Page 73 – Practical Ecommerce

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Payments
Credit Card Processing FAQs, Part 2: Pricing Models

April 6, 2020 • Mike Eckler

Ecommerce merchants depend on credit card payments. But the processing fees associated with those payments are notoriously confusing. This post is the second in a series in which I’ll answer frequent payment-processing questions. The first installment, "Part 1: Learning the Jargon," contained an extensive glossary of common industry terms.
Social Media
17 Free Tools for Social Media Analytics

April 6, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Social media can help brands distribute marketing content and engage customers. Free analytics tools can ensure that a brand's message is connecting with the right audience. Here is a list of useful analytics tools to optimize your social media accounts.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2020

April 5, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic will almost certainly be the top news story in May 2020 as it was in March and April. But there are still opportunities for marketers to publish content that will attract an audience.
Staffing
TaxJar CEO on Managing a Remote, 160-employee Team

April 3, 2020 • Kerry Murdock

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing many companies to adjust to a home-based workforce. TaxJar, a sales-tax compliance platform, has been entirely remote since its founding seven years ago. All 160 employees work remotely, mainly from their homes. Mark Faggiano is founder and CEO of TaxJar. I recently spoke with him about managing a large, distant workforce.
Technical SEO
SEO: Manage Crawling, Indexing with Robots Exclusion Protocol

April 2, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Indexing is the precursor to ranking in organic search. But there are pages you don’t want the search engines to index and rank. That’s where the "robots exclusion protocol" comes into play.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How Sellers Overcome FBA’s Covid-19 Shipping Restrictions

April 2, 2020 • Manish Chowdhary

Less than two weeks ago, Fulfillment by Amazon announced a freeze until April 5 on receiving "non-essential" inventory. Moreover, many sellers with non-essential FBA inventory have seen customer deliveries pushed up to a month. Having no access to the FBA program, some sellers could lose an entire month of revenue.
Business
Covid-19 Grants, Loans Could Help Ecommerce Companies

April 1, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Grants and loans from the U.S. government, state and local governments, Facebook, and Google could help small businesses during the Covid-19-induced economic slowdown.
Business
Free Programs from Ecommerce Service Providers to Combat Covid-19

April 1, 2020 • Sig Ueland

With the massive disruption caused by Covid-19, ecommerce service providers are finding ways to help. Here is a list of free programs from service providers to help fight the pandemic. The programs include grants for small businesses, information technology, fulfillment services, storage, start-up financing, assistance for local businesses, and free meditations to relieve anxiety.
Business
March 2020 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

March 31, 2020 • PEC Staff

Our mission since 2005 is to publish articles, podcasts, and webinars to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in March 2020. Articles ...
Marketing & Advertising
Optimizing Pinterest Titles and Descriptions for Clicks, Leads

March 31, 2020 • Kaleena Stroud

Too often, ecommerce companies consider Pinterest only as social media. But Pinterest is primarily a discovery engine with visual search. It has more in common with Google than, say, Instagram.
Finance
Will ‘Irrational’ Startup Valuations Continue?

March 30, 2020 • Marcia Kaplan

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, IPOs for many start-ups with supposedly bright futures crashed when they entered the public market. Some didn’t even make it that far, canceling in 2019 their public offerings. A disturbing gap between the private and public valuations of venture-capital-funded start-ups has emerged. This divergence will likely continue as many start-ups are remaining private for longer periods of time.
Local Business
Covid-19 Is an Opportunity for Some Local Merchants

March 30, 2020 • Armando Roggio

The coronavirus pandemic is bad news. It has shut down a significant portion of the world's economy and killed far too many people. If, however, you're willing to hunt for a silver lining, the shutdowns and social distancing could be an opportunity for some brick-and-mortar companies to finally get online.
Schools & Resources
11 New Ecommerce Books for Spring 2020

March 29, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Being stuck indoors is an opportunity to catch up on ecommerce reading! Here is a batch of new ecommerce books for spring. There are titles on digital marketing, brand development, artificial intelligence, affiliate marketing, startup financing, and podcasting.
Customer Service
Ecommerce a Crucial Industry in the Pandemic; 7 Ways to Ease the Burden

March 27, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

Online stores will become increasingly crucial in the coming weeks. What follows are seven measures to keep your ecommerce business afloat and ease the burden of operating with limited resources.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Rethink Your Amazon Business after Covid-19

