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.

Payments
Avoid Credit Card Processing Proposals with AVS Fees

June 12, 2012 • Phil Hinke

Editor's Note: Contributor Phil Hinke is a veteran of the credit card processing industry. He now consults with merchants to help them lower their processing costs, believing the credit card industry is often unfair to them. His latest installment is below. There have been a few cases ...
Business
Achieving Your Ecommerce Business Goals

June 8, 2012 • Dale Traxler

In my recent series of articles, I examined six different elements of a business model: customers, products and services, channels, profit, people, and infrastructure. A well-planned business model and a well-executed strategy to support it should allow you to achieve your business goal...
Business
Using Google Analytics to Measure Social Media Effectiveness

June 7, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

Google Analytics has moved its social reports to new locations. And it has added new features to gather more in-depth social media data. Here’s a quick look for Google Analytics users, showing you where you can find your social metrics, and how they’ve been designed to better suit your...
Business
Is Your Ecommerce Model Profitable and Sustainable?

June 4, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Are your profits better or worse than you projected 12 months ago? If you don't know — or if you didn't do a projection — you may be missing a key component of your business model: finance. This article continues my series on the managerial, operational, and financial aspects of runn...
Business
Limitations on the Crowdfunding Legislation

May 30, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

Now that the Jumpstart Our Business Startups — "JOBS" — Act has passed, many people are jumping to get into the crowdfunding game. There are masses of start-ups and operating companies that are seeking to use crowdfunding as a way to access cash for their new ventures or to expand exis...
Business > Merchant Voice
Shared hosting is best for Magento

May 30, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

Yes, you read that right. I firmly believe that the best hosting for most Magento sites is shared hosting. All too often when you look around for a host for your Magento store, hosting companies say things like “you cannot run Magento in a shared environment”, “Magento is resource hungr...
Business > Merchant Voice
One disastrous daily deal experience: What Not To Do

May 28, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

After experiencing one of the worst purchase experiences ever via a daily deal website which has broken nearly every retailing rule you can break, here is my What Not To Do post. On 19 January 2012, I saw a tempting offer from the daily deal website, Spreets to buy $100 worth of Elle M...
Business
Building the Right Ecommerce Team for Success

May 23, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Think you have a killer idea for an ecommerce business? Whether you are a product manufacturer or a reseller, it’s pretty difficult to come up with a truly unique business idea. In most cases, you’ll find someone who has done it, already doing it, or planning it. You will likely be able...
Business
Reduce Shipping Costs with Hybrid Services

May 22, 2012 • PEC Staff

Consumers increasingly expect free shipping for ecommerce purchases. But as fuel prices continue to fluctuate greatly and the economy is mired by uncertainty, shipping continues to be one of the toughest costs to for etailers to manage. Free shipping hurts profit margins. Moreover, th...
Business
7 Key Ecommerce Infrastructure Decisions

May 18, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Every business requires an infrastructure to support its customers and operations. This includes facilities, equipment, and processes to support all the functional areas of your business. Choosing the correct infrastructure to match your business strategies enables your operations to ru...
Payments
Credit Card Providers Increasing Rates and Fees

May 17, 2012 • Phil Hinke

Editor's Note: Contributor Phil Hinke is a credit-card veteran who now consults with merchants on lowering their processing costs. Hinke believes the credit card processing industry is often unfair to merchants. He explains his views in his articles for us, including the one below. It’...
Business > Merchant Voice
10 Ways to Make Your Video Not Suck

May 15, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, I know a few things about video production. Photography and videography are a passion of mine. So, listen up, please! Nearly every tutorial that explains “how” to create a video is dead wrong. Crumple them up and toss them in the bin. Why? Be...
Business > Merchant Voice
10 reasons your mother makes your best beta tester

May 15, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you sell B2C products and/or services, your mother (or grandmother) could be your best beta testing panel member ever. Here's 10 reasons why. 1. Number one advocate Can you imagine a more fervent supporter of your work? It's like a grown-up version of her wanting to hear what you'...
Inventory
Inventory Rules Are Changing, Says Dropship.com CEO

May 9, 2012 • PEC Staff

Drop shipping is the process of selling an item that is then shipped by a manufacturer or wholesaler. Many ecommerce merchants utilize drop shipping, at least in part, to reduce inventory costs and to expand their product offerings. But drop shipping can be complicated. We addressed s...
Amazon & Marketplaces > Merchant Voice
Magento, Multi Store and SEO

May 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

One of the biggest challenges to Search Engine Optimisation for any Ecommerce site is the range and variety in the stock. All SEO tutorials and teach yourself books seem to assume you are selling a small range. Typically 'widgits'. They talk about doing keyword analysis on widgets, find...
Business
Lessons Learned: Wholesale Butcher Becomes Prime Retail

May 4, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Australian Paul Tory studied accounting after leaving high school. But after “two very boring years,” he realized the profession wasn’t for him and decided to try a trade. He undertook a motor mechanics apprenticeship for five years before his father invited him in 1998 to join the fa...
Business
What’s the Value Proposition of Your Ecommerce Company?

