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
Your eCommerce Activities Could be Criminal

February 1, 2006 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

The online world is an interesting place today for many reasons. Remember the old western movies when the cowboys came into town for several days of mischief? After weeks on the range, they would often decide on their own what laws to follow with predictable results leading to mayhem an...
Business
Relentlessimprovement.com Succeeds with Nutritional Supplements

January 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

Peter Hitesman was a loan officer for a banking institution in what he would consider his past life. It was a job that required an extreme attention to detail, intense customer service, and often times long hours. But he traded that all in one day for a new life as the owner of his own ...
Business
Ten Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know When You Get Sued

January 1, 2006 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

It’s one of those unanticipated business problems. The cost of dealing with it can be overwhelming. The risk of loss to you and your business is huge. While you are in the middle of managing ecommerce operations, sales, billing, advertising, fulfillment, and the day to day challenges in...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Order Management Software Saves Time, Reduces Errors

January 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” When Charles Dickens opened his classic A Tale of Two Cities with those words he was thinking only about the French Revolution. But his words strike equally apropos in the entrepreneurial revolution of the 21st century. It is the ...
Business
eCommerce Sales Taxes: Determine Your Liability

December 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Nexus – What Is It? Nexus is defined as a “connection” or “link.” In the world of lawyers, accountants and auditors, a nexus is an effective connection of a person or a company to a state so that the state has the ‘right’ to enforce its laws, and more importantly, its tax rules, agains...
Business
1-800-Bakery.com Links Bakeries with Consumers

December 1, 2005 • Brian Getting

Award winning bakery chef Stephen Pazyra thinks bakery items are more than mere food. To him, baked goods represent comfort foods that evoke nostalgia, bring back memories, and make people feel good. As the co-owner of 1-800-Bakery, Inc., he strives to bring the customer experience of y...
Business
North Dakota Senator Leads National Sales Tax Project

December 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Quick, what’s six-point-five percent of $171 billion. It’s about $11.1 billion. That is approximately the amount of sales and/or use tax revenues that would be due states, counties and cities on the ecommerce activity on the Internet this year, if it were all collectable, based on an ...
Business
Internet Businesses: Pioneers Still Get Arrows in Their Backs

December 1, 2005 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

When I started my first ecommerce company in February 1994 all of my friends thought I was crazy to leave a successful law practice and pursue my vision of the future…the ability to conduct financial transactions in “cyberspace”. There were less than 1,000 websites online worldwide and ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The Shipping News: Plenty of Carriers for eCommerce Companies

December 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Talk about your needle in a haystack. When you ship one package through the Fedex system it becomes one of more than six million that the company formerly known as Federal Express moves about the globe every day. If you shipped it on UPS it would be one of 14 million handled by the com...
Shipping & Fulfillment
International Shipments Worth the Effort

December 1, 2005 • Brian Getting

One of the greatest attractions of an online business is the vast number of customers that the Internet allows a retailer to reach. Web surfers from all over the world can navigate beyond the boundaries and borders that exist in the physical world to find the products and services that ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Fulfillment Help: Try Order Management Software

December 1, 2005 • Brian Getting

Online retailers know that there are many steps required from receiving a sales order to actually shipping it. For many retailers, these steps are separate and distinct: Print the order, enter it into accounting software, produce a shipping label, generate an inventory slip, email the c...
Business
A Master Over Disaster

November 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Amid the rubble and the heartache caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita were the lost dreams of many a business owner. More than likely, those people affected worst along the Gulf Coast were too concerned for and with their families to consider entrepreneurial ventures. Get my family. ...
Business
Hiring a Sales Tax Technology Provider

November 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Single Solution Sales tax compliance software must perform multiple operations. It must first determine the relevant jurisdiction and rules, and then calculate taxes in real time. It must then compile the data, complete and file the tax return and remit the proceeds. Make certain your ...
Business
Stephanie Leffler, CEO of MonsterCommerce

November 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Stephanie Leffler says anybody who thinks a successful ecommerce business is about putting up a website in five minutes and counting the money in their pajamas is in for a rude awakening. To her, ecommerce is a real business that requires every bit the investment of time, energy and mon...
Business
Creating Your First Banner Ad in Photoshop

November 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Overview As an ecommerce entrepreneur there is no particular reason that you would know what a GIF or a JPEG file is. In fact, it may be that the only tech smarts you have is that you hired someone to build and manage your website for you. However, many entrepreneurs are very hands on,...
Business
Displaying Special Characters Using HTML

