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
Improving Online Customer Service with Technology

July 22, 2014 • Gagan Mehra

Many articles have addressed online customer service and the associated best practices to optimize the experience, reduce costs, and increase loyalty. This post will focus on how technology can improve ...
Business
4 Guidelines to a Bricks-and-Clicks Business

July 21, 2014 • Jerry Jao

Online retailers are finding the “bricks-and-clicks” strategy to be an effective way to serve and engage shoppers. Perhaps that is why an increasing number of ecommerce merchants — Bonobos, Birchbox,
Business > Merchant Voice
5 ecommerce tips (from tourists)

July 18, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you’ve been lucky enough to take a break recently, you may have visited a tourist attraction or two. What do tourists have in common with online shoppers? Quite a few ...
Payments
American Express OptBlue Program May Reduce Processing Cost

July 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke

American Express recently came out with a new program called OptBlue, where the final processing rates and fees paid by the merchant are set by the merchant account provider, not ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Preparing for the 2014 holiday season

July 13, 2014 • David Sasson

Many retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar, make most of their profits in the fourth quarter. Consumers in the U.S. typically think about the holiday season only after Thanksgiving. But for ...
Cross-border Selling
Ecommerce in India Takes Off; Potential for U.S. Sellers

July 10, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

While China has certainly been the star of international ecommerce, India — the second most populous country in the world — is starting to show some genuine energy. Even Alibaba,
Business > Merchant Voice
Magento Go: going going gone

July 9, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

I have always had my doubts over hosted ecommerce solutions. I have never used them. Recently I have been thinking that I was wrong and that they are a viable ...
B2B
How B2B Distributors Compete with AmazonSupply

July 9, 2014 • Dale Traxler

In “Distributors Beware of AmazonSupply.com?,” my previous article, I suggested that wholesale distributors recognize the threat presented by Amazon in the B2B marketplace and find ways to compete. This article ...
Business
How to Register a Trademark, Part 1: Determine Availability

July 8, 2014 • Elizabeth Lewis

Many people think that once they register a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office that their trademark is valid. However, this is an assumption that can end ...
Business
June 2014 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

July 2, 2014 • PEC Staff

Each month we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles ...
Staffing
Executive Compensation at 13 Ecommerce Companies

June 30, 2014 • Sig Ueland

If you’re interested in salary levels at public ecommerce companies, you can locate compensation information at the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Federal securities laws require public companies to provide clear disclosure about compensation paid to CEOs, CFO
Business
Key performance indicators for ecommerce businesses

June 28, 2014 • Jordan Lindberg

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” – Warren Buffett For newcomers to ecommerce, part of the learning process is coming to understand the basic ...
Business > Merchant Voice
7 ways to lose less money on shipping

June 27, 2014 • Jamie Salvatori

Shipping sucks. It’s expensive, time consuming, fraught with peril, expensive, undervalued by your customers, and did I mention that it’s getting more expensive by the day? You can thank Amazon for ...
Business
Voice Commerce Ready for Prime Time?

June 27, 2014 • Gagan Mehra

The ability to use one’s voice to shop has been tried by a number of merchants, including Amazon, Ebay, and Domino’s Pizza. But it has not, to date, gained wide ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Overcoming search-engine penalties the DIY way

June 26, 2014 • Erica Tevis

Ecommerce is a competition. No matter how well you run your operation, using white hat techniques, producing original content and sharing it on the web, ecommerce owners compete against a ...
Business
Will 3D Printing Disrupt Ecommerce?

June 25, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

Invented in the mid-eighties, 3D printing was once restricted to the B-to-B market. Now as prices for 3D printers come down, the technology is making its way into the consumer ...
Business
Distributors Beware of AmazonSupply.com?

June 24, 2014 • Dale Traxler

As B-to-B online revenues approach $1 trillion per year, there are still many wholesale distributors who are hesitant to aggressively sell their products online. I frequently ask executives in the distribution ...
Business
Lessons Learned: Love for Pets Drives Online Vet Shops

June 20, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Steven Perissinotto and his brother Mark grew up with a menagerie of pets on their parents’ 1,200-acre property in Gympie in rural Queensland, Australia. Their pets included dogs, cats, fish, horses,
Business
Ecommerce financing: debt vs. equity

June 17, 2014 • Manish Shah

Many business owners come to a point when they need to raise capital to continue growing the company. They don’t want to sell the business. Perhaps they simply enjoy their ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
4 Ways Same-day Delivery Will Transform Retailers

June 17, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Amazon and Google are expanding same-day delivery services in major cities. These offerings and similar same-day delivery services from other companies could transform retailers online and off, potentially broadening the ...
Payments
Merchants Discover Misleading Credit Card Processing Fees

June 16, 2014 • Phil Hinke

I want to thank Practical Ecommerce readers for their comments on my last article series, “How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees.” I also appreciate readers sending me suspicious ...
Finance
13 Notable Ecommerce IPOs for 2014

June 16, 2014 • Sig Ueland

Ecommerce companies have been getting recent attention for their initial public offerings (IPOs). Alibaba Group Holding, China’s ecommerce giant, plans to go public in what could be the biggest tech ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How to close a website business

June 11, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

It’s a sad fact that not every website business can successful. Many ecommerce merchants close their websites out of exhaustion, loss of interest, insufficient capital, demand, revenue, or customers —
Finance
Intrastate Crowdfunding: Financing Option for Small Businesses

June 11, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

Tired of waiting for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to issue final regulations for equity crowdfunding, several states have passed legislation enabling crowdfunding within their borders. Several more states ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How to evaluate offers from ecommerce vendors

June 10, 2014 • David Sasson

Online retailers receive offers each day from marketing and technology companies promising great improvements and returns by implementing their products and services. The majority of offers revolve around improving three ...
Business
Manufacturers Find Reasons to Sell Online, Survey Says

June 10, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Manufacturers that make and sell products under their own brand or brands may see increased revenue and deeper customer engagement when they sell directly to consumers online, but competing with ...
Staffing
Nonprofit Organizations: Employee Training Key

June 2, 2014 • Cathy Qori

All too often in the nonprofit world, budget constraints force organizations to make hard choices between funding programs and training employees. Important charity rating services like GuideStar.org and CharityNavigator.org weigh their evaluations heavily against high levels of “administrative spending,” and unfortunately employee training falls in this category.
Business
‘What Product Can I Sell Online?’

June 1, 2014 • Jordan Lindberg

“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It’s very character building.” – Steve Jobs People who are considering getting involved in ...
Business
May 2014 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

May 31, 2014 • PEC Staff

Each month we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles ...
Business
4 Successful Smaller Ecommerce Merchants

May 29, 2014 • Gagan Mehra

Much attention is paid to the success of huge ecommerce companies, such as Amazon and Newegg. But there are many smaller ecommerce companies that prosper, too. They can inspire other ...