Online Trading Speeds Up

Online trading flourished during the dot-com boom and remains a popular way for individual investors to manage their portfolios. Long gone are the days when one needed to call a stockbroker to trade stock and the high fees associated with such one-on-one transactions.

Traditional online trading is conducted using a Web browser and an online broker. To place an order, a client logs on to a broker&s Web site and the broker submits it to the market.

But even this method may result in a slower execution of the order. New advances in technology have made the process faster and more efficient.

Direct Access Trading, also known as DAT, has quickly become the choice for both casual and serious investors. One company helping individuals harness the power of this technology is RushTrade.

Using special software, customers place orders to buy and sell securities that are routed to the market using direct access technology. The software analyzes which route will allow for the best execution.

Direct Access Trading can shave anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes off transaction times. By executing orders quicker, investors get the best price available without having to wait for a middleman to execute the order. Faster transaction speed is not the only benefit of Direct Access Trading over traditional online trading; lower-cost bulk transactions are another plus.

Traders find such speed and cost-effectiveness attractive, regardless of whether they trade a few times per quarter or many times a day. Companies like RushTrade have structured commission schedules that fit any type of investor.

Fraud Protection And E-commerce

Fraud Protection on the Short term

The bad guys that have this debit card data are not going to attack online merchants for goods that they will have to convert to cash. They have been walking straight to the ATMs for the green dollar.

The impact on merchants in the CNP world will be minimal; certainly no more than a few numbers of credit cards but probably less. I do not think the CP merchants will feel it much either. Consumers, on the other hand, are going to take a huge hit. As you probably know, credit card holder&s liability is limited to $50 under FTC regulations but I do not think there is any such limit for debit cards. The card holder is responsible for keeping the PIN private and shame on him if it gets out and he does not report the card stolen.

And yes the banks will almost certainly do what they can to keep their card holding customers happy, particularly if the cleaned out account can be traced to a compromised PIN by whoever it shakes out is accountable. Will that responsibility always be traceable? I do not know. But even if the banks in the end cover those losses, the cardholder has to deal with his account being cleaned out and all that goes with it.

Fraud Protection on the long term

The big concern for the merchant, on line and off, is if the consumer confidence disappear. We already have confirmation that confidence in online transactions has been falling a bit. This first debit/PIN compromise by itself is survivable, but if it turns out that it was not a one-time thing and we have all of a sudden discovered that PIN transactions are not as safe as we thought. Well, then on line merchants are in trouble and brick and mortar could be in trouble as well.

And I wonder how long the banks are able to calm down their debit card holders. When will they begin to pass the losses to the cardholders like they already pass them on to the online merchants now? It could become a matter of continued existence.

Promoting Your Software Made Easy

Why would a software company overlook one of the easiest and quickest ways to promote it’s products online? This would seem to be a rhetorical question except for the fact that I run a shareware site and am constantly on the search for new software to add to my site. The thing is that only half of the programs I want to add to my database have PAD files available.

A PAD file is a simple XML file that contains all the information a developer would normally type into a web form at a software site. XML knowledge is not needed to create a PAD file. You can get one free at http://www.padgen.org/.

The software is basically self-explanatory. Just fill in the forms. It only takes about a half and hour to create a pad file and upload it to your site. It takes even less time if you already have a website to promote your product. Then you can just copy and paste the info you already have. And once your pad file is done, submitting to shareware sites is as easy as copying and pasting the address of your PAD file.

But why isn’t PAD technology used more often? Of course, it could be ignorance. Now ignorance is not a bad word. It just means that you haven&t heard of this technology that can increase download of your products three times over, a technology that means you can submit to anywhere from 300 to 700 software sites on the internet within an hour, depending on whose figures you use.

Most sites that use pad files don’t even require a membership. Mine doesn’t. This means you could submit your software to one site in the time it takes to copy and paste the address of your pad file into one form, hit submit, and then choose a category. Then you’re off to the next site. Submit and forget.

If this still seems like too much work, you can download software programs that will do all the submission work for you. Just think, it could finish your software submissions to hundreds of sites in the time it takes you to eat lunch.

Or maybe software marketers just don’t know the true value of submitting software to software sites. People actually go to software sites to find software. That sounds like a stupid statement but not when you realize that most general directories, except maybe DMOZ or Yahoo, are rarely used as search tools. They have mainly become an SEO tool. When searchers are looking for something general, they go to Google, Yahoo, or MSN. But when they look for software, they generally end up at a shareware site and stay for a while.

Of maybe you don’t develop shareware. The software you develop must be purchased before it is used. No trial period, because of the risk of it getting cracked. That’s fine. I really understand this reason. I was a developer who had my software cracked three times before I gave up on the whole shareware thing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a demo, a stand alone program that acts as a teaser. It will only be a matter of time before the software user opts to by the full version. Just make sure your demo teases enough but not too much.

So submitting PAD files to software sites has the effect of killing two birds with one stone. Yes, you get a multitude of links back to your site, but those links have more value than just increasing your pagerank. People will actually be using them to get to your site. As software developers, we have a tool that makes the process a lot easier and quicker than other marketers. Not using it now that you know is laziness.

Accepting Credit Cards on your Website

If you are building an online shop, you will need to address the question of taking payments for orders. You can, of course, request that a check payment be sent to you in the mail. Most shopping basket software allows you to select this option when you are setting it up. If you already have an offline, bricks and mortar business, you may simply wish to accept credit card payments over the phone.

However, there are some basic problems with these solutions and it all comes down to the way people shop on the internet. Customers expect to be able to add items to their basket and proceed to the checkout to pay. If they then find they must telephone you or print out and send their order, they may simply abandon their order and hop over to another website. Shopping online is all about convenience and if you are unable to provide this, you may be losing customers without even being aware of it.

So, what are your options and what is it all going to cost? Well, the good news is you can do it all very simply and cheaply. Paypal does not have a set-up charge and is a large and trusted online payment processor servicing 78 million accounts worldwide in 56 countries. Your only cost is a small percentage on each sale; a transaction charge. Payments from your website go straight into your Paypal account from where you can transfer amounts to your bank account with the click of a button.

Once you sign up with a payment processor, you can either link to their secure server from your shopping basket facility or build &add to basket& buttons via a simple web query form. The html generated is then pasted next to items on your web page and your customers will be transferred to a secure server when they go to checkout.

Traditional merchant accounts are normally set up through your own bank and will become integral to your business account. Having your own merchant account gives you the choice of many different online payment gateways. Most, however, do charge a set-up fee, monthly fee and transaction charge. Just as you would offline, do make sure you research any company you sign up with on the internet. Print out and read their terms and conditions. Take particular notice of where they are operating from, their fees, when and how you will receive your money into your account.

Another point to consider is the question of chargebacks. This happens when a buyer requests a refund of an amount already paid to you. Reasons include not receiving goods ordered or items arriving faulty, damaged or not as described. Sometimes requests are made if the buyers card was used fraudulently.

If the chargeback request is successful, your merchant payment processor will charge you a processing fee. However, some companies will now provide you with insurance against chargebacks inclusive in your monthly fee. It’s certainly worth shopping around for the right solution for you but knowing you have done your research will give you some peace of mind.

Excellent E-Commerce Solutions

When you have a small home-based business, and are basically just starting out, there are many great ways to make a large leap ahead. One of these great methods is to sell online merchandise. An online store can be set up relatively easily and e-commerce has been proven to be quite successful. There are many sites online these days that make e-commerce an excellent decision for your business.

