E-commerce research resources

The following are valuable resources of:

• Expert usability review/evaluations
• Best practice guidelines from reliable sources
• Applicable research reports (read this caution about applicability of usability research – in Dutch)
• Multivariate A/B-tesing, plus dedicated and reknown books
• Conversion stats of old versus new designs (normalised)
• Research papers

Case studies and expert opinion

http://www.clickz.com
TIP recommended by 3 experts (also good for stats)
-   
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3622853

- 
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3622794

The first two pages provide some interesting background assumptions

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=experts/crm/traffic

Effective Cross-Selling
@
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3610171

Learning from best practice of different industries
@
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3616881

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/library.html
(better for articles and case studies, registration needed for some)

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/
(free)
http://www.emarketer.com

http://www.iconocast.com/
- it’s hard to believe looking at the design, but this large Health and Science articles archive also includes translated newspaper articles, is popular and much cited. Use their search engine ; (links to more resources)
E-commerce section in NYtimes (updated every Monday)

http://www.knowthis.com/internet.htm


http://www.ecommerce-guide.com

http://blog.kissmetrics.com

Popular blogs

http://www.getelastic.com
(e-commerce blog with articles on e.g. product comparison design, conversion) [Tip+++]

http://www.excitingcommerce.com/


http://www.ecommerce-blog.org/

Design patterns

http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=commerce

More Pattern libraries

E-commerce (CMS) package vendors
Mambofive and Intershop are popular e-commerce packages.  Bol.com use InterShop. Also: ZenCart, Magento cart

Academic publications

http://portal.acm.org


http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/E-Commerce&nbsp
; [TIP! ]   (papers,blog entries)
STC
Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Interactive Marketing

Research bureaus

Forrester research (a lot of focus on quantitive, mainly US research)
JupiterResearch (now merged with Forrester) (focus on eCommerce research resports; see below) [TIP! ]

http://www.e-consultancy.com/research/
($299 for single-licence subscription) TIP!
37signals.com reports

http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/
(Reports incl. registration&login, but no directly related to e-commerce)
Nielsen/Norman

http://www.deyalexander.com/resources/uxd/e-commerce.html
(links to good articles on the subject)  – TIP+ Ernst&Young
Gartner
Baker & McKenzie  (focus too much on legal issues)
Netherlands: 2C/Mediametrix, Jungle Minds

Articles and white papers

White papers which have been praised by experts or are frequently mentioned. (ToDOo: distribute among (new) blog posts)

From Jared Spool (UIE.com) :
Product presentation pages design @

http://www.uie.com/publications/whitepapers/PogoSticking-09-20-2005.pdf

Where e-commerce sites can fail @

http://www.uie.com/articles/customer_sieve/

How to stop shopping cart abandonment @

http://www.marketingexperimentsblog.com/research-topics/order-process/how-do-you-stop-shopping-cart-abandonment-09-06.php

Also popular:

http://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/articles/ecommerce-shopping-cart-usability-21-best-practices/

More articles:

http://www.getelastic.com/tag/recovering-shopping-carts/

Google it!

Expert opinion and good articles (weblogs, essays)

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/01/28/semmy-awards/ &nbsp
; (links to a few good articles)  Tip+

Web Usability Illustrated: Breathing Easier With Your Usable e-Commerce Site

http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/ecusability.asp

E-commerce: 6 of the Most Successful Internet Business Models (article)

http://www.discoveryarticles.com/articles/130666/1/E-commerce-6-of-the-Most-Successful-Internet-Business-Models/Page1.html

E-commerce and Usability

http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Design/Basics/ecom1.html

More articles (and the list goes on…)

http://www.designofsites.com/resources/index.htm


http://usableweb.com/topics/000481-0-0.html
(with focus on usability)

http://www.guuui.com/browse.php?cid=177&nbsp
; (links repository to articles, incl. e-commerce search)

http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/ecommerce/ &nbsp
; (from MIT ; links to sources of news, research publications)

http://techrepublic.com.com/&nbsp
; (targetted at IT managers, search for e-commerce)

Research/credibility tools

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.59.6233
(cross-reference tool to check how many times a certain publication has been cited)

Conversion optimisation tips & best practice guidelines

…

More

http://baymard.com/top-resources