Old dogs, new clicks: during the past 10 years, e-commerce has changed dramatically. Is your company keeping up?

EXECUTIVES WHO THINK THAT THE DOT-COM collapse, channel conflict, and consumer fears of identity theft have combined to make E-commerce strategy a low priority should think again. Ten years after Amazon.com and eBay made "E-tail" a household word, companies in many industries are taking a second look at E-commerce, and finding ways to overcome old problems and tap new opportunities.

Last year, E-commerce sales hit $69.2 billion, and while that equates to less than 2 percent of all retail sales, it is a startling 23.5 percent jump from the previous year. Analysts believe the online channel may account for 7 percent of all retail sales by 2010. That's a potential increase of nearly $200 billion, which means companies that were turned off or got burned the first time around have plenty of incentive to try again.

And many are. No longer seen as a separate entity (with its own dreams of IPO glory), today's E-commerce effort is framed as an integral part of a multichannel sales-and-marketing strategy predicated on giving customers what they want the way they want it. That means company strategies vary widely. One retailer's Website may sell a fraction of the inventory displayed at its stores, while another may sell quite a bit more. Some see their E-commerce platforms as the carrot enticing customers into their shops--or, if they are manufacturers, into the shops of their channel partners. Others see E-commerce as a way to reach customers who can't, or won't, shop any other way. Rather than build dot-corns because their competitors have them--often the motivation 10 years ago--companies today think deeply about the purpose of their E-commerce effort before giving it life.

Dot-Com Delivers - two e-commerce delivery services, Urbanfetch.com and Kozmo.com, battle to control the market in New York City

For less than you would pay at the store, INTERNET SERVICES bring media and munchies right to your door.

THE REAL FIGHT in New York this year has nothing to do with the Senate contest between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. It's the battle between two Manhattan companies--Urbanfetch.com and Kozmo.com--for supremacy in a business that barely existed a year ago: whizzing Web-ordered food and entertainment to customers in an hour or less.

But then New Yorkers expect, and usually get, just about any sort of consumable delivered to their door. What makes Kozmo.com and Urbanfetch.com novel is their use of the Internet to deliver faster and better than anybody else. All you do is fill out a short account form, add goods to a shopping cart, check out with a credit card (sorry, no cash on delivery), and the goodies appear on your doorstep.

With the help of our far-flung associates (who literally worked for food), Online Shopper put Kozmo.com through its paces in the five cities it serves: Boston, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. If you don't live in one of those places, sit tight, because Kozmo.com plans to incorporate at least 20 more cities this year, starting with Los Angeles (Chicago and Atlanta are next). Urbanfetch, which we tested for comparison, serves only New York but is considering expansion here and abroad.

A Web weekend. Here is what Kozmo can slide on to your doorstep in less than one hour: books and CDs, DVDs and videos for rent or sale, video games and magazines--plus drugstore items and the snacks needed to experience all this entertainment properly. Kozmo will also sell you a Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 or Sony PlayStation player, and Urbanfetch has a full electronics store for those who need a Palm Pilot on their threshold in a New York hour.

The edibles vary by city, but nowhere could Online Shopper spin a proper meal from Kozmo's menu--flatbread sandwiches in New York and refrigerated pizza in San Francisco are as close as it gets. Urbanfetch has a few offerings at the other extreme of the scale, including a lobster dinner for two. Both services mercilessly target the instinct toward sugary indulgence with candy, cookies, sodas and more flavors of Ben & Jerry's ice cream than anyone should be familiar with. Kozmo makes concessions to local tastes, such as fresh coffee beans and gourmet salsa in Seattle, but local online delivery at this stage is more like a convenience store than a supermarket.

The New Economy: don't look now, but E-commerce—and E-commerce companies—are staging a comeback

EXCEPT FOR XEROX AND FEDEX, few corporate names ever make it into the lexicon of action verbs. The latest entry, however, appears to be search-engine specialist Google, which is now invoked routinely by users of the Internet ("How did you find me?" "I just Googled your name.").

While Google's migration into the realm of public usage may be surprising, it's not nearly as surprising as its migration into the realm of public markets. Google management is expected to take the company public in a deal that could be valued as high as $20 billion.

The underwriting would be the surest signal yet that the retreat from all things Net may finally be over. Of late, commercials for online businesses--not seen for the past two years--have started popping up on television once again.

Such profile-raising is big news in the virtual world. Even bigger news: the recent run-up in the share prices of many dot-corns. During the first three quarters of 2003, the stock price of Ebay Inc., the E-commerce standard-bearer, jumped from $34 to just over $54 (the company also launched a two-for-one stock split). Likewise,

Those spikes--plus the emergence of such lesser-known but thriving dot-corns as RedEnvelope and prototyper Quickparts.com--could have finance executives revisiting their dot-com strategies. Odd as it may sound, investing in Internet projects may make sense again. Same thing for mimicking successful E-business models. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., for example, is gearing up to compete with Internet movie darling Netflix Inc.

Talk of acquiring an Internet company is no longer grounds for institutionalization, either. Consider InterActiveCorp, the New York-based owner of TV shopping channel HSN. The company; which is run by former Vivendi Universal boss Barry Diller, has gone on an E-acquisition frenzy during the past six months, purchasing Expedia, Hotwire .com, and Hotels.com, among others.

Bricks and clicks slow to connect - E-Commerce - retailers using online services to sell product

By the start of 2001, bricks-and-clicks had emerged as the winning business model of online retailing. Traditional retailers, such as Target and Wal-Mart, had proven themselves to both customers and pure-player predecessors with an incredibly successful online holiday selling season. They, along with the survivors of the "dot-bomb" era, helped bring a renewed practically to the alternative sales channel, one rooted in old-fashioned business principles.

But multichannel retailers doing business online had little time to rest on their laurels. Customers had become fairly comfortable with the online buying process and, therefore, demanded a consistent experience in all channels--which posed great challenges for traditional retailers that were ill-equipped to deliver a full range of products. And in as little time as the channel took to gain popularity, bricks-and-mortar retailers went from telling themselves, "Hey, we can do this," to asking themselves, "Do we really want to do this?"

When the Internet economy began to implode, retailers responded by shifting their focus to tighter integration and seamless customer service. Those that had spun off their Internet divisions--such as Staples, Kmart and Wal-Mart--in the hopes of lucrative IPOs, slowly began to reel them back in under the corporate umbrella.

The real headaches of achieving integration and customer service involve streamlining different systems, technology and databases. A typical retailer could have anywhere from seven to 30 consumer databases, making it virtually impossible to recognize a customer across all channels, said Forrester Research retail analyst Carrie Johnson. Smaller tactical issues, such as how to effectively collect customers' e-mail addresses at the store, have yet to be resolved.

Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation, told the story of how one retailer attempted to solve the problem with a contest to see what store associate could gather the most e-mails at the point of sale. The woman who took first prize won by copying e-mail addresses from her husband's address book. The unsuspecting persons contacted by the retailer were outraged by the rash of unsolicited e-mail promotions.

Valuation of the E-Commerce and Internet Services Industry

The e-commerce and Internet services industry includes companies that sell goods or services online, including information products and information retrieval services. The industry also covers networking and other support services for companies that operate primarily on the Internet.

Industry Overview

Consumer online spending has become part of our society. eBay is posting record profits and Amazon.com is profitable for the first time in its eight-year history. But e-commerce growth rates in the United States are starting to slow. Major e-commerce sellers such as eBay currently expect to make greater profits outside the US this year.

Spending on information technologies rose in 2003 and early 2004 but declined in the second quarter of this year. As a result, many companies in the support services segment of the e-commerce industry have fallen short of their earning projections. A possible reason for the shortfall is that corporate buyers of Internet services have become more cautious, extending the time required for dealing with them. If this is the case, contract signings already in the works may be extended into the following quarters, causing an increase in sales for the second half of the year.

The fourth quarter is typically a strong one for the industry. Consumers increase spending for the winter holidays and corporations attempt to resolve service issues before the end of the fiscal year.

The selling of goods and services to individual consumers online, once a limited industry, has grown considerably since its formation. Internet savvy consumers are now purchasing big-ticket items online as well as smaller products. The online buyer's market for cars, for example, is a rapidly growing industry segment. About 20 percent of eBay clients now shop for autos and auto parts. eBay sold its millionth car in 2004. Other websites have developed to support online vehicle shoppers. Kelleybluebook.com provides data on prices for used cars by year, make and model, while sites like capitaloneautofinance.com and householdautofinance.com provide data on auto loans.

E-commerce Gets and Keeps Service Customers

Getting - and especially keeping - more service department customers is a major focus of e-commerce at dealerships these days.

Dealerships wired to do that are seeing trend-reversing returns thanks to e-mail service reminders, online appointment capabilities and other web-based customer contacts, says Byron McDuffee, ADP's director of e-commerce-integration services.

Those dealerships are keeping more service customers whose vehicle warranties have expired. Those people traditionally are most likely to switch their business to independent repair shops.

But of customers booking dealership service appointments online, 75% drive vehicles that are older than the 2000 model year, says McDuffee.

