What Is Cart Abandonment And How Do You Stop It?
Your online store has been open for some time now. Maybe months, perhaps years. You've got traffic. You've got some sales. But you wonder why so many people add items to the shopping cart and never actually buy these products before leaving your website. You realize you're leaving money on the table and are frustrated to have that money in-hand and watch it disappear before your eyes. The fact is that approximately 75% of all shopping carts are abandoned. Some even as high as 90%!

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

5 Tips To Optimize Your Website
Think you could be getting more business with your website but don't know how? You most likely need to optimize your website. Optimization doesn't have to be complex but it is an ongoing process. Simply put, try something new, evaluate the results, adjust your website accordingly. Before we start, there are a couple things you need to understand.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Is Your Website Effective For Today's Online Shoppers?
We get numerous calls each week from online retailers who ask us what they can do to boost their sales or ask why their sales are lagging. They tell us that they just aren't getting the sales they want and think something must be wrong. Perhaps they are just too close to the problem to "see the forest through the trees" so to speak. This is all too common.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How Do Online Retailers Find Problems With Their Carts?
Usually one of two ways. 1) Checking/testing on a regular basis or 2) when customers start to complain. The latter is not the ideal time. By then, who knows how much money you've lost. Remember, most customers won't take the time to report the problems they have at your website. Usually they just leave and buy from your competition.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How To Increase Your Online Sales (Part 3 of 3)
In part 1 we covered barriers to increasing conversion rates, part 2 discussed how to create descriptive product pages. In this 3rd and final installment we will be discussing the elements of a user-friendly checkout.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How To Increase Your Online Sales (Part 2)
Late time, we began part 1 of a 3 part series on how to increase your online sales. In part 1 we covered barriers to increasing conversion rates which included 14 different reasons why customers may choose not to purchase a product online. This time, we'll focus specifically on creating descriptive product pages and the elements that have been proven to increase online sales.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How To Increase Your Online Sale (Part 1)
Approx 40% of online marketers are not happy with their site's conversion rates. That means that 60% of online marketers are either happy with their current conversion rate or they don't understand what this means. What is a conversion rate you ask? Your conversion rate is the rate at which you convert visitors into customers. This may include things like buying a product, filling out a request form, calling for more info or subscribing to your newsletter.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How To Create Great Product Images That Sell
In the real world, customers are able to interact with a product they are thinking they might want to buy. They can go to a store, see the actual thing, touch it, play with it and ultimately decide whether or not they want to purchase that item. When shopping online, this is not the case but online retailers can help customers get comfortable with purchasing a product they can't physically experience by following some simple rules.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Should You Allow Negative Reviews On Your eCommerce Website?
We've been getting this question a lot lately. The more we heard the same question, the more we felt we should address this on our blog. The short answer is yes but first you need to understand why you should leave those negative reviews for all to see.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Do Coupon Codes Drive Online Sales?
In the past 6 years use of online coupons and promo codes has doubled. Since 2005, the use of online coupons has almost doubled. Online retailers are finding many benefits to offering online coupons and promo codes.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

What You Need To Start An Online Store
I had a long conversation today with a prospect who wanted to start their first online store. They were very concerned about what they needed in order to get started. After detailing each item with the prospect we decided to put together this article to help others in the same position begin to build their online store.

Robin Lindblom, Think Tank Designs

Is Your Website In Danger of Being Hacked?
Your initial answer might be no. You may think there's no reason for anyone to do that to you. We aren't politically controversial, we are not promoting some top secret product, we are just a small company minding our own business. A lot of companies think the same way. But in the past year, we have received numerous calls from frantic marketing directors with hacked websites. In each instance their website remained unavailable to the public while we investigate the exploit and shore up any vulnerabilities.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Customers Buy Benefits, Not Features. What's The Difference?
Are you still describing your products' features to your customers and overlooking the benefits? If so, you're most likely not realizing your full selling potential. Although customers are interested in the detailed features your products have to offer, they're more likely interested in how these features will benefit them.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Conducting Market Research
Many books have been written on the topic. But it takes more than just reading those books. You also need to actually implement the suggestions. In short, market research is the gathering, evaluation and interpretation of data to understand attitudes, awareness and behavior of potential and existing customers.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How Can Research Driven Design Benefit Your Company?
More and more companies are now understanding just how important graphic designers are to their overall economic success. At the same time, clients are also expecting more in the way of assurance that their money is being spent wisely and they are receiving a good return on investment. Most see research driven design as the answer.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

What Is Primary and Secondary Research?
The labels "primary" and "secondary" may imply an order in which the two types of research occur. But this is not the case. They instead refer to who does the research. Let's examine the difference between both methods of research in more detail.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

What Is A Competitor Analysis?
A competitor analysis is a vital part of every company's marketing plan that offers a way to evaluate your competitor's strengths and weaknesses. It can help to determine what makes your products or services unique. What will provide you a competitive advantage? How to prevent against future competition? And how to exploit competitor weaknesses?

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

Why Is Branding and Identity So Important?
The term "brand" is often thrown around but does anyone really know what it means when they use it? Alina Wheeler in Designing Brand Identity describes a brand as "...the promise, the big idea, and the expectations that reside in each customer's mind about a product, service or company."

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

How Identity Works
Vision plays an important role in all of our lives. And repeated exposure to a strong visual identity can help consumers make an association and perception about a company, their services or products and their values. Even more effective connections are made through repeated exposure to specific colors and symbols. If we take a moment to reflect on some of the most successful brands we think of companies like Apple, Nike, Target, and McDonald's.

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs

When Do You Need A Brand Identity Expert?
It's been speculated that the average American encounters approximately 6,000 pieces of marketing in a day. It's safe to say that marketing has become deeply engrained in our society. But have you ever stopped to think about the science behind these marketing messages?

Heath Meyette, Think Tank Designs