PEC Staff
Practical Ecommerce is a leading online magazine for ecommerce businesses. Its mission is to provide independent editorial and commentary to help merchants of all sizes.
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Business
Mobile Bandwidth: An Expert Explains 3G, 4G, WiFi
November 11, 2010 • PEC Staff
The usability of a mobile website frequently depends on the speed of the wireless connection. A mobile user with a 3G cellular connection, for example, would likely be frustrated with the relative slow response to a WiFi-optimized mobile site. But what, exactly, is the difference betwe...
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Conversion
SLI Systems CEO on Mobile Commerce, Mobile Search, and the iPad
November 11, 2010 • PEC Staff
Merchants contemplating mobile optimized sites may also consider specialized mobile site search. SLI Systems is a provider of ecommerce site search solutions and that company has just launched a mobile search option. Shaun Ryan is the company's CEO, and he recently discussed mobile co...
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Design & Development
Merchant Shares Experiences with Mobile-Optimized Site
November 8, 2010 • PEC Staff
Ecommerce retailers who contemplate mobile commerce must ask several questions. One is whether to develop a mobile-optimized site or a mobile app. Another is whether to include special mobile search. And there are other questions, too. One ecommerce firm that developed its own mobile-op...
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Conversion
Serial Entrepreneur Explains Venture Capital Process
November 4, 2010 • PEC Staff
The lack of capital can prevent an ecommerce business from growing. But many merchants are unsure as to how to obtain capital, or how the funding process works. RatePoint, the platform for offering ratings and reviews, recently announced that it has raised $7 million in funding, and we ...
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Design & Development
Switch to Cloud Hosting Pays Off for SoundsTrue.com
October 28, 2010 • PEC Staff
Every ecommerce site has a web host. Some are hosted by shopping cart providers; others are hosted by third-party companies. And increasingly, many are hosted by cloud providers, where bandwidth and usage can adjust with the seasonal needs of a site. One ecommerce company that has recen...
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Design & Development
ThePopcornFactory.com VP Touts New Mobile Version
October 26, 2010 • PEC Staff
Many merchants, large and small, are contemplating their mobile commerce strategies, and one merchant that has just launched a mobile version of its ecommerce site is The Popcorn Factory. The person responsible for marketing that company and that site is Tom Russell. He's senior vice pr...
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Design & Development
Interview: Subscription Revenues Can Supplement Ecommerce Sales
October 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
The notion of adding additional revenue to an ecommerce business presumably appeals to merchants. And, increasingly, one way to do that is with the use of subscriptions. Amazon Prime may be the best example of a merchant selling subscriptions, but there are many ways smaller merchants c...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Tips for Improving Drop Shipping and Inventory Management
October 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
Autumn provides a not-so-subtle reminder that the holiday season is in swing. I recently moderated "Manage Inventory and Drop Shipping for the Holiday Rush," a Practical eCommerce webinar, on this very subject. It featured Anne Pingree, senior sales engineer with Infopia, the hosted s...
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SEO
Ask an Expert: Subdomains, Subdirectories and SEO Implications
October 20, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a series of questions on the proper use of subdomains. For the answers, we turn to Michael Stearns, CEO of the Internet marketing and design company...
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Marketing & Advertising
Facebook Privacy ‘Breach’ Versus Public Information
October 20, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Facebook in Privacy Breach" is the title of the recent Wall Street Journal article. It describes the transfer of Facebook user IDs from Facebook application providers to data gathering companies. But Facebook user IDs are public and are otherwise embedded in the URLs of Facebook acco...
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Business
Lessons Learned: TheUncommonDog.com, Uncommonly Successful
October 13, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we spoke with Greg Jerum. He is the CEO of TheUncommonDog.com, a ...
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Design & Development
Preparing for Mobile Devices: Commonly Asked Questions
October 8, 2010 • PEC Staff
The shift to a mobile web has many ecommerce merchants wondering what their options are. Should they develop a mobile-optimized site that can be displayed by common web browsers? Or, should they develop platform-specific applications for iPhone and Android devices? And, importantly, how...
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Marketing & Advertising
5 SEO Reminders That Can Drive Holiday Traffic
September 23, 2010 • PEC Staff
As we head into the holiday season amid mixed economic signals, merchants are looking to maximize visibility while keeping expenses in check. In a recent Practical eCommerce webinar we reviewed some easy-to-implement SEO tips with Andreas Ryuta Stenzel, online marketing manager with TRU...
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Marketing & Advertising
Merchants React to Google Instant
September 23, 2010 • PEC Staff
Google Instant, the new auto-fill search query process, could impact traffic to ecommerce sites. We asked four ecommerce merchants how Instant, which Google launched on Sept. 8, is affecting their traffic and how they plan to react to it. Their responses are below. Traffic Up by 20 Pe...
