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Article Archives (657 articles)
Gift Certificates Create Automatic New Customers
Electronic gift certificates can be a great way to acquire new customers. When an existing customer buys one for a friend, the friend becomes a free and automatic customer acquisition, unless they...
Social Commerce For Social Media
As social media expands, developers are finding was to monetize it, making it useful for ecommerce. This is done with applications (abbreviated "apps") and widgets. Jodi McDermott, Director of...
Lessons Learned: Scanpancookware.com Owner Allan Regenbaum
"Lessons Learned" is an occasional series where we ask seasoned ecommerce professionals about their mistakes and successes. For this installment, we've asked Allan Regenbaum, owner of Keylan, Inc., a...
SEO Report Card: Pawleyfarm.com
This month's report card website is Pawleyfarm.com, a small site that sells personalized country photographs and note cards. The home page says, "Just as a home-cooked meal nourishes body and soul,...
Quick Keyword Research Tools
At the core of many search engine optimization campaigns is keyword research. In order to target what Internet users are looking for, the choice of words they use to describe those things must be...
Shopping Search Engines: Six To Consider
If you consider yourself an online retailer, you most likely are familiar with the major pay-per-click (PPC) search-advertising providers: Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN. Advertising on...
Five Fast Steps to Improve Website Usability
Problem: Your website doesn't work like it should, and every day you're losing sales because of it. As much as you'd like to take the time to comprehensively study the problem, you've decided you...
Many Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 3 of 3
This is the third and final installment in a series outlining and explaining tools to identify and prevent credit card fraud. Previously, we discussed different methods of verification and geographic...
Conversion: Proflowers.com Ranks High
When Nielsen Online releases its list of highest converting ecommerce websites, Proflowers.com is frequently in the top ten. The latest numbers has it at a stunning 15 percent conversion rate.
I'm...
Pay-per-click Advertising: Try The Home Page For A Landing Page
Over the last couple years a lot of emphasis has been put on creating the perfect pay-per-click landing page. The overall landing page strategy is to create a clear call to action on the page and to...
Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 2 Of 3
Many online merchants are already on board with fraud-detection technology. To fill in the gaps, here is part two of a comprehensive list of fraud detection strategies. Previously we discussed...
Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 1 Of 3
There are hundreds of branded tools that ecommerce merchants can turn to for help in catching fraudulent credit card orders. Some tools are free, and some come bundled or offered as additional...
Internet Security: The Seatbelt Is In The Trunk
Suppose you took delivery on your new car and the salesman told you, as you signed the order, that the seatbelt, antilock brakes, and the airbags were in a box in the trunk and that if you want to be...
A Social Media Symphony
How often do you find a classical musician who is not only a virtuoso on his or her appointed instrument, but who demonstrates Internet marketing virtuosity as well? Allow me to introduce you to...
PCI Compliance Is "Industry Self-Regulation"
The major credit card companies, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, have collaborated on minimum payment-processing security requirements. These requirements make up the Payment Card...
Interview: Authorize.Net President On Fraud Prevention
Authorize.Net, a CyberSource Solution, is a leading payment gateway company with many years experience in combating credit card fraud. We asked Roy Banks, President of Authorize.Net, about common...
Credit Card Fraud: How Big Is The Problem?
Reports of website data breaches, identity theft and credit card fraud are increasingly in the news. But is the problem as widespread as the coverage suggests?
Anyone who collects payments or...
Online Reputation Management
Like it or not, people are talking about you online. They're talking about your brand, your products, industry and competition. Do you know what they are saying? If not, why not? Can you afford not...
Insuring Against Fraud, Data Breaches
A few insurance companies provide policies for credit card fraud and data breaches, covering both a merchant's hard cost of fraudulent sales and any liability for data breaches. AIG, the...
Merchants Liable For Data Breaches
What do online merchants Art.com, Geeks.com and Bananas.com have in common? They're three in a small, but growing, list of ecommerce sites hacked for their customer's credit card data.
Not only...
Analytics: Collect The Right Data
"If you had just..." often starts a phrase of regret. If you had just left on time. If you had just bought that stock.
In web analytics, "If you had just..." nearly always relates to loss of...
Legal: Security Regulation Is Coming
Let's consider the problem first. It wasn't until 1997 that credit cards could be "securely" used online. Obviously the definition of "securely" was rather subjective, but the consuming public was...
Protect Customers' Data Or Lose Your Business
Email Marketing: Avoid This "Deadly" Mistake
Over the years, I've seen many ecommerce store owners make one simple but deadly mistake when they get started with email marketing: They send emails to old, obsolete email addresses.