Microsoft now offers a great service known as Bcentral, and is offering great deals on server and hosting packages that run on a monthly scale, or basis. This is a great tool for the individual that is looking to delve into the e-commerce field. If you have an idea for a catalog, and need tools to get it up and running such as templates, and logo creators this could be your solution you’ve been waiting for. Not only will you receive the templates and the graphic creators, but also you will receive the quaint shopping cart in the top right hand side of the page. Having the opportunity to track and control orders and sales is made very easy as you will receive automated conformation through your e-mail. Being able to become a member in the PayPal system is also a good idea, as you can never have enough payment options attached to your site. This just increases your chances of sales. You will also be given the opportunity to keep track of customer traffic to your site as well. This makes for a very handy service indeed.

Another great service is provided by Ebay, the stores offer a very popular alternative and have a sliding fee scale to fit most businesses needs and budget. The basic service is for the smaller of the businesses that have a smaller volume of traffic. This does not mean that you will not have access to some great tools for your site,but you will not be able to keep track of the flow of traffic or sales with this service and there is a very limited directory, yet it is still a good service for someone who is just starting out. The next level of the ebay service will provide more for the business that may be needed as time goes on. It places your priorities in relation to the product you are trying to sell; knowing exactly what the consumer is looking for makes it easy for them to adjust your targeted areas. You will get some traffic reports and sales figures, but not many. The third and final level of the ebay store program is exactly where you want your business to be placed. This is the premier spot or the center stage. This is the place where the bulk of the strongest traffic will be located. This will give you a much stronger shot at making those sales.

Ebay Tips For Buyers and Sellers

As a buyer you are trying to find bargains i.e listings with the best price (Buy It Now Items) or listings with the fewest bids (Auction Items). Generally these listing are the ones that get the least amount of visitors, and most of the time it is because of missing keywords (Product Serial, Manufacture Name…etc) in the title field. Thus, the key is finding listings that contain misspelled keywords or listings that are missing important keywords in the title field. Since the default eBay Search box only searches the title field, you can often increase your chances on finding deals by checking the “Search title and description” check box.

The next thing you will need to know is the “Art Of Gaging An Item Price on eBay”. A nifty way to find the going price for an item is by looking at the ended listings. To search for ended listings, simply click “Advanced Search” link found under the upper right hand search box. And then check the “Completed listings only” check box before beginning the search.

Always “Find Reserved Price Auctions”. You will be amazed at how many people just don’t bother bidding when they see the reserve price tag, most of times the reserve price is less then 10% of the item going rate which means huge savings. Remember however to place your bid in the last 10 seconds.

A nifty way to save cash on items is by offering sellers an end bid early option. The key here is that you will have to find recently listed item (less then 100 views) and from sellers with fewer than 50 feedbacks. Try to keep your initial offer to no lower then 10% of the regular eBay price (See Gaging Item Price).

If you are a pro on eBay then you will mostly likely only bid twice on an item. The first bid is optional and it meant to take the item out of the “Buy It Now”, since you will be more likely to win the item at a lower price through an auction. The second bid should come on the last 10 seconds of the auction, this maybe longer if you are on dial-up

You can tell a lot about your competition (fellow bidders) by looking at their previously won items to see their bidding pattern. You will be amazed at how many people keep their last bid to a whole dollar, meaning you only need to add a cent to snipe them in the last 10 seconds.

You will be more likely to win an item at a lower price on a weekday then a weekend. The reasoning is simple, less competition, most people with jobs will be unavailable or less likely to bid, and thus increasing the probability of winning the item at a lower price.

Did you know eBay occasionally issues Paypal coupons that could save you anywhere from (5 % -10 %) when paying for your eBay items.

You can save a lot from buying from sellers with little or no feedback. But again the key is knowing your seller so you don’t get burned. Here is what I do before I place a bid, first I email the seller, asking him/her about the condition of the item. If he/she replies back then I check the email headers to get the remote ip address, I then go to a WHOIS database and verify the location of the seller. If everything is OK so far, I contact the seller through telephone to verify the item, its condition…etc. Remember that eBay only covers up to $175, so it’s best to ask for insurance and always ask for shipping with tracking. Also I found its best to stick with Paypal as payment option.

As a buyer you need to be aware of the following points:

• Be suspicious of sellers with low rating.
• Be suspicious of sellers using stock pictures (pictures from manufacturers website).
• Sellers who use free email (Hotmail, GmailScience Articles, Yahoo..etc).
• Sellers who do not accept Paypal.
• Sellers who do not reply to email.
• Low rating sellers with 1 day listings.

Ecommerce Development – Important for small businesses

Owning a small business in this day and age is becoming more difficult. The fact is that major franchises, chains and large stores are taking over the little guys out there. Everyday in every small town, people witness the little shops, stores and service providers slipping into the cracks and closing shop. This is sad, especially with all of the tools and resources available on the internet. Using the internet is just another method of advertising, a newer tool in the tool box that these small businesses can use to increase their annual revenue and remain open for business.

Not that the internet is a new tool, it’s simply not, but it is new to a lot small business owners out in the country struggling to stay alive. To many small business owners, computers and the internet are a scary and uncharted territory for them. These business owners have a false sense of cost and productivity that having a web presence can bring. Not only is it essential to have a website in today’s changing market, it is essential to have an ecommerce website that sells all of the products and services a business offers. Trends are leaning towards people using the internet as their own personal tool at home to look for the perfect car, house, mop, jewelry, anything really. Sitting at home and browsing is a lot less intrusive than going out in a car to the store, especially with the costs of gas going up, to find exactly what they are looking for.

Why not use this semi-new tool, the internet, to grow your business online and reach a much larger target audience for your products and services. Having an online presence is really not enough of a tool, if you provide either a service or good (merchandise) and it can be used world wide, then you need to present that to the world. You may just find as a small business owner, that providing vital information, services and goods to the larger online public is a very lucrative and smart business decision.

How would a small business go about getting an ecommerce developed website? Search that powerful tool again, the internet. Find a reputable web design firm that specializes in ecommerce development and ecommerce shopping cart solutions. Pick a web design firm that provides high quality work, but thinks about designing an ecommerce website driven from just the “design” point of view. Your ecommerce website does need to look professional, but more importantly it needs to flow and function properly. Your visitors should be able to decide from your navigation what area of your website that interests them the most. Your visitors should be able to use your online tools, navigation and shopping cart easily without confusion or error.

It is more than important to develop a properly working ecommerce website. If you are not utilizing this great tool, the internet, to your small businesses advantage, then you are most certainly missing out on sales, leads and customers. Owning a small business doesn’t mean you have to fade away when the next big chain store settles in next door to you. Fight back, with the fairest tool around, the internet. Get your small business a website that has the ecommerce power to reach all of your target demographic audience and watch your money roll on in.

Significance of E-commerce for Web Development

Mainly with the competitive situation that the present industry is experiencing, businesses were able to come up with a notion of expanding their services online. Through this service they were able to easily meet with the increasing demands in the market. And because of the intensive services brought up online clients and customers were able to easily reach out to attain their needs.

The internet indeed is among one of the most helpful tool in reaching out for them. For, through an online search customers easily and quickly get what they are in need of and as well as having lots of choices and abundant opportunities to cling on.

However setting up online businesses is same as selling your products and services in the local market. The only difference is in the market you may be tired and exhausted of selling and explaining about the details of your products. While with the online service you manageably operate your service even at the convenience of your offices or even homes.

Moreover the development of web sites had been commercial companies’ expansion of their service. Mainly the innovations made in technology had remarkably changed the way businesses work on with their projects. However putting up an online service is not as easy as setting them online and let them operate. In planting an online service you have to be specific and communicative.

Sequentially in order to have an effective means of presenting your business e-commerce web development can significantly work out to create a remarkable marketing site for your business. E-commerce had been an effective means for web development for it had been an efficient mainstream in selling your companies products and services.