"I don't think that four or five years ago we'd have seen that many people returning to the dealership with cars out of warranty," he says.

The ability to book service appointments on line seems to be the biggest hit.

Of customers doing that, 47% do so after hours, 83% keep the appointments and 17% are new customers. The average repair order is $300 vs. NADA's industry average of $160-$180, says McDuffee.

Benefit Cosmetics chooses Amazon Services for e-commerce solutions

Amazon Services and Amazon Services Europe, providers of technology solutions for retailers and subsidiaries of Amazon.com Inc (Nasdaq:AMZN), and Benefit Cosmetics, a cosmetics company and subsidiary of LVMH group, announcedon Wednesday (19 April) that Benefit Cosmetics has chosen the Amazon Services Enterprise Solution to develop and support new Benefit Cosmetics online and telephone order offerings for the US and UK.

Under the multi-year agreement Amazon Services and Amazon Services Europe will provide phone order processing and an end-to-end e-commerce solution, including Amazon technology,for Benefit Cosmetics' US and UK websites.

The agreement also covers design and usability, technology platforms, order fulfilment and customer service for orders placed online.

Both websites and phone order services are scheduled to launch later this year.

Financial details of the agreement were not available.

Computer Information Systems Vocational Schools

Interested in attending a Computer Information Systems vocational school? Courses in computer information systems prepare students to gain entry-level positions in the information technology field. Instructing a broad array of in-depth courses, Computer information systems vocational schools often provide extensive coursework in e-commerce, desktop applications support; networking administration and web application development. Additionally, curriculums usually offer comprehensive education and training in software applications; programming language and other pertinent, but commonly-used office applications.

Vocational schools that offer courses in computer information systems afford students with basic education and training courses in computer programming, maintenance, service and repair; microcomputer applications; Internet technology; network applications; algebra and mathematics – to name just few.

Computer Information Systems vocational schools enable candidates to attain fascinating information technology careers such as programmers; network administrators; software application support technicians; and web system developers.

For those students who desire to enhance their career outlook, attending a computer information systems vocational school is a stepping stone to achieving that accomplishment. Students who have successfully completed comprehensive coursework in computer information systems at a vocational school, can further their educational potential by transferring their credits to a four-year college or university to achieve their Associates, Bachelors; or Doctorates degree.

If you are interested in the exciting and lucrative field of Computer Information Systems, apply to a computer information systems vocational school today!

So What is an Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs are a great way to make money on the Internet – one of the few ways, in fact, that has managed to stand the test of time. The web today is a very different place to what it was at the start of e-commerce, but the success of affiliate marketing programs has only increased. In an unstable market like the Internet, it makes sense to seize on proven strategies like this and put them to work for you.

So what is an affiliate program? Basically, the idea is that, instead of running your own e-commerce website, fulfilling orders and all that jazz, you just set up your website to drive customers to someone else’s. For example, if you’re running a website with DVD reviews, you might think that it would also make sense for you to sell the DVDs – so you just sign up to an affiliate program, and link through to a store that does using your affiliate code. In return for the referral, you get a commission as a percentage of the sale price, typically somewhere from 1% to 5%.

The most important choice you have to make is exactly which affiliate program to join. You can’t join too many, because your website will quickly become cluttered – and besides, many of the larger ones have rules that say you can’t do this.

If your site is anything to do with books, music or movies, you would almost certainly do best to go with Amazon’s affiliate program. This can work especially well if your site is quite narrowly targeted and focused. A site with comprehensive discographies for ‘70s glam rock bands, for example, will probably find that adding affiliate links next to the name of each CD will drive a lot of sales. This is because the more focused your site is, the easier it is for it to become an authority in its chosen area.

For non-media items, such as collectibles, eBay’s affiliate program can also be effective. It is a live-updated list of current eBay auctions on items relevant to your site that your visitors will then hopefully click on, rewarding you each time.

Ultimately, though, your site might not fit into one of the big affiliate programs. In this case, just do a search for whatever your site is about followed by the word ‘affiliate’, and see what turns up. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Loose Tea in the American Marketplace

The American tea market

Traditionally, the marketplace for tea drinkers in the United States has been limited.

Although loose tea was extremely popular in colonial times, the consumption of loose tea gradually changed and recently the American market for tea has been generally confined to iced tea and tea in bags.

Loose tea was introduced to America at the same time of introduction to Europe. As early as 1650 Dutch traders were active in the tea trade and Peter Stuyvesant, as an early governor of the New York colony, brought the first tea to New York. Loose tea was so popular in colonial New York that at one time the small colony consumed more loose tea than all of England. This popularity was equally evident in the other colonies.

Gradually however, the American tea market changed. America made two unique contributions to the tea world in the form of iced tea and the tea bag and both were invented in the early 1900’s. Presently, 80% of the tea consumed in the United States is iced tea and of the remaining 20% of tea consumption, most is consumed in the form of bagged tea.

There is growing resurgence of demand for loose tea in the United States however, driven by a greater awareness of the health benefits and quality of the loose tea experience. As demand increases, new opportunities arise for the entrepreneur who wishes to market and sell loose tea.

How do loose tea and tea bags compare?

Most experts compare loose tea and tea in bags in four ways:

1. Most of the tea that goes into bags in not high quality. Tea bags usually contain broken grades so infusion takes place quickly

2. Whole leaf loose teas come in a larger number of varieties than bagged tea and some higher quality teas are only found in loose offerings

3. Bags are semi-nonbiodegradable additions to biodegradable tea leaves with implications for the environment

4. Generally speaking, tea bags have historically offered greater convenience although e-commerce now offers tea drinkers the convenience of on line ordering and home delivery

Is loose tea more costly than tea bags?

Many advocates of bagged tea in believe that loose tea costs more than tea in bags. Actually, most good tea is not very expensive and can be very cost effective. When you buy tea in bags, most of what you pay for is the process of putting the teas in the bags, and the brand name advertising. Fancy tea is generally sold loose, and the price per cup is often lower than for commercial bagged tea.

Some truly fine teas retail in the United States retail for less than US$20 per pound, which means less than 10 cents per cup. When one considers that most loose teas support multiple infusions the prices drop dramatically. High quality loose leaf tea is typically not available in supermarkets; but a good mail order web site will accept and process orders rapidly and offer the convenience of home delivery.

E-commerce and affiliate programs

Opportunities for sale of loose tea are particularly attractive when combined with effective e-commerce through affiliate programs.

The affiliate arrangement is a way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies ("affiliates") who market the company's products for a commission.

Affiliate programs afford a small entrepreneur the ability to leverage the website of the tea manufacturer through their own affiliate site. Through this technique the affiliate can minimize their investment and maximize their return. An affiliate relationship is established by agreement between the affiliate and the manufacturer whereby each party benefits.

There is more to an affiliate relationship than a simple agreement however. The affiliate must be provided with marketing support, account feedback and prompt payment of earned commissions. Most good affiliate programs share a number of characteristics:

• Real-time reporting statistics

• Real-time email alerts upon each sale

• Payment on a consistent monthly basis for initial and repeat orders

• High price-point products that are easy to sell and allow for substantial affiliate commissions

• A comprehensive package of rich content articles and banner advertising that the affiliate can reprint and use for marketing

Of special note for marketing support is the availability of banner ads that are high quality and effective. These are particularly useful affiliate marketing tools.

The customer service issue:

Tea drinkers are very loyal but demand high quality products and premium customer service. As a result, customer service in the form of rapid and correct order processing and fulfillment, notification of orders and shipments, proper pricing and an emphasis on customer satisfaction is a necessary part of the affiliate relationship.

If customer service is inadequate then this will severely impact affiliate business and the affiliate reputation. Conversely, if customer satisfaction is high, a steady stream of repeat orders will be ensured and the affiliate will share in the additional revenue.

Choose a loose tea supplier that has a rich affiliate program, a reputation for consistent high quality products, an e-commerce site that is powerful and allows easy ordering and a company with a reputation for excellent customer service.

How To Save A Small eCommerce Business From Being Killed By The Mega Retailers

Remember the last time you bought an electronic item such as a DVD player or VCR? Where did you go to buy it? If you are like most consumers, you wanted the best possible price. You might have also been brand conscious by purchasing an item with a recognized manufacturer's name synonymous with quality. Like most consumers, you probably did not want to wait forever to get it.

You might have also been brand conscious by purchasing an item with a recognized manufacturer's name synonymous with quality. Like most consumers, you probably did not want to wait forever to get it. You might have hopped in the car and headed to the local mega retailer and bought the item.

Everyone loves great deal. A good brand with quality. A low price...and the ability to take it home right now! Does this sound like you or a least someone you know? Trust is important to us as consumers. We want to make sure no one takes us for a rip-off ride. We want to avoid the embarrassment and not look like the dumb shopper that bought a piece of junk for a high price. As a result, we have conditioned ourselves to certain buying habits. One of those habits is shopping for a name brand that is well known and trusted. Consequently, many folks start their own online e-commerce retail sites feeling these are often the types of product they need to carry. They think the well know brands can inherently bring some of the consumer trust (and sales) to their product offerings. While that might be true to a certain extent, this does not always result in a stable online business with healthy margins. Thus, they have fallen victim to the "brand name myth" in online retail.

