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: 3tailer Co-Founder Jon West

October 29, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

"Lessons Learned" is an occasional series where we ask experienced ecommerce merchants about their mistakes and successes. For this installment, we asked Jon West, co-founder of 3tailer, a niche firm based in Charlotte, N.C. with over 50,000 individual products sold on 17 websites. West...
Business
Quick Query: Guidance CTO on Importance of Social Media

October 27, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

As the landscape of social media changes (with Facebook as its barometer), ecommerce professionals have to face the decision of extending their social marketing and multiplying their influence into different channels. Jon Provisor is co-owner and CTO of Guidance, which specializes in h...
Business
SellPoint CEO on Video and Its Impact On Conversion Rates

October 20, 2008 • PEC Staff

The use of video and rich media can enhance an ecommerce site. SellPoint is a firm that provides video and rich media (for free) to ecommerce merchants and we’ve asked ...
Business
Bloglist: buySafe Founder Steve Woda

October 20, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to share some of their favorite blogs. In this installment, we checked in with Steve Woda, founder, chairman and senior vice-president of product and strategy at buySAFE, a company that inspects online merchants, monitors their performance, an...
Business
Field Test: Video Usage On eCommerce Sites

October 15, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce questions several ecommerce merchants about a given topic. This month’s topic is online video, a powerful but not widely used form of marketing that’s driven by mixed motives in theory and varied results in practice. Video FAQ’s and product demonstrat...
Business
Copyright Law for Ecommerce Merchants

October 13, 2008 • Peter LaSorsa

The Internet makes copying photographs, artwork, and words easy, since a relatively unsophisticated user can just browse the web saving or copying nearly anything that suits his fancy. As an e-business owner you’ll want to both protect your photographs and, conversely, ensure that your ...
Business
TopTenWholesale.com CEO On Vertical-Search PPC Opportunities

October 12, 2008 • PEC Staff

Many ecommerce merchants run pay-per-click ad campaigns on the major search engines. But Jason Prescott, CEO of Toptenwholesale.com, argues that merchants can obtain a higher return-on-investment by advertising on specialized ...
Business
Pay-Per-Click Report Card: Loriswigsite.com

October 10, 2008 • Greg Laptevsky

Lori’s Wigsite sells various brands of wigs for men and women. The owner asked Practical eCommerce to review her pay-per-click marketing efforts and examine how the company’s current agency does the job. Loriswigsite.com is running advertising campaigns on Google AdWords and Yahoo! Sear...
Payments
Amazon Payment Service Allows for Advanced Options

October 6, 2008 • Armando Roggio

Amazon.com has been offering a beta version of its Flexible Payment Service (FPS) to merchants for almost a year now. With many developer-friendly features, some sellers could benefit from adding Amazon FPS to their payment options, especially if they’re already using Amazon to sell the...
Business
Quick Query: Pilot Identifies Niche With PDF Aviation Maps

October 3, 2008 • Armando Roggio

In the United States there will be 590,349 pilots collectively flying some 28 million hours in 228,000 different aircraft this year alone, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). To navigate, those pilots use altimeters, global positioning, and good old-fashioned ma...
Business
RatePoint CEO On Reputation Management

September 22, 2008 • PEC Staff

With the existence of social networking and consumer review sites, disgruntled customers can post negative comments about an ecommerce merchant and cause lasting harm. Neal Creighton is CEO of RatePoint,
Business
Pirated Software Rampant Among Personal Computer Users

September 18, 2008 • Michael A. Cox

To somebody who has never owned or made his living creating and licensing intellectual property, it may not be a big deal. Really, who is it going to hurt when someone downloads a piece of software without paying for it and uses it for personal gain? Or, what’s the harm when a kid down...
Business
Profile: Credit Card Veterans Will Target Experienced Merchants

September 2, 2008 • Michael A. Cox

If you’ve got John Waldron and Sloane Bouchever in a three-way on the phone, the best strategy is try and stay out of the way and take copious notes – better yet turn on a recorder. When these two highly successful and motivated online business pros get to talking about merchants and cr...
Business
Video Tutorial: Assessing Accessibility

August 26, 2008 • Brian Getting

There are a number of compelling reasons to make sure that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. In some cases meeting accessibility compliance standards is a legal obligation. However, in most cases (such as ecommerce merchants) it is just a good idea. Not only will...
Business
Order Fulfillment: Keep It Simple And Beware Of All The Costs

August 21, 2008 • Maxim Mironov

I used to manage the fulfillment operations of a mid-size online retail company. We adopted the “Why” method to correct and eliminate fulfillment errors and complexities. That is, each time a new fulfillment glitch arose, we asked ourselves, “Why?” The “Why” method in practice Here’s ...
Business
Video Tutorial: Batch Processing In Photoshop