Basically with the application implemented through e-commerce web development your business is able to gain traffic and turning your site visitor into potential customers. And attain to achieve top quality e-commerce solutions for a more profitable online store.

Primarily with the numerous services that are sprouting at present you can surely attain your need for e-commerce web development project. Simply by means of choosing for the right company for your job for sure you can achieve to have a successful web site. With the companies’ knowledge and experience they can help you perform tasks that will integrate your designs and as well as build and manage profitable internet stores.

Ecommerce Stores

The Internet opens up so many opportunities for a company to exist and to expand their operations worldwide. It opens up a global marketplace in which people from all over the world can buy and sell goods and services from the comforts of their own homes. The Internet opens up so much opportunity that more and more conventional stores are becoming e-tailors. Everyday more and more ecommerce stores are appearing on the Internet in all countries. If everyone is doing it, then why aren’t you?

Discount Domains is well known in the field of domains and web hosting and we now offer discount web design services. We offer services for static ecommerce stores as well as the dynamic ones. Ecommerce is the process of shopping for what you want to buy and paying for it on the Internet and an ecommerce store allows customers to do just that. An ecommerce store costs less then the average person might think it would, it can run as little as ₤1k to get up and running depending upon the features that are needed. It reduces the cost of operations in many ways.

First off, it reduces some paperwork because the customer enters everything themselves. Instead of an employee writing down or typing the customer’s basic information, the customer enters all of the details themselves. Secondly, it saves on time. An ecommerce store provides convenience for the company and the customer. It can provide a customer with everything they need in front of them to shop around and to make the purchase including whether or not the item they want is in stock. A customer can do this anytime of the day without needing an employee to show them around the store. Thirdly, an ecommerce store could save on overhead. If a company has an ecommerce store instead of an actual physical location then the company can save on things such as rent, inventory costs, some telephone services, electric, and heating services. The company can manage their store from anywhere in the world.

Most people today are using the Internet and having an ecommerce store will take your products and services right into their homes and businesses. An ecommerce store will save many expenses. This savings can be put towards other things that your company needs. Your store will also act as advertisement for new products and services that you want to offer in the future. Based upon the orders that you receive on your ecommerce store, you can decide which products and services to discontinue based upon sales or lack of sales. Your store will help you process orders using credit cards, pay pal, and other payment methods. Your ecommerce store will also bring you new customers you may not have reached with your traditional physical store. The possibilities with an ecommerce store are endless.

We want everyone to find your store so we will design it with this in mind. Discount Domains understands search engines and we build sites that are search engine friendly. We have many designs to choose from and your store will be an original design. We build sites and ecommerce stores that are user friendly as well. Your store will be easy to navigate so that your customers will keep coming back to buy more products and services. We want your customers to go through your store with little or no problems. We will design you a professional ecommerce store according to your wants and needs. Your customers will be able to find you when they need to find you at anytime of the day or night because you will be open 24 hours a day. Your store will never sleep.

Mark is a webmaster with Discount Domains a leading UK web design house. Please feel free to republish this article provided a working hyperlink remains to our site.

Blogs, Podcasting, and RSS

You probably have heard all these terms an awful lot lately. You wonder about what these technologies do? What value to they provide? If you aren&t up to speed on these new applicationS & How they are impacting retail online interaction then read this brief further.

Will these technologies impact you? To be honest, it’s too early to tell – but awareness drives innovation and maybe your team will develop an idea/application that truly changes a portion of your eCommerce business.

Here’s the rundown:

Blogs

What it is:

Probably the most well known of the three, blogs allow everyday people to quickly develop a website and distribute any type of content that they desire. Many web entrepreneurs use this functionality to develop online stores within niche markets, while using search popularity to beat out larger retailers on the specific terms within the market.

Where Blogs make make sense is within targeted online communities. Certain blog authors develop a large base of specific visitors, hence the site becomes a target market for viral marketing. By integrating your brand image within the site experience at that SPECIFIC blog, you as an online marketer are able to truly segment your marketing PRIOR to converting someone as a customer.

Should you care:

If you have a very unique value proposition, or sell to a very specific or high-value customer segment, blogs can be a great way to increase overall brand awareness. You can better connect with your customers and provide detail into the current sales/promotions that you are providing.

Podcasting

What it is:

Pocasting should be just called mobile video broadcasting – Apple&s marketing/development team did a great job with branding their device to a type of emerging media! Similar to traditional radio and television, mobile video broadcasting delivers branded content in either a paid/free environment, on someone&s mobile MP3 player (Apple only does video currently, but that will change shortly). Retailers can use this communication channel to further connect to their customers with promotional events, while transmitting specialty programming to meet an interest need.

Should you care:

Not really. Until video podcasting penetration increases, it’s still a limited channel for advertising. The best application available right now would be an online content segment that is digitally delivered to an opt-in list. As technology advances, you can potentially do this from your current opt-in page from your website and not from Apple&s iTunes platform.

RSS

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and is a method for electronic content distribution. RSS is transmitted via the internet, but what makes it unique is that no downloading efforts are needed by the end receiver of the content. It streams instateneously. Consumers can have news readers on their computers, either integrated into an emal client, or an aggregated web application such as News Gator, and are able to get information relating to their interests.

Already gaining steam in the travel industry and within comparison shopping engines, RSS seems to be a valuable way to push news, offers, and infomrmation to customers. Travel companies are able to provide a streaming supply of last minute airfare offers to their customer segments, without that customer having to open an email or visit a webpage.

Should you care:

Depends on the nature of your business. Do you consistently offer new prices? Do you get new pieces to your assortment consistently? Do you have a customer base that is extremely loyal that you want to reach out to with messaging? If so, RSS may another channel to help build your brand.

Craig Smith

Trinity Insight LLC

http://www.trinityinsight.com

Online Shopping for Newbies

Everyone is talking about online shopping. It’s easy and takes a lot less gaS & Hassle than a trip to the mall. Online shopping puts unbelievable choice right at your fingertips. From large department stores to specialized boutiques, the latest designer fashions and closeout specials, it’s all there. You’ll find toys, high-end art and collectibles, cutting edge computers and electronics, flea market finds and auctions galore. In fact, you can find just about anything imaginable online, and some things that truly are not.

Online shopping is a godsend to shut-ins, busy working folks and anyone who, for whatever reason, cannot get out and do heavy-duty shopping. Now you can have a world-class selection of gifts at your fingertips and get most of your shopping done in a single evening without ever venturing into traffic, or trudging through crowded malls.

In many ways, online shopping is a return to the good old days when delivery services were a given. This alone can make the difference between sending token flowers and dispatching something great on special occasions. Your selections can be wrapped and on the road to delivery in less time than a drive to the mall. And for the times when flowers really are the right choice, you can now actually pick what you want and those selections are incredible.

Shopping online beats catalogue shopping without any trouble, too. Online you have incredible choices with far less time and effort than pouring through stacks of catalogues and sitting with a phone on hold only to be told that your color or size is not available. Formerly tiresome ordering tasks can now be done in minutes with the click of a mouse.

Although gift delivery is certainly a plus on special occasions, it doesn’t stop there. You can buy a whole new wardrobe, even a wedding or prom dress, office supplies, a new computer, you can redecorate your home, or shop for a new one, dabble in the stock market, balance a checkbook, pay your bills and even buy a car at your computer. So, what’s the catch?

Street smarts are the rule online and off. Everyone already knows when you go shopping, there are certain things you do and don’t do when it comes to your money and your personal security. Online that goes double.

At the Computer:

In addition to a set of well-honed cyber street smarts, when shopping online you should first and foremost be comfortable with your computer. There are a few things to remember if you are new to online shopping. The first is to click the BUY button only “once.” It may take a couple minutes for the transaction to process. If you click buy twice, you will be making the same purchase twice. There is not generally too much of an issue in clearing up the double purchase, but it can be a hassle. Double clicking is a common error for first-time online shoppers.