The Brand Name Myth Unveiled

What is the brand name myth? We have already started to describe it, but here is a brief description of the brand name myth -- There are countless start-up online retail businesses who have been led to believe they should sell big brand name products as a core product offering for their retail website. After all, most consumers are familiar with big brand names (i.e. Kodak, Adidas, Sony...etc.) and have grown to trust and follow their favorite brand name products. In fact some of the largest and most successful retail businesses in the world sell the big brands. So, the popular way of thinking suggests that big brand name products are what a new online business should sell. Why? Again, the big brand name products are popular, well known, trusted and carry a name of quality. Unfortunately, this has often resulted in a losing battle for numerous small online businesses. How? In a few words...intense competition, brutal price wars and extreme market saturation. These businesses basically entered into the commodity business without knowing what hit them! Many of them are no longer in business. Would you like to avoid this situation...Certainly!

Press Release Paralysis

There is one other limiting factor about big brand name products you should know about. The ability to press release a business is greatly limited with big brand name products. That's right. Suppose a small start-up online business plans on selling the latest big brand name cameras as part of their online store. They would like to advertise their new product offering to the world, and get the word out about their online business. A press release is great way of doing this without spending a bunch of money. However, they quickly find no editor willing to publish their press release. There might be a couple of reasons for the rejection:

1) The camera manufacturer might not allow press releases of their licensed name by other parties, or if they do allow a release

2) The product has already been press released many times by other companies. As a result, the product press release is no longer news worthy.

Being the smart online business owner, do you want to avoid these situations?...If so, let's look at how to get started on the right foot.

How Can I Avoid The Brand Name Myth?

The Internet retail world presents a much different level of retail challenge versus the traditional brick and mortar retail business. Customers can do comparative shopping on the internet with just a few clicks of the mouse rather than driving around from store to store in their car. So, this means within seconds they can be at a competing retail site looking for similar products at a cheaper price. As an Internet retailer, you want a business that gives you some immunity to these scenarios.

Fortunately, there are many techniques and best practices that can be used to keep consumers on your site. One of these best practices involves creating a niche business. You can get the benefits of a niche business by carrying things that are unique to the marketplace. Having an online business with the "You can only find it here" advantage gives you some immunity to the competition. Selling the big brand names you find at mega retailers does not provide you with the business uniqueness you need. You can do this by creating your own product. However, not everybody wants to go down that path. Rather, another option would be finding a wholesale drop shipper with a unique product offering that has not saturated the market. Where can you find a wholesale drop shipper of unique products that are simply not found at all the mega retailers? The Hienote Drop Ship List Directory is a great starting place. At Hienote Inc., our focus has been on finding wholesalers with unique products that can be drop shipped in single item quantities. We offer an online directory of the drop shippers, found by our research staff. The drop shippers in the directory is always changing as we add new one every week. You can get immediate access to the products that can help you carve a niche for your online business. In niche marketing, you focus on traits that make your business unique. Likewise, we have placed a similar focus on creating a directory of drop shippers with unique, unusual and fresh product offerings.

By avoiding the commodity big brand names, you can be in a position to do as many product press releases as you want. This will allow you to get more focused buyers to your site and can result in more sales. Getting free publicity for your products is one of the key ways to getting the needed advertising without spending any money upfront. With brand name items you simply cannot do this, which severely paralyzes your marketing efforts. This is why many online business experts have recommended selling niche based products vs. the commodity big brand name products.

E-Commerce Fulfillment

E-commerce or electronic commerce can be defined as the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. For proper implementation of e-commerce it is of immense importance to have an e-commerce site where one can get involve with the buying and selling of goods and services. To be successful, E-commerce site should contain a shopping cart system and a payment processing system.
Timely delivery is one aspect that requires careful attention. In fact, timely delivery is one of the three main dimensions of competitiveness, the others being quality and cost. Timely delivery is also dependent, like quality and cost, on productivity, managerial effectiveness and infrastructural support. Delays have been part and parcel of the economic system for the ages, hindering the progress of an organization. Delays in delivery occur due to a variety of reasons. Delays in manufacturing, shipping delays and delays in transporting the manufactured products to the ports upset the delivery schedules. E-commerce is the one way which can minimize these delays.
For e-commerce fulfillment, the use of high-class communication technologies is vital. If companies have to achieve global industrial competitiveness, in the first place it is essential for them to bridge the technology gap in industrial production. The companies should produce what the overseas markets need and produce them to their technological specifications and standards. Upgrading technology is also the durable route for price competitiveness and quality improvement. The companies have to do their bit by opting for the latest technology, adapting it, working out technology tie-ups and by committing higher investment for technology upgradation. Even in the post-liberalization era, technology upgradation has been the missing ingredient. But thanks to its all-time availability, global reach, and interaction and information delivery capabilities, the Internet is rapidly becoming a multi-billion dollar source of revenue for business across the globe.

The Advantage of Going After A Nook On The Web

Focusing on a nook to the exclusion of everything else is a tremendous way to make money.

The Advantage of Going After A Nook On The Web

When we talk about a nook, we are merely focusing on a specific area of a service or product sector. Think of nooks and crannies in a room. A simple, but clear, example of a nook would be Lasik eye surgery. It is a nook within the larger field of eye care and much larger field of medical services. The key to making money in your particular area is to focus on a specific nook that provides either a large volume of business or small volume with lucrative profit margins.

One of the biggest nook advantages is the ability to quickly become a dominant player in the area in question. By definition, there is almost always a limited pool of competitors in the market area, either for the area itself or the geographic limitation. Assume you are offering Lasik eye services. There are a limited number of medical professionals in your area offering the same thing. This means you have an outstanding opportunity to become the dominant personality. You can go get appearances on the local television and radio shows, publish articles in the paper and so on. News outlets are desperate for such quality content.

On the web, the same concept applies with a slightly different orientation. You want to focus on your nook to the exclusion of everything else. This sounds simple, but can be difficult to implement. There is an incredible temptation to expand a site beyond the nook in question. The motivation, of course, is greed. We all tend to think that if we offer tour services to London, our clientele would obviously be interested in buying soccer shirts for the professional teams in London. Wrong. Define your nook and stick to it. Even if you sell a few shirts, you risk distracting your prospects from purchasing a tour.

The web also provides unique advantages found in no other business medium. One of the dominant ways to market any business is to write content for periodicals. I am talking about informative articles, not advertisements. If you wrote an article for the local paper and they included it in their Sunday edition, how would you be viewed? It would be a lot more effective than an advertisement and, over time, you would become a trusted source for most readers. Whenever they thought of your area of expertise, they would come to you or your business. Talk about a goldmine!

On the web, you can take this example to the extreme. There are numerous sites known as article directories. These sites collect articles for an interesting audience. Websites, blogs and online newsletters need content all of the time. They use article directories to find the content. You should submit articles to the directories under the category applicable to your business. If you make the articles informative, you will quickly become a credible source and they will use your articles again and again. It is like being published in your local paper and a few hundred papers in other cities.

Why Internet Businesses Crash and Burn

As you know from the dot.com debacle in the late 1990s, starting an Internet business is no guarantee of success. Internet business failures happen, but often for obvious reasons.

Why Internet Businesses Crash and Burn

Internet business simply refers to an online business devoted to profits through the sale of products and services. In the real world, a majority of small business startups fail because they get overwhelmed with overhead expenses. On the net, this is less of a problem if you can do any of the work yourself, such as building pages for your site. Even if you can’t, most sites do not fail because of expenses. There are plenty of other reasons.

Internet business failures almost always have a common denominator. The issue involves traffic. On the net, traffic refers to the number of visitors a site gets. Most Internet businesses fail to properly research whether there is enough traffic for their area of business before building out their site. The first step is always to research whether people are actually searching for your business. You can look under the keyword category in our article section to learn more.

The second area where Internet business failures occur involves ignoring the keywords in question. Once you have a keyword list, you must focus on it. The list is telling you what your prospects are searching for and you must make it your mission to supply them with the products or services. If you do not provide the services or products indicated by certain keywords, take steps to make it happen. If you give prospects what they want, they will return to your site over and over again. Return visitors are the key to making profits.

Many Internet business failures occur because sites bite off more than they can choose. The temptation is to go for the broadest subject matter possible. This is a mistake. You should focus on a niche. If you want to open an online bookstore, you will never be able to compete with Amazon. Amazon simply has far too big of a head start. If you focus on books devoted just to a certain subject, such as Eastern philosophy or home improvement, you have a good chance of making a profit. This can occur because fans of the niche will come to your site instead of Amazon since you focus entirely on the niche in question.

Internet business failures occur because people simply do not take the time to property research the situation before jumping in with both feet. Take your time and full understand your market and what you are getting into. If you are patient and thorough, you will not become one of the Internet business failures dotting the net.

How relevant is your Ecommerce Web Site Design?

Ecommerce web site design can spell either success or doom for any business. In this internet age it is imperative to have an online site for advertising, selling or buying a product or service. There are numerous ecommerce websites doing business on the World Wide Web. Your website’s ecommerce design must be relevant to all the different elements needed for designing a good website.

