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آپ آن لائن اسٹور کامیابی سے چلا سکتے ہیں -اپنی دکان کو ان لائن کریں

2020-05-06T03:07:00.003-07:00

آجکل کے دنوں میں جب روزگار اور کمانے کے مسائل سے ہر کوئی شخص دوچار ہے خاص طور پر دوکاندار اور چھوٹے کاروباری افراد اپنا آن لائن اسٹور کھول سکتے ہیں -آن لائن پیسے کمانا تقریبا ہر پاکستانی کاخواب ہے۔۔ لیکن اس خواب کی تکمیل کیسے کی جائے۔۔اس کا انھیں علم نہیں ۔۔لہذا کبھی تو وہ کلکس کے پیچھے بھاگتے ہیں کہ فلاں سائٹ پر بیٹھ کر ایڈز کلک کرتے رہو پیسے ملیں گے اور کبھی کوئی طریقہ اپناتے ہیں۔۔ لیکن ہاتھ کچھ نہیں آتا۔۔

آن لائن پیسے کمانے کا سب سے آزمودہ اور کارگر ایک ہی نسخہ ہے آن لائن بزنس۔

”فیس بک کو آپ ہزار برائیوں کی جڑ کہہ سکتے ہیں لیکن اپنی زندگی یا اپنا ہر قسم کا کیرئیر سنوارنے کا جتنا موقع فیس بک دیتی ہے آپ کو کوئی دوسرا پلیٹ فورم نہیں دے گا۔۔ اس تحریر میں ، میں آپ کو بتاؤں گا کہ کن اصول و ضوابط پر عمل پیرا رہ کر آپ آن لائن بزنس شروع کر سکتے ہیں۔۔۔اور اسے کامیاب بنا سکتے ہیں۔۔ آئیے آپ کو آن لائن بزنس اور آن لائن سٹور کامیاب بنانے کے کچھ اصول متعارف کروائیں

نمبر ایک۔ ریسرچ
سب سے پہلے اپنا فوکس تلاش کریں۔۔کہ آپ آن لائن بزنس میں کیا بیچنا چاہتے ہیں۔اس کے لیے آپ اپنے شہر یا کسی قریبی بڑے شہر کا دورہ کریں۔۔مختلف لوگوں سے ملیں،۔ریسرچ کریں کہ کون سی ایسی چیز ہے جو یہاں بنتی ہے اور کہیں اور نہیں بنتی یا اگر کہیں اور بنتی ہے تو اس جیسی نہیں ہے۔۔جیسا کہ کمالیہ کا کھدر مشہور ہے۔۔فیصل آباد کا چیئرمین کا لٹھا مشہور ہے۔۔۔دیہی علاقوں کا خالص شہد مشہور ہوتا ہے۔ملتان کی سردیوں والی شال مشہور ہیں۔۔۔اپنا پورا ریسرچ ورک کریں اور فیصلہ کر لیں کہ کیا بیچنا ہے یا کیا کیا بیچنا ہے۔یعنی ایک پراڈکٹ پر فوکس کرنا ہے یا مختلف چیزیں بیچنی ہیں۔۔

نمبر دو۔۔۔فیس بک پیج
اپنے بزنس کے حساب سے یعنی جو کچھ بھی بیچنے کا آپ نے سوچا ہے اس کے حساب سے اپنے بزنس کا ایک اچھا سا نام سوچ لیں اور اسی نام کا فیس بک پر ایک پیج بنا لیں۔۔پیج بنانے کے بعد اگلے دن اس پیج پر ایک اچھا سا لوگو (پروفائل پکچر) لگوائیں جو کہ آپ خود بھی ڈیزائن کر سکتے ہیں یا کسی سے کروا سکتے ہیں۔۔یہ یاد رہے کہ پروفائل پکچر یعنی لوگو پر آپ کے بزنس یا کمپنی کا نام لکھا ہونا چاہیے۔۔اس سے اگلے دن آپ اپنے پیج کا ڈیزائن شدہ فیس بک کور اپ لوڈ کریں۔۔۔اور فیس بک کور پر آپ کے بزنس یعنی کمپنی کا نام، آپ کی پراڈکٹس کا نام، آپ کا موبائل نمبر اور پراڈکٹس کی ایک آدھی تصویر ضرور ہونی چاہیے۔۔اور اس ے اگلے دن آپ اس پیج پر اپنی پہلی پراڈکٹ بیچنے کے لیے لگا بھی سکتے ہیں لیکن آپ اپنا خود کا آن لائن اسٹور بھی با آسانی بنا کر اس پر اپنی پروڈکٹس کی تصاویر اور قیمت لگانے کے بعد بیچ سکتے ہیں - لیکن اپنے اسٹور کو مشہور کرنے اور اپنی فروخت میں اضافے کی خاطر آپ کو آن لائن بزنس کی مشہوری اور مارکیٹنگ کے ماہرین کی مدد لینی ہوگی

اپنی خود کی ویب سائٹ یا آن لائن سٹور با آسانی اور مفت https://www.wix.com/, https://www.shopify.com/ کے زریعے بناےجا سکتے ہیں

نمبر تین۔۔۔کانٹینٹ رائٹنگ
جس وقت آپ اپنے فیس بک پیج پر یا پھر اپنی ویب سائٹیا آن لائن اسٹور پر اپنی کوئی پراڈکٹ بیچنے کے لیے اس کی تصاویر اپ لوڈ کریں آپ نے کوشش کرنی ہے کہ اس پراڈکٹ سے متعلق اچھا سا مفصل تعارف لکھیں اور اس پراڈکٹ کی خوبیوں کو واضح کریں ۔۔ اور لوگوں کو بتائیں کہ مارکیٹ میں موجود اس سے ملتی جلتی چیزوں سے آپ کی چیز کیسے برتر ہے۔۔۔اور کیسے یہ آپ کے یا آپ کے قریبی شہر کی خاص پراڈکٹ ہے۔۔پاکستان کی شاید دس فیصد آبادی انگلش پڑھ سکتی ہے لیکن پچانوے فیصد آبادی اردو پڑھ سکتی ہے۔۔اپنی پوسٹ اردو میں لکھیں ۔۔۔پچانوے فیصد کو اپنی مارکیٹ بنائیں نا کہ پانچ فیصد کو۔۔

نمبر چار۔۔۔۔۔۔ایمانداری
جب آپ کو آپ کی پراڈکٹ کے لیے کوئی رابطہ کرے تو کبھی بھی ،کبھی بھی، گاہگ سے جھوٹ مت بولیں۔۔اپنی چیز کی جو خامی ہو انھیں کھل کر بتائیں۔۔چاہے گاہگ جاتا ہے تو جائے لیکن جھوٹ اور بددیانتی مت کریں۔۔آپ میرا یقین کریں کہ ایک جائے گا تو سو آئیں گے۔۔۔کوئی بھی چیز خامیوں سے پاک نہیں ہوتی۔۔۔آپ کی پراڈکٹ کی خامی کے بارے اگر کوئی پوچھے تو بتائیں۔۔جیسے اگر آپ کپڑا سیل کر رہے ہیں تو گاہگ کو بتائیں کہ ایک یا دو سیزن بعد اس کپڑے کا رنگ اترنا شروع ہو جائے گا۔۔لیکن وہیں اسے یہ بھی کہیں کہ سر پندرہ سو کا سوٹ ایک یا دو سیزن نکال جائے گا کیا یہ کافی نہیں۔۔۔آن لائن اسٹورز کو پاکستان میں دھوکہ سمجھا جاتا ہے۔۔کوشش کریں کہ آپ ان لوگوں میں سے بنیں جو اپنی عوام کا آن لائن اسٹورز پر اعتماد بحال کر سکیں۔۔

نمبر پانچ۔۔۔۔فری ڈیلیوری۔۔کیش آن ڈیلیوری
آپ نے اپنی پراڈکٹ کا ریٹ ایسا رکھنا ہے کہ ڈیلیوری چارجز اس میں شامل ہوں۔۔گاہگ کو جب آپ قیمت بتائیں گے تو وہ پریشان ہو جائے گا کہ اتنا مہنگا لیکن جب آپ بتائیں کہ فری ڈیلیوری ہے اس کا دکھ آدھا کم ہو جائے گا۔۔ویسے بھی عوام کو سب سے زیادہ جو لفظ ٹریگر کرتا ہے وہ ہے “فری”۔۔۔۔

کیش آن ڈیلیوری رکھیں۔۔بہت کم لوگ ہوں گے جو آپ کو پہلے پیسے بھیج کر آپ پر اعتماد کریں گے۔۔۔ایک یا دو کلو ہو تو ٹی سی ایس سے بھیجیں۔۔ٹی سی ایس کا ریٹ ایک کلو کا دو سو تیس روپے ہے۔۔آپ ٹی سی ایس میں اپنا اکاونٹ کھلوا لیں۔۔وہ آپ کے نمائندے کے طور پر مال دے کر پے منٹ لے لیا کریں گے۔۔اگر کوئی آڈر کر کے مکر جائے اور وصول نہ کرے تو مال واپس آ جائے گا۔۔زیادہ سے زیادہ نقصان آپ کے ڈیلیوری چارجز کا ہو گا جو کہ ایک کلو کا دو سو تیس روپے ہیں۔۔مال دو کلو سے زیادہ ہو تو ڈاکخانے سے بھیجیں تا کہ آپ کا زیادہ خرچہ نہ ہو۔۔۔
نمبر چھے۔۔۔۔۔۔۔ پوسٹ بوسٹ

فیس بک کا بہترین آپشن ہے کہ یہاں پوسٹ بوسٹ ہو جاتی ہے یعنی جن لوگوں نے آپ کا پیج نہیں بھی لائک کر رکھا ان کی وال پر بھی شو ہو گی۔۔پانچ یا دس ڈالر کی پے منٹ لگا کر (پے منٹ لگانے کا طریقہ گوگل کر لیں) اپنی پوسٹ کو بوسٹ کریں۔۔اور بوسٹ کے دوران اپنی آڈینس (ٹارگٹ مارکیٹ) پاکستان منتخب کریں۔۔اگر آپ کی پراڈکٹ خواتینی ہے تو صرف خواتین کی جنس منتخب کریں اگر مردانہ ہے تو مرد ورنہ دونوں کو منتخب کریں۔۔۔اٹھارہ سال سے ساٹھ سال تک کی عمر منتخب کریں۔۔۔اب پاکستان میں اٹھارہ سے ساٹھ سال والے جتنے لوگ فیس بک استعمال کرتے ہیں ان میں سے چند (جتنے پیسوں کی بوسٹ ہو گی اس حساب سے) سینکڑوں یا ہزاروں کی وال پر آپ کی پراڈکٹ کی مشہوری شو ہو گی۔۔جہاں آپ کے پیج کے لائکس بڑھیں گے وہیں آپ کے بزنس کے لیے کالز یا میسجز بھی آئیں گے۔ فیس بک کے علاوہ اپنی پراڈکٹس اور ان لائن اسٹور کی مارکیٹنگ آپ لکنڈان پر بھی کریں جو اس وقت دنیا کا سب سے بڑا پروفیشنل سوشل میڈیا ہے اور شائد ہی دنیا کا کوئی پرفیشنل اور کمپنی یہاں نا ملے کیونکہ یہ مائیکروسافٹ کی سپورٹ ہے - اسی طرح آپ ٹویٹر پر بھی اپنی مارکیٹنگ کر سکتے ہیں لیکن اپنے آپ کا مرکتٹنگ پیج جہاں جہاں بھی ہو وہاں اپنے ان لائن اسٹور کا ویب اڈریسس اور لنک ضرور لگائیں

نمبر سات ۔۔۔۔۔موبائل ایپس۔۔۔۔
فیس بک پیجز کے لیے پیجز نام کی ایک ایپ ہے اسے انسٹال کریں اور ہمہ وقت اپنے پیج پر ایکٹو رہیں۔۔۔آپ کی کوشش ہو کہ آپ اس ایپ کو دکان سمجھیں اور وہاں جم کر بیٹھ جائیں۔جو بندہ کمنٹ کرے اس کا کمنٹ لائک کریں اور اس کا لازمی جواب دیں۔۔کوئی نائس کولیکشن یا نائس بھی لکھے تو اس کا کمنٹ لائک کر کے آپ جواب میں شکریہ لکھیں۔۔۔اگر کوئی آپ کی پراڈکٹ خریدنے میں دل چسپی ظاہر کرے۔۔۔اسے فورًا ان باکس میں میسج کریں اور کمنٹ کے جواب میں لکھیں کہ چیک ان باکس۔۔۔ان باکس میں اس بندے کا سب سے پہلے شکریہ ادا کریں کہ اس نے آپ کی پراڈکٹ میں دل چسپی دکھائی پھر اس سےایک یا د ومنٹ ان باکس میں بات کر کے اس بندے کا نمبر لیں اور فورًا کال کریں۔۔کمنٹس اور ان باکس کی نسبت بہترین ڈیلنگ کال پر ہوتی ہے۔۔۔آپ اوپنلی کسی کا نمبر مت مانگیں۔۔۔ان باکس میں نمبر مانگیں۔۔لیکن ان باکس میں مکمل ڈیلنگ مت کریں۔۔ڈیلنگ فون پر کریں اور ایمانداری سے اپنے کسمٹر کو یقین میں لائیں۔۔

نمبر آٹھ۔۔۔۔۔۔صبر و تحمل۔۔۔۔۔۔
چائنہ کی ایک کہاوت ہے کہ “اگر آپ کو مسکرانا نہیں آتا تو دکان مت کھولیں۔۔” آپ کی پراڈکٹس والی پوسٹ پر ایسے ایسے فضول اور دل جلا دینے والے کمنٹس آئیں گے کہ آپ کو بہت غصہ آئے گا لیکن پریشان نہیں ہونا۔۔یہ بزنس ہیں۔۔۔اس میں صبر و تحمل سب سے زیادہ ضروری ہے۔۔جو یہ لکھے کہ بکواس مال، لوٹ رہے ہو،،،انھیں سکون سے وہیں جواب دیں کہ ہم شرمندہ ہیں آپ کے معیار کا کچھ نہیں لا سکے۔۔۔فون پر بھی اگر کسٹمر گرم ہو تو خود کو قابو میں رکھیں۔۔آپ کے والدین یا آپ کی اولاد کے رزق کا سوال ہے۔۔۔برداشت کا دائرہ بڑھانا ہو گا۔۔

نمبر نو۔۔۔۔۔۔۔واپسی پالیسی۔۔
آپ اپنی واپسی پالیسی نرم رکھیں۔۔گاہگ کو کہیں کہ اگر میرا مال آپ کو پسند نہیں آیا تو چوبیس گھنٹوں کے اندر اندر اسی حالت میں جیسا آپ کے پاس گیا تھا۔۔مجھے واپس بھیج دیں۔۔آپ کے سارے پیسے واپس مل جائیں گے۔۔یہ بات آپ نے مال بھیجنے سے پہلے ڈیلنگ کے دوران کہنی ہے اور اس پر عمل بھی کرنا ہے۔۔۔یہ بات کسٹمر کے آپ پر یقین میں اضافہ کرے گی۔۔
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نمبر دس۔۔۔۔پرموشنز۔۔۔

کبھی کسی خوشی کے موقع کی مناسبت سے جیسا کہ عید ہو یا آپ کے پیج کے دس یا بیس ہزار لائکس ہو جائیں تو کسٹمرز کے لیے پرموشنز لگائیں ایسے موقع پر اپنا پرافٹ چاہے تو سو روپے یا ڈیڑھ سو روپے کم کر دیں۔۔۔۔ایسے میں پیج کے لوگ بھی یکسانیت سے بور نہیں ہوں گے کہ آپ صرف ایک ہی چیز ایک ہی ریٹ پر بیچے جا رہے ہیں۔۔

نمبر گیارہ۔۔۔۔۔۔فیڈ بیک

جب آپ کا مال کسٹمر تک پہنچ جائے تو فون کر کے ان سے فیڈ بیک لیں کہ کیا انھیں چیز مل گئی ہے اور وہ مطمئن ہے۔۔

اس کے علاوہ اگر آپ کے پاس چار سے پانچ ہزار روپے ہیں تو اپنے وزٹینگ کارڈز چھپوائیں۔۔اپنی کمپنی کے شاپر(پلاسٹک بیگز) چھپوائیں اور جب پراڈکٹ بھیجیں تو اپنی کمپنی کے پلاسٹک بیگ میں بھیجیں اور اندر اپنا ایک کارڈ رکھ دیں۔۔اس سے کسٹمر پر اچھا امپریشن پڑے گا کہ یہ کوئی عام سی کمپنی یا پیج نہیں ہے اور آپ کی کمپنی یا پیج کی پبلسٹی بھی ہو گی۔

کاشف احمد

اسلام آباد پاکستان

(اردو ائی ٣٦٠ کی ایک پوسٹ سے ماخوز )

HOW TO EASILY GET INTO THE E COMMERCE MARKET AND MAKE MONEY

2018-07-31T03:23:00.002-07:00

The eCommerce market and online shopping is growing as more people get access to the Internet. Here are some of the best ways to easily get into the eCommerce market and make money from it.

The Internet or online shopping and eCommerce business is on the rise as more people get access to the internet.Thanks to modern technology, consumers don’t have to travel miles away from home to shop at their favorite stores.

Nowadays, it’s much easier for consumers to shop around without moving an inch away from the comfort of their sofa.Not only that, the introduction of smartphone and mobile internet also means that consumers can shop on the go.

In short, the internet has been a major contributor to the growth in the eCommerce market and anyone can easily set up an online store today.

Getting into the eCommerce market
In short, eCommerce is a global phenomenon, and plenty of people are curious about getting into the eCommerce market. They see new online stores pop up all the time and wonder: Could I do that? I wouldn’t even know where to start.

Well the good news is that, it is easier to create an eCommerce website than you might think. Below are a handful of tips to get you off the sidelines and into the eCommerce game.

1. Think big: start with an idea
It all starts with an idea. Maybe you already have a concept in mind, maybe you don’t. Either way, you’ll have to do some research and planning.

Let’s say you want to sell handcrafted sweaters. Your unique selling proposition is the sweaters are matchless, well-crafted and perhaps even customisable. However, you plan on making all these sweaters yourself, which takes a lot of time.

This shouldn’t stop you from selling DIY goods on your website, but it should give you pause. How many sweaters do you think you can make each week? How will you keep up during Black Friday and Christmas?

You’ll have to take this into account. No matter what you decide, it’s vital to understand the big picture behind your big idea.

2. Research the competition
One of the best ways to source ideas and research is to look at your potential competitors. Continuing with the sweater idea, you could look at Tipsy Elves‘s website for some ispirations. It’s a popular website for ugly sweaters and seasonal merchandise.

get inspirations from competitors

What can you learn from this site that might help your eCommerce store down the line? First, they sell more than just sweaters; and they focus on more than just Christmas.

The site also sells kitschy swimsuits for the Fourth of July and college-themed merchandise for college students.

They post a lot of images of customers wearing and enjoying their products too. If you are thinking of establishing your own online sweater store, you’ve already learned two things:

It pays to think outside of the box and sell products beyond winter sweaters.
Customers love these products enough to post about them online.

3. Establish your brand Identity
Next up, you’ll need to determine your brand identity and target audience. These two go hand in hand because you’ll want your brand identity to reflect the values of your target audience.

If you are selling seasonal sweaters, have your brand identity reflect an ethos of comfort and ease. Your target audience will likely live in colder regions and may be interested in shopping for your gifts.

It wouldn’t make sense to target Arizona shoppers in July. Similarly, it wouldn’t make sense to use muted colours in your website design. Sweaters are kitsch, so it only makes sense to use bold colours and silly images to sell
them.

4. Own your social media
Now that you’ve nailed down your product offerings, brand identity and target audience, you are ready to break into social media marketing. What’s great about this for eCommerce is it is essentially free.

social media

Simply create social profiles across the platforms your ideal customers frequent and post on a regular basis.

The goal is to keep your store top of mind by posting content relevant to your customer base. This can happen in promotional and non-advertorial ways.

For example, you can post updates on your latest product launches and upcoming sales. Or you could post tips on how to throw an amazing ugly sweater office party.

It’s good to get a mix of both these methods, as social media users are more likely to follow brands that post content relevant to their lives.

So, are you ready to get off the sidelines and into the eCommerce game? With a little dedication and know-how, you’ll be ready to sell in no time.

Identify Flaws and mistakes in your Business

2017-04-22T03:58:00.001-07:00

No business plan will ever be perfect, and there will always be flaws in every business. While you can’t create the perfect business, you can put in the work to systematically identify and fix those flaws. Here’s how you can find the flaws and how you can correct them.
Do you know some of the most common business process mistakes? You can’t identify what you aren’t aware of, so review your business process to see if you notice the following:

Spelling and grammatical errors in your business reports and correspondence.
An inconsistent writing style in your project plans.
The layout of your documents is sloppy, with mismatched margins and the like.
The plans are vague, incomplete, and don’t answer common questions.
Alternatively, the plans maybe too detailed and technical.
They don’t include enough, or any, supporting research and data.
They deny that there are any risks or competition. Please Sign In or Register to like this blog.

Identifying problems, issues and weaknesses with the current business processes and determine the causes for the problems and issues following these steps:

1. Review Study Results
By Reviewing Current Business Process Flow and Current Business Process Measurements and findings.

2. Identify Major Problems with Business Activities and Tasks to cut unnecessary costs.
Identify problems, issues and weaknesses with activities and tasks and determine the causes of the problems and issues. This step examines:

Non-value added tasks,
Tasks that require rework or iterations,
Exceptions and special cases,
Tasks that require verification or approval,
Outputs/products that are no longer required,
Activities that consume a significant proportion of money or time.

3. Identify Problems with Business Data
Identify problems, issues, and weaknesses with the data used by the business processes and determine the causes of the problems and issues. This steps examines:

Data that is redundant, (No longer needed)
Data that is captured multiple times,
Data that is inaccurate, inconsistent, or untimely.

4.   Identify "Just-In-Case" Inventories
Identify "just in case" inventories and the reasons why the surplus inventories exist.

5.   Identify Problems with Technologies and Information Systems

Identify problems and weaknesses with the current technologies and information systems and determine the causes of the problems and issues. This step identifies obvious system integration and functionality problems. It does not include a detailed evaluation of the technical environment or information systems, if this type of analysis is required an Enterprise Wide Architecture Strategy project should be undertaken.

6.   Identify Problems with Products and Services

Review External Requirements. Identify customer, supplier and intermediary problems and issues and determine the causes of the problems and issues.

7.   Prioritize Causes

Prioritize the causes by assessing:

The number and seriousness of the problems and issues generated by a cause,
The number of strategic objectives a cause affects (e.g., the existing computer systems and technical architecture will not support the organization's strategic objective to provide "one stop shopping" to all its customers).

8. Tips and Hints

Problem identification and analysis techniques should be used to classify, rank and investigate problems. As you review your business with the goal of finding its flaws, carefully watch for these characteristics.
Demonstrate professionalism with proper grammar and a clean presentations. Answer all of the questions that a business plan needs to answer, using relevant data where applicable, and speak truthfully to the risks and competitive landscape in your industry and most importantly:

Let someone else find the flaws in your business

You’ve probably pored over your business for hours on end and it’s unlikely that you can read your plan with a fresh and unbiased perspective. This is why an extra set of eyes can be so useful when combing through your business to find any issues.

Ask a specialist to review your business plan, specifically looking for any mistakes. You could even show them the list of common errors that were mentioned earlier to guide their review. If your business is highly technical, you may even need to ask a non-technical person to review your plan.

Why would you want someone who doesn’t understand your industry to review your business plan, though? Because there’s a chance that the investors and customers reading your plan won’t understand all of the small, technical details. If you understand this and cut extra unwanted costs before important decision makers and buyer read your business development plans then you’ll have a better chance of wowing them with your ideas, and you won’t alienate anyone with jargon.
By rectifying these common mistakes and flaws that are found in business improvement and development plans, reviewing your plans on your own, and getting input from a specialist, you’ll produce a robust business improvement and development plan that satisfies your customer and your target market requirements and concerns. The result? More customers, and more success.

