CharityGiftMarket: e-commerce marketplace for nonprofits supports mothers through Mother’s Day sales

Andrew and Lindsey Markelz think that if you are going to buy a gift for your mom this Mother’s Day, then it should do more than just support a company’s bottom line.

(And remember Mother’s Day is this weekend.)

The two Camden residents are founders of a new e-commerce marketplace for nonprofits called CharityGiftMarket, that offers a central platform for nonprofits to sell products that benefit their constituents. They’re holding a “Mother’s Day Challenge” in partnership with women’s justice nonprofit Eternal Threads to raise awareness about their products, as well as other products being sold by or in support of mothers throughout the site.

Check out the site here.

“Because a lot of our partnering charities work with mothers, we thought it would be neat to highlight those organizations and their products for Mother’s Day,” said Andrew. “We wanted to create a relevant link between buying something for your mother that also supports a mother.”

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E-commerce companies staffing up across Philadelphia

Monetate's office is pictured in September 2011 before the company launched into a recent employee expansion

While the national job market is showing tentative signs of recovery, Philadelphia’s e-commerce sector is growing so fast, many local employers can’t hire talent quickly enough.

According to Forrester research, e-commerce is expected to see double-digit growth through 2013 to a total of $240 billion in transactions, making online retail a wonderful option for a city looking to continue its reputation as a place with a growing technology job market (third in the nation according to a January CyberCoders study). After surveying some of the region’s entrepreneurs we’ve found that a steady stream of Philadelphia e-commerce shops are busy building out their own strong ecosystem.

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SEER Interactive’s Wil Reynolds on 40 employees, lessons on growth: scaling just takes a little faith

SEER Interactive founder Wil Reynolds in his Northern Liberties HQ, dubbed the 'Search Chuch.'

Any successful small business eventually reaches a point where the workload overwhelms its resources. When this happens, a company has two choices; cut back on clients or expand.

As most ventures find out, staffing up can be hazardous. In the effort to grow quickly to meet demand, many companies lose sight of their goals, hire the wrong people and fail to develop a consistent, welcoming culture, says Wil Reynolds.

Reynolds, the founder of SEER Interactive, a Northern Liberties-based SEO firm, is trying to do something else.

Reynolds started SEER in his apartment in 2002. Three years later, he hired his first employee. In the past year, Reynolds’ employee count doubled to 41. There are some lessons to learn from a company that can withstand that sort of rapid scaling.

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Local e-commerce firm WebLinc doubles sales for retail lighting site

In the world of residential lighting sales, online retail is a small piece of a much bigger pot. But thanks to some Philadelphia technology, a major retail lighting outlet is focusing more effort online and seeing impressive returns.

Old City-based WebLinc, which is housed above National Mechanics — the bar that the web developers also own — recently helped Southeast U.S. lighting company Progressive Lighting launch an e-commerce platform to show off its extensive selection of lighting.

Since the launch of LightsOnline.com in April WebLinc’s e-commerce technology has increased conversion by 91 percent, doubling online sales, Progressive Lighting director of e-commerce Jon Eggleton says.

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SUMO Heavy Industries, Bart Mroz and crew building new e-commerce development firm

If Bart Mroz was pushed to give you a piece of advice, it just might be to limit yourself.

The founder of the recently re-branded SUMO Heavy Industries says a lot of firms doing web work get caught up in trying to do too many things and come up short doing them well.

“We started as a web development company that did all kinds of things like brochure sites and app development for different clients,” Mroz tells Technically Philly. “Then we decided to only do e-commerce work — the best decision that we made.”

In March 2008, Mroz co-founded round3media and by last November, Mroz had learned his greatest skills were focusing strictly on e-commerce site development. After his two partners in round3 wanted to work on different projects, Mroz started anew, launching e-commerce heavy SUMO with new partner Robert Brodie and creative director John Suder.

With a new name and a freshly announced, local client, Mroz is — and forgive us for this — entering the dohyō and fighting to build his company’s name as the top e-commerce development company in the region.

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