http://www.practicalecommerce.com/authors/14/Ryan-Welton/ Ryan Welton is an award-winning journalist and interactive/web specialist living in Oklahoma. He spent 10 years building websites and managing web projects in Dallas before moving to Oklahoma City to manage a television news web site, for which he won the 2006 Associated Press Best Oklahoma News Site award. Ryan's web specialties include front-end building, search-engine optimization, project management and business development. However, his greatest professional joy is in taking seemingly complicated web technologies and making them accessible and understandable by everyone. en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:18:17 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/532/Maintaining-Sanity-Amid-Multiple-PPC-Campaigns/ Pay-per-click search engine campaigns are becoming sophisticated to the point they frequently require a full-time resource to manage them. In the small-business world, that’s a problem considering most small businesses don't have the funds to hire somebody full time to do that work. However, expanding your online marketing beyond Google is necessary. “I don’t think I’d go back to one search engine,” said Ray Hewitt, owner of Dayspring Pen Shop. Hewitt manages campaigns on Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Business.com, and he’s not alone in terms of maintaining a mix of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Jeff Pearl, manager of search engine marketing (SEM) for eMergent Marketing, says virtually all online businesses that do PPC campaigns run them on multiple search engines. “If you could only do two, Google and Yahoo! are your best investment,” Pearl said. Why? Simply put, it’s about market share. According to Media Metrix, Google commanded 43.7 percent of all... Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:18:17 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/532/Maintaining-Sanity-Amid-Multiple-PPC-Campaigns/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/468/Selling-With-A-Blog/ Interactive marketing has its fashionable trends like any other industry, and the business blog has been its red carpet champion for the past few years. Heck, the blog has gained such widespread popularity that it's almost become passe in some circles — particularly among those who look up to vlogs (video blogs) like those uploaded on sites like YouTube, or to more outside-the-box guerrilla marketing techniques. Web experts have begun to recognize and understand the underlying value of these online journals. A blog for your ecommerce business, done right, can most certainly produce positive results. Business blogs require expertise in the business at hand. They also require at least a nominal ability to write, albeit informally, a dash of creativity and a ton of perseverance. 5 Tips For Successful Business Blogging 1. Post often, at least three times per week. Daily is ideal. 2. Write about subjects related to your business, such as news and trends. Establish yourself... Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:01:23 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/468/Selling-With-A-Blog/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/431/Tips-To-Hire-The-Right-Website-Designer/ Websites don't just build themselves. The conundrum for the small business owner is that there is a host of choices as you establish an online presence. The decisions are important: They'll determine the online business activity that comes with the new sales channel and, of course, the additional profit from the online endeavor. Choices abound. A few of the critical early questions a business owner needs to settle include: "What kind of website do I want for my business?" "Do I need outside help building my site?" "If I need help, how do I go about selecting a website developer?" We've provided four steps to help you through the process. Step 1: Before taking the first step toward creating a website, ask yourself three questions: 1. Does my website need to have a one-of-a-kind design, or would a neat, clean, pre-made template work just as well? Novices can locate various templates available for purchase on the Internet that allow a person to create a well-designed... Mon, 05 Mar 2007 07:31:15 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/431/Tips-To-Hire-The-Right-Website-Designer/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/428/How-To-Navigate-The-War-On-Spam/ Business owners face a unique dilemma when it comes to managing their email. On one hand, email communication is vital for promoting goods and services to customers. On the other, business owners are no different than individual email users in that their inboxes are susceptible to mounds of spam. Spam filters have evolved to the point that savvy email users can minimize the amount of junk email they have to see. However, in a parallel development, spam perpetrators have evolved to the point that they needn't worry much about spam filters. Further, even in 2007, a surprising number of Internet users' machines aren't protected by firewalls, anti-virus software or spyware tools and malware (malicious software) tools. Spammers compromise those machines, usually without the owners' knowledge, to create a network of computers called "botnets," which are then used to distribute junk email. More than 100,000 PCs are recruited into botnets every week without the owner's knowledge... Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:33:18 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/428/How-To-Navigate-The-War-On-Spam/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/397/What-You-Didnt-Know-About-Payment-Systems/ What you don't know can truly hurt your online business. This has never been more true than when you set out to choose an Internet payment systems. It's not so much that making a wrong decision can harm your business irreparably (although, it can); it's that there is so much information to process before you commit to a payment gateway and merchant account provider. A Quick Review of the Basics Payment systems — if we may simplify a bit — are the combination of a payment gateway and a merchant account that allow customers to buy goods and services online, and that allow an ecommerce business to process transactions and collect money. If your accounting model is such that your online business must be integrated with an existing enterprise billing system, then payment systems can reflect that need as well. For our purposes, though, we'll refer to payment gateways and merchant accounts. According to Webopedia.com, a payment gateway is the "service that automates the payment... Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:09:09 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/397/What-You-Didnt-Know-About-Payment-Systems/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/396/Is-The-Mobile-Web-Right-For-Your-Ecommerce-Business/ Among the topics of conversation for those who make 2007 business technology predictions is the extent to which the "mobile web" — cell phones and other devices that access the Internet for information and ecommerce — will gain traction in the United States. In parts of Europe and Asia, devices with mobile Internet capability, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), actually outnumber desktop PCs and laptops. However, in America, the mobile web has been limited until now to communication among tweens, teens and twentysomethings. They text message each other, take photos and use phones, PDAs and hybrid devices for email, much like the rest of us leveraged our PCs back in the mid-1990s. Don Dodge, currently the director of business development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, writes on his blog regarding his Top Five Hot Technology Predictions for 2007, "Mobile applications are hot, going far beyond ring tones." Ross Dunn, the CEO of StepForth... Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:52:52 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/396/Is-The-Mobile-Web-Right-For-Your-Ecommerce-Business/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/305/Forums-Offer-Interactivity/ If your looking for an easy way to make your business’ website more interactive, consider adding a bulletin board or a forum. They’re different names for the same thing, an application you can add to your site allowing visitors to leave messages and interact with each other. You can even join in the discussion. Adding a forum doesn’t need to cost you a dime. Doing a Google search on the term “free bulletin boards” will net you many options, which you’ll want to examine. Consider not only the functionality of each bulletin board, but also the ease of installation. If you don’t plan to hire somebody to install it, you’ll have to do it yourself, and they often require at least a modicum of technical knowledge. One of the most popular free packages for creating online bulletin boards is phpBB (www.phpbb.com). There are forums available for sale, bulletin-board software packages that is. Two of themost popular are Vbulletin (www.vbulletin.com) and Invision Board... Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:25:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/305/Forums-Offer-Interactivity/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/301/Podcasting-Can-Increase-Brand-Awareness/ It seems like it was just yesterday that entrepreneurs were advised to start blogging for the purpose of marketing their businesses. Now, there’s a whole new technology out there that’s a growing, but viable, option for cultivating your brand online: podcasting. Podcasting takes its name from Apple’s iPod product, and it initially signified any audio content that could be played on iTunes, the application that can be attached to the iPod to play its files. However, as the technology has developed during the past couple of years, podcasting has come to mean any multimedia content on the web following the structure of a regularly-recorded show. In other words, podcasting—from a technical perspective—can be nothing more than an MP3 or a video file with audio. However, podcasts are really just another name for web shows just like TV shows are, well, TV shows. Podcasts typically last anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes. While one person can host a podcast, it’s considered... Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:05:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/301/Podcasting-Can-Increase-Brand-Awareness/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/ We’ve assembled a checklist to help you narrow your shopping cart requirements. The checklist is divided into six areas: function, shipping issues, payment processing, support, technical considerations and report generation. Function Is there a limit to the number of categories or products? Does the shopping cart support inventory tracking? Does the shopping cart have an affiliate program? Does the shopping cart have gift-certificate or discount-coupon options? Is the cart search-engine friendly, and can it be improved and modified? Is there a quick-buy feature or do customers need to register? Shipping Issues Do you need to determine shipping based on weight or by price range? Does the cart have UPS/USPS/FedEx integration? Payment Processing What kinds of payment gateways are supported? Can the cart support non credit-card and offline-payment options? How does the cart determine sales taxes? Support Does the cart supplier provide a... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:04:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/272/Getting-to-the-Heart-of-the-Cart/ If you came to this article hoping we’d tell you exactly which shopping cart you should choose for your business, you will be disappointed. We don’t know. However, thanks to the expertise of a pair of industry veterans, the process of choosing a shopping cart is about to get easier for online-business owners. It starts with an understanding of what types of shopping carts are available. For example, www.shopping-cart-reviews.com, managed by Australian Mark Baartse, features information and reviews of 157 shopping carts. “I find that people are overwhelmed by the choice,” he said. “There are just so many products out there that people get confused and flustered, I guess, which is one of the reasons I created my site in the first place.” Baartse said his hope is that ecommerce entrepreneurs might utilize the information on www.shopping-cart-reviews.com to narrow their choice to two or three applications. However, don’t bother asking this Aussie which shopping cart... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:01:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/272/Getting-to-the-Heart-of-the-Cart/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/248/Vertical-Search-Could-Mean-Better-ROI/ Raise your hand if you’ve implemented or managed a Google AdWords campaign for your online business. Instantly, thousands of hands just touched the sky. According to JupiterResearch, advertising trends online have mirrored those in traditional television and print media. What many online businesses have discovered is that while Google’s search capabilities are unmatched, its indexing capacity is becoming tight. Querying a consumer-oriented term can produce a few websites associated with businesses, many of which are Google customers participating in its AdWords program. However, that same search is likely to produce a multitude of personal websites, blogs, news articles and results that are too broad for the criteria. That’s where vertical search comes into play. Think of the burgeoning vertical-search industry as filling the same traditional-advertising niche as the trade magazine, a perfect place for advertisers in need of highly targeted results to... Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/248/Vertical-Search-Could-Mean-Better-ROI/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/173/Accepting-ACH-Payments-and-eChecks/ A consumer must have a credit card to purchase products from an ecommerce site, right? Not necessarily. There are payment-processing options that allow ecommerce operators to deduct the purchase price directly from the bank account of a customer, without the customer having or providing a credit card number. These online processing options are becoming more popular, and are based on the automated clearing house (or, “ACH”) banking network, which is a long-established, federally regulated system that allows banks to send money back and forth to each other. Virtually every bank in the United States is a member of the ACH network and the dollar volume of ACH transactions is huge: $6.3 trillion for Q4 2005. Ken Kaiserman is Managing Member of SportsKids.com, a provider of equipment and services for youth sports. “We sell services to youth sporting leagues via our website,” says Kaiserman. “But, frequently those non-profit leagues don’t have credit cards. So, we use... Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/173/Accepting-ACH-Payments-and-eChecks/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/88/A-Master-Over-Disaster/ Amid the rubble and the heartache caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita were the lost dreams of many a business owner. More than likely, those people affected worst along the Gulf Coast were too concerned for and with their families to consider entrepreneurial ventures. Get my family. Grab a few things. Get in the car. Go. Those fortunate enough to be able to do just that probably did. Others, among the many who live in abject poverty along the base of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, had to ride out the big one. The hurt, pain and loss of countless thousands didn’t make losing a business any less difficult. Developing a commercial venture is like birthing a child, every step is your step and every accomplishment is your accomplishment. Of course, if you were a smart, savvy, forward-thinking ecommerce business proprietor, you knew that developing a business continuity plan should be a procedural given. You knew that transactions could have and should have... Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/88/A-Master-Over-Disaster/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/95/Creating-Your-First-Banner-Ad-in-Photoshop/ As an ecommerce entrepreneur there is no particular reason that you would know what a GIF or a JPEG file is. In fact, it may be that the only tech smarts you have is that you hired someone to build and manage your website for you. However, many entrepreneurs are very hands on, do-it-yourself people that like to maintain control and save some money in the process. In this tutorial we will outline how to create your own banner ads using Adobe Photoshop. Any business owner will tell you that cash flow is the life-blood of a growing company, and saving money is tantamount to making money. Creating and managing your own images, such as banner ads and product photos, can help you to start saving money. While purchasing Adobe Photoshop is not a small investment, it is the industry standard for working with images and should be considered the only option. On the bright side, you can get it used and save a couple hundred dollars, or get it as part of a larger package from Adobe and get more... Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/95/Creating-Your-First-Banner-Ad-in-Photoshop/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/96/Understanding-Online-Advertising-Terms/ In a meeting with a national online advertising vendor the other day, I was amused when I noticed one of our top salesmen sleeping at our conference table. And, by sleeping, I don’t mean that this gentleman nodded off and required a quick nudge. I mean he was out, sawing logs. Who could blame him? Most online advertising meetings are full of buzzwords and terms and acronyms that mean nothing to the good people trying to run an ecommerce business. These people primarily care about converting Web website visits to sales, and the advertising sales people only care about converting you. In order to spend your advertising money wisely, you need to understand the specific language spoken by those in the online advertising industry. This tutorial will serve as a primer, a 101 class in how to get the most out of your online advertising by understanding a few of the most-used industry terms in plain English. Take this knowledge into your next online advertising meeting, and the... Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/96/Understanding-Online-Advertising-Terms/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/97/Displaying-Special-Characters-Using-HTML/ As a business owner, being able to publish your content to the web represents an incredible distribution opportunity. The evolution of web publishing has allowed for nearly any printed materials to be distributed online, often times for a fraction of the expense. One of the challenges of publishing content online is maintaining a certain level of visual consistency. Often times printed materials will contain characters that aren’t obvious how to display in a markup language such as HTML. For example, a copyright statement may have the “©” symbol in it, however there doesn’t seem to be a key for that on the keyboard. What about the registered trademark symbol, accent marks, or even something as trivial as “greater than” and “less than” symbols? Due to the nature of HTML, using some of these symbols can be confusing, but we are about the clear them up. If you use a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) HTML editor such as Adobe GoLive or Macromedia... Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/97/Displaying-Special-Characters-Using-HTML/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/77/Email-Marketing-Cultivating-a-Successful-List/ Many old-school marketers built mailing lists like your favorite aunt would make spaghetti: Cook a ton of it, and throw it against the wall to see what sticks. If any does, you know the pasta’s done. In much the same way, before email marketing developed some semblance of sophistication, marketers would pride themselves on building mailing lists well over 100,000- people strong in hopes of getting a couple thousand conversions. They figured email marketing success was a matter of quantity over quality. The more email we send, the more conversions we’ll garner and – hence – the more money we’ll make. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Spam legislation lowered the boom on purveyors of junk email. Users became savvier themselves, and ecommerce businesses realized that they’d have to get schooled not in the ways of mass communicating with all sorts of potential customers via email but in the ways of developing highly targeted relationships with people who have... Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/77/Email-Marketing-Cultivating-a-Successful-List/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/80/Understanding-Common-Web-Error-Messages/ Over the years in the interactive marketing business, any consultant worth his or her salt has faced the dilemma of assisting a company whose primary issue is that its “Web site broke.” No more information than that. “It broke.” Many a parent can identify with this description as it pertains to children who say that they “hurt,” but can’t identify from exactly where the pain originates. Fortunately for Web consultants — and for ecommerce proprietors — there are and always have been very simple, easy-to-understand error message standards for the Internet. Those messages are your keys to resolving Web problems, for yourself and for your customers. We’ll examine the most common Web site errors, and provide easy ways to resolve them. Let’s say you open a browser, and start surfing your site. Oh dear, you’ve encountered an error message … If it’s: 400 Bad File Request: There is something syntactically wrong with the request from the browser... Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/80/Understanding-Common-Web-Error-Messages/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/81/Securing-an-SSL-Certificate/ Overview How do you know that I am who I say I am? Likewise, how do I know you are who you say you are? And, if we can’t catapult past this initial, basic level of trust – how will we ever be able to conduct business together? In the Web world, it’s done with an SSL certificate. SSL stands for ‘Secure Sockets Layer,’ which protects information transferred conventionally over the Web using encryption enabled by the certificate. According to tech-encyclopedia.com, an SSL digital certificate is “an electronic file that uniquely identifies individuals and servers. Digital certificates allow the client (Web browser) to authenticate the server prior to establishing an SSL session.” In more palatable language, the SSL certificate ensures that each party in an electronic transaction is identified accurately. It is the standard by which electronic transactions can be made with confidence. For example, some folks look for the picture of the padlock in the... Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/81/Securing-an-SSL-Certificate/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/70/Web-Graphics-Why-Are-We-So-Limited/ As a Web designer and developer, I have worked with graphics in a variety of formats. Anybody who uses Adobe Photoshop – the standard for design production in the interactive business – has learned his or her way around JPG, GIF, TIF, EPS, PSD, PCX and BMP files. Those types of files signify characteristics about a given graphic, and are used for specific reasons. For example, some file types are used strictly for print purposes. Others are best used for web display. However, an analysis of graphics production and all your available options begins and ends with some basic rules of the World Wide Web and what browsers will allow. No image is displayed in a browser at any higher than 72 dpi (dots per inch). Period. Save a file at 300 dpi (the most common resolution above 72), and it will still be displayed at 72 dpi. Your effort is essentially wasted. Effective content display on the web depends on the site builder’s ability to keep any page’s overall file-size... Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/70/Web-Graphics-Why-Are-We-So-Limited/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/71/HTML-Primer-for-the-Tech-Challenged/ Considering it’s the 10-year anniversary of ecommerce, we should probably pay homage to the technology that has played the biggest role in allowing online businesspeople to thrive: the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Actually, HTML is officially a teenager. Most historians suggest that Tim Berners-Lee, the acknowledged inventor of the Internet, created the first prototype of this tagging system in 1992. However, that’s not altogether precise considering hypertext, as a means of presenting information on computers, has its roots in academia. According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), hypertext came to life in concept as early as the 1940s. Although already established as a concept by academics as early as the 1940s, it was with the advent of the personal computer that hypertext came out of the cupboard. In the late 1980s, Bill Atkinson, an exceptionally gifted programmer working for Apple Computer Inc., came up with an application called Hypercard for the... Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/71/HTML-Primer-for-the-Tech-Challenged/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/57/Back-to-School-Season-Provides-Lesson-for-eCommerce-Sites/ If you thought the back-to-school season meant little more than pencils and paper, backpacks and new school clothes, you'd be highly mistaken. In the ecommerce community, it provides us a subtle reminder as to the power of teaching our customers about our products and services. That's right. It might be time to take your online audience "back to school." Large software companies have learned the value of online education over the years, offering white papers about industry topics and tutorials for their products or technology. Most large technology organizations employ a few talented marketers in a generic role of "evangelist," somebody designated to spread the word about the company's wares. To site visitors. To the press. To anybody who'll listen. Lucky for everyone else, these big-business lessons can be applied to online businesses as well. Part of the challenge of starting a successful online business is not only in building a relationship with existing customers, but... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/57/Back-to-School-Season-Provides-Lesson-for-eCommerce-Sites/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/58/Attracting-Hispanic-Customers-Online-Not-As-Easy-As-Uno-Dos-Tres/ As online business owners and marketers, you've heard the staggering statistics regarding Internet usage among Hispanics in the United States. Almost 16 million Hispanics will be online by 2007, and their collective buying power is already nearing $600 billion. Why is it that only one-fifth of Web businesses offer Hispanic-centric Web sites and online stores? And, why is it that the vast majority of those businesses provide below average to poor Spanish language offerings? Simple. They focused too narrowly on the language. Like any culture as rich as that pervading the Hispanic community, its complexities and sophistication translate into some significant homework for the small business owner. However, that legwork can pay off handsomely in sales and brand loyalty. Whether it's something as specific as knowing that Mexico, for example, celebrates Mother's Day on May 10 as opposed to the second Sunday of that month, or as general as understanding which colors work best for... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/58/Attracting-Hispanic-Customers-Online-Not-As-Easy-As-Uno-Dos-Tres/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/59/No-Click-To-Pick/ You’ve got nothing to show for it - your online advertising campaign that is. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars out the window after those creative, catchy ads didn’t reel in the customers you hoped they would. Could be that the copy wasn’t quite as striking as you thought. That’s common. Might be that your ads weren’t leading people to the parts of your Web site that would be most likely to induce sales. For example, lots of advertisers promote products, and then point potential customers to the company home page instead of the Web store. Not a good idea. However, there might be another reason your online advertising campaign hasn’t grown the legs needed to make this summer a profitable one: click fraud. A growing problem in the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) services industry, click fraud is reaching epidemic proportions. Click fraud happens when someone or something (a program, for example) repeatedly clicks on your ads without any intention of making a purchase... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/59/No-Click-To-Pick/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/60/SignSupplyStorecom-Keeps-It-Simple/ During the course of building an online business, many eommerce Webmasters find that they morph into proverbial interactive jacks of all trades. In the heart of Kentucky’s Bluegrass region, 34 year-old Lance Coffman is one such renaissance man. The Webmaster for SSK Sign Supply, Coffman has paid the bills these past several years by developing an affinity for all aspects of the Web business: design, site development and data management. Located in Nicholasville, a town of roughly 20,000 people, SSK Sign Supply is a wholesale supplier to sign companies. “You can’t just do one part of (the Web business) and expect to be good,” says Coffman. In January 2005, the Florida native was tasked with enhancing SSK’s online presence and ecommerce store. His first order of business was to convert the company’s static Web site to a dynamic one, with product information stored in databases instead of hard-coded on HTML pages. Coffman’s next challenge was to select a shopping... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/60/SignSupplyStorecom-Keeps-It-Simple/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/63/A-Tangled-Web-We-Weave/ The choice between having nothing nice to say and saying nothing at all, at least on the web, is becoming increasingly easier by the day. Say nothing at all. When the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) was struck down to allow indecent, as opposed to obscene speech, the effect – unintended or otherwise – was to give online service providers immunity from the actions of its customers. While the act was created with obscenity in mind, the CDA was part of the larger Telecommunications Act of 1996, and that piece of law says that your service provider is not liable should you knowingly or unknowingly commit libel on your Web site. However, if you knowingly or unknowingly commit libel on your website, you could be in deep trouble. On the other hand, if you suspect somebody has committed libel against you online, you have the same recourse as if the person had defamed you in the morning paper. In other words, just because the Web seems like a no-rules environment, don’t think... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/63/A-Tangled-Web-We-Weave/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/66/Scope-Dont-Hope/ Among the many perks of running your own business is the freedom to work on your own schedule, at your own pace, where you want and how you choose. However, ask any online entrepreneur, and he or she will likely never get back to you. No time. Too busy. Even if your business is confined to cyberspace, your roles and responsibilities as proprietor probably include everything from accounting to sales, marketing to distribution, human resources to ace psychologist. You do it all; how could you possibly have time to design a better Web site, build a more functional web store or develop more engaging interactive campaigns? If your financial budget is limited – even zero – there’s hope in the basics of project management. In particular, a quick lesson in the concept of scope might turn the seemingly unachievable into your first online sale. For those who didn’t ask themselves why they would ever need a primer or refresher course on the basic principles of project... Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/66/Scope-Dont-Hope/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/55/MistralSoapcom-Doubles-Online-Sales/ In 1993, Matthew Tilker, Mistral Soap’s founder, was studying in Provence, France. There he met a 70-year-old master soap maker. In a family factory, the man crafted soaps according to a 300-year old traditional triplemilling process, always using the finest natural ingredients. The soap maker’s artistry, love of his craft, and extraordinary knowledge and experience in soap making left a lasting impression on Matthew. After returning home to California, Matthew imported soaps directly from Provence and sold them from his mother’s home during the 1994 holiday season. The soaps were so popular that within months Matthew opened the first Mistral boutique on a quaint street in his hometown of Solana Beach, Calif. In 2001, a second Mistral boutique opened in Los Angeles. Currently, the Mistral line offers customers thirty soap fragrances, as well as a full range of Mistral-scented personal care products. In addition to the Mistral stores, customers can shop online at the... Fri, 01 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/55/MistralSoapcom-Doubles-Online-Sales/