Ecommerce Conversations

Online retailers are frequently interested in new channels to sell their products. In addition to a merchant’s own ecommerce site, he or she can consider auction sites and comparison shopping sites, for example. And there’s also Amazon.com. Amazon competes with many smaller merchants, but it also allows those merchants to list products there, too. The service is called “Selling on Amazon” and the executive in charge of it is Sam Wheeler. Wheeler is Director Seller Services at Amazon and he’s here with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Many ecommerce merchants rely on email marketing and many of them, we suspect, wish they could monitor and target emails based on where a recipient lives. This would allow for offers specific to a market or geographic area. Well, Listrak, an email marketing provider based in Pennsylvania, now offers email “geo tracking.” Listrak’s CEO is Ross Kramer, and he joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock in this interview.

Millions of Internet users are blind, deaf or are otherwise unable to use a website in a traditional manner. Ensuring that a site functions well for these users is called accessibility, and our guest for this interview is an expert on that topic. Joseph Dolson is CEO and founder of Accessible Web Design, a St. Paul, MN based firm that designs and consults on accessibility matters. He joins Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.

Jordan CollettaThe shipping of products is a crucial function for most every ecommerce merchant. And there’s no company more prominent in the shipping business than UPS, who has recently announced upgrades to its “UPS Ready” program. Jordan Colletta is vice president of customer technology marketing for UPS, and he joins Practical eCommerce’s Kerry Murdock to discuss those upgrades. Mr. Colletta has been with UPS since 1975 and in his current position he’s responsible for all of UPS’s ecommerce marketing functions.

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.