Google loves to make the web a faster place. They are obsessed with fast websites. So obsessed that they’ve made page speed one of the ranking factors for their search index (but remember there are over 200 ranking factors, so it’s not the end-all and be-all of search ranking).

And now Google has released an add-on for web servers (Apache) that aims to make websites even faster.

Ordoro, a new order management and fulfillment company, offers a web based service to ecommerce merchants to manage their orders and inventory. Ordoro integrates seamlessly with the ShopSite ® ecommerce platform.

I’ve been working closely with Ordoro’s team to fine tune their integration with ShopSite. We also have a number of ShopSite clients using their service right now to manage orders. I’ve been impressed with what Ordoro has to offer small and medium sized merchants. Jagath Narayan, who is one of the owners, took a few moments to answer three questions I had about order fulfillment. Here is the Q&A.

Sending email campaigns to existing customers is an excellent way to increase recurring business – whether you’re sending out news that you have a new product, you’re running a special, or you’re sending a discount coupon – emails to your customer base allow you to keep in touch and remind them of your business.

Obtaining that list of email address can be cumbersome or simple – and with ShopSite it’s quite simple. In this article we’ll review what settings you’ll turn on to provide your customers with an opt-in checkbox and how to export the details of those customers so you can use them in your mailing list program.

Halloween is over, and all of the tricks and treats are behind us for another year. Tooth decay lies ahead… oh, yeah, and also the impending start of the holiday shopping season.

Here’s what I found to be of interest for the month of October. Hopefully you find a few “treats” to help your online store as well. Enjoy!