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
Crash Course on Pay-Per-Click Arbitrage

April 11, 2007 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

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 • Pamela Hazelton

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 • Brian Getting

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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 • PEC Staff

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...
Business
Setting A Value For An Ecommerce Business

March 19, 2007 • PEC Staff

How much is my business worth? It’s a question most entrepreneurs eventually ask, and online merchants are no different. They want to know the enterprise they’ve invested in and continually work to build will have real value if they ever choose to sell. The good news is that profitabl...
Business
Like.com Offers A Different Way To Find, Sell Products

March 16, 2007 • PEC Staff

Munjal Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Riya, the company that owns and operates Like.com, the photo-likeness search engine. PeC: What differentiates Like from the many other search engines available? Shah: "Like is the only search engine that lets you search by photo. With every o...
Business
Finding Financing For Ecommerce Businesses

March 14, 2007 • PEC Staff

All online business owners have something they feel passionate about; what most of them don't have is unlimited capital to get the site off the ground and firmly in the black. The founders of Abondanteliving.com — Marlin and Laurie Detweiler and Jim and Debi Long — are no different. Th...
Business
Online Start-up Faces SEO Challenge

March 12, 2007 • PEC Staff

MOTIF Modern Living operates a unique contemporary furniture outlet just 10 minutes south of downtown Austin, Texas. The loft-like brick-and-mortar store features beautifully designed contemporary home furnishings. To expand its reach beyond Texas' borders, MOTIF has launched a website ...
Business
Marketing Tips From Marketing’s Sherpa

March 12, 2007 • PEC Staff

Anne Holland launched MarketingSherpa from a bedroom in her home in 2000. Seven years and 700 case studies later, MarketingSherpa is regarded as a leading source for marketing research. The company researches and publishes real-life case studies, practical marketing tips and benchmark ...
Business
Wsieworks.com’s Chuck Bankoff: Hiring A Web Developer

March 6, 2007 • PEC Staff

Chuck Bankoff, director of web services for web design firm Wsieworks.com, provides tips on what questions should be asked by merchants when they are hiring a website designer. Bankoff also ...
Staffing
Tips To Hire The Right Website Designer

March 5, 2007 • PEC Staff

Websites don't just build themselves. The conundrum for the small business owner is that there is a host of choices as you establish an online presence. The decisions are important: They'll determine the online business activity that comes with the new sales channel and, of course, the ...
Business
The Basics of Importing Products From Overseas

March 4, 2007 • PEC Staff

Everyone knows there are great deals to be found overseas — items that can be picked up for a fraction of the cost. But what most people don’t realize is that almost everything they’re buying domestically was already imported. They’re just paying a mark-up cost to the middleman who did ...
Business
Bloglist: From Merchant Accounts to Help With Usability

March 4, 2007 • PEC Staff

In Bloglist, we ask an online professional to identify his/her favorite blogs. This feature highlights some of the most interesting resources in the blogosphere. This month, we've ask Jamie Estep, online operations director for Merchantequip.com. Name: Jamie Estep Title: Online Opera...
Business
How To Navigate The War On Spam

February 28, 2007 • PEC Staff

Business owners face a unique dilemma when it comes to managing their email. On one hand, email communication is vital for promoting goods and services to customers. On the other, business owners are no different than individual email users in that their inboxes are susceptible to mound...
Business
Errors Made By Ecommerce Site Owners

February 28, 2007 • PEC Staff

Ecommerce owners do a lot of trial-and-error work on their way to building a successful operation. Along the way to success, it often becomes clear that the road could have been less rocky if a few things were done differently. Hindsight is often painfully clear. Several ecommerce owner...
Business
Profile: Competing Against Major Companies

February 23, 2007 • Michael A. Cox

In the Green Mountains of Vermont, there are legends. There is, for instance, the legend of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys — patriots to a fault, if a little rough around the edges. Part of their lore includes the "taking" of Fort Ticonderoga over in New York. Allen and his ba...
Business
Windows Vista — Upgrade Now or Later?

February 23, 2007 • PEC Staff

More than 10 years ago, I sat in front of my TV in rapt excitement as I watched a promotion for Windows 95 and heard the Rolling Stones sing "Start Me Up!" As the magical on-screen mouse clicked a "Start" button, I believed the promise that my computer world was about to change forever....
Business
How To Find Products To Sell For Your Online Operation

February 21, 2007 • PEC Staff

If you want to know how to succeed at something, it's a good idea to talk to someone who already has. Renowned eBay powerseller Skip McGrath offers some helpful insights on how you can find product sources for your online business. Once you've determined what you're selling, where do yo...
Business
Does Your Site Need A Makeover From Ecommerce Pros?

February 20, 2007 • PEC Staff

Sign up today! Practical eCommerce is assembling a team of ecommerce professionals to review one website's key elements. A group of experts will evaluate one site on design, SEO, merchandising, fraud protection, conversion and more. If you want your site "adopted" by the p...
Fraud Prevention
Three Basic Steps Can Curb Credit Card Fraud

February 7, 2007 • PEC Staff

A loss of $15,000 in diamonds during the height of the Christmas-buying frenzy would be enough to make most people sing the holiday blues. Not Pat Coughlin. Coughlin has owned and operated American Diamond Importers, an independent brick-and-mortar jewelry store in St. Clair, Mich., fo...
Business
Beware Of Online Legal Advice

February 7, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

I get a report every day of many of the important judicial decisions relating to Internet and ecommerce law. I have to review a court’s decision in detail before I begin to understand the ruling, the facts and the law as applied. Judges are oftentimes only as good as the briefs submit...
Business
Peapod.com’s Thomas Parkinson (part 1)

February 5, 2007 • PEC Staff

It takes a special type of visionary to create an entirely new marketplace. Thomas Parkinson and his brother Andrew launched online grocer Peapod in the late 1980s. As pioneers in ...