News and Blog

Launch of Blitz Manufacturing: Migration from Shopify to Drupal Commerce

Submitted by admin on Mon, 09/10/2012 - 18:17

We are proud to announce the launch of Blitz Manufacturing, Inc., a venerable, 100 year old company selling jewelry cleaning supplies and other accessories.

Blitzinc.com has gone through several iterations, hopping to different platforms in the process (including Shopify, the most recent one.) We feel they have found a more permanent home with Drupal and Drupal Commerce, giving them better control, SEO benefits, and more options to expand their business.

The new site includes a drag and drop sort for their products for fine-grained control over how things are displayed and an ability to import orders they have recieved through Amazon.com. A wholesale section is accessible only to wholesale accounts, and it allows them to browse wholesale products, request quotes, upload artwork, and select their sales representative.

News

So What Does Open Source Mean and Why Is It Important?

Submitted by grawlings on Fri, 08/03/2012 - 16:13

Believe it or not, there are people out there that have a large amount of altruism flowing through their veins. In our capitalistic society, such concern for others isn't very common but fortunately for Internet users, there are a number of web developers that consider making a better Internet higher on their list of priorities than personal gain and were it not for them, the Internet wouldn't be nearly as much fun and affordable.

Simply put, something that is Open Source has been uploaded to the Web and made so that anyone can download a copy and use it...for free. There are tons of Open Source materials online and each one represents the fruit of hundreds of hours of work and then given away to help make the world - and the Web - a better place.

Cool, huh?

Business

New Ecommerce Gallery

Submitted by mrobison on Tue, 07/31/2012 - 09:40

As designers and developers, we are always looking for inspiration. One of the best ways is simply look at what other talented people are doing.

So we have created CommerceCanvas, a collection of what we think are some of the best ecommerce designs around. This is our design commonplace book and notepad, and we hope it helps others filter through the noise.

Check it out, and even submit a design of your own.

Design
Ecommerce

What is a CMS and Why Should You Care?

Submitted by grawlings on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 14:44

From Louisville to Boston to Los Angeles to Chicago, the most important questions that folks considering embarking upon an ecommerce website design venture should ask, but rarely do, is "Will you build my website in a CMS?" and "Which CMS will you use and why?"

CMS is an acronym for Content Management System that refers to the platform the web developer is planning to use when he or she builds your new website and it is of vital importance to the success or failure of your web project.

Business
Ecommerce

4 Reasons Why Dropshipping Is a Bad Idea

Submitted by mrobison on Mon, 07/09/2012 - 16:10

Dropshipping is often lauded as an easy way to get into the ecommerce business. You set up a store and whenever an order comes in, you simply email the supplier. They package up the item and ship it to your "customer," and you keep the profit. Just sit back and watch the money roll in. You never even have to spend time or money keeping and tracking physical inventory.

This sounds great in theory. But like all formulas that promise to print money, this one is too good to be true. Its not as easy to be successful as many make it out to be. Here are the reasons why.

1. Low Barrier for Entry

It is relatively easy to get into dropshipping. You can get a site up and running that sells all of the latest electronics if you want, or all the latest televisions. It's so easy, in fact, that at least a thousand other people are probably doing exactly what you are doing. Your market is already saturated before you even think of it.

Business
Ecommerce

New Prosco Inc Website Launched

Submitted by mrobison on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 14:50

Louisville Web Group is proud to launch the new ecommerce site for Prosco Chemical Innovations. Prosco is located in Indianapolis, IN and has been around since 1969. They produce a variety of chemicals for many different applications, from industrial cleaners, to water treatments, to environmentally safe refrigerants.

Prosco primarily targets businesses that can use or resell their line of products.  This includes hardware stores, janitorial supply companies, HVAC service companies, car washes, foundries, and many others. Their product is might be running through the air conditioning unit in your home or office.

News

Increase Your Revenue With Ecommerce

Submitted by mrobison on Wed, 04/11/2012 - 15:28

We will be hosting the first ever EcommerceCon in Louisville, KY on May 11th, 2012.

You can view full details here.

There are some great, knowledgable speakers you'll be able to meet and learn from.

There are only spots for 100 attendees, so register now.

You can contact us with any questions you may have.

Business
Ecommerce
News

Spam Works - 5 Lessons for Legitimate Businesses

Submitted by mrobison on Mon, 02/13/2012 - 17:37

Who opens spam emails? Or an even stranger question, who actually purchases something directly because of a spam email? Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the latest emailing hawking a Viagra clone and we think that No one could possibly respond to such shameless, brute-force sales tactics.

But they do.

This is one of the dark secrets of the Internet. Spam works. And it works really well. In fact, we know it works. Otherwise, marketers would stop doing it. Only pure sociopaths would do spam marketing for fun, so if there was no profit, spam would dry up faster than a slug in salt.

You probably know someone who has bought a product or service advertised from spam.

This infograph provides an overview of the spam industry.

Some highlights:

Marketing

Mobile Purchases Massively Up this Season

Submitted by mrobison on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 11:56

Even in this economic slump, online sales continue to surge. According to the AP, IBM has tracked a 16.4% increase in online shopping for the 2011 Christmas season. For those working in the industry, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as we know the trends, and there is only more room to grow.

But here is the true gem: purchases made using mobile devices saw a 172.9% increase from last year.

Wow.

So, still think you can ignore mobile?

Your customers want to buy things with their iPhone or other smart phones. And soon, that could be a deciding factor when someone is thinking of becoming a customer. If you don't offer a clean, easy to use mobile solution, you will start losing sales. It will happen. It probably already has happened.

Ecommerce

Can't Upload Files or Images in Drupal with Internet Explorer 9

Submitted by mrobison on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 12:31

Microsoft made a lot of changes in Internet Explorer 9, both in how it handles web standards (big improvements!) and how it handles Javascript. However, after the IE9 began rolling out, clients began calling and complaining that they could no longer upload images or files on their Drupal sites.

Strange, because to us, everything was working just fine and since we use Firefox and/or Chrome here in our office, the IE9 update was just a passing blip on the radar.  But after walkingwe finally narrowed the prob

Which gives a lesson we need to reminded of over and over again. The first question with any web problem should be: What browser are you using?

Anyway, here is the quick and dirty fix for the problem. You need to make IE9 think it is really IE8 and then everything works fine again.

Solution #1: Meta Tag

Insert the following meta tag into your template file, probably page.tpl.php.

Code
logo_inverse

is loading the page...