FEATURE ARTICLE

Hiring a web designer

Designing your company's website takes time and expertise. An effective design is accomplished by taking fundamental web design elements into consideration. Learn how to decide if hiring a designer is right for you and which questions to ask.

MonsterCommerce among first to integrate Google Checkout
MonsterCommerce is among the first to be aligned with the emerging Google Checkout technology. Merchants who use MonsterCommerce’s shopping cart software will now have the option to provide this safe and secure checkout option to their customers.

Congratulations to June's MonsterSellers
The MonsterSeller Award medal is given to merchants who sell a specified number of products through their MonsterMarketplace store listing within the month. Listings are marked with a Platinum, Gold or Silver medallion. MonsterSellers for June .

MonsterMarketplace Merchant Spotlight Award
Congratulations to Karen and David Love for their site, NaturalHealthShoppe.com. They were chosen to be recognized as July ’s Merchant of the Month.

Take Five

Each month, we ask a different MonsterCommerce merchant the same five questions regarding their online business and its success.

This month's featured merchant is Dahlias.com. Dahlias.com offers Dahlia bulbs and flowers.

Owner: Nicholas and Ted Gitts

MonsterCommerce merchant since: November, 2005

Best-Selling Product:
Gitts Perfection

1. What is your favorite feature about your site right now?
   The functionality and ease of use. Our customers love the site and find it very easy to use. They continuously comment on how easily they can navigate and find what they are looking for. Mark from the MonsterCommerce design team did an excellent job laying out the web pages.
   
   
2. What was one major obstacle to your store's success, and how did you overcome it?
   We had a customized site prior to moving to Monster Commerce, and customers complained about the difficulty that they had navigating. Once we moved to Monster Commerce, we have had very few problems, and customers rave about the site.
   
3. To what do you attribute most of your site's success?
   MonsterCommerce's fabulous team, especially the Search Engine Optimization Team. They got us listed in the top of the search engines and doing pay per click advertising. We have had a record year since switching to Monster Commerce!
   
   
4. What is the best or most rewarding experience you've had so far selling online?
   The most rewarding experience is on a daily basis, having happy customers. The orders coming in prove that the site is great!
   
   
5. What web sites or online tools or resources would you not be able to live without?
   MonsterCommerce shopping cart and Online Chat. We thoroughly love the shopping cart and ease of administrating it. Online Chat has offered our customers a great way to communicate without any delay.
   

Industry News

• Online advertising spending sees increase of 14 percent
  According to a study by InsightExpress, online ad spending in Q2 increased 13.8 percent from the previous quarter.

• Google Checkout launches, providing safe, secure checkout
  Storing contact and billing information, Google Checkout can be stored securely and used to purchase from online storefronts.

• PPC click fraud increases over Q2
  About 14 percent of clicks are fraudulent, according to several recent studies, costing advertisers an estimated $800 million last year.

• MySpace passes Yahoo Mail and Google as most popular U.S. website
  Accounting for almost 5 percent of all U.S. visits to the web, MySpace.com is now visited more frequently than search engine giants Google.com and Yahoo Mail, according to HitWise.