Shift4Shop eCommerce Blog | eCommerce Features (4)

Customer engagement is by far one of the most important elements of all types of commerce, eCommerce included. Unfortunately, the online nature of eCommerce can make customer interactions seem impersonal. Customer service through an online store is a far cry from the days of walking up to a manager in a brick-and-mortar business and asking questions face-to-face. Many online shoppers give up quickly without an immediate means of asking their questions, moving on in search of a "friendlier"[...]

As a business owner, it's always extremely helpful to be able to streamline your workflow. Of course, you have the option to use CRMs, workflow automation software, and other tools to automate many processes of your workflow. However, our mission is to streamline as much as we can within your eCommerce platform itself.

When we make updates to the Shift4Shop Online Store Builder, we keep this in mind as a goal to achieve: we want you, as a Shift4Shop store owner, to be able to do everything you[...]

Gift wrapping is a very popular service for both online and offline merchants. Customers always appreciate saving time and effort, and professional gift wrapping is often the finishing touch a customer is looking for to make their gift truly memorable.

From Google to Bing to Amazon, deciding where and how to promote your products can be more than a little confusing. To help you make the right decision for your store, our friends at GoDataFeed have produced this valuable infographic that compares the top 20 best shopping engines for online retailers.

If you're shopping online and you come across a product you really want but seems too pricey for you, wouldn't you feel excited if you suddenly saw that there's a Make an Offer button?

Surely your customers would feel the same. Any shopper would love to have the opportunity to haggle or get any form of discount. Hence, 3dcart's Make-an-Offer feature is bound to be a big hit among your own prospective and returning customers.

Don't worry because you don't have to shell out anything for this[...]

Imagine running a product-based business online via multiple sales channels. Then, imagine having to do the bookkeeping for your individual sales platforms. Now imagine having to cross-reference all of that information to create customer profiles and track your inventory, orders, expenses, and so on.

Yikes!

Luckily, Intuit has released its Quickbooks Commerce platform, making data inventory management a streamlined and simplified process for small business owners.

There is a new option for 3dcart clients with the implementation and integration of MasterPass™, a digital wallet service that allows consumers to use any payment card or enabled device to discover enhanced shopping experiences.

The new service provides 3dcart’s expansive network of small business merchants the ability to offer their customers a convenient and flexible way to pay via the web or on a mobile device.

With the continuous proliferation of eCommerce and the mounting popularity of affiliate marketing, it's no wonder e-products (otherwise referred to as "digital downloads" or "softgoods" are also thriving in the market these days. Many would-be online entrepreneurs are thinking of either selling others' e-books, software, and selling other types of e-products or coming up with their own. Moreover, even established online stores are now venturing into these digital goods to lure in more customers[...]

Looking over the process of upgrading to the new Google Universal Analytics might give you the idea that it's complicated. It's not. At 3dcart we've proactively set out to make Google Universal Analytics integration as simple as possible for you using your Online Store Manager.

But before we get to the how, let's discuss the why -- as in, why upgrade to Universal Analytics?

Google expects that Universal will improve Analytics' data processing, its collection methods and give its analysis[...]

With all the online shops mushrooming all over, how in the world will you make sure that your customers will come back and won't go trooping to another store the next time around? Well, aside from having high quality products that offer something unique, you also need to ensure that each and every customer has a good time shopping at your Internet store.

Building, managing and constantly perfecting your online store can feel like a lot of work – especially if you’re a small business with an even smaller team. So, the idea of building a second online store probably sounds like something you have no time or energy to handle. But, running a secondary online store that branches off from your original business can actually pose some significant benefits to your bottom line.

Put your consumer hat on for a minute and consider the following two words… digital download. When doing so, what type of products come to mind? Music? Books? Photographs? Movies? Computer software?

When was the last time you walked into a record store? For many, we can’t even remember. From chart-topping artists all the way down to independent musicians, a decreasing number of album/tracks are sold today inside traditional brick and mortar stores.

Let’s take it a step further and move beyond[...]

Optimizing any eCommerce store for the best conversion rate is a difficult process. With so many factors to fine tune it can be overwhelming, but thanks to our partners at SearchSpring they've made increasing your conversions their mission. Check out the below infographic to see how adding their features to your site can help you boost sales & reduce cart abandonment.

If you have hundreds or thousands of SKUs to manage throughout the peak ecommerce season, then you’re most likely to understand how painful and stressful managing your inventory can be.

I bet you have tons of inventory, hundreds of customers, and inefficient methods like Excel for keeping track of all your supplies.

We recently launched 3dupsell. The brand new feature helps online retailers recapture shoppers before they leave your site.

The next evolution of the social web is behavioral targeting—and online stores are among the businesses that can benefit hugely.

Wish list offer retailers so many different ways of leading to a sale. Wish lists make it possible for people to come back to your site and find the products they want while also sending traffic through their friends and family who they share lists with.

In a nut shell here are three ways retailers can increase sales through wish lists.

The rise of social media has given marketers a new perspective—one that changes that discounts some of the wisdom of marketing’s old guard. In the past, businesses looked at marketing as a one-way communication channel to draw in potential customers. Now, savvy marketers are starting a dialogue with their audience—and feedback forms have replaced the less effective, unpredictable surveys of yore.