INDEZ • The Ecommerce Excellence Blog

Ecommerce & eProcurement from the Scottish Government and Ecommerce Sustainability

The Ecommerce Club Is Scotland’s only Ecommerce Networking forum. It brings together those involved in running and supporting Scotland’s online trading community on the first Tuesday of every month. Those involved are from the worlds of retail, supply chain, fulfilment, digital technology, product marketing and skills training.

Ecommerce Club

The Ecommerce Club remains Scotland’s only Hub for Ecommerce Practitioners. Every month it’s the place to keep up to speed with all that’s going on in this fast moving area. Talks from new and existing online traders as well as news from suppliers along with tips and tricks to grow and develop your own business.

Ecommerce Industry Gender Bias

This new study concludes that, unlike most areas within the digital sector, ecommerce businesses employ roughly equal numbers of males and females. While female employment is strongest in smaller companies and markets such as design, beauty, fashion and social media, males tend to dominate senior positions, particularly in larger companies.

Your Ecommerce Sustainability Checklist

With INDEZ’s home town being the world centre for climate change thinking for the next couple of weeks, here’s a checklist to help us all think about our own ecommerce businesses and how we might each be able to make a difference on this hugely important issue.

Google Ads-bidding on your own brand name: Pros and Cons

Many of the companies we know use a paid Adword link in Google to direct traffic to their websites. Is this necessary, who benefits and how many more sales do you get as a result? We investigate and provide some pragmatic advice for those with online businesses.

Business rate hike for ecommerce warehouses?

The Business rates on Ecommerce Warehouses will rise significantly over the short to medium term. Here we look at how online trading businesses can prepare and mitigate these inevitable changes.

ONS reports steepest ever decline in Ecommerce

The UK Government has just reported the largest drop in ecommerce activity on record. What is going on and what do we need to do about it?

Why having an Ecommerce marketing budget is a really really really bad idea

This post highlights a common problem with businesses that don’t focus on Profit on their Advertising Spend. We explain why this happens and what you can do to avoid this from damaging your own business.

Ways to model ecommerce customers without using cookies

As cookies disappear, marketeers will need alternative ways to model and target potential customers. Here we look at the technical mechanisms around how this will be done and suggest possible ways to help build persona-models that could be used for both marketing and conversion optimisation.https://gologin.com/what-is-canvas-fingerprinting.

Where do E-commerce workers live & work in the UK?

People who work in UK ecommerce are not spread out evenly throughout the country. While many work remotely (and some, very remotely including overseas), most tend to work close to where a business is centred. The results include confirmation of the dominance of the Northern Powerhouse along with a few surprises.

Cookie Futures: How will Google cope?

Internet Marketing is an industry worth hundreds of millions of Dollars. It’s about to go through some deep changes that hinge around the use of cookies. How might all this impact business and who will be the ultimate winners and losers?

Best Visual (photo, graphic, image) Formats & File Types for Ecommerce Websites

This post will improve your knowledge and technical understanding of how to make visual items look better and load quicker on your website. We have provided a 1 minute summary read to cover key points followed by a more in-depth summary for those looking for a deeper understanding of the subject.

Ecommerce Jobs in the UK; a Market Review

Ecommerce is booming. This is reflected within the ecommerce jobs market as highlighted through paid advertising. Most employers are looking for permanent full-time staff for what has increasingly become a core and rapidly expanding part of their business.

Why is Google now growing faster than Amazon?

Google is taking Ecommerce more seriously and it seems to be paying off with a doubling of their share price

Online Retailers are helping us all to cope better with the Pandemic

Most ecommerce businesses are demonstrating best practice in maintaining the highest levels of safety for those at work while making our own locked down lives more bearable during isolation.

Is it best to use agencies or use an inhouse team for ecommerce?

When should an ecommerce manager use internal staff or agencies/free-lancers to have the most effective team for your ecommerce business?

Scotland’s First Dedicated Course on Ecommerce Begins

With funding provided by Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland, a pilot course on Ecommerce has been launched at the Business School at Strathclyde University and delivered by the Institute of Ecommerce.

Celtic plays away at the Glasgow Ecommerce Club

Manager John Bruce this week playing at the City of Glasgow College.

Ecommerce Marketing Calendar

Over 475 key dates and ideas to help plan your Social posts, Email newsletters & Marketing campaigns for 2023.

UK Ecommerce Shows Fastest Acceleration … Ever

UK Ecommerce accelerates into the record books with a massive £688 billion turnover

Black Friday: Seasonality for Ecommerce Managers

How should an ecommerce business best allocate resources throughout the year and best cope with spikes such as Black Friday?

Ecommerce Club Glasgow: First Meeting

The inaugural meeting for the Glasgow Ecommerce Club took place at the City of Glasgow College.

Institute of Ecommerce & Women's Enterprise Scotland

The recent sell-out event bodes well for both organisations - Institute of Ecommerce & Women's Enterprise Scotland

Glasgow Ecommerce Club

The newly formed Institute of Ecommerce is launching a series of local Ecommerce Clubs. A new one kicks off on 6th November at City of Glasgow College.

