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
What’s Selling, What’s Hot and How to Find It
June 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Are you searching for the next trendy gadget to sell at your online store? Many people are looking to catch lightning in a bottle, but locating trends in the marketplace requires thought, research and analysis. Find Clues to New Trends There are resources for online entrepreneurs who ...
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Conversion
Itching to Expand Your Product Niche?
June 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
After years of tinkering in his woodshop making bird houses, Bob said to himself, “I ought to be selling these bird houses on the web.” After construting a quick website, Bob is open for business, and, before long, Bob could be itching to expand his online inventory. It’s no secret tha...
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Business
Product Sourcing: What Not to Do
June 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
One thing an entrepreneur shouldn’t do is search online for “wholesale supplier” or “drop ship” when trying to locate a wholesale partner. This is according to Chris Malta, founder and CEO of Worldwide Brands, Inc. “You can look online all you want to,” said Malta, “but you won’t find ...
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Business
Drop Shipping: Pros and Cons
June 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Drop shipping remains a hot topic among etailers but, even though it has many benefits, it isn’t the best option for every business. A drop shipper is a product supplier who is willing to ship individual orders. Usually when products are purchased for resale, you have to buy them in bu...
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Conversion
Grow Profits by Split-Testing Ads
June 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Successful business owners and marketing professionals know that great results from advertising are rarely owed to luck and guessing. Whether they specialize in online or offline promotion, they have known for years that the secret to achieving high return of investment is through split...
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Business
Sourcing Options for eCommerce Firms
May 31, 2006 • PEC Staff
Finding products to sell remains one of the hottest topics for online entrepreneurs, and it’s the top question eBay Radio gets from its listeners, according to Chris Malta, Product Sourcing Editor for The eBay Radio Show and Founder and CEO of Worldwide Brands, Inc. Malta defines produc...
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Conversion
Consider a Catalog to Enhance Your eCommerce Business
May 30, 2006 • PEC Staff
A print catalog and an ecommerce store work extremely well together. The strengths in each channel complement the other’s weaknesses, and consumers frequently browse the catalog first and then go online to purchase the products. The tangible nature of a print catalog makes it great for...
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Design & Development
Hosting Companies: Many Options for eCommerce
May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
It may seem like a daunting task to locate the right domain-hosting firm for your business, as there seems to be an endless sea of options. Wading through the many choices in the web hosting market can be frustrating and confusing. Rather than looking for a hosting company that offers ...
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Design & Development
Control Panels Help with Website Management
May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Long gone are the days a user must contact his Internet service provider or domain hosting company to make changes to an account, add an email address, renew a domain or inquire about bandwidth usage. The advent of the control panel has placed immediate control in the hands of the accou...
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Design & Development
Web Servers: Shared, Dedicated, and Virtual-Dedicated
May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
When selecting a domain host for your business, one of the earliest questions you’ll need to resolve is whether you want a shared, dedicated or virtual-dedicated hosting plan. The main difference between dedicated and shared hosting is how the web server is utilized. In a shared enviro...
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Conversion
2nd Tier Search Engines – Are They Worth It?
May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
As far as most advertisers are concerned, there are only two pay-per-click search engines that deserve their attention - Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. After all, these are the most popular search engines that dominate the industry in terms of traffic, technology, and popu...
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Business
Payment Options and Simple Checkout
May 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
A truly successful and customer service friendly ecommerce shop will have an intuitive and welldesigned checkout system. The more difficult it is to purchase something from you, the less likely a customer will try. Here are some tips to ensure you’re running a customer service-friendly ...
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Fraud Prevention
Payment Processing: Choose the System that Fits
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
One of the most critical decisions business owners have to make is how they are going to process payments from their website. Entrepreneurs frequently find themselves asking if a merchant account is what they need or if they need a private payment system (a “PPS”) such as PayPal or the ...
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Design & Development
Accepting ACH Payments and eChecks
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
A consumer must have a credit card to purchase products from an ecommerce site, right? Not necessarily. There are payment-processing options that allow ecommerce operators to deduct the purchase price directly from the bank account of a customer, without the customer having or providin...
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Fraud Prevention
Winning the Fight Against Click Fraud
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
If somebody were to tell you that 20% of your advertising budget was being wasted on fraud, would you be worried? If you advertise on pay-per-click search engines, such as Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), MIVA, or others, you have reason to be concerned. Acc...
