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
Managing the Gross Margin of your Ecommerce Business
September 10, 2013 • Dale Traxler
The gross margin calculation of sales minus cost of goods sold is a fundamental key performance indicator of any business that sells products. It measures the profit generated from each ...
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Fraud Prevention
Apple Fingerprint Scanner May Boost Mobile Commerce
September 9, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Next generation smartphones or tablets equipped with fingerprint scanners may provide shoppers with greater security and boost both online and in-store mobile commerce. Leading mobile device makers Apple and Samsung are ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Alibaba Attorney on Intellectual Property Theft
September 5, 2013 • PEC Staff
Most every ecommerce company owns intellectual property — photos, product descriptions, logos, brand names, designs. Many online companies have experienced the theft of their intellectual property from other websites, often ...
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Cross-border Selling
6 Tips for Selling on Marketplaces this Holiday Season
September 5, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Marketplaces like eBay, Rakuten, and Amazon attract millions of eager shoppers during the holiday season. Online retailers, even small ones, can post products to these marketplaces and earn many additional ...
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Business
The Commerce EvRolution, Part 3: Smaller Merchants
September 4, 2013 • Dale Traxler
Editor’s note: This is “Part 3″ of a three-part series on how the mobile revolution is affecting ecommerce. “Part 1: Shopping Trends” and “Part 2: Channel Trends” we published previously. In ...
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Business
‘Ecom Hell’ Author on Starting an Ecommerce Business
September 4, 2013 • PEC Staff
For prospective merchants that think starting an ecommerce business is easy, Shirley Tan disagrees. She has the experience to disagree, having founded her first ecommerce site in the 1990s, which ...
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Business
The Commerce EvRolution, Part 2: Channel Trends
August 30, 2013 • Dale Traxler
In my previous article, I introduced the term "EvRolution," where mobile devices and applications are revolutionizing commerce. Retailers are rapidly evolving their strategies and technologies to keep up with the shift in consumer shopping and buying.
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Business
August 2013 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
August 30, 2013 • PEC Staff
Each month we compile a list of the 10 most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles ...
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Business
Improving Customer Service with Big Data
August 29, 2013 • Gagan Mehra
Customer service is key for ecommerce businesses. If retailers could improve customer service while also reducing its cost, they would likely do it. Big data can help achieve this goal ...
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Business
4 Reasons to Think About Brand
August 28, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Developing a brand for a small ecommerce store may help otherwise hurried and busy entrepreneurs and managers do a better job of managing the business, engaging customers and potential customers,
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Business
The Commerce EvRolution, Part 1: Shopping Trends
August 27, 2013 • Dale Traxler
Did I just make up a word, EvRolution? Why not. Technologists and marketers have been doing it for years. We’ve come up with ecommerce, m-commerce, and t-commerce to describe online ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Content is King and Time is Your Queen
August 23, 2013 • Jamie Salvatori
In your business, you must focus on two things: content and time. They are both equally important and inextricably intertwined. Great content will never go out of style. Seriously, there’s a ...
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Payments
Latest Court Decision on Debit Card Processing Fees
August 22, 2013 • Phil Hinke
On July 31, 2013 U.S. District Judge Richard Leon sided with retailers and rejected the debit interchange rate cap set by Federal Reserve under the Durbin Amendment in 2011. The ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Entrepreneur not Resting on his Bed Linens
August 19, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Unlike many entrepreneurs, Gabriel Luis does not have parents who own a business. His mother is a bank manager and his father is a mail courier. But Luis was born ...
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Business
10 Things I Would Do Differently in my Ecommerce Business
August 16, 2013 • Dale Traxler
After I sold my business last year, I wrote a series of articles on the importance of developing an ecommerce strategy. I’ve written over 70 articles since then, addressing best ...
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Cross-border Selling
Cross Border Ecommerce Booming
August 13, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan
As populous countries such as Brazil, China, and India develop increasingly acquisitive middle classes, opportunities for online sales to these countries are growing. Except for small mom and pop outlets, the brick and mortar retail sectors are poorly developed outside of major cities. ...