Does this...
Lessons Learned: Wetsuitwearhouse.com's Moleskie
Alternative Pay-per-click Advertising
When should you consider advertising your products on sites other than on Google, Yahoo! and MSN? By properly identifying and evaluating various second-tier PPC advertising options, you may uncover a...
Conversion Report Card: Firststreetonline.com
FirstStreet Online is a large, Virginia-based ecommerce company that offers gifts and lifestyle products to "boomers and beyond." The staff of FirstStreet asked Practical eCommerce to grade its site...
Quick Query: PayPal Exec On Payment Disputes
Many ecommerce merchants allow customers to pay for their products using PayPal, the popular payment service that's owned by eBay. But some of these merchants say PayPal unfairly sides with customers...
SEO Report Card: Pinkorpunk.com
I have to admit that both the design and focus of this month's report card recipient stood out from the many requests I receive. The website is not subtle, and it's probably not even pretty in the...
Bells And Whistles, Or Accessibility Stop Signs?
With the advent of high-speed Internet, a treasure trove of possibilities presented themselves to the web developer. Java, embedded video, Flash and other coding options afforded online retailers the...
When SEO Isn't Really SEO
A potential client recently asked a good question. She regularly reads various search-engine-optimization websites, and she was confused as to the current meaning of the term "SEO." What, she...
Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 3 of 3
In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention.
The...
Interview: Ex-hacker Mitnick On Avoiding Fraudsters
You know that hidden bomb shtick in the movies? There's a bomb that's going to go off and kill a gazillion people. First, the good guys have to find it. Then they have to figure how to get into to...
Interview: ICANN Official On The Domain Name Infrastructure
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers, or ICANN, coordinates the domain name system globally. ICANN was created in 1998 to perform various Internet administrative tasks previously...
Frameworks For Web Designers
I've written previously about frameworks and how they help developers build web applications. For the most part, my praise of frameworks has been directed at those of us who develop web applications,...
Bloglist: Eric Leuenberger
Name: Eric Leuenberger, Owner
Company: Enhanced Concepts, Inc.
In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked Eric Leuenberger,...
Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 2 of 3
In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention.
The...
Tech Support: Application Programming Interfaces
One of the most exciting trends on the Internet today is interconnectedness. Application programming interfaces (APIs) help make this possible. For example, if I have created a blog at WordPress, I...
Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 1 of 3
In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention.
The...
Interview: “Ask.com Search Results Are Different”
Interactive Corp., or IAC, owns many large Internet-based companies. These companies include Lendingtree.com, Realestate.com, Match.com and Ticketmaster.com. IAC also owns Ask.com, the search engine...
Social Networking: Build Your Own Community
There is not a day that goes by that I don't reflect on how to leverage social media, including social networks, for marketing purposes. I have tried a number of approaches, some of which have been...
Promotional Offers Can Create Prospects
For ecommerce websites, a sale is a desired outcome. However, in some cases, building a mailing list of interested prospects can also be very valuable. In this article, we'll discuss some of the...
Pay-per-click Report Card: Vxb.com
Vxb.com sells ball bearings of various types and sizes. The company is based in California and requested a review of its pay-per-click campaigns on Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Vxb.com's monthly ad spend...
Exporting Your Products: First Learn The Terminology
To sell products overseas, you will need to learn the international buying and selling terminology, also referred to as "Incoterms 2000" (or, International Commercial Terms). These were first...
SEO Report Card: Seenon.com
This month's report card website is Seenon.com, an ecommerce site that tracks the fashion tendencies of the famous and sells those garments and accoutrements to interested consumers. The site is...
Pay-per-click Ads Impact Google Checkout and PayPal
If you're running an ecommerce store, you've probably heard of PayPal and Google Checkout. The following is a quick rundown of things you might not have known about the two.
Google...
Ecommerce Blogging: Who, What And When
Last month I talked about blogging platforms and the value blogging can bring to ecommerce sites. When a website makes the decision to begin a blog and decides upon a blogging platform, it will then...
Pay-per-click Spyware and Other Scams
If you thought click fraud was bad, consider this: your Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing ads and Microsoft adCenter accounts are new targets for spyware applications, hackers and scam artists....
Exporting Your Products: Do It Yourself or Hire an Exporting Firm?
Once you have conducted your market research and made the decision to export your products to foreign markets, you must devise an international sales and marketing strategy. Your initial obstacle...
ADA And State Disability Laws
We are often asked about compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There is a reasonably strong argument, supported by court decisions, that a stand-alone business operating as a website...
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