The 50 Best Tips

— David Silver, entrepreneur and author, “Online Communities Offer Myriad Opportunities for Marketers,” July 10, Catalog Success Idea Factory

✱ Build your business on repeat customers.

The e-commerce business is built on repeat customers. “When we first started, we did what every other dot-com did: Spent a lot of money on ad campaigns to acquire as many customers as possible. This is a good idea if your goal is to lose as much money as possible. Instead, we started focusing on repeat customer behavior.” Zappos.com increased the percentage of customers who buy again within the next 12 months from 20.5 percent in 2001 to 51.3 percent in 2006.