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Featured Ecommerce Articles

Canada and eCommerce
Canadian eCommerce growth was recently flat but still has an attractive upside... Recent studies found that Canadian retail e-commerce growth was flat year over year (2003-2004). After further examination however, approximately 60% of the 100 largest ...

Ecommerce 101 – Online Credit Card Processing
Back in 1998 (through 2000 or so), I worked for a small company (called PaymentNet / then Signio) that handled online transactions. Verisign later purchased this company, and the product team I led integrated the "client" - the portion that took the ...

Ecommerce that Makes Sense
We weigh the merits of ready-made and custom solutions to add ecommerce to your site. In our last Tips we cautioned that just having a shopping cart on your website isn't enough to make ecommerce work. This month we'll weigh the merits of ready-made and ...

Evaluating Vendors of Ecommerce Fulfillment Services
 
When choosing a fulfillment company ( http://www.4th-media.net/order_fulfillment/decision_making.php ) for your ecommerce operation, you need to evaluate both fulfillment services and ecommerce services for order processing.
Evaluating Fulfillment Services
Fulfillment services includes receiving, inventorying, warehousing, delivery, record-keeping and customer inquiries. You have options to outsource part of or all of fulfillment services to a third party.
Receiving - This is the process that fulfillment vendors acquire goods from suppliers and the accuracy of services starts at the receiving.
Inventorying - The skills of inventory management directly impact the quality and cost of fulfillment. If inventory is out of stock, you may lose customers. If inventory level is too high, it may increase the cost of inventory.
Warehousing - Physical goods are stored in a warehouse and valuable items are usually stored in secure storage. While fulfillment companies have their warehouses and distribution centers, small businesses can store goods in their garages or basements.
Shipping - For order fulfillment, goods are delivered to customers in various shipping methods - ground, overnight, etc. at fulfillment centers. Customers specify shipping methods when they place their orders and the fulfillment companies may adjust the shipping methods of the delivery.
Return and Order Inquiry - Customer Service Reps at fulfillment companies can handle return and refund for their clients. Most ecommerce sites allow customers to view their orders and status of fulfillment online.
Record Keeping and Reporting - The ability to track all information pertinent to the order fulfillment (from inventory items, customers, orders to shipping) will help businesses to gain insights into the behaviors of their customers. Fulfillment companies and large organizations usually install inventory and fulfillment management software to automate the processes. Small business owners can find shareware for less than $100.
Evaluating Ecommerce Services
E-commerce fulfillment vendors are usually fulfillment vendors that provide ecommerce services related to fulfillment.
Online Catalog - Ecommerce fulfillment vendors can either develop online storefronts for you or integrate your online storefronts into their backend fulfillment system.
Online Payment Processing - Online storefronts from ecommerce fulfillment providers should have the ability to process payments online in credit card, electronic check, and purchase order. Using a fulfillment company, you can accept credit card online without a online merchant account (http://www.4th-media.net/online_payment/online_merchant_account.php ).
Copyright © 2005, Bruce Zhang

About The Author

Bruce Zhang had worked a few years in distribution and fulfillment industry. He contributes to Order Fulfillment ( http://www.4th-media.net/order_fulfillment/ ) section of an ecommerce ( http://www.4th-media.net/ ) website.




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Nortel Breathes New Life into the eCommerce Experience, Announces ...
FOXBusiness - 7 hours ago
Ajit Sivadasan, VP Global eCommerce, Lenovo - "Nortel's web.alive technology could help provide a potential next step in improving the online shopping ...
Lenovo Using Nortel's Web.alive for E-Commerce Virtual Worlds News
Nortel's 3D Virtual World Technology Powers New Lenovo Shopping Lounge TMCnet
Nortel Licenses Unreal Engine for web.alive FOXBusiness
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Coremetrics Reports Mixed eCommerce Signals in December
MSNBC - Jan 7, 2009
SAN MATEO, CA - The online retail sector in general continued to give mixed signals, showing both strengths and weaknesses, over the holiday retail shopping ...

Managing An Ecommerce Business
Meadow Free Press, ID - 11 hours ago
Tracking a business’s cycle is easy. All the business owner needs to understand is a few basics, and track how they interact, and how that interaction ...

Manufacturing CFO’s Using SAP Look to SaaS Outsourced eCommerce ...
Accounting Software 411 (press release), CA - Jan 7, 2009
CFO's utilizing SAP, are frequently looking to outsource the B2B (business to business) eCommerce website according to Sam Bayer, Founder and CEO of ...
b2b2dot0 Awarded NC Innovative Development for Economic ... The Open Press (press release)
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Guide to Successful Ecommerce
PWO, France - 20 hours ago
Harnessing ecommerce often means harnessing search engine algorithms to increase organic search engine results – through this channel and through paid ...
New Company Aims to "Recession-Proof" Small Business PR.com (press release)
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E-Commerce Tools: Five Ways to Sell Digital Goods Online
ECommerce-Guide, United States - Jan 7, 2009
The best news is that you can still spend most of your time in the studio recording or blogging to your fans, as digital goods e-commerce systems tend to ...

Auctionbytes

Infopia announce ecommerce summit and new CEO
TameBay, UK - 18 hours ago
Outgoing CEO Bjorn Espenes remains with Infopia and will continue to serve on the board of directors Infopia have also announced their 2009 eCommerce ...
Infopia Hires New CEO for Ecommerce Services Firm Auctionbytes
Infopia Names Barney President, CEO techrockies.com
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