The product pages on your small business ecommerce site can make or break your revenue success. These expert tips can help turn your product pages into bona fide money-makers.
Apple's may be about to do for cloud computing what it did for music and mobile phones. Google and Amazon, time to don your rain gear.
There's no lack of choice when it comes to small business netbooks, so it helps to have a tech Sherpa to guide your way. Check out this guide, and you'll get the most netbook for your buck.
You'll need a strong Wi-Fi connection to take advantage of this cool calling app over a wireless network, but it's great for business or pleasure. (Just be sure you keep a mirror nearby.)
Get your download on and take your pick from the very best free iPhone apps: tools, games, search Facebook, music and more.
If you want to know which trends are growing more popular and which are sinking toward “jump the shark” status, look at Google Trends.
This clothing retailer learned how to use the Internet to expand the customer base of her brick-and-mortar storefront.
An SEO guru reveals the best ways to get high search engine ranking and offers sound advice for storeowners.
In this guided tour of an analytics program, we focus on the data most likely to boost your sales. Plus: analytics expert Eric Peterson discusses the essentials of monitoring your site traffic.
Decipher the data from your analytics program — and learn what actions to take based on the numbers.
The teen audience is a potentially lucrative one — but the younger tribe has its own rules for shopping online.
We continue our list of free productivity software for small businesses.
You can find all kinds of free software on the Internet to help you manage your business. Here we take a look at programs that can help you with online stores, eBay auctions, business management and more.
Tired of high PPC rates on Google and Yahoo? Try smaller, alternate search engines.
We continue with the essential e-commerce startup checklist.
Before you launch your e-commerce site, make sure you have these 15 critical tools.
Handling heavy eBay sales volume requires some good tools. Here's a guide to choosing software for auction management, market analysis and marketing.
Storeowners tweak the basic Yahoo template in countless ways — and their methods also work for other online stores. Here are some popular e-commerce redesign techniques.
Yahoo's default template works well for many merchants. But in today's competitive environment, plenty of Yahoo storeowners opt for a re-design. Here's what they do.
A well-designed product page is critical to an online merchant's bottom line. Here's a guide to creating a revenue-boosting product page on your site.
A new study describes how men and women shop differently online — and how SMB e-tailers can profit from this knowledge.
A group of SEO experts talks about the cost of hiring search engine optimization help, and what exactly an SEO firm will do for a business.
A group of top experts provide tips on how merchants can find help with search engine optimization -- and what to watch out for in the SEO industry.
As fuel prices skyrocket, shipping becomes ever more expensive for online merchants. Experts talk about controlling costs.
New research reveals current strategies for boosting online sales, including the top ten conversion techniques, loyalty programs, post-sales tactics and more.
A new report details the many strategies that today's merchants are using to boost online sales.
You've built your new online store, and now all you need is a large crowd of customers. We offer you a primer on attracting customers even if your advertising budget is almost non-existent.
Tips on selecting three critical components of your new online business: a merchant credit card account, a Web host, and an accounting package.
It's not too early to prepare. Here are tips and strategies for maximizing your sales during the all-important holiday season which begins...now.
Selecting which software you'll use to build your online store is a critical decision. Here's what you need to know, including questions to ask vendors and a survey of platforms.
Before you build your online store, priority number one is creating a killer e-business plan.
Part II: While today's seniors are a lucrative market, the seniors of tomorrow — the older Boomers — offer an even bigger online market. Here are tips for reaching the aging Boomer online.
Part I: The stereotype of the older Internet user is far from flattering. But online merchants are wise to look beyond this stereotype.
eBiz Profiles: A clothing e-tailer for plus-size women, Junonia works to create synergy between its catalog and online sales.
eBiz Profiles: After a custom solution failed to keep Trek Bikes' site running under heavy loads, the bike maker turned to a turn-key solution that really delivered.
eBiz Profiles: Originally built in 1998, little had been done to update Safelite Auto Glass' site for several years. A redesign later, the site is driving thousands of leads.
eBiz Profiles: Attracting customers to a niche site is a challenge ShavingCream.com has learned to handle.
eBiz Profiles: After a major career switch, the owner of Angler's Vice is using personalized service and direct mail, among other techniques, to build a customer base.
eBiz Profiles: A well-focused e-mail marketing strategy is one PETCO's strong points. E-commerce marketing director Heather Blank shares her secrets for success.
eBiz Profile: This new business-to-business operation competes with the warehouse clubs by focusing on specific core markets and making heavy pay-per-click buys.
Two industry experts talk about how merchants can most effectively use comparison-shopping sites.
Looking for actionable ways to grow revenue? An e-commerce usability guru talks about tweaking your site — and your customer service — to fatten up your bottom line. Second in a two-part series.
The easier your online store is to use, the more likely that shoppers will spend money there. Usability guru Jakob Nielsen gives strategies to make your site more customer-friendly. First in a two-part series.
