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 > 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 ...
Business
Third-party Cookies vs. Consumer Privacy

November 26, 2013 • Dale Traxler

In “The End of Third-party Cookies Should Not Hurt Retailers,” we addressed how third-party cookies affect privacy and ecommerce. After reading that article, I reviewed privacy issues and what other ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Amazon Prime, ShopRunner Forcing Faster Free Shipping

November 22, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Amazon Prime and ShopRunner, which both offer online shoppers free two-day shipping with an annual membership, are changing customer expectations and forcing small and mid-sized online retailers to consider faster ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Focusing on the top 20 percent of your customers

November 18, 2013 • David Sasson

By segmenting customer lifetime value and identifying the top 20 percent, an ecommerce company can develop a focused marketing effort to increase revenues with limited additional spend. As online merchants we ...
Staffing
How to Hire Holiday Ecommerce Help

November 15, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Booming holiday sales require online retailers to pack and ship more orders, respond to more chat sessions, emails and calls, and closely manage marketing campaigns like pay-per-click advertising or promotional ...
Payments
Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?

November 14, 2013 • Phil Hinke

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission included merchant account providers in two separate lawsuits it filed against telemarketers earlier this year. The ...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Data Feeds Critical for Multichannel Success

November 14, 2013 • Dale Traxler

What do Amazon, TheFind, Sears.com, Rakuten.com, Shopping.com, Google Merchant, mShopper, Nextopia, SLI Systems, Catalogs.com, Shopzilla, Commission Junction, and Vendio have in common? They all require a data feed of your products.
Business
5 Steps to a More Productive Ecommerce Business

November 13, 2013 • Jerry Jao

Ecommerce owners and managers seek improved productivity. Whether you’re looking to scale your business faster, launch new features, or streamline your operations, here are five productivity tips that I practice ...
Finance
Equity Crowdfunding Edges Closer to Implementation

November 12, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been widely criticized for dragging its feet in issuing implementing regulations for equity crowdfunding, which was enabled when the Jobs Act was signed ...
Business
Large Retailers Redefining Ecommerce

November 11, 2013 • Dale Traxler

When showrooming became popular a few years ago, brick-and-mortar retailers realized they needed to change, to compete with lower-priced online stores. Amazon became the target of many brick-and-mortar companies. But ...
Business
Why some owners sell sooner, not later

November 7, 2013 • Manish Shah

When Sam Hogg went into business for himself, he probably never really expected the company he founded to take off as fast as it did. Launched in late 2008, his ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Further Christmas thoughts

November 5, 2013 • Richard Stubbings

It is impossible to ignore Christmas this time of year. It is the single most important season for most ecommerce sites. This is why there are already two excellent columns ...
Business
October 2013 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

November 1, 2013 • 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 > Merchant Voice
Preparing for the holidays

October 31, 2013 • David Sasson

Consumers always seem to stress about the holiday season. They think about all they have to do in order to have a “good showing.” They need to buy all their ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Are you using social media all wrong?

October 30, 2013 • Jamie Salvatori

Social media is probably the worst advertising vehicle for small ecommerce merchants I’ve found. Well, perhaps advertising on a park bench would be worse, but social media is pretty darned ...
Business > Merchant Voice
8 ways to help customers with Christmas gift deliveries

October 30, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

When customers start placing holiday orders — and especially as deadlines loom — you need all the help you can get in ensuring their purchases arrive safely. There’s a few ways ...
Business
Lessons Learned: VacuumSpot Founder Comes Clean, Inspires

October 30, 2013 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Alec Nelson grew up in the wealthy semi-rural Sydney suburb of Dural in a home that his builder father built in the 1960s. At age 11, he moved to Wagga ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
5 Things to Put in the Shipping Box

October 29, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers have a powerful tool for marketing to existing customers, potentially increasing sales, average order size, and profit. That tool is the shipping box merchants send to customers with ...
Business
7 Questions Before You Buy Software or Services

October 25, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce entrepreneurs and managers have many options for software, marketing toolkits, and any number of retail- and marketing-related services, each of which promises to improve business operations and sales. While ...
Business
Understanding Ecommerce Shoppers: Who, Why, Where, When, How

October 17, 2013 • Dale Traxler

Most ecommerce merchants can describe their customers in a general way. They likely know basic demographics — age range, gender, income level. But, do they understand the “why,” “where,” “when,”