The second big rule is to keep copies of everything relevant to the transaction. Print out the pages with the description and prices of the items you order. Print out your credit card receipt. Most companies will email you a copy of the receipt as well. Keep that too, and make sure it matches your online information.

As all computer users know, sometimes a glitch will derail the best-laid plans. If your printer is down or goes down when you try to get your print outs, find the “Print Screen” key on your keyboard. Press it. Then go into your word processing or paint program and click “Paste.” You should now see a picture of what was on your screen at the time you made your purchase. This is the next best thing when a printer is not available.

Okay, you are comfortable with your computer already. All possible glitches are covered and you are ready for some serious shopping. What about those so-called cyber smarts?

Cyber Street Smarts:

Smart online shoppers, just like those in the physical world, know there are certain things you do to take care of yourself. They know to be aware of the neighborhood where they are shopping. They know to be aware of the reputations of the places where they do business. They know to watch their wallets, and first and foremost, when they are around strangers, they know to be aware of who might be scrutinizing them just a little too closely.

Know Who You are Doing Business With:

Do a little research. Anyone can build a website. If you encounter an unfamiliar company where you want to shop, find out who they are. Look for an address. Be wary of any company that does not list one. An address is no guarantee, but you can use it to check references with the Better Business Bureau, BBB. Their online site at http://bbb.org/ has nationwide listings.

Sometimes you may want more information than the BBB provides. In this case, after the BBB check, use your favorite search engine and try an “about search.” The difference in an “about search,” and just looking for the site, is that you already know where the site is; now you want to find out what people are saying about it. Generally, just putting “about” in front of the company name will get you started.

For a very small purchase, you might want to dispense with all this investigating. But do use a low limit credit card. That way if anything does go awry, it isn’t that far awry. Yes, we all know about the $50 liability limit, but the low limit card can be a hassle saver online.

You may choose not to use a debit card online at all. Many debit cards do not offer the same protections against fraud as credit card companies. You could be putting your whole bank account at risk.

While you are at it, be sure to check out the return policy and guarantee. Online and off, most good companies do accept returns, either by providing a cash refund or product exchange. Note, however, shipping costs are typically not refunded for online purchases.

Online Security:

After you’ve found exactly what you have been looking for, checked out the seller, and their return policy; the next thing you need to do is make sure the site is secure. Secure means your personal information is encrypted in transit to the seller’s server. This prevents unauthorized (hacker) access and possible misuse of your credit information.

Examine the URL in the address bar. If the site is encrypted you should see an “s” directly after the http – like https://… The whole site will not be encrypted, but the order page for the transaction should be.

Other things to look for – depending on your browser, you may see either an open or a closed padlock, or a whole or broken key. If the key is broken or the lock open, you should assume that the site is not encrypted.

Sometimes security issues get tricky. Suppose you personally know the owner, it is a solid local business, but there is no encryption system in place and they expect you to transmit your credit information online. With small businesses, this is most often a case of not knowing better, that does not, however, mean that you do not. In cases like this, look for a phone number and call in your order. If there is no phone number and no mailing address, you should seriously consider whether you want to risk an unsecured online transaction.

Common sense is the rule online and off. Guard your personal information, including Social Security Number, bank account information and passwords. No reputable merchant has a need for your Social Security Number and it is not standard policy to ask for it when you buy your groceries for instance. Requiring this for a routine purchase should send up a red flag and you should immediately take your business elsewhere.

Some online crooks will do whatever they can think of, in all kinds of official looking ways, to get your private personal information. If you call, they may personally assure you that they do indeed need your bank account and password to sell you that computer game. No way, just because it looks good, and they sound sincere, doesn’t mean that it is or they are, and you may not know there was ever a problem until you see your credit report.

Remember:

Online and off, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t let the heat of the offer lull you into abandoning your good common sense. Of course, you could miss the deal of a lifetime, and that is exactly what the unscrupulous want you to think. Likely as not, online and off – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Shopping the net is destined to change the way we do business, but it is still a new frontier, with many of the uncertainties that go with it. The only way to really be secure online is to develop your cyber street smarts and sometimes, even that may not be enough. It will certainly level the field though, and by keeping your cyber smarts well honed, you should be able to safely shop the net.

Copyright 2005 Regina Pickett Garson

4 Techniques To Sell A Site With No Traffic

As more and more Internet users are coming online to generate passive income, they start to look into websites that could help them to create passive streams of income either through commissions, user clicks or page impressions. Internet Entrepreneurs are now starting to build or acquire potential sites and flip them over to the buyers for a nice profit.

Although traffic is the key area when most people are considering when buying a website, other criteria are also important for the site to run and stay profitable in a long run. This article will help you to sell your site if you do not have much traffic flow.

The first technique is to mention how easy it is to maintain and run the site after the ownership transfer. An ideal site would be able to update its content automatically and using unique and fresh content. Some Webmasters use RSS feeds to dynamically load their sites with fresh content so that search engine will index their sites more often. Most buyers will be more than happy to buy a site that does not require them to write content and maintain. It is highly advisable not to have a site that contains 100% RSS feeds as this will not yield good results in the search engine rankings.

Another useful technique is to stress on the earning capabilities of your site. All website buyers are looking for an easy way to generate passive streams of income. For example, I normally incorporate Google Adsense, ClickBank and Amazon products review in my site and make sure that the new owner can easily change the affiliate id respectively. This is a very effective method that most buyers do not mind paying for.

The third technique is the ease of transfer. Most website buyers are not technically trained and hence, some may not even know how to install a database on a web server. It is always easy to sell a site that does not require a database and the buyer will appreciate it as they may resell these sites in future as well. If the site you are selling includes database operations, you may need to provide support after the deal to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

The last technique will assure the buyers that your site will proof worthy after the deal. This require you to have one or two profit generating sites with the same model of the sites that you are selling. When selling your new sites, quote the examples that you are now generating passive income from your old sites and show proof when necessary.

The above techniques are extremely powerful especially when you combine them with excellent sales pitch.

Selling Second-Hand Goods Online: A Lucrative Business

The internet has virtually changed the way we certain aspects of our lives. It has changed the way we view where we get the latest news, how to communicate with one another, how we play, how we shop and even how we trade and make money.

The internet has made these aspects of our lives more instantaneous and, with regards to shopping and trading, brought these activities to our door steps. It now allows us to shop and purchase items that we like by just looking at the items offered in different websites. Ditto for trading, where we now have the opportunity to sell and trade products and, thus earn money, from the comfort of our homes.

The potential for online trading is so great that there are now people who do this professionally. They have quit their regular jobs and instead work and support their families by buying and selling various products online.

One of the most lucrative and interesting aspect of online trading is the buying and selling of used or second-hand goods. Through the power of the internet, web based marketplaces have sprouted all over where visitors can browse around for various second hand goods and purchase them online. It is like a virtual flea market where you can browse through different items of interest that have been owned previously by other people. The significant difference between doing this in an actual flea market and selling it online is the number of people of potential customers that will see your items. Potentially, the people that will be able to see your items online can number in the high thousands, and that is just a conservative estimate. What’s more since you sell your items online, you won’t have to man any stalls or booths. If there is a person who wants to buy your items, then you just get notified by email. Isn’t that convenient?