We're Going to Flip the CRM Paradigm - Gordon Burnes

2016-09-27T21:23:00.001-07:00

Gordon Burnes is the CMO of Bullhorn, a cloud-based CRM provider.

Gordon Burnes

In this exclusive interview, CRM Buyer discusses with Burnes the role of automation and artificial intelligence in humanizing customer relationships.

CRM Buyer: What are the most important components of an effective CRM strategy?

Gordon Burnes: As in any strategic effort, you have to start at the end and work backwards. The same is true for companies thinking about implementing CRM. That means thinking about what problem you are trying to solve. Are you trying to boost revenue? Increase customer NPS? Reduce ticket time?

You have to be specific about what problem you're trying to solve, and once you do that you can back into the more tactical question of what the solution actually looks like. How you frame the question is going to dictate what path you take for the solution.

CRM Buyer: Could you give an example of this problem-solving in action?

Burnes: The classic CRM problem is that I don't really understand what's going on with my accounts. If you're looking to build a holistic view of the customer, you need to understand and look at all customer communication. That includes emails, texts, phone records.

Only by tracking at that level of detail will you have a full picture of what's going on in an account. If you want to know how your customers are doing, you have to consider all the ways you communicate with these customers.

CRM Buyer: Why is it important to automatically capture all communications with customers?

Burnes: I dare you to find a sales person or account manager who enjoys spending the last 45 minutes of the day inputting data into the CRM system. A lot of companies are facing the CRM adoption challenge. Why is it that this account record doesn't have much data in it? When was it that the account manager last visited? That information just doesn't get into CRM.

This whole notion that you're going to expect people at the end of their day to sit down and populate a CRM system doesn't make sense. It's not productive, especially when there are alternative ways to solve that problem.

CRM Buyer: How can you make sense of all the data you collect?

Burnes:The metadata itself will tell you a lot. Who communicates with whom? Who is more communicative? Which coworkers are most connected with customers? Which customers are most engaged with you? What is the cadence of communication over time?

If you're a new account rep for a client that the company has had for over five years, how do you get up to speed? If you could mine that customer communication over the last four years, you would have the entire arc of the relationship with that customer, and you as a new account manager would walk into your first meeting knowing exactly where to go.

Being able to access historical customer communication is absolutely invaluable. B2B relationships are complex, and you need to find out where the key relationships are, and who really has the power in an organization. It's good to have a panoramic view.

CRM Buyer: How is CRM evolving and changing? What's in the future?

Burnes: In the future, you can imagine a scenario in which an account manager wakes up and hears the following: You are meeting with Acme Consulting this afternoon, and they have a 62 NPS, but they've recently sent an email to your finance department that they want a 10-percent discount on their last bill. They've been doing a project with Susie, and the outcome has been really great.

Basically, as opposed to an application you log into, it reaches out to you automatically and tells you what you need to know and what you need to do to manage the customer relationship.

We're going to flip the entire paradigm. Instead of you reaching out to it, it's going to reach out to you. We think of them as CRM bots, which will essentially guide you through life as a sales person.

CRM Buyer: With all of this automation, will there still be a need for humans?

Burnes: What CRM systems will do is allow humans to be more human. If you think about what happens today, you're forced into being a robot. You have to open a customer record and input all the data into these structured fields. That's robotic. Imagine if you could eliminate all of that time and instead spend it talking to a customer.

The more automated the system is, and the more artificial intelligence that's embedded in CRM, the more human you can be, and the stronger your customer relationships can be -- because they'll be human relationships, instead of transnational relationships. It's all about freeing up time for humans to be humans, and not robots.

Top Selling Internet Products

2015-09-11T04:10:00.001-07:00

E-commerce B2C product sales totaled $142.5 billion, representing about 8% of retail product sales in the United States.

The United States online retail industry will be worth $279 billion this year. Online stores must describe products for sale with text, photos, and multimedia files, whereas in a physical retail store, the actual product and the manufacturer's packaging must be available for direct inspection.

Here are the top selling products on the internet according to their annual sales and their market share:

Products	Annual Sales	Market Share
Software, Books, Music, Flowers	$37.05 billion	26%
Computer Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Office Supplies	$22.8 billion	16%
Apparel, Footwear, Jewelry, Linens / Home Decor	$26 billion	13%
Health, Beauty, Food and Beverage	$11.4 billion	8%
Toys, Video Games, Sporting Goods	$9.975 billion	7%
Small Appliances, Furniture, Tools, Garden Equipment	$4.275 billion	3%

Best selling product ranking on the internet:

Rank	Best Selling Products
1	Women's Apparel
2	Books
3	Computer Hardware
4	Computer Software
5	Apparel
6	Toys & Video Games
7	Video DVDs
8	Health & Beauty
9	Consumer Electronics
10	Music
11	Jewelry
12	Office Supplies
13	Linens / Home Decor
14	Flowers
15	Sporting Goods
16	Footwear
17	Small Appliances
18	Tools & Garden
19	Gifts

The Internet History

Year Event

1969 Advanced Research Projects Agency goes online connecting four U.S. universities
1972 Electronic mail is introduced by Ray Tomlinson at Cambridge Massachusetts
1973 TCP/IP and FTP is designed to allow communication and file sharing from computer to computer
1974 The word "internet" is used for the first time
1984 Domain Name System (DNS) is established with network addresses identified by .com .org .edu
1986 Quantum Computer Services which later changes names to American Online debuts
1989 The World (world.std.com) debuts as the first dial-up Internet access for consumers
1989 Tim Berners-Lee develops hypertext and hyperlinks giving the web it’s first graphical user interface
1990 The first internet index is created by Peter Deutsch who devices "Archie" an archive of FTP sites
1991 Gopher debuts which provides point-and-click navigation and becomes the most popular interface
1993 Mosaic becomes the dominant navigating system for the World Wide Web
1994 "Spamming" is coined as commerce sites launch mass marketing campaigns via email
1994 Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark start Netscape Communications and debut the Navigator browser
1994 Yahoo! is founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo
1995 CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy start providing dial-up internet access
1995 Sun Microsystems releases the internet programming language Java
1995 AuctionWeb later named ebay is launched
1995 Amazon.com is launched and sells its first book
1995 Craigslist is created by Craig Newmark first as an email to friends of local social events
1996 45 million people are using the internet, 30 million of those are in the U.S. and Canada
1998 Google opens its first office in California
1999 College student Shawn Fanning invents Napster an music file sharing program
1999 The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million, 75 million in the U.S.
1999 "E-commerce" becomes the new buzzword as internet shopping rapidly spreads
1999 MySpace.com is launched
2000 X.com and Confinity merge to form PayPal.com
2000 The internet bubble bursts as the Nasdaq stock plunges causing many dotcoms to close
2000 America Online buys Time Warner for $16 billion. It’s the biggest merger of all time
2001 Wikipedia is created
2002 58.8 % of the U.S. population uses the internet. Worldwide there are 544.2 million users
2003 An estimated 2.6 billion music files are being illegally downloaded each month
2003 Apple introduces iTunes Music Store allowing people to download songs for 99 cents each
2004 Facebook is launched by Mark
2004 Online spending reaches a record high – $117 billion
2005 YouTube.com is launched
2006 There are more than 92 million websites online
2006 Wikleaks.org is founded by Julian Assange
2006 Twitter.com is launched
2007 World of Warcraft surpasses 9 million subscribers worldwide
2007 Microsoft buys aQuantive for $6 billion in a move to catch up with Google
2008 Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion
2008 Wikileaks.org is launched
2012 There are now 2.267 billion Internet users worldwide

Some interesting statistics on internet users:

There are approximately 1,359,872,109 people on the Internet.
78% of U.S. internet users are on Broadband
It took the radio 38 years, the television 13 years, and the World Wide Web 4 years to reach 50 million users.
80% of all emails sent are spam
Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.
80% of all pictures on the internet are of naked women.
In 2010 1 of every 8 married couples in the U.S. met online

Percent of population on the internet:

North America 74%

Oceania / Australia 61%

Europe 53%

Latin America / Caribbean 31%

Middle East 28%

Asia 19%

Africa 6.5%

U.S. Internet Usage by Ethnicity:

Asian 73%

White 69%

Black 51%

Hispanic 48%

Internet Activity:

Average hours spent using a computer each month 66 Hours

Average hours spent on Facebook each month 7 Hours

Total web searches per month in the U.S. 11 Billion

Average hours spent watching streaming video each month 3 Hours

Total number of email sent daily 210 Billion

How to Find a Product to Sell Online

2015-01-29T03:31:00.000-08:00

There has never been a better time to start an online store. Ecommerce is at a point that anyone can set up a great looking store and sell a product to anyone, in any city, on any continent.

However, the biggest barrier to entry also happens to be the very first steps in the journey. Uncovering product ideas, evaluating them, testing and sourcing a supplier can be a complicated process. Many times, for new entrepreneurs, this becomes the reason they throw in the towel before every really starting.

With so much scattered information, resources and tools on the internet, all promising to help you uncover the elusive perfect product, where do you begin?

In this guide you'll learn exactly how to generate product ideas, the criteria you need to consider when looking at and evaluating those ideas, the most popular methods for validating your product choices and finally, how to source a supplier.

This is the definitive and most detailed guide to finding, evaluating, selecting and sourcing your product you'll find anywhere. Follow along, and by the end of this guide, you'll have all the resources, knowledge and tools you need to uncover your perfect product and begin your online business.

For new entrepreneurs, deciding to start an online business is an exciting journey, but it's Also new terrain That can be intimidating and Difficult to navigate. Maybe you've tried starting your own business before, or maybe you're planning your very first one. Regardless, every new business will present unique Its Own Opportunities and Challenges.

From choosing a product, Evaluating it, validating the market, inventory sourcing, building your online storefront, marketing and fulfillment, there's a lot to learn.

One of the biggest hurdles for entrepreneurs starting Their online ecommerce business is the very first step of figuring out what products to sell whos online. This seemingly mountainous Typically choice ends up Being the reason MOST people whos never Their start online business in the first place.

In an effort to help aspiring entrepreneurs ecommerce, We have Analyzed and reverse engineered Hundreds of online business businesses, Their products and niches to put together The most comprehensive guide to help you zero-in on a product and niche, so you can get started building your ecommerce business.

In This essential guide you'll learn the types of product Opportunities That exist, we will show you the best places to search for ideas, you'll learn how to market demand and evaluate- Understand your thought and finally, we will help you find your suppliers.

We have a lot of ground to cover so let's begin the journey.

The 8 Opportunity Types

Unless you've been hit with a brilliant idea right from the beginning and that's your motivation to start your business, finding great products to sell online profitably can be a daunting task. There are thousands of possible choices, yet, everything seems like it's been done a thousand times before.

So with all these product choices where do you even begin digging to find the the gold? The first step to finding products to sell online is to be able to recognize the various opportunities that exist for uncovering great products.

In this chapter, we'll look at the eight potential opportunity types that you must familiarize yourself with. Understanding these eight product opportunity types are key to helping you identify great product and niche opportunities to sell online.

Let's first look at the all eight opportunity types, then, we will dive into each one in more detail:

Uncover Opportunities in Keywords
Build an Interesting and Captivating Brand
Identify and Solve a Customer Pain Point
Identify and Cater to Consumer Passions
Follow Your Own Passion
Look for an Opportunity Gap
Utilize Your Own Experience and Expertise
Capitalize on Trends Early

Each opportunity above involves a different mindset and approach. Let’s explore each one in more detail:

1. Uncover Opportunities in Keywords

Organic search traffic can be the holy grail of ecommerce. If done correctly, Google and other search engines will reward you with massive amounts of consistent and targeted traffic. In a world of slim margins where paid advertising channels are consistently getting more expensive, this is precisely what makes products with keyword opportunities so lucrative.

Looking for keyword opportunities involves strategically looking for a product or niche online based the keywords people are search for in search engines like Google and Bing, then identifying high volume but low competition search terms. Keyword research can be a bit technical, so this opportunity involves a solid base understanding of keyword research and search engine optimization (SEO).

This opportunity can be particularly lucrative if you plan to dropship products, as margins on dropshipped goods are thin, many times making it difficult to use paid advertising channels effectively.

EXAMPLE: Andrew Youderian took a technical approach in picking a niche that he felt had the highest chances of success based on keyword research. Utilizing this approach, Andrew found an opportunity to rank for keywords in the CB Radio niche.

You can see in the image above that Andrew's business, Right Channel Radios, has been able to rank in the 1st organic position on Google for the organic search term “Vehicle CB Radios”.

It’s been SEO opportunities like this that have helped Right Channel Radios become so successful.

2. Build an Interesting and Captivating Brand

Differing from the previous method, building a brand means also building an audience. A brand building approach involves developing a superior understanding of your potential customers, crafting a unique brand and carving out a unique place in your customer's mind. This approach to building an online business can be particularly effective at differentiating yourself from competitors in the market if there is heavy competition.

EXAMPLE: DODOcase, an iPad case manufacturer has done a noteworthy job at crafting a unique brand. Despite operating in the extremely crowded and competitive space of iPad cases, DODOcase broke through by telling a different and unique story, one where their cases are handcrafted using traditional artisan bookbinding techniques in the city of San Francisco. It's this unique story and brand that has made DODOcase one of the top iPad case manufacturers in the world in a short amount of time.

3. Identify and Solve a Customer Pain Point

One of the best ways to build a strong business is by solving a customer pain point. Products that solve pain points can be lucrative because customers are actively seeking out solutions to these problems. You'll want to keep in mind that pain points don't always mean physical pain, it can also can include frustrating, time consuming, or poor experiences.

EXAMPLE: Jing, an ecommerce entrepreneur knew that people that grind their teeth can suffer from excruciating pain. More than just the physical pain, constant grinding can lead to expensive dental bills. Knowing this was a pain point that many people would seek out a solution for and happily pay money to solve, Jing launched Pro Teeth Guard, custom moulded teeth guard at a great price.

Active Hound is another example of a brand that solved a pain point for consumers. As dog owners, the founders understood the frustration of buying dog toys only to see them fall apart a few days later.

After confirming this with other dog owners, they were inspired to manufacture their own line of ultra durable chew toys.

4. Cater to Consumer Passions

It's a fact. Consumers tend to spend significantly more money to support their passions and habits. Just consider golfers. Golfers are notorious for spending thousands of dollars on gear and gadgets with the hopes and dreams of lowering their score, even by the slightest.

Catering to passions has additional benefits as well including deeper interaction with your brand, brand loyalty and increased word of mouth marketing.

EXAMPLE: Black Milk Clothing began in 2009 after the founder's blog TooManyTights exploded in popularity.

Recognizing the passion consumers had for tights with unique designs and understanding the opportunity the founder created Black Milk Clothing. Today Black Milk is a multi-million dollar company that's grown to over 150 employees and distributes its products globally. Furthermore, by piggybacking on pop culture trends with their designs they tap into passionate audiences and customers from a range of different niches beyond just tights.

5. Follow Your Own Passion

Some people consider choosing a product or niche based on your own personal passion to be a recipe for disaster. However, that's not always the case, and can actually prove to be extremely profitable.

One of the biggest benefits to building a business around your passion is having the tenacity to keep going when you run into difficult times. This one point shouldn't be underestimated as staying motivated is a major key to building a successful online business.

EXAMPLE: Eric Bandholz began BeardBrand as a personal blog discussing business and sales strategy. Over time though, Eric's passion for the bearded lifestyle kept creeping into his blog. Eventually, he went all in on his passion and began BeardBrand. A brand that sells beard grooming supplies to men that equally passionate about their beards.

6. Look for an Opportunity Gap

Capitalizing on an opportunity or feature gap can be lucrative. This opportunity type involves uncovering problems or deficiencies in a product or the marketing for a product that can be capitalized on. An opportunity gap may exist in the form of an improved or additional product feature, an unrealized market by the current competitors, or it may even come in the form of your own marketing capability.

EXAMPLE: Chaim Pikarski continually seeks out and capitalizes on opportunity gaps. He and his team scours product listings all over the internet and thoroughly reads the reviews section. They are continually on the lookout for deficiencies and feature gaps that buyers post. With this information in hand, he sources a manufacturer in and makes his own, better version of the original product.

Hipe shower radio is one such product (of hundreds) Chaim has manufactured by finding an opportunity gap in the original product. By looking at other shower radios and reading consumer reviews, he found a opportunity gap for a shower radio that was rechargeable

7. Utilize Your Own Experience and Expertise

Utilizing your own experience and expertise is a strong competitive advantage. Turning your expertise into an online business is a great way to enter the market with a leg up and a barrier to entry for others.

EXAMPLE: Jonathan Snook, an expert in web design and development used his years of knowledge to write and self published a book on web development and CSS called SMACSS.

Jillian Michaels, host of The Biggest Loser took the same approach and used her expertise in fitness and weight loss to develop and sell a line of products, including DVD's, books and fitness equipment.

8. Capitalize on Trends Early

Capitalizing on a trend early enough can have a massive impact on a new business. It allows you to carve out a place in consumers minds and establish yourself as a leader before others have a chance to. Capitalizing on a trend early can also have big impact on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) since you'll be one of the first websites talking about and being indexed by search engines like Google and Bing for the new trending search terms. This can help you climb to the top of search rankings fast.

EXAMPLE: Sophie Kovic, founder of Flockstocks noticed the trend for feather hair extensions very early on. Before spending any money or buying inventory, Sophie tested the market by quickly mocking up a test store. The results? 11 sales in 4 hours. Knowing there was a huge opportunity she fully built out her site, ordered inventory and even ended up winning the 2012 Shopify Build A Business competition in the Apparel & Jewelry category.

Conclusion

Understanding each of the eight opportunities above is critical to spotting opportunities as you move forward with your search for your perfect product to sell online. In the next chapter, with these 8 opportunities in mind, we're going to look at the ten best places to look for product and niche ideas.

Where to Look for Product Ideas

Now that you're armed with the knowledge of the eight types of product and niche opportunities from the last chapter, it’s time to start looking for some product ideas. Coming up with a great idea for a product to sell online will occasionally strike when you least expect it, most of the time though, it's something you need to be proactively on the lookout for. The internet contains a wealth of ideas and inspiration, but where exactly should you begin?

In this chapter we will look at the best places to go for product inspiration and ideas. As you go through all the resources listed in this post, make sure to look beyond the products themselves. It may sound cliché but because there is heavy competition in the most common and popular product categories, choosing a different or unique angle can be instrumental to your success. Try not to just look at products, rather look at new ways the product can be used, new ways it can be imagined and new markets for it.

Don't forget the eight types of opportunities from the last chapter. As a refresher, here they are again:

Uncover Opportunities in Keywords
Build an Interesting and Captivating Brand
Identify and Solve a Customer Pain Point
Identify and Cater to Consumer Passions
Follow Your Own Passion
Look for an Opportunity Gap
Utilize Your Own Experience and Expertise
Capitalize on Trends Early

Make a List

As you go through this chapter and the list of resources, it's best to capture all of your ideas on paper. Once you have all of your brainstormed ideas recorded, you will be able to return to them later and evaluate them further for viability and market potential.

1. Start with What You Have or Solve Your Own Problems

Before you begin searching the depths of the internet and the ends of the earth for product and niche ideas, it's always best to start with the ideas that you already have. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you likely already have a few ideas for products you want to sell or have thought about selling in the past. Maybe it's an idea you've had for years or maybe you have a problem in your own life that there is no good solution for currently.

Here are a few questions to consider when making your list:

What products, niches or industries are you particularly passionate about or interested in?

What products, niches or industries are your friends passionate about?

What pain points or frustrating experience do you have in your own life?

EXAMPLE: Max Valverde made the decision to solve one of his own problems he faced each morning; unruly, messy hair. For most guys, bed head can only be fixed by washing your hair, but this takes a lot of time each morning so Max created a product to solve this. Morning Head is a shower cap with an absorbent towel liner that you can soak with water, place on your head and rub around for a minute to get your hair ready for styling.

2. Local Community

The idea for your perfect product to sell online might be closer than you think. Traditional brick-and-mortar businesses have been around much longer than their ecommerce counterparts. Paying attention to trends locally in brick-and-mortar retail just might help spark product ideas you can take online. Try spending an afternoon taking a look around your community and note what new or interesting retail concepts and products are on display.

Another great source of product inspiration within your community can come from your local newspapers which tend to feature new, innovative and local concepts and products. As you look at these resources, ask yourself if they can be turned into an online opportunity.

EXAMPLE: Yummy Tummy Soup Company saw an opportunity to take a traditional brick and mortar concept and make it an online concept. The Yummy Tummy Soup Company sends out healthy homemade soups, cakes and pastries in a thoughtful care package. They cook and bake all products daily and send them coast to coast in temperature controlled containers.

3. Online Consumer Trend Publications

What better place to find a interesting products to sell online than from publications who's job it is to curate new, interesting and trending product ideas. Following trend publications is great way to begin getting a sense of the direction consumer products are going and the ideas other entrepreneurs are introducing to the market. Following these publications can also expose you to new product categories and industries that you previously didn't know about.

As a start point, take a look at the following popular online trend publications:

Trend Watching - Trend Watching is an independent trend firm that scans the globe for the most promising consumer trends and insights. Trend Watching has a team of thirty professionals in locations like London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Lagos all looking for and reporting on worldwide trends.

Trend Hunter - Trend Hunter is the world's largest, most popular trend community. Fuelled by a global network of 137,000 members and 3,000,000 fans, Trend Hunter is a source of inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs on the hunt for new product ideas.

Jeremy, the founder of Trend Hunter says, "Like many of us, I was an entrepreneur at heart, but I didn't know what idea I wanted to pursue. I chose careers that I thought would lead me to my business idea... but after years of searching, I was still hunting for inspiration. It was then that I started Trend Hunter - a place for insatiably curious people to share ideas and get inspired."

Springwise - There are millions of business ideas spanning the globe that operate in a specific way, have their own style, and market in a unique fashion. It’s not always possible to travel the world searching for these ideas to bring home though. That’s where Springwise comes in. Springwise travels the world for you, on the search for new entrepreneurial ideas, trends, and stories. Springwise publishes a daily and a weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free.

EXAMPLE: Dan, the founder of Inkkas shoes is a great example of someone that took a trend from another country and brought it to North America. Inkkas are beautiful, unique shoes designed using authentic South American textiles. The idea came about when Dan noticed the trend for this style of shoes in Peru. After deciding that this was a great product that would also do well in the North American market, he brought the idea home and successful funded a Kickstarter project, raising over $77,000 in pre-orders for his shoes.

4. Industry Leaders

You may not know what product to sell, but maybe you know the industry or market you would like to be in. Using various online tools, you can discover and follow the influencers in the industry you're interested in. Following the right people on social media can help uncover and inspire new ideas from a constant stream of carefully curated content from the people that are in the know.

There are several great online tools you can use to discover the influencers online for a particular industry or market:

Topsy

FollowerWonk

LittleBird

5. Consumer Product Review Blogs

Product review and discovery sites can also be a fantastic source of ideas and inspiration. Sites like Uncrate (men’s products) and Outblush (women’s products) are great ways to see new curated product trends daily. What better way to get inspired than to get a daily glimpse into the new and interesting products other entrepreneurs are bringing to the market.

Here are just a few examples of popular consumer product blogs to get you started:

Uncrate
Outblush
Bless This Stuff
Cool Material
Gear Moose
Werd
HiConsumption
Firebox

Don't limit yourself to just looking at the big and popular product blogs but explore niche reviews sites as well. Consider what types of products and niches you're particularly interested in and follow product review blogs in those niches.

6. Social Curation Sites

Social curation sites like Pinterest can be a goldmine for product and niche ideas. Many of the images contain interesting, new and trending consumer products. Using the built in social signals you can sometimes get a sense almost immediately of their popularity. This could be your first clue if there is a market for the product.

Several of the larger social curations sites to check out include:

Pinterest - Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social network with over 50 million monthly users. Make sure to check out the popular section for what's currently trending.

Polyvore - Polyvore is another great service, similar to Pinterest. Polyvore's global community has created over 80 million collage-like “sets” that are shared across the web.

