Marcia Kaplan

Articles by: Marcia Kaplan

Marcia Kaplan

Marcia Kaplan is a longtime contributor to Practical Ecommerce, addressing capital markets, global online trends, and more since 2011.

She is also a seasoned business writer and technology market research analyst, having written for trade magazines and newspapers, including CRN, Silicon Valley Business Journal, and Ziff Davis. Her consulting clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as startups

Marcia holds an M.B.A. from San Jose State University in California and a B.A. in sociology from Binghamton University in New York.

Email Marcia.

Design & Development
Mobile Devices Capture Increasing Share of Holiday Shopping

November 29, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

While overall online commerce showed impressive gains over last year's Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday, the real standout this year was mobile commerce. Compared with the same period in 2011, mobile grabbed a much larger share of both shopping and actual purchases. According to IBM’...
Finance
Third-Quarter Ecommerce Results Bode Well for the 2012 Holiday Season

November 15, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

The growth in online purchasing continues. In a survey of 1,989 online consumers conducted during the last week of October, digital-tracking firm comScore found that In Q3 2012, online sales grew 15 percent over the same period last year, compared with a two percent year-over-year growt...
Conversion
Marketing to the Online Hispanic Consumer

October 11, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Can you afford to ignore 33.5 million U.S. Internet users? Probably not. It might be a bit more difficult to market to the Hispanic population but it's certainly worthwhile. Hispanics have substantial purchasing power and they shop online. Over 50 million people in the U.S. are of Hispa...
Conversion
Understanding Affluent Male Online Shopping Behavior

September 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When ecommerce was in its infancy, consumers used the Internet to purchase basic items such as books and CDs that usually didn't involve size, quality, color, or style issues. Shoppers knew what they were getting and choices were based almost solely on price. Slowly, the array of goods ...
Finance
Ecommerce Shines in the Second Quarter of 2012

August 23, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

The first half of 2012 continued the 2011 fourth quarter trend of strong ecommerce growth. In Q2, online retail grew nearly four times the rate of total consumer spending in the U.S., according to ecommerce research firm comScore. The Census Bureau reports that U.S. ecommerce sales in Q...
Finance
Ecommerce Acquisitions, Mergers, and Partnerships — What You Need to Know

August 8, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

In the late 1990s, ecommerce vendors looked to brick and mortar retailers for marketing tips and best practices. Now, as more people shop online and abandon brick and mortar stores, retail chains are turning to online merchants for advice. That's because web-only sellers have shown th...
Local Business
Showrooming Challenges Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

July 25, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Last December, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Amazon aggressively promoted its price-checking mobile phone application by giving shoppers five percent off items on Amazon that they scanned while in brick-and-mortar stores. The application, which compares store prices wi...
Amazon & Marketplaces
ShopRunner May Help Merchants Compete with Amazon Prime

July 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

For consumers, the cost of shipping has been one of the major drawbacks of ecommerce. During the last holiday season, free shipping made a comeback as merchants tried to ensure that consumers would buy online. So popular was the promotion many merchants continue to offer it. Now, with t...
Finance
Investment in Ecommerce Firms Robust

June 14, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

While the poor showing of Facebook in its initial public offering last month has immobilized the market for Internet companies wanting to sell stock to the public, the overall investment climate remains strong. Merger and acquisitions activity in the ecommerce arena has remained robust ...
Conversion
Online Apparel Sales Explode

May 10, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Books, music, software, and consumer electronics have been the mainstay of ecommerce transactions since online sales began. Apparel is now the fastest-growing segment — by growth percentage — in ecommerce thanks to the greater sophistication of shopping tools, free shipping, and more fl...
Finance
Going Public? How to Decide Which Exchange to List On

April 20, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Thinking about taking your company public? After you get through all the paperwork you will have to decide at which stock exchange you want to list your company. Each publicly traded company may trade shares on only one domestic stock exchange. Substantive differences exist among the ex...
Finance
Equity Crowdfunding Is Now Legal in U.S.

April 10, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Last week President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) that includes revisions to the 1930s era financial regulations that limited equity funding for start-up businesses. Equity crowdfunding is now legal in the U.S. The final bill is more restrictive than ...
Finance
Kabbage, A Funding Source for Ecommerce Merchants

March 15, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When we first first wrote about Kabbage just over a year ago, it was a fledgling endeavor with only eBay merchants as customers. But Kabbage now serves merchants who use Yahoo! stores, Etsy, Amazon, and Shopify, as well as eBay. In July Kabbage will be launching in the U.K., its first ...
Social Media
How Does Facebook Make Money?

February 10, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Facebook has finally filed its long anticipated SEC S-1 registration to take the company public. The filing is straightforward, lacking any surprises or innovative accounting techniques that other recent registration statements have offered. Nevertheless, the investment community and th...
Conversion
Daily Deals: A Good Investment for Merchants?

