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
Tablets, Smartphones to Change Online Shopping?

April 4, 2012 • PEC Staff

The shift to tablet and smartphone computing will surely change how consumers shop online. We recently spoke with Brian Horakh, founder and CEO of Zoovy, the shopping cart platform, about how this shift will affect ecommerce merchants. Horakh is an ecommerce pioneer — having founded Zo...
Business > Merchant Voice
8 ways expos are similar to online marketing

April 4, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

1. Go against type If you’re trying to get known for an unusual niche, don’t book the obvious, traditional expo category (in my case, New Age expos for astrology reports), in the beginning. You’ll compete as an also-ran against others with bigger wallets, better branding, bigger sta...
Business
7 Reasons to Start an Ecommerce Business

April 4, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Owning a business can be emotionally fulfilling and financially enriching. Tens of thousands of new ventures are started each year. Ecommerce businesses frequently require less capital and less time to start than brick-and-mortar retail or service operations. So why not get going? Cer...
Business
Lessons Learned: SEO Makes Australian Florist Bloom

March 27, 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 Andrew Thomson, co-founder and CEO of ...
Payments
PayPal, Others Envision Payment Convergence

March 26, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The new PayPal Here smartphone-enabled credit card reader is the most recent indication of how electronic payments will likely change, ridding retailers of most industry compliance requirements, enabling simple payment processing solutions, and consolidating multiple or variable proces...
Business > Merchant Voice
8 free or low-cost ways to market your website

March 25, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Get the message about your business out there for next to nothing! 1. Print business cards with product descriptions Next time you print business cards, squeeze it in a catchy description and/or images of what your website sells to help jog people’s memories. Or create a tiny “brochur...
Business
App List: Joe Horan of TheBuyFly

March 21, 2012 • PEC Staff

“App List” is a feature where we ask ecommerce professionals to list the apps they have installed on their phones, and tell us why they use them. For this installment,
Business
5 Tips for Working with Web Developers

March 21, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

If you are planning on hiring someone to develop your website or particular functions for your website, there are some key items you should first consider. Many of these considerations relate to intellectual property, which is comprised of various rights created to protect the result of...
Business > Merchant Voice
Daily deals: 6 ways they ruin your business, 3 ways they might not

March 19, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you’ve considered doing a daily deal with Groupon et al, first consider what do they do to your online business. 1. They massively lower profit There are so many daily deal websites out there that many consumers have signed up to three or more. But to create cut-through in their in...
Finance
Kabbage, A Funding Source for Ecommerce Merchants

March 15, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When we first first wrote about Kabbage just over a year ago, it was a fledgling endeavor with only eBay merchants as customers. But Kabbage now serves merchants who use Yahoo! stores, Etsy, Amazon, and Shopify, as well as eBay. In July Kabbage will be launching in the U.K., its first ...
Business
How to Reduce Ecommerce Shipping Costs

March 14, 2012 • PEC Staff

Strategies and ideas to reduce shipping expense appeal to most every ecommerce merchant. We recently spoke with John Haber, founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts, a shipping and logistics consulting firm, about ways for merchants to reduce their shipping costs. Practical eCommer...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: Red Flags for Ecommerce Merchants, Part 2

March 13, 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 second installment ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How you can help customers going through a hard time

March 11, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If your customer isn’t going through a tough time, they definitely know someone who is. And I’m not saying this because I’m a doom’n’gloom kinda girl – if anything, I’m a bit of a Pollyanna. Of the 774 daily – OK, near-daily – blog posts I’ve written for the past three years, the most...
Shipping & Fulfillment
How to Monitor and Manage Your Wholesale Suppliers

March 8, 2012 • James Hyde

In the beginning, you might be content that your inventory suppliers have simply delivered your goods on time. But as you grow and take on more lines, more staff, or outsource to a fulfillment company, you’ll quickly find that the arrival of poorly marked goods can waste time. In this ...
Business
CyberSource Exec on Credit Card Fraud, Steps to Prevent

March 7, 2012 • PEC Staff

Most every ecommerce merchant has experienced credit card fraud. Credit card companies try to prevent payment fraud, of course, and one — CyberSource — publishes a report on the state of payment fraud each year. CyberSource's chief researcher for that report — called, this year, "2012 O...
Business > Merchant Voice
My Love/Hate Relationship with Product Reviews