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Business
TheGroceryGame.com Scores With Coupons
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Owner: Teri Gault URL:Thegrocerygame.com Established: 1999 Products: Weekly list of grocery coupons; system for saving on groceries. Shopping Cart: Custom Payment Gateway: Authorize.Net Quote: "I calculated that I made 80 cents per hour my first year." When Teri Gault and her fami...
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Conversion
Finding Loyal Customers in Cyberspace
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
This year, one of the most popular topics at online industry conferences such as eTail and Shop.org’s FirstLook has been the development of customer loyalty in the fickle medium of the world wide web. While returning visitors are the norm for sites like Amazon and eBay, for the most par...
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Conversion
Seals Help Boost Customer Confidence
April 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Have you ever been shopping on a website and noticed a seal at the bottom that proudly boasts their security level, or maybe how customer service friendly they are? Did you feel better about buying from that site once you saw that? Perhaps you did, and you would be one of many people th...
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Conversion
Attracting Local Customers Using Pay-Per-Click
March 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Many business owners have a perception that just because they cater to a local market, they can’t use the power of online advertising to attract new customers. The reality is quite different. Recent developments in the pay-per-click industry allow even the localized business to get in ...
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Conversion
Helpful Websites That Sell
March 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
It’s easy to publish an inventory of merchandise on a web page, but we’ve discovered a few sites that get a leg up on the competition by adding relevant content to aid in their sales. After all, when you’re operating in a medium that’s always been associated with the free distribution o...
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Conversion
Respond to Your Customer. Now.
March 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
One of the most frequent complaints from ecommerce customers is the inability to receive timely answers from a website. I’m always shocked at the number of websites that provide only a “contact us” form, with no phone number or other contact information. In my view, those sites deserve ...
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Conversion
Seeing Stars on the Web
February 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
As awards show season gets under way, celebrity fashion will be receiving a tremendous amount of global press, even more so than your typical Hollywood-obsessed news day. Outside of Los Angeles and New York, capitalizing on this high product visibility has never really been an option fo...
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Conversion
Minimize Customer Complaints
February 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Step Two: Send a follow-up email within a week of the customer receiving their product or service. Keep the email short, and encourage the customer to click on a link to take them to the form you created. Be sure to explain in your email that the form is very brief and will only take a ...
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Marketing & Advertising
Pay-per-click Tools Maximize Your Time
February 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
As a business owner and entrepreneur, you know that there are two things you can always use more of - money and time. While you are likely to increase the first item by reading this column, you can also free up more time by automating the management of your search marketing campaigns. ...
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Marketing & Advertising
Be Careful of the Number 1 Spot
January 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
Pay-Per-Click advertising works in an auction-based format, since there are a number of advertisers competing for the same keywords. The higher you bid, the higher your ad will appear. Bids can range anywhere from a few cents to several dollars per click, based on how competitive the in...
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Conversion
Customer Service Focus – January 2006
January 1, 2006 • PEC Staff
As I have mentioned many times before, communication is the key to excellent customer service. One of the primary ways that merchants communicate with customers is via email. Steve Walker, owner of Rescuepetstore.com said, “If I don't receive proper notification and follow-up from an e...
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Business
eCommerce Sales Taxes: Determine Your Liability
December 1, 2005 • PEC Staff
Nexus – What Is It? Nexus is defined as a “connection” or “link.” In the world of lawyers, accountants and auditors, a nexus is an effective connection of a person or a company to a state so that the state has the ‘right’ to enforce its laws, and more importantly, its tax rules, agains...
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Marketing & Advertising
Use Google’s Site Targeting
December 1, 2005 • PEC Staff
Google advertisers, rejoice! If you ever wished you could pick and choose which sites across Google AdSense network your ads will appear, now you can! In a recent development, Google AdWords introduced a new advertising model called Site Targeting, which gives you the ability to target...
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Conversion
Home Pages for the Holidays
December 1, 2005 • PEC Staff
With winter approaching, it’s time to start thinking about those holiday decorations, parties and gifts that will make the long, cold nights feel a little warmer and brighter. Whether you celebrate religiously or purely for the fun of it, here are a few sites that prove a little devotio...
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Conversion
Customer Service Focus – December 2005
December 1, 2005 • PEC Staff
This month we are focusing on a several online businesses to see how different merchants deliver excellent customer service. We asked four merchants what was the single most important thing they did to deliver quality customer service. Marilyn Lysohir, Owner of CowgirlChocolates.com sa...
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