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.
-
Business
Lessons Learned: 5.11 Tactical Grows to $10 Million in Six Years
January 27, 2010 • PEC Staff
5.11 Tactical is a company that sells specialized clothing and gear to law enforcement and fire protection professionals. Its business model largely relies on a dealer network, but even so, its ecommerce site grosses roughly $10 million per year. That's not bad for a small portion of th...
-
Design & Development
Are PCI Standards Helpful? Take the Survey and Tell Us Your Views
January 26, 2010 • PEC Staff
Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards represent the credit card industry’s attempt to self-regulate and protect consumers’ credit card data. The PCI Security Standards Council, which five major issuers (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB) formed in 2006, organizes and ...
-
Business
Quick Query: Volusion COO on Platform Upgrades, Tips to Merchants
January 26, 2010 • PEC Staff
Volusion is an early-day hosted shopping cart platform that has grown to represent 18,000 online stores. The company has recently upgraded its platform and to explain those upgrades, among other ecommerce topics, we spoke with Volusion's chief operating officer, Clay Olivier. PeC: ...
-
Technical SEO
Ask An Expert: How to Redirect URLs Without Losing Link Juice
January 21, 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 redirecting users from old URLs to new ones. It comes from Brian Rogers, web merchandising manager for 511 Tactical, an online (and ...
-
Design & Development
Quick Query: mPayy CEO Explains Mobile Payments
January 20, 2010 • PEC Staff
Mobile devices could be the next major platform from which consumers shop for products. But, for ecommerce merchants, there are issues with mobile commerce having to do with screen size, product images, and payments. Payments on a mobile device, from a consumer to a merchant, can be dif...
-
Business
Merchant Talk: Etsy Seller Enjoys the Artistic Community of the Marketplace
January 18, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Merchant Talk" is a weekly discussion with an actual ecommerce merchant. For this installment we visited with Laurie Marshall who sells hand-sewn crafts and vintage goods on Etsy.com, an online marketplace for artists and craftspeople. Marshall runs two stores on Etsy, Punkinhead.ets...
-
Marketing & Advertising
Ask an Expert: Get More Traffic Without Spending a Fortune
January 8, 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 increasing site traffic from Rob McClintock, owner of Healing Leaves, an online store that sells natural health products. For the ...
-
Business
Quick Query: ProStores Exec Lin Shearer
January 7, 2010 • PEC Staff
The start of the year brings new energy and vitality for many online merchants. Many of them are looking to jump start sales, trim expenses and otherwise grow and improve their businesses. For ideas to help merchants will all of this, we spoke with a seasoned ecommerce expert. He's Lin ...
-
Cross-border Selling
Ask an Expert: European Payment Solutions
December 30, 2009 • 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 concerning European payment solutions from Rashda Ali, commercial manager, Europe, with Comvita.com, a New Zealand-based retailer of healt...
-
Business
Quick Query: Full Sail Educator on Online Learning
December 28, 2009 • PEC Staff
There are numerous options for ecommerce merchants who want to learn new skills that can be applied to their business. Full Sail University is one of those online options. With a physical campus in Winter Park, Florida, the university offers online programs in fields such as web design ...
-
Business
Internet Attorney on Online Defamation
December 24, 2009 • PEC Staff
Nearly every ecommerce merchant has experienced disgruntled customers or angry competitors who post dishonest comments about his or her business. This could be in so-called complaint sites, forums, blogs or other online venues. Internet attorney John Dozier of the law firm Dozier Intern...
-
Business
Ask an Expert: Managing Outside Developers
December 21, 2009 • PEC Staff
Editor’s Note: This is the inaugural edition of "Ask an Expert," a new Practical eCommerce feature in which ecommerce merchants submit a question to be answered by a fellow merchant or an industry colleague. Our goal with “Ask an Expert” is to allow you to tap into the collective know...
-
Business
MonsterCommerce Co-founder Stephanie Leffler ‘Juggles’ New Venture
December 15, 2009 • PEC Staff
Stephanie Leffler started selling sun protection products online while in college. That was around the year 2000. She became frustrated with her web developer and she decided to produce, with her partner, a shopping cart herself. That cart became MonsterCommerce, an early day hosted ...
-
Schools & Resources
Booklist: McAfee VP Stuart McClure
December 9, 2009 • PEC Staff
In “Booklist” we ask Internet professionals about the books and blogs they read, and why. For this list, we asked Stuart McClure, vice president and general manager risk and compliance unit ...
-
Marketing & Advertising
Quick Query: SocialGrub Founder on Social Media Tools
December 7, 2009 • PEC Staff
Social media has become mainstream and businesses are increasingly turning to it to interact with their customers and boost the company bottom line. SocialGrub is a new service that brings social marketing tools to the restaurant and retail industry. For this "Quick Query" we spoke wi...
-
Business
Merchant Talk: Self-published Author Migrates to Ecommerce
November 26, 2009 • PEC Staff
“Merchant Talk” is our weekly discussion with a practicing ecommerce merchant. For this installment, we visited with Jill Exler, the founder and CEO of Jexbo.com, an ecommerce site for ...
