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
Mercado Software’s Sue Chapman, Part 2
October 5, 2007 • PEC Staff
Callahan and Sue Chapman, director of merchandising solutions at Mercado Software, discuss how online retailers should prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season, includng how to fine tune a website ...
-
Conversion
Local Pay-Per-Click Opportunities For Small Businesses
October 3, 2007 • PEC Staff
It’s been over a year and a half since I last covered the local pay-per-click market for Practical eCommerce. If there is one thing you can depend on, it is that this industry does not stand still. It’s definitely time to go over the latest opportunities and trends in the local pay-per-...
-
Business
Mercado Software’s Sue Chapman
September 28, 2007 • PEC Staff
Sue Chapman, director of merchandising solutions at Mercado Software, discusses how online retailers should prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season, includng how to fine tune your website for the ...
-
Business
Callahan Is Joined By Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke, Part 3
September 21, 2007 • PEC Staff
Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke continues his discussion of the intricacies of product photography.
-
Business
Bloglist: Jakob Nielsen
September 17, 2007 • PEC Staff
In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked the Nielsen Norman Group’s Jakob Nielsen, whom The New York Times has called the guru of web page usability. Paidcontent.org Daily coverage of “the business of content,” as ...
-
Business
Callahan Is Joined By Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke, Part 2
September 13, 2007 • PEC Staff
Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke discusses the intricacies of product photography.
-
Conversion
Quantifying Conversion Funnel Opportunities
September 12, 2007 • PEC Staff
In my last article, I discussed the practice of breaking the ecommerce conversion funnel down into four distinct transition points to help establish benchmarks and to locate and isolate the greatest opportunities for profitable improvement. Measuring these transition points is a valuabl...
-
Business
Quick Query: Avalara Founder Rory Rawlings
September 10, 2007 • PEC Staff
Rory Rawlings is the founder and chief tax automation officer of Avalara, Inc., a Washington-based firm that provides sales-tax-compliance applications for ecommerce merchants. PeC: Avalara helps ecommerce firms manage sales tax compliance. Could you explain? Rawlings: There are ove...
-
Business
Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke
September 7, 2007 • PEC Staff
Callahan is joined by Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke. The two discuss the latest in photography, including tips and tricks for product photography.
-
Business
Sunfitters.com's Bill Mirabito
September 4, 2007 • PEC Staff
Launching a business takes a tremendous amount of planning and research, but launching a multichannel endeavor within a 12-month period can provide a unique set of challenges. Bill Mirabito, founder and president of Sunfitters, has done just that. In November 2006, the company launched...
-
Conversion
Product Spotlight: Photo Editing, AudioFlash And More
August 28, 2007 • PEC Staff
Web-based Photo Editing Picnik is a web-based photo editing service that is accessed through your computer's browser. Users can quickly fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye or apply effects to photos. Minimum hardware requirements are Microsoft Windows XP or Mac OS X, with a 1GHz pr...
-
Platforms & Apps
Debate: Hosted Shopping Carts ‘Perfect For Most Entrepreneurs’
August 27, 2007 • PEC Staff
1ShoppingCart is a hosted shopping cart with thousands of small business customers. Michael Valiant, 1ShoppingCart's product management and marketing specialist, offers his views on hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a hosted shopping cart, versus pu...
-
Platforms & Apps
Debate: Licensed Carts Offer Flexibility and Portability
August 27, 2007 • PEC Staff
ProductCart is a licensed shopping cart used by thousands of ecommerce merchants. We asked its CEO, Massimo Arrigoni, whether licensed shopping-cart software is better for smaller businesses than hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a licensed shopping...
-
Business
Insider Hosting’s CEO Steve Mizrahie
August 22, 2007 • PEC Staff
Callahan is joined by Insider Hosting’s CEO, Steve Mizrahie.
-
Business
GuardedID’s George Waller
August 22, 2007 • PEC Staff
There are so many ways for thieves to steal identities that it's hard to keep up with it all. Take, for example, keylogging. This occurs when thieves track the keystrokes of unsuspecting Internet users via surveillance software, called a keylogger recorder. If a thief can successfully i...
-
Conversion
Five Ways To Prepare Your Website For Universal Search
August 20, 2007 • PEC Staff
The way Google handles search is changing. You may not have heard of universal search yet, but it is going to affect the way your website and your company show up in search engine results, at least for Google. You may have noticed that pictures, videos and even press releases are showin...
