Archive for May, 2010

10 Free Premium Magento Themes

May 24th, 2010

Want a Magento theme that is professional and free? Check out this list of free premium Magento Themes from around the web.

1 – ElectroMagik

ElectroMagik is a minimalist professional design. Lots of white-space, easy on the eyes.

Info | Live Demo | Download

2 – Absolute Theme

Absolute Theme is a slick&smooth blue theme for Magento.

InfoLive DemoDownload

3 – Classic Theme

Classic Theme is a professional theme that comes in 9 colors.

InfoLive DemoDownload

4 – HelloWired

HelloWired has a very simplistic clean look with space for gallery images on the home page.

InfoLive DemoDownload

5 – Foot Prints

Foot Prints has a cool earthy tone to it.

Live DemoDownload

6 – EversonStore

Everson Store is a grayish theme that would work well for a clothing store.

InfoLive DemoDownload

7 – HM Modern

HM Modern is a yellowish modern looking theme.

InfoLive DemoDownload

8 – Glam

The Glam theme makes your store a glamorous one.

InfoLive DemoDownload

9 – Grayscale

The Grayscale theme is minimalistic, beautiful and sleek.

InfoLive DemoDownload

10 – Oops!

You got ripped off. I only listed 9 free premium Magento themes. You’ll have to check back for more another time.

6 Tips For Improving Email Campaign Delivery & Open Rates

May 17th, 2010

Like most eCommerce stores, you have a database with all your newsletter subscribers. You send them emails on a weekly/monthly basis. You have a very low open-rate and deliverability rate… How do you fix this? Here are 5 quick tips to get your email in the customers inbox and get them to open it.

Improve Deliverability

Tip #1 – Remove Bounced Emails

After every email you send, remove all the hard-bounces. Most email providers will allows you to view a report of which email addresses bounced back. Take that list and bulk-unsubscribe them from your list.

Most ISPs see that you keep sending to email addresses that don’t exist and they will start to think of you as a spammer and blacklist you.

Tip #2 – Include Unsubscribe Link On Top Of Email

Include a unsubscribe link at the very top of your email body. The ISPs scan for this and when they see an unsubscribe link on top of your email it tells them that you are serious about your email list integrity and that you are not a spammer.

Tip #3 – Text to Image Ratio

Another thing ISPs look for are emails with mostly images. When an email body consists of just images with very little text it has a higher chance of being spam. Spend the extra few minutes and add some text!

Improve Open-Rates

Tip #4 – Subject Line

Your subject line is the single most important element of your email after it has been delivered to the customers email inbox. This is what will make someone click to open the email. Write it well and always include a call to action.

Tip #5 – Include Short Text Snippets

Include a short text snippet on top of your email template. Most email clients offer a preview pane and this will be the first thing consumers  see. This is extremely useful with email clients such as Gmail and Outlook where they show a snippet of the email in the inbox itself.

Via: Campaign Monitor

Tip #6 – Use Alt-Text & Image/Table Sizes

Make sure you always include alt-text on all images because most email clients will block images when the email is first opened and will only display the images when the customer clicks “Display Images”.

It is equally important to use the width and height tags for all tables and images so that when there are no images displayed, you email is still structured properly. This will help the consumer understand what the email is about even without images and encourage them to view the full email.

List Your Products Free On TheFind.com Via FTP Feed Upload

May 13th, 2010

TheFind.com has been around for some time and has been a great tool for consumers to find the products they are looking for. Until now TheFind has populated its product database by crawling the web and filling in the blanks from third-party feeds.

I just realized this a few days ago, but in late April they launched the ability to upload a feed via FTP.

Great news! TheFind has launched a feed upload tool through the Merchant Center and now accepts direct feeds from merchants.

What does this mean for you?

  • Greater control over product information on TheFind (ability to set up notifications to primary email address, letting you know when the feed is live)
  • Faster updates (initial feed can go live within 72 hours)
  • Increase product relevancy through our new, expanded attributes, as seen in our the data feed specs.

I’ve just submitted a data feeds for several clients, we’ll see how it works. In the meantime, you can register here.