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.
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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...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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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 ...
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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...
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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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Amazon & Marketplaces
Setting Up an Amazon Webstore
July 5, 2012 • Armando Roggio
Amazon offers a software as a service ecommerce platform with solutions ranging from a quick shopping cart for individual sellers and small businesses to enterprise level services. What's more, Amazon promises that its Webstore solution is both good quality and easy to use. Is that re...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
Magento, Multi Store and SEO
May 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
One of the biggest challenges to Search Engine Optimisation for any Ecommerce site is the range and variety in the stock. All SEO tutorials and teach yourself books seem to assume you are selling a small range. Typically 'widgits'. They talk about doing keyword analysis on widgets, find...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
Playing The Amazon Game
February 3, 2012 • Richard Stubbings
Sooner or latter every online retailer will consider selling on Amazon, or are already doing so. Amazon is a huge market, and it would be unwise not to consider it. There are other blogs covering the pros and cons, but none really cover what to do if you decide to take the gamble, and e...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
10 Deal Sites to Drive Ecommerce Traffic
May 17, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Although deal and coupon sites appear to have focused on services or brick-and-mortar retailers, online sellers can still use these services to drive additional traffic and find new customers. The rise in popularity of Groupon, Living Social, and other deal sites has created a new adve...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Versus States: A Sales Tax Roundup
May 4, 2011 • Sig Ueland
For years states have fought Amazon.com to force the ecommerce giant to collect sales tax — the states, desperately looking for cash, versus Amazon, vehemently defending its practices as well ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba CEO on Acquisition of Vendio, Social Commerce, Product Sourcing
June 29, 2010 • PEC Staff
Alibaba is a huge force in global, business-to-business ecommerce. The company is based in China and it links millions of wholesale suppliers with businesses that resell those products. The company ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
PeC Review: Sellit Makes Marketplaces Social
October 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio
A new "self-promotion" tool lets merchants selling on Yahoo!, CafePress, Etsy, or Cartfly promote their products on leading social media sites, access a social media advertising network, and post a Flash-based widget on their blog or other sites. Sellit is a "bolt-on" solution that pr...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
The PeC Review: Shopster Is a Brilliant Idea That Needs a Little Polish
June 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Shopster is a unique combination of a hosted ecommerce cart and a relatively easy supply-chain solution that promises to help many small merchants get up and running with a functional and fully-stocked online retail business. The Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based company provides its cust...
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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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Amazon & Marketplaces
Ecommerce Know-How: Amazon Can Sell Your Products and Advertise Them, Too
February 26, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Although many ecommerce merchants consider Amazon to be tough competitor, some online shopkeepers can boost sales and send traffic back to their own site using two of Amazon's ecommerce services. Selling on Amazon and Product Ads on Amazon are two Amazon services that many retail ecomm...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
The PeC Review: Shopzilla Is a Good Site That Could Use Better Instructions
December 15, 2008 • Armando Roggio
Shopzilla.com is one of the Internet’s leading price comparison engines. The site can expose an online retailer’s products to more than 30 million price-conscience shoppers every month, making it a powerful marketing vehicle. But uploading products—particularly for smaller merchants—c...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Shopping Search Engines: Six To Consider
May 7, 2008 • Bill Hartzer
If you consider yourself an online retailer, you most likely are familiar with the major pay-per-click (PPC) search-advertising providers: Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN. Advertising on these search engines can bring sales to your site. However, you may be missing out on a lot...