Ecommerce Conversations

Product reviews on ecommerce sites improve conversions. But they also help with customer relations and, recently, even physical-store merchants have used them. But merchants, both online and in physical stores, should carefully plan the use of product reviews, and develop ideas for soliciting valid ones. To help us sort through the use of product reviews, we welcome Pehr Luedtke, the CEO of PowerReviews, a leading product-review provider. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Most every ecommerce merchant has experienced credit card fraud. But some merchants have experienced more fraud than others, and fraud-prevention efforts vary from merchant to merchant. Cybersource, the payment gateway company, tracks all of this. For 11 years now it has assembled an online fraud report called “Online Payment Fraud Trends, Merchant Practices and Benchmarks.” The architect of the report, and the survey behind it, is Doug Schwegman, CyberSource’s director of customer and market intelligence. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Used books are big business. Just ask Amazon.com, or Abe Books or Alibris. You can even ask Adam Bertram. He’s been selling used books for two years under the name of Books by Bertram. He’s made a nice part-time income from that business, and he’s here to discuss selling books, managing multiple marketplaces, juggling inventory and more. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Volusion is an early day hosted shopping cart platform that has grown to represent 18,000 online stores. The company has recently upgraded its platform and to explain those upgrades, among other ecommerce topics, we are joined by Volusion’s chief operating officer, Clay Olivier. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

There’s a company that sells specialized clothing and gear to law enforcement and fire-protection professionals. The company is 511 Tactical. Its business model largely relies on a dealer network, but even so, its ecommerce site grosses roughly $10 million per year. That’s not bad for a small portion of the business, and how that site got to that level is our topic today. It’s 511Tactical.com and the ecommerce manager is Brian Rogers, who joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Etsy.com was launched in 2005 as an online marketplace for handmade items and vintage goods. It has since grown to include hundreds of thousands of sellers, and many more buyers. It reportedly facilitated over $180 million in annual transactions in 2009. Many of Etsy’s sellers are part-time craftspeople, and one of those is Arkansas-based Laurie Marshall, who has been selling hand-sewn crafts and vintage items on Etsy since 2007. Her two sites there are Punkinhead.etsy.com and Girlchild.etsy.com. She joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Mobile devices could be the next major platform from which consumers shop for products. But, for ecommerce merchants, there are issues with mobile commerce having to do with screen size, product-image display and payments. Payments on a mobile device, from a consumer to a merchant, can be difficult. But there are companies seeking to simplify paying for products via a mobile device. One of them is mPayy and its CEO and founder, Conrad Sheehan, joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

The start of the New Year brings new energy and vitality for many online merchants. Many of them are looking to jump start sales, trim expenses and otherwise grow and improve their businesses. For ideas to help with this, we visited with a seasoned ecommerce expert. He’s Lin Shearer, senior marketing manager with ProStores, a leading ecommerce platform. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

There are numerous options for ecommerce merchants who want to learn new skills that can be applied to their business. Full Sail University is one of those online options. With a physical campus in Winter Park, Florida, the university offers online programs in fields such as web design and development, Internet marketing, and graphic design. Ani Gasti is Full Sail’s director of faculty development. He talks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kevin Patrick Allen about educational options for ecommerce merchants.

The days of being tied to a desktop computer are long gone. Ecommerce merchants can work wirelessly with laptop computers, personal digital assistants, and increasingly, smart mobile phones. Quickoffice is a Texas-based software company which focuses on providing mobile office software. David Brennan is Quickoffice’s vice president of ecommerce . He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kevin Patrick Allen.