http://www.iknowthe.net/blog Emma Kane Internet Expert and Ecommerce Consultant blogs on the internet and ecommerce Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:39:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Apple has filed a patent detailing its plans to make online shopping a more interactive experience. The patent states: "one drawback of online shopping is that the experience can feel sterile and isolating. Customers in such an environment may be less likely to have positive feelings about the online shopping experience, ... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/see-other-people-in-the-store-when-shopping-online.html Boardreader - Forum Search Engine This is a great idea, wish I'd thought of it. I spend a lot of my limited surfing time in specialist forums nowadays and this search engine searches only forums. Now that even google in full of spam when it come to product reviews, ... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/boardreader-forum-search-engine.html Its good practice to periodically check all is well with your sites ranking. I checked today and I rank number one in Google for "ecommerce consultant" Check it out!. I'm also number one in Yahoo and number three in MSN. I get all my work through my site or word of ... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/number-one-in-google.html Marvellous. I've just been told a story about someone (FOF) who likes to check Google Earth every morning to see if his wife has put the washing out. (Google earth is not updated this regularly). http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/google-earth.html I came across this very interesting site recently - SpyFu it lets you "research" your competitors adwords and guestimates their adspend. Interesting stuff. http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/spy-on-competitor-adwords.html I'm doing the website for Hook Norton's Music at the Crossroads. Its a great music festival that supports several causes close to my heart, and the misconfigured website needs a visit from Google now its fixed. Here Googlebot! http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/hook-norton-music-at-the-crossroads.html Average ecommerce site conversion rates are about 2.5%, however, according to Nielsen/NetRatings Retail Report for January 2008, many retailers in the US at least do far better than that. The Top 10 online retailers in the U.S based on conversion rates were: proflowers.com, 14.1% Coldwater Creek, 13.3% FTD.com, 13.0% QVC, 12.8% Office Depot, 12.4% eBay, 11.5% Lands’ End, 11.5% Tickets.com, 11.2% 1800flowers.com, 10.0% Amazon, 9.6% Although, as I've mentioned before, QVC ... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/us-ecommerce-site-conversion-rates-2008.html Ebay and Amazon are givens, but interesting to see HMV hanging in there at number nine... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/most-popular-ecommerce-sites-over-christmas-2007.html Sometimes I have to dig deep to find the information I need in a sites server logs which will enable me to do the analysis I need to do. I have a variety of log analysers which between then can process most logs I come across, but sometimes I get ... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/log-analysis-with-unix.html I'm not sure how long Amazon.co.uk has been running the "build your own store" feature of their affiliates program, but, erm, its interesting..... http://www.iknowthe.net/blog/build-your-own-affiliate-store.html