Do you ever watch old Charlie Chaplin movies? Every time things are going great, the poor guy gets knocked down. (Often literally.)

Watching those movies reminds me of the January sales tax “perfect storm.” In Q4 everything is gravy – you’re making sales, gaining new loyal customers, and watching the dollar bills pile up. Then January rolls around and you have a sales tax filing due. Suddenly all those sales translate into exponentially more work as you attempt to fill in your tax forms.

If you’ve never filed a sale tax return before, here’s a sneak peek of what you might find:

If you’re completing this form, you’re required to figure out where each of your sales was made and how much sales tax you collected from your customers. It can be a long, intimidating process — and pretty annoying if you’re riding high from collecting those Q4 profits.

Here’s how you can prepare now so the post-holiday sales tax perfect storm doesn’t catch you unaware.

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Everybody loves coupons – but too many coupons and discounts devalue your brand.

When a store overuses coupons, it’s often a sign of an inferior product or a marketing person who’s out of ideas. It can also send the message that you don’t believe in your products, and they’re not worth what you’re charging.

The best approach on coupons? Use them as a way to drive desired behaviors or to reward customers. Our friends at PHLEARN, the number one Photoshop and photography tutorial website in the world, gave us some good tips based on their vast experience running a successful education platform.

Driving behavior

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Creating coupons with WooCommerce is straightforward, and coupons are effective tools to market your store and products, convert visitors into customers, and retain loyal shoppers.

But how exactly do you use them to drive revenue and customer loyalty? Here are some tried and tested customer retention tactics with coupons.

Start by collecting email addresses

Do you have email addresses for your store visitors? Collecting them is the first step to a good email marketing strategy: One of the most effective ways to market coupons and stay in touch with your customers is through email.

MailChimp for WooCommerce is your ally here. MailChimp is loved by marketers because it makes life easier. It also offers more than just email marketing tools — for free! Let’s learn how to use MailChimp to display a popup window offering your customers a coupon in exchange for their email.

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Coupons are a great way to attract new customers and get loyal ones to come back for more.

WooCommerce includes simple yet powerful coupon functionality that fits most stores’ needs right out-of-the-box — which means you can start offering coupons with WooCommerce in just a few clicks.

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Founded in 2012 in Oxford, UK, Absolute Antibody Ltd are experts in antibody sequencing, engineering and recombinant manufacture. Their mission is to bring therapeutic grade antibodies to the research and diagnostics market. This quest has lead to an extremely complex product catalog.

Over the last year, we at Electric Studio have partnered with Absolute Antibody to rework their website. The primary aims were to improve the customer experience and reduce the amount of repeated information on the site. This meant that we had to understand their product catalog, which without a related degree was no walk in the park! Each antibody product is based on a specific clone, and each is sold in a variety of sizes and conjugations with different price points.

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As the owner of an SEO-focused agency building large and small eCommerce sites, the first question I ask potential clients is if they’re playing the long-term game, and by that I mean: what’s the ultimate goal for their business? Market leadership? ROAS (return on advertising spend)? Steady growth with excellent brand recognition?

If they have set their sites on any of these, we know they need to optimize for the top of the funnel and build awareness of their site with strong search engine optimization. And for that, we always recommend building with — or migrating to — WooCommerce and WordPress.

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All businesses start with a specific goal in mind. For most, it’s profit.

Even at not-for-profit organizations – or when the main driver of a business is a personal goal, like being able to work in a more flexible way or spending more time with family – income is almost always required for sustainability.

Entrepreneurship can deliver on the various freedoms it promises, but success requires an active understanding of a business’s finances – which starts with knowing what to measure.

As management consultant Peter Drucker says, “What gets measured gets managed.” – so here are four key metrics of eCommerce profitability.

1. Gross profit margin

Gross profit margin is “a financial metric used to assess a company’s financial health and business model by revealing the proportion of money left over from revenues after accounting for the cost of goods sold (COGS).”

Gross profit margin is critical because it immediately gives you an overview of how your current revenue is serving the rest of your business, and whether it is doing so at a profit or a loss. This has a far-reaching impact on your strategic and tactical options for how to run your business.

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Are you looking to improve your eCommerce inventory management?

According to a 2017 report, 43 percent of small business owners still count inventory by hand, rely on pen and paper, and manually key in data. That’s staggering, given how fast-paced and competitive today’s market is.

