http://www.practicalecommerce.com/authors/17/Kerry-Murdock/ Kerry Murdock is the publisher of Practical eCommerce magazine. He can be reached at kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com. en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:39:22 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/380/Welcome-to-the-New-Practical-eCommerce/ Practical eCommerce is changing, growing and improving. Our new website is bigger, more interactive and completely free. This follows from user recommendations and from dynamic changes in the media marketplace generally. Readers can now post comments to each article. Our new ecommerce glossary encourages submissions and comments from readers, who can also post entries to our ecommerce events calendar and ecommerce press releases. We've added new ecommerce-related blogs, a store to purchase back issues (in print or as a digital download) and enhanced RSS feeds. Our new enewsletter, EcommerceNotes, will publish twice-weekly. Our podcasts, which are popular at both iTunes and at our own website, will continue to grow, as will our online community forum. We've redesigned our printed magazine, which will shift to a bi-monthly (six times per year) schedule. Each printed issue will have more features, more departments and more useful, down-to-earth content. We continue to... Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:39:22 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/380/Welcome-to-the-New-Practical-eCommerce/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/306/Email-as-a-Mini-sale/ Sales professionals have a notion of “mini-sales.” A mini-sale occurs when a prospect agrees to learn more about you or your product, but has not yet agreed to a purchase. Say, for example, that you sell cleaning supplies to restaurants. You may call a restaurant owner and ask him to purchase your cleaning supplies and the restaurant owner may promptly say “no.” Conversely, you may call the restaurant owner and ask him to meet with you to discuss your cleaning supplies and the restaurant owner may say “yes” to meeting with you. That “yes” is a mini-sale. The owner has not agreed to buy your products, but he has agreed to meet with you and learn more about them. The mini-sale is a necessary step for you to ultimately sell your products to the restaurant owner. Email marketing, say many experts, greatly facilitates mini-sales for an ecommerce business. A prospect may read advertising from an ecommerce business or may visit the owner’s website. The visitor may... Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:30:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/306/Email-as-a-Mini-sale/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/284/Email-Marketing-Open-Rates-and-Click-Throughs/ The "FROM:" line in an email is the most important factor to getting it opened. “Email marketers should use a consistent ‘From:’ address, and it must be recognizable to their customers,” says Gail Goodman, chief executive officer of Constant Contact, a self-service email-marketing firm. “The first question your customers will ask is, ‘Do I know this person or this company?’ If the ‘From:’ line does not address this basic question, your customers will most likely not open it.” Chris Baggott, chief marketing officer and co-founder of ExactTarget, another email marketing firm, agrees. “The ‘From:’ line is key. It must be the same from email to email. And I prefer to see someone’s name here. A ‘From:’ line of ‘info@‘ is bad. People like to hear from other people, and not from institutions, which is what ‘info@‘ implies. An institution.” Past history with receiving your emails is the second most important factor to getting an email... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:13:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/284/Email-Marketing-Open-Rates-and-Click-Throughs/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/254/Email-Marketing-Fosters-Long-Term-Relationships/ The use of email is changing the way businesses communicate with their customers. Rather than using email solely to offer products for sale, many businesses now use it to communicate helpful information to shoppers who request it. This helpful information creates a relationship with a shopper who can, in time, turn into a customer. Say, for example, your business sells sewing machines online. Consider placing a “request more information” link beside each of your sewing machines. To supply this information, you could compose an email in advance and automatically send the information when a shopper requests it. Once you’ve written and formatted the email, it requires no more of your time. And the cost of sending it is close to free. Say, too, that you sell tennis racquets online. Offer complimentary tennis tips to your online shoppers, and then send the tips in a series of emails. Cooking supplies? Send recipes via email. Clothing? Send washing instructions via email.... Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/254/Email-Marketing-Fosters-Long-Term-Relationships/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/235/How-To-Steal-Credit-Card-Numbers/ At SecurityFocus.com, Internet programmers can post the details of various software bugs to assist other professionals. These software bugs could include shopping carts, payment gateways, Unix code and more. The helpful programmers always supply, by name, the software manufacturer and the name of the program. "Credit card thieves continually monitor sites like SecurityFocus.com," says Dan Clements, CEO of CardCops.com, a Los Angeles-based security firm that consults with banks and other firms on credit-card fraud. "Once a programmer posts a vulnerable piece of software there, the hackers add it to their scanning programs and then search for ecommerce sites that use the flawed software." For example, say a programmer discovers XYZ Shopping Cart contains code that is vulnerable to hackers. He might post that code onto a site like