as using hidden content, cloaking or doorway pages used to work for some time and some techniques might still work on some engines.  Sooner or later though, all major search engines will recognize these techniques as spam.  As soon as they find out that you’re trying to trick them, your site will likely get in trouble and may possibly be banned for a long, long time.

5. Search engine optimization is not as good as traditional advertising.
Actually, the opposite is true.  People who find your site through search engines are usually active and ready to buy.  Search engine traffic is very qualified because your visitors performed searches with a purpose when they found your site.  Search engine leads can be more targeted and more valuable than traditional media advertising methods. 

If done correctly, optimizing your site for high search engine rankings is perhaps the most cost-effective advertising method for your business.  Therefore it’s essential to make sure that your site is optimized for search engines and that it has many incoming links.
If your Website is good in these two areas, you’ll get many targeted visitors from search engines and other web sites without submitting your site to the search engines even once.

A popular e-commerce trend right now is to put customer reviews directly on the company Website so that potential customers have the opportunity to review one’s products before making any purchase decisions.  A recent Forrester report showed that 36% of consumers have more trust in Websites that offer consumer-generated product reviews.  Many e-retailers have taken this to heart and have put it into action. 

One particularly successful case is that of John Lazarchic, Vice President of e-commerce at Petco.  He recently discussed his company’s decision to hop on the customer-review bandwagon, a practice that numerous retailers have begun to pursue.  Lazarchic explained that his primary motivation in doing so was to “enhance customer trust and the Website experience” saying that “ROI was not the main objective.”  How novel:  Putting customer service before ROI metrics.

This may not work for every type of business, but if you know in your gut that it will probably work for your’s, then just go for it, if only temporarily.  Lazarchic had the insight to recognize the true nature of his business; there are few social phenomena more democratizing than pet ownership.  Lazarchic knows that pet owners talk to each other, and if you can give a home to that dialogue, you have instant access to an insanely varied demographic that comes down to the single common denominator of loving their ball of fur.

Lazarchic’s way of thinking is quite a concept: putting customer service and gut instinct first and figuring out ROI later.  Many CEOs and marketers cringe at the thought of trying something that can’t effectively be measured, but when you have confidence that your brand is one that can genuinely create communities of like-minded individuals, and you know that tools exist that have been shown to do that, then marketers should be permitted to go with their gut, at least for a limited time, to prove that if you build a compelling program ROI is sure to follow. 

Social networking developed partly outside of the commercial realm, but there are now retailers who know that if you can build it into the existing e-commerce model, you’re offering a lot more reasons for consumers to spend time on your site.  I’m not saying that you should try to compete with “old school” social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.  But if you can provide a one-stop shop for both the emotional (“look at how fat and happy Mr. Biggles is”) and the purely pragmatic (“I need to buy a 25 pound bag of kitty litter”), it’s your brand that’s ultimately going to stick. 

I’ve been spending a great deal of time lately reading about landing page optimization. What to do, what not to do, various factors, etc. Based on my research, here are a few factors to keep in mind when working on designing and improving your landing pages:

1) Keep Focused on Your Primary Objective
When writing your copy, laying out your landing page and considering multiple call-to-actions, keep your primary objective in mind at all times. You want to avoid placing strong emphasis on any secondary calls-to-action that draw visitor attention away from the primary objective. In addition, multiple call-to-actions (e.g. offers) can confuse visitors and lead to high drop-off rates.

2) Choose a Clear and High Visibility Headline Placement
Not only is it important to carefully craft your headline, it’s also important to select a highly visible location for your headline on the landing page. Always keep the headline relevant to the primary objective and connect the main text and headline to what visitors are specifically seeking. Don’t make it difficult or too metaphorical. Simple typically beats crafty.

3) Present the Call-to-Action Clearly and Vibrantly Right on the Landing Page
If your primary objective involves filling out a registration form or any other information gathering/search-related call-to-action, place the form clearly on the landing page in a prime real estate location. Draw attention to it via color, images and text. The use of white space is critical because you want visitors to feel at ease with completing the form. Don’t make it feel like a burden with long forms and with information fields that don’t appear relevant to the visitor’s main intent for being on the landing page; You can always get other information later on if you really need it.

4) Reduce Navigational Links
In most cases (e-commerce sites may be the main exception) the less navigational links the better. If you do use navigational links they should be call-to-actions that take the visitors to a second page with a new registration form (or related call-to-action) and some additional detail directly related to the alternative call-to-action link. These links keep the visitor on track with fulfilling your primary objective and help provide some research (e.g. customer insight) about what your main landing page content should focus on.

5) Use Crisp, Eye-attracting Images
Creating highly effective landing pages can be time-consuming to design and develop because of the high-quality images they employ. Landing pages that use crisp images, excellent visual hierarchy and strong relevant photos connect quickly with visitors. Relevant means being directly related to the visitors’ reasons for visiting your website in the first place.