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Finance
eCommerce Business Valuation Case Studies : Effect of Inventory on Valuation Multiple
August 12, 2013 • Manish Shah
In this series, I will share my experiences selling online businesses for my clients and lessons learned. Effect of Inventory on eCommerce Business Valuation Multiple Some time ago I was selling an eCommerce business that had a large amount of inventory that needed to be sold with the...
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Fraud Prevention
What to Do When Your Site Gets Hacked
August 7, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Hackers attack sites of all sizes, from massive enterprises to small, family-run online retailers. When an attack occurs, there are steps any business owner can take to stop the attack, get things cleaned up, and get back to doing business. Having your site hacked is a painful, emotion...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Which Cart Should I use ?
August 3, 2013 • Richard Stubbings
All too often these days I see posts on forums of the type "I want to open an ecommerce shop, what cart should I use?" Then there are dozens of different replies from people all recommending their favourite solution. Rarely does anyone ask the original poster what they are planning to s...
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Business
8 Common Mistakes by Ecommerce Merchants
August 2, 2013 • Dale Traxler
In my articles I try to provide positive, practical advice on how ecommerce businesses can improve. With this article, however, I’ll explore common mistakes that ecommerce merchants make that harm their businesses. I learned some of these the hard way in my own company. Others are ones ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
7 ways to increase newsletter sign-ups before the holidays
August 2, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Less than five months to Christmas Day, now is the time you should be growing your newsletter database as fast and effectively as possible. I just signed up - or attempted to sign up - to 14 online gift retailers' newsletters and here is what I'd suggest. 1. Put your newsletter sign-u...
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Business
July 2013 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
July 31, 2013 • PEC Staff
Each month we compile a list of the 10 most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles for July 2013, recognizing that articles we published earlier in the month are more likely to make the list than later ones. 5...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Thinking of starting a business? Think again!
July 31, 2013 • Jamie Salvatori
I’ve been running my own small business for over a decade and I often speak with people who are thinking about starting their own business. Listening to their expectations usually results in my shaking my head later and thinking, “They have no idea what they’re getting themselves into!”...
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Local Business
3 Ways Showrooming Could Affect Ecommerce
July 30, 2013 • Armando Roggio
New survey data about “showrooming” may reveal weaknesses or trends that could have important implications for online or multi-channel retailers in at least three areas: product prices, product information, and customer service. About 43 percent of Internet-using American adults have “...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Stardust Memorials Urns Its Success
July 25, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Jordan Lindberg must be the only online retailer who earned a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in philosophy from, respectively, Albion College (1991), Michigan State University (1993), and University of Missouri-Columbia (1997). A professor at Central Michigan University from 1997 ...
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Local Business
Ecommerce and Brick-and-mortar Retail Converge
July 24, 2013 • Armando Roggio
While there may still be plenty of room for pure-play ecommerce businesses, retailers with physical stores should look to expand online as consumers stop seeing a distinction between shopping online and in a store. Increasingly, physical retail outlets are being transformed into a sort ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Book review: Custom Nation
July 21, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
If you sell online, you can customise online, and if you don't, you're leaving money on the table. So says Anthony Flynn, creator of the customised energy bar company, You Bar, and his co-writer sister Emily Flynn Vencat. Flynn writes a compelling case in his book Custom Nation (BenBe...
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Business
5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Opening an Ecommerce Business
July 18, 2013 • Armando Roggio
You might be prepared to open an online retail business. You have the funding, cash flow planned, inventory managed, and even a marketing campaign ready to launch. But there are some other things you’ll want to know before you start doing business. U.S. ecommerce sales grew 13 percent ...
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Payments
Beware Credit Card Processing Fees, Especially Refunds
July 17, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Merchants periodically send me their credit card processing agreements after they have negotiated new pricing with their existing provider or when changing providers. Usually, I find that the merchant has done a good job of negotiating rates and monthly fees. However, some of the peri...
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Fraud Prevention
Cyber Security for Ecommerce
July 15, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan
Anyone using the Internet should be aware of security issues. But companies that engage in financial transactions and collect customer data need to be especially careful. While much of the emphasis for ecommerce merchants is the protection of credit card information, in the age of big d...