Kerry Murdock

Articles by: Kerry Murdock

Kerry Murdock

Kerry Murdock is publisher and editor of Practical Ecommerce. Since 2005 he has managed all aspects of Practical Ecommerce’s journalism, from selecting writers and topics to editing and fact-checking thousands of professional articles addressing all facets of worldwide ecommerce.

He was previously the publisher of two community newspapers and a small book publishing company.

He is a member of SABEW (Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing) and holds a B.S. in Accounting from Oklahoma State University and an M.A. in Government from The University of Texas at Austin.

Business
Christian Science Monitor Editor on Future of News Delivery

November 14, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

The Christian Science Monitor, a 100 year-old Pulitzer-prize-winning newspaper, recently announced plans to drop its daily printed paper in favor of a mainly web-based publishing model. Other newspapers will almost ...
Code
David Heinemeier Hansson, Ruby on Rails Creator

August 25, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

David Heinemeier Hansson created the Ruby on Rails software framework. He’s also a partner in 37signals, producers of the popular Basecamp suite of online collaboration tools. In this excerpt from a longer audio interview, Heinemeier Hansson discusses the state of ecommerce. PeC: What...
Business
Practical eCommerce Increases Digital Offerings, Drops Printed Magazine

August 15, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is dropping its printed magazine to focus exclusively on the digital delivery of its editorial content. The company began in July 2005 with a mission to publish easy-to-follow articles and advice that help businesses succeed online. This editorial content was origin...
Business
Shaun Ryan, CEO Of SLI Systems

July 22, 2008 • Kerry Murdock

SLI Systems CEO Shaun Ryan discusses site search and SLI’s hosted site search solution with Practical eCommerce Publisher Kerry Murdock.
Business
Welcome to the New Practical eCommerce

January 1, 2007 • Kerry Murdock

Practical eCommerce is changing, growing and improving. <img src="/images/articleimages/1167938482/pecrev.gif" alt="Practical Ecommerce" class="imgLeft" /> Our new website is bigger, more interactive and completely free. This follows from user recom...
Conversion
Email as a Mini-sale

October 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Sales professionals have a notion of “mini-sales.” A mini-sale occurs when a prospect agrees to learn more about you or your product, but has not yet agreed to a purchase. Say, for example, that you sell cleaning supplies to restaurants. You may call a restaurant owner and ask him to p...
Conversion
Email Marketing: Open-Rates and Click-Throughs

September 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The "FROM:" line in an email is the most important factor to getting it opened. “Email marketers should use a consistent ‘From:’ address, and it must be recognizable to their customers,” says Gail Goodman, chief executive officer of Constant Contact, a self-service email-marketing firm...
Conversion
Email Marketing Fosters Long-Term Relationships

August 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The use of email is changing the way businesses communicate with their customers. Rather than using email solely to offer products for sale, many businesses now use it to communicate helpful information to shoppers who request it. This helpful information creates a relationship with a s...
Business
Quick Query: ProStores’ Julian Green

June 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

In January 2005, eBay Inc. purchased Kurant’s StoreSense, an online ecommerce provider. Using Kurant’s technology, eBay subsequently launched ProStores, an ecommerce solution for small to medium-sized merchants. ProStores has since signed up “tens of thousands” of online merchants. Juli...
Design & Development
Robust International Market for Stolen Credit-Card Numbers

May 30, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Think of it as sort-of a smorgasbord. For one dollar, a thief can purchase a stolen credit card number. He could buy it from another thief in one of hundreds of online, international chat-rooms set-up for that purpose. For three dollars, he could buy the credit card number with the thre...
Business
Quick Query: Jeremy Hanks

May 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

What's Doba.com? Doba.com helps simplify product sourcing. That is, we streamline product sourcing for the emerging market of web-based entrepreneurs starting and growing a retail business. Our web-based platform empowers entrepreneurs to find and sell products, and suppliers to connec...
Design & Development
Web Analytics: Data Collection Methods

May 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Web analytics software helps ecommerce operators understand what their online visitors are up to. Which search engine did the visitors come from? How long did they remain on the site? Which web pages did they exit the site from? And so forth. Utilizing the data that web analytics packa...
Design & Development
eCommerce Dictionary: Hosting Terms

May 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Affiliate Program An affiliate program is any type of revenue sharing program where a webmaster or website receives a portion of income for generating leads, traffic or sales through a graphic or text link to a merchant website. Alias A name that points to another name. Aliases are use...
Business
Quick Query: Comodo’s Melih Abdulhayoglu

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Internet commerce depends on safe and secure transactions. Because of that, we’ve asked a few questions to Melih Abdulhayoglu, an Internet security expert and CEO of Comodo, a leading provider of security software and encryption products for smaller ecommerce merchants. PeC: What does...
Design & Development
Web Analytics: Translating the Wall of Data

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Assume an ecommerce operator launches a paid-search advertising campaign. That is, assume the operator purchases several keywords on Yahoo! Search, Google, MSN and others, and then assembles text ads on those search engines to attract visitors to his site. Assume that the campaign start...
Design & Development
Credit Card Processing: How It All Works

April 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

The credit card processing system is confusing. The players are numerous and the process is complex. To understand how it all works, it helps to grasp the types of companies that are involved, and how much money they typically charge for processing a transaction. David Schwartz is dire...
Design & Development
Analytics Software Improves Paid Search Campaigns

March 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

John Marshall wants to know what happens after the click. Marshall is CEO and founder of Click Tracks, a company that provides software to analyze the online behavior of website visitors. “It’s not enough to purchase keywords on a search engine merely to attract visitors to a website,” ...
Conversion
Affiliate Marketing

February 1, 2006 • Kerry Murdock

Andy Newlin works for Sierratradingpost.com, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Sierra Trading Post is an ecommerce merchant that sells outdoor gear and clothing, and Newlin is its Online Marketing Manager. He oversees the affiliate marketing efforts of the site. “Most any online merchant can utili...