On a weekly report I got this morning, the word “churn” came up several times.

Sorry Paula Deen fans, we’re not making our own sweet cream butter here, we’re talking about “churn” as in loss of customers.

In business it’s one of the seven words you never want to hear during the weekly meeting. What the other six are, I really don’t know. I would imagine “fired” is one of them.

As I read the reasons for possible “churn” I shuddered a little. The reasons all had to do with lower than expected sales, especially during the 4th quarter of 2011.

But wait? Weren’t eCommerce sales up for everyone? The media would sure like you to think so, but they only interview the big boys, it’s the little guys on Main Street USA suffering it out that we rarely hear about.

I never like to hear about any business closing their doors, but it’s a fact of life. If the sales aren’t there to support the operation, lights out. Everybody.

So, wanting to hear first hand why these eCommerce stores decided to call it quits, I made some phone calls. For the most part the reason was what I was expecting to hear – the ones with the deeper pockets are pushing out the ones with the smaller ones. I heard the word amazon mentioned a few times, spoken in a tone reserved for when you find out your mother-in-law is coming to visit.

It’s definitely not easy competing with the eCommerce giants, but it is possible. You may not be able to do it on price, but I know you can beat them on service! To most consumers, service before and after the sale is more important than a low price.

I looked at a few of the websites that were closing, and there was pretty much a common theme – no telephone number, an insane return policy (one store only took returns for 15 days after the sale), a note saying emails will be answered within 48 – 72 hours, and one with products so common you can buy them at every corner drugstore in America.

After a while, I didn’t feel too bad for the store owners. Many feel that the Internet is the “field of dreams” where if you build a website, shoppers will come. All of us know that isn’t true, and building a website that is a successful one takes time, dedication, time, patience, time, hard work, time and a lot of band-aids to cover up the wounds along the way.

The store owners I talked to opened their stores to either to “test the waters” as one put it, or to supplement their income, which explains the poor customer service policies. That may have been the way to do it 10, maybe 15 years ago, but not today.

The Internet has evolved, shoppers have become more savvy (and demanding) and making money off the ‘net is harder than you think. I wouldn’t want to be one of these guys who opens a new store today, the rules have changed immensely from when I did it in 1994.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up on eCommerce. God forbid! I’m just being the realist you all need to hear from. If this is the year you take the leap be prepared to work hard, play less and bust your ass every day. Keep on top of your competition, your vendors, your drop shippers, your employees, even the package delivery guy.

In the end the strong will survive.

The rest will just churn away.

In case you don’t know, or just don’t care… today is Free Shipping Day.

Did you feel that bit of excitement pulse through your body as I read that?

No?

Ok, we’re on the same page then.

On the heels of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, today is the day when a “whopping” 2,584 eCommerce stores are offering – you guessed it – free shipping.

The number of online stores participating in this promotion is rather pitiful considering how many eCommerce stores are actually out there.

I didn’t see too much promotion revolving around Free Shipping Day, and I don’t hear many people talking about it either. It seems it has as much buzz factor as Small Business Saturday – and that’s more like a waning hum, rather than a buzz.

Almost all the online stores I buy from already offer some form of free shipping, so this promotion is nothing new or noteworthy for them. In fact, free shipping is almost the norm and to charge for shipping is becoming more and more of a conversion killer.

Granted not all eCommerce stores can offer a free shipping deal because of either the type of products they sell or the margins associated with them. But the majority of consumers feel shipping charges are nothing more than a profit center for the store owner. (And we all know how true that is, don’t we?)

When I owned TheFerretStore.com, we started out with a free shipping policy from day one. In 1994, we offered free shipping on orders over $25. By the time the company was sold in 2006, we still offered free shipping, but it was with a $49 order.

Before selling off my remaining eCommerce stores this October, free shipping over a certain dollar value still prevailed with exceptions on heavy, bulky items that would be impossible to ship for free.