If you want to add a personal touch to your site, you can design your own site. However you can also get professional help from the numerous website designing companies to get your online business site designed. Select a good web design company which has high credibility to design your ecommerce web site.

The purpose of any ecommerce site is to generate business for a product or to promote a service. Ecommerce web site designing is not an easy task and is not done overnight. There are some basic simple rules which you need to follow to make a good website. First of all ensure that your website is compatible to different types of browser and operating systems.

The purpose of an ecommerce site is to generate business leads, and if online surfers using different browsers and operating systems cannot even view your site properly, you will lose out on a significant number of prospective clients. Think about this aspect before you actually go about designing a website.

It is said that pictures have the ability to communicate messages which sometimes even words fail to say. Pictures have a very strong ability to portray strong emotions. Silence they say is sometimes stronger than words. Put up relevant pictures on your site to put forward an idea. Take care that you do not put up any irrelevant and outdated pictures on your website.

Color combination of a website is very important. Choose the color to be used in your ecommerce web site design only after a very careful consideration. Colors in an ecommerce site must not be garish and at the same time must not be too dull, so that it does not even invoke any response from visitors to your site. Choose a color pattern which is appealing to the eye, but at the same time refrain from going over the top.

The navigability and the functionality of ecommerce web site design are of big importance. Your site may be the best visually looking site ever made, but if it does not have proper functionality and navigability, no one is even going to give your site a second glance. No visitor is going to wait and search for information in your site if it is not properly navigable and functional.

Take care of the contents in your ecommerce web site design. Good and relevant content is a great means of bringing visitors to your site. Check out for yourself and see if the content in your site is relevant of not. Also see if all the links are properly placed or not and whether visitors are immediately transferred to the page that has the relevant information for their query.

Make your best effort in satisfying the visitor to your site. Consider yourself as a visitor to a site and think what all things you would want to see in a site. Users are the king in determining if a website will work or not. Take care of the user and try to satisfy his or her needs in your ecommerce web site design.

How to Create a Money Magnet E-commerce Web Site

If you've been online for more than a day you've probably heard some "guru" somewhere recommend that you create a Money Magnet Web Site - a site that is highly automated and helps you make money 24 hours a day. While that might *sound* great, what they often forget to tell you is HOW to do that.

Well, I'm going to tell you right now, in this article!

First, what IS a Money Magnet Web Site? A Money Magnet Web Site can be defined as one that is equipped with an integrated suite of both e-commerce and internet marketing tools in a fashion that will allow you to be the most profitable with the least amount of effort.

Most e-commerce systems are equipped with the following essentials: a shopping cart, acceptance and processing of credit cards, a maintenance system that allows you to add/change products, an order-retrieval system that enables you to fulfill orders.

However, what most of them are lacking are marketing tools. There are several marketing strategies that are essential in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site: email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers, effective use of autoresponders (generate automatic email messages), online newsletter, online form/survey to capture your prospect's email address electronic product delivery (if you sold a digital product), advertisement (ad) tracking, back end sales, affiliate program.

Now, if you had a system that would support the integration of ALL of these marketing tools in addition to the necessary e-commerce essentials, then you would have a Money Magnet Web Site. After all, it has been shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before prospective customers actually make a purchase. Consider the following scenario:

A prospect clicks on an advertisement in an online magazine. This action increments a counter for this particular ad to help you determine how well it’s working. They don’t decide to buy as of yet but join your newsletter. They are now considered a prospect. You begin to send them a monthly email newsletter. Additionally, an autoresponder kicks in to thank them for joining the newsletter as well as scheduling them to get email twice a month for the next 90 days reiterating your product benefits and inviting them to purchase.

Upon sending them one of your "juicy" offers that they couldn't refuse, they finally purchase. They will automatically be removed from your prospect list and added to your customer list.

Based on the particular product or service they’ve purchased, they will receive a series of emails every two weeks for the next 6 months offering complementary products. This will be the engine that will drive your back end sales and keep your customers coming back to your web site.

Being able to play out a scenario such as this using one integrated system would be pretty impressive don’t you think? The internet big boys do this with expensive e-commerce platform suites produced by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. Having your system automatically perform these follow up tasks frees you up to spend more time on your business, your health or your family!

=====> What can you do to obtain a money magnet web site?

Fortunately, there are ways that you can automate your website in much the same way that the big boys do. The best and most cost-effective way would be to sign up with one of the handful of Application Service Providers available on the internet, which provide a shopping cart integrated with a full suite of marketing tools. Normally, the shopping cart and tools are very flexible and can be incorporated into any website.

=====> Are there any other ways to automate your business besides working with a total solution provider?

You can accomplish some level of automation without an integrated shopping cart system, however, it will require manual intervention and of course it would be incomplete. I believe that the most important asset of your e-commerce business is your email lists. Therefore, concentrate on the implementation of a good autoresponder/list server system to "enhance" your present e-commerce website. There are several good ones on the
market.

Look for providers that allow you to: create multiple lists, add prospects via a web form, email, or manually through a management console, send out an unlimited number of autoresponder messages, send out an unlimited number of email broadcasts, set up and distribute a newsletter.

When setting up your autoresponder system, create one list for your "prospects" and another one for your "customers". Now, here's where you come in: when a person orders your product, you will have to perform the extra task of logging into your autoresponder system and manually remove them from the prospect list and add them to the customer list. This action will then trigger your customer autoresponder series of messages to be sent.

Remember, the key to building a successful e-commerce web site is to automate your marketing engine as much as possible and drive your prospects and customers back to your web site. This will certainly create a money magnet e-commerce web site for you!

What Makes A Successful E-Commerce Website

There are many ways to create a successful e-commerce but there are four crucial points that you should keep in mind while launching your website.

1. Website

Your website is like your showroom, airy and attractive. When online, the equivalent of a showroom is an uncluttered website where the eyes can move freely up and down finding the details they need without much effort. It is extremely important that the website be easy to navigate since the surfer should not have to search for the product or details he or she is looking for. The website should project its products in a provocative way so the surfer wants to see more.

Place testimonials or photos of your product so people can create a positive image of its usage. If your products are guaranteed, post this information conspicuously.

2. Your merchant account

This feature is a must for any commercial website because without it you will not be able to receive payment by credit cards. Reports show that as high as 99 percent of the trade online is done through credit cards. Hence, if you do not have a merchant account you lose business. You will need to be able to accept all major credit cards and without this feature that is not possible.

3. Shopping cart and secure server

This is interconnected with the above. When you have a merchant account to accept credit cards, you will need an online shopping cart. This feature allows your customers to choose and place their chosen products in the cart just as one would do in shopping mall. This cart will, at the end of the shopping, total the products and give the total cost of the products chosen.

In order to have your shopping cart work well you need to have its software installed on your website or on the server that hosts your website. If you choose to have your own server you will need to have a certificate from Verisign and Thawrte, which encrypts the financial information given by your customers so they can feel safe while giving you this sensitive information.

4. Payment gateway

This is another crucial aspect in setting up a successful e-commerce website. The payment gateway is the link from your website to the credit card processor. This gateway helps information to pass from your site to the authorization centre where the credit card is verified and then charged; after that the reply will come back to your website that the processing has been successful. A payment gateway will always check for details in credit card information and reject any discrepancy in the information. In this way it reduces the use of fraudulent cards by almost 80 percent.

Online Turnkey Sites – Good and Bad

You have decided to open a site online, but are not sure where to start. This brings us to the subject of the online turnkey sites.

Online Turnkey Sites – Good and Bad

An online turnkey site comes in a couple of variations. All of them are designed to give you a base to work off for your ecommerce efforts. The idea is to create the fundamentals of a site and then let you go to town with it. Depending on the platform, using one of these platforms can be a good or bad move.

Let me save you a ton of money from the outset. If you are considering an online turnkey site that is fully contained, to wit, it gives you a site, domain and products to sell, you are going to have a very difficult time making money. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, your site is no different than all the other turnkey sites sold by the same company. Why would prospects come to your site instead of any of the others? Simply put, there is no way to make your site standout. Further, your marketing will be a major pain. Many pay-per-click search engines will not let you list the site because they only allow one listing per affiliate program and they will consider a turnkey site as one. Further, you will have difficulties pursuing any search engine rankings because you will have little ability to change the site. I strongly encourage you to avoid these online turnkey sites like the plague.

There are online site builders that work fine. These services essentially give you the ability to control the design of your site, and require you to have a domain as well as your own products and services. On the high end, you can find massively flexible page builders with databases tied in covering everything from customer service management to inventory tracking. Most can also be customized to your particular needs.

This second set of platforms, known as online site builders, are really the way to go. The days of learning and hammering out html code for pages has gone the way of the horse and buggy. The online site builders give you convenience, flexibility and control over your online venture. This allows you to manipulate the site as you gain a better understanding of your market and all things Internet. Minor elements of html coding are still needed, but nothing that will set you back or be confusing.

An online turnkey site sounds like a great thing at first blush, but it can cost you in the long run. Make sure you understand what you can and cannot do before committing to a system.