Fancy - Fancy describes themselves as part store, magazine and wish list. Regardless of what it is, it's filled with product ideas for you to explore.

Wanelo - Wanelo (Want - Need - Love) describes itself as a community for all of the worlds shopping, bringing together products and stores in a Pinterest like product posting format. You can start by checkout out trending people.

7. Business-To-Business (B2B) Wholesale Marketplaces

What better way to get product ideas than right from the source. This has been a popular option amongst ecommerce entrepreneurs for a while and this list wouldn't be complete without it. Wholesale and manufacturer sourcing sites like Alibaba exposes you to thousands of potential product ideas. It can be easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of product available so take your time.

Some of the more popular B2B wholesale product sites are:

Alibaba - You’ve likely heard of Alibaba. They are the biggest ecommerce company in the world, even larger than Amazon and eBay combined. Alibaba connects consumers all over the world with wholesalers and manufacturers (typically) from Asia. With hundreds of thousands of products, there's not much you can't find on Alibaba.

Although it's generally accepted that Alibaba is the largest online wholesale and manufacturer database, there are many other sites similar to Alibaba you can use for inspiration and to find product ideas.

Some of the largest competitors of Alibaba include you should also spend some time exploring include:

TradeKey
Global Sources
Made-in-China

8. Online Consumer Marketplaces

Another rich source for product ideas are online consumer marketplaces. Millions of products is probably an understatement so you may want to begin your search with some of the popular and trending items and branch out into other interesting categories that catch your eye from there:

EBAY - eBay is the largest online consumer auction site.

eBay Popular - A list of some of the most popular product categories on eBay.

eBay Watch Count - An online tool that will list the most popular items on eBay based on how many people are "watching" them.

AMAZON - Amazon is the largest internet retailer.

Amazon Bestsellers - Amazon's most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.

Amazon Movers and Shakers - Amazon's biggest gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours. Updated hourly.

KICKSTARTER - Kickstarter is the largest crowd-funding website.

Kickstarter Discover - Browse all projects by popularity, funding, staff picks, as well as many other options.

ETSY - Etsy is a marketplace for handmade items.

Etsy Trending Items - Check out the current trending items and listings on Etsy.

ALIEXPRESS - AliExpress is a new consumer wholesale marketplace from Alibaba that allows you to order in small quantities.

AliExpress Popular - The most popular products being bought on AliExpress.

9. Social Forum Communities

Reddit is the largest social media news aggregator. It describes itself as the front page of the internet and is enormously influential. Reddit has thousands of “subreddits” which are sub-sections or niches that cater to different topics and and areas of interest. It’s within these subreddits that you can find lots of inspiration for product ideas.

If you have an idea for a particular industry, niche or product category, it’s worth doing a search and finding a suitable subreddit community to join and actively become a part of.

There are also many product focused subreddits that are packed with ideas.

Here are a few examples:

Buy It For Life - For practical, durable and quality made products that are built to last.

Shut Up And Take My Money - Interesting, clever, useful products that that people want… badly.

There are also several subreddits for curated Amazon products, make sure to check out the following:

The Best of Amazon

The Best of Amazon Canada

The Best of Amazon UK

Cheap Stuff on Amazon

Find It On Amazon

If you're active on Reddit and pay close attention, occasionally you have come across interesting posts like these:

Reddit, What is One Product Under $20 That You Recommend Everyone To Buy?

What $100 Item Has The Single Greatest Ability to Increase Quality of Life?

No matter which approach you take, Reddit is has been and continues to be a rich and valuable source of entrepreneurial ideas and inspiration, coupled with a supportive community.

10. Instagram

Instagram isn't just pictures of food and puppies, it's also a great option for discovering new product ideas. Because it's photo based, it makes it easy to scan through many ideas and photos quickly.

There are a few ways you can use Instagram to search for product and niche ideas:

HASHTAGS - Once again, if you have a particular interest in a product category or industry, you can try searching for applicable hashtags and following relevant people in the market/niche or industry. Another great option is to do a search on Instagram for applicable hashtags that insinuate buyer interest and intent like #want and #buy.

PRODUCT CURATION ACCOUNTS - There are many accounts on Instagram that post curated product content. Like many other examples above, you'll likely want to search for and find accounts within the niches you are particularly interested in. As an example, Shopify curates interesting and unique products from Shopify’s 90,000+ online stores. It might just provide the idea or spark for your next product.

Conclusion

With all these resources you should be able to start generating a pretty healthy list of initial products ideas to begin exploring further. In the next chapter, we're going to look through all of the resources ourselves and share some interesting product ideas with you.

10 Trending Product Ideas

So far you've learned about the eight product opportunity types and in the last chapter you were introduced you the top ten places entrepreneurs go to find new product ideas. The wheels in your head should be starting to turn at this point however many new ecommerce entrepreneurs tend to overthink things and automatically discredit their ideas. In this chapter, we wanted to show you how easy it can be to come up with initial product ideas as well as how to do a very quick cursory search to determine if the products are worth looking into further.

We searched all of the resources mentioned in the previous chapter and have selected ten products that looked interesting. As a very quick product demand test we cross checked all of the ideas in Google Trends. All of the ten product ideas selected have a strong upwards market trend, making these products worthy of evaluating further

Let's get started.

DISCLAIMER: These are not suggested products to sell online. They are simply items that caught our attention and are trending upwards according to Google Trends. Before choosing a product to sell online you must first do your own due diligence to determine market demand and potential.

Refresher

Before we jump into some interesting trending products that caught our eye, let's take a look again at the ten best places to look for ideas as a refresher:

Solve Your Own Problems
Local Community
Online Consumer Trend Publications
Industry Leaders
Consumer Product Review Blogs
Social Curation Sites
Business-To-Business (B2B) Wholesale Marketplaces
Online Consumer Marketplaces
Social Forum Communities
Instagram

Using these sources, here's the ten product ideas we came up with:

1. Paleo Bars

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Friends

Diets and nutrition are an ever-evolving industry based on fads and trends. Because it's always changing, there's always room for new opportunities and products to be introduced. Within the last few years, a trend for the Paleo diet has been gaining ground. The Paleo diet is a modern nutritional plan based on the presumed diet of Paleolithic humans that lived 15,000 years ago.

We didn't have to venture too far into our community to uncover this trend. We have lots of friends that follow the Paleo diet. Talking to these people, we uncovered the idea for Paleo nutrition bars.

Looking at Paleo energy bars in Google Trends, we can see a massive spike beginning at the tail end of 2010.

Check out the graph below:

RESOURCE: Manufacturing a food product can be tricky with food laws and regulations but with a bit of searching we came across YouBars. As a protein bar manufacturer, YouBar has a wide range of options for people interested in wholesale and private label protein/nutrition bars and will handle all the manufacturing and labelling required by law.

2. Bow Ties

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Our Community

If there's one industry that changes more often than nutrition, it's fashion. This industry thrives on ever-evolving trends and again, that means ever-evolving opportunities for entrepreneurs. Men's bow ties is one item we've seen become increasingly trendy in our community, especially in men's fashion window displays in our local malls.

Taking to Google Trends, searches for "men's bow ties" have almost tripled over the last three years. This three-fold jump illustrates a growing trend of men who are thinking about not just bow ties, but also how they dress and look in general.

One advantage of men's fashion and accessory products is that there's and an increasing trend in general of this product category. Forrester Research noted that total U.S. online retail sales of men's accessories are expected to hit $370 billion by 2017. This is great news for anyone choosing to sell products in in this market.

3. Pocket Squares

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Social Media Influencers

Because of the trend in bow ties and men's accessories in general, we assumed there was likely other products that might make for great online business opportunities. Turning to some men's fashion bloggers and their Twitter accounts, we scanned their Tweets to see what other products they've been talking about recently.

As it turns out, bow ties aren't the only men's fashion accessory that's gaining traction these days. Pocket squares are also commanding some strong attention.

It appears from the Google Trend for "Pocket Squares" that they might be even a bigger opportunity than bow ties.

Pocket squares also make for an interested product because they are relatively simple to produce. Additionally, pocket squares, if positioned correctly can fetch some strong margins. With just a quick search, we can also see that many brands charge upwards of $60 per unit.

4. Wood Sunglasses

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Business-To-Business Wholesale Marketplace - Alibaba

To find our next product idea, we took to Alibaba, a business-to-business wholesale marketplace with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of products. Browsing the popular section, we quickly spotted sunglasses with wood frames. Searching for "wooden sunglasses" in the Alibaba returns 22,603 Products from 555 Suppliers. With that much supply, there is likely strong demand.

To verify our suspicions, we took to Google Trends. It appears that wood framed sunglasses are a fairly new product but has seen consistent interest growth almost every year since inception.

By looking at the trend graph though, we can Immediately can see a warning sign that we should be aware of. Every year there's has been a pretty big dip, which most likely represents the seasonality of the sunglasses business.

5. Wood Watches

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Online Consumer Marketplace - Kickstarter

After finding the wooden sunglasses on Alibaba, we thought about the trend in general for wooden accessories. We've seen many wood accessories before on Kickstarter so we started our search there and pretty quickly came across wood watches.

From Google Trends, it appears that wood watches have been around since the end of 2004 and have seen a slow but steady climb in interest up to 2012. However in the last two years we can see the growth has flattened a bit with the exception of a single large spike.

6. Leggings

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Product & Trend Discovery Review Sites - Outblush

We've looked at a lot of men's products and accessories but we've also come across a women's product that has seen some tremendous growth in interest over the last few years.

We subscribe to and regularly read product review blogs like Uncrate and Outblush. Browsing Outblush is where we came across a few listings for women's leggings, especially ones with bold patterns.

Check out the screenshot below:

Except for the strong seasonality of demand for the product, the trend for leggings seems very strong, growing considerably every year.

7. E-Cigarettes

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Community and News Publications

E-Cigarettes are big business. E-Cigarettes are a self-contained electronic “vaping” device. Sometimes referred to as a personal vaporizer or digital vapor device is a battery-powered device which simulates tobacco smoking.

E-Cigarettes are everywhere these days. We have seen it in the news and our community but it really jumped out to us as a potential product idea when we read the article Why Electronic Cigarettes Are About to Explode on Forbes.

The Google Trends graph matched our thoughts for this trend exactly.

While E-Cigarettes are an interesting product, it's a pretty new market and it's just starting to get the attention of regulators. While it looks like it may be a lucrative market right now, this market may become more difficult to enter and restrictive in the coming years.

8. E-Liquid (Refill for E-Cigarettes)

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Social Forum Communities - Reddit

While looking at more information on e-cigarettes we decided to head to Reddit to see what people were saying about them. To our surprise, we found a subreddit dedicated specifically to the creation of your own unique blends of the liquid refills in e-cigarettes.

As we imagined, the growth in the trend for e-liquid matches the growth for e-cigarettes closely. Overall strong growth and what appears to be a great potential business opportunity.

9. Coconut Oil

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Social Curation Site - Pinterest

While browsing Pinterest, coconut oil images kept popping up. Apparently coconut oil is a great all-in-one healthy oil that can be used for cooking, as a lip balm, moisturizer, shaving cream, deep treatment conditioner, makeup remover, body scrub, bug bites... the list goes on.

Looking at the trend graph, the upwards trend is undeniable since 2011.

Coconut oil is an interesting product because because it appears to have a multitude of uses. Each one of these uses could be a niche opportunity to explore further.

10. Matcha Powder

WHERE DID WE FIND THIS IDEA? Instagram

While browsing through our Instagram feed we came across an image someone posted of matcha powder. Matcha is finely milled powder green tea and has become increasing popular along with the tea category in general. Supermarket tea sections have exploded from carrying Red Rose and Tetley to a variety of hundreds of brands in recent years.

The trend for matcha powder has been increasing every year since 2009 and just recently, seen a massive spike in search interest.

What's Next?

With the previous two chapters in mind, we searched in a strategic way to come up with ten initial ideas that may make for great products to sell online. Over the next several chapters, we'll show you how to evaluate your product ideas along with the market for them so you can zero in on your perfect product.

NOTE: Although we used Google Trends to looks for upward trends in all of our products, this is not a necessary step or requirement at this point. Many entrepreneurs have built hugely successful businesses based on new products and concepts that, prior to them creating it, had no search interest at all.

Selecting and Product Niche

Now that you have a brainstormed list of product ideas, it's time to take it to the next level. To do this, you'll need to decide which of your previously brainstormed product ideas to further evaluate. In this chapter we will look at how to narrow your product's focus by choosing a niche. In the following chapters, will will then show you how to evaluate your product idea and niche further.

Selecting a Product to Further Evaluate

At this point you're only selecting a product to further research and evaluate. This likely wont be your final choice. In fact, you may end up further investigating and evaluating dozens of ideas before finally landing on one.

There's no science to selecting a product to evaluate from your previously brainstormed list. It really comes down to what you think is the best start point. Is there a product you feel more strongly about? Does one product idea in particular give you a gut feeling that it can do better? Maybe you're really passionate about one of the ideas over all others. Again, it's important to note that there's no right or wrong way to select a product to further evaluate and you can always go back to your list and evaluate your other ideas.

Our Product Selection

As an example for this chapter, we decided to choose and evaluate a product as well to give you context on the upcoming evaluation methodologies. To choose a product, we went back and looked at all the product ideas we came up with in the last chapter.

Here's that list again:

Paleo Bars
Bow Ties
Pocket Squares
Wood Sunglasses
Wood Watches
Leggings
E-Cigarettes
E-Liquid (Refill for E-Cigarettes)
Coconut Oil
Matcha Powder

For our product selection process, we decided to put all of our ideas into Google Trends to determine which ones have the biggest search interest/trend. As it turns out, coconut oil and leggings won by a long shot.

NOTE: Google Trends only allows you to compare up to five products at one time, but all ten were compared.

We liked the idea of coconut oil in particular. One of the reasons for this was because coconut oil is a raw ingredient and a predominant ingredient in a variety of other products. Remember, coconut oil as a product idea originally came from a Pinterest Pin that linked to an article on 30 different uses for coconut oil. Based on this, we're confident that there's likely some interesting niches around coconut oil.

Let's take a look again at Google Trends to see if in fact coconut oil is trending upwards, how big the trend is and when exactly it began:

Looking at "Coconut Oil" in Google Trends, we can see that the trend and popularity for coconut oil exists, increasing dramatically since approximately 2011.

Based on this information, we've decide to further evaluate coconut oil and see what niches we can derive from it that we can build a successful online business around.

Choosing a Niche

Now that you have also decided on a product idea, you'll need to consider a niche in which you want to consider operating in. A niche is just a subset of the market in which a specific product is focused. Your chosen niche will help define possible product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, the price range for your product, production quality, branding and your marketing.

Choosing a niche is a vital part of creating a successful online business. If you try to open and operate your new store in a crowded and popular product category or market, you're going to have a really tough uphill battle fighting against the already established competition. This is precisely why choosing a subset of a market (niche) is so important.

Although there's no scientific way to choosing a niche, there are lot's of different methods you can use. From simple Google searches, to building a mind-map to utilizing keyword research to help uncover great niches, there are many ways to build your niche list. In the next section, we will explore a few of them. .

NOTE: Over the next few chapters, you're going to learn how to evaluate and validate your product and niche. If you find in the end that your product isn't viable, you can always go back and choose a different niche. Choosing a different niche can be all the difference between a poor product choice and a great product choice, even more so than the product itself.

Start with Google Searches

The easiest way to start building out some niche ideas is understanding how your product is currently being sold from other online retailers. Starting your niche selection with some Google searches is a great way to get a good overview and lay of the land. As an example, using our product idea of coconut oil, we were able to find a goldmine of niches:

Build a Mind Map

A mind map can be a great way to map out and discover niches for your chosen product. Since mind maps mimic the way our brains think they are a very intuitive way to organize your thoughts and build on ideas. Building a mind map for your product idea can help generate ideas very quickly encouraged exploration of different niche paths. You can use a free online tool like Text 2 Mind Map to create a really simple but effective mind map.

Here's what we came up with for our coconut oil product idea:

Use Google's Suggestions

You know when you start typing something into Google and it begins to show you search alternatives before you finish typing you query? Well Google is completing your thoughts using the queries most often searched for by other users and you can use this to your advantage to find a niche for your product choice.

Google will only show you a few suggestions so you may want to use another tool like Suggester to scrape all the suggestions. To use Suggester, simply enter your product choice and it will give you a list of other queries that people are searching for, along with their popularity. We plugged in our product by searching for "Coconut Oil for" which returned over 300 suggestions we could pull a potential niche from.

Here's a small sample of the results:

Niching It down with Keyword Research

This next method for uncovering a niche uses Google's Keyword Planner tool. The keyword planner tool is a resource located in Google's advertising platform, Google Adwords. The Google Keyword Planner is similar to the Google suggestion tool we discussed above but is a more advanced and customizable.

To use this tool you need to have a Google Adwords account which you can sign up to for free. Login to your account and select Tools from the top menu, then select Keyword Planner. On the next screen, click Search for new keyword and ad group ideas.

On the next screen enter your product idea. Double check your settings under Targeting to make sure they're to your liking, in particular the locations you want to target.

On the next screen, it will be on the default tab Ad Group Ideas, change that to the tab labelled Keyword Ideas.

Time To Evaluate

Now that you have chosen a product idea to further evaluate and have derived a niche from your idea, it's time to evaluate it. Over the next several chapters you'll learn how to evaluate and test your product to better understand and gauge it's potential.

Evaluate your product Niche

Now that you've selected a product and niche to further explore and evaluate, it's time to put it under the microscope. Without properly evaluating your product and niche idea, your choice is random and so will be your chances of success. Using the evaluation criteria below, you'll get a much better sense of your product and niche, along with better understanding it's strengths and identifying it's weaknesses.

RESOURCE: At the end of the chapter, we have provided an interactive Product Evaluator which will score your product idea against all the criteria included in this chapter.

NOTE: You will likely never find a product or niche that fits all the criteria below. Evaluating your idea against this list though will give you a better understanding of your chosen product/niche, helping avoid pitfalls and increase your overall chances of success.

Criteria Overview

Before we get into each evaluation point, let's take a look at a quick overview of all the criteria we will be covering:

MARKET BASED CRITERIA

What is the potential market size?

What does the competitive landscape look like?

Is it a trend, fad, flat or growing market?

Is your product available locally?

Who's your target customers?

PRODUCT BASED CRITERIA

What is your markup?

What's your potential selling price?

Can you offer a subscription?

What is your product's size and weight?

How durable is your product?

Is your product seasonal?

Does your product serve a passion, relieve a pain or solve a problem?

How often will you need to turnover inventory?

Is your product consumable or disposable?

Is your product perishable?

Are there any restrictions or regulations on your product?

Is your product scalable?

Let's look at each of the criteria in more detail:

1. What's the potential market size?

Market size can be difficult to determine but with some educated guessing you can probably get a good idea of the potential market size. For example, a product that caters to pregnant females between 25-40 years old is probably has a sufficient market. But a product that caters to pregnant females between 25-40 years old who like punk rock music will likely be too narrow.

EXAMPLE: Daneson sells high end, luxury toothpicks. You can imagine that it takes a pretty discerning and dapper man to purchase exquisite toothpicks. A product like this likely has a very narrow market size. This narrow market size limits the revenue potential for a business like that, however, depending on the exact market, the narrow market size can potentially make it easier to market to, allowing a company like Daneson the penetrate the market and capture the market more cost effectively.

RESOURCE: Determining exact market sizes is usually impossible for most businesses, however, there are some ways to understand market size in a more general way. Google Trends is a good start point, not to determine market size, rather to determine market demand trajectory. From there you can also look for your particular product idea being sold elsewhere and look at the number and quality of reviews. Are there no reviews, just a few or hundreds? Finally, tools like Topsy can help you determine volume of social chatter which can also give you indications as to the potential market size.

In the next chapter, you'll learn exactly how to use the Google’s Keyword Tool to better determine search demand which can help you determine search volume of keywords around your product idea. This can give you an idea of how many people are searching for your keyword terms and in return, can also give you a better sense of the market size. Combine all these methods with some realistic judgment and you should start to get a good sense of the potential market size of your product idea.

2. What does the competitive landscape look like?

What does the competitive landscape look like for your selected product and niche? Are you be first to market? Are there already a few competitors or is the market saturated with people selling the same product or targeting the same niche?

If you're first to market, you'll want to do a lot of market research to determine that there is in fact a market interested in your product. If there are a few competitors already in the space and they seem to be doing relatively well, this could be a good sign that the market has been validated. If there are many competitors in the market, it's also a sign that the market has been validated, however, you'll likely have to determine how you can differentiate your brand and products from the sea of competitors in order to carve out your own spot.

EXAMPLE: Luxy Hair wasn’t the first company to sell hair extensions online. In fact, the market was filled, maybe even saturated with competitors when they began four years ago. Understanding the market was saturated with competitors, they knew they had to do something different to stand out and command the attention of buyers. Luxy did exactly that by entering the game with a completely different marketing strategy. While everyone else was paying for ads online, Luxy decided to provide value by focusing on YouTube as their exclusive marketing channel.

The strategy worked. In a crowded marketplace, Luxy has managed to carve out their spot by very quickly building a seven-figure ecommerce business that also boasts over one million subscribers on YouTube.

RESOURCE: Google searches and SimilarWeb will help you uncover current market players. Google’s Keyword Tool can tell you approximate search volumes for your chosen keywords, and also tell you how competitive they are (meaning how many other people/businesses are bidding on those words). Don’t forget, the more people bidding on your keywords, the more expensive they will be.

3. Is it a fad, trend, stable or growing market?

Riding a fad can be dangerous. A trend can be lucrative. Stable markets are safe and growing markets are ideal. Understanding where your product and niche lay can play a huge role in your success or failure.

To better understand the differences between each of these, let's look at the growth curves, then we will look at real world examples for each type

EXAMPLES:

FAD: A fad is something that grows in popularity for a very short period of time and dies out just as quickly. A trend can lucrative if your entry into the market and exit are timed perfectly but this can be difficult to predict and usually a recipe for disaster.

EXAMPLE: A Geiger Counter is a personal electronic device about the size of a cell phone that measures the level of radiation around you. Shortly after the earthquake in Japan in 2011, geiger counters were flying off the shelves, however, as you can see from the Google Trends graph below, interest died as fast as it started.

STABLE MARKET: A stable market is one that generally is immune to shocks and bumps. It is neither declining nor growing but maintains itself over long periods of time.

EXAMPLE: A kitchen sink is a perfect example of a product with a market that has generally remained constant and flat for the last ten years. There's likely not going to be any huge spikes or dips in the interest and purchase behavior of kitchen sinks.

GROWING MARKET: A growing market is one that has seen consistent growth and shows signs of a long-term or permanent market shift.

EXAMPLE: Yoga has been around for a long time but over the last 5 years or so has become a mainstream health and fitness activity. The benefits of yoga are well established, making this niche a solid growing market.

RESOURCE: Google Trends will help give you the big picture whether something is a fad, trend, growing or stable market. If you see unexplainable spikes, try doing some further searching to see what the possible cause was of it.

4. Is your product available locally?

A product that's readily available locally means that there's one less reason for consumers to seek your product out online. However, a unique or hard to find product that isn't available locally means there's an increased chance of someone looking for it online and increases their chances of actually purchasing it online.

EXAMPLE: Ellusionist sells artist collaborated, high-end decks of cards for magicians and card players alike. Sure you can go buy a deck of cards anywhere, but these are not just cards, they are also works of art and trick decks, and if you want one, it's only available online.

RESOURCE: One of the simplest ways to find out if your selected product is available locally is by doing a search on Google for your product + the name of your city, or if you don't live in a major city, try substituting for the name of your closest major city. For example, you could search for "magician deck of cards + new york".

5. Who's your target customer?

You don't need to go into great detail defining your exact customer persona at this point, however you should be aware of the type of customer you would likely be selling to and their online purchasing capabilities.

If you have a product geared for teens, it's important to keep in mind that most teens don't have a credit card to make purchases online with. Similarly, if your product is geared towards older baby boomers, you may find that your target demographic has a lower level of technology adoption and doesn't like to purchase online.

