Are you prepared for a new way of doing business? Do you want some activity that will not take up most of your time, but will enable you to generate income? Do you want to earn more money while staying at the relative comfort of your own home? If your answer to these questions is a resounding YES, then settle down and let me explain to you the concept of small business e-commerce.
The concept of Electronic Commerce, or e-commerce has been around for many years now, ever since the inception of the World Wide Web. Basically, it is simply the process of buying and selling, even trading goods and commodities over the Internet. E-commerce has many advantages, the most well-known is the ability to do business without even leaving the comforts of your own home. So imagine the convenience of earning money while not having to go out and having control over your own time!
So why is this relevant to you? If you have read the entire article up to this point, I can assume that you are either a small business owner who is looking for ways to expand your client base or an individual who is interested in starting up a small business to earn money. Probably you are asking: what do I need to set up a small business online?
There are no concrete rules in e-commerce, but like any business, virtual or not, the following steps would be very helpful to us:
identify your customer base know the marketability of your products make sure that you have a steady supply of the products you are selling reach out to potential customers
For e-commerce, having a website for your business is very crucial. Your website is essentially your store front, and just like any good store, your website should be clean, appealing to look at, and easy to navigate. Imagine a dirty grocery store, with mismatched colors and maze-like shelves! You wouldn't want to buy products from such a store, would you? So the same goes for your e-commerce website.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Online Marketing Course
If you are interested in starting an online business and have no idea how, why not enroll in an online marketing course? There are lots of educational opportunities out there that cater to this specific aspect of E-commerce, and believe it or not, most of them are free over the Internet.
The reason why some people fail in business is the lack of proper marketing for their products and services. This is especially true for online stores where the strength of your web presence will make or break your business. Failure of a business due to low sales is usually a sign of poor marketing strategy.
Why is enrolling in an online marketing course good for you? For one, if you have a business, you need to advertise it. But as every store owner knows, advertising takes up a large part of a store's operational cost. This is due to the fact that more often than not, you have to let someone do the actual advertising for your store. You have to hire graphic artists to do your ads and other promotional materials. For small businesses this can really hurt profits as most of your income has to go to advertising fees. A primer on marketing your products could actually help you do these things yourself, essentially teaching you how to "sell" your business. You could reduce and even possibly eliminate the payment for advertising if you learn how to do this yourself, thus earning more profits.
Another advantage is that you don't actually have to go to school since the course materials are available over the Internet. You can learn marketing from the comfort of your own home. This is practically very advantageous since you can study while having the freedom to do other things, like running an online business. For a virtual store owner, this is a win-win scenario.
The reason why some people fail in business is the lack of proper marketing for their products and services. This is especially true for online stores where the strength of your web presence will make or break your business. Failure of a business due to low sales is usually a sign of poor marketing strategy.
Why is enrolling in an online marketing course good for you? For one, if you have a business, you need to advertise it. But as every store owner knows, advertising takes up a large part of a store's operational cost. This is due to the fact that more often than not, you have to let someone do the actual advertising for your store. You have to hire graphic artists to do your ads and other promotional materials. For small businesses this can really hurt profits as most of your income has to go to advertising fees. A primer on marketing your products could actually help you do these things yourself, essentially teaching you how to "sell" your business. You could reduce and even possibly eliminate the payment for advertising if you learn how to do this yourself, thus earning more profits.
Another advantage is that you don't actually have to go to school since the course materials are available over the Internet. You can learn marketing from the comfort of your own home. This is practically very advantageous since you can study while having the freedom to do other things, like running an online business. For a virtual store owner, this is a win-win scenario.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Who Needs An Internet Merchant Account?
The term offshore usually makes people think that something illicit is currently, or going to happen in the future. Not true; in fact, going offshore is a great way of streamlining an international client base and getting better rates, while doing it. The term offshore simply put, means that you are doing your banking in a country other than the one, your company is physically or legally registered in. For many businesses, that do a lot of business in one particular country, that is really the main option.
Merchant Service Providers specializes in finding merchant accounts for businesses throughout the world and links them with the right bank for them, depending on their geographical market and type of business. Ecommerce based businesses differ as widely as any other type of business. Five years ago, a popular, high volume, internet based retail business was Ebay. Today, Ebay is still the leader in internet based seller to seller simple transactions. Most of the business is transacted through Paypal, which is in a sense an escrow service, or entity that holds money, only to be released under terms of a pre-determined agreement. I've heard of them described as an organization that lets you send money to someone else's email. I guess it's not that easy; like all bank transactions, these are funneled through banks, while secure, simply through some bank, somewhere; maybe domestic, maybe offshore. I guess we'll never know. The point is that when you give a business your credit card numbers, they're processed through a number of channels that provide security, transfer funds and deliver them securely to their final destination.
