The BigCommerce $35,000 Ecommerce Makeover Contest has come to a close, and the winner is a company that manages to recycle material, make fashionable bags, and help animals: Gorilla Sacks.

An ecommerce contest is almost ready to reach its conclusion. Earlier this week, BigCommerce announced that it has narrowed down the field of competitors to five, meaning the winner of its $35,000 Ecommerce Makeover Contest should be announced rather soon.

Considering how hated pop-ups have become, and that ad-blocking software is quite popular in certain circles, it might be easy for everyone to believe that online ads are universally not liked.  Still, new research suggests that people find online ads useful, so long as they’re truly being informative or doing consumers a favor.

Email marketing represents about as good a way as ever of promoting eCommerce, according to some new statistics.  Click-through rates may or may not quite be at all-time highs, but some progress definitely appears to be taking place.

Online retailers who haven’t embraced Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites had better get a move on if they don’t want to be left behind.  New stats indicate that a whole lot of people have turned to these resources to satisfy some marketing needs.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or, as much of the country is in a rather soggy state right now, at least the Christmas/holiday shopping season. Multiple sources indicate that online businesses should do all right on Black Friday and in the following weeks.
Let’s start with Hitwise, which has been tracking visits [...]