Finance

All merchants deal with finance — borrowing money, raising equity, dealing with banks, and selling (or buying) a business. We address all those topics, plus U.S. regulatory changes, financial technology, earnings of public ecommerce companies, and more.

Finance
How to Choose a Business Credit Card, Part Two

August 26, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

In “Part 1” of this two-part series, I provided some tips for choosing a business credit card. In this “Part 2” installment, I provide details on specific cards as evaluated ...
Finance
How to Choose a Business Credit Card, Part 1

August 25, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Unhappy with your current business credit card? Cheer up. As a business owner you have many choices. But a card that is right for one business may not be advantageous for another. Cash flow, credit rating, and the amount of business travel can influence your choice of cards. This is "...
Finance
Will the S&P Downgrade Affect Smaller Ecommerce Businesses?

August 18, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The downgrading of U.S. creditworthiness from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor's has dominated the news over the past two weeks. Since 1941, the U.S. credit rating has been AAA — the highest rating — denoting a safe investment. While S&P's action will doubtless have repercussions,...
Finance
How to Find Venture Capital Investors For Your Company

August 12, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

If you have a great idea for a start-up — or if you have an existing business that needs money to grow — the main options are to borrow from friends and family, borrow from a bank, or seek equity funding from a venture capital firm. Banks are skittish about lending to small businesses i...
Finance
Does the SEC Fail Small Internet Businesses?

August 5, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

As retailing migrates online, an increasing number of ecommerce and Internet business will seek to raise public capital. Many of them will be smaller companies. But a growing number of observers believe the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is failing smaller businesses and In...
Finance
Need Funding for Your Company? Look Online

July 29, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

It used to be that if you wanted capital for your business, whether a loan or equity investment, you had to prepare lots of Excel spreadsheets, put on a suit and tie or a dress, and spend an uncomfortable amount of time being grilled by potential funders. Today all that is unnecessary t...
Finance
California Joins the Internet Sales Tax Fray; Federal Legislation Coming?

July 21, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The Internet sales tax issue continues to roil, with California the most recent state to enact a bill mandating that out-of-state online retailers with affiliates in the state collect state sales tax. Amazon and Overstock immediately responded by cutting off their affiliates in Californ...
Finance
Groupon Files for IPO: Rapid Growth, No Profits

July 15, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Founded in Chicago in November 2008, Groupon filed to go public last month after reportedly rejecting a $6 billion takeover offer from Google last December. As with other recent filings by ecommerce firms, a few surprises emerged. Groupon is a pioneering marketing company that has achie...
Finance
Zynga Opens the Kimono; We See Facebook

July 8, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

If you have ever played FarmVille, CityVille or Zynga Poker you're in good company — 148 million other people in 166 countries play Zynga's games monthly. And because people usually play more than one game each month, they account for 232 million monthly visits. All of this is disclosed...
Finance
Our List of Publicly-Traded Ecommerce Companies

June 30, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The rise of online retailing has fostered many companies in that industry to become publicly owned, selling shares on major stock exchanges. We've been tracking publicly-traded ecommerce companies, and we've prepared a list of them, together with publicly traded, pure-play Internet com...
Finance
How LinkedIn Makes Money; Behind the IPO Numbers

June 23, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

In May, LinkedIn went public. To much fanfare, the business-oriented social networking site sold common shares at $45 each, for a total offering of $352.8 million and an overall valuation — public and private shares — of $4.3 billion. It was the biggest Internet initial public offering ...
Finance
13 Crowdfunding Websites to Fund Your Business

June 15, 2011 • Sig Ueland

Who needs banks? Crowdfunding websites can help you find a community of small investors to fund your business, without the risks of traditional financing. Here is a list of crowdfunding sites. Some sites focus on funding creative projects, others sites focus on meeting specific needs ...
Finance
19 Tools for Online Bookkeeping and Invoicing

May 20, 2011 • Sig Ueland

Keeping the books is essential to the health of any company, helping you keep track of your business. With online accounting tools, you can ensure that you won’t miss a beat. Here is a list of online bookkeeping and invoicing tools. Some are complete accounting platforms; others are sp...
Business
CartSpan Founder on Peachtree Accounting Integration

April 25, 2011 • PEC Staff

Virtually all merchants utilize accounting software. They typically transfer sales and customer data from their shopping carts to that software. For many merchants, this transfer requires the manual exporting of data from the cart, and the manual importing of it to the accounting softwa...
Finance
Ecommerce Know-How: Alternative Financing

May 28, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The United States and much of the western world is in the midst of a recession that has made business credit difficult to find. More than 1 million Americans lost their jobs in the third quarter of 2008, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released May 19, 2009. And perhap...