Well, it has come upon us…Black Friday is here, and Cyber Monday (December 1st) is around the corner.  But don’t overlook “Green Monday”, the second Monday of December (December 8th), which, for some online stores, is more profitable than Cyber Monday.
http://www.3tailer.com/ecommerce/green-monday-vs-cyber-monday-2008-showdown
If you haven’t already done so, ramp up your PPC bids and budgets, and don’t [...]

It’s Black Friday and I’m curious to read the stats on how online sales went this weekend in a weakened economy. Despite all the hype about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, don’t forget about Green Monday. The second day of December proves to be a constant winner for retail. Last year, [...]

The big day is here and to celebrate we turned our homepage black. We’ve got our fingers crossed that the pundits who have been saying that online sales will be less than expected are wrong. News reports from around the country are featuring people who camped out in front of stores waiting for [...]

So, what do a couple of Ex-Google engineers do after they cash out stock? Well, they create a search engine! Cuil (pronounced, “cool”) is a search engine founded by a group of former employees of Google and IBM.
Cuil was launched in July 2008 and is still kicking. Personally, I think it needs a lot of [...]

I’d just like to take a second to wish everyone reading out there a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all are able to take some time off to rest and spend time with your families. The Internet Marketing department Solid Cactus will be resting up and getting ready for some marketing madness in the days [...]

The holiday season officially begins….. NOW! It’s what merchants wait all year for, the last few weeks of the year which are expected to bring in lots of cash. But will they? Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain - people WILL be shopping, so give them a reason [...]

I came across this survey and thought I would share it with you.  If you are a online retailer that have seen sales decline in the last couple of months, this is especially for you.  The Comparison Shopping Engines Survey is a survey of retailers and agencies carried out in August and September 2008, with [...]

Check this Holiday Toy List from Amazon.
3d effects, video, all the information you may need to make a decision and ability to buy with one click.  What else you can ask for? 
What a great example of using newer technologies to make shopping experience exciting.

Solid Cactus field trip? Anybody?
Click here to read the full article by Lauren Davis over at the io9 website.
The attraction, called “Professor Cline’s Dinosaur Kingdom,” imagines a lost chapter from Civil War history. It supposes that in 1863, a group of paleontologists inadvertently stumbled upon a valley of live dinosaurs. The discovery comes to the [...]

When I’m not at Solid Cactus, I do some freelance writing.  One of my long-term resources for freelance work, informational articles, publishing industry news, etc. has been MediaBistro.com.  The media site also offers on-location and on-line classes for various genres of writing.  I subscribe to their newsletter and received an e-mail last night about a [...]

Beth Hartman, Project Manager and Michelle Johnson, E-Mail Marketing Specialist got an “awesome” from Justin Consuerga of RoundTableGifts.com for their help with an e-mail blast: “You two are AWESOME! Thanks for the great teamwork.”
Meanwhile, over in technical support, Kim Good got some praise from Frank Capasso from Valley Lighting & Home Decor: “Great meeting [...]

Youre SEO campaign has been a long and fruitful process. You’ve watched everyday as new visitors are being funneled into your site through social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. You sat back with uncontrollable giddiness as you watched your organic results get better and better as the weeks and months passed. Finally, your site [...]

Ah yes, the winter months are upon us. Having shorter daylight hours and much colder weather (where is Global Warming when you need it?) can only mean a few things..1)higher heating bills 2) I can start “accidentally” letting my dogs out the front door when Christmas Carolers come around and 3) the all important Holiday [...]

Did you recently receive notice that your cost to process orders via your order management software is going up, up, up? Well, you’re not alone, thousands of other merchants received the same notice from their provider. While upgrading technology and adding features is a tremendous benefit, increasing the cost to use the application [...]

I am working on a presentation with a co-worker about local small businesses getting online.  I ran across a great statistic from Enterprenuer Magazine:
A websites’ role in small business: 53% of small businesses with websites say their sites are primarily to provide company credibility; 49% use it to generate sales; 38% brand awareness; 33% generate [...]