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.
Amazon & Marketplaces | B2B | Cross-border Selling | Finance | Fraud Prevention | Inventory | Local Business | Payments | Shipping & Fulfillment | Staffing-
Amazon & Marketplaces
17 Amazon Seller Tools to Find Profitable Products
March 25, 2018 • Connor Gillivan
As an Amazon merchant, I'm always looking for the next best product to sell — a high-potential item that no seller has discovered. In this article, I will share 17 Amazon seller tools that help source new products. Select a tool from the list, put together a standard process, and hand it off to a team member. Keep the process running at all times. It will increase your chances of finding that next best product.
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Local Business
SEO: Store Locators Good for Bots, Good for Shoppers
March 23, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown
If you have more than one physical location, in addition to your ecommerce site, you need a store locator. Slapping all your store addresses on a single web page and calling it done doesn’t cut it for shoppers or for natural search performance. An optimal store locator should be searchable for your customers and also crawlable for the search engines.
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Fulfillment Requirements of Retailer-owned Marketplaces
March 21, 2018 • Stephen Bulger
There are many marketplace options other than Amazon for merchants. We all know about eBay. Big retailers such Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Best Buy, Nordstrom, and Dick’s Sporting Goods offer marketplaces, too. In this post, I'll address fulfillment requirements of retailer-owned marketplaces.
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Fraud Prevention
10 Ways That Artificial Intelligence Helps Merchants
March 21, 2018 • Gagan Mehra
The term "artificial intelligence" refers to software that learns from experience. It mimics the human mind in that it changes responses based on data. Self-driving cars and voice-enabled devices rely on artificial intelligence. Retail businesses can also benefit. In this post, I'll list 10 use cases of how artificial intelligence helps merchants.
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Local Business
Costco Finally Embraces Ecommerce
March 15, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan
While Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, and Albertson's compete for online supremacy in groceries and household goods, Costco has until recently remained aloof, firmly committed to serving customers at its physical stores. The company, which operates on a membership basis, has 49.9 million member households.
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B2B
6 Impressive B2B Ecommerce Sites
March 14, 2018 • Lori McDonald
Offering a compelling ecommerce experience to B2B buyers requires a process of continuous improvement. It can be helpful to examine other B2B ecommerce sites, to learn. Grainger and Amazon Business are often cited as leading examples. But there is also value in learning from smaller, innovative B2B companies. In this post, I'll address six impressive, independent B2B sites.
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Staffing
When Hiring an SEO Pro, Look for These 11 Skills
March 14, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown
Hiring a search engine optimization professional is challenging. It’s relatively easy for a would-be practitioner to portray “book-learning” as actual, on-the-job experience. But I’m a firm believer in the importance of soft skills — personal qualities that enable someone to work well in a role with others — in hiring a quality SEO pro.
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Entrepreneurs fool themselves about productivity
March 5, 2018 • Peter Keller
There is no shortage of advice on how entrepreneurs can be more productive and more effective. Over the years, I have become better at both. But I sometimes believe that I’m being productive when, in fact, I’m wasting time. Here are three ways that entrepreneurs often fool themselves about productivity.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Walmart’s Ecommerce Sales Up 23 Percent in Fourth Quarter 2017
March 1, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan
Last month the Department of Commerce announced its estimate of U.S. retail ecommerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2017. The Department issues two sets of figures. One is seasonally ...
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Business
February 2018 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
February 28, 2018 • PEC Staff
What follows are our 10 most popular articles for February 2018, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. HTTPS ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Protect your brand on ecommerce marketplaces
February 23, 2018 • Phil Masiello
Marketplaces can help brands add incremental sales — and build awareness. The more avenues on which the consumer sees your brand, the more recognizable it becomes. As your brand gains recognition, consumers will remember it and will be more likely to purchase. But selling on marketplaces could backfire if you don't utilize the tools correctly.
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Business
Failure to Manage Sales Tax Exemptions Could Cost (Big) Money
February 22, 2018 • Shane Ratigan
As time and technology move forward, sales tax auditors’ focus has shifted. Nowadays, auditors are discovering assessable errors in sales tax exemption certificate management. Sellers who regularly make sales to other businesses or exempt organizations can find themselves open to negative audit results if their exemption documentation management is lacking.
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Comparing KPIs for 2 websites in first year of trading
February 19, 2018 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Now that My Event Décor has been live for just over 12 months, it’s time to check its metrics and compare its growth against the first year of My Wedding Décor. Both My Event Décor and My Wedding Décor took several weeks to make the first online sale — the former recorded its first online sale within 37 days of launch, the latter within 21 days.
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Cross-border Selling
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Merchant Voice
4 payment aggregators to use in Russia
February 18, 2018 • Maksim Komonov
In this post, I'll list four major payments aggregators in Russia. There are many more, but these four are trusted by Russian consumers and businesses, as well as international companies. When choosing a payment aggregator, consider these key points.
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Fraud Prevention
Staying Ahead of Fake Product Reviews
February 18, 2018 • Gagan Mehra
In the competitive world of online commerce, not every merchant is honest. Some post fake positive reviews for their products to entice shoppers. Others post fake negative reviews of competitors' products to dissuade potential buyers. Both are examples of product review fraud. It's dishonest to competitors and, also, to shoppers that rely heavily on the reviews. If a retailer does not stop the fraud, shoppers could lose trust in the reviews and cease purchasing from the site.
