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
Lessons Learned: Selling Specialty Handbags Expensive

September 6, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Las Vegas-based business duo Christopher Nelson and Tamara Leuty created patented designer handbags with built-in lights that enable you to see what's inside. Then they started a business — Glass Handbag — in late 2010. They received U.S. and international patents for their invention. T...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Top 10 Comparison Shopping Tools of 2012

August 28, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Shopping comparison sites and services let online shoppers compare products' attributes and prices in a relatively neutral environment. These services also give merchants a channel to market to some of the web’s savviest consumers. Several companies track and analyze shopping compariso...
Finance
Ecommerce Shines in the Second Quarter of 2012

August 23, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

The first half of 2012 continued the 2011 fourth quarter trend of strong ecommerce growth. In Q2, online retail grew nearly four times the rate of total consumer spending in the U.S., according to ecommerce research firm comScore. The Census Bureau reports that U.S. ecommerce sales in Q...
Staffing
Outsourcing v. Hiring In-house: Pros and Cons

August 22, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Looking back at my 10-years of managing a growing ecommerce business, I realize that online retailing is not simple. It requires many specialized skills and resources to succeed. I've listed some of these, below. Website design and development. A moving target, with new releases, d...
B2B
Use a PIM to Manage Cross-Channel Product Details

August 21, 2012 • Armando Roggio

As an online retail business grows, managing product data can become a monumental task. Product information management solutions can help keep track of product data — descriptions, photography, and even pricing information — improve accuracy, and ensure good customer shopping experience...
Inventory
3 Tips for Making Better Product Decisions

August 16, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Purchasing inventory wisely is an important part of any online retail business, since buying too little of a product might leave virtual shelves bare just when shoppers want something and buying too much can diminish capital and restrict cash flow. Often the secret to making better pur...
Business > Merchant Voice
Whatever I’m doing, I’m not doing it right

August 16, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

One of the best things about Practical eCommerce is that you can learn from the wonderful articles and from the advice that online retailers give. However, sometimes a little knowledge is worse than none at all. I'm doing something, but whatever it is isn't right... More unique visito...
Payments
How to Lower Credit Card Processing Costs and Obtain Better Terms, Part 1: The Basics

August 13, 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 lower their processing costs, believing the credit card industry ...
Finance
Ecommerce Acquisitions, Mergers, and Partnerships — What You Need to Know

August 8, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

In the late 1990s, ecommerce vendors looked to brick and mortar retailers for marketing tips and best practices. Now, as more people shop online and abandon brick and mortar stores, retail chains are turning to online merchants for advice. That's because web-only sellers have shown th...
Local Business
SEO: Can Local Searchers Find Your Stores?

August 3, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Online location pages of physical stores should provide much more information than just the physical address of a store close to the individual user. Many consumers already know where a store is, based on their everyday routines. What they don’t know and are seeking are the hours, holid...
Business > Merchant Voice
If You Build It They Will Come – Not Unless You Work On It

August 3, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

I often see posts on forums from optimists who want to set up a web site and make money. They seem to have that great optimism that any Ecommerce web site will be a success and save their business, or make them lots and lots of money. The sad fact is that the vast majority of new web ...
Business
Will U.S. Online Sales Tax Mandate Hurt Small Business?

August 1, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Struggling states and some brick-and-mortar retailers have reinvigorated an effort to mandate that online merchants collect sales taxes for all U.S. jurisdictions, whether or not those retailers actually have operations there. The most recent legislation is the so-called Marketplace Fa...
Business > Merchant Voice
5 ways to expand your product range for free or little cost

July 30, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

If you're a small online retailer, you may not want to tie up much – or if things are starting to bite financially, any more - money in purchasing products for your online store. But how can you expand your product selection easily without affecting your bottom line? Here's five possib...
Business
Lessons Learned: Personalized Gift Site a Family Affair

July 26, 2012 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

It wasn’t until her youngest daughter attended pre-school that Melissa Perlman Chelist could help manage the small gift website her husband Barry and his business partner David had created ...
Business
Analyzing a Startup, and Pivoting

July 26, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: Contributing Editor Dale Traxler is a former ecommerce owner who now consults with other businesses on financial and strategy matters. His piece below describes his work for a startup manufacturer and retailer. I mentioned in previous articles that I’m involved in two s...
Local Business
Showrooming Challenges Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

