The Wall Street Journal Reported on September 7, 2011 that Chinese Regulators Renew Key License for Google. What this means for Google is another year of doing business legally, albeit via a Chinese partner, since China doesn’t grant business licenses directly to foreign companies in China–according to this ZDNet article. But after all the jousting
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Shotgun Wedding for an Ecommerce Groom & State Sales Tax Bride?
Remember that old adage, “why buy the cow, if you can get the milk for free?” Well, as the country lurches further into an economic quagmire, the government in many states is suggesting that ecommerce and state sales tax would make a nice match. It’s been a free ride for too long, and now state
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Internet Brand Advertising Is Like a Cash Cow
As evidenced by the narrative and following examples in this The Atlantic article, Why Good Advertising Works (Even When You Think It Doesn’t), advertising almost never yields results immediately. People just don’t like to be sold, or the idea that they can be sold. Good advertising takes years of coddling, coaxing, nourishing, and patience before
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Why Does George Bush's Brother Prefer Chinese Social Media?
Last February, guest blogger, Weidong “Jim” Zhang wrote this very popular article for the FastPivot blog: U.S. Businesses Need Face On These Top 5 Chinese Social Media Places. It seems George Bush’s brother and others like him were listening, based on this recent PaidContent.org article: George Bush’s Brother is ‘Tweeting’ in Chinese on Weibo. Well,
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5 Must Do Holiday-Prep Steps for E-retailers
The thermometer is still red up to the eyes in summer, and black cats and vampire teeth aren’t even on the shelves yet. But it’s not Halloween or even Thanksgiving shopping sprees that bring in the year end cash either. The mother load comes from Christmas shoppers, and even with the economy in the mop
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International Ecommerce Merchants Can Learn from Groupon's China Mistakes
In this 8/24/11 WSJ article, “Groupon Stumbles in China, Closes Some Offices,” reporter Loretta Chao sums it all up in the first paragraph: “Groupon Inc.’s joint venture in China has closed offices in some cities and laid off hundreds of employees, according to people familiar with the situation, raising questions about the online coupon company’s
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Adobe Scene 7 Integration for Yahoo! Stores
FastPivot’s Yahoo! Store developers recently launched MaineCottage.com’s new Yahoo! Store. In addition to programming a world class Yahoo! Store, FastPivot’s Yahoo! Store developers were also responsible for installing an advanced, top of the line, Adobe Scene 7 configurator. This product color scheme selection and zoom configurator is the Lamborghini of configurators–It’s not cheap, and very
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Right Development Team Reduces Ecommerce Earthquake Risk
Earlier this week, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake gave U.S. east coasters a little shake (A few of us at the Fastpivot headquarters in Asheville NC even felt tremors hundreds of miles from the epicenter). It’s always good to have harmless reminders like this to help us remember the importance of good infrastructure. The same is
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301 Redirect Softens SEO Landing During Yahoo! Store Transition
The theory around the 301 redirect is that you can move from a non-Yahoo! Store to a Yahoo! Store and protect where you sit in the search ranking world (Yahoo! Store urls and naming conventions are different than what your non-Yahoo! Store’s would be). If you’re a non-Yahoo! Store merchant and want to migrate to
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NovelGiftBaskets.com : We Love You Guys Too!
NovelGiftBaskets.com: We Love You Guys Too! Warm regards! The FastPivot Team RE: “The FastPivot team did a phenomenal job transforming my website from a template blog into an extremely professional looking, full service web site. Their team is thorough and courteous, extremely helpful throughout the entire process. From the initial sign on to each and
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