Ken Burke

It can be tempting for merchants enjoying a measure of e-commerce success to consider charting a course for overseas expansion. After all, the size and growth rates of international markets can put those of maturing domestic markets to shame. While U.S. online commerce is forecast to average gains of 10 percent through 2019, nascent markets…

The holidays are just around the corner, and most merchants have already put a lot of thought into how they’ll try to maximize sales during the annual shopping blitz. But those with their eyes on the real prize will focus not only on sales volumes this holiday season, but also on how many of those…

Online merchants have long known that videos are the best way to engage consumers rather than just text and photos. Relatively fewer, however, have fully embraced video as a core part of their selling strategy online, largely due to a lack of in-house experience with the medium and concerns about return on investment. However, dramatic…

For an increasing number of consumers, if you don’t have a fast, easy-to-use mobile website or app, you don’t exist. Think about that for a minute. That big, slick, content-rich e-commerce site you’ve spent so much time, money and effort building, maintaining and promoting might as well be invisible to the ever-growing ranks of untethered…

In the era of customer-driven commerce, merchants are sometimes painfully aware that they're not in the driver’s seat anymore. Shoppers empowered with greater access to information than ever before now expect to be able to browse and purchase products anytime, from anywhere, on any device they choose, all in speedy, seamless transactions. Merchants might be…

Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm change served as a wake-up call last month for merchants who have yet to make their sites fully optimized for small screens. While it remains to be seen if Google's latest update will live up to its “Mobilegeddon” moniker, the change is already impacting the rankings for some retailers. Much of the…

If merchants needed any more evidence of the increasing importance of optimizing their sites for mobile commerce, Google is about to weigh in in a big way. Beginning April 21, Google is rolling out a "mobile friendly" update to its algorithm that the company says will have a "significant impact" on results for searches made on mobile devices. In an effort to give mobile users more useful search experiences, the new algorithm will give greater weight in its rankings to sites that are easy to navigate on mobile phones and tablets, such as those using responsive design principles.

For most online merchants, it's not a question of whether to sell internationally, but how to go about it. The potential that international markets represent for online merchants large and small is simply too big to pass up. The dramatic increase in potential customer base, the far higher growth rates for e-commerce in nations outside the U.S., and the value of geographic diversification cannot be understated.

Streamlining the path to purchase and checkout process has been one of the key ways that e-tailers have been able to improve their customers’ online shopping experiences and drive conversions. Mobile consumers have come to expect the fastest, most seamless checkout experiences possible. They don't want to type their credit card numbers or shipping addresses into a small screen every time they shop a new site. They also never want to worry about the security of their data, which high-profile breaches at major retailers routinely call into question. New alternate payment options promise to accelerate this process, and merchants should take a hard look at implementing them for several reasons.

This year, consumers’ expectations for simple online shopping experiences will be bolstered by the highly publicized battle over how people pay for just about anything offline. Technology allowing consumers to use their smartphones to pay for goods where credit cards are accepted has been around for several years. It's called Near Field Communication (NFC), but it's yet to gain anything approaching wide acceptance. That may begin to change in 2015.

Social login — the ability to use social network profiles from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and others for online registration in a few clicks — is gaining momentum despite some public relations and implementation hiccups. If you aren't on the bandwagon, now is the time to hitch up.

There was a time not that long ago when retailers exploring new ways to execute effective social engagement strategies would face a barrage of questions about return on investment. How do we know, CFOs and other company leaders would ask, if all that tweeting, liking, and pinning is doing anything for the bottom line? Where's the proof that the investments in maintaining, monitoring and updating an ever-expanding array of social media outposts are driving conversions and increasing profits? Fair questions to be sure.

Responsive commerce has become one of this year's hottest buzzwords as retailers aim to optimize their online sites for mobile shoppers. However, understanding just what this design strategy is, knowing whether or when to implement it, and justifying the expense to key decision makers all remain key challenges for many companies. Here then is a crash course in responsive commerce and why it might be time to consider whether it can provide your customers with the seamless shopping experiences they've come to expect across devices.

Forward-thinking retailers have come to view online customer reviews as a key tool to help shoppers gain confidence in their purchases and drive conversions. Instead of being threatened by reviews, they embraced them, integrating them into their sites and social outposts and honing techniques to make them as authentic and useful to shoppers as possible. Here are a few ways to make sure your customer review program is best-of-breed:

History and academic research tells us there are four basic types of consumers: drivers, socializers, supporters and analyzers. The Greek philosopher Hippocrates was the first to document these "four humors." Every one of us have some of each type, but one is usually dominant and ends up influencing purchasing decisions. Understanding each type will help you interpret the limited information you receive — or don't receive — from prospects, and tailor the communications with them that ultimately lead to meaningful relationships.