New Smashing eBook: How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites
Designing and developing an e-commerce website takes a lot of brain power, knowledge and research before starting. Not only do you have to please your client with a beautiful layout and thoughtful structure, but you have to make your client’s customers easily understand what it’s all about; that is, you have to deliver a great user experience and high conversion rates. What that in mind, our brand new Smashing eBook is all about “How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites.”
This eBook walks you through the process of preparing your e-commerce project, showing you what it takes to present merchandise beautifully and convincingly, and how to run valid and effective A/B and multivariate testing of various designs.
The eBook is a selection of the best articles on Smashing Magazine from 2009 and 2010 that deal with creating e-commerce websites. They have been carefully edited and prepared in PDF format and in ePUB and Mobipocket versions for compatible eBook readers, such as the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle. Some screenshots and links were removed in order to make the book easier to read and print.
We have put this book together to give you all the information you need to create a successful e-commerce website in one fell swoop. Enjoy, and good luck with your work!
- Download a free PDF sample (3.0 MB),
- Download a free ePUB sample (ZIP, 1.6 MB),
- Download a free Mobipocket sample (ZIP, 2.2 MB),
- Buy the eBook (PDF, ePUB, Mobipocket) for only $9.90!
Table of Contents
At over 260 pages, this eBook consists of articles about the following:
- Getting Started With E-Commerce,
- 5 Universal Principles for Successful E-Commerce Websites,
- 12 Tips for Designing an Excellent Check-Out Process,
- How to Engage Customers on Your E-Commerce Website,
- Principles of Effective Search in E-Commerce Design,
- 15 Common Mistakes in E-Commerce Design,
- E-Commerce: Fundamentals of a Successful Redesign,
- Improve Your E-Commerce Design With Brilliant Product Photos,
- How to Use Photos to Sell More Online,
- Design to Sell: 8 Useful Tips to Help Your Website Convert,
- 7 More Useful Tips to Help Your Website Convert,
- Optimizing Conversion Rates: Less Effort, More Customers,
- Optimizing Conversion Rates: It’s All About Usability,
- Use Conversions to Generate More Conversions,
- The Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing,
- Multivariate Testing: 5 Simple Steps to Increase Conversion Rates.
The authors are Rachel Andrew, Cameron Chapman, James Chudley, Paras Chopra, Peter Crawfurd, Dmitry Fadeyev, Jeffrey Olson, András Rung and Frank Puscher.
The Smashing eBook Bundle
You can buy the complete Smashing eBook Series as one bundle for just $39.90! All Smashing eBooks are available in PDF, ePUB and Mobipocket formats:
- Smashing eBook #1: Professional Web Design,
- Smashing eBook #2: Successful Freelancing for Web Designers,
- Smashing eBook #3: Mastering Photoshop for Web Design,
- Smashing eBook #4: Mobile Design for iPhone and iPad,
- Smashing eBook #5: How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites.
Advantages Of Smashing eBooks
Now, why should readers buy a Smashing eBook? Good question. Although much of the content is available online for free, an eBook feels a bit more permanent, secure and reliable and is often much better optimized for reading than Web pages. In fact, eBooks present many more advantages over the Web, including these:
- Portability
You can carry all your books with you in a notebook, smartphone or eBook reader without worrying about weight. Also, being compact, they are much more convenient for reading offline or on smartphones. All Smashing eBooks are available in PDF, ePUB or Mobipocket. - Search functionality
With built-in search functionality, you can easily search for keywords and even passages of text in a book. - Bookmarks, highlights and notes
Advanced eBook readers automatically remember where you’ve stopped reading each time you close a book. They also allow you to bookmark pages, highlight favorite passages and write notes. - Built-in dictionaries
Advanced eBook readers provide built-in dictionaries. For example, if you are reading an English-language book but are not a native speaker, the built-in dictionary can help you understand the content. - Text-to-speech
The latest eBook readers provide built-in text-to-speech functionality, which is especially useful on mobile devices with small screens. Text-to-speech also allows you to rest your eyes after a long day in front of the computer. - No advertising
Unlike the articles published on Smashing Magazine, Smashing eBooks do not contain any advertising. - No DRM
Smashing eBooks are not protected by DRM. That makes it easy for you to read the content on any eBook reader. Please respect our work and the hard efforts of our writers. If you have received a Smashing eBook from a source other than the Smashing Shop, please support us by purchasing your copy in our online shop. Thank you.
