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This post is a recap of today's webinar: The eCommerce Platform of the Future. The on-demand version will be available shortly. About our guest speaker As Senior Analyst for ecommerce technology at Forrester, Brian researches and reports the impact of technology advancements, operational needs, and changing consumer behaviors on online retail. His expertise spans B2B and B2C retail and online travel, with a focus on multichannel strategies, user experience design and technology. Brian holds more than 11 years of experience in eCommerce and online marketing, serving senior roles for retailers such as Amazon.com; Classmates Online, Inc.; Eddie Bauer; Expedia.com; and The Spiegel Group.

In ecommerce, one of the most important things is search. And right now, search has been moved to a whole new level with what is called blended search. Blended search is when the search engine takes it beyond text links to include pictures, video, blogs, news and just about anything else. This is changing ecommerce search especially, because now product search is part of this.

Over at The Email Wars, there is an interesting post about personalized links in ecommerce emails. Instead of linking to the relevant email topic, many times an ecommerce marketing email will simply send me to a homepage, or a broad category page.

Loyal ecommerce shoppers often like to set up an account with etailers they visit frequently. This means that how you set up the "My Account" page can be important. In terms of design and usability, it is important to cater to your ecommerce shoppers. All of the examples below are the My Account pages for various etailers. Each represents the first thing that comes up when the My Account selection is made on an ecommerce Web site.

Wishlists are becoming increasingly popular on ecommerce Web sites. This is due in great deal to the fact that we like to be able to personalize our online shopping experiences. Plus, what happens when you see something you like, but can't buy right now? With ecommerce wishlists, it is possible to save something you like for later purchasing without having to look all over the Web site to find it again.

Taking lessons from two marketing disciplines, online retailers and their web designers can build a well structured Internet store organized into themes or categories that will make it easy for shoppers and search engines alike to find important information and product pages. In this Ecommerce Know-How, I will briefly define search engine optimization (SEO) and information architecture (IA), describe one of the many places where these marketing specialties intersect, and explain how easy and natural thematic structure and linking really is. I've also included a video. I should point out that this technique is very intuitive, and many site owners or designers are probably using it to some extent naturally. We are simply putting a name to these natural tendencies.

An ecommerce website, boiled down to its dry essence, is a virtual salesman at best and a slow-to-deliver electronic vending machine at worst. Consciously or not, online stores are conceived, designed, and created to sell products while making as little personal contact with a customer as possible. And as such, well-written product descriptions can have a significant impact on a store's success.

Is social media/Web 2.0 for retail just hype or an essential part of doing business in the 21st century? The Wikipedic definition of Web 2.0 is "a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online." Wikipedia, being a user-generated knowledge base, is itself Web 2.0. In the ecommerce context, Web 2.0 includes leveraging social commerce on your own site, blogging/podcasting and participating in social networks like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter - and anywhere you or your customers can create and share content. Retailers often wonder what Web 2.0 / social media activities to be involved with, so this post ranks what I believe are the top 10 Web 2.0 activities for ecommerce based on their business impact.

One of the most important aspects of an ecommerce Web site is its product search. How your search results page is designed, and what it offers, are very important in terms of providing the results customers want. And as customers continue to expect more personalized results, they will create product searches that are increasingly narrow.

One of the most important elements of your ecommerce Web site is the checkout page. This is the first page from the cart, basket or bag (or whatever you call it on your site) after you offer the option to "check out."

Many good ecommerce Web sites know that the product details page can have a material say in whether customers stick around - and even whether they come back. Customers like to learn as much as possible about a product before buying, and product details pages can allow customer to explore a product.

One of the more popular features with customers on many ecommerce Web sites is "customer reviews." They allow insight into products and help consumers feel more comfortable making purchases. There are several ways online customer reviews are implemented on ecommerce Web sites, some better than others. In this post we look at how different retailers implement reviews.

What does that page look like just before you "confirm" or "finalize" an order? This can be a big deal in ecommerce. Ecommerce Web sites should consider what their confirmation page offers, just before online shoppers are completely committed.

The Internet makes copying photographs, artwork, and words easy, since a relatively unsophisticated user can just browse the web saving or copying nearly anything that suits his fancy. As an e-business owner you'll want to both protect your photographs and, conversely, ensure that your employees are not taking protected work of others. After all, a copyright violation could cost thousands of dollars in legal fees, time, forced subscription fees, and potential fines. U.S. copyright protection extends to all forms of "expression" including software, written papers, charts, digital files, music, video, and presentations. This protection begins the moment a work is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression," and copyrights are federally enforced. Generally, ideas, short phrases, facts, slogans, and useful articles are not copyright protected, but most everything else is.

Many ecommerce businesses receive international orders for both single items as well as large quantities. These businesses usually take credit card payments for the orders, which puts them at great risk of incurring chargebacks, especially for large ticket items and large transactions. They do not want to turn away an order, but they are frustrated with the level of chargebacks they receive. Implementing the appropriate payment methods and properly financing your export sales are two key factors to your success in exporting. The most widely used methods of payment instruments in business-to-business international transactions are bank wire transfers and commercial letters ALTof credit (L/C's). Typical financing can either be obtained through the normal lending channels or through the U.S. government when you have exhausted the conventional options.

Editor's Note: This is part four in our special report on "Video for Ecommerce," where we describe real stories of online merchants creatively using video to drive sales and grow their brands. Previous installments are linked in below. What's next once you've added product videos to your site? Get the word out. "We know that [consumers] are looking for videos online," said David Burch at video analytics company TubeMogul.com. "That's why our goal, and the goal of our merchants, is to be everywhere where video content is consumed."

Chargebacks are frustrating and expensive assaults on a retailer's bottom line. But practical and smart merchants can learn from some chargebacks, improving their stores' performance, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence. When a consumer asks his or her credit card company for a refund, a merchant can suffer a chargeback. That is, the credit card company will reach into a merchant's bank account and take the total amount of the transaction that's being charged back. Then, any one of three or more different types of organizations-issuing banks, merchant banks, and payment gateways-could charge the merchant a fee for its trouble. Throughout this process, no one bothers to inform or ask the merchant.

So you have your ecommerce website up and running, and you wonder if you need any specific terms and conditions to govern transactions on your site. The answer is yes. Because if a problem should arise, having terms and conditions may help resolve that problem in your favor. Prior to the customer purchasing anything from you, make sure they check a box agreeing to the terms and conditions. This will bind the customer to any reasonable and legal terms. The purpose isn't to trap or trick a customer but rather to enable both the customer and company to agree in advantage to terms.

Most ecommerce merchants want consumers from all over, whether that means all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, Europe, or the world. But e-retailers need to consider local laws when they ask for business in another state or another country. And it is important to understand which jurisdictions might apply to a given online transaction.