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 > Merchant Voice
Implications of Amazon’s repricing software

October 13, 2016 • Richard Stubbings

In “The end of automated Amazon repricing?,” my post from 2014, I raised the prospect of Amazon creating its own repricing tool. Well, that tool now exists. It’s called “Amazon ...
B2B
Amazon’s B2B Site Evolving, Growing Rapidly

October 12, 2016 • Marcia Kaplan

When AmazonSupply became Amazon Business in April 2015, much more than a rebranding occurred. With AmazonSupply, the company was the only seller. But Amazon Business copied the very successful marketplace ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Common Mistakes from Amazon Sellers

October 5, 2016 • Rob Sieracki

My agency is often called on to do formal audits of Amazon seller accounts. In the last 12 months, we’ve audited more than a dozen small-to-medium sized accounts, from companies ...
Business
6 Ways Machine Learning Will Impact Ecommerce

October 3, 2016 • Armando Roggio

Machine learning is a discipline aimed at having computers discover patterns or trends in some set of data without being explicitly programmed to recognize the pattern or trend. A counter example ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Technology stack for FringeSport

October 2, 2016 • Peter Keller

I’ve read columnist Eric Bandholz’s post on the technology stack for his company, Beardbrand. In this article, I’ll address the same for my company, FringeSport. These are the tools that ...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: Better to Work with Resellers or Processors?

September 29, 2016 • Phil Hinke

My recent series on working with credit card salespeople prompted good feedback and questions from readers. I addressed some of the questions in my August article. For this article, I will ...
Business > 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Business > 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 ...
Business > 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Business > 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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
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 ...
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 ...
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,
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 ...
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 ...
Business > 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Business > 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 ...
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 ...