January 16, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Daily deal sites generated a lot of news and excitement in 2011 — mostly from the consumer perspective. I thought it would be useful to review some of the key factors in deciding whether participating in daily deals is a good idea for merchants. Some commentators have suggested that "d...
Payments
Layaway: Retro Purchasing Process Reappears Online

January 3, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Layaway made a big retail comeback in 2011, with stores such as Sears, Walmart, and Kmart encouraging customers to take advantage of this retro purchase technique. Walmart discontinued layaway in 2006 but brought it back in 2011 for fine jewelry, toys, and electronics. Sears and Kmart o...
Finance
Zynga Falters in Public Debut; Affects Facebook?

December 26, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The market for technology stocks is closing the year on a less than happy note and the disappointing public debut of online game provider Zynga did nothing to change the mood. Zynga's Opening Day Zynga's IPO was highly anticipated despite the fact that in the days prior to going publ...
Finance
6 Internet Stock Offerings in 2011; Recap

December 19, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Although 2011 is not yet over, it appears it will be a dismal year for the IPO — initial public stock offering — market. As of September, according to statistics compiled by market tracker Dealogic and reported in The Wall Street Journal, 63 percent of all 76 IPOs were trading below the...
Conversion
Behavioral Differences Between Men and Women Influence Shopping

December 9, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Retail is the dominion of women; they shop to purchase both essential and discretionary goods, to relax, and to socialize. So it's not surprising that women account for over 80 percent of consumer spending, or about $5 trillion dollars annually, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Men,...
Conversion
Analyzing Cyber Monday Sales

December 2, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Black Friday and Cyber Monday were greatly anticipated by merchants and consumers and the results did not disappoint. Online sales on Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion according to Internet tracking firm comScore, making it the biggest online spending day in history. Revenues increase...
Finance
Crowdfunding: 5 Things You Should Know

November 24, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

New crowdfunding sites are springing up every month and more and more entrepreneurs are looking to these sites for money. Despite all the hoopla, crowdfunding is not currently a good alternative for most start-up or small businesses. Here are five things you should know about crowdfundi...
Influencers & Affiliates
Celebrity Curators Help Personalize Ecommerce

November 18, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

How do you stand out in a crowded market with a sizeable number of players competing mostly on low prices and free shipping? By differentiating yourself. Several ecommerce websites are melding social media with personalization to create a more inviting and collaborative shopping experie...
Finance
Venture Capital Firms Bullish on Ecommerce

November 10, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

In "Ecommerce Companies Snag Venture Capital," I discussed several ecommerce firms that recently received venture capital funding. Most of them were ecommerce infrastructure providers. I was curious to find out if VCs prefer business-to-business infrastructure companies to consumer-ori...
Finance
Banks React to Durbin Amendment

November 4, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

When the Durbin Amendment regulating interchange fees on debit card transactions took effect October 1, it appeared that merchants could accrue some cost savings on debit card transactions and perhaps leverage their savings by encouraging customers to use debit cards in lieu of credit c...
Finance
Ecommerce Companies Snag Venture Capital

October 25, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

While venture capital funding has generally been in the doldrums this year, a few ecommerce software companies — and even some online sellers — have managed to attract equity investors.
Business
14 Online Resources to Help Start a Small Business

October 21, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

If you are a discouraged job hunter or someone who has always wanted to be an entrepreneur, you will be pleased to know that the Internet offers an array of resources to help you find the right path to being your own boss. Following are 14 online resources that offer assistance to bud...
Business
10 Online Legal Form Providers

October 19, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Hiring attorneys for issues such as incorporation, contracts, or business sales can be extremely expensive for small businesses. The Internet provides less expensive alternatives, with templates offered by a number of firms. The most commonly available forms are for incorporation or LLC...
Conversion
Selling Luxury Goods Online

October 14, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The wisdom of selling expensive, high-end goods online has been debated since ecommerce became a reality. Many brands fear that products will lose their prestige if sold online. Purveyors of French luxury brands such as Chanel have been especially disdainful of ecommerce. In his book, T...
Google Ads
Paid Search: Can Anyone Challenge Google?

October 12, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

We can end the suspense right now. It's not likely that any other company is going to be a real contender in paid search anytime soon. The Search Alliance formed by Microsoft's adCenter and Yahoo! makes Bing the default search engine on Yahoo! pages. Although Microsoft has spent a good ...
Conversion
Understanding the Shift to Online Shopping

October 6, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Defying the general economic gloom, ecommerce sales have registered seven consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue gains since Q4 2009, with some in double digits. The last three quarters (Q4 2010 through Q2 2011) showed gains of 11, 12, and 14 percent respectively, the best perfo...