(al)
SloDive
December 8th, 2010 5:35 amWow, and I am already building one. This would surely help. Thanks much. Will you provide a hard copy also or will this be included in your next book?
Vitaly Friedman
December 8th, 2010 5:39 amThank you. The hard copy is not planned yet. :-)
Alan Shroeder
December 8th, 2010 6:35 pmTip #1 – Start your store (like we did) on BigCommerce. That way you don’t have to worry about managing hardware or doing the technical things. Just my 2c.
DPShots
December 8th, 2010 5:37 amThat’s great. Would appreciate a hard cover copy though ;)
adelacreative
December 8th, 2010 5:56 amNice, I like the bundle option!
nOeL
December 8th, 2010 6:45 amHello, I would like to read reviews from anyone who’s purchased this ebook. Thank you!
Al
December 8th, 2010 7:08 amSweet! Going to order one asap! Definitely going to help out on a project :)
Brandon
December 8th, 2010 7:52 amI can’t wait for Smashing Magazine’s smashing new eBook, “Smashing the Competition: How to Create Smashing eBooks without Smashing your Budget” with special foreword by celebrity smashing expert, Mike Sorrentino.
Lee
December 8th, 2010 8:24 amPlease provide hard / printed copy
Tim
December 8th, 2010 9:14 amI would also prefer a hard copy. I would purchase this in a heartbeat if there was a paperback version for ~$14.99. My organization is finding it very easy to produce hard copy versions of eBooks. We currently use CreateSpace and have been pleased with their product/price and ease of getting an ISBN and inclusion on amazon.com (no I do not work for them nor do I receive any props for mentioning them).
Keep up the great work…looking forward to print versions…
Carlos Chiari
December 8th, 2010 10:06 amI wonder if this is exclusive content for the book, or are these articles those already published on Smash magazine?
Vitaly Friedman
December 9th, 2010 1:55 amThe eBook is a selection of the best articles on Smashing Magazine from 2009 and 2010 that deal with creating e-commerce websites. It contains already published articles.
Leon
December 8th, 2010 11:05 amI have to say that the title doesn’t make much sense; it certainly sounds very clunky.
Wouldn’t ‘‘How to create e–commerce websites that sell’ be better?
Fredrik
December 8th, 2010 12:18 pmThat’s great! I’ve been waiting for a book dedicated to e-commerce. Trying to buy the eBook bundle at this moment but your shop seems to be down… waiting impatiently :)
Lukasz Waszczuk
December 8th, 2010 1:35 pmGot myself a copy. Great tips, easy read. Currently on page 41.
dompl
December 8th, 2010 3:32 pmYou guys seriously have to consider releasing a hard copy. This will definitely increase your sales. Maybe a small survey will help. What would you prefer hard or e-copy? Would you pay $5 more for a hard copy? Well – I would. It’s simply because it is nice sometimes learn something not from monitor but a good book.
Please – think about it. And once is out let me know; I’ll buy it!
aDesigner
December 8th, 2010 8:12 pm@domple, I completely agree.
It would be great to have a hard copy. I would pay more for it as well. I actually just bought a couple of books from a book a part…just got them in the mail today and spent $30 dollars on both of them. I would totally do this with Smashing…as a matter of fact I would probably buy everything that Smashing has come out with if they had it as a hard copy.
Nicola
December 9th, 2010 12:52 amI really wish you would show UK prices in GBP NOT Euros…. we do not use Euros in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (UK)!!!
Euro’s are only used in the Republic of Ireland – which is not apart of the UK
Please think about changing this for the future!!