Offering your customers free shipping – if you can do it – is a very effective means of getting the sale. It may cut into your margins a little, but the increased business should balance things out in the long run. Then of course, you can always tick your prices up a bit to make up for the shipping charge – but don’t do that if it’s going to price you out of the ballpark.

Maybe next year, instead of Free Shipping Day we can have a Pay for Shipping Day. With strong promotions, national media attention and plenty of hype we can encourage shoppers to dig a little deeper and pay more to get their holiday orders.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

When Gordon Ramsay walks into your restaurant with the crew from Kitchen Nightmares, more than likely he’s a little too late.

I’m sure you’ve seen at least one episode of the reality show where failing restaurant owners call upon the bombastic Chef Ramsay for one last shot at saving their sinking ship. Unfortunately, most of the restauranteurs turned a blind eye to their problems long before they called Gordon.

It’s only natural that nobody wants to admit failure, but there are times when you just have to suck up to the fact that your food is crap, the décor is outdated and your service leaves a lot to be desired. But episode after episode, restaurant owners sit back and wonder why their business is failing when the answer is right in front of their eyes.

Substitute the word “kitchen” in the show’s title and this format can be used for just about any kind of business. You know where I’m going with this right?

Your eCommerce store is in the shit, as Ramsay would say, and you’re wondering why. Let’s turn your store into a restaurant for a moment and see why sales are so bad.

As Gordon lands on your website we suddenly hear, “Good God, what’s that smell?” He takes a few more sniffs. “Jesus, this site looks like it was designed by some poof with a degree in cosmetology rather than the fu**ing web.”

First impressions count. If your website doesn’t have a crisp, clean, up-to-date look you’re turning customers away at your front door. A website should be redesigned every 18 months. Keeping your site fresh with the latest features, a new coat of paint and the latest standards in coding results in better conversions and a fast loading site that people want to shop from. And use a professional designer please, your next door neighbor’s kid may be nice, but leave this job up to the people who know what they’re doing.

After a few minutes of clicking around, we overhear Gordon say, “F**k me. What is this?” Whoops, he hit an item page that has no product description, a small image that won’t enlarge when clicked, and has a price of $99 on it. “They want me to buy this but they can’t tell me what it is? Wow, they’ve got bollocks.”

You’re not doing anyone any favors by not having complete and accurate product descriptions written for each of your products. That description needs to be unique to your store rather than copied from somewhere else so you get the best SEO bang for your buck. Photos need to be clear and professional and always upload a large image that can be enlarged to show detail.

The chef has seen enough and is ready to confront the owners.

“Are you guys f**king blind? You’re site is old, your product pages are lacking vital information and there’s nobody buying. Is your head in the f**king sand?”

In order to get a handle on what’s going on here, the chef needs to see the operations.

Here comes our first order. It’s a small one, but it’s an order. Owner one looks at it and does nothing. Owner two prints it out and places it on his desk. Four hours go by.

“Are you going to let that sit there until it grows a pair of f**king legs and boxes itself up?” the chef asks.

In the mean time the phone is ringing, but nobody is answering it. Another one goes to voice mail. “You don’t need my help, you need a miracle. I may be too late,” Gordon says.

“Please help us, we need you chef” the owners wail.

“Then get off your asses and start working you lazy piece of shit!” the chef screams.

After witnessing a horrible first day, Ramsay and his team go to work to help save this failing eCommerce company. They work through the night and greet the store owners the next morning.

“Here we have a brand new website with all the latest features that are designed to get your customers to buy more. We’re now collecting email addresses at the checkout so you can market your customers after the sale to get them to come back to spend more money.”

Gordon then unveils changes in the operations, “We put in an order processing system that automatically batches your orders and sends them to the warehouse so they can be packed within a few hours, not days. We are also emailing your customers tracking information as soon as that box is sealed. How is that for service?”

The store owners look at him with amazement.

“Look at this. Gone is voice mail. Your calls are now being taken by a call center who’s goal is to get the f**king order. Not let the customer walk away. Look, here comes another order from the call center.”

