Month: April 2012

Opening An Online Business Store

Internet has significantly revolutionized the way of doing business by introducing more efficient and simpler ways of trading. The virtues introduced include expansion of market, payment simplification and real time transactions amongst others. These features have consequently created numerous chances for different forms of online businesses. Amongst the best and successful online businesses include a makeup and cosmetics store. The popularity of this kind of business is mainly because nowadays there are many people who buy makeup and cosmetics online since they do not live near where their favorite boutique or a beauty shop is located. But there are several requirements and guidelines in which this kind of businesses needs to follow so as to start and run successfully.

online store
How to start an online business

Opening an online business store requires one to have an internet connectable gadget such as a computer. This is the primary requirement because it’s what will be used to market, take orders and sell the products. Furthermore, it is advisable to use a comprehensive ecommerce internet services which provides template designing, processes payments, shopping carts and edit web pages amongst others. This eliminates the necessity of subscribing to many subscribers for services which would have otherwise been provided by just a single or a few service providers.

It is paramount to obtain the relevant permit and license before starting the business even though the business will be operating online. This is because different regions have diverse regulation and they also needs to account for every trading activities in the relevant authorities jurisdiction. Amongst the probable documents that might be needed include; use tax permit, assumed name certificate and employer identification number amongst others. It is paramount to obtain these documents before the business officially commences so as avoid surprises and closure due to non compliance.

Starting a successful online store also requires ample preparation in marketing. The best marketing channels include starting promotional blogs and opening related social networking accounts amongst others. The blogs and accounts should have links where visitors can be directed to the website in which to find the products on sale. To entice the visitors, they can be offered discounts and offers if they visit the website or if they purchase a product. 

The business also requires that the products be readily available where they can be delivered to the customer immediately they make their order. This is important because the first impression in such businesses is significant in creating a customer base. Thus a delay or a failure in delivery can give the business a negative image. This can be achieved through several alternatives including opening wholesale accounts with distributors. This is especially helpful to those who do not make the products on their own, instead they buys from companies and other manufacturers. Consequently, opening a wholesale account ensure that the products can be delivered even with short notices. The products should be packed and braded in a way that customer can identify them with the online business.

About the Author: This post is written by Maya Zajacko.

Image: ernohannik / Flickr

Top Benefits of 0800 Numbers for Small Businesses

If you want to experience a significant growth in your business, you must find and exhaust all the strategies available to advance your business objectives. If you don’t know where to start, you’re strongly suggested to begin your journey by opening all communication channels between you and your target market. There are several methods to achieve this, but as a small business owner, you must choose the most cost-effective of them. Large companies employ a complicated and costly method, but you may want to go for something much simpler, yet truly effective. One of these cost-effective strategies is through the use of 0800 numbers.

What is an 0800 number?

An 0800 number is sometimes called a toll-free number, a business phone line that consumers can freely and conveniently use to communicate their concerns, needs, and demands. Many consumers want to share their experience and help you improve your products or services. But sometimes, if there is an expensive phone bill or charges involved, they will change their mind. So to make sure that your target market constantly gets in touch with you, provide them with a convenient communication platform that they can use anytime they want and anywhere they are in the country.

What are the top benefits of having an 0800 number?

The main objective of 0800 numbers is to build a strong relationship with your customers. A strong relationship is not built overnight, but if you constantly talk to them and address their concerns properly, you will be able to expand your clientele. Consumers trust only a company that listens to their needs. So if you have a toll free number they can use, expect to attract more customers in just a few months.

Next, an 0800 number saves you money on all types of consumer surveys. These surveys are meant to know what the target consumers want, so many large companies conduct these surveys to understand what their customers need. But if you have an 0800 number, you don’t have to conduct these surveys or have another company do them for you. All you have to do is to pick up your phone and listen carefully to what your customers tell you. Doing this will lead you to fully understand what you can do to be able to provide what your customers want and need.

Last, an 0800 number helps you increase your sales volume. Studies show that if more customers get in touch with you to ask more about your products or services, the big tendency is, these phone calls or inquiries will eventually be translated into sales. As long as you answer your customers as honest and as prompt as possible, you will experience a significant increase in your sales volume in no time.