Ecommerce Website Owners: Are You Leaving Money On The Counter?

Own an ecommerce website? Do you have a mailing list?

If not, you’re potentially leaving a lot of money on the counter.

Keeping in touch with your past customers and visitors, is one of the easiest and cost effective methods of increasing your website sales. You simply must have a mechanism to collect the email addresses of both buyers and browsers alike.

Collecting buyers email addresses is a ”no brainer” – after all you need to send them confirmation details, receipts etc. Just make sure you ask their permission to keep them up to date on future special offers.

Collecting visitor details is a bit trickier, and you must offer some kind of incentive in return for them handing over their valuable email address. Here are several ways:

· A discount voucher off their first order

The amount you are prepared to offer will depend on the profit margin in your business, and the drawback is you may only get the email addresses of people who were going to purchase anyway.

· A competition to win one of your products.

Do make sure you are honest and pick a winner – put past winner details on your site to emphasise this

· An insiders buyers guide

If you offer technical products that can be tricky to understand – such as electronics, audio-visual etc, then write a short guide

· Special reports or tips guides

If you sell golf equipment, search for articles on golf tips online, obtain the authors permission and compile them into a PDF report.

Managing your list

Depending on what ecommerce system your website is based on, you may already have the ability to manage email lists. If not, use a list management service such as Aweber (www.aweber.com), which allows you to set up autoresponder sequences, multiple lists and send HTML emails.

Which brings me nicely to the next *must* . . . send HTML emails!

HTML emails are the ones full of images and graphics, rather like webpages as opposed to plain text emails.

Why? They are far more eyecatching, which is essential given the increasing amounts of email we get every day. You stand a better chance if you include images of your products – after all a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

(the only exception to this is people selling non tangible products or services - for example, information products usually work better in text emails.)

What should you communicate in your emails?

· Special offers

Any products that you have put on special offer, sale items, end of line stock etc. Adding a message of limited availability or ends by a certain date will help increase response.

· Seasonal offers

Garden furniture and barbecues in Spring, for example.

· Offers tied to special events

Before the recent FIFA World Cup, I was inundated with special offers on all kinds of TV’s for watching it on. If you can tie your products to a popular event in some way, so much the better.

· New product reviews

Reviews of the latest product offerings to hit your marketplace, will interest your customers.

· Technical “how to’s”

If you sell any kind of technical product, your customers will appreciate the occasional how to guide. How to get the best out of your equipment, top tips, etc.

Frequency of emails

I wouldn’t advise emailing your customers any more than once a week, and leave it more than a month between communications and they are likely to be forgetting about you.

There we have it. Loads of ideas on how to keep in touch with your customers, and make sure you stay at the forefront of their minds. The cost is virtually zero, and the potential returns are massive.

What’s the cost if you don’t? Well, undoubtedly one of your competitors will make the effort – and end up seducing your customers away from you . . possibly for good.

Alas! In E-commerce Taxland

In trying to comply with tax laws for your e-business, you may find yourself falling down the rabbit-hole, going through the looking glass, and attending a Mad Tea-Party.

Common sense, logic, and fairness never did apply fully to the field of taxation but this is especially true of e-commerce transactions.

1. Canada Customs Welcomes You to Canada!

Since I`m located in Canada, let`s start here.

Canada has what you might call a national sales tax or a value added tax (VAT). This Goods and Services Tax (G.S.T.) of seven percent is applicable to many Canadian transactions.

Not only is it critical to determine whether a taxable sale was made in Canada or not, but also where in Canada. If it was made (or deemed to be made) in any of the Harmonized Sales Tax (H.S.T.) provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador), a higher, fifteen percent H.S.T. rate applies. This is because those provinces have allowed Canada to collect their provincial sales taxes for them.

As well, each province and territory has its own rules. Ontario charges eight percent retail sales tax on many typical Internet transactions whereas Alberta has no provincial sales tax.

Of course, this is only scatching the surface. This entire article is an over-simplification of a very complex subject. You will definitely need professional advice to help you through E-Commerce Taxland.

2. When Exports Aren`t Exports

In Canada, exports are "zero-rated" sales for G.S.T. purposes. This means that when you ship a product to someone outside Canada, you don`t charge G.S.T. Yet, you get to claim (or deduct from the G.S.T. collected by you) all the "input tax credits" (G.S.T. that you paid for business purposes) to make that export. The idea, I suppose, is to encourage exporting.

However, if you export products other than tangible, physical goods, beware! There are many pitfalls to watch out for.

As one example, consider digitized products that you might sell from your Canadian website, such as e-books, downloadable software, or subscriptions to content. You would be considered to be selling "intangible personal property". Unless your product is also considered "intellectual property" (such as software or e-books that you produced or have obtained the rights for), you will have to charge G.S.T. The reason why, according to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, is that it COULD be used inside Canada, even if it isn`t.

Say you sold a membership for accessing digitized content (from various sources) on your Canadian website to a customer in the United States. Since there are no restrictions as to where the intangible personal property may be used, and the property is not considered intellectual property (nor the provision of a service), the American customer is subject to G.S.T., even if he never comes to Canada.

Strangely, the same logic doesn`t apply when an American buys a regular book (or a car) which he COULD bring into Canada with him and use here. It is true that it is easier for Canada to assess such items at the border than in cyberspace, but I know of no cases of Americans being taxed on the books or cars they bring with them when they come to live in Canada for about half the year.

As a Canadian registrant, one way you might legally avoid this silly March Hare is to explicitly state on your website and invoice that use of such intangible personal property in Canada is prohibited (or requires an additional fee and the payment of G.S.T.).

3. When Imports Aren`t Imports

Goods shipped to Canada are subject to G.S.T. on importation. Such tax is often assessed at the border. But what if you are a Canadian registered for G.S.T., selling to a Canadian customer but your supplier is in a foreign country?

Pretend that your Canadian customer has bought a book from you from your Canadian website. Your drop ship supplier is located in the United States and is registered for G.S.T. You fax your order to the American company, and they, in turn, ship the book for you (complete with Customs Declaration and their G.S.T. Business Number).

Since they paid the G.S.T., you wouldn`t think you would have to charge it again, would you? "Wrong!", smiles the Cheshire cat. Since you are a registrant located in Canada, you are required to charge and remit the G.S.T.

But you are entitled to input tax credits, aren`t you? In many cases, the answer is "No".

It may be very difficult for you to satisfy the documentary and other technical requirements. As an example, it is not uncommon for American suppliers to absolutely refuse to give an invoice breaking down the G.S.T. or to allow you to be the Importer of Record. This complicates their life unnecessarily and they just don`t need the aggravation.

There are relieving tax provisions covering drop shipping, sales agencies, and other situations. In many cases, unfortunately, the most practical solution is to allow the tax to be paid twice.

4. When You`re Subject to Tax Where You`re Not Subject to Tax

It makes sense that countries impose a tax on sales and income made in their own jurisdiction. But does it make sense for Germany to tax sales made in the United States?

In effect, starting July 1, 2003, the European Union has done just that by imposing an online sales tax.

This means that if someone from England buys an e-book from someone in the United States, the American should submit this tax. Of course, If the sale was to someone in Germany, the tax rate would be different.

The rationale behind this follows: Since countries can`t collect sales tax on Internet transactions at their borders, the only way they can collect it (other than a self-assessment system) is with an online sales tax. Further, it is claimed that businesses in the European Union suffer a major competitive disadvantage because they have to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) but others don`t.

I know what they mean. Welcome to the club!

The Internet Made Easy

Let me ask you a quick question. . .

How many times have you banged your fists into the table and shaken your head in disbelief because trying to get onto the Internet seems so frustrating?

If you have, it can feel like the world's passing you by.

Your friends are 'online', your family's 'online', heck even 5 year olds seem to have it mastered - and you - well you're still trying to figure out how the whole thing just goes together.

Do any of these all too common problems drive you nuts:

Can't connect to your ISP (Or Your Not Even Sure What That Is)
The modem won't work (No matter what you try you just can't get online)
You can't send emails
You can't receive emails
You're worried about online viruses
And you're to scared to buy online because of credit card fraud!

If that sounds like your experience with the Internet so far, or it sounds like the problems someone you know has and you want to help them then you're in luck!

If you don't know your ISP from your elbow, have no idea what the heck a 'POP' server is and don't want to to fuss over a 'Firewall' . . . . but you simply want to get on with it and connect to the world-wide-web then our brand new video set called 'The Internet Made Easy' is for you!

Why Video?

Quite simply, we've found it's the fastest and easiest way for people to learn.

Video training is the closet thing you can have to expert one on one tuition (without the expense) and you can learn at your own pace.

Imagine, saving time by doing the weekly shopping online and the great things you could do with the hours you'll save. . . Picking up a great bargain or deal on a new holiday or automobile that makes you the envy of your friends . . . Having access to all the information you need from health issues and sports results through to local events and global news . . . Whatever you need, it's all online waiting for you.

Seriously... who wants to struggle with 'How To' books that have been thrown together by rocket scientists for other rocket scientists to read - Or worse still, waste hours on premium rate telephone 'Help Lines' where the person you speak to is probably on the other side of the world and seems to have less idea than you.