The store owners look at the chef and say, “Wow, this is amazing. We never could have done it without you.”

As Ramsay walks away he says, “Amazing. Simply f**king amazing. Here’s a business that has so much potential but the owners just don’t get it. I gave them all the tools for them to make money, lets hope to God they use them. F**k me.”

Sometimes all it takes is another set of eyes to take a look at your business and see what’s wrong. No, you don’t need the great chef to come in and do that for you, just don’t wait until it’s too late. If you’re sales are down, start asking why NOW while it’s still early and your problems can be addressed.

If you’ve got a failing eCommerce business and need some advice, well…. you’ve got my contact info.

Like you, I got a butt-load of email promoting Cyber Monday sales. Some from stores I buy from, others from companies who just like to spam people.

Being a big sales day, I would expect that merchants would take the time to make the Cyber Monday email blast the most compelling, best dressed email of the year. Eye catching graphics, motivating calls to action and above all, a good deal. Everything necessary to catch the reader’s eye and get them to click through and make a purchase.

Makes sense right?

One email I received on Cyber Monday was a prime example of email marketing gone bad. Take a look at it (you can click the image to enlarge it):

To protect the store owner from embarrassment, I’ve gone ahead and blacked-out any identifying marks, but left the entire email visible. So let’s go ahead and dissect this beauty:

• Broken Image – never, ever hit that send button until you’ve previewed, double checked, and triple checked your email for broken images and incorrect links. I looked at the source code and found the URL for the image, and when put into a browser it brings up a 404 error – page not found.
• Color Selection – the shade of greyish-green as background for teal text was a bad choice. It’s not only hard to read, it just doesn’t match.
• Use Transparent Images – the “Visit Our Site” image should have been saved as a transparent image so it blended into the background better instead of sticking out like a sore thumb with it’s white background.
• Calls to Action – sadly, there is nothing here that screams “Come to Our Store!” No imagery, no strong calls to action, no real sense of urgency.
• Design – is there really design here? Most email marketing programs give users a template gallery with some professional looking layouts. If you don’t have the graphic design and programming skills to design your own template, or can’t afford to have one made for you, these templates are better than nothing.

So how could this email be improved? Oh, let me count the ways.

• Design – a good standard template or custom designed template would improve the overall look of the email greatly.
• Feature Products – people want to know what you have for sale in your store. A few pictures of some best selling items along with sale prices would be good.
• Free Shipping – don’t want to feature specific products? Have a collage of your best selling items with “Free Shipping” as a graphical call-out to drive attention to the free shipping promo you’re running store-wide.
• Some Text – talk a little about your sale, but don’t overburden the reader with tons of text. A few lines talking about the sale and what you’re offering helps.
• Sense of Urgency – this is a limited time offer, a simple text link that says “Hurry One Day Only” isn’t creating much urgency. A graphical call-out with something like “Only 24 Hours Left!” or “Sale Ends at Midnight Tonight” may be a better choice.

These are just a few of the ways this email could be improved upon, but you should get the point – professionalism sells. Unfortunately, this email doesn’t.

Now I don’t like to call out store owners blunders, but calling attention to things like this only helps all of us. If this caused you to go back and look at your email marketing campaigns to see if you’re doing the best you can do, I did my job.

Competition is fierce and most of the time we’re all reaching for the same piece of pie. By taking the time to do things right, chances are you’re going to be the one smacking your lips enjoying a nice piece of Apple Crumb.

P.S. There’s still time to do some email marketing to capture those holiday sales.  Check out this recent blog post that talks about ways to improve your outbound email campaigns.

At Thanksgiving dinner, my sister-in-law proudly proclaimed that she was going home to sleep so she could start shopping at midnight. It was at that point where I knew some type of intervention would be needed to snap her back to reality.

But, there was no hope.

She had her sights set on what she wanted, where she was going, what coupons were needed, what time she needed to be in line at each store and when a 3 minute pee break was warranted.