EXAMPLE: Clothes for Seniors offers adaptive clothing for seniors. One of their main target markets has a low level of online commerce adoption which may make it difficult to build a business around. You'll need to tailer your online store to accommodate them or consider targeting your marketing efforts to the children of the seniors.

RESOURCE: If you find another online business selling similar products, you can use SimilarWeb to get information on their visitor demographics, which may help you define your target market better.

6. What's your markup?

It is vitally important to take markup for a specific product into consideration before diving too far into a product idea. When you begin selling online, you'll quickly find out that there are lots of small fees that will eat into your margins, so having a strong initial markup will provide you with the necessary cushion to absorb these little costs.

EXAMPLE: To understand margin a little better, let's take a look at a real product. For this example we will use a pet pedometer - a small electronic device you connect to your dogs collar to count how many steps they take.

Looking around at other pet pedometers, we determined that an average retail price on a product like this would be $24.99. Using Alibaba, we found out that we are able to get these pet pedometers at a cost of $2 per unit.

1,200% markup! Looks good so far right? Let's take a closer look at the other fees that we will need to account for:

You can see from the example above how the small fees will whittle away at your margins. In this case, a product that had an initial markup of over 1,200% ends up less than 100% when all is said and done. Of course, these are just approximates and you can cut costs significantly by handling fulfillment yourself and spending less on advertising. Regardless, knowing this information upfront will be important to know.

7. What's your potential selling price?

Selling an inexpensive product means that you'll need to move many units to make a decent profit. Additionally, along with moving a lot of units comes increased customer service inquiries as well as an increase in potential mixups. On the other hand, selling very expensive products means a longer sales cycle and more discerning customers.

Generally, a product price point between $75-$150 is recommended as it minimizes the need to find a large number of customers to turn a decent profit and is still able to give you some cushion for marketing and operation costs.

EXAMPLE: Our previous example, the pet pedometer, had a relatively low selling price of $25. Because of this, variable costs ate away at much of the profit, leaving a profit per unit of only $12.95. Let's see what happens though if we switch out the pet pedometer for a new product and assume that this new product has a potential selling price of $100 (4x more than the pet pedometer). For consistency, we've also multiplied the other appropriate cost by a factor of 4x.

Because of the higher selling price we have much better margins 73% vs. 42% for the Pet Pedometer, and our profit per unit skyrockets from $12.95 to $76.75.

8. Can you offer a subscription?

It's much easier and less expensive to sell more to a current customer, than to find new customers. A subscription-based business allows you to sell to the same customers many times over, automatically.

EXAMPLE: A replenishment based ecommerce business like Dollar Shave Club is based on sending you things that are consumed and constantly in need. In this case, shaving razor blades.

A subscription ecommerce model is especially important for a company like Dollar Shave Club because of the extremely low price of their products. Monthly blade subscriptions begin at $1 USD/month. If they didn't sell to that same customer on an ongoing basis their business model wouldn't work.

9. What's your products size & weight?

Product size and weight can have a big impact on your sales and bottom line. These days, many customers expect free shipping and just rolling the shipping cost into your prices doesn't always work. This means these costs tend to eat into your margins. If you decide to pass these shipping costs onto your customer, you'll find that the shock of high shipping will likely hurt your conversion rate.

Additionally, if you don't plan to use the dropshipping model, you'll need to consider the cost of shipping the products to yourself (or your warehouse) from your manufacturer, as well as storage fees. If you're ordering your inventory from overseas, you might be surprised at the costs involved.

EXAMPLE: There is a popular yoga mat company which sells oversized workout mats. The product itself is a reasonable $99, however, shipping to Canada is $40 and the rest of the world is $100. For many consumers, it would be hard for them to justify spending 40-100% more for shipping.

10. Is your product durable?

How durable or fragile is your product? Fragile products can be an invitation for trouble. Products that can break easy will cost you more in packaging costs and you are bound to have more returns and exchanges.

EXAMPLE: Billy Murphy from Forever Jobless discussed in one blog post how a very delicate product he began selling was going to cost 4x the product itself to properly ship to customers. After a lot of trial and error, Billy was eventually able to determine how to ship his delicate product safely to customers while minimizing packaging costs but it goes to show you that fragile products can be difficult and something to consider before starting your business.

11. Is your product seasonal?

Businesses with seasonal demand can suffer from inconsistent cash flow. Some seasonality is ok, however, an ideal product will have somewhat consistent cash flow year round.

If you do choose a highly seasonal product, you may want to consider ahead of time how you can overcome seasonality, possibly by marketing to different countries in the off season.

EXAMPLE: Christmas items like the Omega Tree Stand have very strong seasonality swings which makes a business like this difficult to make money with consistently through the year.

RESOURCE: Look for seasonal trends by looking at Google Trends for your product and niche keywords.

12. Does your product serve a passion or relieve a pain or solve a problem?

We discussed this point early on in this guide but it's always an advantage to sell products that serve a passion, relieve a pain, or solve a problem. As an additional benefit is that when you sell products that satisfy one of these requirements, your marketing costs tend to be lower since customers are actively seeking out a solution as opposed to you having to heavily market your product to find them.

EXAMPLE: Pro Teeth Guard sells custom mouth guards to prevent teeth grinding. People with this problem are more likely to seek out a solution and find their online store reducing the costs of advertising to draw consumers in.

13. What will your product turnover be?

It can be risky to have products that constantly needs to be changed or refreshed. These types of products run the risk of not selling before the time of turnover. Before jumping in head first and selling a product with regular turnover, it's vital to know what your turnover schedule will look like and plan accordingly.

EXAMPLE: Smartphone and tablet cases are a hot market, however creating new designs usually requires a high initial investment for designing, prototyping, and minimum order quantities. One of the harder parts of building an online business in a niche like smartphone cases is gaining enough traction and exposure before the next model smartphone/tablet comes out. Not selling through your inventory fast enough could leave you with a stockpile of outdated cases.

14. Is your product consumable or disposable?

Having consumable or disposable products makes selling to the same customer over and over again more natural by essentially putting a time limit on the products life and giving the customer a reason to come back to you for replenishment.

EXAMPLE: Manpacks sells products that generally have a shorter lifespan like razors, condoms, socks and underwear. This model keeps consumers coming back to their site to repurchase.

15. Is perish-ability a factor?

Perishable products are a risky proposition for any business, never mind an online business. Since highly perishable products require speedy delivery, shipping can be costly. Even products with a longer perishability timeline can be risky as it complicates storage and inventory, potentially leaving you with spoiled product.

For example, food products, supplements, medication, and anything else that needs to be kept cold or has a short expiration date all require special consideration when ordering inventory and shipping to customers.

EXAMPLE: The Yummy Tummy Soup Company makes homemade soups and desserts that they sell through their ecommerce website. Since their products are extremely perishable, they need to heavily consider shipping times and packaging to keep the products temperature controlled until it is delivered to the customer.

16. Are there any restrictions or regulations?

Restriction and regulations on your product and niche choice are annoying at best and crippling at worst. Before you move forward with your product idea, you'll want to make sure that there are no regulations or restrictions on your product selection. At the very least you'll want to make sure they are manageable. Certain chemical products, food products, and cosmetics can carry restrictions not only by the country you are importing your goods into but also the countries you're shipping your products to.

You'll want to consider making a few phone calls to customs and border services of the country you'll be importing your product into along with your warehouse if you plan on using one, and the food and drug administration if it's a food/supplement product.

EXAMPLE: Silky Polish, a non-toxic, cruelty-free nail polish ran into problems when they learned it was considered a hazardous material because of the flammable chemicals in it.

These regulations prevented Silky from transporting and shipping their product by air which ultimately prevented overseas sales.

17. Is your product scalable?

It's difficult to think about the future and growing your business when you're still in the launching phase, however scalability should be considered and built into the business model right from the start.

If your product is hand-made or contains difficult to find materials, think about how to scale it if your business takes off. Will you be able to outsource manufacturing? Will your number of employees have to increase with the number of orders or will you be able to maintain a small team?

EXAMPLE: Horween leather is leather produced from the Horween Leather Company and is revered as some of the best leather in the world. Many craftsmen, artisans and customers alike swear by the product. The problem though is that because of the quality and popularity, it's extremely difficult to get it consistently. If you begin building your business and brand on using and advertising this particular leather, you may run into problems as you begin to scale and the leather comes harder to come by.

Conclusion

The product and niche you choose is at the very core of your business and one of the most important decisions you'll have to make.

Using the above criteria as a guideline can help you better understand the product you're considering and increase your overall chances of success. Below, you'll find an interactive calculator that will score your product idea based on your answer to each of the points above.

In the upcoming chapters, you'll further evaluate your idea by evaluating the market as well as the competitive landscape.

Evaluating Market Demand

If you've completed the product evaluation checklist from the last chapter and believe your product and niche idea has potential, it's time to look at the potential market demand.

NOTE: While completing this chapter and evaluating your potential market demand you must keep in mind that if your product and niche idea is a new product or a new use of an old product, there may be no visible market demand. That's not to say that market demand doesn't exist or that market demand can't be built, however, the methods outlined below can only give you an idea of market demand based on people actively searching for your product already. If your product is a new concept, this chapter may not be applicable to you.

To begin understanding market demand, we're going to look at and use a few tools starting with Google's Keyword Planner Tool and using our previous example and product choice of a coconut oil hair care product. The Google Keyword Planner Tool allows you to search for keywords to determine how many searches per month are being made for that term on Google, how much competition there is competing for it and related search terms. This is a great start point for understanding potential demand.

To use Google's Keyword Planner tool you need to have a Google Adwords account which you can get for free. Once you have an account, login and select Tools from the top menu, then select Keyword Planner. On the next screen, click Search for new keyword and ad group ideas.

On the next screen enter your product idea (Note: You may want to try several keyword variations for best results). Double check your settings under Targeting to make sure they're to your liking. In particular, you want to make sure you are targeting the countries you plan to sell to.

For our example, we entered "Coconut Oil for Hair" and selected United States and Canada as this would be the primary markets we would likely be targeting, thus we want to get our validation from those same markets.

On the next screen, it will be on the default tab Ad Group Ideas, change that to the tab labelled Keyword Ideas.

The first column will list the keyword you searched for as well as the various search queries related to the keyword you entered. The second column shows you the number of searches being performed each month in the geographic area you specified. The third column is the level of (Google Adwords paid advertising) competition for each keyword.

In your list of results, there are two things you want to pay attention to:

LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS - Long-Tail keywords are keywords that are made up of 3 or more words. You're not just looking for long-tail keywords, but long-tails that are closely related to your product and niche. For example - coconut oil for hair care.

HIGH SEARCH VOLUME - This can be subjective however you want to look at long-tail keywords that have a decent search volume each month. The higher the search volume obviously means the more people looking for your potential product. This can start to give you a good understanding of how in-demand your product is.

We looked through our results for "Coconut Oil For Hair" and sorted the results by the highest search volume:

There is no minimum number of relevant searches per month we would recommend but it's important to recognize the current potential. Based on our product idea, with a total of over 100,000 searches per month we would feel pretty strongly with this particular product choice, especially since many of the keywords are lower competition. The lower competition of the keywords generally means that it would be easier to rank for these keywords and cheaper to purchase ads based on these keywords.

Validating Geographic Demand

We know that people are searching for coconut oil information and products for their hair in the USA and Canada, but who exactly are these people are where in particular do they live? Sometimes products and trends can be very specific to geographic regions. For that reason, it's worth investigating where demand is coming from a little more.

To do that, you should use Google Trends. Not only does Google Trends display the overall trend for your keyword it can also show you the top countries and cities that are searching for your particular keywords.

Which countries are searching for "Coconut Oil For Hair":

From this, we can see that the Philippines and South Africa are also top countries searching for our potential product and we may want to consider marketing and shipping to if we move ahead.

What cities in particular have the highest number of searches for "Coconut Oil Hair"

Much like the trending countries, the cities searching for our potential product give us insight into the distribution of interest and can give you insight into where you should focus your marketing efforts should you decide to move forward.

Social Media Demand

Now that you've validated search interest from a search engine interest perspective, it's time to look at interest on social media.

Twitter is an effective source for looking at market potential and product interest. You can use a service like Topsy to search for the total volume of tweets per day mentioning your particular keywords.

We used Topsy to search for the total volume of Tweets each day mentioning the words "coconut oil", and "hair" in a single tweet.

From the Topsy graph we can see that everyday approximately 150-250 people are tweeting our keywords. To get a better sense of what exactly they were tweet about and the sentiment of their tweets we also did a search on Twitter.

Here were just a few examples that in particular, hinted towards buying intent:

Using social media to research your product not only reveals the volume of conversation surrounding your product idea but it also helps you discover the language your potential customers are using. This can be helpful when creating ads or writing product descriptions down the road.

Bringing It All Together

In the previous chapter, you learned about all the evaluation points for evaluating a products potential, as well as understanding any potential pitfalls. In this chapter, you learned how to use Google's Keyword Planner to uncover search demand by searching for relevant keywords to your product idea. You also learned how to use Google Trends to better understand who is searching for your potential product along with the countries and cities they live in. Finally, you learned how to use Topsy to understand demand by how many public social conversations were happening each day around your product and niche idea.

At this point, you should have a good idea of the current level of interest in your idea. In the next chapter, we're going to show you how to evaluate your potential competition so you know exactly if and how you can compete in your niche.

Competitor Evaluation

With your selected product and niche evaluated as well as confidence in potential market demand, it's time to take a look at the competitive landscape. Just because you have a great product and there appears to be demand, there may also be fierce competition which you're going to want to be well aware of before proceeding.

In this chapter, we're going to show you some tools and methods for better understanding your potential competition.

Identify Your Top Competitors

The first step is to first determine who is currently selling your potential product. The easiest way to discover your competitors is to do some simple Google searches for your product idea. It’s important to think like a potential customer and search for terms that customers would actually use. You can also use the long-tail keywords uncovered from the previous chapter.

You’ll want to see which competitors rank the highest in Google for keywords specific to your particular product and industry.

NOTE: Make sure you're browsing incognito and you're in the appropriate regional zone (if you want US search results and you're outside the US add &GL=US to the end of the search URL).

Make note of who is ranking on the first page. To get an even fuller picture of your competitors, you can you can also type "related:www.competitorURL.com" in the Google search field to get a list of other similar companies. Alternatively, you can also use free online tools like SimilarWeb and SEMrush to uncover other competitors.

Analyze Your Competition

Although it can be difficult to get a clear picture of how well each of your potential competitors are doing, there are some ways to get some indications.

Again, to start learning more about your competitors, you can use SimilarWeb and SEMrush. These tools can also provide a wealth of additional details about your potential competitors including:

Traffic Overview
Geography of Traffic
Referring Websites
Search Keywords (Organic and Paid)
Social Referrals

Reviewing the information with these tools is a good place to start understanding all of your competitors to get a good overview of what you’re up against.

Some additional things to look for include:

1. HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN IN BUSINESS?

Businesses that don't make money don't stay in business. You can use a service like Who Is to lookup information on a particular domain and see when it was registered. Additionally, both Twitter and Facebook will show you the creation dates of accounts. Understanding how long a business has been around can better help you understand it’s success.

In the example below, we can see that the domain was registered April 22nd of 2010:

NOTE: Keep in mind that the Creation Date doesn’t always represent the date that the business was started, as it could have been registered, bought and sold long before the business that currently exists on the domain.

2. WHAT DOES THEIR SOCIAL FOLLOWING/INTERACTION LOOK LIKE?

Social following and interaction doesn’t necessarily correlate to sales but combines with other information, it helps to paint a better picture of your competitors. One of the most important things to remember here is that you can’t take the number of followers for face value. It’s easy these days to purchase thousands of even tens of thousands of fake (robot) followers inexpensively on services like Fiverr. Because of this, you must look past just social following and look at how much interaction they actually receive on posts and the sentiment of responses.

In the example below this business seemingly had a strong social following on the surface:

Facebook:

Although these numbers look impressive, it’s easy to see that this account isn't totally authentic and the numbers are inflated. All of their posts and status updates have almost no interaction on them. In fact, at best, posts received one or two likes/favorites.

You can use a service like Status People to review Twitter accounts for fake followers. This can give you a better idea of it’s authenticity.

Looking at the same account mentioned above on Status People returned the following results:

Finally, when reviewing your competitors social accounts, pay particular attention to which platforms do they use; how often do they interact with customers, and how do they speak with their customers? Luxy Hair built a multi-million dollar business by utilizing YouTube as they main social channel when they determined that no other hair extension companies was using it.

3. TRAFFIC AND BACKLINKS

Traffic and backlinks can be an indicator of overall competitive strength and success in the market. Although it's not possible to know the exact amount of traffic a particular website receives, there are tools that help you gauge the approximate amount of traffic a site gets, along with the number of backlinks pointing to it.

SEMRush and SimilarWeb are again great tools for looking at a competitors traffic, traffic sources and backlinks.

In the example below, we can see that this online store gets nearly 100,000 visits per month and has over 500 backlinks pointing at it.

NOTE: Many of these services can only determine traffic for established websites. Therefore if you're looking for information on relatively new competitors, there may not be traffic information available yet.

Make a List

Now that you know who you're up against, you'll want to start browsing through your competitor's online stores and get a good feel for their site. Consider the following question as you browse your competitors sites:

How do they emphasis their value proposition?
What are their prices like compared to yours?
What is their product photography like, and how are their product descriptions?
What are their shipping options and prices like?
Where are their call to actions, and how obvious are they?
Are they trying to build an email list?
Is their site optimized for mobile?

Are You Ready To Validate?

It's been a long road. From evaluating your product, to evaluating market demand, to evaluating competition you've made it farther than most people every will. There's just one final and essential step left before you can call it and begin sourcing your product.

In the next chapter, you're going to learn several different methods for validating your product. Validating differs from evaluating in that so far you've used secondary information already available. By validating your idea, your going to be getting first-hand, primary information and maybe even try to make some sales to prove your idea in the real world.

Product & Niche Validation

Prior to this chapter, you've used secondary research (data already available online) to evaluate your idea. Now it's time to validate your idea with first hand, primary research using your specific product, chosen niche and target market. Validating your idea will give you much greater clarity into the potential of your product idea.

Although there's plenty of different ways to validate your idea, the purpose is the same, to get a clear signal as to the actual buyer interest in your product and niche selection.

Below, we're going to explore some of the most common methods of product validation that you can use and apply to your product ideas immediately. You shouldn't feel compelled to utilize every tactic listed here, however, carefully choosing one or two of the outlined methods can significantly increase your understanding of the demand for your product and niche selection.

By the end of this chapter you should have enough confidence to proceed with your product idea and begin looking for a supplier, or know whether you should go back to the the drawing board.

Let's jump into it.

Survey Your Target Market

DIFFICULTY AND TIME COMMITMENT LEVEL: Easy

After gathering secondary research, it's time to gather your own based on your exact product, niche selection, as well as target demographic. The quickest and cheapest way is to create a survey using a simple survey tool like Survey Expression, eSurveysPro, Survey Gizmo or QuestionPro.

To write a good product validation survey and get the most from it, you should touch on each of the following elements in your survey questions:

TARGET AUDIENCE VERIFICATION: You'll want to start by asking key questions to validate your audience. Asking the wrong people about your product idea is completely pointless. Not all answers are created equal.
INITIAL INTEREST: Next, you'll need to determine if people fundamentally like your product idea, what they like about it and what they don’t like about it.
PURCHASE INTENT: Finally, you'll want to ask some questions to gauge purchase intent. Many people, especially if you know them, will be overly positive so it's important to put people to the test a little bit to find out if they would actually purchase your product.

Not to worry if you don't know anyone in your target market. There are several paid services available that can help like Google Customer Surveys or Survata. These services will allow you to create surveys and then distribute the surveys to people in your defined target audience on your behalf for a small fee.

Presell on Social Media and Email

DIFFICULTY AND TIME COMMITMENT LEVEL: Easy

Depending on your product and niche selection, contacts on your social networks and in your email contact list might be a great fit for testing your product idea with.

Nothing beats actually making sales before sinking a lot of time and money into a business. Noah Kagan from SumoMe did just that when he was trying to validate his idea of a subscription beef jerky service. Using his social accounts and personal email contacts, Noah contacted friends and acquaintances he thought would be interested in his new potential service and asked them if they wanted to purchase (all before even having any product to sell).

He first sent out an email to his contacts:

After, he posted on his personal Facebook to get some feedback as well:

Finally, he used Facebook's Search Graph to find and reach out to people that he was friends with that currently like beef jerky or followed the paleo diet.

His call to action to test his idea was clear, send the money to his PayPal account. The results? $3,030 in total revenue all in a 24 hour period of time. Considering this a successful product validation, he went on to begin SumoJerky.

Create a Crowdfunding Campaign

DIFFICULTY AND TIME COMMITMENT LEVEL: Medium-Hard

One of the most popular methods of product validation over the last few years is to set up a crowdfunding campaign on sites like Indigogo or Kickstarter. Setting up a crowdfunding campaign not only helps you to validate your product but allows you to collect money upfront to fund the business and initial inventory.

Crowdfunding campaigns are usually reserved for new, interesting or innovative products so simply re-selling another brands products or items you've imported from overseas won’t quite make the cut.

Crowdfunding your idea as a product validation step also requires quite a bit of work and is more involved than the previous methods discussed. Most crowdfunding sites will require you to have some type of prototype before creating your campaign.

RESOURCE: We wrote the book on creating, launching and marketing your crowdfunding campaign. Check out the comprehensive guide here.

Create a Landing Page

DIFFICULTY AND TIME COMMITMENT LEVEL: Easy

Another simple and popular method to better understanding interest and demand is to set up a one page landing page with your value proposition and an email collection box. By driving traffic to this site and collecting emails, you can start getting a better sense of true interest in your product as well as begin building a relationship with potential customers.

You can use Shopify's prelaunch page and embed an email sign up form from a email provider like MailChimp or Aweber. Alternatively, you could also use a full featured landing page creator from one of the following services:

LaunchRock
Strikingly
Unbounce
Kickofflabs
QuickMVP

Open a Test Store

DIFFICULTY AND TIME COMMITMENT LEVEL: Easy-Difficult

Finally, one of the best and thorough ways to test and validate demand for your idea is by setting up a test store. This popular method, which has been discussed in books like The 4 Hour Work Week, involves setting up a store with your product and driving traffic to it over a period of time to test consumer interest and demand for your product.

NOTE: Keep in mind that according to laws in some countries, states and provinces, when selling items as a pre-order, you're not supposed to capture the payment immediately. It's usually alright to authorize it, but you're only supposed to capture it just before, or soon after, shipping.

Spaces is one of the best ways to validate and build a new business. They allow you to very quickly create a store that you can collect payments with. Because Spaces is so lightweight, you could have a store running in under 5 minutes, either pre-selling your product or, if you're so inclined, you could sell your samples to get some real world feedback.

Conclusion

If you've made it to this point, you should have a solid understanding of your product, your selected niche as well as the potential demand for it. Now would be the time to take all the secondary and primary information you've gathered and take a close look everything. You'll want to carefully evaluate each pro as well as each con and decide if you can build a viable business around your idea.

In the next chapter, we will be taking a look at the four methods of acquiring your product along with the pros and cons for each model.

Manufacture, Wholesale or Dropship

Coming up with, evaluating and validating a product idea is just the beginning of a long but exciting journey to building your online business. The next step is to determine how you’re going to acquire the products you want to sell.

There are several options when it comes to acquiring your new products, and each option has its advantages, disadvantages, as well as unique challenges.

The four most common methods of acquiring your products and inventory are:

Make
Manufacture
Wholesale
Dropship

It’s important to understand each of these methods in order to make the right choice for your business. There are pros and cons to each of the methods, and depending on you product, market, and niche, one may be more suitable for you and your business than the others.

Let's look at each method in more detail below.

Making Your Product Yourself

Making your product is a common approach for many hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers. Whether it be jewellery, fashion or natural beauty products, making products yourself allows for the most control over quality and the brand, however, this control comes at a cost. Making products yourself ties you deeply into the business and can present challenges when it comes to the amount of time it takes you to produce each product as well as being able to scale your business as it grows.