The answer is right in front of you . . . It's simple, insert the disk into your PC choose from the menu which area you need help with and spend ten minutes listening and watching to exactly how it's done.

In a less than an hour all your online problems can be solved.

Just take a look at some of the topics we include in 'The Internet Made Easy'

Here's A Quick Summary Of What's Included:

Choosing which is the best Internet Service Provider For You.
How to protect yourself with FREE Anti-Virus Software.
How to send and receive emails with ease with Outlook Express
How to use Internet Explorer and find what you need FAST!
How to buy online safely and securely
How to download and save files to your PC (including ZIP and PDF files)
How to get organized and work with files and folders
How to back up your information to keep it safe
How to use RSS feeds and gather news and information easily.

It's All About Being Safe - Being Sure - And Being Online

E-Commerce, Put your business on Internet for success.

E-Commerce, Put your business on Internet.

If your business is not on the Internet, it is not doing as well as it could. In today’s day and age, if you are not advertising on the Internet, you are losing a significant amount of business.

You advertise your business in local newspapers, local television and even local radio. That is good. You are getting enough business to keep you afloat. You may receive inquiries from the surrounding cities, or even the bordering states, and that is great.

What if you could attract business from another country?

When you finally decide to take advantage of technology, the Internet is an incredible universe of its own.

When you create a Website, and starting an e-commerce trade, you are opening your business to a whole new world.

Businesses that would not know that you exist are now able to view your website, research your services and contact you with any questions.

By taking advantage of the Internet, you are allowing your business to grow in ways that it could not if you were to advertise with conventional methods.

In recent years, the E-commerce trades as raised a steady twenty-five every year, and experts feel that this trend will continue. When you finally decide to take the plunge and get your business started on the Internet, there are a few steps that you should take before starting. This will be a nerve wrecking, nail biting point in the growth of your business.

There are steps to take before jumping in. As with any new venture, do a lot of research. Find out what the statistics and trends are for your type of business.

Make sure that your products or services are available as soon as your Website goes live. You want to have everything ready to ship as soon as you get an order. If a client feels that they have received exceptional treatment, your business will experience repeat business.

After your website is created and goes live, there is more to do. Advertising your business in the right manner is crucial. Joining E-commerce organizations and associations, can give your business the boost it needs. These are groups of business owners just like you who want to advertise their businesses.

When you join these organizations and associations you are agreeing to their rules and terms. Most have very strict rules of conduct, and once established, Potential clients will find you through them. Remember, if you are debating whether or not to go forward and start an E-commerce Trade, your competitors are taking advantage of the Internet.

For everyday that you procrastinate, your competitors will take full advantage of all that the Internet has to offer. If you are not familiar with the “Do’s and Don’ts” of the Internet, have no fear. A simple search of the Internet will yield Thousands perhaps millions of companies who will explain to you the benefits of an online business. They will assist you in creating and maintaining an online business that will raise your standard of living.

Ecommerce And The "Reason Why"

The other night, I watched a rerun of the original Superman film from 1978. In it I noticed a considerable amount of time was spent showing how Superman ended up on planet earth. We saw his parents on Krypton, the escalating doom affecting that planet, and why his parents took the decision to place him in a pod and send him to earth. We saw his father Jor-El rationalise this to his wife, explaining how the differing gravities, and less advanced life forms of Earth would give their boy a positive advantage.

What did all this serve to do?

It rationalised Superman's superhero powers. He would be able to fly because he was from a planet with a different gravity, he would be superfast & superstrong because his molecular structure was different, etc.

Basically it gave a reason why.

However far fetched the reasons were, undoubtedly they serve to make the film more believable. They explain why Superman has superhuman powers. And so do many other Superhero films - The Hulk, Spiderman etc, all explain away the superhero's powers, adding an increased degree of believability that would otherwise be absent.

All this shows that if you can incorporate Reasons Why into your marketing, you will undoubtedly increase your sales.

So how can you make this work for you?

Special offers

Instead of just blindly putting special offers on products, explain why they are on offer. Perhaps the manufacturer had a cancelled order, and offered you an amazing deal which you can pass on to your customers. Maybe as a result of your annual stocktake, you need to reduce your inventory, and so are selling off your widgets at a ridiculous low price.

Limited availability

Tell a story as to why there is limited availability on a product. Perhaps it was the last stock of a production overrun, or "forgotten" stock that was in one of your storerooms that got "lost" behind other stuff. If the type of product you sell is not of a limited availability nature, you can tweak this to justify why a particular special price is for a limited time only.

Why you are the best choice

Perhaps you have over 20 years experience in your field which enables you to know your industry inside out. Or you have particular inside knowledge which allows you to get the best deals and pass these on to your customers. Think about it - you can always find an "angle" to justify why you are the best person to buy from.

Customer Testimonial

In a way these are "reasons why" someone should buy from you. Although they are well used in information product marketing, they are under used when selling physical products. Make an effort to collect testimonials from your customers that emphasise your quality of service, speedy service, helpfulness or cheap prices.

Give people a reason why. Make a story out of it. We all see shops with "Sales" banners up all the time, but when they say the sale is due to relocation or closing down, we take an extra special look, don't we? The "Reason Why" is a powerful technique that can add that little extra bit of credibility to give your sales a boost.

The Secrets to Niche Marketing

There are two different ways of ideas about niches. One takes the target audience into consideration first, which is the product centric model, while the other takes the product into consideration first, the audience centric model.

Actually, both of these ideas are identical but one of them will allow you to have more advantage. So which one is that? The product centric based idea.

The product centric model carries a time-tested rule of marketing: if you want to get into profit quickly, sell what people are already buying! There is plenty of information about things that sells well. Niche marketing is just a job to identify the gaps in the market which haven’t got dug yet, and build a business around it.

If you realize, books account for a huge portion of online revenue. Nevertheless, how do you grab a slice for yourself without competing against the huge companies like Amazon.com?

The answer is simple, you specialize. No matter how huge Amazon is, sometimes you still wouldn’t be able to find books that you want. What types of books are people searching for that they can’t find through the mainstream booksellers?

Could you become the authority and number one resource for books on a particular hobby? How about underground' titles like “The Anarchist’s Cookbook”? That’s what the owners of http://www.loompanics.com have, controversial and “hard to find” title books.

Another way you can build a niche around hot-selling products is to add some spice by customizing or personalizing them. In summary, the product-centric model is based on giving a twist to existing markets and trends.

On the other side, an audience centric model takes a subject matter, special interests or information more importantly first. Basically, you start off with no idea on what to sell. You don’t have a product in mind. You only know your target-audience.

The great thing about the audience-centric approach is that you can create whole new markets out of thin air. This is the model preferred by most e-book authors and information marketers.

So where do we start? You need to assess your own interests and strengths before you begin, especially if this is your first time starting a business. What are you already interested in? Do you have any background or expertise on a particular subject? Start with what you know, you’ll have more advantage because your prior knowledge will allow you to narrow down your niche quickly. In other words, you already have a good idea of how the topic breaks down.

If your passion is music, for example, you know there is an almost endless supply of potential products and potential buyers in areas as diverse as:
• Instruments/instrument sales/instrument repair/vintage instruments
• Techniques and lessons on how to play a certain instrument
• Memorabilia – shirts, hats, tickets, stickers, posters, autographs
• Audio production, recording, CD labeling, booking, promotion etc

You also know that any or all of those can be tailored towards: solo artists, bands, fans, managers, engineers, agents and the list go on.

Now that’s a great thing for you, but what if that’s not you’re interested? What if you are just not into creating a business out of your hobby, or you don’t feel any passion for your current expertise?

The good news is: It’s Fine! You don't need to give up hope or bang your head against the wall for ideas. You will however need to do some extra work. This brings us to the second reason I suggest taking stock of your strengths.

Here’s a secret about most internet marketers. Ready to know? Here it is: Most of the famous niche marketers you've heard of create products for niches they know absolutely nothing about.

How do they do that? Easy, they either hire the research and writing to someone else, or hunt down an expert for an interview, just a combination of outsourcing and “branding”. Also, this type of marketer has his or her own set of “reasons why” for motivation.

They include:
• Money
• Pride of ownership
• Love of the creative process
• Need for variety and breadth, rather than depth

It doesn’t matter as much to this type whether the market personally interests them. His or her goal and passion is to hunt down as many overlooked niches as possible, dive into them quickly and start profiting.

So, if this sounds like you, you’re in good company! Once you learn the basics of niche research, you’ll have your pick of dozens of potential business ideas.

To Your Success,

Designing Your Ecommerce Website

With an increase in consumers using the internet to shop and perform business transactions, ecommerce has become the future of the online community. It is estimated that shoppers are spending billions of dollars online each year, with a few stores even outselling their offline parallels. Benefitting completely from the ecommerce boom can be achievable. To keep consumers coming back, you need to create a unique ecommerce site, one that reaches beyond all levels of excellence.

