Kevin Patrick Allen
I'm a veteran journalist who spent seven years in the San Francisco Bay Area covering stories ranging from the arrest of the Unabomber to the dot-com boom and bust of the late 90's/early-2000 period. The confluence of business, technology, and the Internet is of particular interest to me. An avid runner and triathlete, I also operate a small online business called Endurance Planet which provides resources for age-group athletes.
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Business
Ecommerce Know-How: Taking Advantage of Online Education Opportunities
December 24, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
An online education can come in a variety of forms and it can mean a lot of different things. It might mean a traditional college degree offered via the Internet. It could come in the form of a single unaccredited course taken simply because it offers an opportunity to grow one’s skil...
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Business
Managing the Technological Side of Your Business When You Don’t Understand Technology
December 23, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
A businessperson doesn’t necessarily understand technology. Nor does a technology expert necessarily understand business. But the two fields certainly do intersect in the world of ecommerce. So how does an ecommerce merchant who is lacking in technological understanding, manage a suc...
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Design & Development
Quick Query: Quickoffice’s David Brennan on Mobile Office Applications
December 22, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
The days of being tied to a desktop computer are long gone. Ecommerce merchants can work wirelessly with laptop computers, personal digital assistants, and increasingly, smart mobile phones. Quickoffice is a Texas-based software company that focuses on providing mobile office software...
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Conversion
URL Shorteners: Saving Space and Tracking Clicks
December 17, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
For today’s ecommerce merchant who wants to convey an important point via instant messaging or mobile texting, brevity is helpful. But when the merchant is using Twitter, brevity is a must since a Twitter post is limited to 140 characters. It’s easy to run out of space to enter the most...
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Conversion
Quick Query: Dr. BJ Fogg on Fogg Behavior Model
December 15, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Ecommerce merchants want consumers to take action. That’s what marketing is all about: reaching potential customers and convincing them to take action, more specifically, to make a purchase. Dr. BJ ...
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Marketing & Advertising
Fans and Followers: The Social Media Numbers Game
December 14, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Momentum is a valuable force. A business owner that has customer-generated momentum is in a desirable position. Author Malcolm Gladwell famously described the point at which growth becomes exponential--and momentum becomes unstoppable--as The Tipping Point. Recently I listened as a s...
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Design & Development
Where the PCI Security Council Goes Wrong
December 10, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
While conducting interviews with numerous PCI compliance experts for a series of articles on Practical eCommerce, one thing about PCI compliance has become clear. No one seems to be able to address the issue of enforcement. For example, if I’m a merchant who is found to be PCI non-com...
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Conversion
Ecommerce Know-How: Product Videos Easy to Produce, Inexpensive
December 10, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Ecommerce videos drive sales. Lars Hundley, president of Clean Air Gardening, is confident of that. “We typically get up to a 20 percent increase in conversion rate on products that have a video, and also a lower return rate at the same time. It's hard to put an exact dollar amount...
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Design & Development
PCI Exec Suggests Payment Outsourcing for Smaller Merchants
December 8, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Editor’s note: Payment Card Industry compliance is a requirement for virtually all ecommerce merchants. But it’s also a complicated and confusing topic. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is publishing a series of articles aimed at answering merchants' questions on the issue. In...
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Conversion
Ecommerce Know-How: Think Negative to Realize Positive Holiday Sales Growth
December 2, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Two recent studies on holiday ecommerce spending provide important insights for small, online merchants wanting to achieve positive growth over the same period in 2008. The studies from comScore, an online tracking firm, and Forrester Research, indicate the economic climate is improvin...
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Design & Development
PCI Compliance: Commonly Asked Questions
November 25, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Editor’s note: Payment Card Industry compliance is a requirement for virtually all ecommerce merchants. But it's also a complex and difficult topic to understand. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is teaming with Coalfire IT Audit and Compliance, a firm expert in PCI matters, in a...