The primary costs associated with making your own products includes the purchasing of raw materials, storage of inventory and labor time involved in producing your product.

The most important thing to note is that not all products can be made by hand. Your product choices are limited to your skills and your available resources.

WHO'S IT FOR:

This option is best suited for the do-it-yourselfer, someone that has their own unique ideas, can physically produce the goods themselves and has the resources available to do so. Making your own products is also for people that want to maintain full control over the product quality and their brand along with the desire to keep startup inventory costs relatively low.

PROS:

RELATIVELY LOW STARTUP COSTS - When you make your own products, you generally don’t have to produce a large upfront number of units like you would have to purchase if you were manufacturing or wholesaling. This allows you to enjoy relatively low production costs, which for many ecommerce businesses, makes up the bulk of their startup costs.
BRAND CONTROL - Making your own product means you can create any brand you wish with no limitations.
PRICE CONTROL - Going hand in hand with brand control is the ability to price your products as you see fit. Through your brand, you can position and charge what you like for your product.
QUALITY CONTROL - When making your own products, you can closely control the quality of your products, ensuring they live up to your expectations as well as your customers.
AGILITY - Making your own products can give you the greatest level of agility for your business, allowing you to adjust quality, features and even the entire product on the fly.

CONS:

HIGH TIME INPUT - Depending on your exact product choice, making your own products can be a time consuming process, leaving you less time to focus on actually building and marketing your business.
SCALABILITY - Making products yourself can pose an issue if and when your business takes off. Although you have the option to look to a manufacturer for help as you scale up, this might not be easy or possible if being handmade is built into your brand.
LIMITED PRODUCT CHOICES - Your choices of potential products are limited to your skills and the resources you have available to you. This will vary from person to person.

MARGINS:

Margin potential is usually on the higher side versus the other three models when you make the product yourself because you have more control over your costs as well as pricing. However, you should carefully factor in your time to produce the goods, as this can cause a dramatic dip in your profit if your products are time consuming to produce.

RISKS:

Typically, making products yourself is generally a low-risk option financially. Because you're making the products yourself, there are no minimum orders like you would find if you were manufacturing your product or purchasing inventory wholesale. You may even be able to produce the products as you receive orders, allowing you to easily get the business up and running and proving your concept before investing too much time, energy and money into it.

Manufacturing Your Product

Another viable option for acquiring your product is to find a manufacturer to produce the product for you. When sourcing a manufacturer you have the option of sourcing domestically or from overseas. As you might expect, a domestic manufacturer in general will cost more than a manufacturer from overseas countries like China, Taiwan or India.

If you're looking to source a manufacturer from overseas, you'll likely end up at some point on Alibaba. Alibaba is one of the largest business-to-business market places that connects (mostly) asian manufacturers to North American buyers. There are several other similar companies that operate in this space that are smaller and cater to different markets for manufacturers, like IndiaMart.

WHO'S IT FOR:

Manufacturing your product is a good idea (and maybe the only option) for those that have a unique product idea or a variation of a current product that doesn't exist currently. It's also for people that have validated the market for their product and are very confident that their product will sell. A strong level of confidence before choosing manufacturing is important as manufacturing will require the greatest financial investment upfront for designing, prototyping and purchasing minimum quantities.

PROS:

LOWEST COST PER UNIT - It's not uncommon for manufacturing to be the best options for the lowest cost per unit, giving you the greatest margins on your product.
BRAND CONTROL - Having your product manufactured means you can build your own brand around your product and aren't constrained by another brands rules.
PRICE CONTROL - Along with the ability to build your own brand comes the ability to set your own prices for your product.
QUALITY CONTROL - Unlike dropshipping or purchasing wholesale, when you manufacture your own product you're in control of the quality of your final product.

CONS:

MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITIES - One of the biggest disadvantages of manufacturing your own product are the startup costs required for designing, prototyping and initial inventory orders. Depending on the costs of your product and the manufacturer, your inventory investment can reach thousands or tens of thousands of dollars quite easily.
POTENTIAL FOR FRAUD FROM OVERSEAS MANUFACTURERS - If you don't properly protect yourself when you're dealing with overseas manufacturers, you run the risk of being scammed. This can happen a number of different ways, either for your money or, almost just as bad, the final product you receive won't be the expected or negotiated quality.
TIME TO GET UP AND RUNNING - Manufacturing your product will likely take you the longest amount of time from start to finish. Manufacturing can be a long process of prototyping, sampling, refining and production. The difficulty of this process can be amplified if you plan on using a overseas manufacturer where language, distance and cultural barriers can arise.

MARGINS:

When you manufacturer your product, your product margins can vary greatly based on the particular product, the manufacturer and order quantity. Usually however, manufacturing your own product gives you the greatest margin potential over other methods like purchasing wholesale and dropshipping.

RISKS:

With great rewards comes great risk. This makes manufacturing the highest risk option in most cases. You must purchase (usually) larger amounts of inventory upfront with no guarantee it will sell. Manufacturers generally have a minimum order quantity (MOQ) so you may be starting out with thousands of units or more. Minimum orders will depend on the product and manufacturer so make sure you discuss early what the MOQ is but remember, minimum order quantities can usually be negotiated.

As mentioned previously, risk also comes in the form of fraud if you're purchasing from a manufacture overseas, particularly from Asia. Business-to-business sourcing sites like Alibaba have safeguards in place to help prevent fraud, but fraud is still a very real issue with little recourse if something does go wrong.

Purchasing Your Product Wholesale

Buying wholesale is a fairly simple and straight forward process. You're buying your product inventory (usually other brands) direct from the manufacturers or from a middleman supplier at a discounted wholesale rate, which you in-turn, resell at a higher price.

Buying wholesale is a lower risk business model compared to manufacturing for multiple reasons. First, you're dealing with brands that are already established to some extent and validated in the market so you don't run the risk of developing a product no one wants. Also, you usually don't have to purchase nearly as high of a minimum order compared to manufacturing your own product. Minimum orders will depend on the manufacturer and product, however they're usually pretty reasonable and can even be as low as one unit per SKU if you're dealing with other smaller brands.

WHO'S IT FOR:

Purchasing products wholesale is a good option if you want to get up and running quickly or if you want to sell a variety of products and brands. Wholesaling provides a wide range of opportunities as there are many products available for wholesale.

PROS:

SELLING ALREADY ESTABLISHED PRODUCTS - Because you're selling already established products helps to lessen the risk associated with purchasing inventory.
BRAND FAMILIARITY - Selling already established brands can help position your brand by creating an aura effect on your brand.

CONS:

SELLING ALREADY ESTABLISHED PRODUCTS - Selling already established products can work for you as well as against you. Because the products are available from multiple retailers, you will need to fight extra hard to differentiate yourself and convince consumers to purchase from you.
PRICE CONTROL - Selling other brands means that to some extent you have to play by their rules. Some brands will enforce price controls to prevent you from discounting their products. This limits your ability to have certain sales and offers.
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT - When purchasing wholesale you'll likely have to purchase a minimum order of each product. The minimum order will depend on the product and manufacturer which will depend partially how big the brands are you plan on stocking.
DEALING WITH SUPPLY PARTNERS - If you're carrying an array of products, dealing with multiple supply partners can become difficult to manage. Requirements, contracts and rules will vary from supplier to supplier.

MARGINS:

The margins for wholesale are typically good compared to dropshipping, but not usually as profitable as manufacturing products yourself. This method can be considered a safe middle ground between manufacturing and dropshipping when it comes to margins. Although each case is unique, it’s typical to see a 50% margin on wholesale goods resold at retail pricing.

RISKS:

Buying wholesale is a lower risk model versus manufacturing but still carries some risk. Wholesaling will require the purchase of inventory with no guarantee that you can sell it. Perhaps the greatest risk comes from figuring out how to differentiate yourself from the many other retailers selling the same products from the same brands. If you're planning on wholesaling, you'll need to consider how you can set yourself apart and add value that will convince customers to order from you.

Dropshipping Your Product

The concept of dropshipping is selling products you don’t actually own. Working with dropship partners is not only a product acquisition model, but also includes product fulfillment. The process works by taking orders from your online business and forwarding them to your dropship partner. They in turn, ship the product to your customer on behalf of your company. The key to making money with drop shipping is making a profit on the price difference between what you charge and what your dropshipping partner charges you. Although it's not set in stone, typical dropshipping margins are usually around 15%-20%.

The biggest benefit to dropshipping is the ability to offer a large selection of products without purchasing inventory upfront or managing that inventory. Dropshipping can also be a great tool to help diversify your inventory and test products since it's just a matter of adding the new product to your store.

When going with a dropshipping business model, you can either work with manufacturers (who offer dropshipping) by contacting them directly or you can work with a dropship aggregator like WorldWide Brands. An aggregator works with hundreds of manufacturers and makes it easy to sell thousands of products without the need for you to maintain relationships with each individual manufacturer.

Keep in mind, that although these aggregators make it easier to sell a variety of products, they take a cut of your already slim dropshipping margins. Additionally, many will make you pay a yearly “membership” or “sign up” fee of a few hundred dollars.

WHO'S IT FOR:

Dropshipping is by nature, the cheapest option to get started. Therefore, dropshipping is for people that are would prefer to keep startup costs as low as possible and are less concerned about margins. Dropshipping is also a great option for someone that doesn't want to hold and manage inventory. It's also a great option for people starting out in ecommerce as it allows you to get started for almost nothing and to start understanding the world of ecommerce and various aspects of online marketing.

PROS:

LOW STARTUP COSTS - The biggest advantage of dropshipping is the low startup costs. Because you never purchasing and carrying inventory upfront, you have no inventory costs.
LOW RISK - Since you don't actually purchase your inventory upfront you aren't taking the risk of having items you can't sell.
MANAGE YOUR BUSINESS FROM ANYWHERE - Dropship partners not only supply your product, but they also fulfill orders for you. That means you can easily manage your business from anywhere in the world, provided you have a laptop connection.

CONS:

HIGH COMPETITION - Because dropshipping has such a low barrier to entry, you need to be prepared for a high level of competition in your product category.
LOW MARGINS - Maybe one of the biggest disadvantages of dropshipping are the very low margins. This makes it extremely difficult to compete in the paid advertising space and means you'll have to rely more on adding value through superior customer service and building better content. Low margins also mean you have to sell a significant volume to make a decent profit.

MARGINS:

Your profit is the difference between what you charged the customer and the price the dropshipper charges you. Typically with dropshipping your profit margins are slim, around 15%-20%.

RISKS:

Dropshipping is fairly low risk in terms of potential financial loss because you're not buying inventory upfront nor do you have to worry about shipping product. However, risk comes in the form of very slim margins and high levels of competition. Slim margins means you'll have to move a lot of units to make decent profit. Compounding that, the slim margins diminishes your ability to profitably carry out certain marketing activities like pay-per-click to acquire new customers as well as running sales and offers.

RESOURCE: We wrote the book on dropshipping as well. Check out our comprehensive guide on dropshipping.

Which method is right for you?

Most products will fall into one of these four product acquisition models. Depending on your chosen product or niche, you may not have the option of which business model you choose. Much of it depends on the type of product you plan to sell. Some products will naturally fall under certain categories.

For example:

If your product idea doesn't exist: Make or Manufacturer
If you have almost no money to get started: Dropship
If You want to sell other brands: Wholesale or Dropship
If you want to hand produce your product: Make
If you want the highest possible margins: Manufacture
If you want to take the least risk possible: Dropship
If you want to take the most risk possible: Manufacture
If you want to take some risk: Make/Wholesale

The model you end up selling under will partially define and shape your entire business going forward. It's important to understand the advantages, as well as the disadvantages of each so you can make the right choice for your business.

In the next chapter, we'll show you how and where to look for a supplier for your products.

Locating a Supplier

You've made it this far. This alone is a huge achievement but you can't rest are your laurels quite yet. Now you have to find a supplier for your product idea.

If your plan is to make your product yourself, you're going to require the sourcing of raw materials and parts. Manufacturing will require factory sourcing. Wholesaling will require making direct communication with manufacturers or with their distribution partners. Finally, dropshipping will require finding manufactures that will dropship on your behalf or by working with a dropshipping distributor.

Although each of these methods are slightly different, they all require searching, communicating, convincing someone to work with you and negotiating price and minimum order quantities.

In this chapter, you're going to learn exactly what to need to know to locate, contact and negotiate with suppliers.

The Basic

NOTE: For the purpose of this chapter when we refer to suppliers, we are referring to anyone that has the capability to provide you with products and inventory. This encompasses manufacturers, dropshippers, wholesalers and distributors.

There are a ton of helpful resources to be found online just by searching Google. However, before you begin there are a few things you should know and decide upon.

First, as we mentioned in the intro to this chapter, you need to determine which type of supplier you're looking for. This will help determine the terminology you need to use in your research.

There are several common options:

A manufacturer to produce your own product idea
A supplier, who may also be a manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor to purchase already existing brands and products for resale
A dropshipper to supply products and fulfill orders of already existing brands and products

Domestic vs. Overseas Suppliers

The next step is to ask yourself if you want to source your products domestically or from overseas. Overseas sourcing can refer to any country overseas but typically refers to Asian countries like China, India and Taiwan where cost of production and therefore product, is generally much lower.

Both domestic and overseas sourcing have their advantages as well as disadvantages. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of each method below:

Domestic Sourcing

ADVANTAGES

Typically higher manufacturing quality and labor standards
Ease of communication with no language barrier
Additional marketing appeal of products being made in North America
Easier to verify manufacturers and their reputations
Quicker shipping time
Increased intellectual property right protection
Higher payment security

DISADVANTAGES

Higher manufacturing and product costs
Less product choice (There are many items that just aren’t made in North America anymore)

Overseas Sourcing

ADVANTAGES

Lower manufacturing costs
High number of manufacturers to choose from
One-stop services like Alibaba have made it very easy to navigate suppliers

DISADVANTAGES

Lower perceived quality from customers
(Usually) lower manufacturing and labor standards
Almost no intellectual property protection
Language and communication barrier can be difficult to overcome
Difficult/costly to verify manufacturer and visit on-site
Longer shipping time
Cultural differences in business practices
Product importation and customs clearance
Low level of payment security and recourse

Where to Begin Your Supplier Search

Now that you have a better idea of exactly what you're looking for, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of domestic vs. overseas sourcing, it's time to begin searching for your supplier. Naturally, the internet will provide a great source of information but there are a few places in particular that can help with your search.

The Depths of Google

Search engines like Google and Bing are naturally the best place to start. We are accustomed to easily being able to do a search and generally finding what we are looking for on the first page. However, many suppliers haven’t kept pace with the internet and the constantly changing rules of SEO. Their websites are usually old, sparse on information and most certainly are not search engine optimized. This means you will likely have to dig a little deeper to find what you're looking for.

So how do you find suppliers on Google and Bing? For the first time ever, you’ll need to explore pages 2,3,4,5 and beyond of your search results. You'll also need to try a variety of search terms. For example, words like wholesale, wholesaler and distributor may be used interchangeably so you should search for combinations of all of them.

It may help you make yourself familiar with Google's search shortcuts to improve the quality of your searches, thus the results:

Image Source: About.com

Directories

Some of the best sources can be free online supplier directories. These directories contain profiles for hundreds of suppliers. Below, we have listed a few of the most popular ones for both domestic and overseas suppliers:

ONLINE DOMESTIC DIRECTORIES

ThomasNet
Makers Row
MFG
Kompass

ONLINE OVERSEAS DIRECTORIES

Alibaba
AliExpress
IndiaMart

Local Library

You may also want to consider dusting off your library card and head out to your local library. Most libraries pay monthly subscription fees for online business and manufacturer directories that you normally wouldn't have access to like the Scotts Online Business Directory. Directories contain profiles for hundreds of manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors in North America.

NOTE: Make sure to give your local library a call ahead of time and ask them if they have access to these types of paid private directories. For larger libraries, you may need to chat with the business & technology department.

Referrals, Social Networks & Forums

Referrals can sometimes be your best source for leads. Social networks have made it much easier to get the word out so make sure to use these channels and ask friends, family and your network for suggestions and introductions.

LinkedIn in particular can be a big help in your search for a supplier. Try searching for people in the industry your are considering entering and ask them for referrals to suppliers.

Additionally, niche specific forums are also great places to ask for referrals to suppliers. Reddit in particular has a subreddit for almost every niche you can imagine, so make sure you make a pit stop there.

As you start to uncover suppliers, even if they aren't the right fit for you, be sure to ask them if they can point you in the right direction. Being in the industry means they will likely have great contacts. Many times, if they aren't a good fit for you, they will be more than happy to refer you to someone that might be a better fit.

Other Research Tips

Beyond searching for your products by their name, you can also try searching for your products it's NAICS code. NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, and pretty much every single industry and product you can think of has a NAICS code. Sometimes manufacturers and suppliers may list their products by the NAICS code which can make your product manufactures and suppliers easier to find, especially if you're using professional directories.

The NAICS directory can be found at your local library or on the Internet at:

USA - NAICS Code

CANADA - NAICS Code

Requesting a Quote

Requesting a quote (many times referred to as a RFQ, Request For Quote) is a relatively simple process, however, taking a few extra minutes to plan your email can make a significant difference in the number and quality of replies you receive.

Here are a few important questions to consider for your email:

WHAT IS YOUR MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITY? - Also referred to as a MOQ. You'll want to make sure their minimums are manageable for you and that you can afford them. This minimum order quantity can vary wildly depending on the product and the supplier so it's important to ask upfront. Keep in mind, minimum order quantity is almost always negotiable.
WHAT IS YOUR SAMPLE PRICING? - You'll likely want samples to inspect before making a full order. Sample pricing ranges, depending on the product and supplier. Some suppliers that receive many requests may change the full retail pricing, others will offer you samples at a discounted rate, and some may even send you samples for free.
WHAT IS YOUR PRODUCTION PRICING? - One of the most important questions is how much your products cost per unit will cost. You’ll probably wan't to ask for pricing for several quantities to get a sense of if and how they do discounted pricing at higher quantity levels.
WHAT IS YOUR TURNAROUND TIME? - Knowing how long it will take to produce your order is an important consideration and depending your exact business, time can be critical.
WHAT ARE YOUR PAYMENT TERMS? - Many suppliers will require new businesses to pay for the full order upfront. This is important to know since inventory is a major cost for ecommerce startups. You may want to also ask if they provide payment terms on future orders.

A lack of supplier responsiveness is a common complaint from new ecommerce entrepreneurs. The most common reason suppliers don't reply is because many suppliers get bombarded with email quote requests all the time from flaky buyers that are just ‘kicking the tires’. Because of this, they simply don't have the time to reply to all requests.

So how do you avoid being ignored? There are a few things that you should avoid when reaching out to suppliers for the first time:

EMAIL FROM PERSONAL EMAIL- Remember, suppliers receive lots of requests. Because they invest time into replying to your email, they are looking for signs that you're real potential lead for them. Emailing them from ilovebritneyspears@hotmail.com is a surefire way to not receive a reply. It may cost a bit of money, however, purchasing a domain name and even setting up a very quick landing page with a service like Striking.ly can go a long ways in making your look more qualified in a suppliers eyes.
LONG EMAILS - Your first email to a manufacturer should be clear and concise. Avoid telling too much about your story and background. The first email should be purely to assess potential fit at a high level. Focus on what suppliers care about the most like the details of what you’re trying to source.
ASKING FOR TOO MUCH - Requests aren't always easy for the supplier to produce. It's important to ask for a few prices for multiple quantities, but avoid asking for too much or too many quotes. Stick to asking for what you absolutely need to assess fit between you and the supplier.
ASKING FOR TOO LITTLE - If you ask for a quote well below the supplier’s minimum order quantity (MOQ) you risk being met with silence. Sometimes it's better to request quotes for a larger amount to begin the email communications.

Finally, if you're contacting a supplier from overseas, keep in mind that in many cases, they may be using a translation program like Google Translate to translate your email as well as their reply. Keeping your emails short, concise, well formatted and spelling error free will not only help the manufacturer but it will ultimately provide you with better replies.

When asking your questions and formatting your email to suppliers, especially to overseas suppliers, it's best to number your questions so that they can easily reply to each number, keeping the questions and communication clean and organized.

Here is an example of an email template you may want to consider and use for contacting suppliers:

Hi,

My name is John Doe and I am with XYZ Company.

I am interested in placing an order for Widget A. Before I do however, I just have several questions:

1. What is your minimum order quantity?

2. What is your cost per unit and at what quantity levels do you offer quantity discounts?

3. What are your payment terms for new customers?

I would also like to order a sample of Widget A before placing a full order. Can you please send me the cost for the sample including shipping to:

John Doe

80 Spadina Avenue, Floor 4

Toronto, ON, Canada

M5V2J4

Thank you.

John,

XYZ Company

www.xyzcompany.com

416-444-4444

As you can see from the sample above, it's short, concise and it's goal is to make sure at a high level that there is a fit between both parties.

Negotiating Minimum Order Quantities (MOQ)

If you're looking for a supplier for the first time, you're going to quickly learn about ‘Minimum Order Quantities’ (MOQ’s). Minimum order quantities will largely depend on your product, the industry, your supplier and whether you're manufacturing the product, wholesaling or dropshipping. Typically, if you are purchasing good wholesale for resell, minimum orders can be anywhere from a few units to a few dozen, sometimes more. If you are dropshipping, there is generally no minimums because you aren't purchasing inventory upfront. If you are manufacturing your own product, minimum's are almost always the highest and can range from a few hundred to a few thousand.

MOQ's make it difficult when you have limited funds, or simply want to play it safe by starting small to test the market before making larger purchases. The good thing is that MOQ's are almost always negotiable.

Before you begin negotiating, the first step is to understand why the supplier has a minimum. Is it because there is a lot of work upfront to tool the machines? Maybe it's because they just prefer to work with larger buyers. Regardless, understanding the reasons behind the manufacturers minimum will help you better understand their position and will help in your negotiations.

Once you have a better understanding of your suppliers position, you can ask for a lower order quantity. Compromises can include giving the supplier a deposit for a larger order, but just producing small amounts at a time or paying a higher price per unit. Sometimes, just asking for a break on your first order may be enough.

TIP: One particularly effective method for negotiating a lower minimum order is to ask for a break on your first order so that you can use the money saved to put into marketing their product. This makes the supplier feel that you are more committed to selling their product.

Conclusion

Sourcing a supplier for your product is a unique process and a new experience for many first-time entrepreneurs. Although sometimes it can be a frustrating and a time consuming experience with many dead ends, choosing the right supplier for your business is a critical decision and one that you shouldn't rush. It's easy to get frustrated when you hit dead ends, but in most cases, it just requires a little more patience and perseverance to find the perfect partner for your new business.

Conclusion

Finding a product to sell online is not an easy task. Even with a million products available to sell online, narrowing it down and choosing one is no small feat. Many times, new ecommerce entrepreneurs get so caught up in trying to find the absolute perfect product that they never get started. The thing is, there really is no perfect product. There are bad, good and great products. With the exception of bad products, good and great products can be your perfect product, provided you believe in a long term vision and you’re willing to work hard.

Don't Get Hung Up On The Criteria

What makes a product successful is much more than just some checkmarks on a list of criteria or number of searches per month in Google, or a low level of competition in the niche. Although the evaluations we looked at in this guide will definitely help steer you in the right direction, there is still no substitute for taking or creating a great product, adding value, executing great marketing, providing outstanding customer service and a long-term commitment. Do your research but don't let every little negative point you come across paralyze you.

Rinse and Repeat

If you closely followed this guide but still don't feel confident in your product choice, repeat the process. You can always try re-evaluating your product idea by choosing a slightly different niche or market. These slight tweaks can make a big difference in the success of your product idea and business. Alternatively, you can also choose to scrap your product idea entirely and begin looking for new product ideas.

Keep Move Forward

The most thing to remember is to keep moving forward. Many new entrepreneurs will get stuck in a vicious cycle of constantly looking and evaluating ideas, never to find the elusive perfect product, thus never actually starting a business. One of the best things about being an ecommerce entrepreneur in this day in age is that many of your ideas can likely be started for extremely little money.