The Case for a Glasgow Ecommerce Free Trade Zone

An ecommerce focussed free trade zone would be a bold strategic move to boost the local economy. How might it work and how might it dovetail with an ecommerce strategy for Glasgow.

Reskilling & Upskilling in Ecommerce

The report provides detailed evidence to support its view that the dominant factor that is holding back ecommerce in Scotland is a pervasive lack of skills.

Magento/PHP Back-end Web Developer

Are you a Backend Web Developer looking for a change? INDEZ have a full time job opening for a Backend Web Developer based in our Glasgow office. We are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic individual to join our growing team. If you think it may be of interest or you know someone who would be perfect for it please get in contact with us.

Hire or Automate; the key question to scale ecommerce?

Hire a new employee or automate business processes? If you have a rapidly growing ecommerce business then this article is worth a read before you hire your next employee.

Bad Bots; What Ecommerce Businesses Need to Know

Bad bots can cost you money in surprising ways. Get up to speed on what you need to do to make sure it’s not your business that suffers.

Ecommerce Payment Changes Coming this September

Strong Customer Authentication for ecommerce payments is about to happen. This is what you need to know along with what you should do about it.

Definition of Ecommerce

Good communication and shared understanding require a common definition of words and exactly what they mean. Ecommerce is a subject where different definitions have sometimes led to confusion and a misunderstanding around statistics, trends and Key Performance Indicators. In the following article we attempt to provide the ultimate guide to EXACTLY what ecommerce is (and is not).

IKEA is changing its business model

IKEA is a hugely successful global retailer of scale; it’s the world’s largest furniture business. The company now plans to progressively change its business model in favour of ecommerce combined with smaller city-centre demonstration stores. This inevitably means proportionately less focus on their out of town retail warehouses.

Productivity and Ecommerce

Ecommerce means ‘productivity for sales’. Any business that’s serious about improving their productivity should start by automating their online sales process.

Customs Union, Frictionless Trade & Trade Automation

Global trade continues to grow. This combined with the rapid growth in small-package trade resulting from consumer-led ecommerce means that the number of cross-border packages is rapidly increasing. How should we handle this and what advantages might follow from automating cross-border trade?

Cash Flow is King when running a business - How true?

In the process of running a business cashflow can seem like a daunting and boring task. We have a few tips & tricks that help us along the way.

How good is Shopify for International Ecommerce and Online Exporting?

Shopify is a great platform for small and startup businesses that want their own platform to begin trading online. Once the tills are ringing and you plan to trade outside the UK, is it still effective or do you need to replatform?

Why Ecommerce is damaging the Scottish economy

The relentless shift to online retail results in an export of jobs, local taxes, wealth and business infrastructure to those places that fuel the ecommerce supply chain. While Scottish people seem just as likely to buy online as those from other parts of the UK, those that supply our ecommerce needs are increasingly elsewhere.

UK web ecommerce growth accelerates to 21%

The UK Government just published its annual review of UK ecommerce. Results show that UK web-based ecommerce growth is accelerating to three times the growth rate of China.

Occam's Razor; the most important principle in Ecommerce success

Occam was the first to lay a solid theoretical basis for why ‘simple is best’. This post discusses why adhering rigidly to this principle provides the most efficient, logical and effective basis for establishing and growing an ecommerce business.

How Service Businesses can Sell Online

If you are a service business that wants to sell online, this article provides a list of ways to do it along with a few tips and tricks to help make it work.

Don't Forget the Desktop When Selling Online

Desktop and tablets remain the devices of choice for those buying online. Whatever your screen preference might be, businesses that want to optimise their sales and profits must continue to design first for desktop.

Is the UK still number one for ecommerce?

Recently, the UK has has been overtaken by both China and the US in terms of the overall size of our ecommerce trade. Here we look in more detail at the ecommerce landscape across these big three markets to help better understand what the future might bring for electronic trade.

Ecommerce and the Pareto Principle of 80-20

The Pareto Principle explains a lot about how ecommerce works. It’s based on solid mathematical principles and can help explain why a business works the way it does along with providing strategies and mechanisms for improvement.

INDEZ are Hiring a Magento Developer

Job Vacancy - Magento Web Developer Full time based in Glasgow We are looking to increase our team here at INDEZ and are on the hunt for a talented Magento Web Developer to join us.

Counterfeit goods; recent updates from China for both buyers and sellers

China has just announced a series of new laws that they claim will reduce counterfeit products from supply chains. In our latest blog post we look carefully at what is being proposed and try to understand the likely consequences for trade.

A review and analysis of Ecommerce KPIs

KPIs focus your time, resources and energy around those things that best improve business performance. This article reviews the consensus around ecommerce KPIs and offers a simple view around what to focus on.

Influencer Marketing, Ecommerce and Accountability

How do you marketing your products? Social Media Influencer marketing is growing rapidly and becoming one of the most frequently used way to advertise products. Much of the increase has come from the dramatic growth in video blogging - vlogging. Unfortunately, what’s often not is the required shift towards making these channels precisely accountable for their contribution to sales.

