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.
Amazon & Marketplaces | B2B | Cross-border Selling | Finance | Fraud Prevention | Inventory | Local Business | Payments | Shipping & Fulfillment | Staffing-
Business
The PEC Review: Fonality VOIP for Small Business
December 20, 2010 • Armando Roggio
The telephone, like it or not, is an integral part of every business — whether you're speaking with suppliers about shipments, having a teleconference with your web developer, or following up on a customer service question. I am not a big fan of telephones — except for the mobile ones ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Lee Wright with Ma Mi Skin Care
December 15, 2010 • PEC Staff
"Lessons Learned" is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences and advice. For this installment, we interviewed Lee Wright, president of Ma Mi Skin Care, an Orlando, Fla.-based online store that sells all-natural skin care products. Ma Mi Skin Care launc...
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Business
Financing for Ecommerce: Kabbage.com Automates Loans to eBay Merchants
December 14, 2010 • PEC Staff
Obtaining loans to grow ecommerce businesses can be difficult. But, fortunately there are financing sources sprouting up that target this niche. “Financing for Ecommerce” is our occasional series on identifying ...
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Business
Internet Explorer 9 to Include Tracking Protection, Content Blocking
December 14, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Microsoft announced that its forthcoming Internet Explorer (IE) 9 web browser will include an opt-in anti-tracking feature that will block third-party content, and even prevent programs like Google Analytics from working. This is on the heels of a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rep...
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Business
Opera Mail Brings a Feature-Rich Mail Client to Your Browser
December 7, 2010 • Armando Roggio
The free Opera web browser includes a built-in and feature-rich email client that lets you surf the web, subscribe to feeds, and manage your email from a single platform. There are a number of excellent email clients available, including Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, Mac OS X Mail, and...
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Business
The PEC Review: Slash the Web with Blekko Search
December 6, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Internet users conduct billions of web searches every month. In fact, comScore reported that Americans alone queried Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other search engines some 18.6 billion times in October 2010. What's more, the number of searches is growing. comScore reports that Americans ...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Shipping and Fulfillment: How to Get the Best Bang for Your Buck
December 1, 2010 • John Lindberg
UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service all do a good job of getting orders to your customers, but there are some simple things you can do to lower the costs involved. Understand How Delivery Costs Are Calculated When you start shipping in volume it is vital to understand how each carr...
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Business
Top Ten Posts for November 2010
November 30, 2010 • Kate Monteith
Each month, we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published at Practical eCommerce that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles for November 2010. 8 Steps to Social Media Success The subject of social media typically garners a g...
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Business
Legal: Comparative Advertising, Competitors’ Trademarks, and Infringement
November 17, 2010 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm
Comparative advertising can be beneficial to the marketplace. It tells consumers the differences in products and allows competitors to highlight why the consumer should select its product over another product. The Federal Trade Commission’s policy in the area of comparative advertising ...
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Business
Mobile Bandwidth: An Expert Explains 3G, 4G, WiFi
November 11, 2010 • PEC Staff
The usability of a mobile website frequently depends on the speed of the wireless connection. A mobile user with a 3G cellular connection, for example, would likely be frustrated with the relative slow response to a WiFi-optimized mobile site. But what, exactly, is the difference betwe...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Moonpig.com Prints, Mails Personalized Greeting Cards
November 9, 2010 • Kate Monteith
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment we visited with Nick Jenkins, the chairman and founder of Moonpig.com, a ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
You Gotta Have Something to Sell
October 31, 2010 • Ken Kikkawa
Happy Halloween! Before the ghosts & goblins and droves of trick-or-treaters descend upon our neighborhood, I've managed to find some quiet time to write. I recently returned from the 2010 iHobby Expo in Chicago, which is the largest trade show in the radio control and model hobby...
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Business
Top Ten Posts for October 2010
October 29, 2010 • Kate Monteith
Each month, we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published at Practical eCommerce that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles for October 2010. Top 10 Converting Websites: The 3 Common Strategies In this third article in our s...
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Tips for Improving Drop Shipping and Inventory Management
October 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
Autumn provides a not-so-subtle reminder that the holiday season is in swing. I recently moderated "Manage Inventory and Drop Shipping for the Holiday Rush," a Practical eCommerce webinar, on this very subject. It featured Anne Pingree, senior sales engineer with Infopia, the hosted s...