It’s these kinds of manual systems that lead to supply chain nightmares – from ending up with excess stock through to poor cash flow.

How do you get a handle on your inventory cleverly and efficiently? It’s easier than you might think.

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It’s no secret that the fitness industry is a competitive one. However, there are gaps in every market if you know how to find and fill them: Former Team GB Olympic athlete, Glen Smith did just that, leveraging his 25 years of fitness expertise to launch Your Fitness App.

Powered by WooCommerce, Your Fitness App (YFA) makes Olympian-endorsed health and fitness simple to get stuck into – wherever you happen to be. Here’s the origin story, which starts when Glen’s teacher handed him a discus to throw as a teenager.

Discovering the discus

Glen has always been determined when it comes to health and fitness. Discovering a talent for discus at 14 when a teacher introduced him to the sport, he was a full-time athlete in less than five years.

By 1996, he qualified for his first Olympics as a discus thrower, competing in Atlanta and going on to Sydney four years later.

As British champion for 11 years, he was once ranked 9th in the world and has competed in two Olympics, four World Championships, four Commonwealth Games and three European championships – a record of which any athlete would be proud!

He retired in 2003, a decision not taken lightly given that sport had been his entire life up until that point. What next?

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Longreads is an online publication dedicated to the best storytelling in the world.

Now, in addition to purchasing memberships, Longreads supporters can wear their loyalty on their sleeves (literally) by shopping for totes, caps, shirts, and more — Longreads recently launched a merchandise store powered by WooCommerce and Printful.

How are they able to run an eCommerce shop with limited time? Was it easy to set up? What did they learn about sales tax and anti-fraud? Read on for these answers and more.

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They say necessity is the mother of invention. For Dutch entrepreneur Marien Klootwijk, this rings true: In 2012 he needed to replace an expensive pair of sunglasses, was disappointed with the selection within his price range available in The Netherlands, and was inspired to launch Mariener Eyewear.

From clear vision to competitive company

Even in the beginning, Marien had a clear idea of what his company was about. “Mariener offers no-nonsense eyewear with a clean, high-performance design at entry-level prices,” he says.

Representing The Netherlands in his branding was also important, demonstrated by generous splashes of orange, the national color of the country, throughout his website.

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Many WooCommerce merchants know about chargebacks and how to prevent them — but in case you don’t, here’s a quick overview of the key details regarding chargebacks and some preventative steps you can take today.

Why do chargebacks exist?

A “chargeback” is when a customer recalls a payment. While they can be extremely costly for retailers when abused, chargebacks exist to offer consumers protection for purchases.

The Fair Credit Billing Act of 1974 established rules for disputing credit card charges. Protections provided by the act include:

• Giving consumers 60 days to dispute a charge that was unauthorized, for the wrong amount, or for a purchase that was never delivered.
• Allowing consumers to instruct their credit card issuer to withhold payment during a dispute with a merchant.
• Limiting the amount of time for acknowledging a dispute and investigating it.
• Requiring written notification of a credit card dispute, unless the card is stolen.

The result of these protections? Chargebacks.

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Could a minor adjustment increase your online store’s profits by 10%, 30%, or even 50%?

Some of the world’s biggest companies, including Amazon, say yes. A few tiny changes can boost order size and profits, and help build better customer relationships.

One way to do this? Cross-selling. If you’re not doing it yet, you should be. Let’s look at how cross-selling works, why you need it, and how to get started.

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From military-grade shelters to DNA testing for dogs: we use WooCommerce to help all kinds of clients grow their businesses. Here’s the story of how we worked with Micah and Adriana to turn their own passion for dogs into an online canine genetic testing service, so all dog lovers can learn more about their canine companions.

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You’re exploring whether Instagram and its one billion users can help grow your business, right?

If you have a WooCommerce store, you have even more Insta-opportunity: Shopping on Instagram makes it simpler than ever to move people from your photos to checkout.

Let’s leverage the power of Shopping on Instagram for your business!

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Wondering if your business should be on Instagram? The short answer is that whatever you’re selling, you should consider it. Instagram now has over one billion monthly users — as of January, 2018, 7 percent of internet users in the United States accessed Instagram once every few days.

And if you’re in certain eCommerce categories or selling a visual product, you definitely should.

Here are six questions to ask if you’re weighing whether Instagram should be part of your marketing strategy.

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