That’s a little too intense for me.

Like most Black Friday shoppers, I’m sure she scored herself some good deals even if it involved losing sleep and driving around in the wee small hours of the morning.

The news Friday night was filled with stories about people sleeping on sidewalks waiting for stores to open and we can’t forget the bargain shopper who was so driven to grab all the deals she could, she pepper-sprayed fellow shoppers.

Once we were all tucked in, we woke up the next morning ready to celebrate Small Business Saturday. The American Express sponsored promotion, now in it’s second year, was designed to get people to shop their local home-town small businesses. Unfortunately, if you ask ten people about Small Business Saturday, you’ll be lucky if one of them knows what you’re talking about.

So on to Cyber Monday. The big day for eCommerce store owners.

I got the obligatory call from the local newspaper to give my interpretation of how the day was going to shape up. “It will be busy and people will be shopping online.” What else is there to say?

My in-box was filling up with Cyber Monday promotions beginning late Sunday night and continuing through the day on Monday. None were spectacular enough to make me want to buy. Sure there were plenty of percentage-off coupons and free shipping deals, but none got me to say “Wow!”

I talked with several eCommerce store owners who said their Cyber Monday sales were “good.” I got an “awesome” out of one of them. In this economy, I guess an “awesome” is pretty “good.”

The only other shopping day to note is Free Shipping Day which is coming up on December 16th. Close to 1,400 online stores are offering free shipping that day, which also happens to be the cut-off for Christmas delivery. I wouldn’t get overly excited about this one, as most etailers are already offering deals on shipping for holiday shoppers.

If you managed to get a good deal during any of these special shopping days, congratulations.

If your eCommerce store did better this Cyber Monday than last, good for you.

I’m waiting for the after Christmas sales.

With only a few hours left until the holiday shopping season shifts into high gear, I have to ask…. are you ready?

No, I mean are you really ready?

Here are some things that I thought of that maybe you haven’t in regards to getting your operation ready for the mad rush.

Customer Service:

• Adjust your customer service hours to accommodate early morning and late evening shoppers. This time of the year not everyone is going to be a 9 to 5 shopper. It may cost a few extra dollars to staff your customer service department a few more hours a day, but those extra hours should bring in extra sales.
• Make sure all your reps are fully trained on your store’s policies and they have a copy of policies in reach at all times. All reps should be “on the same page” with policies, a quick meeting with your staff to go over polices and get rid of any gray areas is also suggested.
• There will be one-off situations where you may have to deviate from policy. Make sure this deviation doesn’t become the norm by having such deviations approved and noted by a supervisor. It’s also a good thing to let the customer know that you’re making an exception for them as a one time courtesy.
• Attitude is everything! Your customer service department is going to be busy, so make sure you’re not overworking your reps to the point where they’re not providing courteous service to your customers. Make sure they have scheduled breaks so they can de-stress and prepare to get back to work. Providing motivation throughout the day goes a big way too, bring in some pizza, hop on the phone yourself to help out when it’s busy and don’t forget to acknowledge good service when you see or hear it.

Warehouse:

• Just like customer service, you are going to want to adjust your warehouse hours accordingly to keep up with the holiday demand. You don’t want orders sitting in a warehouse for two, three or four days because you’re not staffed properly. Your customers expect their orders to be shipped on time, so don’t let them down.
• Always make sure that express packages that customers are paying extra for, get out on time. You don’t want to be issuing refunds for shipping because the warehouse “forgot” to get air orders out before ground.
• Spot check packages to make sure the items inside have been packaged properly. You don’t want breakage – especially this time of the year! Pull packages that have been packed and prepared for shipment and open them up to make sure breakable items are wrapped properly, the right amount of dunnage has been used and any promotional material has been inserted with the items.
• If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to move your fast selling items to the head of your pick line. This saves lots of time and keeps your warehouse moving.
• Safety should always be on the top of everyone’s mind in the warehouse. While the pace of operations has increased, common sense should still prevail. Make sure no short-cuts are taking place that could result in injury and that your warehouse staff is trained on proper lifting and equipment use. And never, ever, let people operate machinery that they haven’t been properly trained on.
• Create daily goals for package output and accuracy – and reward your staff for hitting those numbers. A pizza party on Friday goes a long way and be sure to constantly motivate the guys and gals doing the heavy lifting! They’re the lifeblood of your operation and they’re literally busting their butt for you this time of year. “Atta-boys” all around!

