Business

An ecommerce site is a business. Our Management & Finance category addresses online payments, funding needs, employee issues, merchant profiles, key metrics, multichannel and omnichannel strategies, cross-border analyses, inventory management, accounting topics, sales taxes, and much more.

Business
May 2021 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

June 1, 2021 • PEC Staff

Since 2005, we’ve published thousands of articles, podcasts, and webinars to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in May 2021. Articles from early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Business
BOOM! Founder: Spend 30% of Revenue on Ads

May 28, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Ezra Firestone launched his first ecommerce business in 2007. It sold wigs. He has since owned multiple brands. BOOM!, which sells cosmetics, he co-founded in 2010. He focuses on key management metrics, such as spending 30% of ecommerce revenue on advertising.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Electric Vehicles Are the Future of Last-mile Delivery

May 27, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

The rise of ecommerce has catapulted electric vehicles to prominence. Concern about greenhouse gas emissions is driving the move away from diesel delivery vehicles towards trucks and vans using alternative power sources. Electric vehicles with a range of up to 150 miles are ideally suited to "last mile" deliveries, those with a limited radius.
Business
Ecommerce Briefs: Amazon Sellers, Walmart.com Grocery, Click-and-collect

May 26, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

“Ecommerce Briefs” is my occasional series on news and developments that impact online merchants. In this installment, I’ll report on Amazon's program allowing brands to promote new products, Walmart.com's focus on grocery sales, and the growth of U.S. click-and-collect sales.
Business
As Cookies Crumble, Fingerprinting Could Grow

May 25, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Privacy advocates, tech companies, and government regulators are all working to bring an end to third-party cookies. But even as the cookies crumble, some ad networks could turn to browser fingerprinting to track individuals.
Business
CommerceCo Recap: Tailor-made Shopping Experiences

May 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When eBay and Amazon were founded, in 1995, ecommerce pioneers worried that pictures of products would never provide the same experience as handling a product on a rack. Ecommerce has generally overcome this challenge, but there are still products that are more difficult to present online.
Inventory
Save Money on Inventory with EOQ

May 17, 2021 • Armando Roggio

An American production engineer developed the economic order quantity (EOQ) model to help buyers at manufacturing companies understand how much of a given raw material or part they should buy. Many companies now use EOQ to calculate the ideal amount of inventory to minimize costs.
Business
Charts: 2020 Global Ecommerce Sales

May 17, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

The Asia Pacific region generated roughly 62.6 percent of 2020 global ecommerce sales. North America was second at 19.1 percent, followed by Western Europe (13.0 percent), Central and Eastern Europe (2.4 percent), Latin America (2.1 percent), and the Middle East and Africa (1.1 percent).
Business
Chord.co Founders: Future of DTC Platforms Is Headless

May 14, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Henry Davis and Bryan Mahoney anticipated in 2018 an avalanche of direct-to-consumer companies that served smaller, niche audiences. Chord, a DTC-first ecommerce platform, is their answer to bringing sophisticated, "headless" technology to smaller firms. "We like to call Chord the first headless platform with a brain," Davis told me.
Business
Is Apparel Sustainability Real or a Marketing Ploy?

May 13, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Much of the media assumes consumers want products that are manufactured and sold in an environmentally conscious manner. However, research suggests that sustainability is not the most important factor in consumer decision-making; people may still emphasize price.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Use Terapeak for eBay 2021

May 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The Terapeak research tool takes some of the guessing out of whether a product will sell on eBay. eBay acquired Terapeak in 2017, rolling the analytics tool into its Seller Hub and eventually making its product research function free to use. eBay sellers can look up individual products or product categories, discover sell-through rates, average prices, shipping costs, and more.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Soft-hand Robots Are Coming to Ecommerce

May 11, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

For decades, manufacturing and industrial warehouses have used "hard" robots. They handle repetitive tasks and heavy lifting. But “soft” robots are much more sophisticated. They can safely grasp perishable and fragile items such as eggs, fruit, and bottles. Soft robots could transform fulfillment in many ecommerce warehouses.
B2B
Checklist for a Post-pandemic B2B Surge

May 10, 2021 • Lori McDonald

Many B2B businesses are already experiencing a post-pandemic surge. Certainly the revenue growth is welcome, but it can bring challenges as well. Here is a checklist to prepare for pent-up demand.
Business
The Magic of Fringe Sport? Improving Lives

May 7, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Peter Keller launched Fringe Sport in 2010 to help folks assemble home-based gyms. He also wanted to make a lot of money. "I was very financially motivated," he told me. Then he attended a seminar a few years ago that focused on a company's purpose, its mission.
Business
Ecommerce Insights from China’s Pinduoduo

