James Maguire

Working on Wall Street was a “brutal lifestyle,” recalls Christian Girts. Faced with a workday that sometimes began at 3:15 A.M., he was eager to change careers and begin working for himself. After researching businesses ranging from laundromats to marinas, he decided to open an online business because “the margins are much higher,” he says. […]

If anyone deserves the title “e-mail guru,” it’s Heather Blank. As the director of e-commerce marketing for pet-related products and services giant PETCO, Blank is well steeped in the all-important skill of growing an e-mail list — and using that list as effectively as possible. PETCO, as one of the country’s largest animal food and […]

Although relatively new, ReStockIt.com competes with some big, established players. The site is an online “warehouse club,” an outlet for bulk purchases aimed at the small business market, along the lines of Sam’s Club. “We’re like Costco, except we deliver right to your door,” said the site’s co-founder David Redlich. ReStockIt inventory is […]

As online merchants seek to draw as many eyeballs as possible to their wares, more e-tailers than ever are entering their products in comparison shopping engines. Many merchants agree the potential revenues from using these engines are substantial. The list of leading shopping engines includes Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com, BizRate/Shopzilla (two engines owned by one company), […]

In part one of this series, we discussed how a well-designed site increased your chances of making the sale. In part two, we find that improving the bottom line of an e-commerce business requires a two-pronged approach: It’s about fixing common problems and making use of typical shopper behavior. That’s the view of Bruce “Tog” […]

The better designed your site, the better your chances of making the sale. Research has long shown that the leading factor in persuading shoppers to buy from an e-commerce Web site is ease of navigation — findings that were supported in a recent survey by Jupiter Research (which is also owned by the publisher of […]

Jewelry is not normally thought of as an impulse purchase, but Ice.com is working to change that — with considerable success. “We call ourselves an online jewelry store, but technically what we are is a candy store for women,” says Ice CEO Shmuel Gniwisch. The site makes jewelry purchases relatively painless by offering items as […]

In the late ’90s dot-com boom, eHobbies was a fast growing e-tail outfit with $40 million in venture capital funding. In the early 2000’s dot-com meltdown, eHobbies was a money-losing venture with a bloated payroll, heading toward extinction. “The business model was never correct,” recalls Seth Greenberg, who was once the site’s marketing director and […]

In part one of this series, we spoke with Kelly Mooney about the research report she co-authored, “What Women Want.” Mooney is a lead partner in Resource Interactive, which conducts extensive research into how online merchants can best reach female shoppers. In this follow-up piece, we talk with Laura Evans, an executive director at Resource […]

For years, outdoor clothing e-tailer Ex Officio struggled with the limitations of its e-commerce platform. Based on an old version of Microsoft Commerce Server, the software provided “a very manual process for something that should have been automated,” says Chad Luellen, the site’s e-commerce manager. After shopping for a new platform, the Portland, Oregon-based firm […]

Shelly Gardner-Alley felt a certain frustration in her first experience with e-commerce. As a Web designer who built e-commerce sites, specializing in Kurant’s StoreSense software, she worked with many brand new e-commerce operators. These inexperienced owners needed extensive handholding. “They used to come to us for everything, no matter if it related to what we […]

Clearly, women have become a prime driver — perhaps the prime driver — of e-commerce. In 2004, female shoppers made 64 percent of online purchases, according to Resource Interactive. “And that figure just continues to rise,” says Kelly Mooney, one of Resource Interactive’s lead partners. Adweek lists the Columbus, Ohio-based firm as one of the […]