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Payments
When a Shopping Cart is Not PCI Compliant: Three Options for Merchants
November 19, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Earlier this week, Practical eCommerce shared three important questions to ask about your shopping cart. Today, as part of our ongoing PCI compliance series, I’ll take a look at options for ecommerce merchants currently using a shopping cart that is not PA-DSS (payment application data...
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Payments
PCI Compliance: Three Important Questions to Ask About Your Shopping Cart
November 17, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
There are a number of matters an ecommerce business must address to become PCI compliant. For one, an online merchant’s shopping cart must be certified via the PCI's PA-DSS process. A merchant's web hosting environment and payment gateway have to be secure. And a merchant’s own inter...
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Conversion
Microsoft Upgrades AdCenter; Eyes Further Growth of Bing
November 12, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Microsoft has upgraded adCenter with new features aimed at improving your Bing advertising campaign. The features include an ad preview tool and a search query performance report. To get a better understanding of the value of the upgrade, we contacted SEM/SEO specialist Greg Latpevs...
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Marketing & Advertising
Ecommerce Know-How: Four Keys to Twitter, Facebook Success
November 9, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
The debate over whether Twitter and Facebook are fads or sustainable businesses has yet to be resolved. Their popularity is indisputable but whether Twitter, in particular, can avoid erosion of its user base, let alone continue its impressive growth, has been questioned. But for the ec...
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Conversion
Payments-R-Us and Page Mage Introduced; MailChimp Announces New Features
November 5, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
MailChimp, the self-service email marketing firm, has announced new features to its platform. Page Mage, a third-party eBay listing service, has just launched, as has Payments-R-Us.com, an informational site to help merchants choose between thousands of credit card merchant account pro...
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Design & Development
Spree Upgrades Its Open-source Platform; Amazon Launches PayPhrase
October 29, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Spree, the open source ecommerce shopping cart, and Amazon.com have both announced new products in time for the holiday shopping season. Spree is an ecommerce platform using the Ruby on Rails programming language. New features include coupon and discount support and an improved system...
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Business
Ecommerce Know-How: Sole Proprietorship, S Corporation or LLC?
October 22, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Launching an ecommerce business can be confusing. An entrepreneur must choose a shopping cart and find sources for inventory. And, there are questions regarding accounting, liability, and filing regulatory documents. Those questions can create enough confusion to halt the journey befor...
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Business
Yahoo! Reports Third Quarter Earnings, Proclaims “Economy Starting to Loosen Up”
October 21, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Yahoo! Inc. reported third quarter earnings yesterday that beat Wall Street expectations but didn’t put to rest lingering questions about the health of the display advertising market, which generates a large portion of Yahoo!’s revenue. Reliance on Display Ads Yahoo! reported revenue ...
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Business
Paid Reviews Subject to Fines Under New FTC Rule
October 13, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
The recently announced changes to the Federal Trade Commission’s "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" are prompting ecommerce merchants to take a closer look at how they advertise and interact with bloggers and reviewers. The changes address endor...
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Email Marketing
Quick Query: Constant Contact Author on Effectiveness of Email
October 12, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
An online merchant’s customer email list is typically a crucial part of his or her marketing plan. And Constant Contact is a leader in the email marketing field. Eric Groves is the senior vice president, global market development for Constant Contact. He’s written a new book entitled Th...
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Conversion
Survey Results: Consideration of Ethnicity Is Not Racist
October 8, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
An overwhelming number of respondents to a September 2009 Practical eCommerce survey indicated that online merchants should consider a potential customer’s ethnicity when developing a marketing campaign. The survey went a step further, asking merchants to give compelling reasons to mark...
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Conversion
Be Your Own Social Media Director
October 7, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Ecommerce merchants have witnessed an evolution among consumers: Consumers are no longer passive. They share information about products and services via email, blogging, and now Facebook and Twitter, among other social networking sites. Companies--particularly ad agencies--are increa...
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