Category

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

    Learning Bookkeeping Basics

    July 12, 2007 •

    Poor financial management is one key contributor to why more than 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years of existence, according to the Small Business Administration. Because ecommerce has such low barriers to entry — a few bucks for a hosted shopping cart and a fe...

  • Business

    Interview: UPS V.P. On Shipping Technology

    July 11, 2007 •

    When Jordan Colletta talks about the way we used to ship and track and deliver goods before it became a way of life for thousands of e-entrepreneurs, he knows what he's talking about. For three years, starting in 1975, he was one of those guys you see running in and out of businesse...

  • Business

    The Law Of PPC Advertising

    July 9, 2007 •

    Many of the legal issues existing today have little, or no, clear legal authority to guide us. This is because many of the abuses are: • Not discovered. • When they are discovered by the advertiser, they are settled confidentially. • When litigated it can take years to get a decision...

  • Business

    Boosting Your Programming Skills

    July 4, 2007 •

    If you're tired of calling your web design firm every time you want to make a minor tweak to your site, there are online courses you can take to boost your knowledge in HTML, JavaScript, cascading style sheets and more. In fact, there are so many online options to improve programming s...

  • Business

    Video Tutorial: Rounded Corners with CSS

    July 2, 2007 •

    Rounded corners present a unique challenge to website designers, particularly when using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to create layouts that are search engine friendly and scalable. In an attempt to de-mystify some of the techniques used to create visual effects, such as rounded corner...

  • Fraud Prevention

    Click Fraud Not Top PPC Concern

    June 27, 2007 •

    Click fraud has been a popular topic of discussion for a number of years, and it doesn’t appear the issue will fade away anytime soon. The industry is full of various numbers thrown around putting the click fraud rate anywhere from .02 percent (claimed by Google) to 30 percent or more. ...

  • Fraud Prevention

    Click Fraud: What To Do When You’ve Been Cheated

    June 11, 2007 •

    So you think you’re a victim of click fraud, and the question is now what? Well, it’s time to play “cyber detective” and get refunds from pay-per-click (PPC) engines for the wasted dollars. But keep in mind, because click fraud eats away search engine revenue in the form of reimbursed c...

  • Business

    Bloglist: Ecommerce Potpourri

    June 7, 2007 •

    In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we've asked Thomas Holmes with logic+intuition. Name: Thomas Holmes Founder, logic+intuition Company: logic+intuition *Blogs: *Yclick.it, Thomasholmes.info [Grokdotcom.com] This blo...

  • Business

    Critique Part One: General Internet Presence

    May 30, 2007 •

    The Problem: Daddiesboardshop.com isn't taking advantage of branding opportunities on video and social networking sites. The Fix: Aside from the videos I found on YouTube and Google Video (which are a great start), very little appears externally to distinguish the authenticity of the b...

  • Business

    Daddiesboardshop.com Wins Site Review

    May 30, 2007 •

    Melanie Loveland and her son Dan built a business together around a mutual passion — snowboarding. What started as a small, brick-and-mortar store in Portland, Ore., has evolved into a full-fledged multichannel merchant. It was a process the owners didn't foresee when the business start...

  • Shirley Tan Business

    If Your ‘Baby Is Ugly,’ Fix It

    May 29, 2007 •

    You know those little spur-of-the-moment, do-it-on-a dare things that occasionally bring about permanent change Something like that happened to Shirley Tan. There she was in her third year at Golden Gate College in San Francisco, at work on a degree in international business. A friend...

  • Business

    The Entrepreneur, The Optimist

    May 16, 2007 •

    Patrick Coughlin is experiencing firsthand the same challenges many online entrepreneurs face: It's hard to build a successful online business. Coughlin has owned a successful brick-and-mortar jewelry store in St. Clair, Mich., for 15 years. That business had grown to fill a 3,000-squa...

  • Business

    Ebiz Start-up: Selling Online Is Hard Work

    May 16, 2007 •

    Seven months into the operation of his new ecommerce store, Pat Coughlin's goal of reaching $1 million in sales is nowhere in sight — but that hasn't curbed his enthusiasm for the online venture. Coughlin, longtime owner of a successful jewelry store in St. Clair, Mich., won an eBay ...

  • Business

    Toolking.com: From eBay To A $31M Empire

    May 9, 2007 •

    If you order pliers from Toolking.com, you really can't just order pliers. You need to know what kind. Do you want locking pliers? Needle nose pliers? Tongue-and-groove pliers, slip-joint pliers, linesman's pliers, diagonal cutting pliers, electrician's pliers, hose clamp pliers, super-...

  • Business

    Video Tutorial: Choosing the Right Image Format

    May 2, 2007 •

    Choosing the right image format for publishing images on the web can be tricky. After all, you don't want to spend hours and hours cleaning up a product image and making it look irresistible to your customers, only to have it distorted and ruined when you save it in a web format.