SecurityFocus.com. A thief could then copy that code, add it to his scanning program and search the Internet for sites that use XYZ Shopping Cart.... Sat, 01 Jul 2006 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/235/How-To-Steal-Credit-Card-Numbers/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/217/Quick-Query-ProStores-Julian-Green/ In January 2005, eBay Inc. purchased Kurant’s StoreSense, an online ecommerce provider. Using Kurant’s technology, eBay subsequently launched ProStores, an ecommerce solution for small to medium-sized merchants. ProStores has since signed up “tens of thousands” of online merchants. Julian Green is Director of ProStores, and we asked him a few questions about that company and about eBay. Why should an ecommerce merchant use ProStores? ProStores combines the ecommerce knowledge, history and success of eBay Inc. with an award-winning product that had already been very successful in the marketplace. Regardless of a merchant’s experience and knowledge with building an online store, ProStores has tools for each comfort level. For those with limited knowledge of coding and general online store set-up, ProStores includes set-up wizards that guide a merchant through each process. For those with advanced knowledge, ProStores has a Macromedia Dreamweaver extension to allow... Thu, 01 Jun 2006 09:46:33 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/217/Quick-Query-ProStores-Julian-Green/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/215/Robust-International-Market-for-Stolen-Credit-Card-Numbers/ Think of it as sort-of a smorgasbord. For one dollar, a thief can purchase a stolen credit card number. He could buy it from another thief in one of hundreds of online, international chat-rooms set-up for that purpose. For three dollars, he could buy the credit card number with the three-digit security code. For five dollars, he could also acquire the pin number for that card, and for, maybe, ten dollars, he could buy the cardholders’ social-security number and mother’s maiden name. “The majority of stolen credit cards come from hacked ecommerce sites,” says Dan Clements, CEO of CardCops.com, a Los Angeles-based security firm that monitors the dishonest chat rooms and reports the stolen data to banks and other companies. “The chat rooms are themselves hard to find, but, once located, we’ll monitor them continuously for stolen data.” Clements continues, “The international market for stolen data is robust and thriving. The prices for the stolen data are somewhat... Tue, 30 May 2006 23:34:11 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/215/Robust-International-Market-for-Stolen-Credit-Card-Numbers/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/190/eCommerce-Dictionary-Hosting-Terms/ Affiliate Program An affiliate program is any type of revenue sharing program where a webmaster or website receives a portion of income for generating leads, traffic or sales through a graphic or text link to a merchant website. Alias A name that points to another name. Aliases are used to make the original name easier to remember or to protect the site's identity. Applet An applet is an embedded program on a website.Applets are usually written in the coding language called Java. They are normally used for creating a virtual object that may move or interact with the website. An applet is like a small piece of executable code that needs a full application to run it. Active Server Pages (ASP) Active Server Pages allow web developers to make their sites dynamic with database driven content. The code is mainly written in Visual Basic Script, and it is produced on the server of the website instead of the browser of your website visitors. The server reads the ASP code and... Mon, 01 May 2006 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/190/eCommerce-Dictionary-Hosting-Terms/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/196/Web-Analytics-Data-Collection-Methods/ Web analytics software helps ecommerce operators understand what their online visitors are up to. Which search engine did the visitors come from? How long did they remain on the site? Which web pages did they exit the site from? And so forth. Utilizing the data that web analytics packages provide can help an ecommerce operator improve his business. Understanding how the data is collected can help an operator understand web analytics. “There are two ways in which web analytics packages collect data,” says John Marshall, President of ClickTracks, a web analytics provider. “Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. An ecommerce operator needs to understand each of them to follow how his particular analytics package works.” The first approach, according to Marshall and other experts, is known as the “log file” method. This process refers to the trackingfiles that are routinely stored on a web host’s server. These files automatically record visitor... Mon, 01 May 2006 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/196/Web-Analytics-Data-Collection-Methods/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/199/Quick-Query-Jeremy-Hanks/ What's Doba.com? Doba.com helps simplify product sourcing. That is, we streamline product sourcing for the emerging market of web-based entrepreneurs starting and growing a retail business. Our web-based platform empowers entrepreneurs to find and sell products, and suppliers to connect to retailers. By aggregating product distribution and purchasing power through a single connection point, Doba creates unique opportunities for suppliers and retailers. How can it help smaller ecommerce sites? Every retail business needs a consistent and reliable source of products to sell. Finding that source of products is frequently the first roadblock that new entrepreneurs face. Do you recommend drop shipping? Yes. Drop shipping is invaluable for ecommerce businesses. By drop shipping, the retailer ships product directly to the customer from the supplier’s warehouse. The retailer never touches the