In the Internet age, consumers encounter web forms with regularity. There are registration forms, login forms, contact forms, customer service forms, survey forms, content submission forms, package tracking forms, or checkout forms on just about every website.

Web forms are, as such, one of the leading ways that company and consumers communicate.

Managing a small-to-midsized retail business often includes tracking, updating, and storing a lot of information.

Spreadsheets filled with vendor pricing, co-op advertising submission forms, project documents, wireframes for a website redevelopment, and presentations are probably just a few examples of the documents the typical online merchant has stored on a computer hard drive somewhere.

Keeping all of this vi

Every major web browser allows users to conduct a web search directly from its address bar.

The Opera browser offers one of the most innovative user experiences available.

Clearly the browser is a trendsetter.

Video is one of the most potent ways to market and sell products online.

In fact, some merchants have reported increases in conversions rates of 20 percent or more when they added simple product videos.

Video's impact on online sales might be even more powerful when video marketing is added to the mix.

Every ecommerce site has a web host. Some are hosted by shopping cart providers; others are hosted by third-party companies. And increasingly, many are hosted by cloud providers, where bandwidth and usage can adjust with the seasonal needs of a site.

As ecommerce businesses grow from entrepreneurial startups to mid-sized retailers, they can become much more complex to manage.

As a startup, the operation was likely managed by one or two people. Fixing website glitches was pretty straightforward. You saw something wrong. You fixed it.

New projects happened pretty much the same way.

Ecommerce professionals spend many hours each day online. They monitor their businesses, check email, market products, post to social media sites, watch the competition, or otherwise do any one of a hundred business-related activities.

Into the midst of this online experience come pop-ups—ads, forms, controls, whatever. Perhaps, most of the time, you don't want pop-ups interrupting your browsing.

From managing cookies to clearing your browser cache, there are essential tasks that every web surfer needs to know.

Think of it this way. Many professionals and entrepreneurs use a web browser like Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to access web-based email, conduct research, or even manage their businesses.

A successful ecommerce business is an dynamic blend of products, pricing, operations management, customer service, marketing, and web technology.

With the advent of the digital age, borders have become blurred. Whether it’s websites, videos, social media pages or most any online asset, consumers from Calcutta to California can all access the same information at the same time.

This means you need to be thinking global from the start.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 is a modern, fast, and efficient web browser that will speed up the web for its users.

But, if you really want to get the most out of this new and vastly improved web browser, you've got to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts. Every browser has keyboard shortcuts. Some shortcuts are universally recognized.

Mozilla's Firefox web browser helped pioneer the concept of browser add-ons and extensions, making custom web surfing experiences and tools possible.

The Firefox Add-on directory includes more than 13,000 browser extensions.

According to Mozilla, the browser's various add-ons have been collectively downloaded more than 2.1 billion times, and some 161 million downloads are currently in use.

The Opera web browser allows web surfers to use quick, predetermined mouse movements to complete many common browsing tasks, such as going back to a previous page, opening new tabs, or reloading a page.

Once users become familiar with these mouse gestures, they can surf the web potentially more quickly than the point-and-click-only crowd.

Opera divides its gestures into four categories: navigation,

From product or how-to videos to expert audio podcasts, many online merchants use multimedia to help sell products and engage customers.

Examples of ecommerce companies using video and audio abound, but they include REI and Maker SHED.

Microsoft released a preview of its Internet Explorer (IE) 9 web browser on September 15, promising users "a more beautiful web."

Historically, Microsoft's IE browsers are widely used by Internet novices and widely hated by Internet regulars.

Web developers, ecommerce merchants, and Internet pundits have often railed against IE, especially the ancient IE6.

Internet users interact with SSL certificates when they access a web page or transmit data over the web. These certificates help confirm the rightful owner of the site, and that payment and other information is encrypted and safely transmitted.

However, one size of SSL certificates does not fit all websites, and there are many different levels of identification validation that go along with a certificate.

On average, Americans spent about 56 hours on the Internet in June 2010, according to a recent Nielsen Wire report. Ecommerce merchants, whose workplace is on the web, likely spend many more hours online than the average user.

With so much time spent online, a web browser's features and performance can have a significant impact on how efficiently someone is working.

Last week, the Mozilla Foundation released a new version of its Firefox 4 web browser. The new version offers better performance, improved tab management, more HTML5 video support, synchronization, and a significantly different look.

Informed ecommerce entrepreneurs must stay on top of industry news, web trends, and best practices. To achieve this, some wander around the web from one blog or site to another, or they absorb dozens of email newsletters.

It would be better if all of the best blog posts, articles, and videos came to you.

Editor's Note: We continue our "Need to Know" series, where we explain complex web topics on an executive-level, "need to know" basis.

Google offers a variety of useful free tools merchants can use in place of other more costly software. One of these is Google Docs, a free word processing tool with plenty of room for file storage and many unique tools unmatched by other word processors. The most important of these is the collaborative tools where users can easily share documents with other users.

In terms of website design, wireframes serve as a visual guide to page structure and interface.

Web designers use wireframes in much the same way that builders use an architect's blueprints.

Ecommerce merchants are digital natives. They live, in a sense, online, operating their businesses, marketing, and even servicing customers on the World Wide Web.

But the Internet can be a wild place, and sometimes digital natives become a little too comfortable with their surroundings.

Many ecommerce merchants think of user experience in terms of the user interface. They take great pains to optimize the aesthetic appearance of their sites with the goal of increasing conversions.