Today, internet based businesses have grown from a merchant supplementing their storefront with taking orders online and over the telephone, to entirely internet and telephone based businesses. These online merchants don't have it as easy as we may think. With the kind of exposure that the internet creates, combined with the relative ease of creating an internet based business, prices are driven down, while volume drastically increases. A good complaint? If your supply lines and logistics are in place. Maintaining and growing a profitable online business is so much of the battle today and the saying is true that the hardest test is the test of time. While good service and accessibility to your vendors and customers are key, sustainability and survival are just as important. Behind the scenes, product fulfillment and good banking keeps you out of court and out of your banker's office applying for a second mortgage. Using a merchant service provider cannot help you with your supply chain management; however, it can help with your online banking needs, as well as specialize in not only high volume credit card processing and online check processing, but also high risk accounts, which are mostly just categorized as, "Card not present" transactions by domestic banking institutions.
Stradefee Limited, for example, works with merchants ranging from low risk, low volume, to high risk, high volume and everything In between. Just as every business owner has specific needs, merchant service providers like them have specific solutions. They can offer merchants services such as virtual terminals, third party fraud scrubbing, aggregator accounts, account signatory services and processing gateways. As not all online merchants offer hard goods, service industry vendors are very much a part of our portfolio. Companies from law firms, large event caterers and concessions providers to online music download websites and travel companies can all benefit from services that internet banking facilitators have to offer. Today, nearly any product that you can purchase in a store, from sporting goods, clothing, large home electronics, appliances and automobiles to services you can obtain like law and medical advice (usually not professional), business consulting, banking and media purchases are all mainstream internet transactions and they're almost all high volume. In an economy, where bottom lines get smaller and personal time is at an all time and coveted low, your business needs to run more efficiently with the ability to grow and maintain that growth. Your banking needs cannot be the bottleneck of your business plan.
Merchant Service Providers specializes in finding merchant accounts for businesses throughout the world and links them with the right bank for them, depending on their geographical market and type of business. Ecommerce based businesses differ as widely as any other type of business. Five years ago, a popular, high volume, internet based retail business was Ebay. Today, Ebay is still the leader in internet based seller to seller simple transactions. Most of the business is transacted through Paypal, which is in a sense an escrow service, or entity that holds money, only to be released under terms of a pre-determined agreement. I've heard of them described as an organization that lets you send money to someone else's email. I guess it's not that easy; like all bank transactions, these are funneled through banks, while secure, simply through some bank, somewhere; maybe domestic, maybe offshore. I guess we'll never know. The point is that when you give a business your credit card numbers, they're processed through a number of channels that provide security, transfer funds and deliver them securely to their final destination.
Today, internet based businesses have grown from a merchant supplementing their storefront with taking orders online and over the telephone, to entirely internet and telephone based businesses. These online merchants don't have it as easy as we may think. With the kind of exposure that the internet creates, combined with the relative ease of creating an internet based business, prices are driven down, while volume drastically increases. A good complaint? If your supply lines and logistics are in place. Maintaining and growing a profitable online business is so much of the battle today and the saying is true that the hardest test is the test of time. While good service and accessibility to your vendors and customers are key, sustainability and survival are just as important. Behind the scenes, product fulfillment and good banking keeps you out of court and out of your banker's office applying for a second mortgage. Using a merchant service provider cannot help you with your supply chain management; however, it can help with your online banking needs, as well as specialize in not only high volume credit card processing and online check processing, but also high risk accounts, which are mostly just categorized as, "Card not present" transactions by domestic banking institutions.
Stradefee Limited, for example, works with merchants ranging from low risk, low volume, to high risk, high volume and everything In between. Just as every business owner has specific needs, merchant service providers like them have specific solutions. They can offer merchants services such as virtual terminals, third party fraud scrubbing, aggregator accounts, account signatory services and processing gateways. As not all online merchants offer hard goods, service industry vendors are very much a part of our portfolio. Companies from law firms, large event caterers and concessions providers to online music download websites and travel companies can all benefit from services that internet banking facilitators have to offer. Today, nearly any product that you can purchase in a store, from sporting goods, clothing, large home electronics, appliances and automobiles to services you can obtain like law and medical advice (usually not professional), business consulting, banking and media purchases are all mainstream internet transactions and they're almost all high volume. In an economy, where bottom lines get smaller and personal time is at an all time and coveted low, your business needs to run more efficiently with the ability to grow and maintain that growth. Your banking needs cannot be the bottleneck of your business plan.
