Magento is more than an eCommerce software platform. It's an ecosystem that's driven by a passionate open-source community. That's why some of the most active Magento experts got together to create https://mage-os.org/, a new non-profit focused on a strong future for Magento and those that rely on it.Learn about why this new non-profit was formed, …

Kalen Jordan has spent the last decade working on projects like Magetalk, MageMail, Sweet Tooth Rewards, and Commerce Hero. He's a serial entrepreneur and is once again making a bet on the Magento ecosystem with MageChat, a Magento group built around a managed Slack community. So, we chatted with Kalen about what's driving this project forward, wha…

There hasn't been an in-person Magento event in the USA since 2019... that's about to change! If you're thinking about attending or planning to attend Meet Magento New York 2022, you're in luck! This episode will fill you in about the pre-party, after-party, and everything in between!To get tickets or learn about sponsoring the event, visit https:/…

From cryptocurrencies to subscriptions, to buy now pay later solutions, to fraud prevention technology... the eCommerce payments space is constantly evolving.Most online stores want backup payment gateways in case one fails. Large enterprise needs to offer shoppers in different regions of the world local payment methods. All the while, finance team…

Conventional wisdom is that your eCommerce brand needs to keep pumping out content. Blog articles, social media posts, viral videos - your team wants it all. In this episode, we take the time to discuss if this is indeed a working strategy and what it takes to generate the desired increases in online sales.Guest: Andrew Maff, BlueTuskr.comHost: Rob…

Managing orders and inventory sounds easy until you're managing multiple sales channels and vendors, supply chain issues, cost fluctuations, and other common challenges.For this episode, we invited an industry veteran with almost 20 years of industry experience to discuss the ins and outs of keeping your sales channels accurate and orders flowing.G…

The first episodes of our podcast were focused on Magento. That was over 3 years ago.We've gone on to publish over 90 episodes that speak to eCommerce professionals and digital marketers. Many episodes have focused on topics that are specifically important to the Magento ecosystem. However, in this 95th episode, we've gone back to our roots to take…

If there's an outage at a modern cloud provider like AWS we have the technology to notice the issue and failover to one of their other data centers.However, it's not so easy when a content delivery network (CDN) is having issues. By their very nature, these networks are distributed across servers in data centers all over the world. This makes track…

As an eCommerce merchant, you want to focus on your business plan. At the same time, there's a fear of missing out on the successes your competitors are having. The last thing you want is to overlook marketing strategies that are leading consumers to other web stores instead of yours.However, some data may be hard to come by, and there's just so mu…

Sometimes eCommerce orders fail to go through. Whether caused by problems stemming from the shopper's credit or debit card, payment gateways, fraud filters, or even issues with checkout pages themselves, it happens. In a physical store, you'd work with the shopper to help them complete their transaction. When it comes to eCommerce, however, shopper…

According to Cloudflare, Tiktok became The #1 most visited domain in 2021, surpassing even Google.com. Are you advertising to consumers through Tiktok yet? Have you been comparing it to other platforms, like Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit? Are you still primarily focused on Google Ads or Facebook/Instagram Ads? Are you re…

Most eCommerce merchants start off advertising through platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, but those are pretty saturated networks. In this episode, we talk about opportunities to make direct media buys with audio and video streaming services, podcasts, and other highly-targeted platforms.If you've wondered where else you could or should be…

As the holiday shopping season continues, hopefully, you're enjoying a nice code freeze along with some great weather. What better time to cozy up with a mug of hot cocoa and a podcast episode all about the next frontier of site speed optimization!Caching static site elements with a CDN is already commonplace - it's crucial to your site's overall p…

On just about every episode of our podcast, our guests describe different ways for merchants to improve an eCommerce store's bottom line. Few tell us that they can come anywhere close to generating a 5x increase in eCommerce sales, which makes this episode especially intriguing.While we may be biased about businesses that have "Jet" in their name, …

eCommerce stores are in the data business. Data helps with everything from forecasting sales and stocking products, to understanding profit margins on items and optimizing the online shopping experience.In this episode, Nick shares his wisdom from his years at Etsy and Jet, and from his role as CEO of DAS42. Learn about common data analysis challen…

Marketing to eCommerce shoppers is similar to attracting consumers to brick and mortar stores, but it's not the same thing.When someone visits a physical store, they're exhibiting a stronger intent to make a purchase. Online shoppers are often earlier in the researching process. That means that treating every ad click like it's going to convert int…

Some businesses have complex order fulfillment systems. Others rely on succinct solutions to problems like splitting orders. Why split orders? Maybe you'll be fulfilling an order from multiple stores or warehouses. Maybe you want to split an order between in-stock items, and back-ordered items. Perhaps items need to be shipped separately or uniquel…