November 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Overview As a business owner, being able to publish your content to the web represents an incredible distribution opportunity. The evolution of web publishing has allowed for nearly any printed materials to be distributed online, often times for a fraction of the expense. One of the c...
Business
The FruitCompany.com: From Farmers to eCommerce Entrepreneurs

November 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

You can, too, go home again. Scott and Addison Webster are living proof. The brothers grew up on a fruit farm in the beautiful Hood River Valley of Oregon. The farm was a family operation started by their Grandfather Roy and his partner Murray Albertson in 1942. Roy and his son Wayne m...
Business
Nastygrams: Don’t Let a Legal Letter Ruin Your Day

November 1, 2005 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

It is a beautiful fall day as the early morning sun and fresh breeze cascade through your office window, an open invitation to an afternoon of golf. Then, the morning mail arrives, bringing with it a “cease and desist letter,” and you know upon reading this threat of a lawsuit that your...
Business
GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons: We’re Only Seeing the Tip of the Iceberg

October 5, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Bob Parsons takes risks, not something your average CPA tends to do easily. But then Parsons isn’t your average CPA, although he has a degree in accounting and worked as one for several companies. Parsons took a risk when he joined the Marines after growing up in a “Blue Collar” Baltim...
Business
Alternative Medicine Network Flourishes

October 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

A lot of the great products we know and love today were born out of personal need of the inventor. Karsten Solheim, the father of PING golf clubs had troubles putting so he invented a putter (and then some golf clubs) that revolutionized the golf world. James Spangler, a janitor workin...
Business
Customer Service Focus – October 2005

October 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Your goal as an e-tailer should be to amaze customers with an unusually high level of service. Consider these customer service tips to improve your ecommerce business. More Than One Method of Communication. Make sure your site offers more than one method of communication. Most sites ...
Business
Star Crossed Productions Finds Niche

September 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Kathy Smith is 46 years old. She started out as a high school teacher. “Some days it was like walking into a battle zone.” Then she was in the printing business. “Pressure cooker every day.” Then, in November 2002, she launched Star Crossed Productions at scp-inc.biz. “Rocket ride.” W...
Business
A Tangled Web We Weave

August 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

The choice between having nothing nice to say and saying nothing at all, at least on the web, is becoming increasingly easier by the day. Say nothing at all. When the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) was struck down to allow indecent, as opposed to obscene speech, the effect – uni...
Business
Scope, Don’t Hope

August 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

Among the many perks of running your own business is the freedom to work on your own schedule, at your own pace, where you want and how you choose. However, ask any online entrepreneur, and he or she will likely never get back to you. No time. Too busy. Even if your business is confin...
Shipping & Fulfillment
A Primer in Shipping Calculations

August 1, 2005 • Pamela Hazelton

Set aside all the cool features you’d love your MIVA Merchant store to have, and those you aren’t sure how to accomplish. The most difficult yet necessary task is tackling the proper means of calculating shipping. It sounds so simple – after all, we can hit UPS.com, USPS.com, FedEx.com...
Business
No Click To Pick

August 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

You’ve got nothing to show for it - your online advertising campaign that is. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars out the window after those creative, catchy ads didn’t reel in the customers you hoped they would. Could be that the copy wasn’t quite as striking as you thought. That’s c...
Business
SignSupplyStore.com Keeps It Simple

August 1, 2005 • PEC Staff

During the course of building an online business, many eommerce webmasters find that they morph into proverbial interactive jacks of all trades. In the heart of Kentucky’s Bluegrass region, 34 year-old Lance Coffman is one such renaissance man. The webmaster for SSK Sign Supply, Coffma...
Business
The Online Business Cyber-Attack: Defamation

August 1, 2005 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

It is said that the worst lies are told behind your back. That may be true. Until recently, rumors about businesses have generally been oral, fleeting in nature, and (hopefully) not given much credence. Unfortunately, the dynamics of the rumor mill are changing. Just about everything on...
Business
Overseas Customers: Just Clicks Away

July 1, 2005 • Massimo Arrigoni

Your web store is a few clicks away, regardless of where those clicks geographically occur. Clearly, international sales can help you increase your online sales, and many internet merchants are taking advantage of them. But there are several challenges that are associated with selling p...
Business
SPAM: Your Affiliates Can Put You Out of Business

July 1, 2005 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

A funny thing happened on the way to enactment of the new federal spam law known as “CAN-SPAM.” While for the first time it established nationwide rules to follow in using commercial email, it actually did much more. Somewhere along the legislative process the ISPs decided they wanted n...