Ecommerce Conversations, By Practical Ecommerce

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 generally.

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 domain code? To help us understand cross border domain-name issues, we are joined once more by Gretchen Olive. She’s an attorney and director of policy and industry affairs for Corporation Service Company, a trademark and domain-name service provider. She speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

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 of Listrak, the pioneering email service provider. He speaks with Kerry Murdock of Practical Ecommerce.

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 WordToTheWise, an anti-spam consulting and software firm.

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 Corporation Service Company, which consults with companies on domain name and trademark matters. She speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

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 are joined by Mark Simpson, the founder and president of Maxymiser, a testing, personalization and conversion-optimization firm. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

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 state of Yahoo! and its hosted shopping cart.

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 Lizza, CEO of Dydacomp, makers of Multichannel Order Manager. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock on how merchants should best utilize third-party selling channels.

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 Kerry Murdock of Practical Ecommerce.

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 helping ecommerce merchants. He speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

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 Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

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 Murdock