People who would like to try selling their used goods online don’t even have to set up their own websites – which can be quite difficult especially since you will need to install a payment gateway which can be quite hard and expensive to set up. They can always go join online communities that encourage the buying and selling of used goods. Communities like http://www.usedjunction.com make the task of selling used goods so much easier. These websites already have their infrastructure in place that can accommodate both the buying and selling functions of a virtual marketplace. Another benefit of joining these online communities is that you get to take advantage of the marketing muscle of the website. With minimal marketing efforts from you as a seller, you can be assured that prospective customers will still be able the items that you are selling. This is a tremendous benefit that should not be overlooked. Just make sure that you give a good description of your item, and more importantly good quality pictures of the items that you are selling so that you can be noticed by prospective buyers.

Women Footwear For Comfort and Style!

Women footwear offers a better variety than men’s footwear. You have a wide array of women footwear to choose from. Women cowboy and girl sweater slouch boots are ideal for fashion lovers to show themselves stylish. You can keep up pace with changing trend and fashion by outfitting T-shirts and short skirts or thin leggings with buckle strapped slouch boot. Jeans, skirt and casual dresses look special with fashionable footwear. If you are having a suede slouch boots wearing a pink Shirt and ankle-length jeans is a great choice for a wonderful look.

Pick up the right footwear for the right outfit!
You can wear this footwear with shoulder sweater over thin pants or vest over a white shirt of button down style for passionate look and composure. And to steal the attention of all others on you, it’s a good idea to pair slim jeans with stacked slouch boots. Now its up to you to decide, which is your ideal choice? If you are a boot lover, there’s plenty of choice online. Boots are key, you must have an ankle boot and a tall boot and you can never have too many pairs of ballet shoes. We have a large range, lots of colour and styles to suit every outfit.

Just like you have different footwear for different outfits, similarly you have different footwear for varied seasons. Winter brings the launch of Leather Expressions range, your feet will love leather upper, leather lining. Women range are also available as general occupational footwear giving women from all walks of life the choice to alleviate the suffering caused by sore or tired feet at the end of a day’s work on your feet. This will help you if you are looking out for something soft to cool your heels.

Looking for that perfect pair of Australian summer footwear thongs to wear with everything? Look no further these silver metallic thongs with shell disc detail are perfect. Gold always looks great in summer! Wear them with white, denim or bold colour to create the ultimate summery feel. Add some colour to your summer wardrobe with some funky red thongs. The unique design will draw lot of comments from your friends!

Based on the foot type, you also get removable cushioned insoles which can be inserted to your footwear. You can use heel inserts while wearing this footwear for reducing stress and sticky feel. This can be particularly useful if you are a high heel addict yet at the same time fear the heel pain which is a natural outcome of wearing high heel. Try online for a myriad and beautiful range of women footwear Australia.

Building Your Online Store

The Internet is great at leveling the field for businesses. Where else can you put up a site and immediately compete with huge companies on an international basis?

What It Is

E-commerce, clearly termed as web commerce, basically means selling of merchandise or services over the Internet with electronic transactions and also through a secure network. E-com is not merely buying and selling or providing services but it is also a method of advertising and marketing through an electronic system as well. E-com also means facilitating the progress of commercial transactions electronically. Right now e-com is a well-established technology in all major countries. In most cases internet marketing requires you to have your own E-commerce store for maximum return.

Requirements of an E-commerce Store

Building an online store is not an easy job. Software is required that can manage customers as well as their needs. E-commerce software should be able to handle inventory, shipping and handling costs, taxes, dispatching and payment processing of client&s orders. You may encounter many options when setting out to build an e- commerce store. Before choosing any of them it is important to have a clear view of your requirements. Technical requirements might include coupons, tracking systems, customer login options or any number of other things. Other requirements include what type of impression you want to provide to your valuable clients.

Study the Sales and Marketing Cycle to Determine Your Needs

Before you opt for any of solutions for building e commerce store, study the basic model of e commerce that represents the entire sales and marketing cycle. The first building block of this cycle is audience in which you define what type of customers you will target. Second are commodities, in which you characterize the types of products you will put on the market. Third is customer support where you will answer the questions and offer solutions to clients& or potential clients& problems. Next are advertising, marketing and endorsement where a business promotes the products or services. Then there is transaction processing, the most important technical phase of the cycle, which will handle orders, taxes, payment processing and order delivery. Transactions may be automatic or manual. In manual processing you have to enter credit card information manually through an offline terminal. In the case of automatic processing a client&s order form will be setup with a program that processes and charges the credit card for you. After that there are post-deal services regarding how you provide solutions and services after the sale. Last but not least is brand name with which you will create a distinctive business image to correspond with customers. Nobody is going to pay attention to your online store unless something catches their eye.

Research Your Options

Once you have defined your needs, you can then begin researching your options. There are two basic paths you may follow when building an e-commerce store – either buy ready made software or build a custom system with components and parts according to your requirements and budgets.

Flexibility

Some business firms offer gifts and well placed impulse products for better marketing approaches. This requires an e-com solution to be flexible enough to allow various give-aways, coupons and promotions. Also, if your product comes in a variety of models or styles, with different options and different prices then you must communicate these factors and portray them distinctively in your online store. A true businessperson will certainly follow the patterns of his or her usual clients as well as those who directly visit the site. Web statistic tracking tools can be a great help to this end.

Ease of Use

Some e commerce stores are very easy to use and require only a few minutes to learn while others are more complex with so many features that they can be overwhelming. Being able to see a demonstration of software before buying it is a great help to determining ease of use.

Scalability

Being able to grow with your company is very important. If you choose a very simple solution now, then require a more robust solution down the road, you will lose time converting your store. If the URL structure of your store is not consistent, you can also lose search engine rankings by changing e commerce solutions. Therefore, it is important to choose an e commerce solution that can grow with you. For example, some stores owners may not want coupons in the beginning but then down the road decide it is a good idea. Some stores may also have limits on number of products, inventory control and tracking that down the road will be very important.

Security

Of utmost importance to online stores is transaction security. The priority for any business firm should be secure transactions. Thanks to Netscape for introducing SSL (secure socket layer), data can be protected by online store owners. SSL is an encryption technology that encrypts a message and the receiver decrypts it by using RSA security. To enable SSL on your web server you need a digital ID (a form of identification that will recognize you). Many web hosts provide SSL installation for anywhere from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks per year.

Overall, you want flexibility, ease of use, security and scalability in your store. Research your options before you make a final choice, and whenever possible, get a free trial of your solution before you buy.

Expert Search Engine Optimization

With the huge number of websites that are entering the battlefield, it is difficult to play the number game, that of page ranking. It takes a huge amount of effort and new ideas based on the constantly changing scenario, to win the battle of the ranks.
Search engines index millions of pages for particular keywords and your website could be anywhere in the 10th or 20th page, if not optimized for relevant keywords.

What is expert search engine optimization? SEO or search engine optimization begins with coding, designing, and programming a website to ensure that the website appears at the top of search engines and attracts targeted high quality traffic. If the web pages are not optimized, they will not get high ranking and this leads to no results, and the number of search engines the site has been submitted to does not make any difference. This is where expert search engine optimization professionals come in.

The SEO professional is one who understands the intricacies of how search engines are coded, how they work, and what they expect from websites. With expert search engine optimization, a website can be made visible to visitors querying for various related keywords on the search engines.

Web pages should meet the needs of the visitors in a particular niche. The idea is for the target audience to find the web page information easily through web directories and search engines.

This is a daunting task and expert search engine optimization involves the scientific and artistic skills of a company that has the expertise and the high skill set required to perform and succeed at this task.

Being top ranked on the search engines for a keyword that only brings in about 30 people monthly is not what we are talking about. Just as with any form of marketing, expert search engine optimization providers ensure that the return of investment (ROI) is reasonable. It is the duty of the SEO expert to achieve rankings on search engines that actually bring enough traffic to the website concerned, to offset the money that is paid for his services.