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Business
Manage Your Business Blog with a Kanban Board
February 15, 2018 • Armando Roggio
Content is an important part of ecommerce marketing. Often, content marketing begins with a consistent, well-written, and well-managed blog. For sole proprietorships and small businesses, it is possible to manage a ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
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Merchant Voice
3 hooks to lure shoppers away from Amazon
February 14, 2018 • Richard Stubbings
In 2017 nearly 50 percent of all U.S. ecommerce sales went through Amazon. In the run-up to Thanksgiving, the rate was even higher. It is thus difficult to ignore Amazon if you want to succeed in selling online. But that is not to say that you have to follow other Amazon sellers and chase the price to the bottom. Instead, look carefully at the behavior of your target customers and determine how best to profit from them.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Ecommerce Briefs: Alibaba Eyes Kroger; Walmart Partners with Rakuten
February 14, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan
“Ecommerce Briefs” is my occasional series of news and developments from online merchants. In this installment, I’ll address grocery wars, international expansion by Amazon and Walmart, and Pepsi’s embrace of ecommerce. In an effort to diversify and expand, Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce giant, is following in Amazon’s footsteps with its “New Retail” initiative — acquiring brick-and-mortar stores in China and looking to make similar acquisitions overseas.
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Business
From Retail to Manufacturing, Kanban Improves Efficiency
February 12, 2018 • Armando Roggio
Kanban is a project management approach that can be applied to nearly any step-by-step process to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and help a business improve. Although Kanban was developed in the 1940s and 1950s to boost manufacturing efficiency at Toyota factories in Japan, the system has been adapted to many industries, including software development, publishing, and retail management.
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Business
Create Google Docs from a Google Sheet
February 8, 2018 • Armando Roggio
Your business can use Google Apps Script to pull data from the rows and columns of a Google Sheet and create individualized Google Docs that include only the information needed. This can make your business and the folks running it more productive. Here's an example.
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Business
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Merchant Voice
My experience with product reviews
February 6, 2018 • Peter Keller
I'm a huge believer in product reviews for ecommerce sites. I have been for years — since the start of online reviews. I remember when Amazon first utilized reviews, in the early 2000s. I was working for LivingDirect, a retailer of home products. We marveled at reviews. What a strange innovation. A customer could post a review on the site — any review, any customer.
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B2B
Driving B2B Revenue through Personalization
February 5, 2018 • Lori McDonald
Shoppers want a personalized experience. It used to be that ecommerce sites offered what shoppers asked for. Now, thanks to personalization, ecommerce sites do that, and more. They know what shoppers want or need even before they ask. Personalization adds value. It builds a relationship.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
How to benefit from Amazon ads
February 1, 2018 • Phil Masiello
Amazon Marketing Services offers three advertising options, for vendors and sellers: Product Display Ads, Sponsored Products, and Headline Search Ads. To win the Buy Box and build your brand, the key is to know which type of ad to use and how to use it — whether you sell on Seller Central, Vendor Centra
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Business
January 2018 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
January 31, 2018 • PEC Staff
What follows are our 10 most popular articles for January 2018. "5 Content Marketing Ideas for February 2018." Valentine’s Day dominates the retail calendar in February, driving more than $18 billion in consumer purchases in the United States alone, including, by some accounts, $5.4 billion in ecommerce sales. Valentine’s Day spending often includes dinner out and movie tickets.
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Shipping & Fulfillment
New Electronic Logging Mandate May Increase Shipping Costs
January 30, 2018 • Armando Roggio
Critics of a new logging mandate for freight carriers claim it is creating a shortage of drivers and increasing shipping costs in many industries, including retail. Beginning December 2017, the U.S.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
11 Amazon Seller Tools to Manage Customer Feedback
January 30, 2018 • Connor Gillivan
Amazon’s metrics help keep sellers aligned with the company’s overall mission of outstanding service for all customers. But the process of managing and optimizing customer feedback, product reviews, and overall seller rating can be time-consuming. Fortunately, third-party software companies can help. In this post, I'll list 11 vendors that help Amazon sellers manage customer feedback.
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Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Nordic Region: Affluent Market, Appetite for Foreign Goods
January 28, 2018 • Marcia Kaplan
Scandinavia is an affluent market with an appetite for foreign goods. The Nordic region — Scandinavia — encompasses Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Individually, each country may not seem to be an attractive cross-border opportunity for merchants. Combined, the population is just 26 million. However, Nordic ecommerce is primarily driven by foreign merchants that give consumers access to goods that they are otherwise unable to find in local physical stores.
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Business
The Rise of Human-free Retail
January 26, 2018 • Gagan Mehra
A few days back the first Amazon Go convenience store opened, in Seattle. Shoppers can simply pick up the items they want to purchase and walk out. There is no need to stand in lines and go through checkout. Will Walmart, Target, and other competitors implement a similar technology? The answer is likely "yes." In fact, other companies are doing it already.
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Business
New Sales Tax Law Targets Marketplaces
January 21, 2018 • Shane Ratigan
Sales tax calculation, collection, and remittance remain a challenge for ecommerce businesses. The state of Washington, for example, recently began enforcement of regulations that require marketplaces with a physical presence in Washington (or annual sales to residents of at least $10,000) to collect on behalf of third party sellers who utilize the marketplace’s platform.
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Business
How to Plan for the Death of a Business Owner
January 17, 2018 • John Di Giacomo
The combination of a busy travel schedule and the death of my mother has kept me from writing this column. But these have also given me time to reflect on my own preparedness for life's unforeseen events. With this post, my hope is that others can learn from my reflection and better protect their businesses and families.
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