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.

Finance
Ecommerce IPOs for 2011: 3 Down, More to Follow?

September 23, 2011 • Sig Ueland

Groupon's initial public stock offering, which had been pushed back, is now back on. But for how long? With the ongoing market volatility, several prominent Internet companies are reconsidering their IPO plans. Here is a roundup of the ecommerce-related IPO market for 2011, including a...
Finance
Consumers Use Tablets for Shopping; 70 Million Units in 2011

September 22, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

When Apple introduced the iPad in April 2010, people ridiculed the name. Nobody is mocking it anymore. While other companies, including Microsoft, tinkered with tablets earlier, none of them made much of an impression on consumers. With its sleek design backed by Apple's marketing magic...
Business
ChannelAdvisor CEO Discusses Shop.org

September 21, 2011 • PEC Staff

Shop.org is a leading trade association for ecommerce merchants. It's the online division of National Retail Federation, which represents 3.6 million retail businesses worldwide. To discuss Shop.org and its role in helping online retailers, we spoke with Scot Wingo. He's the CEO of Chan...
Business > Merchant Voice
The Death of Free Shipping

September 21, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori

My highschool economics teacher preached, “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch”. This holds true for shipping costs. In fact, the costs of shipping are rising faster than inflation. I see our shipping rates rising much faster than increases in the cost of our products. So, if you...
Finance
Amazon Prime: 5 Million Members, 20 Percent Growth

September 16, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

For $79 a year, Amazon customers who join the Prime membership program get unlimited free two-day shipping on eligible items with no minimum order size. For $3.99 an item, a ...
Business
Site Search Complements Navigation, Says SLI-Systems CEO

September 13, 2011 • PEC Staff

By almost any measure, high-level site search increases sales. The need for sophisticated site search is becoming increasingly important for ecommerce merchants, who serve an increasingly sophisticated consumer base. To discuss trends in site search and new developments in that industr...
Payments
Credit Card Salespeople Don’t Understand Ecommerce Merchants

September 13, 2011 • Phil Hinke

This article is my latest installment on deceptive credit card practices that harm ecommerce merchants. I have worked in the credit card processing industry since 1994 and every year I get more disgusted with the tactics used on merchants. I now own a consulting firm that advises merc...
Business
Style Guides for the Digital World

September 12, 2011 • Armando Roggio

Written communications are a vital part of ecommerce marketing. How a business presents itself in words may affect how that business is perceived. With this in mind, it is a ...
Finance
How to Read a Financial Statement

September 8, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Having a good accountant is important to the success of every small business. But do you really understand all the terms in the documents your accountant prepares? Relying too heavily ...
Business
Ecommerce’s Debt to Steve Jobs; 10 Innovations

September 7, 2011 • Sig Ueland

Ecommerce owes Steve Jobs. Aside from launching the first popular personal computer, the Apple co-founder brought about many of the devices and marketplaces that make-up today's online commerce. Here is a list of innovations by Steve Jobs that have affected the ecommerce industry. The...
Business
Lessons Learned: Computer Retailer Suffers Heavy Losses, Rebounds

September 2, 2011 • PEC Staff

"Lessons Learned" is a series where we ask ecommerce owners to share their experiences, good and bad. For this installment, we corresponded with Elchonon Hellinger, founder of Miami, Florida-based Thrifty Computer, a retailer of new and refurbished computers, cell phones and electronic...
Finance
How to Choose a Business Credit Card, Part Two

August 26, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

In “Part 1” of this two-part series, I provided some tips for choosing a business credit card. In this “Part 2” installment, I provide details on specific cards as evaluated ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The New USPS.com: 5 Sections, Free Stuff

August 26, 2011 • Sig Ueland

The U.S. Postal Service has redesigned USPS.com to make it faster and easier to do business. The site is organized into five sections: Ship a Package, Send Mail, Manage Your Mail, Shop, and Business Solutions. Each section is organized by what you want to do and features a Quick Tools m...
Finance
How to Choose a Business Credit Card, Part 1

August 25, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

Unhappy with your current business credit card? Cheer up. As a business owner you have many choices. But a card that is right for one business may not be advantageous for another. Cash flow, credit rating, and the amount of business travel can influence your choice of cards. This is "...
Business
Types of eCommerce Business Buyers

August 23, 2011 • Manish Shah

Different buyers pay different Prices. Buyers can be categorized into four broad groups. It is very important to understand the differences between them, how they think and how to identify them to have a successful Exit Strategy. If you carefully study these buyer types, you will find ...
Business > Merchant Voice
How to Make Your Customer Service Shine

August 19, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori

As a small e-commerce store, you can’t compete against the big boys in many arenas. However, one arena where you can outduel them in is customer service. By definition, you are a specialist in your product category and therefore should be an expert in all things that you sell. You can...
Finance
Will the S&P Downgrade Affect Smaller Ecommerce Businesses?

