The pros and cons of hosted E-commerce

When a small business owner makes the decision to enter into the world of E-commerce, the first decision that confronts them is usually whether they need to build a stand-alone E-commerce web site or sign-on with a hosted application provider like Magento or...

E-commerce Requires Budget Planning

Translating your E-commerce idea from concept into reality requires an investment of time, money and resource. For the small-business entrepreneur, a first-time E-commerce project can generate a few unpleasant budget surprises. Some of your project’s budget...

Beware the back alleys of E-commerce

Spend some time surveying a variety of E-commerce sites (without spending money on them, that is…), and chances are you’ll come across some sites that offer name-brand gadgetry at incredibly good prices. Sites like these often sell items such as...

Who’s minding the store?

Just like a bricks-and-mortar store needs somebody behind the counter, an E-commerce web site requires somebody behind the scenes to make things run smoothly. Your E-commerce site is never going to be a fire-and-forget operation. Somebody has to process the orders....

Giving cloud services a black eye

In a post last week, I mentioned that sometimes something good accidentally happens as a result of the dark machinations of the technology industry’s various would-be Evil Overlords. In the interest of fairness, this week I’m going to point out that more...