Guides
Guides, news and ideas on guides.
Ecommerce marketing strategy on one page: four questions, three horizons, five KPIs
A marketing strategy isn't a list of tactics. Four questions (who / what / where / how to measure), three horizons (optimise / test / invest), and the one-page doc format that keeps a small-to-mid ecommerce brand honest about what it actually believes.
Pricing a new product: the three methods that actually work, and the psychology that's mostly myth
Cost-plus is a floor, not a strategy. Competitor-anchored and value-based pricing do the real work. Honest takes on charm pricing, compare-at anchors, when to raise prices, and how subscriptions should be priced vs one-time.
Five things that matter most in your first 90 days running an ecommerce store
Not generic 'follow your passion' advice, not 'optimise your LTV:CAC ratio' either. The five things that actually decide whether a first-time store finds its foothold or fizzles.
Conversion rate optimisation for ecommerce: the honest sequence that actually moves the number
CRO isn't button colour A/B tests. It's segmenting your rate, finding funnel drop-offs, and fixing the 5 things with the most leverage. The sequence that works, plus when A/B testing actually makes sense.
Apple's ecommerce teardown: five patterns any brand can lift, five you probably shouldn't
Apple's store is widely cited as best-in-class, but copying it wholesale doesn't work without Apple's brand gravity. The specific product-page and checkout patterns that transfer, and the ones that only work when you're already Apple.
Starting an online retail business: the upstream decisions before you pick a platform
Business model (DTC vs dropship vs POD vs handmade vs wholesale), legal structure, sourcing, cash flow. The decisions most 'start a store' articles skip, and why getting them wrong costs a year.
Landing pages for ecommerce: when you need one, what to put on it, what to test
Landing pages aren't product pages. Message match, one CTA, inline objection handling, and the speed discipline that paid traffic demands. Twelve specific tactics, plus the testing approach that's actually worth doing.
Omnichannel for ecommerce: what to unify, in what order, and when to skip it
Omnichannel isn't being everywhere. It's consistency across the channels your customers actually use. What to unify (catalogue, inventory, customer records, support), in what order, and which stores can skip this entirely.
Ten ecommerce design decisions that measurably lift conversion
Not 'use more whitespace', not 'test your button colour'. The specific visual hierarchy, photography, type, and mobile choices that actually move conversion on real stores.
Selling music downloads in the streaming era: formats, platforms, and the economics
Spotify pays $0.003 per stream. A $5 direct download pays you $4.55. This guide is the honest how, across Bandcamp, your own site, and the merchant-of-record platforms.
PayPal on your website: when to use the free button, and when not to
One is a free PayPal button for single products. The other is a cart platform that happens to include PayPal. Picking the wrong one costs you weeks.
How to add ecommerce to any website (without replatforming)
Three integration patterns for adding commerce to a site you already have. When each makes sense, what changes on your site, and when it is actually worth replatforming.