March 26, 2020 • Phil Masiello

For Amazon sellers, the Covid-19 situation is changing every day. As I write this, Fulfillment by Amazon is informing sellers to expect delays in the replenishment of non-essential items.
Analytics & Data
Workarounds for Errors in Google Analytics

March 26, 2020 • Morgan Jones

One-hundred percent of all Google Analytics implementations have broken at some point. The impact can range from minimal to extreme. An ecommerce example is when sales as reported by Google Analytics does not align with actual results from a shopping cart.
Google Ads
Performance Marketing in the Coronavirus Downturn

March 25, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Even in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, ecommerce merchants should optimize advertising campaigns. That includes performance marketing, which is online promotions that cost the advertiser only when a potential customer takes some action, such as clicking a pay-per-click ad or starting a chat on Facebook Messenger.
Business
Iraq War Veteran Fails, then Succeeds, with Men’s Underwear Brand

March 24, 2020 • Eric Bandholz

In 2008 Robert Patton was coming off his second deployment in Iraq with the U.S. Army. “I was going to do 20 years in the Army,” he said, “But I'd already been on two deployments and was scheduled to go back for a third. I had a family. I didn’t want to spend half of my time in Iraq. So I had this idea.”
Conversion
5 Tips to Overcome Covid-19 Supply Chain Disruptions

March 24, 2020 • Gagan Mehra

Covid-19 has disrupted the supply chain by shutting down manufacturers and suppliers in China, the U.S., and elsewhere. This post suggests five ways to overcome this challenge.
Design & Dev Tools
22 Free Web Design Tools from Winter 2020

March 23, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Resources from the design community can add value to your ecommerce site. Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from winter 2020. There are designer and developer apps, coding resources, color tools, fonts, and more. All of these tools are free, though some also offer premium versions.
Technical SEO
SEO: Using Canonical Tags to Reduce Duplicate Content

March 23, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Canonical tags are an essential tool to prevent duplicate content in organic search results. "Canonical" in search engine parlance means the one true page out of potentially many duplicates.
Payments
Credit Card Processing FAQs, Part 1: Learning the Jargon

March 22, 2020 • Mike Eckler

Credit card processing fees are a longstanding pain for merchants. This post is the first in a series in which I'll answer common payment questions. The first challenge is understanding the industry jargon.
Product Pages
Using FAQs to Close More Sales

March 20, 2020 • Pamela Hazelton

There is a page on your ecommerce site that likely needs attention. Perhaps you don't have it, but a frequently-asked-questions page is essential to any online store. Done right, FAQs can close sales.
Business
The Coronavirus Could Drive Car Dealers to Ecommerce

March 19, 2020 • Armando Roggio

Managing the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has led to temporary store closures, social distancing, and economic concerns. People and industries are affected, including car dealers.
Inventory
How to Calculate and Interpret Inventory Turnover

March 18, 2020 • Armando Roggio

How quickly a business sells its inventory is typically a strong indicator of efficiency, cash flow, and general well being. Thus inventory turnover — and the related inventory turnover ratio — is a powerful key performance indicator.
Email & Text Marketing
Hidden Opportunities in an Email Subscriber List

March 17, 2020 • Carolyn Nye

I often write about the value of email data. Email marketing continues to be an effective way to drive sales for ecommerce merchants. And every email database has hidden opportunities, in my experience.
Business
Ecommerce Lessons from the 2008 Crash

March 17, 2020 • Dale Traxler

Back in 2008, just before the Great Recession, I was managing a thriving ecommerce business selling jewelry supplies to crafters, artisans, and professional jewelers. More than 30 percent of our revenue came from selling sterling silver at a very high margin.
Platforms & Apps
17 Collaboration Tools for Remote Workers

March 16, 2020 • Sig Ueland

The recent surge in home-based workers due to the coronavirus has made it a necessity to use tools that allow workers to collaborate from afar. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to facilitate remote work without feeling isolated. Here is a list of collaboration tools for remote workers.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: March 16, 2020

March 16, 2020 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-March from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on digital currencies, multichannel fulfillment, advertising, platform migration, email marketing, same-day delivery, and visual analytics.
Technical SEO
SEO: 7 Ways Ecommerce Sites Create Duplicate Content

March 15, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

I've never worked with an ecommerce platform that was entirely free of duplicate content. Some platforms are better at containing the sprawl. But one change in the settings or the code could accidentally produce duplicates — i.e., different pages with different URLs for the same piece of content.