Okay, among other things, I have an online store which is powered by X-cart, a pretty decent and reasonably priced e-commerce software solution. One of the things X-cart does is lets people sign up for an e-mail list for your store. Then, you can send e-mails through the software to the people subscribed to your e-mail list.

Well, because I am trying to operate the store on a tight budget, I save a few bucks by sending out e-mail newsletters through the store software. Recently, these e-mails have been getting blocked for spam, even though I have been sending them for more than a few months.

Now, these e-mails are automated, but they are not spam. I am sending product updates to my customers who have signed up voluntarily to receive e-mail updates. I have gotten blocked by at least 2 e-mail providers, Hotmail and Comcast.

Comcast however, provides you a link in the returned e-mail, http://www.comcastsupport.com/sdcxuser/lachat/user/Blockedprovider.asp, so that you can request to have your IP address removed from the blocklist. Well, I filled out the request form and explained what had happened and what I was doing. I received a response within a few hours that my IP address had been removed from the blocklist. So, it does pay to contact them if you believe you are being incorrectly blacklisted.

I do think Comcast is going overboard on the spam protection. I am a Comcast subscriber, and have almost all automated e-mails blocked daily. I think they have the dial turned up a little too high and left that way. It should not block e-mail that you asked to receive even if it is automated. They need to provide a way for subscribers to white list certain domains. It has gotten to the point where it is blocking e-mail receipts from online stores that I shop at. Not to mention that unsolicited e-mails are still getting through occasionally.

So I signed up for Gmail. Apparently, Google is much better at blocking e-mail spam that Comcast. It lets automated e-mails I want through, and I don’t get any spam.

Ever heard of “Cyber Monday?” It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, and it’s been said that it is the busiest shopping day of the year for online stores. Analytics firm, Coremetrics, is saying that may not be true.

In their latest e-newsletter, Coremetrics advises e-tailers to expect the busiest online shopping day this year to actually be the next Monday, December 4th. This is based on actual data from 2005’s shopping season. Coremetrics has also coined a name for this day, calling it “eDay.” Clever huh?

My advice? If you are running an online business, you should always be prepared to handle your customers. As far as the holidays goes, expect high traffic and/or sales on both days and plan accordingly. You should be fine.

How Some Credit Card Processing Companies Seem to Be Strangling Ecommerce (Why We Love Amex & Discover) at MarketingSherpa.com brings to light interesting facts about credit card processing companies. Marketing Sherpa cannot take Mastercard or Visa through the end of February on their web site because they reached a pre-defined revenue limit with the card companies. Marketing Sherpa can still take American Express and Discover because apparently these cards either don’t have these limits or they are substantially higher.

According to the article, Visa and Mastercard give each merchant a revenue ceiling to limit their risk. The risk occurs because customers in the US have 90 days to complain about fraudulent charges and get them removed. If if a merchant suddenly goes bankrupt or flees the country with 90 days of revenues, the credit card company is responsible for the debt.

Apparently, situations like can and do occur. Once you have processed a certain amount of monthly revenue through Mastercard and Visa, they can shut off without warning. Site owners can try and avoid this by accepting American Express and Discover or allowing customers to be billed. One good thing is that it is a monthly limit. At the end of the month, they will reset the limit and turn processing back on.

I was surprised to learn this, and I suspect most site owners did not know this either. At least now, you can educate yourself and learn what the limits are so you can try and figure out when you are close and provide alternative processes if you anticipate being shut down.

Amazon Hosting Author Blogs on ClickZ details Amazon’s new program to encourage authors to interact with readers. The most recent posts from an author’s blog will be featured prominently on an author’s profile page or on a book’s description page, along with a link to the author’s full blog. In addition, users will see new posts from authors of books they’ve purchased on their Amazon home page. So far, the program doesn’t allow readers to comment on blog posts, or to subscribe to blogs via RSS feed.

According to the article, Amazon.com has experimented with user-generated content before. Last year, it began allowing users to upload pictures related to products. It also reportedly began testing product wiki pages last month, on which consumers could add or edit information about a book or product. The company also began letting users tag products.

High Web traffic means sales on CNN.com reports that the pre-holiday online shopping leaders are Wal-Mart, Amazon and Apple Computer according to Internet measurement firm Hitwise for Reuters. Hitwise is determining that these sites have the most sales by analyzing traffic between their Web sites and shipping company Web sites at UPS, DHL and FedEx. Prior to Christmas, online retail sales are difficult to determine because retailers typically hold off reporting their result until early January. However, analyzing traffic to determine whether retailers are converting the web site traffic into shipments is a good indication.

According to the article, online shopping is expected to grow 24 percent this holiday season over 2004, although traffic to online shopping sites is up only 9 percent this year over last year. On analyzing the data though, Hitwise says that it appears that web sites are becoming more efficient at converting window shoppers into buyers this year.