When designing your ecommerce website, you should have a welcome or introduction on your home page. This statement should establish the advantages of your site, and assure those visiting that they should be comfortable doing business with you. State your purpose, express your beliefs, and let the consumer know why business done at your ecommmerce outlet is always secure.

A quality website has smooth navigation. Categories to scan through and obvious search boxes on the site are a must. Design a simple site with large, easy to read fonts and images that will load quickly. Be sure to have a page with specific questions regarding some of your common business policies such as shipping and returns. You may also want to have a link on your home page that leads visitors to a privacy policy. This policy will ensure customers that you will never supply a third party with information they have entrusted with you. It is nearly essential for all ecommerce shops to display this declaration somewhere on their site.

Just as when shopping offline, customers want checkout to be as fast and easy as possible when visiting your online store. If your online store is equipped with a secure server, make your customers aware. This will put them at ease and keep them coming back. Your checkout or Òshopping cartÓ needs to be just one click away so the customer can be in and out in a minimal amount of steps. In this day and age, it is advisable to offer a variety of payment selections such as PayPal and other online payment sources, credit and debit cards, online checks, and money orders. Include a contact telephone number for customer support so the customer has assurance that they will have assistance if there is a problem with the order.

Organize a special section of your ecommerce website dedicated completely to special discounts and current sales. If you have an extraordinary amount of sales items, create a separate webpage devoted to the ones that are most preferred, and have another page with a complete listing of all discounts. During the holiday season, have a certain portion of our website set aside for customers to purchase gift certificates.

Producing a profitable, reputable ecommerce website can be a simple task with a well constructed site plan, some time and patience. Taking full advantage of the ecommerce phenomenon, you can succeed in your business marketing dream.

10 Cons Of An International Credit Card

Credit card fraud is a fast increasing crime in the world. International Credit Card holders are mostly the victims of this unauthorized access to their accounts. Let’s take a closer look of the problems faced by international credit cards.

1. Repetitive use of credit card numbers. After a credit card number has been used and disregarded, say cancelled, credit card companies would reissue the same number to other cardholders. The personal identification numbers (PIN) is changed as well as the credit cardholder’s personal information. But it still bears the same credit card number.

2. Low standards when it comes to the use of cards by the participating merchants. This is a common problem encountered by international credit cardholders. Employees of the participating merchants have the full access to the account number as well as the security number of the card.

3. Account Statements given out by credit card companies contains less information about the participating merchant. It does not include relevant information about the vendor that charged any transaction on the credit card.

4. Unreliable blocking functions. Once a card loss is reported, it will still take months for the credit card companies to block the transactions being made through the stolen or lost credit card.

5. Lack of validation software. Participating vendors should have better validation software installed on their computer system.

6. Consumer unfriendly policies on fraud management. The policies on the present fraud management take the blame on the cardholders though not directly stipulated. This means that the policies on the fraud management of international credit card companies protect not the consumers but the company.

7. Lax standards on investigation about fraudulent transactions. This is the sad part for the victims of fraud through their credit cards. Getting the suspects charged though proven guilty of fraud seems to take on slowly.

8. Credit card fraud is usually committed through online transactions. This means that credit cardholders are not protected with the authorized or unauthorized use of their cards on purchases or services paid online.

9. Most of the companies that typically appear on charges are those associated with pornography industry. These companies are the ones that accept transactions even without verifying the cardholder’s information.

10. Most of the banks’ system is not compatible with other international credit card companies for the e-commerce. This is a potential weakness that would mean loss of clients so they would prefer to keep quiet about it.

How To Buy Nickelback Concert Tickets Securely...

Nickelback concert tickets

Want Nickelback concert tickets for their summer 2006 tour? You are definitely not alone. Their intensive summer tour will cover many cities, not ending until September 16 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Nickelback's popularity has surged to the mainstream level nationwide. This is evidenced by the group's popular songs (i.e. "photograph") played endlessly on local radio stations. They are so popular, in fact, that not just "alternative-grunge style" music stations play their music, but also "top 40 pop music" stations. Nickelback has responded generously this summer, by offering many show dates accross the country.

However, just because Nickelback is treating it's fans to many concert dates doesn't mean the tickets are easy to come by. In fact, just during the past 2 months alone, over 70,000 searches for the keyword Nickelback concert tickets were made on Yahoo alone. What does this mean? That people are buying Nickelback concert tickets like crazy. If people weren't interested in buying tickets to a Nickelback concert, chances are, most wouldn't be searching for it.

These people using the Yahoo search engine to find Nickelback concert tickets are aware of the power of e-commerce. As a matter of fact, if you were to try to find Nickelback tickets from the box office, chances are you will end up empty handed.

So, who sells these tickets on the world wide web? Online ticket brokers. There are literally hundreds of them. Some with good reputations. Some with not so good reputations. So how do you know if a ticket broker site is legit?

-Are they a Ticket Network Direct certified merchant?

-Do they offer overnight shipping through a major US shipping company?(UPS or FedEx)

-Are there ticket listings easy to read and browse through to find the tickets you want?

These are some major factors to assess when purchasing Nickelback concert tickets online. Now go find some great tickets to the show!

Professional Web Site Designers

Most companies today realize the importance of marketing on the net. As a result, many companies are hiring professional Web designers to maintain their Web sites and remain competitive in the marketplace. The scope for Web site designing as a profession is positive all over the world. This is because on a regular basis, thousands of companies either launch new Web sites or redesign outdated ones.

Companies hire professional Web designers with a specific business objective. The purpose of designing a site is to introduce or promote the company’s products and to reach out to a larger global customer base. Web designers are hired in accordance with this objective. A professional Web site designer typically has a bachelor’s degree in computer science, graphic design or digital media. A marketing or advertising degree combined with advanced computer training is a good blend of qualifications for a web designer as it helps them apply their designing skills with a business focus.

Professional web designers offer their services to a wide range of establishments. Industries, universities, retailers, design firms, media and advertising agencies are all in need of a good corporate Web sites. Attractive Web sites with updated information are very useful in acquiring new customers and in retaining existing ones. Designers can be hired as employees or as freelancers on contract.

The first step, after hiring a professional Web designer is to give them an outline of requirements. Professional Web designers work closely with customers to gain an understanding of the project expectations. They may also act as advisors, guiding clients through each step of the website design process. Experienced Web designers generally charge several thousand dollars as fees for their services.

Small business establishments also require a good website to boost their image. They typically design online brochures to give visitors information about their products and services, location and contact details. To cater to such organizations, many medium-sized Web design companies have emerged in the marketplace.

The range of services offered by professional web designers include web design and development, Web application design, professional e-commerce shopping systems, Web site hosting, search engine optimization, Internet search engine promotion and submission, e-learning, 3D solutions.

eBay Auctions

WHAT IS EBAY? For those of you who don’t know, EBay is one of the largest online auctions websites in the world with over 3 Million listings per day. If you wish to buy or sell on eBay you can. You can also do both if you wanted to.

WHAT IS THE SITE LAYOUT LIKE? The website layout is one of the best features. It’s easy to use for new users. Like any other website just click on the hyperlinks to take you to the location of that website. It offers great colour schemes and it also has brilliant auction listing features, which are easy to use.

WHAT IS THE SITE NAVIGATION LIKE? The website navigation is really easy to use as I have said above. You can get the odd technical glitch, which you click, on the link and it will take you to the international part of the company, other than that it’s brilliant and easy to use.

WHAT IS THE SITE STABILITY LIKE? The site stability has a couple of glitches especially with their log in scripts. If you click on the hyperlink for the Sign In tab at the top of the page you may get re-directed to the German login page. You cannot use this, as you might not understand it. According to ebay.co.uk they are trying to sort out all glitches within the next 12 months.

HOW DOES THE BIDDING WORK AND HOW DO I BID ON AN ITEM? This is really easy to do. You must have a registered account with them. Its FREE if you are just buying but if you are selling this takes longer see below for more information on this. If you wish to bid or buy an item you must follow the following procedures:

1) Click on the item title from the featured or search listing.

2) This will take you into the auction page for that specific item.

3) Read the item description and make sure you understand it before bidding or buying.

4) If you need to ask the seller a question do so by clicking on the link at the top of the page where the sellers id and feedback number is.

4a) If you don’t need to ask the seller a question or questions regarding the item just scroll to the bottom of the page to check the posting and payment terms and conditions (Most ebayers use this feature so keep your eyes peeled) After reading that make sure you are happy about the payment and postage terms and conditions.

4b) If you are happy with all of the above just enter the maximum amount of money you are willing to bid on that item and click on the bid button. After you have done that it will take you into the confirmation page and make sure you adhere to placing a bid. It should then re-direct you saying one of the following:

5) "YOU ARE THE HIGEST BIDDER"

5a) "YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID BY ANOTHER USER"

It is really that easy.

HOW DO I SELL AN ITEM? In order to sell an item you must be registered and have a valid credit or debit card on file. Selling an item is easy just follow these methods:

1) Click on the "SELL" tab at the top of the page. If you are not a member it will ask you to register again as a seller and ask you for your credit or debit card details or it will take you straight in to the selling area where you can select your category.

2) Search for the relevant directory where your item should be listed. (If you don't do this eBay have the rights to remove the auction if it is in the incorrect directory.