July 25, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Last December, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Amazon aggressively promoted its price-checking mobile phone application by giving shoppers five percent off items on Amazon that they scanned while in brick-and-mortar stores. The application, which compares store prices wi...
Business
To Maintain Productivity, Keep Some Margin

July 25, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Online retailers are accustomed to thinking about margin in a purely financial sense — as the difference between what an item costs and the amount at which it is sold. There are, however, other areas of an online retail business that need margin too. Margin may be thought of as a borde...
Business
5 Reasons to Consider Ubuntu for Your Small Business

July 24, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system focused on ease of use, simplicity, and security. This operating system is a good alternative to either Microsoft Windows or Apple's OS X, and may help small businesses get improved performance while saving money. Although some small business ow...
Shipping & Fulfillment
How to Reduce Picking and Packing Errors

July 23, 2012 • James Hyde

The picking and packing of ecommerce orders can be repetitive, mistake-prone work. But a well-designed workflow, using complementary software, can help reduce mistakes, provided that it supports the employees doing the work — not frustrate or hinder them. This article will explain how...
Payments
Visa, MasterCard Settlement Not an Automatic Win for Merchants

July 19, 2012 • Phil Hinke

Visa, MasterCard and 13 of the country's biggest banks have agreed to pay $7.25 billion to retailers in a settlement from a lawsuit over price-fixing on credit card transaction fees. The settlement, on behalf of about 7 million retailers, could be the largest antitrust class-action set...
Business
3 Ideas to Reduce Shipping Costs

July 18, 2012 • PEC Staff

Shipping policies can help make an Internet merchant successful. But shipping also is one of the largest cost centers. Amazon, Zappos, Overstock and Buy.com have stacked the cards in their favor by offering either free shipping or very aggressive shipping programs and policies. Conseque...
Business
Dr. Ralph Wilson on the Founding of Web Marketing Today

July 18, 2012 • Kerry Murdock

Before Google, Netscape, and Internet Explorer, there was Web Marketing Today. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson founded it back in 1995 as a vehicle to supplement his then-fledgling web development practice.
Amazon & Marketplaces
ShopRunner May Help Merchants Compete with Amazon Prime

July 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

For consumers, the cost of shipping has been one of the major drawbacks of ecommerce. During the last holiday season, free shipping made a comeback as merchants tried to ensure that consumers would buy online. So popular was the promotion many merchants continue to offer it. Now, with t...
Business
How to Change Your Online Reputation

July 11, 2012 • PEC Staff

Say you are an ecommerce merchant with an angry customer. The customer is so angry, he posts bad, negative reviews on the Internet about your company that are not true. What can you do? How can you combat it? We recently spoke with Cliff Stein about the business of managing online reput...
Business > Merchant Voice
The Free Traffic Myth

July 6, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

The obsession over search engine result page (SERP) placement stems from the erroneous thought that traffic gained via this source is free. It isn’t. The cost associated with ranking well for competitive terms is outrageous. Not only will you spend countless hours researching keywords,...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Setting Up an Amazon Webstore

July 5, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Amazon offers a software as a service ecommerce platform with solutions ranging from a quick shopping cart for individual sellers and small businesses to enterprise level services. What's more, Amazon promises that its Webstore solution is both good quality and easy to use. Is that re...
Business
Pawn Shops Move to the Internet; CEO Explains

July 4, 2012 • PEC Staff

Most sectors of the retail economy do business on the Internet. That now includes pawn shops. We recently spoke with Don Battis, CEO and founder of Pawntique.com, a web-only pawn shop that serves all of the U.S. from its base in New Hampshire. Practical eCommerce: What is Pawntique? ...
Business > Merchant Voice
You’ve got a search box, right?

July 4, 2012 • Jamie Salvatori

Users who use search on your website convert at a much higher rate than those who don’t. On my website, the difference is striking. Visits with search convert about 500% higher than those without search. Please remember, though, that correlation does not imply causation. The simple ac...
Business > Merchant Voice
Not the Top Ten Extensions for Magento

June 29, 2012 • Richard Stubbings

When you first install Magento the temptation is to go to Magento Connect and look at all the possible extensions. There are literally thousands of them. The next step is to Google things like “best Magento extensions”, or “top 10 ..” or “recommended ….” just to try to whittle down the ...
Staffing
How to Hire an Affiliate Manager

June 28, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

Online retailers frequently ask me, “How much time am I going to need to run an affiliate marketing program?” Larger companies often employ an internal, full-time, dedicated marketing manager who focuses her attention on growing the affiliate program. However, for smaller companies, t...