Category

Amazon & Marketplaces

In an ecommerce world increasingly dominated by Amazon and other huge marketplaces, we address how independent merchants can best use those channels to grow their businesses and brands. We analyze selling tools, listing optimization strategies, multichannel selling options, back-office efficiencies, pros and cons, common mistakes, and much more.

Amazon & Marketplaces
6 Things to Love About eBay Product Pages

July 3, 2015 • Armando Roggio

Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the original ecommerce pioneers. So it would stand to reason that as eBay has gone from startup to earning more than $17.9 billion ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
5 Tradeoffs for Selling on Amazon

June 23, 2015 • James Thomson

For six years I worked for Amazon, most recently as head of Amazon Services, that part of Amazon that recruits 100,000 new sellers to the Amazon marketplace each year. During my tenure, feedback ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Sues Fake Product Review Websites

April 23, 2015 • Marcia Kaplan

Ecommerce merchants know the importance of favorable customer reviews. Results of a 2013 survey of 1,046 American consumers by research firm Dimensional Research show that 90 percent of consumers who ...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
The end of automated Amazon repricing?

December 15, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

We all know of Black Friday and the sale prices offered on that day to kickstart holiday sales. But the repricing software Repricer Express created an entire new meaning to ...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
Amazon’s version of Christmas customer care

December 7, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

At this time of year, more than any other time, you have to work harder at customer care. This is due to two main reasons. Firstly, you have a much ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
SEO: Optimizing Product Content on Amazon

November 14, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

In “SEO: The Case for Optimizing Amazon,” my article last week, I reviewed the growing importance of optimizing products for Amazon’s massive internal search engine. In this article, I’ll describe ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
SEO: The Case for Optimizing Amazon

November 7, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

Some ecommerce businesses, especially those that manufacture the products they sell online or acquire their products at a deep discount, are experimenting with optimizing on Amazon alongside their existing websites.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Is Amazon Planning a Shipping Revolution?

October 2, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Amazon is rapidly adding new fulfillment centers, sorting packages for carriers, and even delivering some orders directly to customers. Could these initiatives hint at a revolution in ecommerce shipping? The answer ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
ShopRunner Joins Forces with Alibaba to Sell in China

August 14, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

When I last wrote about ShopRunner two years ago, the company’s main marketing pitch was its free two-day shipping and free returns with a $79 annual membership or an $8.95
Amazon & Marketplaces
6 Tips for Making Money on Etsy

May 16, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Etsy is a marketplace for crafts, art, and vintage items that empowers home-based entrepreneurs, collectors, and handicraft makers to sell their products to an audience of millions. But like any ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba IPO Likely Largest in U.S.; Analysis

May 15, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

The Alibaba Group, the Chinese ecommerce juggernaut founded in 1999, is likely to become the largest U.S. IPO of all time. The company earlier this month filed papers to begin ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
SEO: Why Amazon’s Navigation Works So Well

April 11, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown

Judging by the number of Google searches for which Amazon ranks, it’s easy to see that Amazon is doing a lot right when it comes to search engine optimization. It’s ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Raises Fee for Prime Shipping

March 17, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

After floating the idea that it might raise the fee for Prime shipping to $119 from the current $79, Amazon settled on a $20 increase, to $99 per year. In ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Anticipatory Shipping: Amazon’s Approach to Influencing Purchases

March 12, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

One Amazon obsession is faster package delivery. When CEO Jeff Bezos shared his idea of delivery by drone with 60 Minutes, many ridiculed him. Now Amazon has a new idea ...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
Does 2014 mark the beginning of the end for Amazon?