May 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

At the end of 2020, the five-year-old Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo had 788.4 million users and more than $9 billion in annual revenue. Pinduoduo's incredible growth may provide some insights into the future of ecommerce.
Business
April 2021 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

April 30, 2021 • PEC Staff

Our mission since 2005 is to publish independent content to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in April 2021. Articles from early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Business
Quality and Craft Drive Chisos Boots Founder

April 30, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

The idea for Chisos boots started with back pain. Will Roman, the founder, owner, and lifetime cowboy-boot buyer, injured his back in a motorcycle accident. Wearing boots became painful. He launched Chisos.com, a custom, handcrafted bootmaker, in 2019. Quality and craft drive Roman and his outlook on life.
Inventory
The Increasing Complexity of Product Returns

April 29, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

The pandemic sparked an increase in ecommerce sales but it also generated a massive rise in product returns. According to U.S. Department of Commerce estimates, total ecommerce sales for 2020 were $788 billion, an increase of 32.4 percent from 2019.
Business
The Retail Omnichannel Imperative

April 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In 2021 and beyond, successful retailers with physical stores will likely become powerful omnichannel sellers as shoppers choose merchants with superior end-to-end buying experiences. "The reason that omnichannel is critical for retailers in 2021 is because the customer demands it," said Jess Huang, a partner at McKinsey & Company.
Business
Personal-care Founder: No More Petrochemicals

April 23, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

I've interviewed entrepreneurs for this podcast who developed organic consumer-care goods. But none did it before Eric Malka. He and his wife, Myriam, devised shaving oils from their kitchen in 1996 and then launched The Art of Shaving. Their new company, Ingredients, focuses on wellness and sustainability.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Consumers Want Fast Deliveries — and a Green Environment

April 20, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

Customers want fast deliveries. But they also care about the impact of shipping on the environment. Sadly, the “last mile” is notoriously eco-unfriendly.
Payments
8 Reasons to Avoid Cryptocurrencies for Ecommerce

April 18, 2021 • Mike Eckler

Cryptocurrencies are hot news. Merchants may be wondering if cryptocurrencies are ready for mainstream ecommerce. The answer is no. Here’s why.
Business
Home Gym Provider Overcomes Supply Disruptions, Thrives

April 16, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Imagine selling home gym equipment online at the onset of the pandemic. Athletic clubs were closed. Consumers were stuck in their houses. According to Kaevon Khoozani, the founder of Canada-based Bells of Steel, the demand for weight-training equipment was “obscene.” “We ran into two giant hiccups,” Khoozani told me.
Business
How Businesses Go Carbon Neutral

April 15, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Climate change is front and center in the news. How businesses can make a positive impact is not well understood. I'll provide an overview in the post. First, a few definitions.
Local Business
What if 80,000 Brick-and-mortar Stores Closed?

April 11, 2021 • Armando Roggio

A financial services firm has predicted that 80,000 or more physical store locations in the United States are likely to close in the next five years, reducing the total number of American retail outlets by approximately 10 percent. But what does that mean?
Business
Online Onion Seller Rises from Domain Auction

April 9, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Most entrepreneurs start with a business idea and then secure the domain name. Peter Askew does the opposite. He purchases domain names and then builds the business. Take VidaliaOnions.com, for example.
Shipping & Fulfillment
3PL Founder: ‘I’m in the Exceptions Management Business’

April 2, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Jay Sauceda launched his ecommerce fulfillment company, Sauceda Industries, in 2013 in Austin, Texas. He says packing and shipping products is easy. What's difficult, he stated, is managing unforeseen events. "The shipping business is, essentially, the exceptions management business," he told me.
Business
March 2021 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

March 31, 2021 • PEC Staff

Since 2005, we've published thousands of articles, podcasts, and webinars to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in March 2021. Articles from early in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones.
Business
Lessons from Vine Elevate Feat Clothing

March 26, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Having co-founded Feat Socks in 2015, Taylor Offer hired Aly Raisman, the gymnast, to design and promote a custom sock. It generated $500,000 in revenue. Influencer marketing was clearly effective, and Offer wanted more. "I started looking at the kids that got famous from Vine, the short-video app."
Amazon & Marketplaces
Walmart Expands Marketplace, Challenging Amazon

March 25, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Walmart’s U.S. ecommerce sales in the last quarter of 2020 increased by 69 percent year-over-year while its total sales grew only 7.3 percent. The message is clear: future growth will depend on ecommerce.