Your eCommerce Store:

• What does your store look like? I hope you have a nice holiday header that’s free of flashing lights, blinking reindeer noses and falling snowflakes littering the screen. Just like department stores decorate for the holiday, you should have your store showing some spirit as well. But don’t go overboard! You want to put people in the holiday shopping mood – not turn the off.
• Create a gift buying section on your site broken down into categories that make sense to your customers. Gifts for Him, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Kids 12 and Under…. you get the picture. Don’t make customers hunt all over for gift items, lead that horse to the water!
• Make sure your polices are up to date – especially your return policy – and provide a link to your policy page in your order confirmation. One thing you don’t want to do is make your policies so restrictive nobody wants to buy from you. Returns are a part of doing business and you’re going to get items back, don’t look at returns as an enemy!
• Prominently post your customer service telephone number, extended holiday hours and any other contact information on your site for easy shopper reference. A telephone number should always be in the header of your website.
• If you’re using live chat, USE IT! I’ve seen way too many sites offer live chat but when you go to use it you’re prompted with a “sorry, we’re closed” message. Most live chat programs allow you the ability to use a different graphic when your chat reps are unavailable – take advantage of that. Don’t promote live chat when nobody is around to, well…. chat.
• Check your home page featured items. If they’re out of stock, remove them!

What are you doing for your shoppers on Cyber Monday?

Please don’t tell me, “I’m not doing anything. Why should I cut into my profit margin when people are going to buy from me anyway.”

That is an actual quote from an eCommerce store owner I talked to the other day. She followed it up by telling me that, “One thing I’m doing is raising my rates for express shipping. If they need it fast, let them pay more for it.”

After an incredibly pregnant pause, I didn’t know what to say other than, “Whoops, I have another call coming in and unfortunately I need to take it.”

I needed a moment to recover and try to rationalize the thinking behind what I just heard.

For one, Cyber Monday is the biggest shopping day of the year for eCommerce merchants, and the one day these guys and gals look forward to every November. For many online merchants, the weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday is “make-it-or-break-it” time, so they need to be on top of their game and ready to handle the orders coming in.

I don’t know of any merchant, besides this one, who isn’t going to be offering some type of Cyber Monday deal. Whether it be discounted or free shipping, BOGO offers, store-wide discounts or a free gift with an order, your site visitors on Cyber Monday are going to be expecting something. If you’re not offering some type of incentive to get a visitor to turn into a customer, that visitor is going to click over to your competitor. I guarantee it.

I wish I had a business where “people are going to buy from me anyway.” Unless you’re selling something so unique that you’re the only one selling it, get that notion out of your head. This particular store owner had commodity items at commodity prices. Nothing special and certainly nothing unique.

As far as raising express shipping rates are concerned – bad move number two.

Consumers already look at shipping rates as the eCommerce store owner’s profit center. Mary Jane from St. Louis has no idea what UPS or FedEx charges to get her 5 pound bag of jelly beans from the distribution center to her front door. When I started out in business, a 5 pound package from PA to CA cost a mere $4.16 to ship. Today, that same package costs $13.86. How much more can you mark up shipping and have the customer believe they’re still getting a deal?

Most eCommerce stores are adopting free shipping, flat shipping models to combat the sticker shock most consumers get when they start the checkout process. By jacking up your express shipping rates you’re not doing yourself any favors and are probably turning potential customers away.