August 20, 2008 • Brian Getting

Got a lot of product photos? Processing a large amount of images in Photoshop can take up a ton of time, and be an extremely boring task. Luckily, Photoshop provides a way to automate repetitive processing, which Practical eCommerce's Chief Architect Brian Getting illustrates in this v...
Business
Sales Tax: Frequently Asked Questions

August 18, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

Sales tax is a confusing concept for ecommerce merchants, and many consider Internet sales to be a sales tax-free domain. However, this is not the case, and ignoring sales tax can have severe consequences for merchants from whom it is due. Unfortunately, many states have confusing and ...
Business
Practical eCommerce Increases Digital Offerings, Drops Printed Magazine

August 15, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is dropping its printed magazine to focus exclusively on the digital delivery of its editorial content. The company began in July 2005 with a mission to publish easy-to-follow articles and advice that help businesses succeed online. This editorial content was origin...
Business
Quick Query: 1&1 CEO Oliver Mauss

August 13, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

1&1 Internet is among the world’s largest web hosts with 55,000 servers and 7.46 million customer contracts. Recently, the company surveyed 1,025 U.S. consumers about website communication and loyalty. We asked 1&1 CEO Oliver Mauss about the survey and what it means for small to...
Business
Video: Overview of Practical eCommerce Podcasts

August 11, 2008 • Brian Getting

This explanation is for anyone interested in the audio podcast content of the revamped Practicalecommerce.com. Practical eCommerce features three unique podcasts: The eCommerce Minute, eCommerce Conversations and eCommerce Articles. With the redesign of the website came a dramatic cha...
Business
Tutorial: Understanding Photoshop Layer Styles

August 4, 2008 • Brian Getting

Learning how to use Photoshop can be a very intimidating experience. In most cases, you have an idea of what you want to accomplish but you don't know how to use the available tools to get it done. In this video tutorial Practical eCommerce's Chief Architect Brian Getting provides a br...
Business
Legal: The Top Ten Risks For Online Businesses

July 30, 2008 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

We are often posed a “simple question” by sophisticated clients. Sometimes it is a simple question with a simple answer. More often than not, though, it is not. Serious web businesses know that if you operate in the “white hat” arena, never take a chance, and never go into the unknown;...
Business
SBA Financing for Ecommerce Firms

July 28, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

Working into the evening, Sterling Savings banker Michael Williams wraps up another day of SBA lending in Portland, Ore.’s “Silicon Forrest.” As business development officer for Sterling Savings’ SBA division, Williams knows firsthand the issues faced by ecommerce sites looking for an S...
Business
Research Domain Names Before You Bid

July 28, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

Chris Stump of Onlyhammocks.com launched his site in October with a solid search engine-marketing plan. “Our original plan was pay-per-click from the start and search engine optimization as a long-term strategy,” Stump said. He got right to work, purchasing the domain Onlyhammocks.com...
Business
Enquisite’s Dan Robbins

July 28, 2008 • PEC Staff

Dan Robbins is Vice President of Marketing at Enquisite, a search analytics company that follows customers from search to conversion. He joins Practical eCommerce Publisher Kerry Murdock to discuss Enquisite ...
Business
Shaun Ryan, CEO Of SLI Systems

July 22, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

SLI Systems CEO Shaun Ryan discusses site search and SLI’s hosted site search solution with Practical eCommerce Publisher Kerry Murdock.
Business
Field Test: Order Management Software

July 11, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered twelve seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is order management software. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin...
Business
Dr. J’s Pet Project

July 11, 2008 • Michael A. Cox

To be honest, it was a little embarrassing to be the daughter of an entrepreneur who was trying to start up a mail order livestock supply business back in 1975. Ruth Jeffers was a little girl when her dad, Dr. Keith Jeffers, decided to provide a higher level of service to his cattle cl...
Business
Practical eCommerce Blogger Wins eBay Hall of Fame Award

July 11, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

eBay expert and Practical eCommerce blogger Danna Crawford was out fishing with her daughters on her birthday, May 13. After a long day with no successful catches, the three went home tired and sunburned to find that Crawford was one of five eBay users to net two of eBay’s most prestigi...
Business
ICANN Exec On The new Top-level Domains

July 11, 2008 • PEC Staff

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers, or ICANN, coordinates the domain name system globally. These tasks involve ensuring the domain name system functions properly and that individuals and companies can easily obtain and use domain names for their lawful purposes. Rec...