These are just a few landing page optimization factors. Just like designing any new creative, it takes time and knowledge to get it right in a way that produces powerful results. Remember, always be sure to test potential factors to see what works best for your visitors in achieving your primary objectives.

Good luck to you on your landing page optimization!

On Tuesday July 10th ScanAlert will be releasing its latest research report regarding consumer conversion cycles. I have yet to look over the full report, but from what I’ve gathered thus far it looks like consumers are taking longer these days to convert—80% longer, in fact. According to the report, consumers are now taking an average of 34 hours and 19 minutes to buy products they have found on ecommerce sites, up from 19 hours when the same study was conducted in 2005.

This is surprising news to everyone in the ecommerce industry and should definitely be considered by anyone who is currently measuring their conversion rates according to immediate sales; that kind of instant gratification shopping seems to be a thing of the past and does not give a full picture of one’s sales success. Online shoppers are getting smarter and savvier these days and ecommerce sites need to step it up if they wish to lessen the time gap between first click and sale.

With competition only a few clicks away consumers are now doing a great deal of comparison shopping, and they’re not just looking for the cheapest deal anymore. Studies for the past seven years show that price is rarely the main deciding factor in making the sale. Shoppers are more interested in factors such as shipping speed, guarantees, on-site merchandising, merchant name-brands, and trustworthiness to name but a few.

There are many things you can do help prevent conversion delay. Anne Holland, Content Director of MarketingSherpa.com suggests becoming more human to potential customers. The importance of merchant brand cannot be stressed enough, so it’s wise to place “about us” sections in conspicuous places, and not just on the site’s homepage; with good SEO and SEM, the homepage is often bypassed completely. I suggest placing drop-down menus with the “about us” option on all pages so that it can be accessed from whatever pages are initially clicked from the search engines. Make it personable. Be smart. Be funny. But whatever you do, be memorable.

Really stress the reasons why someone should buy your product or service as opposed to that of your competitor. Do you have any big clients worth noting? Did your company receive some kind of special recognition in the past that might impress potential customers? It’s also wise to include photographs of your company in action because, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Also, pictures provide tangible evidence of a real, thriving business which can be helpful in this day and age of rampant internet fraud. Alleviating consumer fears by creating an environment of trust is key and can ultimately lead to quicker conversions.

In addition to having a decent “about us” section, it is also a good idea to collect consumer email addresses as soon as possible rather than at the typical time of checkout; if the consumer doesn’t make it all the way to that point, chances are you’re too late. You can’t rely on consumer memories to get them back to your site. Even if they try looking at their browser history they can easily confuse you with some of your competitors that research shows they’re definitely looking at. And you certainly don’t want them to re-do the search in some engine and click your sponsored link for a second time when you’ve already paid for them to do it the first time, especially when grabbing their emails in the first place is so easy to do. Perhaps you can entice new users with special discounts via email through a DHTML overlay, that way they’ll have a link to your site in their email inbox along with specials that make you stand out. As Anne put it, “If you wait to ask for email permission until the actual checkout, then you’ll miss the opportunity to promote fleeing shoppers.”

It is also a good idea to have some worthwhile content on each of your pages. While not every shopper reads all of the product information provided on an ecommerce site, it’s still wise to provide it. This is especially true if you’re selling big-ticket items; people don’t want to spend a ton of money on a product they know nothing about. The key is to give more information than your competition gives, and this can be anything from product reviews to shipping/in-stock data and everything in between, but don’t rely solely on data feeds from the manufacturer. This is usually not enough information to create conversions. In this case, more is better—always. Even random trivia can do the trick. You can also provide consumer forums where your potential customers can get real, honest product reviews from your past customers. They’ll probably appreciate the honesty which will contribute to that warm, fuzzy atmosphere of trust I spoke about earlier.

Another way to get a leg up on the competition is to offer unique extras and specials that are exclusive to your company and to your website. For example, you might consider offering free gifts to those who purchase a certain amount of your top-selling product, especially if you’re in the business of selling a product that truly can’t be found elsewhere. According to Anne of MarketingSherpa, the “extras” can be as simple as providing PDF format eBooks that have some kind of practical and/or entertainment value to them. Some examples include how-to guides, simple recipes, or expert advice. The trick is to provide gifts that won’t add to your shipping costs (hence the suggestion of downloadable eBooks.) You can also offer up coupons and discounts for subsequent purchases, or anything else that extends your brand. Get creative for the best results.

These are just a few things to think about. Surely more will come up for you when you get a chance to read the full report by ScanAlert when it is released tomorrow. If you have a better understanding of eConsumer behavior, chances are you’ll be able to win the battle against sluggish conversion rates, if not the war.