Expert search engine optimization – why do you need them? Why can’t this be done by ourselves? Good question. ‘Experience’ is the keyword here. Because with experience, the expert is able to look into the various nuances of search engine optimization and provide the key to a successful campaign with ease.

When expert search engine optimization services are hired, you must ensue that the company has got a clear picture of the direction to take in order to obtain best results. This intelligence is what creates a miracle on search engines.
Expert search engine optimization professionals have a wide range of skills, such as web designing, copy writing, HTML knowledge, link development, keyword analysis, off page optimization, on page optimization, distribution of press releases etc. Different experts believe in using different methods and while some specialize in result-oriented copy writing, others are more technically savvy and look into things like IP delivery. Whatever the route taken, the goal is positioning and attracting traffic.
When choosing a company that provides expert search engine optimization services, it is important to look into the background of the company. There are hundreds of SEO service providers on the internet today claiming to be experts in search engine optimization. But are they competent enough? I’m afraid NOT. It is not a good idea to go by assurances; it is the results that are important.

It is a great idea to check the expertise level of the so called expert search engine optimization providers, by making sure they possess the complete skill set, which includes copy writing skills, ability to write great headlines that are catchy, and most importantly, solid technical skills. The last but certainly not the least is the aspect of looking into the previous work done by the SEO company in order to classify them as an expert search engine optimization company.

Make Money with An Unique Directory Submission Script

Chances are you have thought about owning your own website that can earn you some money on the side. Maybe like an extra income or something like that. You have been searching around the net and found many ways to make money with a website. But if you are a beginner who has no knowledge of web designing and marketing then where do you start. I mean you would to make a website first right? Yes you can hire a web designer to do this for you but that will cost money. If you have plenty of time and not much money to spend then you have found the right solution.

You may or may not have heard of ready-made scripts. Well, basically they are like software programs you have on the computer. But instead of running on your computer they run on your web hosting server. Just like a software, you would need to install it first and then you will get a fully functional website. All the hard work is already done. These are also known as turnkey scripts. PHP Dir Submit is an unique script that allows you to run a semi automated directory submission service website in 5 minutes. You can use the website to submit your websites and/or let others to join and pay for the service. You can charge anything you want or even make it free for the public. So there are many ways you can use this script to benefit you.

Why people want to use this instead of other submission service? The quality is same as manual submission and there are 3 parts in this one script. You users can submit to website directories, article directories and social bookmarking sites. All of which are preloaded with the script, so you can really start earning money from day one. Of course, if you want make it a bit more unique you can add more directories and social bookmarking sites. You can easily find these sites on the web by using “footprint search” in Google. If you are somewhat techie you can even modify the script to suit your needs. Or you integrate it to your existing website and use it to drive traffic to the site.

As you can see, PHP Dir Submit is a very useful script for people who wants to make money on the internet but don’t have much to spend. Personally I think the asking price is way too low for what it can do for you, I mean you can easily make the script pay for itself in the first day of using it.

Increasing The Perceived Value of Your Product or Service

Whether online or offline, small businesses often show little faith in the quality of their service or product. Instead, they tend to focus on the limitations and lower their prices. This natural insecurity can lead to disastrous financial results because lower prices cripple your return on investment.

Rest assured, you will make sales if you research the market, locate a need and provided a quality solution. Do not let insecurity waste the blood, sweat and tears you expended on the business. Instead, you should focus on building your credibility and displaying it on your site.

Consider the following:

If your product is the greatest thing since sliced bread, why are you selling it for a nominal amount? Sell it at a higher price to build credibility. This increases the perceived value because people associate higher prices with better quality.

Let’s look at professional services based on an hourly fee. If I write an e-book on Internet marketing for attorneys or accountants, the price I charge is going to be based on the conversion ratio. These professionals are particularly time conscious since they bill by the hour in their own practice. If my book promises to get them 10 clients each month producing $50,000 in revenues, the book is extremely valuable to them. If I charge $19.95, my credibility goes down the tube. Why would someone give away such valuable information for such a cheap price? On the other hand, if I charge them $599.99, the price adds to the credibility of my claims.

Don’t worry about charging too much for your service or product. You can always lower the price to ascertain the best figure for converting clients. It is much more difficult to raise the price for current clients.

Consider offering a free trial or consultation. This increases the perceived value of the service or product. Prospects will view you as credible because you would not give something away if it didn’t work.

If you know your stuff, you should be writing and publishing articles on the Internet. Unlike an advertisement, articles build an incredible level of credibility for authors and sites. If sites are willing to publish your articles, you must really know your area of expertise, right? You prospects will think so.

Include as many testimonials on your site as possible. The comments of previous purchasers will raise your credibility.

Give people a strong guarantee. For instance, most profitable e-books sites offer an unconditional 365-day refund policy. Yes, the customer has a full 365 days to ask for a refund. Will some people take advantage of this? Yes, but who cares? An e-book site requires little overhead, so the refunds are not adding much cost to your business compared to the increased sales you will get because of the guarantee.

Don’t kill your business by lowering your prices. If you are offering quality, charge accordingly and provide proof of your credibility.

4 Steps to Lower Your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

The shoppers are on your site, they are interested in the product, but the design of your shopping cart is causing you to lose many if not most of your customers. Sound familiar? It should.

Recent research indicates that the average e-commerce site is losing near 75 percent of its shoppers during shopping cart phase of a transaction. While that statistic is probably influenced upward by a few terrible websites, the fact remains that most sites are losing huge numbers of customers by not focusing on their shopping cart. Fortunately, by taking a few relatively minor steps, you can vastly decrease your shopping cart abandonment rate.

Fewer Steps are Better

This mantra is as old as e-commerce itself. By forcing your customers to go through multiple pages you will assuredly see some attrition. You should ask yourself, is all the information I am collecting absolutely necessary? Is there another configuration that would reduce the number of steps my customers will face? Surprisingly, however, this is probably the last step that you should take. Unless your process is particularly laborious, empirical studies indicate that this will likely affect your attrition minimally for the cost and effort required. So, I am not saying not to reduce your checkout steps, but only that you should prioritize the other steps above this one.

Progress Indicators

In both e-commerce and brick and mortars, the single biggest inhibitor to conversions is uncertainty. This is certainly easy to imagine when you consider some brick and mortar examples. BestBuy stores have transitioned to a single line for all of their cashiers rather than having customers pick a cashier to line up in front of. Why? The answer is simple, uncertainty hurts conversion rates. Humans have an instinctual desire to know what is coming ahead. By including a progress indicator at each and every step of the checkout process you will see some remarkable increases in customer retention. Even if you have a 10 step checkout process, letting customers know where they are along the process will ensure a much greater number of completions.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Shoppers respond to sensory stimulation. People like to take things off the shelf and inspect them. Because that option isn’t available for e-commerce sites, you need to compensate for this deficiency as best as possible. One way to ensure better conversions is to include pictures not only in the store but also in the cart. Shoppers, especially those new to e-commerce want to verify and re-verify that they have made the correct choice. Many of these customers are lost if you force them to use their browser’s back buttons to do so. By placing a picture of the item to be purchased within the shopping cart, much of this need is alleviated, meaning lower abandonment for you.

Provide Total Cost Estimates Early

One of the most overlooked concerns of customers is their distrust of e-commerce sites when it comes to shipping. Maybe it’s the years of telemarketers selling garbage products for close to nothing and then making their profit on the shipping. Whatever the reason, it is important to allay fears of hidden costs as soon as possible by providing your users with a total cost estimate earlier rather than later. Is there something to be said for bringing the customer in with a low-ball lead price? Yes. But after the leader it is important to let customers know what they are really paying as early as possible so as to give a few moments to acclimate to the increase.

eCommerce-Selling To The World

Think about this. You are planning to engage in “eCommerce”, to take your business online. So, you need to learn a new set of business rules, a new way of doing things, because online business is “different”, right?