January 31, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

Probably not, but it is certainly going to be a difficult year for Amazon in Europe. Legislation in Europe is significantly different than in the U.S, in two major ways,
Amazon & Marketplaces
Data Feeds Critical for Multichannel Success

November 14, 2013 • Dale Traxler

What do Amazon, TheFind, Sears.com, Rakuten.com, Shopping.com, Google Merchant, mShopper, Nextopia, SLI Systems, Catalogs.com, Shopzilla, Commission Junction, and Vendio have in common? They all require a data feed of your products.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba User Experience Director on Design, Usability

September 27, 2013 • PEC Staff

The appearance and functionality of an ecommerce site affects its sales. Is the site attractive? Is it easy to navigate? Do core functions work? Is it fast? Does it render ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba Attorney on Intellectual Property Theft

September 5, 2013 • PEC Staff

Most every ecommerce company owns intellectual property — photos, product descriptions, logos, brand names, designs. Many online companies have experienced the theft of their intellectual property from other websites, often ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Selling on Marketplaces: 4 Common Mistakes

June 28, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Marketplaces like Ebay and Amazon can be a boon for the bottom line since they present your products to millions of interested shoppers. But a huge audience also means that mistakes can be glaring and costly. Amazon gets something like 21 million visitors a day and more than 100 millio...
Amazon & Marketplaces
13 Curated Shopping Sites

June 10, 2013 • Sig Ueland

Sometimes shoppers need a little help. Rather than searching through an endless supply of products, they may prefer a selection from the experts or tastemakers they follow. Here is a list of curated shopping sites. Some of the sites offer personalized product recommendations by expert ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Third-party Marketplaces: What Merchants Should Know

May 7, 2013 • Scott Smigler

Many online merchants have embraced third-party marketplaces. They've been seduced by promises of easy revenue growth and enabled by software solutions that make it easy to sell their products on those sites. It’s true that marketplaces can pay dividends for merchants, at least for nea...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
The dreaded Amazon A-Z claim

May 6, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

When you get an Amazon A-Z claim, you must not reply instantly. Your response must be carefully considered, to put your side in the best possible light. You only get one chance to reply. It is best if you do this after you fully investigate and you have calmed down.
Amazon & Marketplaces
Marketplaces: How to Sell More in 2013

April 23, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Online marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon offer retailers profitable, high-volume sales channels that can significantly improve the bottom line. But as more businesses discover and use these marketplaces, competition increases, meaning businesses need to market well in these chann...
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Start Selling on the Amazon Marketplace

April 10, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Amazon allows other retailers to sell products on its marketplace, where millions of interested shoppers visit daily. This creates an opportunity for sellers — large and small. It is possible to start selling on the Amazon Marketplace in a matter of hours; the barrier to entry is very l...
Amazon & Marketplaces
5 Tips for Increasing Amazon Sales by 50 Percent

March 20, 2013 • Armando Roggio

The Amazon marketplace gives online retailers big and small the opportunity to sell to millions of potential customers, significantly increase sales, and acquire loyal shoppers. Competition on Amazon can be fierce. By some estimates, Amazon receives nearly 90 million unique visitors ea...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Google’s ‘Merchant Quality Score’ Could Make Marketplaces More Attractive

March 14, 2013 • Armando Roggio

A possible change to the way Google ranks merchants on its results pages might make multi-channel selling on marketplaces or comparison shopping engines important. During a recent panel discussion at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festival, Matt Cutts, who is the head of ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Getting Started with eBay

October 23, 2012 • Armando Roggio

eBay is a global marketplace and an opportunity for online sellers, including businesses as small as garage-based, family operations — or as large as major ecommerce merchants. In the second quarter of 2012, eBay's marketplace helped to sell approximately $3.1 billion in clothing, shoe...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
The Perils of Amazon Re-Pricing Software – or Beware Amazon Being Helpful

October 4, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

When Amazon first opened their market place to third party sellers, it was mainly books. These sellers had catalogues of tens of thousands of titles, sometimes hundreds of thousands. The competition was fierce and very much price driven. Sellers had little or no chance of competitively ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Top 10 Comparison Shopping Tools of 2012

August 28, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Shopping comparison sites and services let online shoppers compare products' attributes and prices in a relatively neutral environment. These services also give merchants a channel to market to some of the web’s savviest consumers. Several companies track and analyze shopping compariso...
Amazon & Marketplaces
ShopRunner May Help Merchants Compete with Amazon Prime

July 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

For consumers, the cost of shipping has been one of the major drawbacks of ecommerce. During the last holiday season, free shipping made a comeback as merchants tried to ensure that consumers would buy online. So popular was the promotion many merchants continue to offer it. Now, with t...

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