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SEO
Google Instant: 9 Frequently Asked Questions
September 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
Roughly half of the visitors to an ecommerce site come from search engines, typically. And when those search engines change the method in which consumers search for online products, the effect on ecommerce merchants can be dramatic. Enter Google Instant, the new auto-fill search proces...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Free Shipping Helps, Says Bike Retailer
September 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we visited with Todd Henley, president of Makai’s, an online retailer of ...
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Conversion
‘Spotlight Visualizer’ Simulates How a Product Will Look in Local Environment
September 13, 2010 • PEC Staff
Ecommerce merchants are innovators. And many in that industry are finding new and better ways to sell products online. One of those companies is Spotlight Retail, an ecommerce firm with 30 niche websites. Its new "Spotlight Visualizer" enables consumers to see how an item will look in t...
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Conversion
Increase Holiday Profits with Drop Shipping, Better Inventory Management
September 9, 2010 • PEC Staff
Holiday sales are vital for most ecommerce merchants. But the selling process can be a management headache when a merchant is juggling many different suppliers, sales channels, and stocking requirements. Couple those challenges with trying to decide which products to promote, and what t...
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Business
Financial Management Key to Small Businesses, Says NetSuite Exec
September 9, 2010 • PEC Staff
Financial management is critical to ecommerce companies. But the tools to manage financial matters vary, and many of them don't automatically integrate with a merchant's ecommerce site, making the financial tracking and reporting process even more burdensome. To help us understand finan...
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Conversion
Ten Must-Do Items This Holiday Season
September 7, 2010 • PEC Staff
It’s September and the holiday season has already begun for merchants and shoppers. In a recent Practical eCommerce webinar entitled “Ten Ecommerce Strategies for Holiday Success,” Make-a-Store Chief Marketing Officer Derek Stringfellow offered 10 tips merchants can apply now for more s...
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Marketing & Advertising
Social Media to Change Ecommerce?
September 1, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Social commerce" is the merging of ecommerce with social media sites, such as Facebook. It could change the way consumers buy, and retailers sell. In an upcoming webinar entitled "500 Million People and Growing: The Facebook Conversation Turns to Commerce," we will help merchants unde...
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Marketing & Advertising
Ask an Expert: Does the Magento Platform Create SEO Obstacles?
September 1, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, Andrew Casey of 877MyJuicer.com asks about search engine optimization and the Magento platform. For the answer, we turn to our own senior contributing editor, ...
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Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 5
August 27, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, we are publishing a few good holiday-selling tips, from experienced ecommerce professionals, each week. Our fifth, and final, installment is below. Anticipate Microsoft, Yahoo! PPC Integration "Build out and optimize your Mi...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Candle Retailer Regrets Custom Shopping Cart
August 26, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we visited with Logan Suttman, CEO of Black & Light Co., which ...
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Business
Comparison Shopping Engines: Strategies for Smaller Merchants
August 25, 2010 • PEC Staff
Comparison shopping engines can drive traffic to an ecommerce site. But there are over 120 such engines, and how to decide which of them to use and whether to use them at all are questions many merchants have. We spoke with Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, a leading ecommerce software...
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Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 4
August 20, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, we are publishing a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our fourth installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Test for Usability Issues “Find usability issues by using new crowdsourcing servic...
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Conversion
Nuts and Bolts of Holiday Selling
August 18, 2010 • PEC Staff
The factors that determine a successful holiday season are oftentimes not the creative or extravagant ones, but rather the nuts and bolts of addressing critical areas of your business. We've identified 10 such "nuts and bolts" strategies to contemplate in “Ten Ecommerce Strategies for ...
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Design & Development
Synchronized Applications Transformed Two Businesses
August 17, 2010 • PEC Staff
InkJetSuperstore.com and Wrigleyville Sports were once losing customers and sales. Now they are both successful and growing. In fact, just prior to a recent Practical eCommerce webinar, InkJetSuperstore.com CEO Ilan Douek spilled the beans about his prior day’s order volume. It was more...
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Link Building
Ask an Expert: Do No-Follow Links Help with SEO?
August 16, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about the search-engine-optimization value to no-follow links on social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and StumbleUpon. The question come...
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Conversion
Holiday Tips for 2010, Part 3
August 13, 2010 • PEC Staff
The 2010 holiday season is nearly here. With that in mind, Practical eCommerce is publishing a few good holiday-selling tips each week. Our third installment, provided by experienced ecommerce professionals, is below. Be Everywhere “Signup and post products in shopping comparison en...
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