Every year, more eCommerce businesses are bought and sold. At the same time, many owners find themselves unable to find the right buyer in order to achieve their goals. In this episode, we discussed what you can do in order to set your eCommerce business up for an eventual successful acquisition. We also discussed common mistakes, pitfalls, and ove…

Apple's iOS15 is going to severely limit the amount of data marketers receive regarding if emails are opened by their recipients. Digital marketers need to be prepared for this shift in data availability. More importantly, they'll need to consider which metrics to look at in order to best optimize campaigns, including campaigns for eCommerce mercha…

Consumers open their text messages. Their e-mails... maybe... maybe not.This leads eCommerce merchants toward a crossroads. Treat SMS like the 3rd rail, or embrace it while making sure to treat this communication channel with the respect that shoppers demand.Most of us get text messages or push notifications from major brands regarding our order/de…

Learn how eCommerce stores continue to experience growth through ad networks like Google Shopping and Instagram. Beyond simply setting up campaigns, you'll hear about common challenges and strategies for achieving success.Guest: Tony Capetola, SalesAndOrders.comHost: Robert Rand, JetRails.comAdditional Resources: If you enjoyed this episode, catch …

Recently, some popular tools that marketed themselves as tools to make websites accessible to people with disabilities have been coming under fire for not living up to their mission. So we thought it would be interesting to look at this topic from the ground up. In this episode, we discuss the role of your CMS or eCommerce platform in ADA Complianc…

The eCommerce industry tends to put a lot of emphasis on getting shoppers to purchase immediately. Every store owner wants a higher conversion rate. This had led many shops to shy away from linking to off-site content.However, what's not talked about nearly as often is that online shoppers aren't ready to buy something 100% of the time. In this epi…

In our last episode, Ben Marks and Robert Rand took a deep dive into eCommerce platform Total Cost of Ownership. That conversation leads directly into this episode, in which Ben and Robert discuss Open Source vs. Closed Source eCommerce. If you're tired of sales teams pitching what's great about their eCommerce platforms and simply want to learn th…

Captains Log, Stardate -302360.5We've entered a new reality in which eCommerce platforms can't stop talking about their low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). They all seem to believe that they provide the lowest TCO, although our data scientists have proven that can't be correct. How are they all coming to different conclusions... and should TCO reall…

The Backdrop:Luma is the default theme that Magento 2 websites around the world have been using for years. It's several years old, trying to compete in the fast-paced world of eCommerce. So the question is "Is it the best solution?". There are Magento themes for sale that are full of bells and whistles. They're intended to give you lots of extra fe…

The longer your business is operating and growing, the more software you've inevitably deployed. Over time, your organization can easily wind up with a variety of software subscriptions and solutions that aren't in alignment with your needs or goals. Some aren't well used or are redundant and should be eliminated. Others stop being a good fit as yo…

For eCommerce stores, 2020 was heavily focused on acquiring and supporting new customers. In 2021 those same eCommerce merchants are putting a bigger focus on retention and customer lifetime value (CLV). So, we wanted to spend some time discussing organized ways to keep your shoppers engaged with your brand and loyal to your store. Through the proc…

eCommerce shoppers, in the words of a famous cartoon character, will "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". While the words of J. Wellington Wimpy, a well-known character from Popeye were meant to be entertaining, there's a serious underlying concept. Shoppers don't all have lines of credit at the ready. They may have steady incomes but ha…

Some items don't belong on a standard UPS or FedEx truck. Perhaps the items are heavy or big. Maybe you're just moving items in bulk quantities. That's where less-than-truckload (LTL) freight comes in. These services have been in high demand in recent times, delivering items from B2B and B2C orders alike. As a merchant, if you need to spread out yo…

Browser extensions like Honey and Capital One Shopping (formerly Wikibuy) promise to give shoppers the best coupon codes at checkout automatically. For merchants, it's like someone's standing at the checkout handing out photocopies of exclusive coupons - something they'd never stand for at brick-and-mortar stores. Shoppers wind up using coupons tha…

Whether you're a frontend dev, backend dev, eCommerce manager, marketer, or other stakeholder, figuring out how to gain expertise in Magento can be difficult. If you want to improve your work and advance your business or career, you'll appreciate this episode! We cover everything from where to get started, to how to become a rockstar in the Magento…

As consumers, we are the product. The data that we generate has value. Individuals, however, are increasingly getting a say in what happens to their data. Much like sales tax collection, this puts a burden on eCommerce store owners, who need to comply with an increasing number of laws from different jurisdictions. This includes GDPR from the EU, CC…

