Entrepreneurs need to read ecommerce news to grow their business – but which news?
By the time I was writing this article about ecommerce news, two things popped into my mind. First is to find two or three interesting news stories about ecommerce and make an article about them. Second is to find the best ecommerce news portal and figure out how it is helping the ecommerce industry and then write a compelling story about it. After a few minutes of research, I decided to scrap those ideas and do another thing.
That new idea is to analyze how specifically ecommerce news and blogs are influencing entrepreneurs on developing ideas and strategies that can further improve their business. Let me cite a few examples on this.
Shopify, one of the best ecommerce platform service provider today, has a blog page that contains five different categories: Articles, Guides, Forums, Success Stories, and Growth Tools. It also has a search field for visitors to easily pick their topics of interest. Such blog portal is equivalent to a knowledge base serving Shopify customers in a variety of ways.
Another interesting news portal is Ecommerce Times. I jumped into their “About” page and realized that this company is one of the largest e-business and technology news publishers in the US. They cover a lot of news categories and they’re really good on each one of them. Entrepreneurs who will happen to land on this website can surely find topics that are useful in growing their ecommerce business.
Here’s a news site that has this “Got News? Tell us” section, VentureBeat. If someone wants to submit a guest post, provided that they can provide unique and useful perspectives, they are welcome to VentureBeat. And I got fascinated when I read this Mark Zuckerberg’s quote on their “About” page: "VentureBeat is one of two tech blogs that I regularly read."
Two other interesting sites that offer news on ecommerce are Ecommerce Pulse and Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is in many aspects similar to Forbes. It offers magazine subscriptions. Ecommerce Pulse, run by a guy named Leighton, offers tutorials, podcasts and guides for anyone running an ecommerce store.
Diving in to these news websites would surely make an ecommerce entrepreneur updated, sound-informed and well-advised of what’s going on around the atmosphere he breaths in. News websites, on that aspect, really are playing a big role in shaping the ecommerce world. Coming from this realization, I want to guide entrepreneurs in choosing which news to listen to and which are to ignore. Here are my thoughts on that.
1. Choose two to three news channels that are directly related to your industry and subscribe. That can help you stay focused on your business. For example, if you’re after the retailing sector, you can opt to subscribe to Internet Retailer for e-retailers news on e-commerce sales and retail chain. Subscribing at National Retail Federation for latest retail trends is another great option.
2. Expand your knowledge in ecommerce by getting to know the latest news in research and world events. Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, offers free and paid reports on business and technology. Channel Advisor, on the other hand, features news, events and media coverage on best-in-class technology, strategic services and thought leadership in the e-commerce industry.
3. Get adept with the latest trends in design and development of ecommerce websites, apps and platforms. Groove Commerce has an ecommerce blog that tackles topics on branding and strategy, inbound marketing, website design, and ecommerce development.
Every minute of everyday, there is certainly one ecommerce news published somewhere around the world. That’s 1440 news articles a day. You can only share about 30 to 45 minutes of your time reading the sensible headlines online. You need to filter which of them deserves your precious time. You have to read only the ecommerce news that can make your business grow and become profitable.