To know more about 0800 numbers, you’re strongly suggested to go over different materials that can help you understand the benefits that you can get from these numbers. You can find these materials on the Internet in the form of articles, videos, and websites. If you don’t know where they are located, all you have to do is to put your favorite search engine to good use.

By 0800 Business Number Article Writer

The Best Ways of Incentivizing Your Staff

Making sure that your employees are happy is one way of ensuring that your business thrives and prospers. Happy employees are more productive and willing to work harder for you. Setting goals that are realistic, and that employees understand, is a crucial part of any incentive program. If you want to reward your employees financially, there are a few really good ways to do it.

Retirement Matching Contributions

Retirement matching contributions are one way of rewarding your employees for good performance. A retirement account match is when you contribute money towards your employees’ retirement plan. For qualified accounts, like 401(k) plans, you must match all employee accounts the same.

For example, if you offer an employee a $1 match for every $1 he contributes to his retirement fund, you must also offer the same $1 match to every employee. However, some accounts are considered “non-qualified” and you can offer a paid bonus to select employees. This is an ideal way to offer incentives to employees because you can be selective about who receives a bonus and who doesn’t. The bonus may be set up as a direct payment to the employee or you can pay it to a brokerage account where the employee has limited control over the funds.

Normally, an agreement is signed between you and the employee that stipulates what the bonus money may be used for. If you want to motivate your employees to stay with you for a long time, you can structure the agreement so that the employee has full trading authority over the funds but cannot remove them for a set number of years.

Non-Qualified Stock Options

A stock option is a right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specific number of shares of stock for a predetermined price and for a predetermined amount of time. For example, a stock option may give you the right to purchase 1,000 shares of Microsoft for $10 per share for the next 3 months. Stock options that are given as a bonus allow an employee to benefit from the increase in the share price of your company if it is publicly traded.
The employee must pay income tax on the difference between the stock price and the strike price at the time the option is exercised.

Incentive Stock Options

Incentive stock options are more of a long-term investment. While non-qualified stock options benefit an employee if you’re going to issue an IPO and expect your stock to do well “out of the gate,” incentive stock options are meant to be more of a long-term investment. Typically, these stock options are held for more than a year from the date the option is exercised. The shares exercised by the options holder also must be held for more than two years from the date of issue of the stock option.

This gives incentive stock options a tax benefit in that they will always be taxed as a long-term capital gain – a tax rate that is lower than the income tax paid on non-qualified stock options.

Employee stock options can also be “restricted.” This means that even though the individual has the right to exercise the option, he may be restricted from doing so prior to a specific date or before a company has achieved a certain benchmark or milestone. This gives further incentive for employees to perform well so that the company’s share price increases.

In some cases, the employee does not have direct control over the share price of the company because she doesn’t have control over any aspect of production. Even still, stock options can help to energize your workforce and motivate everyone to work together so that the company does well.

About the Author: Guest post by Elizabeth Goldman, on behalf of Sunbird cfd Brokers and currency trading specialists. Home to the advanced MetaTrader platform (see the metatrader 4 user guide). All views and opinions belong to the writer and do not necessarily represent Sunbird FX.

How SEO Can Help Your Small Business

When running a business website, you want your site to get as much traffic as possible to increase the chances of making sales. Since traffic is ultimately the life blood of your online business, figuring out how to increase this traffic should be priority number one for your business. By engaging in some good SEO practices, you may be able to increase your site’s traffic without spending a lot of extra money along the way.

Search Engine Traffic

When you use leading SEO services or methods to improve your site’s rankings in the search engines, you may be able to increase your traffic substantially. The nice thing about using this method is that the traffic can keep coming for months or years without having to pay for it again and again. By comparison, if you use paid traffic methods like pay-per-click marketing, you’ll have to pay for each visitor that makes his way to your site. This means that there is a lot of pressure to convert each visitor that comes to your site. Otherwise, you’ll be throwing away a lot of money every day on this type of Internet marketing.

With search engine traffic, it keeps coming again and again without a lot of expenses on your part. You may have to occasionally pay for more search engine optimization work until your site gets up a certain level of traffic. This is usually much cheaper than having to pay for each individual visitor that comes to your site.