3) Enter you eBay item title and description on the next page.

4) When you have done that you must enter the payment methods you accept. Whether it is PayPal (Most used), Cheque, Bankers Draft or Postal Order. You can select other payment services if you use things like E-GOLD, NOCHEX, STORMPAY, FASTPAY (Natwest Online Payments), Etc.

5) When you have done that you get the opportunity to add extra features to your listing such as pictures, and other listing boosts (The boosts cost allot though).

SELLING BOOST COSTS:

HIGHLIGHTED: £1.50
BOLD: £0.75
GALLERY: £0.15

FEATURED PLUS: £9.95 HOME PAGE FEATURED: £49.95
FEATURED GALLERY: £15.95
BUY IT NOW: £0.06
SCHEDULED LISTINGS: £0.12
LIST IN 2 CATEGORIES X 2 OF THE FINAL TOTAL.

Here are the basic insertion fees:

START / RESERVE PRICE --- LISTING FEE

£0.01 - £0.99 ---£0.15
£1.00 - £4.99 --- £0.20
£5.00 - £14.99 --- £0.35
£15.00 - £29.99 --- £0.75
£30.00 - £99.99 --- £1.50
£100.00+ --- £2.00

Starting a reserve item can cost a lot of money on eBay. I once listed my first laptop on there for a reserve of £800.00. It hit the reserve and the reserve amount got refunded to my seller account.

HOW DOES THE FEEDBACK RATING SYSTEM WORK? This is the main bit you want to be focusing on. If you have brought or sold an item you are eligible for item feedback.

There are 3 types of feedback available at the present time. They are stated as the following:

POSITIVE: You are meant to see more of these than of the ones below. This shows that the buyer or seller was really happy with the transaction. This type of feedback adds to your reputation number.

NEUTRAL: This means the buyer or seller was not dissatisfied or pleased with the transaction This leaves your feedback at the same number as before.

NEGATIVE: I hate these. Most people hate them. This means the seller or buyer was really dissatisfied with the purchase and transaction. The not minuses 1 positive feedback from you feedback status.

THERE IS A BLUE AND RED ABOUT ME LOGO NEXT TO THE BUYERS NAME, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

You have your "ABOUT ME" page, which gives the opportunity to other eBay sellers and buyers to really get to know you. The more good stuff you write the better your chances of either selling an item or getting pre-approved for an item. You can even add pictures to this page.

WHAT IS AN EBAY SHOP AND HOW DO I GET ONE?

Having an eBay shop is recommended if you are listing lots of items instead of just the couple of items. You will see that most of the shops belong to power sellers. More is explained about Power sellers below. To get an eBay shop you must have a feedback rating of 10 or more. This must now be 100% positive feedback. No Neutral or Negative. If you choose to have an eBay shop eBay will charge you reasonable and unreasonable amounts of money to get one. The charges are as follows:

Basic - £6 - This means that you will get no advertising done by eBay. It will not appear in search results.

Featured - £30: This not only is featured in search results it’s easier to use. The only thing is that the £30.00GBP is per month. They a lot of money in the long run.

Anchored - £300: Yes you have to this. If someone clicks on eBay shops from the homepage you shop will be there in at the top of the page in an anchor. Not many people choose this item at the moment. This is because you have to pay £300.00GBP per MONTH. That’s what I call daylight robbery. The only good thing about the shops is that you have longer durations like 30 day "BUY IT NOWS" 60 day "BUY IT NOWS" 90 Day listings. You also have the opportunity to have a GTC (Good till Cancelled listing) at 30 days. The prices are cheaper for listing in EBay shops at only 5p per Listing. Extra if you use the other features above like BOLD and HIGHLIGHTED.

THERE IS A MY EBAY TAB AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE, WHY IS IT THERE? The answer to that is that its you own private area of eBay. No other member can see what items you are selling and watching. This is brilliant I use mine a lot.

WHAT IS THE CUSTOMER SUPPORT LIKE? IN relation to that question the online fellow ebayers are willing to help at all times in the community forums. Whether you are a new member or stuck on finding things to buy and sell. You can also get recommendations there. As for the EBay staff, they are completely useless. They haven’t got a phone number to contact on the website all that is there is automated e-mails which you cannot reply to.

WHAT IS THE COMPETITION LIKE? The competition is really good. You see other people selling the same item but then you see the other person not selling the same item. Competition is great on eBay and the better the feedback total the more chance you have of selling. I sold information on how to get Sony laptops for £20.00GBP the other week for £0.30P. I sold about 3000 e-mails to buyers who want to know. Many of them have praised me for this. Other people when I was selling the item were charging about £9.99. I saw one auction ended at £369.54p for just the information.

WHAT ARE POWERSELLERS? Power sellers are people you can trust as it goes with buying an item. You cannot apply to become a Power seller, as eBay must select you. There are different types of Power sellers. See below for a diagram: Members have five tiers to aspire to - Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Titanium - each enjoying the Power Seller Benefits reserved just for them. From fast track customer service and exclusive Power Seller Programmes to 'best practice' discussion boards, our Power Seller Programme is designed to help you grow your e-commerce business and increase profits on eBay.

WHAT IS MY VIEW OF EBAY? My view of EBay is really good. The only downsides are that you get the occasional stupid buyer that tries to tarnish your reputation. The fees are TOO high as well. My view is that eBay is great for buying not so much as selling due to the charges. EBay is the best for online advertising as they have over 100 Million members worldwide. Follow the methods above and get an account.

How to Jumpstart Your Site's Exposure: Pay-per-clicking

So you’ve published your e-commerce site and you’re waiting on Google to give you some free ranking. What can you do in the meantime to get some traffic to your store? The answer lies in the world of pay-per-clicking. A pay-per-click is when a site pays Google (or any search engine) for every click into their site from a chosen search term. On Google and Yahoo, the results in the grey box at the top and along the side of the page are all pay-per-click results. The secrets to success in pay-per-clicking are budgeting, good ad copy, and an attractive site.

To make pay-per-clicking worth your while, you must budget how much you’re going to spend. Google makes this process much easier by automating your budget. When you sign up, you choose how much money you want to spend on advertising in a day, and Google stops showing your site in search results after you reach that limit. Another important part of budgeting is to make sure that your sales are making up for what you spend. Pay-per-clicks should not eat into your profits; otherwise it’s better to simply wait on the free ranking.

Good ad copy is essential to any sales success, and pay-per-clicking is no different. Google actually uses the description you write in deciding how high to rank you among the pay-per-clicks. It’s true that the highest bidder gets the top ranking, but your ad copy is still an important factor. Also, your ad copy is the only thing that potential customers will use to decide if they want to enter your site. It must be able to grab people’s attention.

Having an attractive site is imperative to converting clicks into sales. It doesn’t matter how many people come into your site if they’re all leaving. This means you need an attractive color design and an easy site layout to make people want to buy. Consider hiring a consultant or even a web designer to make sure you have the best looking store possible. You could also do the extra work of educating yourself in a web design program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage to build everything yourself. If you do all these steps, your site will be on the quick path to sales!

Turn Your Small Business Website into a Marketing Machine!

It is surprising to see how many Websites are just informational in nature or seem to exist solely for company status. Some companies still view their Website as nothing more than an online brochure. If your company is one of these, you are foregoing an extraordinary marketing opportunity.

Big corporations especially are prone to positioning themselves on the Internet with Websites that are more about “flag waving” than generating new business. Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized companies have mimicked this approach as well.

Your Website is your company’s window to a worldwide market. It is more than just a vehicle to distribute information or automate administrative tasks. Correctly exploited, a company Website can become its primary marketing tool, generating new business around the clock.

Here is a simple checklist of activities you should be conducting on your company Website:

Marketing your products or services online, offering incentives and e-commerce for transacting sales.

Building an opt-in email list by offering a free newsletter subscription, free trials, whitepapers, ebook or other meaningful incentives. Email marketing costs only fraction of traditional marketing methods and opens a direct marketing channel to qualified buyers.

Adding downloadable marketing materials that prospects can print out.

Posting press releases, testimonials, awards, management team overviews and other materials that enhance company credibility in the eyes of your target markets.

Recruiting dealers and affiliates to broaden your marketing channels.

Establishing strategic partnerships with complementary (but not competitive) vendors that drive more qualified traffic to your site

Optimizing your site for search engines so that it bubbles up on the first page or so when someone enters germane keywords. This is much cheaper than pay-per-click advertising and has more credibility within the online community.

Investing in online press releases that include a link back to your site. These marketing vehicles receive widespread distribution and live forever.

Creating a business blog with links back to your site. Be sure to submit it to the growing number of blog directories.

Writing articles (like this one) that gain widespread distribution through free online submission sites. Of course, include a link back to your site. You can even set up your own RSS feed that is submitted to hundreds of directories, driving interested readers to your site.

When all is said and done, your Website is a marketing machine. Visitors must be able to quickly find what they are seeking and should be guided to the results or actions you wish them to take. If you embrace this perspective and diligently apply the marketing techniques outlined above, your company will be blessed with increasing sales and steady growth.