  • Staffing

    When Is It Time To Hire A Call Center?

    April 30, 2007 •

    More business is a good thing, but it creates challenges: A backlog of tasks, costly space and equipment demands and, frequently, a phone that won’t stop ringing. Many ecommerce business owners turn to customer call centers for help. That was the case for Revival Animal Health of Orang...

  • Business

    Legal: Your Domain Is At Risk

    April 23, 2007 •

    The lawyers at my firm represent registrars. We also represent domain name owners. And we sometimes represent domain name thieves (yes, everyone is entitled to an attorney). Here is an insider's perspective on the new dynamics at play in domain name cybersquatting. Most domain owners t...

  • Business

    Can Product Recommendations Help You?

    April 16, 2007 •

    Most people prefer to get an opinion before purchasing a product — and if that opinion is from a current user, all the better. This desire to make informed buying decisions has given rise to product recommendation networks, such as Thisnext.com, which allow consumers to express opinions...

  • Business

    Crash Course on Pay-Per-Click Arbitrage

    April 11, 2007 •

    If you've spent any time on pay-per-click (PPC) forums or in the blogosphere, you've probably heard about PPC arbitrage — the ill-reputed practice that drives bid prices up and makes life more difficult for advertisers. So, what exactly is it, and how can it affect you as an advertiser?...

  • Business

    Yahoo! Panama: So Far, So Good

    April 11, 2007 •

    Yahoo!'s new paid-search advertising platform is performing well for advertisers. That's according to executives with three companies that have used the new system, known informally as Panama, since its inception earlier this year. Leigh Vosler is paid placement marketing manager with ...

  • Business

    PPC, Copywriting, Product Images

    April 9, 2007 •

    When jeweler Pat Coughlin decided to expand his brick-and-mortar business to include an ecommerce store, he set an ambitious goal to generate $1 million in online sales in the first 12 months. To pull off that feat, he hired six staff members to lead critical parts of the new endeavor. ...

  • Business

    Self-service Shouldn’t Replace Customer Service

    April 9, 2007 •

    Customers are satisfied with their ecommerce experiences and in many cases seem to prefer online buying to brick-and-mortar shopping trips. That's what recent studies show — but it doesn't mean virtual merchants should allow complacency to take hold. The web is experiencing unprecedent...

  • Business

    Selling Your Ecommerce Business

    April 2, 2007 •

    To web entrepreneurs who contemplate selling their online businesses, experts issue a single warning: Get your financial house in order. Online endeavors are frequently launched by people who have a great idea, a great passion or a distinctive skill set, but who often lack traditional ...

  • Business

    Bloglist: From SEO to Self Development

    April 2, 2007 •

    In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we’ve asked Yaro Starak, with Entrepreneur’s Journey. Name: Yaro Starak, web entrepreneur Company: Entrepreneur's Journey JohnChow.com This is a relatively new and prolific blogger....

  • Business

    Protecting Your Trademark From Web Thieves

    April 2, 2007 •

    How valuable is your business or product name? Most small and mid-size businesses aren’t aware of the value of protecting trademarks. When the focus is on making payroll, monitoring sales, providing quality customer service and reaching financial projections, it might not seem like a to...

  • Shipping & Fulfillment

    Shipping Charges: Compromises Required

    March 28, 2007 •

    You would think online stores would have found it easier by now to calculate and charge accurate shipping fees, let alone set up uninterrupted checkout processes that flow smoothly. Yet I see more and more questions and requests for customizations and fixes than ever before. What makes...

  • Business

    Diagnosing Site Performance Delays

    March 26, 2007 •

    When your site begins to experience performance drains, which usually show up as slow-loading web pages, the problem's diagnosis can be more challenging than its solution. The first thing developers should examine is the nature of the website. Is the site a static HTML website, or does...

  • Business

    Seven Insurance Issues For Merchants

    March 26, 2007 •

    When an ecommerce business begins to grow, new risks mount and site owners should examine insurance options. Finding an insurance agent who understands the challenges of online business has been tough for many e-business owners. Only recently have insurance options become available. On...

  • Business

    Digital Assets: What Are They, And How Are They Sold?

    March 20, 2007 •

    Digital assets, often called digital content, are products that can be consumed via an electronic handheld device or used online. The forms digital assets take vary greatly. Digital content might be auditory, such as a song (Apple's iTunes) or ring tone for your cell phone; it can incl...

  • Business

    Quick Query: Selling Digital Content Via Major Retailers

    March 19, 2007 •

    Karl Hirsch is the CEO of Protexis (Protexis.com), a company that links retail outlets with companies wanting to sell digital content such as software, music, video, e-books and other digital products. PeC: What does Protexis do? Hirsch: We help publishers of digital content sell and f...