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Business
Internet Explorer 9: Managing Cookies and Cache
October 19, 2010 • Armando Roggio
From managing cookies to clearing your browser cache, there are essential tasks that every web surfer needs to know. Think of it this way. Many professionals and entrepreneurs use a web browser like Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to access web-based email, conduct research, or even...
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Business
Legal: Privacy Lessons from the Twitter Breach
October 18, 2010 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm
Earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled a case with Twitter regarding, in the opinion of the FTC, lax electronic administration of Twitter's website. This case provides insight into what is required in privacy policies and what administrative controls are required....
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Business
Lessons Learned: TheUncommonDog.com, Uncommonly Successful
October 13, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we spoke with Greg Jerum. He is the CEO of TheUncommonDog.com, a ...
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Business
September 2010 Top Ten: Our Most Popular Posts
October 5, 2010 • Kate Monteith
Each month, we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published at Practical eCommerce that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles for September 2010. Google Instant Search: The Impact for Ecommerce Site Owners In September, Google...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Best Bully Sticks Thrives on Teamwork
September 28, 2010 • Kerry Murdock
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment we visited with Avrum Elmakis, owner and president of Best Bully Sticks,
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Business
Lessons Learned: Free Shipping Helps, Says Bike Retailer
September 21, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we visited with Todd Henley, president of Makai’s, an online retailer of ...
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Business
Protect Your Brand from Counterfeiters
September 16, 2010 • Jeff Jacobson, Jd, Llm
This is the second installment in a two-part series regarding protection against counterfeit products being sold on the Internet. In the first installment, "Legal: When Merchants Are Liable for Selling Counterfeit Brands," I wrote how online retailers and auction houses can protect them...
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Payments
SSL Certificates: Extended Validation Worth the Cost?
September 16, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons
Internet users interact with SSL certificates when they access a web page or transmit data over the web. These certificates help confirm the rightful owner of the site, and that payment and other information is encrypted and safely transmitted. However, one size of SSL certificates do...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Dog-Toy Merchant Stresses Branding; Cites Early SEO Miscues
September 14, 2010 • Kerry Murdock
Candy Blakeslee once ordered a toy for her dog. She ordered the toy on eBay because she and her husband, Dean, had sold antiques there and she figured it would be a good place to buy dog toys, too. The year was 2000. "I decided I should buy my dog a toy from eBay." said Blakeslee....
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Business
Financial Management Key to Small Businesses, Says NetSuite Exec
September 9, 2010 • PEC Staff
Financial management is critical to ecommerce companies. But the tools to manage financial matters vary, and many of them don't automatically integrate with a merchant's ecommerce site, making the financial tracking and reporting process even more burdensome. To help us understand finan...
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Business
August 2010 Top Ten: Our Most Popular Posts
September 1, 2010 • Kate Monteith
Each month, we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published at Practical eCommerce that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Back on the Front Line
August 31, 2010 • Ken Kikkawa
As a business owner, there are many times when you have to do it all: hire, fire, answer phones, solve UPS problems, pick & pack orders...you name it! Some of the most challenging parts of my job is not the business aspect of running the company but instead the people aspect of it....
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Business
Overseas Expansion: Tips from a Global Exec
August 31, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons
Once merchants are successful in domestic markets, many of them weigh the benefits of expanding their operations abroad. The many challenges accompanying overseas expansion, including language optimization, SEO, taxation and credit card processing, can seem daunting. We asked Jim McGee...
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Business
New Firefox Release: Faster, Better Video, Different Look
August 26, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Last week, the Mozilla Foundation released a new version of its Firefox 4 web browser. The new version offers better performance, improved tab management, more HTML5 video support, synchronization, and ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Candle Retailer Regrets Custom Shopping Cart
August 26, 2010 • PEC Staff
“Lessons Learned” is a series where we ask ecommerce business owners to share their experiences. For this installment, we visited with Logan Suttman, CEO of Black & Light Co., which ...
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Business
Comparison Shopping Engines: Strategies for Smaller Merchants
August 25, 2010 • PEC Staff
Comparison shopping engines can drive traffic to an ecommerce site. But there are over 120 such engines, and how to decide which of them to use and whether to use them at all are questions many merchants have. We spoke with Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, a leading ecommerce software...