Increase your ecommerce marketing profit by using a Trademark

If you are looking for a top-tip to help you make more money from your Adwords campaigns then read this to see the possible mistakes your competitors are likely to be making and how you might be able to benefit your own sales performance.

European v UK Ecommerce

While the UK dominates ecommerce in Europe, the EU is still trying to get to grips with some of the basics of online trade.

Landscape v Portrait Remarketing Advert Fails

Paid mobile adverts are regularly failing or poorly performing due to lack of user testing and a general lack of attention to detail by the digital marketing industry.

Amazon Prime Day 2018: The Results

Amazon Prime Day 2018 - did you get involved? 100 million products sold, prime membership increases to 100+ million members, estimates of for Prime Day sales are $4 billion, shares surge and Mr Bezos now the richest man on the planet

High Street Woes Could Become a National Opportunity

The changing way that individuals and businesses trade may be a problem for the UK and Scottish high streets but could become the basis for a solution in a national strategy for trade growth.

Data Wrangling; the ins and outs of ecommerce data management

If you are looking for a quick guide to one of the most important components in the setting up and running of an ecommerce business then our latest weekly blog is for you.

Magento sold to Adobe: a users view

it has came to light this week that Magento is being sold to Adobe. What are the likely consequences for all the different players, users and developers?

Walmart: a new ecommerce giant takes shape

Walmart just bought Flipkart ... and jet.com and ShoeBuy and Moosejaw and Bonobos and Modcloth and Parcel and a host of small startups. We look at some of the strategic thinking that’s operating within this highly competitive sector.

HEIF Image Compression standard will speed up future ecommerce websites.

A new image file format has emerged that’s going to speed up websites - once web browsers are able to support it.

A Quick GDPR Checklist for Small Ecommerce Businesses

Here’s a quick and easy checklist for the new GDPR guidelines and requirements with a focus around the key essentials for SME ecommerce businesses.

Ecommerce and Blockchains; is it worth it?

The bringing together of the uber-cool blockchain technology with the global juggernaut that is ecommerce could be the next big thing for global trade. Is it worth all the hype?

Why we all need business dashboards?

The INDEZ dashboard is now available in beta. The dashboard provides ecommerce managers and business owners a clear and simple real-time view of how their business is working. This article provides a background to how and why it has been developed.

2018 Ecommerce Marketing Calendar

INDEZ has put together the most complete and comprehensive ecommerce marketing calendar for 2018. We hope that this will help you when planning your marketing strategy for this year.

Fulfilment; the top ecommerce topic for 2018

New developments around fulfilment (logistics/stock-control/couriers) are likely to be the major ecommerce hot spots for innovation and change in 2018

Magento 1 or Magento 2; when should I upgrade?

Magento 2 is the new mainstream platform for ecommerce. Choosing exactly when to upgrade is a key and important business decision. Here, we step through the numerous issues to help make sure you get this critical decision right.

The Twelve Days of Christmas Ecommerce Statistics

We hope you enjoyed our twelve days of Christmas Ecommerce Statistics.

Language translation in ecommerce; when, how and where to use it?

We regularly get asked by our ecommerce customers about translation into foreign languages. Here we discuss the issues around this ‘important topic’ / ’wichtiges Thema’ / ’sujet important’ / 重要的话题.

Bitcoins, does your website accept them and is that a good idea anyway?

Wow, Bitcoins now $10,000 each! Should I accept them as payment on my own website? Read our latest blog article for more information on bitcoins

Amazon v Alibaba; numbers and statistics

Alibaba.com and Amazon.com are the two titans of the ecommerce world. A statistical review of the numbers suggests Alibaba is better positioned for potential growth while Amazon is better positioned around innovation. With the looming Alipay IPO all that might change.

Why are Scottish companies ignoring the largest sales opportunity on the planet?

Singles day generated sales of well over $40 billion within 24 hours. UK brands and UK manufactured products tick all the tick boxes for desirability yet few Scottish companies seem to feature in this shopping Bonanza. Why so? Some popular examples of UK brands and companies in our article include Nike, Victoria's Secret, adidas, ZARA, MAC Cosmetics, Gap and Bose. Along with two local companies Unineed.com and Shoes121.

Is creativity becoming less important in marketing?

Is marketing shifting away from creativity-led work towards a more analytical, data driven and results-led focus? A few observations suggest this is looking like a real trend.

Tax Regulation and Ecommerce; Governments missing out due to lack of understanding of modern trade

How to sell products to China using ecommerce

Today INDEZ carried out a seminar at the The Scottish Business Exhibition. The seminar , conducted by Dr Peter Mowforth, was based on How to Sell from Scotland to China.

IKEA plans ‘selling everything everywhere’; the rise of multi-channel selling

IKEA's announcement about using marketplaces is part of the rapidly increasing trend towards multi-channel marketing and selling … for all ecommerce traders.

What proportion of ecommerce businesses are led by women?

Google Beacons: helping make highstreet retailers generate more sales

DNS: What you need to know for successful ecommerce

Is Ecommerce Personalisation a good thing?