March 7, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

I don’t have product reviews on my website. I may add them at some point. However, I’m quite conflicted about it. My stance may seem odd since the big players in that space would cite years of research showing that adding product reviews to your website will increase your conversion r...
Business > Merchant Voice
Put Retail back on the Agenda

March 6, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

The English have been called a nation of shopkeepers, and I guess that this is in part true. We still have a significant number of independent retailers surviving, even thriving, in spite of fierce competition from supermarkets and large national chains. We stay ahead of them because we...
Fraud Prevention
3 Tips for Managing a Store’s Online Reputation

March 6, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce marketers can monitor and maintain their stores' online reputation with regular searches and alerts, social media tracking software, and a commitment to good customer service. Reputation management, which is the practice of listening to and responding to what people say about...
Business
Checklist for Qualifying Internet Business Buyers

March 4, 2012 • Manish Shah

So, you are thinking of selling your internet business. You understand the importance of exit strategy planning. You are excited to learn that good internet businesses can be sold quickly.. You have carefully analyzed your financial statements and calculated a fair market value for your...
Business > Merchant Voice
My Seven Big Mistakes

February 26, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

When people ask me what was the biggest mistake I have made with my luxury astrology report website business, I have to joke, “Which one?!” I have made so many... Big Mistake 1 My website Itsinthestarsonline.com was launched on 19 December 2006 after I interviewed seven website develop...
Business
10 Low-Budget Ways to Sell Internationally

February 23, 2012 • Gagan Mehra

In “10 Ideas to Grow Ecommerce Profits in 2012,” my previous article, I suggested that merchants expand into foreign markets to grow profits. In this article, I'll address how to do that without spending a lot of money. 1. Sell on Current Website, Ship from U.S. Your international cu...
Finance
15 Top Crowdfunding Projects on Kickstarter

February 23, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding site to fund entrepreneurial projects in technology, design, film, art, and other creative fields. The video game project Double Fine Adventure has raised two million dollars from over sixty thousand backers, and the funding still has 19 days to go. Within ...
Business
Crowdfunding Legislation Still Pending

February 22, 2012 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm

If you want to raise money for your business venture, you generally have a few traditional options. You can (a) ask your family to back your venture, (b) apply for bank financing, or (c) seek investors to participate in your business. Lack of Bank Financing Since 2009, bank financi...
Business
How to Compete on Price Against Large Companies

February 22, 2012 • PEC Staff

Conventional wisdom is that smaller ecommerce merchants cannot compete against larger ones in terms of the prices of their respective products. That may not be necessarily true. We recently spoke with Rodrigo Carvalho, founder and CEO of BlackLocus, a pricing-intelligence service. He ...
Payments
Credit Card Processing: Red Flags for Ecommerce Merchants, Part 1

February 17, 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 first installment o...
Payments
6 New Mobile Payment Developments

February 16, 2012 • Sig Ueland

According to investment bank Barclays Capital, purchases made on smartphones and tablets hit $5.3 billion in the U.S. in 2011, up 83 percent from 2010. While mobile purchases are dramatically growing, how mobile consumers actually pay for those items is dramatically changing. Here is ...
Business
What’s an Inappropriate Product Review?

February 15, 2012 • PEC Staff

A recent New York Times story profiled a merchant that sold leather Kindle cases on Amazon. The merchant, according to The Times, then sent letters to its customers offering a free case if the customers posted a review on Amazon. The story created a firestorm of angst concerning reviews...
Business > Merchant Voice
There is no magic bullet for success.

February 9, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

Soap box time! I feel like ranting a bit today. I really bristle when I read articles claiming “The 7 Tips to SEO dominance” or “10 ways to effectively market your business” or “Top 5 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Business”. It’s as if there are magic potions to running an online busines...
Shipping & Fulfillment
How to Pack and Protect an Ecommerce Shipment

February 9, 2012 • James Hyde

There are three main aspects to packaging for ecommerce shipments. Protection. Helps prevent damage to the items during transit. Presentation. Gives perceived value to the customer. Cost. Often a limiting factor. In this article, I will address "protection" matters: How to...
Business
How to Source Products from China, and Sell There Too

February 8, 2012 • PEC Staff

There's no bigger name in the ecommerce industry than Alibaba. It was launched in 1999 in China, but it now services millions of businesses and consumers, offering wholesale and retail products worldwide. We recently spoke with its vice president of global sales and service, Brian Wong,...