Digital Marketing Blog

How to handle out of stock items

One guaranteed way to disappoint your customers online is to have them search and decide on the product they want to buy from your website, only to find that it is out of stock.

Visitors who find that an item is unavailable to buy are likely to form a bad impression of a retailer, and seek to buy the item from a competitor, so what is the best way to handle this problem?

by Graham Charlton 03 April 2008 12:08pm 4 comments

Nike to kick the Flash habit?

Running the online business of a company like Nike can have its advantages, as we heard at ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst event this week.

by Richard Maven 02 April 2008 20:40pm 0 comments

Will Vertical Search threaten Google?

Vertical search is the new breed of Search Engines that more intelligently mine data, from searching for keywords in audio files to focusing on specific industry sectors.

The landscape of Search is changing and I recently noticed three vertical search applications, which may end up threatening Google’s position.

by Max Worton 02 April 2008 15:13pm 7 comments

Usability or user experience - what's the difference ?

The study of the relationship between people and technology has been called a variety of names over the years - from computer ergonomics, human computer interaction and usability to, more recently, human-centred design and user experience.

by Tom Stewart 02 April 2008 11:47am 6 comments

Link building strategies from the experts

Link-building is by far the hardest part of search engine optimisation - it's not only time consuming but it can be pretty boring work as well.

by Patrick Altoft 02 April 2008 11:43am 1 comment

Can eBay’s new regime tackle its credibility gap?

This week saw new eBay CEO John Donahoe taking the helm and ushering in a new era at the online auctioning behemoth.

So how will eBay’s approach change under its new management? Will it become less community focused? And can the new team remove hurdles that have prevented many big brands from investing in eBay sales programmes?

We’re at ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst event in the US and asked its outspoken CEO Scot Wingo for some of his thoughts...

by Richard Maven 02 April 2008 11:42am 1 comment

Modernista - ad agency 2.0 or BS 2.0?

The recent relaunch of an ad agency website has attracted quite a bit of attention.

by Drama 2.0 02 April 2008 11:21am 10 comments

Travel websites need to improve usability - study

There is plenty of room for improving the user experience of some of the UK's top travel websites, according to a new usability study.

Webcredible's Flights Online study looked at the flight search and booking process on 20 travel agent and airline websites.

The highest scoring website was Opodo with 67%, while Monarch came off worst on 38%. On average, travel agent websites were more usable than the airlines' sites.

by Graham Charlton 02 April 2008 10:55am 3 comments

US online ad spend up 19% in 2007

Overall advertising spend in the US rose by 0.6% last year, but online ad revenue continues to rise, growing by 18.9% compared with 2006.

These figures (PDF) are from the Nielsen Company, and show that online advertising is still growing much faster than all other categories, though growth has slowed from 35% between 2005 and 2006.

by Graham Charlton 01 April 2008 14:54pm 0 comments

Your terms of service agreement

The average user ignores them, almost every " serious " website has one and the vast majority of internet entrepreneurs probably expend little thought when having theirs put together.

I'm talking, of course, about "terms of service" agreements that govern the use of websites.

by Drama 2.0 01 April 2008 13:11pm 2 comments