Spotlight Features

With all the talk about cryptocurrencies, you might be wondering whether your e-commerce business should start accepting them as a form of payment. There is no simple answer to that question. It all depends on the type of business you have and your tolerance for volatility and risk. In any case, it'...

A significant percentage of IT systems are cloud-based, according to a recent survey. The cloud is a key enabler for emerging technology, suggests the CompTIA poll, which was conducted last month. Cloud computing was one of four trends respondents expected to feature heavily in IT conversations over...

In response to the migration of health services to the cloud, vendors have been partnering with various organizations to gain a foothold in the market and to test out their solutions. One of the cloud's major selling points is security -- but it is not as safe as it's made out to be. Google Cloud "r...

The cloud offers a host of potential uses, according to the healthcare industry and academic medical center representatives who participated in a HIMSS survey. Application hosting was the top use, identified by 90 percent of the respondents. Other potential uses cited: disaster recovery and backup, ...

A key part of any business' marketing strategy is its logo. Your logo is the public face of your company, the mark that will appear on everything from apps and websites to stationery and stickers. Making sure that your logo captures the spirit and purpose of your brand is vital. "A company needs a l...

Building a community around a brand is an important and often-overlooked part of being successful in e-commerce. "Community solidifies the relationship between your brand and your customer," said e-commerce consultant Ian Rhodes. "It creates loyalty. Whilst the majority of retail brands are seeking ...

Data science has become mission-critical to many enterprises. Companies in the U.S. will spend billions on third-party audience data in 2018 and even more on third-party solutions to use that data, as they move toward becoming model-driven. It's not just a matter of harvesting data and then crunchi...

An alarming number of major U.S. retailers, industrial firms, government agencies and other organizations have been hit in a recent wave of cyberbreaches that may signal increasing vulnerability for consumers and businesses alike. Cyberthieves have used a variety of methods to infiltrate corporate c...

Many small and mid-sized businesses, especially etailers, conduct a substantial amount of their business on Facebook. Eighty percent of U.S. businesses with 250 employees or less use Facebook for marketing, suggest results of a G2 Crowd survey eMarketer cited in a report released last month. Seventy...

When it comes to business, you're only as good as your reputation. Indeed, your reputation is your brand. It is the substance your logo represents; it is the glue in customer brand loyalty. In a word, reputation is everything. Yet it's not entirely under your control. That doesn't mean you are helpl...

Checking out is the heart and soul of the e-commerce experience. When it goes well, you've got happy customers who are likely to return. When it doesn't, your business can suffer. "Checkout is not only key to driving revenue -- it's key to user satisfaction, order size and retention," said Zephrin L...

"Blockchain" is the word on everyone's lips in the tech industry, with vendors pushing it as a solution for everything from banking and finance to retail and apparel. "We're going to continue to see tech vendors trying to push blockchain as the solution to problems that may exist," said Rebecca Wett...

Podcasting is one of the hottest media trends. Almost everyone, it seems, has a podcast these days. Should e-commerce business owners jump on this bandwagon? Can podcasting really boost the bottom line? If you do decide to make a podcast, do your best to make it exceptional. That means having good a...

Fraud is a major concern for 72 percent of businesses, according to Experian's Global Fraud and Identity Report. More than 5,500 consumers and 500 business executives in 11 markets around the world participated in the survey. The situation has not been improving, as six out of 10 businesses experien...