Financial management is critical to ecommerce companies. But the tools to manage financial matters vary, and many of them don't automatically integrate with a merchant's ecommerce site, making the financial tracking and reporting process even more burdensome.

I am the email marketing manager for S&S Worldwide, a large retailer of crafts and school supplies. Over the years, I have encountered many "email best practices." But like Snap Bracelets, Cabbage Patch Kids and Atari, trends change. And email best practices, I've learned, do not apply to every company or every situation.

Providing store location information is an important site feature for online purveyors that also sell from brick-and-mortar stores, so taking advantage of Google's powerful Maps JavaScript API is a great way to transform what might have been a static list of addresses into an interactive map application.

This article is part three of a tutorial mini-series created to demonstrate how to use

If you're building a new site or redesigning an existing one, chances are good that you'll be researching and interviewing web designers to create the right front-end design experience for your site. But good websites don't come cheap. How can you make sure you're not wasting your money? How can you choose the right e-commerce designer?