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Design & Development
Mobile Broadband Growth Slowed in Fourth Quarter 2008
April 14, 2009 • PEC Staff
The growth in new mobile broadband subscriptions fell significantly in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a new report. The total mobile PC data card subscriber base grew 5 percent in the final three months of 2008, compared to 22 percent growth in the prior quarter, according to...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Quick Query: Amazon Exec Explains ‘Selling on Amazon’
April 13, 2009 • PEC Staff
Online retailers are frequently interested in new channels to sell their products. Merchants can consider auction sites and comparison-shopping sites, for example. And there's also Amazon.com. Amazon competes with many smaller ecommerce merchants, but also allows those merchants to list...
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Business
Quick Query: Listrak CEO on Email Geo Tracking
April 6, 2009 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants rely on email marketing and many of them, we suspect, wish they could monitor and track emails based on where a recipient lives. Geo tracking would allow for this. To find out more about geo tracking, we interviewed Ross Kramer, CEO of Listrak, an email marketin...
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SEO
Search Engine Friendly Shopping Carts?
April 2, 2009 • PEC Staff
Practical eCommerce will soon publish our "Shopping Cart Roundup" PDF guide. This guide will offer suggestions for choosing the shopping cart that best fits a merchant's needs. It will also list every shopping cart company that we know of. One question that most all merchants have in e...
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Business
Quick Query: Joe Dolson of Accessible Web Design
March 30, 2009 • PEC Staff
There are millions of disabled Internet users who are unable to use a website in a traditional manner, and making sure a site functions for sight impaired, deaf or disabled users is called "accessibility." To learn more about the topic, we spoke with Joseph C. Dolson, president and foun...
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Design & Development
PCI Compliance: Frequently Asked Questions
March 26, 2009 • PEC Staff
Payment card industry compliance is confusing for many ecommerce merchants. But it potentially affects every merchant that accepts credit card payments. Failure to understand the PCI compliance standards could result in higher merchant account fees and fines from the credit card issuers...
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Platforms & Apps
Calling All Carts for the Shopping Cart Roundup
March 25, 2009 • PEC Staff
Choosing the right online shopping cart is one of the most important decisions an ecommerce merchant will make. And carts are possibly the hottest topic we regularly explore here at Practical eCommerce. This has prompted us to develop a comprehensive guide of every known shopping cart o...
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Business
Quick Query: MailChimp CEO on Email Strategy
March 23, 2009 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants rely on email newsletters and email marketing to drive sales, but the success of those email campaigns varies. There are frequently issues related to open rates, click-through rates and even deliverability of the email itself. To offer insight and suggestions on...
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Design & Development
Calling All Carts
March 16, 2009 • PEC Staff
Practical eCommerce is soon to publish our first annual “Shopping Cart Roundup” guide. The purpose of this PDF guide is to help ecommerce merchants locate the right cart for their businesses. We’ll explain the shopping cart features that we believe are important to look for, as well as ...
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Conversion
Ecommerce Widgets Tap Into Blogs, Social Media
March 11, 2009 • PEC Staff
Widgets can help ecommerce merchants display their products on blogs and social networking sites. Many merchants are doing this already, and at least one shopping cart vendor offers a pre-built widget to assist its merchant customers with this opportunity. ProductCart is a California...
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Business
Quick Query: UPS VP on Shipping Service Upgrades
March 9, 2009 • PEC Staff
The shipping of products is a crucial function for most every ecommerce merchant and there's no company more prominent in the shipping business than UPS. UPS has recently upgraded its "UPS Ready" program and we invited Jordan Colletta, vice president of customer technology marketing, to...
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Business
Questionable PCI Compliance Fees?
February 27, 2009 • PEC Staff
Merchant account providers will often automatically assess payment card industry (PCI) compliance fees to all of their ecommerce-merchant customers. However, many merchants don't qualify for full PCI compliance, and we wondered if some of them are being charged unfairly. We recently ask...
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Business
Quick Query: Prime Visibility CEO on Domain-Name Marketing
February 24, 2009 • PEC Staff
The use of additional domain names can help an ecommerce firm expand its reach. We asked Andrew Hazen to explain how this can work. Hazen is a web marketing pioneer and the founder and CEO of Prime Visibility, a Long Island, New York-based Internet marketing firm that specializes in sea...
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Business
Quick Query: Rackspace Executive on Hosting Trends
February 20, 2009 • PEC Staff
John Engates is chief technology officer for Rackspace, a preeminent hosting company. Rackspace was launched in San Antonio in 1996 and now, in 2009, the company's stock is publicly traded. Rackspace's 2008 revenues exceeded $500 million and they have data centers located around the glo...
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Schools & Resources
Booklist: Ruby on Rails Creator David Heinemeier Hansson
February 13, 2009 • PEC Staff
Booklist is an occasional feature where we ask Internet personalities about the books they read, and why. For this installment, we’ve asked David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the Ruby on Rails software framework. Heinemier Hansson created Rails in 2004 while a student in Denmark...