Well, actually, no, not really. You still have a product or service to sell. You still have a store with a shop “window” (your website) and you still need the customers to visit your store, in order to buy whatever it is that you are selling.

The only major difference is that (continuing the analogy) your local store window can only be seen by a small group of people, whereas your online business can be seen by the whole world. By engaging in eCommerce, you can take your business “global”.
For many businesses, this is truly an advantage, representing a wonderful opportunity.

But that is not the case for everyone, particularly for companies who sell a physical , tangible product. When planning to go online, therefore, you should spend some time thinking about your product and exactly who your target market is, because this will be a crucial factor in determining whether your venture is a success or a failure.

What it is that you plan to market on your eCommerce enabled website, and who will want to buy it? Some products will, by their very nature, not be totally suited to a world wide market. Pork based food products for example, will not be popular in Muslim countries, nor will wine, whisky or beer. Sales of open toed sandals may be disappointing in Iceland, Greenland and the frozen polar North.

Secondly, give very careful thought about how you will get your product to the customer. For example, if you were to make laser toner cartridges in Asia (as one of my client companies does) there is absolutely no sense in trying to sell one or two cartridges at a time to a customer in the USA, because of the cost of delivery.

So, if your product is bulky or heavy, selling outside your locale may not be practical.

Furthermore, you need to consider that, whilst most countries use the same Standard International Trade Classification (S.I.T.C) codes for deciding on how much import duty to levy on a particular product, the actual duty to be paid varies from country to country, and such variations can (and will) lead to disputes. Again, using my client as an example, they sold a consignment of toner cartridges to a customer in Finland, which got held up in Customs for several weeks on arrival in Helsinki, because of a dispute over the Import Duties to be paid.

Whilst this was not the fault of my client or his customer, nevertheless, the result was an unhappy customer, who obviously did not become a regular customer.

Likewise, if you plan on selling a service online, can that service be provided outside your local area in such a way that you still make money? Do you need to have one of your own staff actually work with the customer (in which case, you need to stay local) or can the work be easily subcontracted on a global basis? Would it be easy to find such a local subcontractor capable of supplying your advertised service in such a way that both you and the customer are happy? How much would such a subcontractor cost?

Unless you can get positive answers to all of these questions, then, again, it may pay you to keep your services local, rather than overreaching, in order to become a global player.

The simple truth is that, whilst the global nature of the internet allows you so sell to the whole world, it is the nature of your product or service that will ultimately decide whether this is practical for your potential customers, and profitable for you, or not. To read more, http://webbiz99.com/ecommerce/

Software Takes Online Trading to Next Level

Online brokers are offering better features today, even as fierce competition leads them to charge less than ever before. More sophisticated software-based trading tools are emerging as an alternative to traditional Web site transactions.

Recently there has been a dramatic increase in the tools made available to average traders. Without the latest technology, brokers with browser-based platforms may not be the preferred choice anymore.

Advanced trading methods warrant the use of powerful trading software. For example, investors may want to implement “trailing stop” orders, which allow them to set limits on the maximum possible loss without setting a limit on the maximum possible gain. This removes the need for an investor to monitor the investment on an ongoing basis.

Software has clear advantages over browser-based trading. RushTrade&s Direct Plus software-based trading platform, for example, provides real-time market data and many features that allow strategic control of a portfolio.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing features of the software is the ability to create and automate “trade strategies.” Using RushTrade&s software, you could create a long strategy specifying the price you want to receive and the market conditions that must be met before your order is placed. You can also specify market conditions that will cause the strategy to be automatically cancelled. Trade Strategies is one of the most efficient ways to strategically control your trades and manage your risk.

Another benefit of software like Direct Plus is that most of the information can be displayed on one page and is fully customizable to suit the monitor size. Unlike a browser-based platform, it is not necessary to repeatedly refresh your screen to update the data or switch back and forth between pages. Software-based trading platforms allow you to see all of the information at once. Direct Plus actually supports more than one monitor for an expanded layout.

Software-based trading platforms, such as DirectPlus, are easy to use, load quickly and can display multiple windows of information at one time. This kind of software allows an investor to monitor quotes, charts, order execution, news, alerts and more, all at the same time.

Trading software is the next step for online investors. The Internet brought many casual investors to the stock market. Now, software applications like RushTrade&s Direct Plus usher in a new era for online investing.

Whats The Right E-Commerce Package For Your Business?

Recovering from the dot com crash in 2000, e-commerce is rising once again. Stay in the comfort of your home. Spend more time with your family. Be your own boss. The benefits of having a home business are numerous. That is why so many people are trying to run their own home business. Being enthusiastic about igniting their own income through the Internet, these people search to find how they can create their own business. Then they realize that there are so many options for them to choose from. So, what is the best e-commerce package for you? When it comes to e-commerce packages, most online merchants have the same basic needs. The trick is to make sure an e-commerce package satisfies your needs. Causing less frustration, you should also try to find something that will be easy to use.

Some important things to look for in an e-commerce package are:

1. Choose a provider that will give you a site and hosting combo.

Choosing a provider that helps you set up a site and hosts it for you can save you from a lot of frustration. By choosing a website and hosting combination, you are guaranteed that your e-commerce package will not have to be manually altered.

2. A wide variety of templates

While all templates can be customized, sometimes that just does not work for every business. If there is a large amount of templates to choose from, there is bound to be a template for your business.

3. Payments

You need to make sure that the payment options that your e-commerce package uses will satisfy your customers needs. For example if your e-commerce package only accepts Paypal, you will miss out on the customers that do not use Paypal. This will decrease your earnings.

4. Shopping Cart

Most people like to see what they are purchasing. Customers may also want to change what they want to buy. Perhaps they found something better.

5. Calculation of tax and shipping

While most customers probably will not be shopping from your state, tax is not a major problem. Shipping is a different matter. Shipping must be calculated for all customers. Customers also want to see what their shipping costs will be.

6. Reports

While reports are not beneficial to customers, they are beneficial for you. E-commerce packages that offer reports help you keep track of your expenses and earnings. They save a lot of frustration.

Building Ecommerce Web Sites: Where Do I Start?

Building a web site isn’t something that is really cut and dry. There’s a huge variety of products and services that can either help you get your web site where you want it or simply confuse you. It’s also important that you make the right choices upfront so that you don’t end up having to restructure your whole web site because of some problem in your design layout. The level of time investment neccessary for mastery in a lot of these software packages can range from little to a VERY significant amount. Because of this I feel it’s important to be lead in the “right” direction to make sure you don’t spend time in the wrong areas, or learning some software that might not be all that useful for you later on (*coughs* Frontpage *coughs*).

Where you should start greatly depends on what you plan on attempting to do, and how deep you’re going to dive in. For a moderately professional, clean looking web site without a lot of automation or intensive animated graphics you can probably get by with some basic knowledge of html, ability with a good WYSIWYG editor, and an image editting program. On the other hand, if you’re someone that&s looking to build something that will really wow your audience then you might consider spending some major time and developing some animation skills with a program like Macromedia Flash. I personally always spring for what I believe will bring me the greatest amount of profit with a minimal amount of effort, and because of this I usually end up spending all of my time diving in deeper with ONLY my WYSIWYG HTML editor, and my image editor.

What is a “WYSIWYG” editor?