August 18, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The downgrading of U.S. creditworthiness from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor's has dominated the news over the past two weeks. Since 1941, the U.S. credit rating has been AAA — the highest rating — denoting a safe investment. While S&P's action will doubtless have repercussions,...
Payments
21 Bitcoin Currency Resources

August 17, 2011 • Sig Ueland

Bitcoin is the first decentralized digital currency. Unlike other virtual currencies—like Facebook credits, for instance—it is not run by a company or organization, nor pegged to another currency. Bitcoins are digital coins you can send through the Internet, without using a bank or cl...
Business
5 Planning Tips for Physical Retailers to Migrate Online

August 16, 2011 • PEC Staff

As physical, brick-and-mortar retailers contemplate the online marketplace, they should consider their online stores in the same sense as if they were building another physical location. While it probably won’t be nearly as expensive to begin selling online as it is to build another phy...
Finance
How to Find Venture Capital Investors For Your Company

August 12, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

If you have a great idea for a start-up — or if you have an existing business that needs money to grow — the main options are to borrow from friends and family, borrow from a bank, or seek equity funding from a venture capital firm. Banks are skittish about lending to small businesses i...
Payments
Understanding Credit Card Fees, Part 4: The Merchant Statement – Per Item Fees

August 11, 2011 • Phil Hinke

This article is "Part 4" in a series where I help you understand your debit and credit card fees. In last month’s installment — "Understanding Credit Card Fees, Part 3: Punitive Interchange Rates" — I explained how to decode your merchant statement to distinguish the actual interchange...
Business
PCI Council Exec on Criticisms of Security Standards

August 10, 2011 • PEC Staff

The major credit card brands of Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover have adopted standards to protect consumers' credit card data. The standards are self-regulation — not government law — by those companies, which have also created an organization to administer it all. Tha...
Finance
Does the SEC Fail Small Internet Businesses?

August 5, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

As retailing migrates online, an increasing number of ecommerce and Internet business will seek to raise public capital. Many of them will be smaller companies. But a growing number of observers believe the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is failing smaller businesses and In...
Business
Innovators: 3 Unusual Ecommerce Models

August 4, 2011 • PEC Staff

In the ecommerce business, there are innovators and trendsetters, those companies and individuals who think ahead and produce changes. We've asked an expert ecommerce observer to help us identify some of these companies and individuals. The observer is Harley Finkelstein, chief platform...
Business
Selling on Amazon: Pros and Cons

August 2, 2011 • Charles Nicholls

The Harry Potter franchise of ebooks will not be depending on Amazon. Author J.K. Rowling has teamed up with Sony to launch a direct outlet, called Pottermore. If you’re in the ecommerce business, and have ambition, then perhaps like J.K. Rowling, you shouldn’t rely on Amazon. But if...
Finance
Need Funding for Your Company? Look Online

July 29, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

It used to be that if you wanted capital for your business, whether a loan or equity investment, you had to prepare lots of Excel spreadsheets, put on a suit and tie or a dress, and spend an uncomfortable amount of time being grilled by potential funders. Today all that is unnecessary t...
Finance
California Joins the Internet Sales Tax Fray; Federal Legislation Coming?

July 21, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan

The Internet sales tax issue continues to roil, with California the most recent state to enact a bill mandating that out-of-state online retailers with affiliates in the state collect state sales tax. Amazon and Overstock immediately responded by cutting off their affiliates in Californ...
Business > Merchant Voice
Mistakes I Wish I Had Never Made

July 20, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori

We all know the saying, “If I knew then what I know now, I’d be much better off”. I was thinking about that the other day and decided to put together a list of mistakes I’ve made during my e-commerce life. I had to shorten the list to just 6 items because there’s only so much room on th...
Business
Miva Merchant President Discusses eBay, Facebook

July 19, 2011 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce executives manage their own companies. But they are also experienced observers of online retailing in general. It's in the latter capacity that we recently spoke with Rick Wilson. He's president of Miva Merchant, the hosted shopping cart. He's also a 12-year veteran of ecomme...
Business
Opportunity vs. Potential while valuing your ecommerce company

July 17, 2011 • Manish Shah

It is interesting to see the wide range of value various buyers will attribute to a same online business. One buyer may find a business as worthless while other is willing to pay hundreds of thousands. Valuation of your ecommerce company is in direct proportion to the amount of opportun...