product. This process minimizes the risk to retailers because they do not... Mon, 01 May 2006 12:00:00 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/199/Quick-Query-Jeremy-Hanks/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/168/Credit-Card-Processing-How-It-All-Works/ The credit card processing system is confusing. The players are numerous and the process is complex. To understand how it all works, it helps to grasp the types of companies that are involved, and how much money they typically charge for processing a transaction. David Schwartz is director of marketing at a leading payment gateway, Authorize.Net. He says, “This is by far the most complex industry I have ever been associated with. I always tell new employees to give themselves six to nine months to become comfortable with the lingo and to understand how the payment processing system works.” Diagrams of the process can also help. Schwartz continues, “We added a detailed ‘how it works’ diagram to our new corporate website in March 2005. It has since become one of the most visited pages, proving that people want to better understand how a payment is processed.” To understand the payment process, Schwartz suggests a working knowledge of the participants and the... Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/168/Credit-Card-Processing-How-It-All-Works/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/171/Web-Analytics-Translating-the-Wall-of-Data/ Assume an ecommerce operator launches a paid-search advertising campaign. That is, assume the operator purchases several keywords on Yahoo! Search, Google, MSN and others, and then assembles text ads on those search engines to attract visitors to his site. Assume that the campaign starts and the website traffic increases. The campaign, we’ll assume, appears to be working. “When monitoring a paid search campaign,” says John Marshall, President of ClickTracks, a company that provides software to analyze the online behavior of website visitors, “It’s essential to segment visitors to a website. You need to know if the visitors are coming from paid-search listings or free organic-search listings. We’ve seen sites that generate the most visitors from paid-search listings, but generate the most sales from free organic-search listings. It’s the sales increase that’s important, of course, and not merely visitors.” Segmenting visitors to a website is a basic feature of... Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/171/Web-Analytics-Translating-the-Wall-of-Data/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/180/Quick-Query---Melih-Abdulhayoglu/ Internet commerce depends on safe and secure transactions. Because of that, we’ve asked a few questions to Melih Abdulhayoglu, an Internet security expert and CEO of Comodo, a leading provider of security software and encryption products for smaller ecommerce merchants. What does is identity theft look like on the Internet? Identity theft is when a person's "digital identity" is stolen. This can include key personal data such as banking, credit card and even social security numbers. The information can be misused by fraudsters in three ways: (a) fraudulent purchases, (b) fraudulent financial transactions, and (c) providing false ID's for criminals. It used to be that people stole wallets to get this information. Now, unfortunately, fraudsters hack into websites, computers, or pretend to be legitimate businesses to get private identity details. Give us some examples of identity thefts. Take “phishing”. Phishing are emails purporting to come from a trusted company,... Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/180/Quick-Query---Melih-Abdulhayoglu/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/153/Analytics-Software-Improves-Paid-Search-Campaigns/ John Marshall wants to know what happens after the click. Marshall is CEO and founder of ClickTracks, a company that provides software to analyze the online behavior of website visitors. “It’s not enough to purchase keywords on a search engine merely to attract visitors to a website,” says Marshall. “They must be the right type of visitors. Our analytics software helps website operators make decisions so that their paid search listings actually make them money.” Experts agree that buying keywords on a search engine without testing and tracking those keywords will bring, at best, mixed results. What’s important, say the experts, is to use quality analytics software that follows purchased keywords and keyword-phrases from the moment a visitor clicks on a sponsored search ad (on a search engine) to the visitor’s activity on a website. For example, say a website owner, we’ll call him Dave, sells video cameras. Say Dave purchases the phrase “cheap video cameras”... Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/153/Analytics-Software-Improves-Paid-Search-Campaigns/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/136/Affiliate-Marketing/ Andy Newlin works for SierraTradingPost.com, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Sierra Trading Post is an ecommerce merchant that sells outdoor gear and clothing, and Newlin is its Online Marketing Manager. He oversees the affiliate marketing efforts of the site. “Most any online merchant can utilize affiliate marketing,” says Newlin. “We’ve been using it for five years, and we are absolutely pleased with the results. It enables us to create partnerships with niche, high-traffic websites around the globe, and the results have been outstanding. We view these affiliate websites as strong business partners that together comprise a commission-only sales force. We have thousands of these affiliate partnerships.” What is affiliate marketing? Newlin’s analogy of a “commission-only sales force” may be the best way to describe affiliate marketing. Say a merchant, we’ll call her Sue, has an ecommerce site that sells gardening supplies. Say Sue’s friend, we’ll call him Bob, has... Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/136/Affiliate-Marketing/