E Commerce Gateways

In 2013 Jack Haldrup was reading “The Lean Startup” and pondering how to launch a business. He was seeking a niche based on personal experience versus market research. “I had tried cold process soap, purchased at a farmer’s market,” he told me. “I really enjoyed it. I’ve always had sensitive skin and have been interested…

The pandemic has upped consumers’ digital expectations. What was once the exception is now the norm. Telemedicine, online learning, virtual meetings — all have advanced in the past year. Ecommerce stores must evolve, too, in how they engage and interact with shoppers. Here are five ways to stay competitive and spur conversions. 5 Engagement Tips…

Porch piracy is on the rise, with 43 percent of American consumers surveyed saying they had an ecommerce delivery pilfered from their front porch in 2020, according to a recent report. C+R Research asked 2,000 self-reporting shoppers about delivery theft in November 2020. Some 58 percent of the respondents resided in single-family dwellings, 29 percent…

Fraud-prevention expert Uri Arad will give an exclusive, live-stream presentation to the CommerceCo by Practical Ecommerce peer-to-peer community on Thursday, January 21, at 2:00 pm Eastern Time. Arad is co-founder of Identiq, a privacy-protecting, network-based service that helps merchants identify legitimate consumers the first time they shop. It’s critical, as fraudsters are increasingly sophisticated and…

Here is a list of free tools to design a website, social media ad, logo, infographic, and more. There are editing applications, resource libraries, and tools to find the right font and color palette. All of these are free, though several also offer premium plans with extended features. Pixlr Pixlr Pixlr is a free photo…

New consumer privacy laws in this U.S. and elsewhere apply to many forms of digital promotion, including email marketing. Thus it’s worth reviewing the requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which sets rules for the use of commercial email to U.S.-based recipients. I’ll do that in this post. Commercial Email President George W. Bush…

Technology, software, and business innovation are enabling the print-on-demand industry to expand from second-rate t-shirts, mugs, and wall art to quality manufacturing-as-a-service solutions. Print-on-demand services haven’t always had the best reputation. When these services first sold online several years ago, some vendors would take a single, relatively low-resolution image from the customer and stretch it…

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-January from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on delivery services, loyalty programs, social media management, payment solutions, and headless commerce. Got an ecommerce product release? Email releases@practicalecommerce.com. Ecommerce Product Releases Bringg partners with Uber for same-day delivery. Bringg, a delivery…

The required skills to launch a business are typically much different from managing it for the long term. Bill D’Alessandro has done both. He launched a single ecommerce business in 2010 and then transformed the company into an operator of multiple online brands. He has evolved from performing most every task to focusing on a…

Challenged by a pandemic and an unstable economy, online and brick-and-mortar retailers scrambled to salvage the 2020 holiday shopping season. Most merchants started offering discounts much earlier than in previous years to accommodate the changed shopping dynamics. This is my third consecutive holiday sales wrap-up, following installments in 2018 and 2019. Research firms defined the…