Although many people believe that the majority of successful ecommerce entrepreneurs had 100% certainty in their product and niche before starting their business, that's usually not the case. The majority of them had fears and reservations about how things would turn out. Despite this, they moved forward.

Although starting a business is a journey, and not a race, a journey still begins with the first step. Give yourself a deadline and if you can’t find your perfect product, start looking at your best options for starting.

Advice from eCommerce experts

What you've learned in this guide is one framework for finding, evaluating, validating and sourcing a product. However, there's always more than one way to do something, and that's no different when it comes to building an ecommerce business. With this in mind, we asked nine of the top ecommerce experts to share their best advice and tips on finding a product to sell online.

"The #1 strategy for product validation is to do pre-sales. Email people telling them what you are going to make and when it'll be delivered by. Ask for 5 orders at a specific price and see if people will buy. This will help you figure out if people want what you are making and if they don't you can ask them what they'd pay for instead. Money is a truth serum."

- NOAH KAGAN OF SUMOME

"Is your product better than anything else on the market for the unique value it offers? If not, why are you wanting to sell it? It doesn't have to be #1 overall in the market, but it should be #1 for whatever need around the product you're trying to solve. There is little point in launching a product that offers the same value as other people already do, unless you specifically fill a marketing gap in the space. If you're offering the same thing as other people already do, profits will likely be temporary, and capped. If you offer something that solves a specific need better than anyone else, profits are more likely to be long term, and more importantly, uncapped."

- BILLY MURPHY OF FOREVERJOBLESS

"One of my favorite strategies for coming up with product ideas is to take what I call a problem walk. If I'm stuck for ideas on anything, I'll go walk around my hometown (or whatever city I'm in) and look for any problems or things that could be done better. I take a note, and try to have 25 before I go home.

This allows me to start thinking in the mindset of helping others and finding things that need to be fixed that I could potentially provide a solution for. It's worked surprisingly well both for potential products as well as content."

- SEAN OGLE OF LOCATION 180

"When you are thinking about the kind of product you want to launch, think about your own life and answer some of the following questions: What are some products that you WISH you had? What type of product would make YOUR life better? Is there an existing product that you can tweak to make it better or more useful? And would others see the value in it, too?

When you are ready to test, it's important to get feedback to validate your idea. It might be tempting to ask friends and family for their opinion, but that's not the right way to go because friends and family will either totally support you and go along with ANY idea that you might have, or they might not support you as well. The best way to go about validating your product idea is to reach out to your IDEAL customer, ask them if they would actually buy it and then ask them specific questions about your products."
- ANDREEA AYERS OF LAUNCH GROW JOY

"When it comes to finding a successful niche, the issue isn't product sourcing. Between drop shipping and Alibaba.com, many products can be easily found and purchase. Instead, you need to have a convincing answer for this question: why would people buy from you over someone else?

This question is easiest to answer when you've made your own unique, proprietary product that fills a specific need. And while you can still succeed reselling products made by others, it takes more work and skill. With Amazon and the legions of other trusted retailers likely selling the same thing, you really have to set yourself apart.

If you try to compete on price or selection, you'll likely find those are difficult ways to differentiate. The answer will vary for each niche you're in, but you should be able to convincingly answer this difficult and important question before moving forward."
- ANDREW YOUDERIAN OF ECOMMERCEFUEL

"My favorite place to find product ideas is to use a service called Terapeak. Terapeak scrapes all of the EBay listings and tells you what products are hot and what products are not. It also ties into the Amazon product listings so you can get an idea of what is selling there as well. In many cases, you can find a top selling product, iterate and make improvements and then sell it under your own brand."

- STEVE CHOU OF MY WIFE QUIT HER JOB

"My favorite way to evaluate a product idea is by setting up a quick landing page featuring my proposed product using a cheap Wordpress theme or a service like Leadpages or Instapage. Then I spend a few hundred bucks on AdWords driving traffic to my landing pages to see what sticks. After about a week of testing, I can often figure out things like 1) what offer sells, at 2) what price point and 3) what is the resulting cost per acquisition. This knowledge is invaluable -- if you know that you can drive traffic where the cost per acquisition is lower than the margin on a purchase, you have discovered product market fit and can start to scale that business up."

- DREW SANOCKI OF DREWSANOCKI.COM

"One strategy I'm excited about right now is using drop shipping as a way to enter a market and validate it. This allows me to try selling a product with very little risk and low upfront cost, even if my profits are minimal at first. By drop shipping first, I can learn about the niche, figure out what's selling, and once revenue is being generated begin purchasing inventory in bulk for better margins. This also allows me to offer a wider variety of products, since I can purchase less expensive items in bulk while continuing to drop ship the bigger items that would be difficult to purchase and warehouse."

- LEIGHTON TAYLOR OF ECOMMERCEPULSE

"My first preference for a product idea is solving a problem that you yourself have. Those are the easiest to develop and validate, since you are wholly invested in them. If that's not possible, then I like to get random ideas from everyday experiences. For example, I once visited a friend who had a pet rabbit. That gave me an idea to look into rabbit related products. A bit of searching clicking here and there got me to a very interesting niche: animal tattoo kits. Using random ideas from everyday experiences opens your eyes to niches you wouldn't have otherwise found.

To validate, I need to see a specific audience tied to the product. For rabbit tattoos, I'd guess that tattooed individuals would probably like to ink their pets, too, so a potential audience would be tattoo enthusiasts with rabbits. If I can find a presence of these(or other similar people who would need this product) online, that's my basic validation. Of course, you still have to consider pricing and margins."

- SHABBIR NOORUDDIN OF BOOTSTRAPPING ECOMMERCE

China is developing a homegrown operating system

2014-08-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

China to Go Its Own OS Way, that could be ready as soon as October as part of an effort to wean itself from Western-made software, according to a Sunday report from the Xinhua government news agency.

Following hard on the heels of China's announcement last month that it had launched an investigation of Microsoft under the country's antimonopoly laws, the latest news suggests the new operating system first will appear on desktop devices and then be extended to smartphones and other mobile devices in three to five years.

The now-defunct Red Flag Linux software could be part of the new OS, according to Computerworld.

Western OS makers Microsoft, Google and Apple were specifically targeted in China's plans, noted Xinhua, whose report is based on a story in the People's Post and Telecommunications News, a publication run by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China officials earlier this year banned the use of Windows 8 on government computers.

'A Hard Sell'

"This is not the first time that the Chinese government has announced grand plans to replace the dominant 'Western' computing platforms," Bill Weinberg, Black Duck Software's senior director for open source strategy consulting, told.

"A decade ago, they invested heavily in Linux-based desktop and server offerings from Red Flag, even mandating their use in government ministries and agencies," Weinberg explained.

"The government also funded numerous startups and programs at existing Chinese software companies to provide support, applications, etc.," he noted.

"While this program was highlighted as an example of OSS adoption, its actual impact was very limited," added Weinberg. "At the time, the primary impetus was cost, and given that Windows XP at the time was for most intents and purposes free in China, a Linux-based platform remained a hard sell."

'They Don't Like Paying'

Part of China's motivation is that "they don't like paying," Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told the E-Commerce Times. "They have a strange view that says paying licensees for software and/or IP is somehow unfair and a form of Western imperialism being imposed on them."

A second reason behind the nation's desire for technological independence is a military one, Atkinson added. "Those two factors are leading them down a path where they want to replace Western technology with their own."

Another effort within the nation targets the semiconductor industry and aims to replace Intel technologies, he pointed out.

The move is "pretty obviously an effort by the Chinese government to increase their ability to both surveil and censor," Berin Szoka, president of the TechFreedom think tank, told the E-Commerce Times.

'A Loss of Potential'

Given the prevalence of software piracy within China, it's not clear how much of a financial threat China's move is to the Western companies being targeted.

"The amount of piracy for Microsoft products in China is so astronomical -- even in central government agencies -- that I think for Microsoft, the loss is more a loss of potential," Atkinson opined. "This is assuming the plan actually works."

Of course, China is a rapidly growing economy, and typically, "when economies get more wealthy, they shift away from piracy. So in theory, in say 20 years, China should be Microsoft's largest market," he pointed out.

"I don't think it has a lot of direct financial impact on Microsoft, as it has been challenging for Microsoft to monetize the use of its products in China anyhow," said Al Gillen, program vice president for servers and system software with IDC.

"As for Google, there may be some impact from the Android app store, but that is the biggest potential concern," Gillen told the E-Commerce Times.

Then again, "if consumers in China choose to not follow the OS vendors, it could be a wasted effort," he added.

'Opportunities for New Vulnerabilities'

Besides the question of acceptance, other potential problems with China's plan could revolve around interoperability and security.

"They want to avoid the potential that an exploit could be put in place by 'malicious' governments like ours, but the irony is, when you reinvent the wheel, you create new opportunities for new vulnerabilities," Wes Miller, research vice president with Directions on Microsoft, told the E-Commerce Times. "They could wind up creating a bigger attack surface than if they had just bought something."

Amazon Sets TV on Fire

2014-04-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Amazon just sauntered into the living room, and it appears Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast are in for some tough competition. Cable- and satellite-TV providers perhaps should worry as well. Game console makers also may have cause for some anxiety. Amazon doesn't need to make a lot of money on sales of the hardware -- it's likely to see a healthy boost in the sale of content to stream over the device.

Amazon on Wednesday put paid to the buzz circulating around its plans for a set-top box, announcing Amazon Fire TV at a New York event.

The size of a CD box and just over half an inch thick, Fire TV takes on set-top boxes, the iPod, Apple TV and game consoles.

It plugs into users' HDTVs to provide instant access to Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, Showtime and videos from Amazon, among other offerings.

Users can play a variety of games, including Minecraft, The Walking Dead and Riptide GP2.

They also can play music from Pandora, iHeartRadio and TuneIn, and watch music videos from Vevo. Starting next month, users will be able to listen to their music collection on Fire TV via the Amazon Cloud Player.

A Device for All Reasons

Fire TV "will accelerate the convergence of TV with the digital world and force traditional service providers to accelerate their efforts at innovation," remarked Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.

It targets traditional pay-TV bundles "that are being disrupted by over-the-top delivery models that are changing the way people watch and think about TV," he said.

Gaming is where Fire TV will have the biggest impact, Lewis Ward, research director for gaming at IDC, told TechNewsWorld.

The device "will be a serious threat to the big three consoles in the living room -- the Xbox, the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo's Wii -- especially in North America and Europe," contended Ward.

In the long term, Fire TV will take on the global market, Ward predicted, pointing out that Amazon has a presence in 175 countries. "I would consider this a real threat to the hegemony of the OEMs."

Fire TV Specs

Fire TV has a quad-core processor with more than 3x the processing power and 4x the memory of Apple TV, Google's Chromecast or Roku 3. It also has a dedicated GPU.

It delivers 1080p HD video and has immersive Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.

Its Advanced Streaming and Prediction feature guesses which movies and TV episodes users will want to watch and buffers them for playback in advance.

Users can see associated information about content, such as cast and crew details, trivia and bloopers through Amazon's X-Ray feature.

The Fire TV remote uses Bluetooth and offers voice search.

The price for the Fire TV box is US$99. The average game costs $1.85; Amazon is working with game publishers such as Electronic Arts, Disney, Gameloft, Ubisoft and Sega.

Targeting Gamers

Amazon offers a game controller option with dual analog sticks and a complete assortment of controls that pairs with Fire TV using Bluetooth. It offers up to 55 hours of gaming on a pair of AA batteries.

It doubles as a remote for the Fire TV.

The price for the controller is $40, which includes a free copy of Sev Zero, a game created for Amazon devices, which launched Wednesday.

Purchasers also will get 1,000 Amazon coins, worth $10, for purchasing games.

Virtual currencies "are not uncommon in the gaming world," Scott Strawn, a program director at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. "Bringing that approach to consoles could be pretty compelling."

Raining on Fire

"The voice search feature is interesting, but we don't know how it works," Dan Rayburn, a principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, told TechNewsWorld.

"Does the search work only for Amazon or across Hulu and other services?" Rayburn asked. "And what does it tell you when you search for a movie Amazon doesn't have?"

While Fire TV supports games, it "isn't even in the same ballpark" as game consoles, he maintained.

On the other hand, Amazon might make Fire TV a success, Rayburn said, because "it doesn't make any money on hardware -- it makes money on goods."

5. Things you must know Before Opening an E commerce Business

2013-11-06T21:25:00.001-08:00

You might be prepared to open an online retail business. You have the funding, cash flow planned, inventory managed, and even a marketing campaign ready to launch. But there are some other things you’ll want to know before you start doing business.

U.S. ecommerce sales grew 13 percent last year to some $289 billion, including travel, according to trend tracking firm comScore. In the first quarter of this year, online spending in the U.S. had already exceeded $78 billion, again according to comScore, making ecommerce the fastest growing retail segment.

While it is certainly true that a significant amount of that growth came from large retailers like Amazon and Walmart, many small retailers selling items on marketplaces like Etsy or via nearly turnkey ecommerce solutions like Shopify or Volusion have also had an impact. These small ecommerce entrepreneurs can and do — in many cases — enjoy success and life-changing profitability. All of these small businesses need to have a handle, if you will, on the business of being in business, including accounting, operations, and marketing. But these are areas that many new business owners are prepared to oversee, and business surprises come from other quarters.

1. The Customer Is Always Right, But Not Always Nice

Ecommerce is a service business. The goal is to help shoppers find good products and deliver those products in a convenient way. Many new ecommerce businesses seek to provide exceptional customer experiences — in keeping with companies like Zappos — going beyond what some shoppers expect.

As an example, there is a retailer in the Pacific Northwest that recently received a customer request. A laboratory in Southern California wanted to grow algae as part of an alternative fuel project. The lab required large water troughs, similar to what you might use in livestock operations, only made of transparent plastic so that sunlight could easily penetrate. Local brick-and-mortar stores told the lab that no such product existed. Water troughs, they said, are specifically made not to grow algae. But the online retailer contacted a manufacturer and arranged for a special run of clear water troughs. The lab was very pleased and the retailer made a large sale. Unfortunately, this is not how every customer contact will go.

There will be plenty of times when you will put customers first, trying to please them, and they will be mean and nasty to you.

I’m aware of a retailer that recently started processing an order for a closeout item, only to discover that the product was damaged and not worthy to be shipped to the customer. Although the item has sold for less than the retailer’s cost because it was discontinued, a store representative contacted the manufacturer, which was no longer making the item, and even tried to find one at competitors’ online stores, only to learn that there simply were not any more to be had. The retailer contacted the customer, explained what had happened, and offered a $50 gift card for her trouble. The customer — in response — yelled profanities over the telephone and placed a visceral message on the retailer’s Facebook page. At one point, she even asked the retailer for $1,000.

2. Carriers Eat Packages

FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service generally provide good shipping services, but these carriers also lose packages, and often they lose them when it matters the most.

Nearly a decade ago, I opened a specialty online toy store in early February. That month is a generally slow time in retailing, and I wanted to ensure that all departments, including order fulfillment, were working well. By July, shipping was running smoothly, items flowing out and being delivered right on time. All of the carriers — the retailer used FedEx, UPS, and the Postal Service — seemed like they could do no wrong.

But in November and December of that first year, carriers lost something like 11 percent of my packages. The carriers seemed to eat them. One post office in New York State lost ten out of ten packages that it processed from for the company —if memory serves — including a second and third attempt to get products to one particular customer.

That same holiday season, UPS returned two large boxes to us — each had contained a Radio Flyer Rock and Bounce pony — that had been crushed. One had the clear imprint of a large work boot on it.

Annually, new and established online sellers will see dozens or even hundreds of packages that fail to arrive — lost or damaged in the conveyor belts and trucks meant to carry them to customers. Be prepared to manage both the cost of lost items and the problem of disappointed customers.

3. Fraud Is Everywhere

Earlier this month, a retailer I know had a large order for more than $5,000. The sale included a gas-powered generator that was to be sent across the country via second day shipping. PayPal and American Express had authorized the sale. But something didn’t seem right. The generator was not uncommon. It could be purchased almost anywhere. So why would you pay, in this case, $1,600 for express shipping?

The retailer researched the order. The phone number on the order rang to a mobile phone with a full voice mailbox and a generic message. The billing address didn’t match what American Express had on file. So the retailer canceled the order. This is a smart move when you consider that online fraud cost ecommerce retailers an estimated $3.5 billion in 2012, according to CyberSource, which provides payment and risk management solutions and is part of the Visa family of companies.

Don’t assume that your company, however small, is immune to fraud. In some cases, criminals assume that small retailers are less sophisticated and, therefore, easier targets.

4. Be Explicit; No One Reads

One of the most surprising things you find about running an ecommerce business is that you need to be amazingly explicit when you describe products, offers, and policies. Many, if not all of your customers, will skim over this material and misunderstand what you meant or intended.

Take the case of a recent online contest that a retailer used to promote a particular brand of jeans. Entrants could win a $100 shopping spree for submitting a photo of themselves in a pair of jeans. All of the promotional material associated with the contest clearly stated, “You will need to upload a picture of yourself in a pair of jeans.” A number of Facebook posts also informed the would-be entrants that they would need to upload a picture of themselves in a pair of jeans. An email included the statement.

The web form used to enter the contest also said, “You will need to upload a picture of yourself in a pair of jeans.” And yet, of the many entries received, not a single user actually uploaded a jean picture. Some uploaded family pictures of folks in shorts, others included pictures of dogs.

Ultimately, many of those who entered the contest were angry, arguing that the instructions had not been clear.

5. You’ll Never Run Out of Opportunities

The last thing to know about ecommerce is that it never seems to run out of opportunities. You will have your share of problems with inventory management, accounting, website design, and upset customers. But this is a great industry with the potential to help you achieve your goals.

BlackBerry relaunches BBM for iPhone and Android - Attracting huge traffic on its web portals

2013-10-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

BlackBerry has relaunched its BBM messaging app’s new iPhone and Android versions, a month after pent-up demand forced the company to cancel their original launch. BBM is now available to download from Apple’s App Store, Android’s Google Play store and some countries’ Samsung App Stores, but BlackBerry is using a virtual “line-up system” to stagger access to the new app. Reported by By Stuart Dredge, Guardian News & Media Ltd.

Many people think that having a good website is all you need to get tons of visitors. Wrong answer. Web success is defined by traffic. The more “hits” your website gets, the more successful it is.Getting traffic to your site takes hard work and diligence and is not accomplished overnight. But when there is a name like Blackberry and BBM behind it, its a different story. It took a long time for RIM to gain such reputation and brand recognition yes. But using the right marketing strategy along with its well established brand image attracts tons of traffic/visitors on it website.

It’s also a common misconception that there’s a direct correlation between the number of unique visitors or page views a website gets and how successful that site is. The thing underlying, but often overlooked, truth is that unless you do something with web traffic once it arrives all it does is eat into your monthly bandwidth allowance. This is one of the reasons Blackberry is asking people to download BBM and register their e-mail addresses, then wait for an e-mail to notify them that they can use the app. The 6 million people who signed up for information on the BBM website before the original launch in September get immediate access, however.

Unless you can persuade a significant portion of your website visitors to do whatever it is you want them to do when they arrive on your site (your conversion goals), then the volume of traffic your site attracts is a meaningless number. It’s like Brown Thomas counting the people who walk past on the pavement on a Saturday — pointless.

“If you didn’t sign up in advance, for BBM don’t worry we are focused on moving millions of customers through the line as fast as possible,” wrote BlackBerry’s head of BBM Andrew Bocking in a blog post explaining the steps the company is taking to ensure a “smooth roll out” for the apps.

“Our team of developers and engineers has been working around the clock to bring you BBM and make some upgrades while we’re at it and some incredible work has been done.”

To build a really effective web presence you need targeted traffic. To get the maximum ROI out of your web marketing investment, attracting people who want what you have to offer is crucial.

In Third Wave Economy-Manufacturers don't need re sellers

2013-10-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

It is startling to see manufacturers looking for re seller’s distributors and dealers when they really don't need them. All those credit margin agreements and disagreements long debates, each time when a distributor reaches a manufacturer are no more required. Then wasting time and money, at the end of every financial year or when the currency rate fluctuates and putting their reputation at stake, while selling it to third party that can destroy or at least drop their sales using counterfeit or amateur methods of selling.

This might have been the reason for manufacturer’s reluctance to switch to the new business world called the e-business that they were scared of spending considerable amount of money and getting nothing out of it due to unawareness of e-commerce and being unable to keep a constant check on what’s going on also due to lack of professionals providing support and business development.

But now there is good news, manufacturers don't need to spend anything on building up an online selling portal or an online store they can do it free, just the way they sign up for an e-mail account on Hotmail Yahoo or G mail or on the Face Book or Google Plus, they can just sign up for their very own online store and start selling with no spending involved.

They don’t even need to hire a team of e-commerce professionals to run their online store for this. Don't need to bother for shipping, sales promotions, advertising and business development as well and bingo you are not local anymore you are global and you get all this for free. What else a real business man needs?

With a free of cost online store, no rents, no utility bills no salaries no management or administration encumber. You online business has the best technical, administrative and business development support in the world and highest ranking on search engines with world class marketing and Advertising strategy making you a global leader of your products.

I wonder only those who are afraid of the transparency of their accounts and business would still be reluctant to utilize this new era of Third Wave Economy. But as much as you stay un concerned or close your eyes or turn away from this huge wave it would never stop and all those with their backs towards it would wash away and disappear.

E-business and Online selling

2013-09-12T05:32:00.002-07:00

The Current State of E-Business

Introduction

One of the hard parts of any discussion of E-Business is coming to grips with what is being discussed. There are several definitions of E-Business. There are different versions of the history. There are different conceptual tools that might be used to understand it. Before turning to the pragmatics of assessing the state of E-Business, lets begin by taking a look at three questions:

1. What do we mean by E-Business?
2. How do we trace the history?
3. What are the conceptual perspectives which help to define the state?

What do we mean by E-Business?

Two terms are used when we talk about this topic—electronic commerce or e-commerce and increasingly e-business. Either of these terms provides a legitimate starting point. For this paper, e-business has been chosen as the better term. To understand why, we can begin with a look at the term e-commerce.

The dictionary defines commerce as:

1: social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, and sentiments 2: the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place.

As expected one definition of commerce has to do with the “the exchange or buying and selling of commodities of goods”. However, the primary definition has to do with “social intercourse; the interchange of ideas”. Interestingly, post-industrial societies are increasingly involved in the exchange, buying, and selling of information and ideas bringing these two definitions together. In line with these definitions, electronic commerce or e-commerce is the electronic exchange of information and the support for the exchange of other commodities. Some of the e-commerce companies talked about frequently—eBay, e-trade, etc.—are engaged in the exchange of information. If we accept that eBay as an auction house is only involved in the buy and sell decisions, not the exchange of the physical entities, it is a good example of pure e-commerce. Another prime example would be e-trade. However, for most businesses, some portion of the exchange is physical. Thus, amazon.com has a significant commitment to physical storage and shipping, as well as to managing returns. Amazon.com may be viewed as equally divided between e-commerce (the order) and p-commerce (the delivery). There is every reason to believe that more and more pure e-commerce businesses will blossom in the coming years. However, this is only a part of the story.

Forms of E-business

In contrast to the term e-commerce, the term electronic business or e-business focuses on the nature of the business. An e-business may or may not be involved in e-commerce. The notion here would be that the business itself, the organization, is heavily invested in the electronic realm. An e-business is an enterprise working via electronic means. Any number of facets of a business might be carried forth electronically. Consider as simple examples the following business activities that might be carried forth in electronic form.

· recruiting of new employees
· marketing, advertising and public relations
· customer support and education
· meetings and information resource sharing among employees
· training of employees
· intelligence gathering for strategic and tactical planning
· distributed inventory control functions
· payroll and benefits management

It is relatively easy to imagine how any of these activities, if appropriate to a particular business intent, might benefit from instantiation in an electronic form. They will all have an impact on the bottom line of the business. Note that none of the activities listed involves the direct buying and/or selling of materials. There are three points here:

1. An e-business may of course be engaged in pure e-commerce. The focus on e-business is not meant to suggest that e-commerce is excluded. Indeed it is likely that e-businesses will be engaged in e-commerce and that e-commerce companies will have a string commitment to being e-businesses.