This merchant profits from the online impulse purchase, and makes aggressive use of paid search and e-mail marketing.
eBiz Profile: Once a $40 million start-up, eHobbies is flying high on the Yahoo store platform. Plus: the value of posting inventory throughout the Web.
In part two of this series, we examine how a variety of merchants are working to reach the online female consumer more effectively.
eBiz Profile: For years, outdoor clothing e-tailer Ex Officio struggled with the limitations of its e-commerce platform. Florida-based MainStreet Commerce changed that.
eBiz Profile: Shelly Gardner-Alley felt frustrated in her first experience with e-commerce. As a Web designer who built e-commerce sites, she worked with many new e-commerce operators who needed extensive handholding. In 2002, she and her husband launched their own e-commerce business.
Reaching female consumers is critical to the success of many online merchants. An expert talks about the key principles involved in serving this all-important demographic.
eBiz Profile: Although Scentiments sells products that are readily available at many outlets, it's found ways to create an edge against the competition.
It may seem like an unlikely leap for an online merchant to go from selling gas grills to opening an e-commerce superstore with 15 different categories that range from apparel to electronics to automotive. But that's exactly what BBQGuys is about to do.
A discussion of the tools and techniques that merchants use to maximize their paid search strategies.
The NetSuite e-commerce platform enables this e-tailer to operate without worrying about software upgrades or hardware maintenance.
Selling on eBay is now as easy as dropping off items at your local UPS Store, thanks to a company called AuctionDrop.
Balancing a full time job and the management of an online business, Sherry Comes has built a streamlined e-commerce operation.
A primer for buying keyword terms on search engines, which is considered by many e-tailers to be an indispensable part of customer building.
eBiz Profile: An online merchant with an unusual product has found a way to leverage brick and mortar outlets without owning any.
Whether you're Amazon.com or Al's Appliance Store Online, some e-commerce truths are universal. Industry guru Lauren Freedman talks about what she has learned from her company's extensive market research on online shopping.
eBiz Profile: With her site Amet and Sasha, one up-and-coming online entrepreneur found a way to stretch her marketing reach with a minimal budget.
An e-commerce industry expert offers cross-selling and up-selling tips and techniques to increase your average dollar amount per order.
eBiz Profile: How do you get online shoppers to buy items they usually need to try on? Hint: It starts with shipping, but Shoebuy.com has found there's a whole lot more behind successfully selling shoes online — lessons applicable to almost any e-commerce store.
Less than a year old, Tropicari is making strides using a combination of three popular sales outlets: a Yahoo! store, eBay, and a mall kiosk.
Overture, a search engine company, makes it easier for SMBs with specialty markets find and attract customers. See how one small business owner makes it all work.
In a perfect world, all of your customers would be able to pay for their purchases with credit cards, but if you sell small-ticket items, that isn't feasible. The good news is that there is an alternative to credit cards: micropayments.
Initially launched as a home-based business, GiftTree.com is enjoying a very healthy growth rate, thanks in part to a powerful database and its hard core focus on providing excellent customer. Could your small business sprout similar roots?
In the final part of a two-part series, we take a look at how state and local governments are handling online taxes, what it will ultimately mean for small businesses, and the current status of federal legislation.
In the first part of a two-part series, online retailers and industry experts discuss how sales tax impacts e-commerce. And, perhaps more importantly, look ahead to possible changes in the tax laws that could be enacted in 2004.
Learn how this fine arts site successfully targets a highly affluent audience and maintains a much higher typical purchase price than the average e-commerce site using state-of-the-art Web analytics and CRM tools.
E-commerce wholesaler DollarDays.com has one simple goal: to level the playing field and enable small businesses to compete with the big boys. With the right products at the right prices, nearly any entrepreneur can compete with the online 'Wal-Marts' of the world.
Using IBM's WebSphere as its e-commerce anchor, the mid-sized marine retailer is leveraging the software platform's ability to combine multiple sales channels. Plus, the site shares a few tips and tricks about driving traffic and making sales from which small businesses can also benefit.
How does a small business compete in a market dominated by e-commerce giants? The CEO of online bookseller Albris talks about surviving as a niche player in a crowded space.
This outdoor adventure site uses a basic e-commerce strategy to help it through business peaks and valleys. The MountainZone saga includes an all-too-familiar boom-to-bust chapter from the late 90s.
This online jewelry craftsman focuses on one-on-one customer service, using an old-fashioned small business approach to create his e-commerce success on the Web. Tradeshop. com makes the Internet not only interactive, but inter-personal.
When one small online pool and spa business wanted to make bigger waves of website site traffic and create more sales, it turned to the likes of Google and Yahoo. Netrepreneur Dan Harrison discusses the tips and tricks he used to optimize his search engine placements and boost his online sales.