-
Business
Quick Query: Internet-related Patents In Jeopardy, Attorney Says
November 25, 2009 • PEC Staff
Doing business on the Internet requires the use of sophisticated software and complicated processes. Many of these innovative products have been patented. Google, Amazon and others hold many hundreds of patents, but the U.S. Supreme Court may be about to greatly restrict the issuance ...
-
Business
QuickBooks 2010 Helps Merchants “Go Paperless”
November 23, 2009 • PEC Staff
QuickBooks is the leader in small-business accounting software. According to Intuit, which produces QuickBooks, nearly 50 million people use it or a similar Intuit product. Intuit releases a new version of QuickBooks annually. The 2010 version was just released on Intuit's site. The ...
-
Business
Bloglist: Sean Schofield, Creator of Spree Ecommerce
November 19, 2009 • PEC Staff
"Bloglist" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce professionals the blogs that they read and why. For this installment, we asked Sean Schofield, the creator of the Spree open-source ecommerce platform and a Practical Ecommerce blogger.
-
Conversion
Video Helps Ecommerce Merchants, Expert Says
November 18, 2009 • PEC Staff
Video provides a compelling way for retailers to sell products. But is it for every ecommerce merchant and is it being fully utilized? One man who has a strong opinion on the matter is Justin Foster. He is the founder of The Video Commerce Consortium. It's a group of ecommerce profe...
-
Business
Quick Query: Shopping Cart Developer on PCI Compliance
November 16, 2009 • PEC Staff
Editor’s note: Payment Card Industry compliance is a requirement for ecommerce merchants. In an email to Practical eCommerce, PCI Security Standards Council General Manager Bob Russo stated, “All businesses that accept credit card data must be compliant with the DSS (Data Security Sta...
-
Business
Merchant Talk: Cynthia Snyder of YonderStar.com
November 9, 2009 • PEC Staff
Merchant Talk is a weekly discussion with an actual ecommerce merchant. The new Practical eCommerce segment gives small, online business owners an opportunity to hear from their peers in the ecommerce space. For this inaugural Merchant Talk we spoke with Cynthia Snyder, owner of YonderS...
-
Business
Quick Query: NearbyNow Retools for the Recession
November 4, 2009 • PEC Staff
Running a business is challenging in the best of economic climates, but during a recession it can be especially trying. Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow, understands that. NearbyNow was founded in 2005 to simplify shopping for consumers who browse online but buy in physical stores. The...
-
Design & Development
Quick Query: Comparison-shopping for Credit Card Processors
October 26, 2009 • PEC Staff
The merchant account business is confusing for many ecommerce merchants. Many of them simply use the merchant account and payment gateway providers offered by their hosted solutions without much questioning whether the fees and rates are competitive. PCI compliance is another confusin...
-
Schools & Resources
Booklist: Braintree CEO Bryan Johnson
October 26, 2009 • PEC Staff
In "Booklist," we ask Internet professionals to name books they believe are useful resources for ecommerce merchants. For this installment, we asked Bryan Johnson, the CEO and founder of Braintree Payment Solutions. Braintree provides online credit card payment processing and PCI compl...
-
Business
Quick Query: Attorney Explains New FTC Blogging Guidelines
October 20, 2009 • PEC Staff
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has updated its rules concerning endorsements and testimonials in advertising. Beginning December 1st, the FTC will require bloggers and other reviewers to disclose any payments or free products they receive from advertisers. Julie O'Neill, with the W...
-
Schools & Resources
Booklist: MailChimp Co-founder Ben Chestnut
October 20, 2009 • PEC Staff
In Booklist we ask ecommerce personalities about the books they read and what they like about them. For this list we asked Ben Chestnut, co-founder of MailChimp, a self-service email marketing firm. As the MailChimp website explains, the company was built on the pragmatic notion tha...
-
Conversion
Google Analytics “Inaccurate,” Expert Says
October 19, 2009 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants use Google Analytics to track visitor activity on their websites. But there are other analytics firms, too, that offer services to merchants. One of them is ClickTale, an Israel-based firm with over 35,000 clients, according to its co-founder. That co-founder i...
-
Marketing & Advertising
Search Engine Rankings: Google Continues Dominance
October 15, 2009 • PEC Staff
Google continued to dominate the U.S. search market in September, according to comScore, the Internet tracking firm. Google sites accounted for 64.9 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! sites (18.8 percent), and Microsoft sites (9.4 percent). The analysis focused on t...
-
Platforms & Apps
ProStores, Magento Add Features to Existing Platforms
October 14, 2009 • PEC Staff
ProStores, the eBay-owned hosted shopping cart, and Magento, the open-source ecommerce platform, have both announced new upgrades to their existing products. ProStores Adds Feeds, Other Features ProStores has added five primary enhancements to its cart. They are: Feeds to theFind.c...
Did Google Just Prevent Rank Tracking?
Google-Criteo Deal Unlocks Retail Media
Visa’s VAMP Could Cost Banks and Merchants
Google PMax Unveils Optimization Tools
Can AI Send the Perfect Ecommerce Promo?
New Ecommerce Tools: September 10, 2025
SEO for AI, Low Traffic, No Clicks
Tariff Turmoil: How Ecommerce Brands Can Still Win