A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor is what allows you to get by with minimal knowledge of HTML. Yes, that means you don’t have to know EVERYTHING about HTML to have a decent looking website. When you use a WYSIWYG editor it interprets what you’re doing (inserting an image for example) as being a certain series of HTML tags with attributes, and does it for you… Thus, what you see on your screen is what you get. Instead of seeing a bunch of HTML code in text format, you’ll mostly see what will actually show up in your browser once your web site is up WHILE you’re making it. I highly recommend using the latest version of dreamweaver — it is well-known as one of the best HTML editors by general consensus. Dreamweaver&s interface is very friendly, has a built in FTP client, and is specifically built to be flexible enough to suit both the coder and the everyday amatuer webmaster.

Image editing? What do I need that for?

Okay, let’s be realistic here: If you’re going to make a professional *appearing* web site it’s important that you can make some basic, decent looking graphics. There’s a lot of graphics problems that can truly get the job done, but as far as power and flexibility goes I recommend Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop definitely takes some time getting used to, but in the end it’s VERY rewarding. I’ve ended up using my knowledge of Photoshop to make not only graphics for multiple web sites, but also touched up portraits, made business cards, flyers, and other online advertisments such as banners. Infact, I’ve used it for everything except animation… But it also comes with Adobe Imageready which is very good with animation. This software is amazing, and if you’re going to learn ANY image editing software I recommend you start with Photoshop because of it’s widerange of overall… usefulness!

Let’s get me some sales!

Kick off your new web site you’ve gotten up from your knowledge of webmastering and image editing with a few new sales… Sounds like a plan? Well a great way to do that quickly is with pay-per-click advertising. BUT WAIT! Doesn&t that cost money? Well… Yes. But with the tools brought to us by some of the biggest pay-per-click advertisers out there we should be able to make a good evaluation of how much profit we&re going to make without much investment upfront.

The big question behind pay-per-click advertising is whether or not it’s worth the cash when you can simply get traffic from regular search engine ranking (otherwise known as organic traffic). Afterall, there are plenty of companies out there that promise to help get you all the traffic you need through optimizing your web site for organic ranking. The answer to this question is quite simple: profit is profit. Through conversion tracking tools such as those offered by Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords anyone can calculate exactly what their profit is after cost of PPC advertising is taken out. In my opinion, Google Adwords has the most user-friendly interface among the PPC advertisers. Google Adword&s interface makes it very easy to see which keywords are pulling you in the most sales, and which ones aren&t even worth your advertising money.

Let us not forget, however, that in order to make those conversions we&re going to be needing a shopping cart! There’s a lot of diverse software packages out there you can use, but I’ve been using Mal&s E-Commerce Free shopping cart for a number of years with great success. The cart&s server is hosted on their machines so that means you not only get away with not having to pay for the software itself, but you get out of having to buy an SSL security ticket too! Nothing’s a better bargain than free, eh?

Getting those sales leads you’ve been building up to BUY!

Once you’ve scored a few sales it would probably be a good idea to start using some kind of lead management services. I highly recommend the use of autoresponders for this purpose. Autoresponders are, essentially, a newsletter sign-up that allows you to strategically determine what you want to send each lead after a certain alotted amount of time. For example, let’s say someone visits your web site and you offer them a free newsletter. If you were selling an ebook on some very complicated topic, you might consider sending them only information on the most basic concepts at first to get them interested. Slowly but surely, you can turn those visitors that might have left your web site and never have returned into some serious revenue!

As far as autoresponders go, I highly recommend the use of Aweber. Their customer service is superb (seriously, these guys really know their stuff!) and can be contacted at any point during the business day via online chat or phone. They also offer tons of free information, and guides on making the most of their services. Check out their month long free trial at http://www.getaweber.com/.

How Long Does It Take Your Site To Load on Dial Up?

Your site is getting traffic, but conversion rates are horrible. Everything seems to be working, so what’s wrong? Your site may simply be to slow.

Load Times – Are You Driving A Ferrari or Moped?

Give some thought to the sites you have visited of the past few weeks. Were you willing to wait 20 seconds for a site to load or did you hit the back button? Why would visitors to your site behave any differently? They won’t.

Webmasters, designers and site owners universally access the web through high-speed connections. Because of this, it is easy to forget roughly 40 percent of surfers use dial-up connections. While your site may appear to load quickly on your high-speed connection, have you tried loading it on a 56k connection? The results can be shocking.

Sites that appear to load quickly on a high-speed connection can take forever on 56k. It is not unheard of to find a “fast site” actually takes 30, 50 or 80 seconds to load on a 56k. Sometimes, the load time is so slow the browser will actually “time out” and fail to show anything. If your site has this problem, 40 percent of the hits are worthless. Worse, those frustrated surfers are unlikely to try to access your site in the future even if you fix the speed problems.

How fast should a page load on a 56k connection? As fast as possible, but no slower then 25 seconds. If you can get 56k load times below 10 seconds, you can turn a negative into a competitive advantage. Surfers come back to fast sites.

Determining Load Times

The best way to determine the load time for your site is to actually use a 56k connection. While this solution isn’t particularly technical, it will let you see exactly what your prospects are seeing when they visit the site. You will be able to see what loads quickly and what appears slowly. This should let you isolate particular elements in need of optimizing.

Server statistics can also provide you with evidence of slow load times. Are users spending a lot of time on entry pages, but not visiting internal pages? Either you have poor content or a loading problem.

Finally, you can also use diagnostic programs to test load times. Typically, the programs will kick out estimated load times for dial-up, DSL and T1 connections. Make sure you test your home page and internal pages. Diagnostic programs are excellent tools, but don’t get lazy. Make sure you physically watch your site load on a dial-up connection. The experience will prove invaluable to improving your site and conversion rates.

Improving Performance

The steps needed to improve the performance of your site often depend on the nature of the site. A database driven site will have different issue than a graphic intense site. There are, however, universal factors that can be checked:

1. Graphics: Typically, browsers have to make a connection for each image on a page. The more you have, the longer the load time. Limiting the number and size of graphics can help.

2. Tables: If you use tables, try to break them up into smaller modules. Large tables can negatively impact load times.

3. Multimedia: If it flashes, explodes, spins or blinks, consider ditching it. Yes, it looks great, but is it worth 40% of your audience?

4. Size: Scrutinize the size of your pages. The bigger the page, the slower the load times. It shouldn’t be a problem if the page is comprised of text, but large pages with lots of code will load slowly.

Cheer up if you have a speed problem! Yes, you’ve lost a lot of business, but now you can fix it. Most of your competitors will never figure it out. That puts you ahead of the game.

Finely Made Kids Toys at Excellent Prices

Kids toys make superb children’s gifts for all occasion. If you are someone building your own family and already have greatly imaginative children, you will surely agree that the right toys will keep them entertained and pleased for longer. However, finding the perfect toys may not be easy to come by. Mass produced models are becoming more widely distributed, and while the top quality ones are better choices, they may be sold with a huge price tag.

At Toys Active, be amazed at the toys that they offer, for children of all ages. Toys that are made from remarkable materials and processed in a careful manner last longer and will endure the wear and tear of prolonged use. You will find toys that are slightly used but still in fine condition, and you will also be able to buy brand new ones at affordable prices.

Undeniably, many toys are distributed presently, all at different materials, types, and prices. However, children are prone to easily break their toys and if you purchase those that are of cheap quality, then your kids toys will be dumped inside garbage bins sooner than you expect. With poor quality toys, you will end up spending more of your hard earned cash on products that are not worth your attention.

Toys Active has a wide selection of educational toys, building toys, and classic toys that children of all generations have learned to love. Toys do not merely amuse children they also have the ability to enhance their creativity and develop their cognitive abilities as well.

With durable and painstakingly manufactured toys, your children will certainly be able to enjoy them for long. Even better, these toys may be handed down to younger kids, once your own children have already outgrown them. Buy your kids toys and see the look of priceless delight on your children’s faces.