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.

Fraud Prevention
What You Didn’t Know About Payment Systems

January 17, 2007 • PEC Staff

What you don't know can truly hurt your online business. This has never been more true than when you set out to choose an Internet payment systems. It's not so much that making a wrong decision can harm your business irreparably (although, it can); it's that there is so much information...
Business
Copyright Infringement: What If Someone Is Stealing From You?

January 15, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

As attorneys specializing in the litigation of Internet disputes, not a day goes by that we do not hear about a small online business getting ripped off through the theft of online content. Sometimes the property taken is a website or part of a website. Other times it is certain code or...
Business
Ecommerce Companies: You Are Responsible for Sales Taxes

January 15, 2007 • PEC Staff

One of the most common misconceptions for ecommerce retailers is that sales taxes are not due on Internet transactions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ecommerce retailers, in fact, are responsible for sales taxes and are subject to penalties and fines for the failure to pay th...
Business
Video Tutorial: Creating an RSS Feed

January 10, 2007 • Brian Getting

Learn how to create a simple RSS feed in this tutorial by Practical eCommerce's Online Director Brian Getting. Walk through creating the XML file needed to establish a syndicated feed, and a look at the minimum tags, or feed elements, required to have a meaningful feed. No explanations...
Business
Web.com’s Jeff Stibel

January 10, 2007 • PEC Staff

Jeff Stibel is the CEO of Web.com, a company providing an all-in-one hosted solution for business owners wanting to launch a website. Jeff discusses how easy it is for a ...
Business
Identify your KPIs

January 4, 2007 • Mat Greenfield

One of the things I love about Internet marketing is that it is so measurable. But I understand that for many web marketers, it's a challenge to dig through the sheer amount of data that is available through most web analytics tools. I'd like to suggest a New Year's exercise that will ...
Business
Ten Simple Ways to Get Sued

January 2, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

Want to stay out of trouble? Unless you have been sued before you probably have no idea how expensive, time consuming, and emotionally draining it can be. A little legal preventative maintenance can keep you focused on growing your business uninterrupted. Our firm specializes in litigat...
Business
Welcome to the New Practical eCommerce

January 1, 2007 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is changing, growing and improving. <img src="/images/articleimages/1167938482/pecrev.gif" alt="Practical Ecommerce" class="imgLeft" /> Our new website is bigger, more interactive and completely free. This follows from user recom...
Business
Protecting Intellectual Property

December 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

You may not realize it, but you deal with intellectual property (IP) every day. If you own a website, that website is your intellectual property. The way you deal with IP — yours and others — can directly impact the success of your business. What's Intellectual Property? Registered pa...
Fraud Prevention
Fraud-Proofing Your Ebiz

December 11, 2006 • PEC Staff

I know a business that had its website hacked: Its entire customer database was hijacked and thousands of customer credit card numbers were stolen at the same time. In the following months, the hackers did their best to steal as much as they could from this business through a number of...
Business
Creativegood.com’s Ed Dawidowicz

December 4, 2006 • PEC Staff

What is one sure-fire way to reduce shopping cart abandonment? Ed Dawidowicz, senior consulting director for Creativegood.com, provides his advice in the second part of an interview with Practical eCommerce’s ...
Business
SLI Systems’ Shaun Ryan

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Shaun Ryan, CEO of site-search provider SLI Systems, discusses distinctive aspects of his product with Practical eCommerce’s Mitch Bettis. The two discuss the benefits of faceted search, learning navigation, the ...
Business
Craigslist.com’s Craig Newmark

December 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

Craig Newmark is the founder of the intensely successful Craigslist.com. As far as he is concerned, less is definitely more when it comes to website design and his business.
Business
Finding Treasures With Tapestries

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Patricia Elkins caught the ecommerce "bug" just like many people do - by successfully selling a few items on eBay. It wasn't long before Elkins was building a dynamic niche business on eBay selling one-of-a-kind tapestries. The business has grown to more than $500,000 in sales, and it'...
Business
How to Waste $4,000