May 3, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Your company's value proposition is the reason consumers buy your products or services. You may have more than one value proposition, as every customer segment you serve may derive value from different aspects of your offer. You should be able to explain it in 30 seconds — the so-called...
Business
Ecommerce Owner Sells the Business; Explains the Process

April 25, 2012 • PEC Staff

Merchants tend to put a lot of thought into starting their businesses, but not so much into leaving. Having a proper exit strategy can allow merchants to sell their businesses much more effectively, as well making the process less emotionally taxing. We recently spoke with Dale Traxle...
Business
Managing Your Company’s Trade Secrets

April 24, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

Trade secrets are valuable assets that can be owned. Ecommerce businesses can create many types of trade secrets, including marketing techniques, supplier lists, business practices, and unique software processes. What may constitute a trade secret extends beyond what may be patentable,...
Business
Who Needs an Ecommerce Strategy, Anyway?

April 23, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: We welcome Dale Traxler as our newest contributing editor. He's a former owner of an ecommerce business — having purchased, grown and then sold Beaded Impressions, a family of jewelry-related sites. He's now an advisor and consultant to small businesses. Ten years ago...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Changes at the USPS

April 20, 2012 • PEC Staff

Editor's Note: We welcome John Haber as our newest contributor. A shipping and supply-chain authority, he is the founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts, a global shipping and supply-chain consulting firm. His first piece, below, addresses changes at the USPS and how those changes c...
Finance
Going Public? How to Decide Which Exchange to List On

April 20, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Thinking about taking your company public? After you get through all the paperwork you will have to decide at which stock exchange you want to list your company. Each publicly traded company may trade shares on only one domestic stock exchange. Substantive differences exist among the ex...
Business
Lessons Learned: U.K. Online Ink Store Celebrates 10 Years

April 18, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences, good and bad. For this installment, we corresponded with John Sollars, founder of Stinkyink, a ...
Business
How to Manage Tracking Tags on an Ecommerce Site

April 18, 2012 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce sites track visitor behavior in a variety of ways. One of them is the use of "tags," small pieces of code from third-party websites, such as analytics programs and affiliate marketing partners. An active site can have many tags, and they sometimes conflict with each other. Mon...
Business > Merchant Voice
How we increased our international business 40%

April 18, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

We increased our international business 40% recently. Our international packages, prior to this change, represented approximately 9.6% of all shipments. Since we made this change, they now account for 13.4% of all packages shipped. We accomplished this by lowering our shipping prices....
Inventory
3 Tips for Deciding What to Sell Online

April 17, 2012 • Armando Roggio

What a merchant sells online has a significant effect on that merchant’s success, including profitability and longevity. New ecommerce entrepreneurs should choose products wisely. According to estimates from Forrester, the research firm, U.S. online retail sales should reach about $278...
Business > Merchant Voice
Hotmail users unsubscribe most but most likely to convert

April 17, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Have you ever started signing up for a white paper, e-book or guide, entering your free web-based account in the email field, only to see they won’t accept anything other than a business address? So you reluctantly do so, most likely because if you’re anything like me, you rarely unsu...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: Red Flags for Ecommerce Merchants, Part 3

April 12, 2012 • Phil Hinke

Editor's Note: Contributor Phil Hinke is a veteran of the credit card processing industry. He now consults with ecommerce merchants on ways to lower their processing costs. Hinke believes merchants frequently overpay for credit card processing. His piece below is the third installment o...
Business
Using YouTube Videos to Drive Ecommerce Sales

April 11, 2012 • PEC Staff

The use of video by ecommerce merchants can increase sales. We recently spoke with Ian Hackett, senior director of ecommerce and user experience at TRX Training, a retailer of exercise equipment, about the use of video for product sales. TRX Training has an extensive YouTube channel, ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The Future of Regulated Mail, and Ecommerce Shipping

April 11, 2012 • James Hyde

People don’t write letters these days. They send emails. In the U.K., this has produced big changes in the state-owned Royal Mail. These changes have huge consequences for online retailers there. In the U.S., the Postal Service is starting to follow suit. In this article, I'll explain ...