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-
Payments
Why Do Credit Card Providers Offer Flat Rate Processing?
August 30, 2016 • Phil Hinke
Many readers gave good feedback on my recent 3-part series on partnering with credit card salespeople. I will be addressing this feedback in upcoming articles. A few merchants sent me their provider’s email response after ...
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B2B
B2B Ecommerce: Pros and Cons of SaaS Platforms
August 29, 2016 • Lori McDonald
Software-as-a-service ecommerce platforms are gaining market share. They have clear benefits, but they also have limitations, especially for B2B companies. SaaS platforms — hosted carts — charge a monthly fee ...
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Business
10 Great Ecommerce Ideas for August 2016
August 26, 2016 • Nic Murdock
Practical Ecommerce periodically asks industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the August 2016
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Local Business
Managing a Local Web Presence from an iPhone
August 24, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
I’m used to sending and receiving email directly on my iPhone. I don’t need my laptop to respond to someone. In fact, I sometimes go most of the day without ...
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Local Business
How to Bring Online Shoppers into Physical Stores
August 22, 2016 • Armando Roggio
Brick-and-click retailers, those with physical stores and an online shop, can use the rich data ecommerce provides to encourage online shoppers to visit the retailers’ physical stores or pop-up shops. Many ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
In Acquiring Jet, Walmart Seeks Younger, Higher-income Consumers
August 16, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
Last week Walmart purchased online merchant Jet for $3 billion in cash plus up to $300 million in Walmart shares to Jet founders. While this is a lot of money,
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Business
How to Protect against Scraping of Prices, SKUs
August 15, 2016 • John Di Giacomo
Many ecommerce merchants offer a substantial number of SKUs through their stores. Inputting those SKUs into a database can be a time and labor intensive process. It can also be ...
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Business
Ecommerce in Brazil Growing Despite Economic Crisis
August 14, 2016 • Alice Wakai
An economic and political crisis has hit Brazil during the last few years. Because of rising unemployment and high inflation, Brazilian consumer consumption has greatly decreased. According to Brazil’s National ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Insurance and other boring (but crucial) expenses
August 12, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
There is a temptation for many start-up businesses to cut corners and spend all of their money on inventory. After all, it is the stock that sells, which brings in the ...
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Local Business
How to Encourage Reviews of Your Local Business
August 11, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
When it comes search engine results for local businesses, one of the major factors that influence searchers is the number and quality of reviews. A restaurant listing with a limited number of reviews, no ...
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Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Israel: Cross Border Shopping Dominates
August 10, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
With a population of 8.2 million, Israel may not seem like a particularly lucrative ecommerce market. However because of unique domestic circumstances, Israel is an excellent candidate for cross border ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
For Holiday Ecommerce Fulfillment, Success Starts in August
August 9, 2016 • Armando Roggio
To be successful during the short, high pressure Christmas shopping season this year, ecommerce retailers should plan now to make certain they have the products shoppers want and that they ...
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Business
Olympic Committees Seek to Restrict Content Marketing, Social Media
August 5, 2016 • Armando Roggio
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) are warning athletes and businesses not to use Olympic trademarks in content and social media marketing. The Olympics are ...
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Business
July 2016 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
August 1, 2016 • PEC Staff
Here are our 10 most popular articles for July 2016, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. Using Pokémon ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Comparing puppies to customers
July 29, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Last month, my husband and I began raising a black Labrador puppy. Next year, we will give one-year-old Whimsy to Guide Dogs Victoria for intensive training to help assist a person ...
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Payments
Partnering with Credit-card-processing Salespeople, Part 3: Weeding Out Unacceptable Parties
July 28, 2016 • Phil Hinke
When soliciting and evaluating a request for proposal for a client’s credit card processing, I always let the client include any provider or salespeople she wants. Clients often want to ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
From Magento to WooCommerce, 1 year on
July 27, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
Just over a year ago, I moved my website from Magento to WooCommerce. I described my process of evaluating and, ultimately, selecting WooCommerce in a 5-part series here on Practical ...
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B2B
5 Types of B2B Product Data That Improve Online Sales
July 24, 2016 • Lori McDonald
Sometimes B2B companies invest in a highly functional ecommerce site and fail to use good product data. Shoppers don’t buy from websites if they don’t have the information they need to ...
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Business
Learning from 10 Types of Ecommerce Competitors
July 21, 2016 • Armando Roggio
Knowing your competition can help your ecommerce business discover opportunities, avoid mistakes, and differentiate. With this in mind, it can be a good idea to gather and analyze information about your ...
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Local Business
Using Pokémon Go to Entice Shoppers to Local Businesses
July 19, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
On July 6 and 7, 2016, Niantic and Nintendo began rolling out a new augmented reality app called Pokémon Go. Within a few days it was a hit. Kids and ...
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Business
Understanding the New E.U. Privacy Shield, for Ecommerce
July 18, 2016 • John Di Giacomo
In “Electronically-signed Contracts Enforceable?,” I addressed the implementation of new e-signature requirements in Europe. Those requirements are part of wide-ranging changes in E.U. law. The newest, and perhaps most important,
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Finance
Equity Crowdfunding Investments Open for Everyone
July 13, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
It took four years after President Obama signed the JOBS Act, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finally allows businesses to solicit people who are not considered wealthy to ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Use collaborations to expand reach, revenue
July 5, 2016 • Eric Bandholz
Entrepreneurs tend to focus on their own companies and how to build them from within. While this focus is a major factor in growing a business, don’t overlook the benefits of ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
SEO: Most Online Shoppers Start at Amazon and Google, Study Says
July 1, 2016 • Jill Kocher Brown
When searching for products online, Amazon and Google are the leading places to start, according to a study released this week. Thirty-eight percent of shoppers polled reported starting their shopping ...
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Business
June 2016 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
June 30, 2016 • PEC Staff
Here are our 10 most popular articles for June 2016, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. 32 Marketing Tutorials for ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
To grow a business, work less (but better)
June 28, 2016 • David Sasson
I recently read a book that made a great impression on me. The book is Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown. In this post, I’ll offer an ...
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Local Business
Using Schema Markup for Local SEO
June 28, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
Local businesses can help their search engine optimization efforts by utilizing the Schema.org markup. By adding the Schema code to your website, you’re helping the search engines identify certain text ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Will Brexit affect my U.K.-based ecommerce business?
June 28, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
To read the newspapers and listen to the television commentators, some would think that the surprise vote in the U.K. to leave the E.U. is a disaster, to change everything.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
Ecommerce brands vs. Amazon sellers
June 27, 2016 • Peter Keller
I’ve worked in ecommerce for 15 years. When I started, those of us in the industry made the rules as we went along. No one knew for sure what would ...
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Payments
Partnering with Credit-card-processing Salespeople, Part 2: Setting Expectations
June 24, 2016 • Phil Hinke
Before you signed your current credit card processing agreement, did you tell the salesperson what you expected from him and the provider? Did you ask him what he expected from ...