Ecommerce Conversations

Many merchants dream of building a successful ecommerce business, and then selling it. Our guest today — who is now a Practical eCommerce contributing editor — has done just that. He’s Dale Traxler. His former business is Beaded Impressions, a collection of four separate jewelry sites. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to explain the process of selling.

The use of video by ecommerce merchants can increase sales. One company that uses video in innovative ways is TRX Training, a retailer of exercise equipment. It has an extensive YouTube channel, and it features videos on its own ecommerce site. Ian Hackett is TRX Training’s senior director of ecommerce and user experience. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Strategies and ideas to reduce shipping expense appeal to most every ecommerce merchant. Our guest today is a shipping and logistics expert, helping merchants reduce their shipping costs. He’s John Haber, founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts, a shipping and logistics consulting firm.

There’s no bigger name in the ecommerce industry than Alibaba. It was launched in 1999 in China, but it now services millions of businesses and consumers, offering wholesale and retail products worldwide. Its vice president of global sales and service is Brian Wong. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss Alibaba, opportunities for ecommerce retailers on that site, and global trade...

The cost of shipping is material to most every ecommerce business. There’s a company that offers smaller merchants discounted shipping rates that are typically available only to high volume sellers. The company is EquaShip. Its CEO, Ron Wiener, speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

We’ve recently asked ecommerce merchants to share their 2011 experiences — good or bad — with us. For this installment, we are joined by Jamie Salvatori. He the founder and owner of Vat19, an established ecommerce business that sells unique gift items. He’s also a Practical Ecommerce blogger, at “The (Ecommerce) Corner Office.” He speaks with us about how his company fared in 2011.

A review of ecommerce sales for 2011 is the topic of our interview today. We are joined by an ecommerce entrepreneur and pioneer who will share his company’s experience. He’s Chad Weinman, CEO of Cat5 Commerce, which operates 10 separate ecommerce stores — including RunningShoes.com and TacticalGear.com — from its base in Missouri. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Every ecommerce merchant has a domain name. For U.S. based merchants, it likely ends in a .com, or a .net, or both. But there are over 200 country-specific top-level domains — such as .cn for China, or .co.uk for the United Kingdom. Should a non-resident merchant reserve those domains, too? And what happens if someone in another country steals a merchant’s name, and reserves it the local top-level...

For many ecommerce merchants, email marketing is a principal source of revenue. A merchant’s email list is critically important to the company’s success. But what happens when a list becomes dormant, and subscribers stop opening or clicking on the emails? Dormant email lists is our topic today. To explain strategies for managing dormant lists, we are joined by Ross Kramer. He’s co-founder and CEO...

Email marketing is critically important to many ecommerce merchants. But what happens if a merchant’s email is blocked by an Internet service provider? Or, worse yet, what happens if the merchant’s name or IP address lands on a blacklist? Email deliverability is our topic today, and to help us understand blacklists and ISP email blocking, we are joined by Laura Atkins. She’s co-founder of WordToTh...

The range of possible domain names is about to greatly increase. That’s because ICANN, the authoritative body over Internet domain names, is about to add new top-level domains — the portion to the right of the period — to include brand names and other customized names. To explain these new top level domains to us, we are joined by Gretchen Olive. She’s director of policy and industry affairs for C...

Ecommerce merchants strive to increase the number of visitors to their sites that actually purchase products. Increasing those conversions frequently requires experimenting with new approaches. Merchants can test which of these experiments increase sales, and which do not. The testing can be automated, sophisticated — and it produces results. To explain multi-variable ecommerce testing to us, we a...

Many merchants dream of building a successful ecommerce business, and then selling it. Our guest for this interview has done just that. She’s here to describe the process — and the post-sale emotions of it all. She is Shirley Tan, the founder and former owner of AmericanBridal.com, which is now owned by TheKnot.com. She speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Yahoo! Small Business remains a leading, hosted platform for ecommerce businesses. But the company itself has experienced turmoil — the CEO was recently fired — and critics of the shopping cart platform say it’s dated. The man in charge of that platform is Tom Byun. He is vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Small Business, and he speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock on the stat...

The rush to sell products across multiple ecommerce channels is fine until a merchant starts to manage the back office complexities of updating inventory, prices, product descriptions, and then sales and shipments. Without automation that entire process can be a nightmare. Our guest today runs a company whose goal is to eliminate the complexities of selling across multiple channels. He is Fred Liz...

Sophisticated site search helps consumers find products on an ecommerce site, and therefore increases sales. But site search can also work with faceted category navigation to help consumers. The blending of site search with faceted category navigation is our topic, and to explain it we are joined by Scott Zielinski, co-founder of SearchSpring, a leading search solution provider. He speaks with Ker...

The notion of combining an online marketplace with a payment platform, a shopping cart and a robust backend is not new. But when the marketplace is eBay, the payment platform is PayPal, the cart is Magento and the backend is GSI Commerce, that is news. eBay calls this new collaboration x.commerce. Its general manager is Matthew Mengerink. He speaks here with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Networking and exchanging ideas can help many online retailers. One organization that promotes this type of activity is Shop.org, the trade association for online merchants. Our guest today is the CEO of a leading ecommerce services firm, and he’s just been elected to the Shop.org board of directors. He is Scot Wingo. His firm is ChannelAdvisor. And he’s here to discuss Shop.org and its role in he...

The need for sophisticated site search is becoming increasingly important for ecommerce merchants, who are all serving increasingly sophisticated consumers. By almost any measure, high-level site search increases sales. To discuss trends in site search, and new developments in that industry, we are joined by Shaun Ryan. He’s the CEO of SLI Systems, a pioneering site search provider. He speaks with...

There are innovators and trendsetters in the ecommerce business. Our guest, Harley Finkelstein, looks for these innovations, and trends, and then shares some of them with us. In this month’s installment of “Innovators and Trendsetters,” Finkelstein — who is chief platform officer with Shopify, the hosted shopping cart — discusses three interesting ecommerce sites with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry M...

The Durbin Amendment to the U.S. Dodd-Frank legislative package affects ecommerce merchants. That’s because the Amendment greatly lowers the rate — called interchange — that Visa and MasterCard charge for the processing of debit cards. But, importantly, it does not automatically lower the fees that merchants actually pay to their merchant account providers. Our guest today is a longtime veteran of...

The migration to online retailing is putting U.S. states in a bind. Their reliance on sales tax from local brick and mortar retailers means that as local sales lessen, so does the sales tax revenue from those transactions. Some of these states are now attempting to expand who is liable for sales taxes, and some states now say this includes companies with local Internet affiliates. Our guest today,...

The ecommerce industry in the U.S. is robust. It’s also robust in other industrialized countries, while other regions lag in ecommerce activity. The state of worldwide, online retailing is our topic today. And to help us understand it, we welcome Joanne Bethlamy. She’s with Cisco, the worldwide technology

Physical, brick-and-mortar retailers market products with end-caps and special placements in an aisle, where retailers are typically paid for those promotions by wholesale suppliers. Ecommerce merchants can now do similar merchandising, and receive similar payments, from a new ad platform. The platform is from Dijipop, and its founder and CEO, Ji Kim, speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdoc...

The efforts by state governments to collect online sales taxes is impacting affiliate marketers. That’s because a group of states is attempting to expand the nexus definition to include affiliates in those states, and thereby force retailers with those affiliates to pay sales taxes. Our guest is an affiliate marketer, and he’s here to discuss how all of this is impacting his business. He’s Oliver...