I understand that last-minute shoppers are a pain in the doopa, but they’re customers. They’re people you want buying from you in the new year, so why tick them off now?

I don’t encounter many eCommerce store owners with this type of thinking, but when I do I’m amazed that they’re able to survive when online competition is so fierce. I’m making a note to check in with this store owner in a few months to see how she’s doing.

If she’s still in business.

Bank of America's Google+ Page

The bank America loves to hate got another slap in the face, although this time it wasn’t over debit card fees.

Shortly after Google announced that businesses could have a Google+ page, which is the equivalent of a Facebook Business Page, some scallywag jumped Bank of America’s claim and created an unflattering – yet amusing – page.

Funny pictures of former CEO Ken Lewis, a tagline proclaiming that “We took your bailout money and your mortgage rates are going up,” and a post about a company foreclosure party in house #2340087 could be found on the page before it was taken down.

Screen shots of the page showed that it already had 550 followers and 342 +1′s.

Whether you have sympathy for Bank of America or not, you have to admit that whoever did this was pretty damn creative. And sneaky, for apparently they even caught the almighty Google by surprise.

The question needs to be asked, “Why didn’t Bank of America claim their Google+ page as soon as the announcement was made that they were available?” Now I’ll ask you a similar question, “Did you claim your company’s Google+ page yet?”

About a year ago I wrote a post about a friend of mine who found out that the .co variant of their domain name was hijacked by a competitor. Sadly, she wasn’t aware this was happening and after I alerted her of it, a few phone calls to lawyers resolved the issue. But how many sales were lost because of this? It’s pretty easy to be typing in a domain name and accidentally leaving off the “m” in .com. The unscrupulous use this to their advantage, as was done here.

If you’re doing business online, it’s important that you protect your brand by not only registering the different domain name extensions for your business, but claiming your company name in Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other social media sites.

Bank of America isn’t going to suffer any damage due to the bogus Google+ page, but a small business like yours could. Imagine what a disgruntled customer could do if given the opportunity. The time you spend running your business is way too important to be spent running defense because of a simple oversight on your part.

So, did you claim your company’s Google+ page yet?

If you haven’t registered all the available domain name extensions for your business, what are you waiting for? Don’t get caught off guard when you find out that someone is squatting on a domain that is rightfully yours. Network Solutions is offering big savings on domain registrations, click here for the deals.

If your business doesn’t have a custom Facebook Business Page, web.com will build you one for free. Click here to learn more about this promotion.

Is it me or does it seem like Christmas really does start in July?

When I worked in radio, we started playing the Christmas music on Thanksgiving day, and then it was only one song an hour. Now radio stations across the country are queuing up “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” before the Halloween candy is eaten in an attempt to be the first with the holly jollies.

It used to be that the day known as “Black Friday” was the big shopping day of the year for retailers. The day after Thanksgiving would see folks lining up at stores waiting for the doors to unlock at 9am to cash in on the best deals of the season. Now some stores are offering Black Friday deals all month long, while others are starting their sales not first thing Friday morning, but Thanksgiving night.

Not wanting to let the bricks-and-mortar stores have all the fun, the eCommerce world created “Cyber Monday” – the Monday after Thanksgiving (or the Monday after Black Friday if you’re keeping score) when the deals would flow for online shoppers. It’s also the one day of the year where at least one major etailer’s website will crash making them the top story on all the newscasts and cashing in on a butt-load of free advertising.

Just last year, yet another new shopping holiday cropped up – “Small Business Saturday” – the Saturday after Thanksgiving (or the Saturday after Black Friday if you’re not confused yet). This newly minted day of spending is aimed at supporting your hometown, locally owned, neighborhood business. The organizer of the event, American Express, encourages shoppers to visit Main Street USA instead of the big boxes on Small Business Saturday and spend (lots of) money at the mom and pops in your community.

Sunday, that would be the Sunday after Thanksgiving, or the Sunday after Black Friday, or the Sunday after Small Business Saturday, or the Sunday before Cyber Monday, seems to be the odd man out in this trinity of spending. Or could it be that Sunday is being reserved as a day of rest?

