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-
Business
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Merchant Voice
Developing a new market for our art
September 28, 2016 • David Sasson
At the heart of every ecommerce business is the need to sell goods or services at a profit. In the past year, we at overstockArt have been considering how to grow our ...
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B2B
8 Innovative B2B Ecommerce Sites
September 27, 2016 • Lori McDonald
B2B ecommerce sites are typically more complicated, with more features, than B2C. In this article, I will address eight innovative B2B ecommerce sites. My company has no business relationship with these ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
The Anatomy of an Amazon Legal Dispute
September 21, 2016 • John Di Giacomo
I represent a number of sellers who utilize Amazon’s various services to increase their ecommerce sales. Though I often advise clients against relying on Amazon as their sole source of fulfillment or ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Whom do I work for?
September 20, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
One of the attractions to being an independent online retailer is to be your own boss. You supposedly answer to no one and set your own hours. But the reality ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
How I maximize my holiday promotions
September 15, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
The critical holiday selling season is almost here. Here are five items that I’m focusing on to get the most of my holiday marketing activities. Offer coupons for additional info. Offer ...
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Local Business
3 Phases to Engaging (and Retaining) Local Prospects
September 14, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
You’ve created a website for your business. You’ve set up your social media profiles, and you’ve even set up all your local business listings, such as your Google My Business ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Juggernaut Rolls; Third-party Sellers Benefit
September 13, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
Amazon’s 2016 second-quarter financial statements for the period ending June 30 showed robust growth, extending its profitability to a fifth straight quarter after years of spotty results. Revenue was $30.4 billion compared ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
A tale of two domain purchases
August 31, 2016 • Peter Keller
We’ve all been there. We have a great idea for a company and we log on to a domain registrar. We type our dream domain name, hit enter, and bam. Someone is sitting ...
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Payments
Why Do Credit Card Providers Offer Flat Rate Processing?
August 30, 2016 • Phil Hinke
Many readers gave good feedback on my recent 3-part series on partnering with credit card salespeople. I will be addressing this feedback in upcoming articles. A few merchants sent me their provider’s email response after ...
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B2B
B2B Ecommerce: Pros and Cons of SaaS Platforms
August 29, 2016 • Lori McDonald
Software-as-a-service ecommerce platforms are gaining market share. They have clear benefits, but they also have limitations, especially for B2B companies. SaaS platforms — hosted carts — charge a monthly fee ...
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Business
10 Great Ecommerce Ideas for August 2016
August 26, 2016 • Nic Murdock
Practical Ecommerce periodically asks industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce company. Here’s what ten of them had to say for the August 2016
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Local Business
Managing a Local Web Presence from an iPhone
August 24, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
I’m used to sending and receiving email directly on my iPhone. I don’t need my laptop to respond to someone. In fact, I sometimes go most of the day without ...
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Local Business
How to Bring Online Shoppers into Physical Stores
August 22, 2016 • Armando Roggio
Brick-and-click retailers, those with physical stores and an online shop, can use the rich data ecommerce provides to encourage online shoppers to visit the retailers’ physical stores or pop-up shops. Many ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
In Acquiring Jet, Walmart Seeks Younger, Higher-income Consumers
August 16, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
Last week Walmart purchased online merchant Jet for $3 billion in cash plus up to $300 million in Walmart shares to Jet founders. While this is a lot of money,
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Business
How to Protect against Scraping of Prices, SKUs
August 15, 2016 • John Di Giacomo
Many ecommerce merchants offer a substantial number of SKUs through their stores. Inputting those SKUs into a database can be a time and labor intensive process. It can also be ...
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Business
Ecommerce in Brazil Growing Despite Economic Crisis
August 14, 2016 • Alice Wakai
An economic and political crisis has hit Brazil during the last few years. Because of rising unemployment and high inflation, Brazilian consumer consumption has greatly decreased. According to Brazil’s National ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Insurance and other boring (but crucial) expenses
August 12, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
There is a temptation for many start-up businesses to cut corners and spend all of their money on inventory. After all, it is the stock that sells, which brings in the ...
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Local Business
How to Encourage Reviews of Your Local Business
August 11, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
When it comes search engine results for local businesses, one of the major factors that influence searchers is the number and quality of reviews. A restaurant listing with a limited number of reviews, no ...
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Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in Israel: Cross Border Shopping Dominates
August 10, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
With a population of 8.2 million, Israel may not seem like a particularly lucrative ecommerce market. However because of unique domestic circumstances, Israel is an excellent candidate for cross border ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
For Holiday Ecommerce Fulfillment, Success Starts in August
August 9, 2016 • Armando Roggio
To be successful during the short, high pressure Christmas shopping season this year, ecommerce retailers should plan now to make certain they have the products shoppers want and that they ...
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Business
Olympic Committees Seek to Restrict Content Marketing, Social Media
August 5, 2016 • Armando Roggio
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) are warning athletes and businesses not to use Olympic trademarks in content and social media marketing. The Olympics are ...
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Business
July 2016 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
August 1, 2016 • PEC Staff
Here are our 10 most popular articles for July 2016, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. Using Pokémon ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Comparing puppies to customers
July 29, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Last month, my husband and I began raising a black Labrador puppy. Next year, we will give one-year-old Whimsy to Guide Dogs Victoria for intensive training to help assist a person ...
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Payments
Partnering with Credit-card-processing Salespeople, Part 3: Weeding Out Unacceptable Parties
July 28, 2016 • Phil Hinke
When soliciting and evaluating a request for proposal for a client’s credit card processing, I always let the client include any provider or salespeople she wants. Clients often want to ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
From Magento to WooCommerce, 1 year on
July 27, 2016 • Richard Stubbings
Just over a year ago, I moved my website from Magento to WooCommerce. I described my process of evaluating and, ultimately, selecting WooCommerce in a 5-part series here on Practical ...
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B2B
5 Types of B2B Product Data That Improve Online Sales
July 24, 2016 • Lori McDonald
Sometimes B2B companies invest in a highly functional ecommerce site and fail to use good product data. Shoppers don’t buy from websites if they don’t have the information they need to ...
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Business
Learning from 10 Types of Ecommerce Competitors
July 21, 2016 • Armando Roggio
Knowing your competition can help your ecommerce business discover opportunities, avoid mistakes, and differentiate. With this in mind, it can be a good idea to gather and analyze information about your ...
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Local Business
Using Pokémon Go to Entice Shoppers to Local Businesses
July 19, 2016 • Bill Hartzer
On July 6 and 7, 2016, Niantic and Nintendo began rolling out a new augmented reality app called Pokémon Go. Within a few days it was a hit. Kids and ...
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Business
Understanding the New E.U. Privacy Shield, for Ecommerce
July 18, 2016 • John Di Giacomo
In “Electronically-signed Contracts Enforceable?,” I addressed the implementation of new e-signature requirements in Europe. Those requirements are part of wide-ranging changes in E.U. law. The newest, and perhaps most important,
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Finance
Equity Crowdfunding Investments Open for Everyone
July 13, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan
It took four years after President Obama signed the JOBS Act, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finally allows businesses to solicit people who are not considered wealthy to ...