-
Conversion
Consumers Want Merchandise Their Way
August 13, 2007 • PEC Staff
At the e-tailing group, we continue to believe a two-faceted convenience will drive new prospects to test the online shopping waters, which generally results in the web receiving a greater share of this customer’s wallet. Consequently, what follows are some of the highlights from the e-...
-
Business
Convention(al) Wisdom: The Best Pay-Per-Click Seminars
August 8, 2007 • PEC Staff
One fortunate thing about being in the pay-per-click industry today is that there is easy access to a lot of useful and high-quality information. Whether it is magazines (such as this one), blogs, websites, and conferences and tradeshows — all are meant to help you grow your business th...
-
Conversion
Maintaining Sanity Amid Multiple PPC Campaigns
August 1, 2007 • PEC Staff
Pay-per-click search engine campaigns are becoming sophisticated to the point that they frequently require a full-time resource to manage them. In the small-business world, that’s a problem considering most small businesses don't have the funds to hire somebody full time to do that work...
-
Business
Matthew MacDonald, Author Of Creating Websites Part Two
August 1, 2007 • PEC Staff
Listen in as Practical eCommerce Contributing Editor Pat Callahan is joined by Matthew MacDonald, author of Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual for the second part of this interview. The ...
-
Business
Netshops.com Finds Its Niche
July 29, 2007 • PEC Staff
Company Name: NetShops Established: 1999 Revenue: About $62 million Products: Niche specialty stores Shopping Cart: Custom Quote: "We saw the opportunity to acquire and build sites...around a specific need." NetShops launched its first site in 2001 and in the past six years has amass...
-
Business
Matthew MacDonald, Author Of Creating Websites
July 26, 2007 • PEC Staff
Listen in as Practical eCommerce Contributing Editor Pat Callahan is joined by Matthew MacDonald, author of Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual. The conversation includes a topical discussion about the ...
-
Business
Bloglist: Marshall Sponder
July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff
In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked Marshall Sponder with Now.SEO. Name: Marshall Sponder Company: Now.Seo and IBM.com Blogs: Webmetricsguru.com, Artnewyorkcity.com Contributor to: Smartmobs.com, Biggreenblog.com ...
-
Business
Earn An Ecommerce Degree
July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff
Many online entrepreneurs may feel like they have earned an ecommerce degree from the school of hard knocks. However, for those interested in a more traditional education experience, there are degree programs specializing in ebusiness. Bachelor and master's degrees in ecommerce are ava...
-
Business
The Ins And Outs Of Importing
July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff
Importing can provide your ebusiness with cutting-edge products at rock-bottom prices. But it's a complicated process, and not one you want to go through alone. "Customs brokers and freight forwarders are your gateway into the world of international trade," explained Customhouse Broker...
-
Business
Learning Bookkeeping Basics
July 12, 2007 • PEC Staff
Poor financial management is one key contributor to why more than 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years of existence, according to the Small Business Administration. Because ecommerce has such low barriers to entry — a few bucks for a hosted shopping cart and a fe...
-
Business
Boosting Your Programming Skills
July 4, 2007 • PEC Staff
If you're tired of calling your web design firm every time you want to make a minor tweak to your site, there are online courses you can take to boost your knowledge in HTML, JavaScript, cascading style sheets and more. In fact, there are so many online options to improve programming s...
-
Conversion
Six Surefire Ways To Boost Sales
July 2, 2007 • PEC Staff
I would venture to say that not a single website in the world has reached its peak of effectiveness or earnings potential. No matter the circumstances, every site can "better its best." If a "magic" formula for website success existed, you'd see the big boys like Google and Yahoo using ...
-
Conversion
Google AdWords: It Just Keeps Getting Better
July 1, 2007 • PEC Staff
Over the past few months, Google has announced a number of new features in the AdWords interface. Some are relatively minor and simply affect the interface; some offer new functionality and a lot of value to the advertiser. Either way, they can help you run your AdWords campaigns more ...
-
Design & Development
Quick Query: Alternative Payment Option eBillme
June 27, 2007 • PEC Staff
Marwan Forzley is president and CEO of online payment alternative eBillme (Modasolutions.com), formerly known as SECURE-eBill. How does a consumer use eBillme? Forzley: When you are at the checkout, there are all kinds of payment options. You've got Visa, MasterCard and American Exp...
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