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

How do you waste $4,000 in a few weeks? Patrick Coughlin knows. In fact, most ecommerce owners can attest to mistakes they made during the early phases of launching their new business. Coughlin has owned and operated American Diamond Importers, an independent brick-and-mortar jewelry s...
Business
Demandware’s Stephan Schambach

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Stephan Schambach, CEO of Demandware, provides a host of helpful tips to improve a customer’s experience at your website in a recent interview with Practical eCommerces Mitch Bettis. Schambach also ...
Business
Managing a High-risk Environment

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

We conduct a lot of website audits in which we go through a website, identify the legal issues and assist clients in effectively managing risks. We seem to be litigating these issues across the country regularly, so we have a pretty good view of the landscape. You want to get in trouble...
Fraud Prevention
Do Security Measures Boost Conversion?

December 1, 2006 • Kevin Gold

Achieving high performance for your ecommerce business is complicated. It requires building an effective combination of trust, convenience and relevance on your website using technology, design, usability and influence. If you consider industry statistics, you'll quickly realize why it...
Business
Customer Experience Matters

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

After more than a decade of ecommerce activity and an arsenal of new technology at our disposal, it's still the basics that most sites haven't mastered. Problems in the checkout process and having products that are too hard to find remain among the top issues that irritate customers and...
Business
Siteworx’s Adelle Emery

December 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

What makes customers unhappy at a website? Adelle Emery, director of customer experience at Siteworx, answers the question and gives website owners tips on how to improve the customer’s experience ...
Business
Dieselpoint’s Chris Cleveland (Part 2)

November 13, 2006 • PEC Staff

In the second of a two-part series, Chris Cleveland CEO of Dieselpoint speaks with Practical eCommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about how site-search technology improves sales at websites. Cleveland also ...
Business
Dieselpoint’s Chris Cleveland

November 6, 2006 • PEC Staff

In the first of a two-part series, Chris Cleveland CEO of Dieselpoint speaks with Practical eCommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about how site-search technology improves sales at websites. Cleveland also ...
Business
Protecting Your Domain Name

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

Domain names are addresses. But, of course, a domain name generates traffic, which means it is also a major sales source. The traffic could result from those typing in your name in the address bar of the browser, or it could be from search engines grading your website higher because of ...
Business
This Month: Adding Staff, Computers and Equipment

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

As any ecommerce merchant knows, there’s more to launching a successful online business than just launching a website. Patrick Coughlin has owned and operated American Diamond Importers, an independent brick-and-mortar jewelry store in St. Clair, Mich., for almost 15 years. St. Clair i...
Amazon & Marketplaces
Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne

November 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

A doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University probably helps Founder, CEO, and Chairman Patrick Byrne deal with the daily esotericism that goes with running a company like Overstock.com ...
Business
Ongoing Growth Challenges Carolina Rustica

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Richard Sexton has parlayed his 10 years of brick-and-mortar success into a dynamic multichannel sales business with Carolina Rustica. With a combination of brick-and-mortar and online sales, Carolina Rustica expects to generate about $3.5 million in 2006, a 30 percent increase from the...
Business
Carolina Rustica’s Richard Sexton

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Richard Sexton has parlayed his 10 years of brick-and-mortar success into a dynamic multichannel sales business with Carolina Rustica. With a combination of brick-and-mortar and online sales, Carolina Rustica expects ...
Business
ChannelAdvisor’s Scot Wingo

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo discusses the new opportunities businesses have with the advent of new online sales channels. ChannelAdvisor provides consulting and software to help merchants deploy products across multiple ...
Business
Merchant Advantage’s Michael Lambert

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Are you wondering why you should you be pushing products to shopping comparison sites or are you looking for a tool that can help you push products to various shopping ...
Business
Stone Edge Technology’s Barney Stone

November 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

Do you need an order management solution to help manage activity from multiple sales channels? Are you struggling to manage the mounds of paperwork from sales that come to your ...