Adding Merchant Accounts Is Easy and Profitable
For some e-business people the idea of navigating the process of adding credit card processing seems as byzantine as divining the mystery of the Egyptian pyramids. In reality, however, the learning curve is very short, the process itself has been simplified and the benefits can be enormous.
What most e-business people need to know is that after they are approved by a merchant accounts company they will be given access to software that will allow them to accept/process credit cards, accept checks by phone/fax/internet and provide them the wherewithal to give their customers a Web shopping cart to use while navigating their site.
All of the above should come for free from the provider. If you run across a company that puts a price on any of these, it should be considered a red flag, insofar as doing future business.
There are some fees/charges that legitimate - or as many say, these are "the cost of doing business." These will include internet/mail/phone order discount rate, internet/phone/order transaction fee, retail discount rate, retail transaction fee, statement customer service fee and internet processing software gateway fee.
The gateway, by the way, is the virtual version of the point-of-sale terminal your credit card is run through when you make a purchase at a retail outlet. These gateways have safe and secure connection/communication processes that allow the transmission of card numbers and expiration dates without putting the customer's information at risk.
It should be noted at this juncture that no good processing company will charge you for technical support, and that support should be available 24/7 to secure your ability to accept payments online.
The process of applying for merchant services, thanks to heavy competition among provider companies, has never been simpler. The online application takes about 15 minutes, and the information requested should be available at any e-business owner's fingertips.
The approval process should take no more than 24 hours. Indeed, some e-stores will be processing plastic in less than 24 hours. Any provider that needs more time for approval is likely dealing with a third-party vendor, which will slow down the process and add to your costs.
Upon approval is when your e-business should experience some growth and expansion. Numerous retail studies have shown that having credit card processing tends to bring more traffic to a site, more sales, more profits and more repeat business. And any store owner will tell you that any of the above are nothing but positive.
An intangible benefit of card acceptance is that today's consumer is more and more used to shopping with their credit card. As such they view any site that accepts credit cards as more legitimate. Indeed, they also look at a site without card acceptance with suspicion.
The bottom line is that anyone doing business over the internet needs to strongly consider adding credit card processing. The benefits will far outweigh the costs.
What most e-business people need to know is that after they are approved by a merchant accounts company they will be given access to software that will allow them to accept/process credit cards, accept checks by phone/fax/internet and provide them the wherewithal to give their customers a Web shopping cart to use while navigating their site.
All of the above should come for free from the provider. If you run across a company that puts a price on any of these, it should be considered a red flag, insofar as doing future business.
There are some fees/charges that legitimate - or as many say, these are "the cost of doing business." These will include internet/mail/phone order discount rate, internet/phone/order transaction fee, retail discount rate, retail transaction fee, statement customer service fee and internet processing software gateway fee.
The gateway, by the way, is the virtual version of the point-of-sale terminal your credit card is run through when you make a purchase at a retail outlet. These gateways have safe and secure connection/communication processes that allow the transmission of card numbers and expiration dates without putting the customer's information at risk.
It should be noted at this juncture that no good processing company will charge you for technical support, and that support should be available 24/7 to secure your ability to accept payments online.
The process of applying for merchant services, thanks to heavy competition among provider companies, has never been simpler. The online application takes about 15 minutes, and the information requested should be available at any e-business owner's fingertips.
The approval process should take no more than 24 hours. Indeed, some e-stores will be processing plastic in less than 24 hours. Any provider that needs more time for approval is likely dealing with a third-party vendor, which will slow down the process and add to your costs.
Upon approval is when your e-business should experience some growth and expansion. Numerous retail studies have shown that having credit card processing tends to bring more traffic to a site, more sales, more profits and more repeat business. And any store owner will tell you that any of the above are nothing but positive.
An intangible benefit of card acceptance is that today's consumer is more and more used to shopping with their credit card. As such they view any site that accepts credit cards as more legitimate. Indeed, they also look at a site without card acceptance with suspicion.
The bottom line is that anyone doing business over the internet needs to strongly consider adding credit card processing. The benefits will far outweigh the costs.
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