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.

Payments
Credit Card Chargebacks

October 7, 2007 • Pamela Hazelton

It seems like only yesterday we were gearing up for a new holiday shopping season. Alas, a plethora of shoppers seeking competitive pricing, free shipping and prime customer service is here. We’ve struggled to work out all the kinks in our shopping cart solution and backend system, so w...
Business
Holiday Book Ideas For Etailers

October 7, 2007 • PEC Staff

As the holiday season draws near, it seems a fitting time to share some book ideas — ones for your own reading pleasure or as gifts for your favorite etailer. While there wasn’t any scientific method for choosing these books, they all share some important qualities. I’ve enjoyed readin...
Business
Mercado Software’s Sue Chapman, Part 2

October 5, 2007 • PEC Staff

Callahan and Sue Chapman, director of merchandising solutions at Mercado Software, discuss how online retailers should prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season, includng how to fine tune a website ...
Business
Caveat Vendor: PCI Is Here

October 3, 2007 • Michael A. Cox

Here’s one of those cold chill up your spine thoughts: Every day, there are at least two new threats to data security developed by identity thieves and Internet system hackers. And it never stops. Security pros slam and lock one gate and the hordes find another chink and slither through...
Business
Mercado Software’s Sue Chapman

September 28, 2007 • PEC Staff

Sue Chapman, director of merchandising solutions at Mercado Software, discusses how online retailers should prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season, includng how to fine tune your website for the ...
Business
Callahan Is Joined By Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke, Part 3

September 21, 2007 • PEC Staff

Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke continues his discussion of the intricacies of product photography.
Business
No Fear For Blinds.com

September 19, 2007 • Michael A. Cox

Jay Steinfeld can’t really tell you where his core values came from. Maybe it was instinctive. Maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, as the years went by, three core values in particular became more and more what drove him in life and in business. Steinfeld: I wanted to be a pioneer, a leade...
Business
Bloglist: Jakob Nielsen

September 17, 2007 • PEC Staff

In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked the Nielsen Norman Group’s Jakob Nielsen, whom The New York Times has called the guru of web page usability. Paidcontent.org Daily coverage of “the business of content,” as ...
Business
Callahan Is Joined By Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke, Part 2

September 13, 2007 • PEC Staff

Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke discusses the intricacies of product photography.
Business
Quick Query: Avalara Founder Rory Rawlings

September 10, 2007 • PEC Staff

Rory Rawlings is the founder and chief tax automation officer of Avalara, Inc., a Washington-based firm that provides sales-tax-compliance applications for ecommerce merchants. PeC: Avalara helps ecommerce firms manage sales tax compliance. Could you explain? Rawlings: There are ove...
Business
Betterphoto.com’s Jim Miotke

September 7, 2007 • PEC Staff

Callahan is joined by Betterphoto.com’s President and Founder Jim Miotke. The two discuss the latest in photography, including tips and tricks for product photography.
Business
Sunfitters.com's Bill Mirabito

September 4, 2007 • PEC Staff

Launching a business takes a tremendous amount of planning and research, but launching a multichannel endeavor within a 12-month period can provide a unique set of challenges. Bill Mirabito, founder and president of Sunfitters, has done just that. In November 2006, the company launched...
Business
Insider Hosting’s CEO Steve Mizrahie

August 22, 2007 • PEC Staff

Callahan is joined by Insider Hosting’s CEO, Steve Mizrahie.
Business
GuardedID’s George Waller

August 22, 2007 • PEC Staff

There are so many ways for thieves to steal identities that it's hard to keep up with it all. Take, for example, keylogging. This occurs when thieves track the keystrokes of unsuspecting Internet users via surveillance software, called a keylogger recorder. If a thief can successfully i...
Business
The Law Of Data And Information Security

August 20, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

I don’t need to recite the many security breaches that have led to major financial losses for companies over the past twelve months. Every business should already know the risks of leaving credit card and account information exposed. Basically, the risk is total loss of your business, a...
Business
Convention(al) Wisdom: The Best Pay-Per-Click Seminars

August 8, 2007 • PEC Staff

One fortunate thing about being in the pay-per-click industry today is that there is easy access to a lot of useful and high-quality information. Whether it is magazines (such as this one), blogs, websites, and conferences and tradeshows — all are meant to help you grow your business th...
Business
Matthew MacDonald, Author Of Creating Websites Part Two

August 1, 2007 • PEC Staff

Listen in as Practical eCommerce Contributing Editor Pat Callahan is joined by Matthew MacDonald, author of Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual for the second part of this interview. The ...
Business
Netshops.com Finds Its Niche

July 29, 2007 • PEC Staff

Company Name: NetShops Established: 1999 Revenue: About $62 million Products: Niche specialty stores Shopping Cart: Custom Quote: "We saw the opportunity to acquire and build sites...around a specific need." NetShops launched its first site in 2001 and in the past six years has amass...
Business
Matthew MacDonald, Author Of Creating Websites

July 26, 2007 • PEC Staff

Listen in as Practical eCommerce Contributing Editor Pat Callahan is joined by Matthew MacDonald, author of Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual. The conversation includes a topical discussion about the ...
Business
Bloglist: Marshall Sponder

July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff

In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked Marshall Sponder with Now.SEO. Name: Marshall Sponder Company: Now.Seo and IBM.com Blogs: Webmetricsguru.com, Artnewyorkcity.com Contributor to: Smartmobs.com, Biggreenblog.com ...
Business
Earn An Ecommerce Degree

July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff

Many online entrepreneurs may feel like they have earned an ecommerce degree from the school of hard knocks. However, for those interested in a more traditional education experience, there are degree programs specializing in ebusiness. Bachelor and master's degrees in ecommerce are ava...
Business
The Ins And Outs Of Importing

July 22, 2007 • PEC Staff

Importing can provide your ebusiness with cutting-edge products at rock-bottom prices. But it's a complicated process, and not one you want to go through alone. "Customs brokers and freight forwarders are your gateway into the world of international trade," explained Customhouse Broker...
Business
Learning Bookkeeping Basics

July 12, 2007 • PEC Staff

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 • Michael A. Cox

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 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

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 • PEC Staff

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 • Brian Getting

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 • PEC Staff

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 • Greg Laptevsky

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 • PEC Staff

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...