Vitaly Friedman
December 9th, 2010 1:56 amThank you for your feedback, guys. We are listening. We’ll see what we can do in the future!
David Tremblay
December 9th, 2010 6:26 amI can’t find the Smashing books in the IBooks app (Canada). Any plans to release them in the future?
Ed
December 9th, 2010 6:40 amVitaly,
I wanted to share my experience with the purchase process of this ebook, because it was a disappointing…ironic experience considering the topic of the ebook.
First of all, the shopping cart set up, why do you force me to create an account?
Why not include a PayPal buy it now button? – I almost decided not to purchase because of the information being asked.
Buying digital products like this should be an easy, no hurdle process.
Secondly, downloading the product, there is no decent display of a download link of the purchased ebook, there is a link to the .pdf file, and when clicked it wants to open the .pdf straight into my browser…I really hate it when that happens because it freezes your browser.
Luckily this didn’t happen, but it has happened to me to many times, and it almost happened again.
I right clicked the link and chose Save as to be able to download the .pdf and am looking forward reading the book because I’m sure I can pick up on some good info from it, too bad though the experience of the authors didn’t reflect in the shopping cart set up used to sell the ebook.
dompl
December 9th, 2010 10:37 pm@Vitaly Friedman and please if you release a hard copy let shout it out loud!
And @Ed is right, make payment simple. If you thinking of extra cost due to PayPal charges – add them on the top. Won’t harm anyone extra $0.50.
And lastly @Nicola – please, is payment checkout not doing the calculation for you? If not (?) use online currency calculator. There is plenty out there. Guys cant show all the currencys! That will simply took a mile long list! So why should they show GBP not for example Japanese Yen?? They are Americans so they are selling in dollars. Would you sell your staff in Yens? (Sorry for small sarcasm, but hay…)
kaal
December 10th, 2010 2:30 am@dompl – What makes you think they are American? FYI, im pretty sure SM is based in Germany.
Robert Drózd
December 10th, 2010 5:36 amThanks, I also bought the book and it reads great on my Kindle. Articles are a bit uneven but all in all, the book is a good resource.
André
December 10th, 2010 10:22 amLovely, all your ebooks, but does this mention some of the better shopping platforms solutions out there? open source apart from Magento
fili
December 12th, 2010 3:30 amFYI: I am missing an easy buy option without having to create an account in your web shop. I stopped buying because of this.
alexblock
December 15th, 2010 7:49 amare you really thinking of buying the book or are you just doing a review of the checkout process?
fili
December 18th, 2010 8:45 amFair question: I was actually buying the book until I was stopped from doing so due to the checkout process. And I can’t help wonder then about the content of the ebook. I expected an easier buy process which would have resulted in me buying the book.
Michel H
December 14th, 2010 1:48 amIf you really must own hardcopy: print it and go to your local bookbinder, or go to a copy shop. But people, it’s almost 2011. Read on your screen, your tablet or whatever on the go, and print only what you must.
Also, the world does not revolve around the UK, or the US, or Europe. Google “7.9 EUR in GBP” if you want to know the price in GBP, and shame on you for not having a general idea of how much € 8 is in your currency.
I already know how to create good e-commerce sites, but I purchased the mobile webdesign eBook a while ago. Creating the account and making the purchase was literally done in minutes. If that’s why you’re not buying, you’re really looking for excuses not to buy, or are not internet savvy enough to create good e-commerce sites anyway.
alexblock
December 15th, 2010 7:47 amThis title of this book is terrible and doesn’t even make sense. It’s crazy. I wonder what you guys were thinking.
JP
December 16th, 2010 4:43 amYou verb the book title.
SWIDT?
Gil
December 16th, 2010 4:49 amnOeL, this is just a compilation of articles from this very website. Just download the sample book, then google each chapter name. Easier than buying the book!
Except that the articles were “carefully edited and prepared” to justify the €7. Too bad they didn’t carefully edit and prepare the book title! lol