“So, credit card processing and set up and all that stuff is a real pain in the ass. It’s definitely intimidating to get started. The industry just feels dirty. So many companies offering merchant accounts, so many companies providing gateway software and integration, so many deals and discounts and conditions and terms and acronyms. What do we need? Who can we trust? How does it all work?”

“There has been much discussion lately, most of it negative (you can read more comments on Technorati), about the comeback of boo.com and once again, I find myself on the opposite side of the shared wisdom. Before I go into reasons as to why I think a comeback by Boo.com (a boo.comeback?) makes sense, let me first go into my unique qualifications to make such an assessment: I happen to have worked at Boo.com in the past and I was the insider who exposed some of the challenges the company had faced. I spent a fair amount of my time, in 2000 and 2001, talking at conferences about the lessons learned from this failure and I think that some of those are now fixed.”

“Shopify is an application that we host which allows you to setup an online store to sell your goods. You can accept credit card payments, track and respond to orders — all the perks of a physical store without the hassle.”

“Ten years ago this week, Amazon.com made its Internet premiere when Mr. Bezos opened a Web site he audaciously called ‘Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.’ Amazon sold only a half-million dollars’ worth of books in the first six months, but was soon posting the kind of gaudy growth rates that impress Wall Street: sales hit $15.7 million in 1996 and $147.8 million in 1997. Yet the more familiar story of Amazon in the second half of the 1990’s was the rate at which it burned through cash. In 1999, for example, its revenue hit $1.6 billion, but it still lost $719 million.”

“This week marks Amazon.com’s 10th anniversary. Profit was down in the first quarter, and the stock price, after soaring to $60 a share last year, has slipped to a plateau of about half that. USA TODAY’s Byron Acohido asked company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos about competing more directly against Google and Microsoft, impatient shareholders and what’s ahead for e-commerce.”

“Five years ago this week Britain’s dotcom dream died, killed off by a Swedish poetry critic and a former Vogue model, as fashion ‘e-tailer’ Boo.com became the country’s first high-profile internet collapse.”

“The Internet has rewritten the rules for books, music, and travel. Which industries are next? Here are six.”

“With all the hype at the coming of web commerce, web sales still pale in comparison to bricks-and-mortar, and for good reason. Commercial websites are still, in the main, scary, difficult, and undependable. Responsibility for many e-commerce problems lies with designers. Responsibility for others lies with engineers, marketers, managers, and executives who are willing to accept mediocrity or worse.”

“Google Catalog Search applies Google’s sophisticated search technology to thousands of scanned mail-order catalogs, from industrial adhesives to designer clothing and gourmet food. Whether you publish business or consumer catalogs, Google Catalog Search extends the reach of your marketing efforts to millions of new customers.”

“This year, the Ziff Davis Smart Business Labs teamed up with eyeTracking.com to find out which sites make it easiest and fastest to find what you’re looking for, get questions answered, and complete and track your order. We chose two leading companies in the hottest e-commerce categories and pitted them against one another in our exhaustive tests.”

“Micropayment systems have not failed because of poor implementation; they have failed because they are a bad idea. Furthermore, since their weakness is systemic, they will continue to fail in the future.” By Clay Shirky.

“To support a successful user experience, e-commerce sites must have clear navigation, accurate product information, and an efficient checkout process. We call these factors ‘traditional usability’ because they are under the control of the interface designer. However, in testing e-commerce sites, usability professionals often encounter issues outside the realm of traditional usability, such as a user who refuses to complete a purchase because the shipping cost is too high. Solving these types of problems means doing more than changing the design of the site — the usability professional must collaborate with other disciplines within the company. This site is meant to be a resource for those who encounter these issues to help those who are dealing with the same.”

“CCR, also sometimes called the Sales Closing Rate or Sales Closing Ratio, is the ratio of orders to site visits. It is the measure of how well your site can make a sale to a shopper, and is considered by many to be the most important metric in your toolbox. Also notice that, logically, it is the result of all of the factors that go into building a site that ‘knows how to sell.’”

Contains both software solutions, online services and articles and other shopping cart lists.

“Let’s face it, the average online customer can be compared to William Hurt, floating in an isolation tank in some University basement, only without all of the electrodes and pre-historic peyote. So what’s an online entrepreneur to do? If your business is to meet the challenge of selling in a narrow-band, sensory-deprived medium, you must become information intensive. Information intensity involves shifting the focus away from tangible resources and on to information.”