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
Ecommerce vs. Commerce: What’s the Difference?

January 23, 2014 • Dale Traxler

I assume you are reading this because you sell products online — either in your own online store or through marketplaces. Here’s a question. When someone asks what business you ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Please start shipping internationally

January 17, 2014 • Jamie Salvatori

Our international orders represent approximately 15 to 20 percent of our total sales. That’s huge. We achieved this level of success through a variety of simple tactics, which I’ll outline ...
Inventory > Merchant Voice
Trials and tribulations of inventory management

January 15, 2014 • David Sasson

Holding inventory can be an advantage and a disadvantage. It can be both a competitive edge and an incredible headache. Some retailers choose to only drop ship and others sell ...
Payments
$6 Billion Visa, MasterCard Settlement Final; How to Claim

January 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke

Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement in a class-action lawsuit between merchants (as plaintiffs) and Visa, MasterCard and other defendants. The case ...
Business
Finding Business Motivation in Industry Leaders

January 10, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Starting and running a business can require a level of commitment that few people understand or experience. Entrepreneurs may find the motivation needed for all of that commitment in the ...
Business
Utilizing ‘Voice of the Customer’ for Competitive Advantage

January 9, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan

In the extremely competitive retail environment, merchants are always looking for a competitive advantage. If you haven’t considered using “Voice of the Customer” (VoC) feedback, you may want to give ...
Business
6 Tips to Beat the Afternoon Slump

January 8, 2014 • Jerry Jao

Fatigue or lack of enthusiasm in the afternoon is a common problem for many office workers. Those of us running Internet businesses are especially susceptible because most of our activities ...
Business
Reviewing Ecommerce KPIs for the New Year

January 7, 2014 • Dale Traxler

The holidays are over. Your business is returning to normal. As you start a new year, review your business’s performance in 2013. Once you’ve completed your review, create a plan ...
Local Business > Merchant Voice
Ecommerce expanding into brick-and-mortar

January 6, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

When I first started in ecommerce, it was as a way of expanding my brick-and-mortar business as a second sales channel. I was not the only one. It seemed to ...
Business
Ecommerce Marketplace Opportunities for 2014

January 3, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay allow Internet retailers to present products, market, and sell to potential customers that may have otherwise been difficult to acquire. In 2014, there many ...
Business
Big Data’s Impact on 2013 Holiday Sales

January 2, 2014 • Gagan Mehra

The holiday season has ended and the analysis has begun to understand what worked and what did not for ecommerce merchants. Cyber Monday became the biggest online shopping day in ...
Business
5 Keys to Mobile Ecommerce Optimization in 2014

January 2, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Web traffic estimates from several trend analysis firms, including comScore, predict that mobile Internet traffic will outpace traffic from desktop or large laptop devices in 2014, further demonstrating just how ...
Business
2013 Top 25: Our Most Popular Posts of the Year

December 27, 2013 • PEC Staff

As 2013 draws to a close, we’ve compiled a list of the 25 most popular Practical Ecommerce articles of the year, based on the number of page views. Popular subjects included ...
Payments
3 Examples of Misleading Credit Card Processing Charges

December 20, 2013 • Phil Hinke

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part series. The first installment, “Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?,” we published last month. In “Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?,” part ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
4 Tips for Better Ecommerce Returns and Exchanges

December 19, 2013 • Armando Roggio

More than 60 percent of online shoppers returned or exchanged at least one item in 2013, up from about 51 percent in 2012. Importantly, about 95 percent of customers will ...
Business
5 Ecommerce Challenges for 2014

December 18, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Many ecommerce merchants are enjoying a robust holiday selling season even as some brick-and-mortar stores are seeing relatively flat Christmas sales. To ensure continued growth and success, Internet retailers may ...
Business
5 Tips for Managing Freelance Contractors

December 17, 2013 • Jerry Jao

Outsourcing non-core or seasonal tasks can allow you to focus on essential duties. It can also be a wise financial decision because hiring freelancers doesn’t come with full-time expenses such ...
Payments
10 Bitcoin-like Cryptocurrencies

December 16, 2013 • Sig Ueland

A “cryptocurrency” is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency. In 2009, Bitcoin became the first cryptocurrency to trade on third-party markets. Since then, many cryptocurrencies have been developed and are actively ...
Business
Lessons Learned: Fashionable Maternity Wear Sells

December 13, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Like most working women yet to become mothers, Tania Tan was blissfully unaware how unfashionable and expensive maternity clothing could be. Tan was raised in Sydney, Australia by her Chinese father ...
Business > Merchant Voice
7 tips to plan for Valentine’s Day gift orders

December 12, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Christmas is such a major sales period for many online retailers that it can make you overlook Valentine’s Day, which falls barely six weeks later. Here are seven tips to get ...
Business
15 Online Shopping Pet Peeves

December 10, 2013 • Gagan Mehra

Being an avid online shopper, I buy from many ecommerce sites. Most of these sites are helpful and effective. But there are some that have annoying features. Here are my top ...
Finance
Ecommerce Strong on Black Friday, Cyber Monday

December 10, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

The much anticipated Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping extravaganza showed mixed results with online sales outpacing disappointing brick-and-mortar results. Brick-and-mortar Sales Brick-and-mortar retail sales on Black Friday were disappointing. The tactic ...
Business > Merchant Voice
What can online retailers learn from the Black Friday frenzy?

December 9, 2013 • David Sasson

Every year I make a trip to at least one store during the crazy first hours of Black Friday. I consider this a pilgrimage of sorts. As online retailers we ...
Payments
11 Alternative Payment Options

December 9, 2013 • Sig Ueland

Alternatives to entering credit card numbers can provide customers with more payment choices, streamline checkout for mobile devices, and potentially save merchants money. Here is a list of alternative payment options.
Business > Merchant Voice
Multichannel order management packages

December 9, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

I use Magento and sell on my own site, six Amazon country sites, and Ebay. That’s a total of eight channels. I would be lost without a package that merged ...
Business
5 Ways Retailers Benefit from ‘Internet of Things’

December 4, 2013 • Gagan Mehra

Most activity on the Internet depends on human interaction. Email, social media, blogs, video, online shopping — it all requires humans. But there’s another, separate use of the Internet that ...
Business
Learning from BlackBerry and Twitter

December 2, 2013 • Manish Shah

You may have read that BlackBerry’s recent takeover offer of $4.7 billion from its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings of Toronto, collapsed on Nov. 4. Only three years ago, the Canadian ...
Business
November 2013 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

November 29, 2013 • PEC Staff

Each month we compile a list of the ten most popular articles — based on the number of page views — we published that month. Here are our ten most ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
MasterCard Enters Free Shipping Fracas

November 29, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Global payment firm MasterCard announced that its customers will receive free, two-day shipping from five of the Internet’s leading retailers. MasterCard also offered a premium service that extends the free,
Business
Which multicarrier package processing tool is right for you?

November 28, 2013 • Jordan Lindberg

“Not everybody’s gonna dig what I dig, but I reserve the right to dig it.” – Whoopi Goldberg Like many online retailers, we utilize more than one carrier to fulfill our ...