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Business
Quick Query: Internet Attorney John Dozier on eCommerce Law
February 11, 2009 • PEC Staff
Internet law is rapidly evolving and ecommerce merchants face legal issues that were unheard of just a few years ago. No one knows this more than John W. Dozier, Jr., the founder and president of Dozier Internet Law. Dozier has practiced law for over 25 years and, during that time, was ...
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Design & Development
Quick Query: Nextopia CEO on eCommerce Site Search
February 5, 2009 • PEC Staff
The ability for consumers to search the Internet for products and services is critical for the success of many smaller online businesses. Increasingly, the ability for those same consumers to search a specific site for products and services is just as important. A robust site search can...
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Schools & Resources
Booklist: Sagefire CEO Has "Standby" Books and "Recent Reads"
February 4, 2009 • PEC Staff
J.P. O'Brien is CEO of Sagefire, Inc., a Boulder, CO based software firm that produces KeepMore.net, the popular online accounting package. O'Brien tells us about books that are timeless for him, as well as newer books that keep him engaged and entertained. "Standbys" and "recent read...
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Conversion
Quick Query: Volusion CEO on Factors that Create Ecommerce Success
January 22, 2009 • PEC Staff
Certain ecommerce businesses succeed, while others do not. To help understand why this is, we spoke with Kevin Sproles, the founder and CEO of Volusion, a hosted shopping cart with more than 10,000 clients, including notable sites such as Disney and Crutchfield. PeC: Tell us why y...
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Business
Credit-Card Processing from an iPhone
January 21, 2009 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants carry a mobile device, such as an iPhone or a Blackberry. An increasing number of third-party software applications run on these devices. Many of these applications can benefit ecommerce merchants and one example is "Credit Card Terminal," an iPhone app that all...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: SearchFit
December 19, 2008 • PEC Staff
There are over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In our ongoing “Cart Of The Week” feature, we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we’ve profiled SearchFit, a hosted cart with offices in Carlsbad, Cali...
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Conversion
SMS Marketing Helps eCommerce Firms, Expert Says
December 16, 2008 • PEC Staff
Text marketing to mobile phone users can help ecommerce merchants. mobileStorm is a marketing company that focuses on such text, or SMS, marketing services. mobileStorm’s CEO is Jared Reitzen, and we spoke with him about what, exactly, SMS marketing is and how it can assist ecommerce ...
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Business
Profile: eCommerce Owner on Benefits of Niche Retailing
December 11, 2008 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants occupy niches within a general industry. Spotlight Retail is one of those merchants, but in Spotlight's case, it occupies 20 separate niches around one corporate umbrella. The entrepreneur behind Spotlight Retail is John Montague, the company's owner and day-t...
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Conversion
Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman: Marketing in a Down Economy
December 3, 2008 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants rely on email marketing to communicate with their customers. Constant Contact is, perhaps, the largest self-service email marketing firm and Practical eCommerce recently spoke with Constant Contact’s CEO, Gail Goodman, about the slow economy, email marketing, an...
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Conversion
Great Ideas for The Holidays: Part 1
November 26, 2008 • PEC Staff
For many merchants, the holiday season is the largest sales period of the year. In this “Great Ideas for the Holidays” series, we’ll be asking ecommerce experts for ideas to help online retailers. For this first installment, we’ve asked Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of Early Impact, which publ...
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Business
SellPoint CEO on Video and Its Impact On Conversion Rates
October 20, 2008 • PEC Staff
The use of video and rich media can enhance an ecommerce site. SellPoint is a firm that provides video and rich media (for free) to ecommerce merchants and we’ve asked ...
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Business
TopTenWholesale.com CEO On Vertical-Search PPC Opportunities
October 12, 2008 • PEC Staff
Many ecommerce merchants run pay-per-click ad campaigns on the major search engines. But Jason Prescott, CEO of Toptenwholesale.com, argues that merchants can obtain a higher return-on-investment by advertising on specialized ...
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Business
RatePoint CEO On Reputation Management
September 22, 2008 • PEC Staff
With the existence of social networking and consumer review sites, disgruntled customers can post negative comments about an ecommerce merchant and cause lasting harm. Neal Creighton is CEO of RatePoint,
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Marketing & Advertising
Cleverbridge VP On Selling Digital Products
September 5, 2008 • PEC Staff
Craig Vodnik is vice president, North America, for Cleverbridge, an ecommerce platform that helps online merchants sell software, music and other digital products. Vodnik joins Practical eCommerce’s Kerry Murdock,
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Design & Development
Comodo CEO On EV SSLs, Site Seals
August 30, 2008 • PEC Staff
Melih Abdulhayoglu is founder and CEO of Comodo, a firm that provides Internet-security and fraud prevention services to ecommerce and other web-based firms. Adulhayoglu received in 2008 an Ernest &