All this hype and hullabaloo leads up to the big climax on Christmas morning when kids all across America will wake mommy and daddy up at 5am to rip open presents.

And then, like Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kris Humphries, it’s all over in 90 seconds.

Or is it?

Now it’s time for the “After Christmas Sale” where everything that was on sale on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Restful Sunday and Cyber Monday goes on sale again. Only this time it’s on sale for an extra 10% off.

Man, are we suckers.

I do a lot of things on my iPhone, but shopping isn’t one of them.

That all changed when the company eCommerce store owners love to hate – Amazon.com – introduced their iPhone and iPad app. Being one of the curious, I installed it, it sat on my phone for a while taking up space, then one day I decided to look for an item I couldn’t find in the nearby grocery store.

Shit, they had it in stock.

Since I’m one of these people who apparently signed up for Amazon Prime a gazillion years ago and never cancelled it, despite being billed for it every year, I could get two-day shipping for free.

I felt a little dirty as I started the checkout process. Here I am, an eCommerce entrepreneur who preaches about the evils of big online retailers like Amazon, forking over $15.99 for Kool-Aid.

It really was a box of Kool-Aid that I ordered and that one purchase turned out to be somewhat symbolic, for indeed I did drink the Kool-Aid that Amazon gave me a taste for.

Their apps make it easy for someone to find an item, add it to their cart and checkout in a matter of seconds. Plus, that little shipping bonus is a big win.

I ordered more Kool-Aid. Then dog food. A new pair of bathing trunks (do they call them that anymore?). A Skype phone. Even a Ukelele. And more Kool-Aid.

By installing that app on my phone, I became a mobile shopper. And I’m definitely not alone in that. More and more people are using their iPhone, Blackberries and iPads to shop from – whether it’s via an app like Amazon’s or a mobile version of their favorite store’s website.

Mobile commerce, or mCommerce as it’s being called, is booming. According to an article in Internet Retailer magazine, “More than 33.3 million U.S. consumers already engage in shopping-related activities on their mobile phones, says research firm Experian Simmons in its “2011 Mobile Consumer Report.” 7%, or 2.3 million, of those consumers have made a purchase on their devices, the report finds.”

What does that mean for eCommerce store owners?

Simply put, if you don’t have a mobile version of your website, it’s time you do. You may be thinking, “I don’t have any of my customers telling me I need a mobile site”, or, “my customers don’t order from their phones.” Don’t jump to conclusions until you take a look at your website’s analytics and see what percentage of your visitors are coming to your site via a mobile device. I think you may be surprised.

I did a webinar a few weeks ago where we touched on mobile. I told attendees to do just that – go look at your stats. A few came back and said, “wow, I never knew this many people were coming to my store from a mobile device.” One person told me that $33,000 worth of sales this year came from mobile – but he didn’t have a mobile website. Visitors were fumbling around on his full-website and placing orders. Imagine what that $33,000 could be if he had a site optimized for mobile.

It may not be too late to go mobile for this year’s holiday rush. A lot of mobile providers can turn around a mobile store rather quickly, so pick up the phone and make some phone calls.

The way people shop is changing.

Store owners need to adapt in order to survive.

If you need a little more persuasion, go to Amazon.com and search for Kool-Aid. It’s a pretty refreshing drink.

If you’re looking to take your Yahoo! Store mobile, Solid Cactus offers fast turn-around!  Click here for their solution.

Interested in opening a Yahoo! Store? Click here to learn more and for a special offer for new eCommerce store owners.

Looking for a shopping cart with built-in mobile commerce? Both 3dCart and Web.com offer affordable eCommerce solutions that don’t require 3rd party integrations for mobile.

If you have an informational website for your doctor’s office, restaurant, law practice, or other service based business and want to take that site mobile, Network Solutions is offering a free .mobi domain name with mobile websites. Click here for more information.