Converting More Sales

When you work with a good search engine optimization service, you may also be able to convert more sales on your site. When visitors come to your site, they want to find what they’re looking for. If your site ranks highly for a given search term and then you sell something related to that search term on your site, this will increase the odds of a sale when the visitor arrives. If your site is not optimized properly, visitors might find it for terms that are not really that relevant to what you offer. This leads to customers finding your site when they’re actually looking for something else. When this happens, they will be much less likely to make a purchase or fill in the form that you have to capture their contact information.

Considerations

If you want to take your small business website to the next level, engaging in some search engine optimization can make a big difference. It might seem costly on the front end, but you’re making a long-term investment in the success of your business overall. By the time you’re done, your site may be receiving loads of free traffic from the search engines and your sales may be much better off overall.

Using Free Tools to Market Your Business

Freebie marketing is an old, tried and tested form of marketing that involves either giving away a product (or offering it at a very cheap price) in the knowledge that in order to use or continue to use said product the consumer will be forced to spend more money with that company.

The concept was believed to have been born of King Camp Gillette; the inventor of the safety razor and the Gillette brand. Gillette realised that by selling his razors very cheaply (usually well below cost price) he would create a market for his then overpriced blades. Gillette still utilise freebie marketing today, choosing to send free razors to men as they approach their 18th birthday.

Gillette Freebies

Other instances of freebie marketing can be seen through cable and satellite television companies, internet providers and any other business venture through which a product is required in order for the customer to use the service.

For instance, the cable company might offer a ‘free’ digital recording box. However, they will charge an installation and set-up fee in addition to a monthly fee that is set to cover the cost of the hardware.

How does it work?

It makes the customer believe they’re getting a great deal and that the company are doing them a favour.

Not only do they then hold the brand in good stead, but they feel obligated to purchase the remaining necessary items from that company – both through loyalty and a reluctance to purchase the whole package elsewhere.

Can it work for you?

Not every industry can utilise freebie marketing in the traditional ‘Gillette’ sense. To do so, you need to embrace the business model of selling your product in separate parts – one that you can give away free or very cheaply, and one that you can price accordingly to recover costs and secure a profit.

When it goes wrong?

Using Free Tools to Market Your Business

As with most businesses, your biggest risk comes from your competition. If a competitor releases a rival product at a greatly reduced cost, the success of the original product is threatened.

In many cases, making a success of freebie marketing entails having a part or whole monopoly on the industry, or at the least, such a strong brand that consumers will choose your products over a cheaper alternative due to their perception of quality.

Using freebies to build a brand:

Giving away products or offering them at a very cheap price is another form of marketing that can help to increase your customer base while building brand awareness and customer loyalty.

While this is different from ‘freebie marketing’ as Gillette use it, it’s still highly effective and since you don’t need a monopoly to succeed with it, less risky.

Business to consumer relationships:

Using Free Tools to Market Your Business

Used correctly, the distribution of ‘freebies’ can help to build lasting ‘relationships’ between business and consumer.

For instance, a toothpaste company could offer free dental check-ups. Not only does this encourage the buying of the company’s products over a competitors, but it gives the customer the impression that this brand cares about those that buy their products.

Alternatively, the producer of a range of diet food products could offer a free membership to Weight Watchers or similar scheme.

Either way, the point is to establish what the consumers of the product care about and to offer them something that complements that as a freebie.

Bringing freebie marketing into the 21st Century:

Bringing freebie marketing into the 21st Century

Another great way to utilise freebie marketing is to incorporate it into social media marketing.

If you’re struggling to grow your social media following, offering a free sample of a product in return for a ‘follow’ or a ‘like’ is a great way to get more people involved in your online marketing efforts.

You can even take it a step further and ask consumers to report back on the product, using Facebook or Twitter (or any other social media channel you might be involved in), offering the chance for them to win a much larger freebie in return.

Marketing costs money:

Remember that most effective forms of marketing cost money. You can own and operate a Facebook or Twitter page for free but if you really want to make a success of it, you need to start spending.

If you’re unsure whether spending money on freebie marketing is viable, consider the cost against television or magazine advertising – in most cases it’s less, while having a far greater return on investment.

Jessy is the marketing blogger for Auto Insurance Calculator, the free tool you can use online.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4.