By Mark Seyster

I must admit that I have been playing a bit of hooky, lately. I guess I just needed a little bit of "mental" as well as "physical" rest. To do this I escaped to the wilds of New Hampshire during the past week to do some skiing. I brought one of my daughters along to make it a father/daughter trip, also. The conditions and the company were excellent. As they say, "Just what the doctor ordered".

The point behind this story, I believe most of us can relate to the fact that our lives are much faster paced, hyper-paced, than they used to be! The reasons for this are varied, but the fact remains that they are. Many of us are overworked and stressed out with what seems like a million things to do and not enough time to do them. Can you relate to this? Does this describe your life? Unfortunately, it seems like this is the norm for us. One area that highlights this frenetic, fast-paced life is the in-box of your email account. This is the new home (vs. the nightly dinnertime phone calls) where constant bombardment with all sorts of solicited (non-spam) and unsolicited (spam) information arrives.

If you are like me, most of the time you probably do not bother to open and/or read the majority of these emails. You quickly reach for the delete key and poof - they are instantly gone!

My advice to you, as hard as it may be to take with the limited time we all seem to have, is to take a couple of extra minutes to screen these emails. The reason I am recommending this to you is that buried amongst the majority of plain old garbage can be some real gems. Just like the old-time miners sifting through tons of dirt to get to the small bit of gold. I have discovered a few of these gems that contain excellent, quality information, in just this manner, when I was not looking for them.

Below are a couple of the ecommerce advice gems that I have come across in the past few months, by following my own advice, that may be of interest to you:

Practical Ecommerce

Kerry and Joy Murdock in Grand Junction, Colorado, USA launched practical eCommerce magazine in July 2005. Its mission from the start has been to provide down-to-earth articles and advice to help smaller businesses succeed online. This editorial content was originally delivered primarily through a monthly, printed magazine, but it now (2007) includes this website, podcasts, and an email newsletter (EcommerceNotes), as well as the printed magazine, which is now bi-monthly.

Real folks are behind this company. We are a small business ourselves, and we take seriously the notion of helping other small businesses decipher the complexities of migrating online or improving their online operations.

Web Marketing Today

Dr. Ralph Wilson formed Wilson Internet Services at the very beginning of the commercial Internet in 1995 to help small to medium businesses and organizations learn how to use the Internet effectively.

For a complete ecommerce solution see:

I wish you the best in your success!

Mark@original-new-england-enterprises.com