Dan Muse does an excellent job of detailing a new release from NetSuite, the e-commerce platform that’s shaking up the industry by providing everything an online merchant could dream of all in one (reasonably affordable) package.

Posted by James Maguire on April 09, 2006
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In this follow-up piece, I wrote about the (still more) things that online merchants are doing to jazz up the basic Yahoo store template. It’s almost limitless. Their imaginations are limited only by their budgets…

Posted by James Maguire on April 02, 2006
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I think of it like the Land Rush of 1854: tens of thousands of Internet merchants are using the Yahoo Storefront platform to launch their own online store – 35,000 newbie merchants by recent count, and the number rises daily.

For $39 a month, Yahoo makes it a no-brainer: It offers all the tools in one place, in an easy-to-use format. But as I report in this article, launching with Yahoo’s template is only Step One for many merchants. An entire community of Web developers has sprung up, specializing in tweaking Yahoo’s basic storefront. The dollars are flowing…

Posted by James Maguire on March 26, 2006
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Call it kismet: I had just finished writing this lengthy piece about click fraud, and – as if the e-tail gods were listening – Google settled its click fraud case, shelling out $90 million to do so. The mighty search engine was brought low by a small gift shop in Arkansas, which alleged that Google and several other engines knowingly overcharged for pay-per-click advertising. The fact that Google and crew agreed to pay $90 million rather than let the case go to trial only proves how much the search giants are raking in with PPC.

Posted by James Maguire on March 10, 2006
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In this recent piece I wrote about current practices by online merchants, it’s clear that major momentum is fueling the rise in e-commerce. The piece details a recent survey by Chicago-based The E-tailing Group, which shows that merchants are using an ever more sophisticated array of tools, like alternate photos views and enhanced audio and video features. On the other hand, the survey notes that online customer service has declined since last year, as if merchants are feeling fat and happy enough to take their time responding to shoppers.

Posted by James Maguire on March 10, 2006
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Along with a few other experts, I was part of a panel that critiqued the business set-up of an online store, ScoutingBooks.com. All of the panelists pointed to the site’s need for a redesign, myself included. But I lauded the site’s superior work with Google, and how it had found a clear, marketable niche for itself. (By the way, I had no success with the actual Boy Scouts, having topped out at the Cub Scout level — but that’s another story.)

Posted by James Maguire on February 24, 2006
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An article of mine just posted on E-commerce Guide details the career of Kompolt Online Auction Agency. Jenny Kompolt runs eBay auctions for big name concerns, from The Today Show to Toyoto to Hewlett-Packard to Martha Stewart Televison. She auctioned Jay Leno’s Harley for $360,000.

These large firms aren’t using eBay to earn profits, at least not directly. Instead, Kompolt’s agency is helping them use the auctions as a publicity vehicle. Her agency is a kind of business that didn’t exist just a few years ago: a hybrid auction assistant and advertising agency, which marries charity fund-raising with corporate brand building.

Posted by James Maguire on February 11, 2006
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The readers’ picks for top e-commerce tools of the year are posted at Small Business Computing, and — no surprise — Yahoo is the top pick for e-commerce platform.

Whether it’s actually the best low-cost e-commerce is debatable, but for sheer popularity it’s clearly a winner. At 35,000 customers (5,000 more than just four months ago), Yahoo’s platform is growing at a galloping pace. It’s popular for good reason: Yahoo is sort of like the AOL of e-commerce — incredibly easy to use, with plenty of handholding, and a very affordable price.

Posted by James Maguire on February 02, 2006
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