Ecommerce Conversations, By Practical Ecommerce

The recent South Dakota v. Wayfair decision by the U.S. Supreme Court changed online sales tax. To discuss the details of the decision, and its impact on ecommerce merchants, there's no better observer than Shane Ratigan. He is senior manager, state and local tax for Clark Nuber, and a longtime nationwide authority on online sales tax matters.

In an ecommerce world that is seemingly dominated by Amazon, Eric Bandholz has just moved his company's products away from that marketplace. The company, Beardbrand, is now focused on selling through its own website and through other retail channels. Revenue has greatly increased.

SMS a Game-changer for Ecommerce Businesses? by Practical Ecommerce

The General Data Protection Regulation from the European Union takes effect on May 25. The law is sweeping, with massive fines for noncompliance. It affects most every company worldwide, large and small. It’s also confusing.There is no better authority in the U.S. to explain the GDPR to ecommerce merchants than John Di Giacomo. He is founding partner of Revision Legal, a leading Michigan-based internet law firm. He is, additionally, a contributor to Practical Ecommerce.

Mobile optimization used to provide a competitive advantage. But as the mobile internet has grown, responsive websites are no longer optional. They are essential to doing business online. In this Ecommerce Conversation, senior contributing editor Armando Roggio speaks with Madison Minor, founder and CEO of WompMobile, a mobile web platform and development firm, about progressive web apps, accelerated mobile pages, and other new mobile internet technologies.

Organic traffic from Google and other search engines remains critical to many merchants. There is no greater authority on search engine optimization than Stephan Spencer. He's the co-author of "The Art of SEO." He founded the pioneering SEO firm of Netconcepts. He's a worldwide speaker, consultant, and host of two popular podcasts, "Marketing Speak" and "The Optimized Geek."

The postage rates among countries for international shipping greatly vary. Merchants in certain countries, such as China, can ship very cheaply to U.S. consumers with rates that are unavailable to U.S. merchants. Paul Steidler, a senior fellow with the Lexington Institute in Washington, D.C., explains it all.

In an era when many ecommerce platforms are migrating to large enterprise clients, Volusion is doing the opposite. It's focused on smaller and mid size companies, even startups. To discuss it all, we're joined by Volusion's founder and longtime C.E.O., Kevin Sproles.

It’s been an eventful year for Miva, the pioneering ecommerce platform. Its longtime president became C.E.O. and the company raised $18 million of private equity, which is the first such investment in Miva’s 20-year history. Rick Wilson is the former president who is now C.E.O. And he joined us to discuss Miva, independent ecommerce, and the impact of Amazon.

Magento, the ecommerce platform, launched in 2007, grew dramatically, and was acquired by eBay. When eBay divested PayPal in 2015, it also sold Magento, to a private equity firm. Magento's C.E.O. is now Mark Lavelle, a seasoned technology executive who co-founded Bill Me Later, the payment service. He joins us to discuss Magento and the state of ecommerce generally.

Given the ease with which brands and manufacturers can sell their products directly to consumers, many observers believe the future of resellers is limited. Ori Greenburg, an ecommerce veteran and now the CEO of Algopix, a market analysis platform, does not necessarily agree. He joins us today to discuss it all.

In the United States, ecommerce is mature and sophisticated. That's not the case in Saudi Arabia, where it's new and challenging. Hamza el Bayed is co-founder of Ora La Moda, a Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ecommerce apparel company.

Product reviews can play an important role in ecommerce. Something like 9 out of 10 shoppers read product reviews, and many studies over many years have shown that reviews help shoppers to make online buying decisions. To talk about ecommerce reviews, we have with us Paul Kirwin, the CEO and founder of Channel Signal, a product review monitoring analytics firm. You might know a few other companies that Mr. Kirwin has founded like 3Point5 or Experticity.

The Amazon marketplace contains nearly 500 million products, from about 2 million sellers. That's a lot of competition. In fact, being competitive on Amazon is exactly what we're going to discuss in this interview. It's with Casey Gauss, co-founder and C.E.O. of Viral Launch, a software and services platform helping brands to source, launch, and succeed on the Amazon marketplace.

Fast loading web pages are critical for conversions and general worldwide usability. Optimized images can greatly increase page speed. No one is more qualified to address optimized images than Chris Zacharias. He is the founder and C.E.O. of imgix, a real-time image-optimization platform. As an early-day YouTube developer, he created YouTube's HTML5 video player and Feather, an ultra-light version of YouTube that loads quickly in parts of the world with slow Internet connections

By some estimates, more than half of the visitors to an online store will use that store's site search to find products, and hopefully make a purchase. This fact alone makes ecommerce site search important. Since, something less than an effective site search, frankly means that you're failing to meet your customer's expectations. Today we're going to speak to Dr. Amir Konigsberg, the cofounder and CEO of Twiggle, a search engine that helps ecommerce sites, or an ecommerce site search think the way that customers think.

If you want satisfied customers, your business needs to provide a level of perceived service that's greater than your customers' expectations. For ecommerce shipping is customer satisfaction's frontline, and online sellers should aim to meet shoppers' expectations for fast and free shipping.Today we're going to speak to Nathan Jones, the president and CEO of Ship Station, a web-based software solution designed to help ecommerce retailers process, fulfill, and ship their orders.

Many small-to-midsize ecommerce merchants view Amazon as a competitor, albeit one they are force to sell on. Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce, disagrees. He believes Amazon can complement an ecommerce business.

The dominance of Amazon and its marketplace is apparent. What's not so apparent are the counterfeit items that are also sold there. Rob Dunkel, is the founder of a company that uses sophisticated data analysis to identify counter-fit and trademark violators on Amazon and other leading marketplaces.

The increasing dominance of Amazon has many merchants scratching their heads, wondering how exactly to work with that company, and how that company will impact their own businesses.We recently spoke with James Thomson, a former Amazon executive, to discuss the Amazon marketplace, the FBA program, and the Prosper Show, a conference founded by Thomson to help Amazon sellers sort through it all.