Online shoppers compare your prices to those of other eCommerce stores. How do you track and use competitor pricing and inventory availability? Can this practice help you to increase your prices? Which products should you track, and how often should you adjust prices? Not sure? Well, get ready to learn how eCommerce merchants are tracking competito…

Highly customizable applications like Drupal and Magento have made auto-updating elusive. For some, allocating resources to patch and update software in a timely fashion can be a challenge. So, we asked an expert in the area of auto-updating these kinds of platforms what a healthy workflow can look like. Tune in to learn about the pros and cons of …

We frequently discuss increasing conversion rates, average order values, and customer lifetime values, so we thought it would be helpful to focus this episode on the mice, as opposed to making it all about the mousetraps.Guest: Will Laurenson, CustomersWhoClick.com Host: Robert Rand, JetRails.comBy JetRails

Email marketing is important to most successful eCommerce organizations, but lots of organizations are bottlenecked and don't leverage all of the bells and whistles that their email platforms support. So, we thought it would be helpful to talk about what you can get help with, and what you should avoid trying to outsource.Let's assume that your new…

eCommerce is always evolving. In this episode, you'll hear stories from 3 industry insiders as they discuss what's already changed, what's changing... and even some predictions. Along the way, you'll learn about the intersections of eCommerce with other important areas, like Sales Tax and ERP solutions. You'll also hear about different disruptions …

There's something to be said for experiences where we look past AI and allow shoppers to help optimize their own experiences. If you've ever been a regular at a restaurant or a local store, you know what I'm talking about. You walk in, and the staff already know what you like - because you've told them. It's not about guessing and averages, it's ab…

eCommerce businesses are now data companies. Data helps merchants find the best marketing channels and campaigns. It assists in optimizing on-site experiences, and even efforts to retain customers for the long haul. In this episode, we focused on tips, tools, and recommendations for merchants that want to use data to be more successful in 2021. Tha…

Sure, you can list products on Amazon's Marketplace and Amazon will be thrilled to take your money to promote those listings... but the Amazon DSP is capable of a lot more. You can leverage Amazon's vast reach and data sets to target shoppers with ads that lead to your own eCommerce store. You can also run ads across Amazon's advertising network, w…

What Magento extensions are in demand? What are merchants and developers asking for? How has demand for different extensions changed in the last year? What are extension developers doing differently to better service eCommerce businesses? We had a lot of questions, and we certainly weren't disappointed by the answers. Tune in to learn more!Guest: S…

eCommerce businesses experience operations challenges as they grow. Sometimes, it's with forecasting and inventory management. In other situations, there are delays in fulfillment operations, or there's time wasted and errors introduced through manual data entry. While every business is unique, in this episode, we pull at some common threads that e…

Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), and the rest of the holiday shopping season is in the rearview mirror. Black Friday was up 22% year-over-year. Cyber Monday was up 15%. Bots were buying up all the Playstations. It's 2021 and shoppers are still returning holiday purchases to Amazon sellers. Those returns will wind up going to...With so many unique …

Many merchants treat gift cards, loyalty programs, and coupons as business features rather than strategies. In this episode, we do discuss the features that set eCommerce and multichannel merchants up for success, but we also discuss strategies for using these features, including in combination with each other. The goal is always to find ways to ap…

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) isn't a specific set of tasks. It's a state of mind. You have to know your audience, test, measure, realize you don't really know your audience as well as you think you do and continue a cycle of improving your eCommerce operations. You start to understand what helps and hurts your sales stats as it relates to dif…

Integrating data is one thing, but transforming that data through automated workflows is a whole other challenge. Learn how technology providers and service providers are coming together to solve challenges and increase eCommerce business efficiencies.Guests:- Ramesh Cooke, LYSI.co- Nate Roybal, Workato.comHost:- Robert Rand, JetRails.com…

When shoppers visit a physical store, they get to interact with people, build relationships, and have unique experiences. Video technology can bring shoppers one step closer to in-person interaction with your team. In this episode, we explore how personalized video can be effectively leveraged in by eCommerce merchants.Guest: Oli Bridge, Bonjoro.co…

Shoppers with visual, auditory, and cognitive disabilities have historically found online shopping to be challenging... and that's putting it mildly. However, today's shoppers are being drawn to brands that do a better job of servicing their needs. Along with them can come some great PR and other benefits, but at the end of the day, why wouldn't yo…

A Magento website is a beautifully balanced mix of database tables, files, and code, all operating within a perfectly optimized hosting environment. Unless it's not, in which case you're in for a bumpy ride. That's when it's time for an audit. What should be included in that audit? We've got answers!Guest: Guillaume Le Tual, MageMontreal.comHost: R…