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Yesterday we published our annual Year in Review. It’s a look back at the state of the commerce industry and the growth of the Shopify ecosystem and platform.

Because Shopify now powers 140,000+ businesses, this data provides good insight into where ecommerce trends as a whole appear to be headed, and can help you prepare for 2015 and beyond.

It's 8:45 AM and our Uber driver weaves through morning rush hour traffic. It’s overcast when we arrive at Jelly Modern to pick up nine boxes of assorted donuts topped and stuffed and slathered with impossible flavours like Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla and Lemon Curd.

To the naked eye, it's just another Friday in Toronto, but for retailers here (and all over North America) this is the Friday. Black Friday, to be exact. Our mission: uncover the story of independent merchants on the busiest shopping day of the year. Our weapon: carbs.

For years, businesses and individuals have looked for a simple solution that lets them sell on their website or blog. In many cases, the approach taken was to set up an online store that was totally separate from their main website – ruining the potential for a seamless shopping experience.

If you’re like most Shopify storeowners, you and your customers don't experience that pain as ecommerce is your primary focus, and your online presence is all packaged into one seamless experience. But for bloggers, artists, writers, and more who aren't running full-fledged ecommerce businesses but want to sell a handful of products, it's been a pain point for quite some time.

Now, all of that is changing.

According to Gallup, half of new businesses in the U.S. fail within the first five years. But it’s important to remember that they don’t fail overnight. In fact, if you look closely, there are a few key signs that can help you identify a failing business months before it happens. Some of these signs include a halt in growth, poor cash-flow management, and a glaring lack of innovation or differentiation.

Few things are sadder than tuning into your analytics, excited to check out your sales numbers... and seeing data on thousands of abandoning customers. How did it come to this?

I mean, there you are, spending countless hours of work designing, optimizing, and A/B testing your online store. You’d think it would be enough to ensure good conversion rates and steadily grow your customer base.

But it isn’t.

Let’s look at 4 glaring mistakes that could be interfering with your checkout process. There are many more of them, actually, but for now let’s focus on the ones that are obvious and easy(ish) to fix.

Video is insanely popular, yet using video is still one of the most under-utilized ecommerce strategies. We've talked about the importance of product photography in the past, but great product photos are table stakes at this point. If you want to take your ecommerce business to the next level and blow past your competition, you can't afford to ignore the power of incorporating video into your mix.

Your storefront looks great.  You've spent a lot of time tweaking it and making sure everything flows properly.

But why aren't any visitors adding products to their cart?  Why are your visitors leaving so quickly?

Let's take a look.

The ecommerce landscape is continually changing and evolving. One of the biggest changes in recent years has been the proliferation of online reviews.

In fact, reviews have spread all across the internet and they pop-up regardless of whether you're actively encouraging them or not.

However, when used strategically, reviews can become powerful pieces of social proof that persuade people to buy.

In this post we’ll look at how to put reviews to work in your business. Specifically, we’ll show you how to start generating (and automating) them, as well as how to manage them.

Let’s get started.

Do you have lots of visitors but not a great deal of sales? In other words, are you having trouble converting customers?

It’s a condition that affects many online stores. But don’t worry: It can be fixed.

There are lots of reasons for people being hesitant to buy from you after they visit your online store. In this post, we diagnose the most common issues for why someone would fail to make a purchase after they visit. Then we propose solutions so that you can make your customers feel more secure and more comfortable buying your products.

Here are common problems, as well as their solutions.

You’re losing money. We haven’t even met, yet I know this because the data supports it; that each and every day you’re losing potential orders on your website.

Mobile commerce is huge, and it's only getting bigger. With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, there has never been a more important time to understand the significance of mcommerce within the online retail world. We analyzed mobile data from over 35,000 Shopify stores and found some really interesting trends. 

This Christmas, 1 in 4 purchases will be made on a mobile device. We estimate that next Christmas, 43% of all purchases will be made on a smartphone or tablet. 

What's your favorite color? You can tell a lot about a person by their favorite color - and you can also tell a lot about an online store by the colors they use. A lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs don't know that the various colors they use on their website can have a significant impact on the mood of their customers. Getting the right mix of colors can mean the difference between a repeat customer and a fleeting one-time visitor.