Ecommerce Conversations, By Practical Ecommerce

Andrew HazenThe use of domain names to enhance an ecommerce “footprint” is growing in popularity. We’ve asked Andrew Hazen, the founder and CEO of Prime Visibility, a Long Island, NY-based Internet marketing firm, to explain domain-name strategies to us. Hazen is an Internet pioneer, having founded Prime Visibility in the late 1990s. The firm specializes in search engine optimization and pay-per-click ad management, and its clients include Fox News, Lauren Hutton, Adelphi University, among others. Hazen joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

John EngatesRackspace is a preeminent hosting company. It was launched in San Antonio in 1996 and now, in 2009, the company’s stock is publicly traded. Rackspace’s 2008 revenues exceeded $500 million and it has data centers located around the globe. John Engates is Rackspace’s chief technology officer and he joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss cloud computing and other hosting trends.

John DozierJohn W. Dozier, Jr. is an attorney, a former Internet executive and a pioneer in the practice of Internet law. His firm, Dozier Internet Law, focuses exclusively on Internet and ecommerce issues. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss legal risks that confront smaller ecommerce merchants, and how best to avoid them.

Sanjay AurorA robust site search function can increase conversion rates for ecommerce merchants. Correcting color matches (“tan” vs. “sandstone”), correcting misspellings, and suggesting alternative products are all products of a high-level site search. Sanjay Arora joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to explain all of this. Arora is CEO of Nextopia, a Toronto-based site search provider.

Derek Del ConteDerek Del Conte is co-founder of Innerfence, a developer of iPhone applications. Innerfence’s latest app is “Credit Card Terminal,” which allows the processing of credit card transactions on the iPhone, and merchants who sell products off-site or remotely could benefit from it. Del Conte joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

TinaKellyNews reports indicate that revenue growth for Google and other search engines is slowing. Bids on keywords and keyword phrases, some say, are softening. Could all of this be an opportunity for ecommerce merchants to increase PPC ad spend and gain more customers? We asked this to Tina Kelly, a pay-per-click advertising expert and an Online Marketing Manager for Netconcepts, a pay-per-click and search-engine-optimization marketing firm.

Kevin_Sproles What, exactly, makes for a high-performing ecommerce site? We asked this question to Kevin Sproles, the founder and CEO of Volusion, a hosted shopping cart firm that boasts over 10,000 clients. Sproles is an ecommerce pioneer, having founded Volusion in 1999. It is now a leader in ecommerce solutions, and Spoles has seen thousands of ecommerce sites over the years. He is also Volusion’s Chief Software Architect and he speaks here with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

JohnMontagueMany ecommerce merchants occupy niches within a broader industry. Spotlight Retail is one of those merchants, but, in Spotlight’s case, it occupies 20 separate niches (and 20 separate ecommerce sites) around one ecommerce platform. The entrepreneur behind Spotlight Retail is John Montague, the company’s owner and day-to-day manager. He discusses niche retailing with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

ALTMost every ecommerce merchant must address the fulfillment of orders and the logistics of storing inventory. Amazon.com does this in a big way, and it now offers its fulfillment and warehousing expertise to all merchants via its “Fulfillment by Amazon” service, which we discuss with Tom Taylor, Vice President of Fulfillment by Amazon. Taylor discusses the benefits of outsourcing these functions, and how Amazon can especially help merchants with international orders. He is joined by Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

ALTThe use of video in ecommerce sites is becoming increasingly popular. Merchants are using video to both increase conversion rates and to drive traffic to their sites. And video is affordable to produce, especially when a merchant does it himself. To explain all of this, including syndication and streaming options, Justin Foster, founder of The Video Commerce Consortium, joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

ALT The Christian Science Monitor, a 100 year-old Pulitzer-prize-winning newspaper, recently announced plans to drop its daily printed paper in favor of a mainly web-based publishing model. Other newspapers will almost certainly follow suit over the next few years. To discuss The Monitor’s decision and the future of news delivery, John Yemma, the editor of The Monitor, joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

ALTGail Goodman is CEO of Constant Contact, a leading self-service email marketing company with over 220,000 customers worldwide. She joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss email marketing in a slow economy, the challenges of running a (fast growing) public company and how merchants can best use email marketing.

ALTNinety per cent of cell phone users in the U.S. can receive text messages. Marketing to these cell phone users via text messages could be an opportunity for ecommerce merchants. mobileStorm is a text-message-marketing company and its CEO, Jared Reitzen, visited with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock on how text-message (also known as short message service, or “SMS”) marketing works.

ALTNetSuite is a pioneer is providing hosted software solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. NetSuite’s ecommerce platform is used by thousands of businesses worldwide, and, as a testament to its success, the company’s common stock is now publicly traded. We asked Zach Nelson, NetSuite’s CEO, about software-as-a-service, NetSuite and the future of ecommerce. Mr. Nelson joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

ALTThe use of video and rich media can enhance an ecommerce site. SellPoint is a firm that provides video and rich media (for free) to ecommerce merchants and we’ve asked its CEO, Rick Martin, to discuss the use of video and how, exactly, it increases the purchase conversion rate for online merchants. Mr. Martin joins Practical Ecommerce publisher Kerry Murdock.

ALTMany ecommerce merchants run pay-per-click ad campaigns on the major search engines. But Jason Prescott, CEO of Toptenwholesale.com, argues that merchants can obtain a higher return-on-investment by advertising on specialized virtual search engines. He discuss this with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Neal CreightonWith the existence of social networking and consumer review sites, disgruntled customers can post negative comments about an ecommerce merchant and cause lasting harm. Neal Creighton is CEO of RatePoint, a firm that provides reputation management tools for ecommerce merchants. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss ideas for managing a firm’s online reputation, including RatePoint’s reputation management solutions.

ALTCraig Vodnik is vice president, North America, for Cleverbridge, an ecommerce platform that helps online merchants sell software, music and other digital products. Vodnik joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock, and offers his ideas for the best way to sell digital products online and how to maximize international sales of digital products.

Melih Abdulhayoglu is founder and CEO of Comodo, a firm that provides Internet-security and fraud prevention services to ecommerce and other web-based firms. Adulhayoglu received in 2008 an Ernest & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award and is an authority on online security. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock, who asked him about the logic of EV SSLs, site seals and other steps that ecommerce merchants can take to ensure a safe shopping environment.

David Heinemeier Hansson created the Ruby on Rails software framework and is a partner in 37signals, producers of the popular Basecamp suite of online collaboration tools. Hansson joins Practical Ecommerce Publisher Kerry Murdock to discuss Ruby on Rails, web development and the state of ecommerce.