Business
An ecommerce site is a business. Our Management & Finance category addresses online payments, funding needs, employee issues, merchant profiles, key metrics, multichannel and omnichannel strategies, cross-border analyses, inventory management, accounting topics, sales taxes, and much more.
Amazon & Marketplaces | B2B | Cross-border Selling | Finance | Fraud Prevention | Inventory | Local Business | Payments | Shipping & Fulfillment | Staffing-
Business
Tips for Rapidly Processing Ecommerce Orders
April 19, 2017 • Armando Roggio
Reduce the amount of time it takes for an online retail order to be picked, packed, and given to the package carrier, and your ecommerce business will have gone a ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Navigating Drop Shipping and Sales Taxes
April 14, 2017 • Jeremy Hanks
I’ve written a lot about the fact that drop shipping isn’t just another distribution method. It’s a new way of doing business that has unique operational and logistical challenges. The ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Takes On the Digital Advertising Industry
April 13, 2017 • Marcia Kaplan
Amazon, the ecommerce giant, is showing greater interest in the digital advertising arena, expanding its offerings and attracting a new type of client: big brands that advertise on television and ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
BigCommerce CEO on Amazon, Other Channels
April 12, 2017 • Kerry Murdock
Many merchants view Amazon as a competitor, albeit one they are forced to sell on. Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce, disagrees. He believes Amazon can complement an ecommerce business. I ...
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B2B
Tips for Migrating B2B Ecommerce Platforms
April 10, 2017 • Lori McDonald
I recently presented “How to Change Ecommerce Platforms,” an Essential Skills online seminar for Practical Ecommerce. I kept the content relatively general for all merchants — B2C and B2B. I didn’t ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My secret weapons — tools, groups, activities
April 6, 2017 • Peter Keller
I’m friends with many entrepreneurs. Oftentimes we talk about what services we use, what products we have, and the routines that allow us to be more successful. For example, there’s a ...
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Business
Mid-market Ecommerce Firms Need Clear Roles, Responsibilities
April 5, 2017 • Armando Roggio
Defining and documenting clear roles and responsibilities may help mid-market online retailers move projects forward, leading to better execution. Retail businesses have a variety of tasks that need to happen over and ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Doesn’t Do Long-tail. Why Should You?
April 4, 2017 • Jeremy Hanks
The idea of “endless aisle” and “long-tail” retail has gained much traction since the publication in 2005 of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of ...
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Business
March 2017 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
March 31, 2017 • PEC Staff
What follows are our 10 most popular articles for March 2017, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. FedEx ...
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Business
6 Ways to Differentiate Your Online Store
March 29, 2017 • Dale Traxler
Why would a shopper buy from your online store? Do you offer unique products? Are your prices lower than Amazon and other competitors? Is your store more fun to shop ...
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Inventory
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Merchant Voice
Deleting slow-moving inventory
March 27, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Décor will celebrate its second birthday next month. When the website launched in April 2015, it began with 80 products, which had grown to almost 500 products at the ...
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Business
7 Signs You Need a New Ecommerce Site
March 26, 2017 • Armando Roggio
An ecommerce site that is poor performing and hard to use can hurt its online sales. An online store’s appearance, usability, and features should convey trustworthiness and professionalism. How an ecommerce ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
5 Shipping Tips for Ecommerce Beginners
March 20, 2017 • Armando Roggio
Master shipping and you’ll just about master ecommerce. For new online retailers selling tangible products, the act of managing shipping — both in terms of actually packing orders and in ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
The problem of fake products on Amazon
March 20, 2017 • Richard Stubbings
One of Amazon’s strengths is its extensive catalog and its requirement that every retailer selling an item has to list its offer on the same page. This means that when ...
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Business
Legal Issues for Membership-based Ecommerce Sites
March 17, 2017 • John Di Giacomo
Membership-based ecommerce websites — those that offer products, services, or additional benefits to members — have their own set of complex legal issues that do not apply to traditional online retailers.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Advertising options for Amazon marketplace sellers
March 15, 2017 • Phil Masiello
In “To drive sales on Amazon, optimize keywords,” my previous post, I discussed the importance of keywords on the Amazon marketplace, especially for sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon. Keyword optimization ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
FedEx to Challenge Amazon for Ecommerce Fulfillment
March 15, 2017 • Marcia Kaplan
1994. Ecommerce is in its infancy. A new company in Bellevue, Washington begins selling books online. Business analysts wonder if people will buy products online. Most people are skeptical. 2017. That ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Data Platform Identifies Counterfeits on Amazon, Other Marketplaces
March 13, 2017 • Kerry Murdock
The dominance of Amazon and its marketplace is clear. What’s not so clear are the counterfeit items that are also sold there. Rob Dunkel is the founder of 3PM Marketplace ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
3 Benefits of Third-party Fulfillment Services
March 10, 2017 • Armando Roggio
Third-party order fulfillment services can warehouse products, pick and pack items as orders come in, and ship a merchant’s products to the customer on that merchant’s behalf. While all of ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Sales Tax Nexus Hits FBA Sellers
March 9, 2017 • James Thomson
When a seller uses Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon program to store inventory in Amazon fulfillment centers across the U.S., that placement of products can create a tax “nexus” — a ...
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Business
E.U.’s New Data Protection Law Affects Companies Worldwide
March 8, 2017 • John Di Giacomo
You should read this article. You should take it seriously. I’ll admit it — we lawyers are risk averse. We tend to prepare clients for the terrors in the night ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
To drive sales on Amazon, optimize keywords
March 4, 2017 • Phil Masiello
There are three ways to sell on Amazon. First, you can become an Amazon vendor, a first-party wholesaler of your products to Amazon, to resell. There are marketing opportunities for this ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Planning for failure
March 3, 2017 • Richard Stubbings
Among the initial tasks of starting a company is to organize a business plan. It’s the first of many plans in the life of a business. After all, a well-managed business ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My ecommerce canon
March 1, 2017 • Peter Keller
I always enjoy discussing ecommerce and entrepreneurship with friends and other people. I love helping them. I’m frequently asked about resources for folks that are interested in learning more about ecommerce.
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Payments
Credit Card Processing: 3 Items to Review on Jan. 2017 Statement
February 27, 2017 • Phil Hinke
Merchants should have received their credit card processing statements for January 2017 activity. They should take the time to review three important items. Investigate Customer Refunds It’s not uncommon for merchants to ...
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Business
Why Adopt Conversational Commerce?
February 26, 2017 • Gagan Mehra
New methods of engaging consumers are launched frequently. Few are successful. Conversational commerce, however, has gained widespread adoption in a short period. Conversational commerce enables transactions via instant messaging tools, such ...
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Business
3 Retail Pricing Strategies for Ecommerce
February 23, 2017 • Armando Roggio
Many online retail businesses use one of three popular strategies to set product prices: cost-based, competitor-based, and value-based. It can be a challenge to know how much to charge for a ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Generic online box shifters are doomed
February 21, 2017 • Richard Stubbings
2017 is going to be a difficult year. Smaller ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers will be squeezed out by the bigger players. Amazon will continue its push to stock the most ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
For success on Amazon, sell your own brands
February 15, 2017 • Phil Masiello
I have been selling on Amazon for many years. I have learned a few things about how to use the marketplace to expand and enhance my ecommerce efforts. In this ...
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Business
17 WordPress Plugins to Create Content
February 13, 2017 • Sig Ueland
The right set of WordPress plugins can help create content that engages readers and drives traffic. Here is a list of plugins to help create content for your WordPress website. There ...