2. Not all aspects of a business can, should, or will be electronic. The point is simply to suggest that a traditional business can be made more efficient by engaging some of its activities electronically.

3. Some of the most profitable and rapidly growing aspects of e-business are those that involve the streamlining of back office processes to adopt a more efficient electronic form. Specifically, business to business transactions that enhance supply-chain management, just in time inventory control, and accounts payable and receivable are among the first targets of opportunity for smart business people.

In this context, this paper chooses to focus on e-business. E-business is concerned with the growth and development of new and existing businesses in the direction of more electronically mediated enterprises.

Understanding E-business

In order to understand e-business it is useful to have a conceptual framework. This includes understanding the roots, driving forces, and shaping forces behind the phenomenon.

How do we trace the history?

In order to understand the state, we need to understand what’s changing. Over the last 50 years, computers have been working their way into our lives, both directly and indirectly. There are three developments in computing that are of paramount importance. The first is the decision in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency to provide funding to connect military research projects across the country. This DARPAnet effort grew with time into the internet—a system for address and messaging between machines. This led with time to an increasingly seamless computing environment that can connect every computer and computer enhanced device on the planet. The second key event was a decision by Peter McCullogh of Xerox to fund research at a new research center in Palo Alto whose goal was discovery of the information architecture of the office. This effort led to the object oriented windows, icons, mouse, and pointer based systems we use today. In the process, they also gave birth to object oriented design and programming languages, the Ethernet, the laser printer, the bitmapped screen, WYSIWYG editing, etc. etc. etc. The third key development was the decision by IBM to enter into the personal computer market and to do so in such a way as to open the standards for their machine to replication by third parties. This decision ultimately led to a commodity based market for chips and computing systems that became so affordable as to populate our environment at a density far greater than the human population. It became possible for individuals to own one or more generalized computing devices and dozens, if not hundreds of specialized computing devices.

All the while these changes were taking place, the general population was becoming acclimated to the digitally enhanced world. The most dramatic forms of this accommodation were those that reached out to the masses. Paramount among these systems were the Automatic Teller Machines. It took a decade, but they eventually won over most of the population to digital processing of data. Point of sale electronic funds transfers of all types also contributed to this transition. At varying levels we all became comfortable with inventory tracking in the supermarkets as these most efficient early adopters began to track first what went through their stores, and then with coupons printed at the register in response to the items to target marketing, and finally, with ID cards they familiarized us with customer tracking and profiling. The directory assistance phone systems familiarized us with automatic processing of voice and digital phone response systems familiarized us with tree based triage of customer needs. Finally, email began to reach out beyond the office workplace to friends and family—initially at other institutions that had email and lastly to home accounts.

Organizationally, workers saw printouts of masses of data maintained in computer systems. They became intimately familiar with desktop word processing and spreadsheets. They came to understand the values and limitations of electronic mail and voice mail. They came to see some electronic calendaring. Most of all, it way clear that pay checks, benefit packages, budget control, and other pieces of the core of business were being handled by computers and these computers first split and appeared on their desktops and then reunited and coalesced into local area networks. After a period of time, those local area networks coalesced into internet works and ultimately those internet works all merged giving us the internet work with the capital I—the Internet.

These changes were not rapid, and they were not simple. After years of slow growth and development, the World Wide Web was opened on a connected base(DARPA) of affordable computers(IBM) that most humans had accepted as trustworthy(Supermarkets and Banks) and which most of them could learn to use(XEROX). Given this environment, the very simple “innovation” called the world wide web caught on like wild fire. (I put innovation in quotes because the basic concepts of the web—a client server protocol, a hypertext form of organization, and a structured document format for data interchange were 25, 40, and 10 years old respectively at the time they were put forward.) This is not to diminish in any way the import of what Tim Berners-Lee did at CERN. As is the case in all revolutionary technologies, both the environment for the technology innovation, and the development of the technology itself are always found to have a longer and deeper history than the critical event that caused the revolution. Now we are at the millennium. E-business is here and will play a role in the coming decades reshaping how we do business. How do we get a handle on what is going on?

Important concepts in E-Business

In any field as rapidly evolving as e-business, it is difficult to understand the myriad announcements and developments that occur every day. Concepts that transcend the particulars are important tools in understanding what is going on. Three concepts/principles have proven useful to me in thinking about this topic. They include:

1. The migration of atoms to bits
2. Markets
3. The “fourth wave”

Each of these is discussed briefly below. While I have addressed these in a particular order, which has to do with their general importance, any particular concept can become the most important given the focus of the discussion.

Atoms to Bits

This is one of Nicholas Negroponte’s messages in his wonderful little book “Being Digital”. It echoes ideas put forward a decade earlier by Robert Lucky in Silicon Dreams. While Lucky articulated the engineer’s vision, Negroponte articulated the organizational or economic impact. Basically, the message is the following—if your business product is really information (bits) and it is being exchanged physically (atoms) rather than electronically, you will need to migrate to the bit form of exchange because the relative costs of the transactions dramatically favor electronic exchange. This principle causes us to examine our business carefully to determine if we are indeed using the most appropriate form of exchange. The cost of a bank transaction over the counter is about $10.00, while the cost of an ATM transaction is about $1.00. In contrast, the cost of a PC based funds transfer is on the order of $.10. The economics of bits over atoms compel banks and other engaged in bit businesses to move from atoms to bits. Publishers of text, music, and video are soon to follow.

E-Markets

Adam Smith proposes a theory of economics that suggests that optimal trading takes place when the buyer and seller have perfect knowledge of the market. The size of the market is limited by our ability to obtain knowledge about the market using the available technology. From the bazaars of the Mideast to the seaport marketplaces of Amsterdam to the commodities trading floors, markets have expanded to the limits available. All of these markets were limited by space until the last fifty years. Today, it is truly possible to imagine a worldwide marketplace where it is possible for the buyer and seller do develop very sophisticated knowledge about their counterpart. The internet has created a globally sized market where the players have an unprecedented opportunity to gain perfect knowledge of the vast market. The World Wide Web has made it possible for each consumer, sans intermediaries, to access the sellers in the market place directly. If a business has been constrained by its ability to present itself directly in the market place, there will be growing opportunities to by pass intermediaries and sell directly to the end consumer.

The Fourth Wave

Alvin Toffler postulated a theory in “Future Shock” and “The Third Wave” that outlined three massive culture shocks or waves of change. The first was the transition from hunter gatherer society to an agricultural society where food was cultivated and controlled by human endeavor. The second wave occurred with the development of industrial society and the mass production of commodities. The third wave was the technological wave where the computer allowed new levels of customization and individualization in the production of materials. Some would suggest that we can distinguish a fourth wave in a network centric view of computing that is significantly different from the third wave. If there is indeed a fourth wave, it will most likely be distinguished by the full integration of the supply chain. The new model of manufacturing and production ties the consumer intimately into the whole manufacturing process. Not only are products produced to customer specification, but the customer plays a role in defining the product. This flop in control of the business process will have a dramatic impact. It will transform the organization in the sense that marketing disappears and requirements analysis becomes critical. Instead of “selling” the cars produced by the automaker, the automaker will make the cars buyers want. Instead of promoting the courses a university offers, the university will offer the courses students want.

When combined with process re engineering concepts, the fourth wave suggests that businesses will need to understand their core business and competency and build processes that are responsive. For example, it may be the case that a university professional school will define its core competency as producing workers for a given industry. In this case, understanding who the customer is will suggest that corporations should play a more direct role in defining the product. In this environment, just as in more accepted supply chain models for commodities, the supplier will be assured consumption of product so long as the product produced conforms to the specifications of the consumer. In this case, a consortium of employers might guarantee to consume the graduates of an institution. This means that students would be attracted to an institution because they have an assurance of employment if the meet the core competencies offered in the curriculum. Just as with other supply chain situations, this does not mean that the supplier, the university, is simply following the mandates of the business consumer. It is up to the supplier to provide the best information they can provide to the consumer about how they can best meet the consumers need. Thus, the consumer engages in a dialog with the vendor about the product that is to be produced.

Shaping Forces for e-business

Beyond the driving forces described above, there are five more forces beginning to emerge that will shape the ultimate form of e-business. They include

4. Beyond calculation
5. The information process
6. Re engineering
7. Computing on the periphery
8. Ubiquitous computing

Beyond Calculation

The fiftieth anniversary of computing was celebrated in 1998. The Association for Computing Machinery published a selection of essays focused on the next fifty years. The title of the book is a nice double entered. It suggests that it is beyond our ability to predict where the next fifty years will take us. It also suggests, as do many of the authors, that the future will be more about the computer as communication device than as calculation device. While we will continue to use the computer to relieve us of all the computational tedium it does so well, increasingly, the computer will be used as a communication device both synchronously and asynchronously. From web browsing to weather reports to driving instructions, the computer is going to establish a major role as a communications device.

Automation and Information

Shoshanna Zuboff, in her book in “The Age of the Smart Machine”, suggests that the computer is doing for intellectual processes what the steam engine and other power technologies did for manual processes. Power equipment allows us to automate work processes and the formalization of the work process is called automation. She suggests that the application of the computer, with its memory and logic allows us to formalize knowledge work. Using a parallel to automation, she calls the process information and suggests that the formalization process might be called informative. E-business is characterized by informative processes. Wherever possible, work processes should be examined to determine if a process can be made better, faster, more efficient by the use of computer technology. In this process, innovators need to be careful not to overspecialize processes as so often happened with the application of power technology. Information technology has the power to integrate work activities returning control of whole processes to individuals. For example, it becomes possible to provide a loan officer with the tools that enable a loan to be approved by a single individual using a computer to perform the specialized subtasks. Thus what has become a disconnected set of subprocesses in many banks, leaving the person applying for a loan with a sense of alienation, can once again be integrated and streamlined.

Re engineering Processes

Through the early 1990’s, there was much attention paid to business process reengineering. Hammer and Champy in their book “Re-engineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution” promoted the streamlining of business operations. One way of looking at re-engineering from a technical point of view is to see it as adopting practices that are made possible by the deployment of information technology. In this sense, re-engineering provides the business principles that guide what Zuboff called information. At the core of Hammer and Champy’s approach to process re-engineering are several principles. These include:

· replacing assembly line type jobs with case work type jobs
· moving decision making down the chain of command
· converting management positions from authority control to coaching and training
· triage of cases into a range of cases characterized by simplicity/complexity
· reduction of the number of non value added checks and controls

Computing on the periphery

One of the difficulties created by re-engineering is a reduction in the richness of the environment within which people work. Knowledge management has emerged as an effort to overcome the weakness of a pure re-engineering approach. At the same time, computer scientists have been engaged in the development of new kinds of software that are focused on capturing the rich fabric of interaction that takes place in the normal work environment. We will increasingly interact with the computer on the periphery of our focus. Rather than demanding our attention, the computer will communicate with us on the periphery of our awareness. We will sense how the stock market is doing, how are colleagues are feeling, what the traffic patterns are. It will take some time to develop this new sensibility.

Ubiquitous computing

The late Mark Weisser and others proposed that the next generation of computing would be defined by ubiquitous computing. In the coming years, devices that are connected to the network and that have an intelligent control component will constitute a kind of invisible computing fabric around us. These devices will have data acquisition mechanisms and narrowly scoped intelligence that will allow them to work with us. The key to the next generation device is that they will be special purpose, not general purpose, and they will for the most part have invisible interfaces. The car is talked about as one of these devices. Today’s car already has a significant amount of computational power. Connected to the internet it will be able to deliver information about traffic, lodging, restaurants, etc. Refrigerator’s will have bar code readers and communications capability to order needed goods. Thermostats will sense human usage patterns making adjusting the thermostat or setting it unnecessary. E-business will be busy over the coming decades finding ways to package and sell this just in time information to consumers who will be on the move.

What are the various approaches to E-business?
At a basic level a business may be understood in terms of two goals:

· reduce the costs in producing the product so as to increase the profit from selling the product or service.
· increase the number of products sold, increasing the gross profits.
The basic question faced in the development of e-business is how the electronic infrastructure that exists can be used to achieve these two goals. It is likely that one or more of the following may be true:

1. the internet provides an information and communications tools that makes it possible to order the goods and services needed by the business so as to reduce excess inventory, insure smooth processes by assuring needed stock, and reducing the transaction costs for materials acquisition.
2. the internet provides a new channel through which my products may be marketed. This marketing will either open a new market, allow me to retain an existing market, or improve my relationship with the existing market.
3. the internet provides an opportunity to restructure my organization in such a way as to reduce the processing costs that support my business.
4. the internet and the information stores in my organization that have grown historically or that can be developed as a result of 1,2, or 3 above provide an opportunity to develop a new or auxiliary product or service .
E-Business activities can be described any number of ways, but it would seem to make sense to discuss them in three broad categories: activities that pertain to the internal management of an organization, those that pertain to inter organizational activities—wholesale kinds of functions, and activities that pertain to transactions with consumers. At a conceptual level, each of these categories may be further subdivided as follows:

· organizational activities
· information sharing
· decision support
· collaboration
· business to business activities
· acquisition and disposition of product
· inventory controls
· supply chain management
· business to consumer activities
· information sharing
· marketing
· customer service
· e-commerce
This presentation of possible impacts places internal communications first and consumer oriented e-commerce last and organizational restructuring first. The reason for this is simple. While consumer based e-commerce has garnered a lot of attention in the last year, it is only one of the three primary aspects of e-business. As many e-commerce start-ups have found, positioning a business on the internet without a sound business operation behind it can lead to a disaster of unfulfilled customer expectations. Additionally, the resurgence of the American economy over the last few years is more closely associated with the reengineering of the American corporation over the last decade. The streamlining and restructuring of business in line with the opportunities provided by computer and communications technology is less glamorous than e-commerce, but more profitable from a bottom line business perspective. Closely associated with restructuring of business to be more e-business oriented in the development of business to business commerce over the electronic pathways. The most dramatic growth in e-business over the next several years is projected to be in the area of business to business commerce. Thus, while consumer based e-commerce will grow to be a huge market, it will be the last of these three to have a big impact. Let me say a word about each of these three areas.

Organizational activities
Consider as simple examples the following E-Business applications that might be carried out in an organizational context. Many of these are what we frequently refer to as intranet type functions:

· recruiting of new employees
· marketing, advertising and public relations
· customer support and education
· meetings and information resource sharing among employees
· training of employees
· intelligence gathering for strategic and tactical planning
· distributed inventory control functions
· payroll and benefits management
It is relatively easy to imagine how any of these areas, if appropriate to a particular business intent, might benefit from presentation in an electronic form. They will all have an impact on the ability of a company to do E-Commerce, but none of them involves the direct buying and/or selling of materials.

Business to Business Commerce
While the previous section has addressed the internal functioning of an organization making use of the information infrastructure, this section address basic materials control for the organization—the interface to the rest of the corporate world. We exclude from this process only those activities that relate to final disposition of products to end users. The functions we focus on here include

· Purchasing
· Inventory Control
· Shipping
· Sales
· Marketing
· Customer Service

Business to Consumer Commerce

Business to consumer commerce has received a lot of attention recently. Generally speaking, this is most often thought of as building a new channel to deliver products directly to consumers. Amazon, Ebay, E-trade have all been talked about in this context. Unlike the previous two categories, which may be built using local or proprietary networks, consumer oriented systems are most often designed to leverage the penetration of the internet and its killer protocol, http. There are a lot of different ways in which the Web can be used to develop new commercial channels

· prepare a CRM plan
· prepare a delivery and return plan
· prepare a security plan for den. of service attacks and hacker intrusion
· develop a convenient wallet like payment system
· build to a peak saturation readiness
· develop a marketing plan to announce the channel

Planning for E-Business

E-business clearly requires that the technology team be fully informed about the core goals of the business. Equally important, the management team needs to be fully informed about the capabilities of the technology. Management needs to understand that e-business, is most often about the use of technology to do old things new ways or to do new things that have never been done before.

In developing E-business opportunities, it is important to recognize that there will be at least four different kinds of projects:

· infrastructure and organizational development
· restructuring and integration of network based components
· new process and market development
· capitalizing on new opportunities in the knowledge domain

Infrastructure and organizational development

The infrastructure for e-business involves people, technology, and knowledge. All three legs of the stool are equally important. The simplest of the three to describe is the technology, and that is based in large part on the network.

· Basic local connectivity: intranets and local area networks
· Broad Area Connectivity: the Internet
· Universal Connectivity: the World Wide Web

Much can be done in a business by moving from a paper based communication system to local area networks and shared resources. The Internet provides broad connect-ability and transmission reliability. Any of a number of existing protocols may be used in this environment. In addition, as new protocols are needed, they can be created.

Thus, at a first level, the infrastructure involves the kinds of network connections that are made. In this context, as the network integration increases, it becomes more important to develop safeguards. So firewalls and security will become important. As more business takes place in the electronic realm, authentication and encryption become more important. Finally, as the scope of the connectivity increases, so does the reliance on standard ways of exchanging information. In some ways, the ultimate form of this integration is reliance on the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is attractive as the infrastructure for e-business because it provides and immediate client base. There is no need to train your customers on how to use specialized software. It comes with the connection. Similarly, for many employees, the World Wide Web model of hypertext publishing provides a known model for information sharing that eliminates the need for users to learn and come to understand specialized collaboration software.

It goes without saying, and can generally be assumed that employees within an organization are already comfortable with PC technology. If not, training and orientation materials are broadly available to bring people up to speed.

Finally, E-business requires that the knowledge base of the organization be converted to an electronic format.

· Communications systems, calendaring, e-mail and v-mail.
· Directory services
· Database systems
· Document systems
· Data representation technologies
· Component management technologies
· Encryption and Authentication technology
· “Web” technologies
· Broadcast technologies(streaming media)

It is critical that the processes that operate within an organization are integrated in such a way as to reduce costs and prepare workers to deal with the second and third stages of e-business development. Paper based systems have to be moved to electronic form. Responsibilities for keeping electronic information stores up to date need to be developed. Care has to be taken in planning for the migration of the information from one form to the next.

The development of new systems assumes an informed systems analysis, design, and implementation methodology. Whether it is a traditional waterfall methodology, a rapid prototyping approach or an object-oriented methodology, the process is ultimately guided by an re-engineering approach to system design.

Restructuring and integration of network based components
This second kind of e-business project is concerned with interfacing what we assume to be a streamlined organization with business partners. In is important that this kind of project be built with an understanding on the part of those involved that the goal is to achieve the maximum efficiency of the relationships that reach outside the organization to regular trading partners. Over the last 25 years material requirements planning (MRP) has evolved to allow more efficient calculation of what materials are needed and when. Initially MRP failed to consider factors, such as capacity, space, capital, engineering changes, and cost. More recent models encompass factors such as long range planning, high level resource planning, master scheduling, rough cut capacity planning, detailed capacity planning and shop floor control. One of the most important developments was the addition of the concept of “closing the loop” and feedback. By continuous monitoring of what actually happened versus what was planned, companies could continually improve their processes to achieve more and more efficiency. With this business process in place, organizations can look for ways to involve suppliers and consumers electronically. At a simple level, assuming a supplier wants to keep my organization happy and wants to sell product, we can engage an electronically enabled supplier in keeping stock or supplies at an optimal level. Looked at from the supplier point of view, I want to produce optimally based on what I can see as my consumers needs but avoid over or under producing. In this environment, an organization is obviously concerned about opening up its internal data stores to outside organizations. Thus, in design, there is a delicate balancing act between sharing too much and too little data.

Beyond MRP, enabled organizations are looking to the development of a totally integrated enterprise and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). ERP looks to provide integrated capabilities for finance, forecasting, sales order processing, sales analysis and local and global distribution, quality control, and powerful reporting and monitoring tools. ERP extends to include the management of every operation of its value chain in order to minimize the cost and time of getting products to customers. This is usually referred to in the industry as Supply Chain Management or more recently Global supply Chain Management.

New process and market development

The excitement of developing e-business is in projects that seek to develop new processes or markets. After all, for most of us this is the glamorous arena in which millionaires are made. These kinds of projects look for that new niche market or new way of doing business that will become the standard for the future. There are four types of projects here that are worth looking at in more detail:

· new processes
· new channels
· new products, and
· new markets.
A new process can take any number of forms. By way of example, consider a set of web pages that provide customer service, or reprints of manual pages. In this case, the business is looking to provide better customer support. Rather than having customers write or call for service, the website allows customers to search a knowledge base, download patches, or replace missing documentation.

A new channel would endeavor to take an existing product and target market and simply open up a new channel. Rather than ordering concert tickets by phone, a customer might order the tickets through the web. This might require a pre-approved account, use one of service bureau that provides credit checking and processing for a fee, or a self developed payment acquisition and checking system.

A new product might include some derivative information product that was previously not worth developing. For example, a bank might provide a currency conversion service. A software house might provide a new kind of plug-in for browsers. A symphony might provide pay per listen live broadcasts of concerts.

A new market might include a direct to consumer offering of a product that was previously offered only through retailers. For example, Avon cosmetics is carefully testing the waters of direct to consumer sales of the same products that have historically only been available through its sales force.

Capitalizing on new opportunities in the knowledge domain
When all the dust clears, it may well be that the most successful businesses in e-business are the support businesses that grow up to support the development of e-business. Just as stock brokers make money whether investors succeed or fail, so there will be a class of e-businesses that make money whether e-businesses succeed or fail. There are a dozen or so classes of these businesses, but we will focus on only a few:

· connection providers—router makers to ISP’s
· portal managers
· system integrator
· tool developers

There are a large number of organizations that assist directly or indirectly in making the connections between the various players in the e-business environment. From the routers provided by CISCO systems to web site design firms, internet service providers, there are a number of products and services that enable individuals and organizations to participate in e-business.

Portals were the hot idea in 1998. A number of organizations were positioning themselves as high profile portals. Once a portal is established for a given community, the portal owner can charge fees for the prominent display or incorporation of tenants to their portal. The portal owner becomes a kind of real estate developer or landlord. Given the popularity of their portal, they can collect a surcharge from those businesses that wish to do business through the portal.

System integrators leverage their experience in working with a variety of clients to enable e-businesses to develop integrated systems at a lower cost than they could in house. These integrators can be doing simple integration such as making it possible to publish selected database tables and forms to a web site or more complex integration in the form of something like a full supply chain management system.

Finally, a variety of third parties are developing tools to make it easier for organizations to develop e-business applications. These range from collaboration tools such as Lotus Notes and work flow management systems. Also included in this category would be firewall tools, intrusion tools, and web site development and management tools. One area that is growing rapidly on the web today is the sales of model systems by people who have developed them at great cost to others who are attempting similar efforts in other areas.

The Mighty Amazon Is Swelling

2013-08-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Amazon is adding 5,000 full-time positions to its fulfillment centers and another 2,000 part-time and seasonal jobs to bolster its customer service. The announcement has political overtones, as President Obama will make a speech on jobs from an Amazon fulfillment center later this week. This is classic Amazon -- spending money to make money, noted e-commerce consultant Rob Abdul. -

Amazon is hiring more than 5,000 people to work in 17 of its U.S. fulfillment centers, it said Monday. In addition to the fulfillment center jobs, Amazon will hire 2,000 new employees to work in its customer service centers.

The fulfillment center jobs, which are scattered throughout the country, are full-time opportunities that pay 30 percent more than workers earn in a traditional retail store, according to Amazon. The perks include stock grants, bonuses and benefits. The new employees will join more than 20,000 full-time employees already working in the company's fulfillment centers across the U.S.

The customer service jobs will be a mix of full-time, part-time and seasonal opportunities.

The news comes a few days before President Obama is scheduled to deliver an address on jobs from one of Amazon's Chattanooga, Tenn.-based fulfillment centers.

It also comes at a time of growth for Amazon, as indicated by its recently released quarterly earnings report, which indicated spending costs have been accelerating with the expansion of the company's delivery and content platforms.

Amazon's Prime service offers two-day shipping, access to streaming content, and other benefits for US$79 per year. The company is experimenting with same-day shipping of groceries, including fresh produce, and other items in some parts of the country.

In order to keep up with those shipping demands, Amazon has added eight fulfillment centers in the U.S. during the past year and plans to add another five by the end of 2013.

Expansion Strategy

Amazon's growth and hiring spree is right in line with its strategy of spending money to make money, said e-commerce consultant Rob Abdul.

"This is a textbook case of Amazon aggressively expanding its centralized infrastructure to streamline its supply chain," he told the E-Commerce Times.

That infrastructure might have grown past the point where other brick-and-mortar retailers can compete. That doesn't mean there isn't hope for the more traditional vendors, but Amazon's ability to hire 7,000 new employees does indicate that retailers might have to find profitable niches rather than attempt to compete head-on with Amazon, Abdul added.

"They may not be the size of Amazon, but what this clearly indicates is savings can be made by streamlining supply chains, and that the shortening of delivery times leads to growth," he pointed out.

Look to E-Commerce for Jobs

Amazon's dominance is not limited to e-commerce.

"The company that was once just selling books today has become a technology powerhouse," Trip Chowdhry, senior analyst for Global Equities Research, told the E-Commerce Times.

"These new hires in a way show us how Amazon has ushered in a decade of computation where cloud computing can help with massive scalability. They're able to offer 100 times more services at one-hundredth of the cost. Amazon's hiring of 7,000 workers is a testament to the fact that that's the way the industry has shifted."

Amazon didn't register a profit on its balance sheet for the latest quarter, but its spending has helped it expand and create jobs, which are also important benchmarks for successful U.S. companies in this economy, said Chowdhry.

"Amazon has been investing in technology and investing for the future, thinking big and bold, unlike what some tech companies out there have been doing with their cash," he added. "Today, because of that, they're one of the standards when it comes to cloud computing and e-commerce. Those areas are going to be very strong going forward, and are going to be the areas where the U.S. will see jobs added."

The Internet Retailer -Sellers 2013 Top 500 Guide

2013-06-24T02:18:00.003-07:00

Revenue Generating Websites (RGW) provided a list of 100 top online retailers of 2011 in its earlier posts:

Top 25 Revenue Generating Websites

Top Revenue Generating Websites (Rank 51-75)

Top Revenue Generating Websites (Rank 75-100)

For the serious players in business it has become an essential requirement to transform and join the online marketplace. For the serious players in the online market RGW recommends the online market bible " The top 500 Guide".

This Guide Book authoritatively ranks the 500 leading players in North American e-retailing based on their 2012 web sales. In addition to providing 235 key data points for each retailer. It also has new features, including a comprehensive analysis of the past decade of growth for Top 500 retailers by merchant type and merchandising category measured against overall e-commerce patterns and total retail sales, a feature article on e-Bay's resurgence and Technology section that chronicles the evolution of e-commerce technology trends and how they have impacted the Top 500 retailers.

This book also contains valuable information for online retailing professionals, providing financial and operational data on each of the 500 Top revenue generating web sites in the U.S. and Canada. The updated information for the year 2013 includes global shipping destinations by country for each Top 500 retailer and the monthly average paid search spending of each profiled retailer in 2012. Updated elements for the 2013 edition also have complete information on each profiled retailer's 2012 Internet sales, e-mail marketing campaign strategies, social networking affiliations, monthly web traffic and unique visitors, percent of traffic from search engines, Browser Satisfaction Rating for the Top 100, vendors used in 28 solutions areas and much more.

The guide is very conveniently available in three versions, Print Edition, Digital Edition, and Online Database the largest and most powerful database of competitive e-commerce information.

HTC's Exec Exodus (Mass Departure) - Prompts Questions About Company's Future

2013-05-26T23:21:00.002-07:00

It's never a good sign when an ex-company executive takes to Twitter to urge his former coworkers to head for the hills. That executive was just one of several recent HTC departures. Combine that news with dismal sales of two high profile phones and you've got industry speculation working overtime. The irony is that one of those phones, the HTC One, is getting rave reviews, but production problems may have hamstrung it.

Top executives are leaving HTC, as the smartphone company's market share dwindles rapidly, according to published reports.

The latest to depart is HTC Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik, who joins at least five other senior executives. Those include product strategy manager Eric Lin, who issued a tweet urging colleagues to leave the company.

The departures follow changes instituted by new chief marketing officer Ben Ho, who moved some planning and strategy back from the company's Seattle office to corporate headquarters in Taipei.

"The U.S. was HTC's strongest market before them moving some things back to Taipei," Michael Morgan, a senior analyst at ABI Research, told the E-Commerce Times. This could have been because the U.S. market was saturated and China was seen as a growing region.

HTC declined our request to comment for this story.

Many Were Chosen but Some Have Fled

In addition to Hoornik and Lin, the HTC executives who have left the company include chief product officer Kouji Kodera; vice president of global communications Jason Gordon; global retail marketing manager Rebecca Rowland, and digital marketing director John Starkweather.

Starkweather has reportedly joined AT&T and both Lin and Rowland apparently have signed up with Microsoft.

Hoornik, who was HTC Asia's CEO for about two years, handled Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Australia and New Zealand. He will be temporarily replaced by HTC's chief financial officer Chan Chia Lin until a permanent replacement is found.

"It's always a bad thing to lose a senior executive, but to lose a team of them is a horrible thing," ABI's Morgan said. "But these things happen."

However, "I think there are still some highly qualified people in the company," said Julien Blin, a directing analyst at Infonetics Research. "They have a new CMO and he's trying to change things."

Possible Causes for the Chaos at HTC

The most obvious possible causes include the spectacular failure of the Facebook-centered HTC First, which debuted globally with much fanfare in April. It's proven to be such a dud that AT&T has reduced its asking price for the device from $99 to $0.99 with a two-year contract, and there are rumors that the carrier is thinking of scrapping the phone from its lineup.

Then there are the relatively poor sales chalked up by the flagship HTC One smartphone.

"It's a great device," Infonetics' Blin said. "But people tend to forget that HTC is a lot smaller than Samsung in terms of resources and marketing, and it's tough for anybody to compete against Samsung and Apple."

The problems with the HTC One have been partly laid at the feet of company cofounder and CEO Peter Chou, who reportedly insist the firm press ahead with the device despite being warned about manufacturing and supply delays. Those supply issues apparently hampered sales.

Chou has been making snap decisions rather than working on a long-term strategy, according to reports.

A Change of Direction?

The exodus could also be the fallout from a change in emphasis and strategy.

The new emphasis on China depressed HTC One sales, slashed revenue, and could have led to Chou's making snap decisions, ABI's Morgan said.

Meanwhile, HTC's production of the First smartphone for Facebook went contrary to its strategy of establishing its own global brand and was "a bad brand dilution," Morgan said. As a result, HTC executives "got caught in a switch of market dynamics."

On the other hand, HTC could be cleaning house to bring in new blood.

Coming Back From the Brink

It's not clear whether the company can recover from this debacle.

Nine out of 10 handset makers who lose market share don't recover, ABI's Morgan said. On the other hand, HTC might be put up for sale and "there are some people that can't afford not to buy it."

However, "People still see HTC as an original device maker that makes really good phones, so it can make a comeback," Infonetics' Blin told the E-Commerce Times. "They have some new phones in the pipeline and it's not over yet."

Understanding e-commerce-online business

2013-04-28T03:57:00.002-07:00

Here is a recommendation and description of a book for the readers who are seriously considering to step on to the 3rd wave of world economy:

Book Description:

In five years or less, analysts say, sales transactions on the Internet will total $100 billion annually. In short, online commerce is big and it's coming fast - and here's the book that shows you how to understand and profit from it. This invaluable overview includes: basics - how electronic commerce works in the real world; strategies - the mind set of companies that will get the most from electronic commerce; consumer applications - credit cards, digital money, and more; business applications - purchase orders, invoices, and other large transactions; case studiesinsightful snapshots of electronic commerce innovatively applied; security - its paramount importance and the five things it requires; and the future - from electronic agents to microcash and microtransactions. This book is for technology-savvy executives, group managers, entrepreneurs, corporate planners, information systems professionals, and anyone else who wants to master the new technology.

BlackBerry Z10: All Sizzle, No Steak

2013-03-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

I really want to like the new BlackBerry Z10. The marketplace needs more competitors. The problem is BlackBerry has been sizzling like crazy, but now that we can see it, well, where's the beef? The best I can say is good first effort at this new design, BlackBerry. It's not enough, but it's a good first effort. Now go and make it better.

When the BlackBerry Z10 was first in my hands, I was prepared to write a glowing review of the new device and operating system. I like BlackBerry. I thought I was going to be able to write how it was a real competitor to the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. I was hoping to be able to say BlackBerry was back. Unfortunately, I can't -- not yet. The new Z10 is better in some ways and worse in others.

I've only had this device for a couple of weeks, so I don't yet know all it can do, but here are my first impressions.

When you upgrade to a new version of the iPhone or your favorite Android device, there is familiarity. It's new, but not all new. It's comfortable. Only when you move to a completely different handset do you have to relearn the entire operating system. There is an uncertainty about how to make it work and how to find all the new features.

BlackBerry is starting life all over again with new handsets, functionality and a brand new operating system, BlackBerry 10. This is more complicated to understand than just upgrading your handset to the next new version -- especially when things don't work right. My BlackBerry Z10 froze from time to time, and I could do nothing but wait until it decided to work again.

I like to talk about the steak and the sizzle. This is how a company should think to be successful. The old BlackBerry was the steak, but had no sizzle. That was the reason it quickly fell behind. This remake has the sizzle but not the steak. Without both, success is not possible. BlackBerry can recover from this though.

Long Term, Short Term

The big question is, will this change be enough to give customers what they want and save the company? These first couple of weeks of use show me that this new BlackBerry, the way it is today, makes that uncertain for the long term.

BlackBerry Z10

The short term should be good for the company, though, as current BlackBerry users, starving for something new, will switch out their existing handsets for one of the new BlackBerry 10 models over the coming year. What's next? Will it win them over? Will they stay? Does BlackBerry 10 have the long legs it needs for long-term success?

Based on the BB10 and Z10 technology as they are today, I would say that for most users, the answer is no. However, that could change. BlackBerry could update both and have a great, competitive handset over the next year or two.

Remember, neither the iPhone nor any of the Android phones were great when they burst onto the scene. They won on innovation. Over the years, they improved, caught the flow, and started to really succeed. Now they are cruising right along and are the market dominators.

The same thing could happen with BlackBerry. Its new OS could have a weak start, then make corrections and updates and really catch on over the next year. Whether it will is the question. Can't say -- we'll just have to wait and see what they do next.

The big problem is the marketplace has been waiting so long already, and expectations were very high. Still, we can wait and hope the new BlackBerry phones can take the same improvement path as the early iPhone and Android handsets.

BlackBerry can be very successful with a strong and growing share, even starting as low as 5 percent of the market. It doesn't have to hit it out of the park, which of course is what we were all expecting.

About the Z10

The Z10 is better than previous versions of BlackBerry in several ways and worse in others. That will attract many old-time users to upgrade. However, many others may find staying with the older technology is still better for them. The truth is, as new and advanced as the new BlackBerry 10 is, the older version is still better in several ways for many users. It all depends on what your needs are.

The old BlackBerry had few crashes and freezes. The newer has many more. This is something that hopefully can be corrected with updates. The old BlackBerry lets users sync with Outlook and share information like Memos and Notes. The new BlackBerry does not -- or I haven't found it yet. The new BlackBerry has voice recognition, which is a plus, but it does not do as much -- or do it as easily -- as an iPhone or a top Android phone.

There are many interesting new features and apps if you need them. However, compared to the competition, the number of available apps is relatively small, and that is one key indicator of success.

The Web browser is better but still disappointing. It should sync the Favorites from your computer browser like the iPhone does -- but it doesn't, so you must create your own new favorites file. Aside from that, the browser works better than the previous version in many ways.

There is plenty this device does well. However, with limited apps and functionality -- at this stage -- the question is will it be successful? Everyone interested will ask this question: Is BlackBerry worth it? The cost is roughly the same, but the features and functionality are not yet up to the same level as the top competitors.

So BlackBerry, if your goal is to be a strong No. 3, keep improving and you may get there -- but you are not there yet. You have heavy-duty competitors who aren't sitting back and handing victory to you.

Make sure you have both the sizzle and the steak. The race is not over. This is still the magical time when good operating systems and handsets can carve out their own niches. Don't be fooled into thinking your new technology is good enough. It's not today, but it can be. There is an incredible opportunity if you can crack the code. The market does want you to succeed -- don't let us down.

Facebook's New Ad Too

2013-03-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

The next time you shop at a mall store where you are a member of a loyalty program, the results could show up in the form of a targeted ad on Facebook. The social network's new agreements with four data companies may help advertisers spend their money more wisely on Facebook ad campaigns, thanks to the ability to harvest more online and offline information.

Facebook users will soon see ads in their feeds that are more specifically targeted to what they like and where they've shopped -- both online and offline -- thanks to a series of agreements with data companies announced Wednesday.

The agreements expand the social network's Custom Audiences program released last September, which was designed to allow advertisers to target their existing customers via Facebook. Now, marketers will also be able to use information from data gatherers Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom or BlueKai to enhance those ads.

The data providers can gather information from cookies on recently visited advertiser websites or email sign-up pages to help marketers create targeted ads. Facebook's new agreement also allows marketers to use information from physical in-store purchases, which can be tracked through loyalty programs.

Advertisers that already use one of those data partners for other digital ads can start using that information for Facebook. The social network said that marketers that haven't worked with one of the partners can now collaborate with Facebook to determine certain demographics they want to target, such as gamers, users who prefer a certain type of soda, or those shopping for a new car.

Facebook did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

Digging Deeper for Ads

Facebook's efforts to help marketers better target specific demographics or existing customers is a huge step in the right direction if it wants to become a prime site for advertisers, said Jennifer Sheahan, founder of FBAdsLAB.

"One of the biggest complaints we hear about ads on Facebook is that they're not relevant," Sheahan told the E-Commerce Times. "That's because so many advertisers don't leverage the intense power of the Facebook targeting platform.They simply throw up an ad targeting all men in the US, for example. And that's a huge waste."

It's a waste because Facebook already has access to so much information about its users, but so far the company has only made incremental steps in putting it to use. Now, marketers can potentially save money and have their ads be more effective, making Facebook a new hotspot in their eyes.

"Facebook has now brought this specific targeting functionality direct to the everyday advertiser," she said. "This will save mom and pop business owners and huge corporations alike a huge fortune in wasted ad impressions, because their ads will be laser-targeted. Facebook already knows so much about us. Now, they're combining forces with some of the most powerful consumer data companies out there. It's going to be big."

That opportunity to use its consumers for added revenue might not delight the average social network user, but it is a bonus for Facebook investors who want to make sure the site has a sustainable business model.

"There are a few trends on social media platforms in 2013," Pim Bilderbeek, founder of Bilderbeek Consulting told the E-Commerce Times. "Protectionism is in and customer focus is out, meaning platforms are putting the power of their own platform before the needs of the customer."

Keeping Info Private

One of the biggest concerns with the onslaught of highly targeted ads is privacy. Facebook is no stranger to controversy about previous platform changes that users and privacy advocacy groups have found invasive.

Consumers might be getting used to the idea of sidebar ads relating to their recent search history, or having nearby results pop up when they search for Mexican restaurants. Many marketers even claim consumers are welcoming that newfound advertising and search result relevance.

The fact that users' offline habits could be reflected in ads appearing on their feed shouldn't be a privacy concern, said Sheahan. The data being collected and shared won't be private information, and Facebook also pointed out that users can opt out of receiving the ads.

"As for privacy, this won't change anything," she pointed out. "There is no personally identifiable information being shared. This data is already being collected by third-party companies. I don't see it being a big issue."

YouTube May Begin Nickel-and-Diming Viewers

2013-02-06T21:01:00.001-08:00

The world's largest online video service may soon be charging for some of its content. Google's YouTube is prepping paid subscription channels, a move that it hopes will attract advertising revenue. Marketing those channels will be key, though, since many users have grown accustomed to not having to pay to watch singing cats, Gangnam Style riffs or "David After Dentist."

Google is getting ready to launch paid subscription channels on YouTube, AdAge reported on Tuesday. The new offering would be part of Google's larger plan to keep viewers tuned in to its popular video service as long as possible, while developing new revenue streams including premium ad dollars.

Google reportedly has asked a select group of channel producers to submit applications to create paid channels. The subscription price would be between US$1 and $5 a month.

Room for Another Player?

Whether Google can duplicate the success that Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime have experienced with paid digital content is the question. Hollywood movies, TV shows and original videos are all streaming to digital devices, creating new revenue opportunities for content providers and distribution partners.

"The immediate rewards will be the subscription revenues, but this will also be a great way to increase its ad revenues as well," Bryan Sullivan, a partner with Early Sullivan, told the E-Commerce Times.

Google's Challenge: Changing Viewer Habits

Google's success is not guaranteed with this venture. Unlike the example of Amazon Prime, which set out charging users from the beginning, YouTube will have to be careful as it weans its viewers off its free content model.

"It is always a risky strategy to begin charging for a service that used to be free, kind of like putting toothpaste back into the tube once it's squeezed," Philip Salas, a professor at Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, told the E-Commerce Times. "They have to be extraordinarily careful when they roll it out."

Netflix, a service that has always charged for content, experienced a well-documented marketing hiccup when it attempted to change pricing strategies, Salas noted.

Still, the risks could be worth it if Google pulls off the transition. "The cord cutters and the cord nevers have learned to live without cable," Salas said. "The introduction of any new, relatively inexpensive subscription service will be appealing, especially given its universal availability on all screens."

Subscription Fatigue?

A long list of micropayment options for consumers points to another potential danger for Google: subscription fatigue.

Google should not underestimate the association consumers have always made between "YouTube" and "free," Keith Trivitt, director of marketing and communications for MediaWhiz, told the E-Commerce Times. "Moving away from that model, while presenting a huge upside for Google in terms of a new revenue stream, risks alienating consumers."

6 trends that will transform business in 2013 and later

2012-11-24T03:48:00.003-08:00

A research by Oxford Economics

" the new digital economy: How will transform the business" studies how companies are responding to the economic mega-trends and technology that are affecting the markets.

The 6 trends identified are:

1. The "third wave of capitalism" Internet engineering .

This is the digital economy matures that works at this time. Not only has transformed customer behavior is also forcing organizations to be flexible and agile in his movements when it comes to adapting business models for a global market as large and diverse.
The four universal phenomena driving this wave in developed countries and emerging economies are: mobility, cloud computing, business intelligence and social media .

2. IT application is no longer an option .

Do not look back now, no matter where you are the industry, the combined effect of the digital age matures and market globalization make it imperative for companies to transform. It should be applied information technology, but not to oust the old systems and processes, tried and true, but in order to change and be effective in the fingerprint.

3. The technological capacity of emerging economies has reversed the digital divide .

The study shows that companies in developing economies increase spending on digital technologies that twice advanced markets. According to Tim Weber , business editor of the BBC and technology, " Emerging markets now have the scale, investment and focus to make use of the digital economy . "As a result, he adds," We will see a lot of breaks stages of technologies where countries ignore the normal states of technological development and they do not need. "

Gives as an example the G-20 Summit in South Korea, when delegates from Western countries could use their "old phones" in 4G networks! In the developed world, there is an urgent need to recognize that we are not technologically superior to our partners in the developing countries and therefore the sooner we prepare for this new challenge, we can have greater success to limit scope of this gap or digital divide.

4. Business strategies for growth should plan for attracting customers in emerging markets .

Rapid economic growth along with the increase of population and income levels, are getting to emerging markets at the center of business growth. Customers in emerging markets offer huge growth opportunities for companies that can accommodate your needs.

5. Business intelligence and predictive analytics in real time is a necessity .

The market rate is essential in this digital age. At every stage of your business cycle, from product development through market testing and customer feedback, you need to apply business intelligence and predictive analytics in real time. Growth in emerging economies is super fast driven by new technologies. The market dynamics are evolving even as we prepare for the next big change. In view of all these factors, organizations are forced to:
a) be rapid and accurate decisions,
b) be alert to new opportunities opening up every day, and
c) prepare to deal with a hyper-driven market presents unexpected opportunities and risks.

6. Moving towards organic network structure, breaking down silos .

This is what will help companies to reorganize and explore the potential of the digital economy. We have a new competition in the digital economy, companies without rigid policies or large structures. The business structure needs to be reorganized into a network structure where the collaborative decision-making is the key to successful participation in the highly competitive digital market and rapid.

Key imperatives.

The study describes some key imperatives for senior executives of organizations:

1. Businesses need a mobile strategy with vision for emerging markets, where the telephone is the primary means of Internet access.

2. It needed a good review of processes to ensure that they improve data analysis, and this will help organizations anticipate and prepare to meet the rapidly changing global marketplace.

3. When an activity braked marketing policy and so many things happening around you, the threat of security breaches becomes very real . While the marketing of the cloud and storage virtualization are gaining ground, companies must make it a priority to build greater assurance in their operations.

4. Beware! Emerging markets are challenging and very attractive, so it is natural that organizations are attracted to them and want to concentrate their resources to take advantage quickly of these new gold mines. But you can do this at the expense of neglecting, secure and strengthen its market share in its home country. Just as the passage through the borders to market our goods in emerging markets, our "guerrillas" in developing countries have built a fort in our backyard while we walked around the base of the pyramid.

5. The "BOP" may be an opportunity , even in developed economies, especially in rural markets, where there is also the same adoption and growing digital technology.

How are you prepared to face the challenges of the new digital economy?

Need help? Send me a message that the way you can move, you just have to take the first step.

November 8, 2012 - Carlos Francavilla

B2B or Bulk Sales

2012-11-12T03:59:00.000-08:00

B2B marketing techniques every business owner should be aware of

Marketing to other businesses can be something that rewards every business. The extra exposure that’s produced, the more likely sales will increase. Staying visual to consumers with deeper pocket scan noticeably improved sales. Even though you believe that your business is concentrated on a small local market, make use of these B2B marketing techniques to extend your audience and raise your sales.

B2B online marketing is something a business owner are capable of doing individually, or if they’re drained for time, they can appoint an online marketing firm to look at for them. A targeted campaign will create traffic to the site that is more prone to use a business services or acquire their products. Including the lowest of markets can lead substantial earnings if your business is eager to dominate it.

Social media is something that just about we are all engaged in the world today. “Facebook me” can be just as usually stated today as, “Get me a call.” That being the case, you need to come to be exposed on these outlets. Any company who may have a personal Facebook page can certainly produce a free page.

When they complete a post on his or her business page, it can show up on their personal page for all of their friends to witness. By installing bigger network, people that might not typically even think about utilizing your services could see the business and look at the main site.

Blogging is a great way to compose an active association with consumers of all types. We know that virtually beach person uses the Internet at this time to obtain businesses or products they desire. A blog centered on the niche is a sort of B2B online marketing that should substantiate beneficial.

Your business tactics don't apply on e-Business, at least not exactly

2012-10-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

Every Business on earth can transform into an online Revenue Generating Machine and everything you see on the internet is a website yes but just like every building on earth can not be called a house or office or hospital only. Every online portal is just not a website.

The portals on the internet are sometimes social networks or an online store a search engine or may be a free e-mail domains like Hotmail, g mail, yahoo, or Facebook, LinkedIn and many others like these. These portals can be taken as websites, but they are a complete business on the internet. In fact a lot bigger than just a business, with huge revenues, even if there services are sometimes free of cost, they still earn a lot more than you can imagine.

Here is a recent report about LinkedIn the biggest professional social network on earth:

By Erika Morphy

E-Commerce Times
10/18/12 8:18 AM PT

Social networkers are much more sanguine about changes to LinkedIn than to Facebook. One reason may be that LinkedIn plays a different role in people's lives. "People use Facebook every day -- it is part of their daily routine," said David Johnson, principal of Strategic Vision. Facebook's changes often impact user privacy or somehow alter the way people interact with others. "People don't like that kind of disruption."

LinkedIn, the social network geared toward professionals, has unveiled a major revamp of its site design. The changes began rolling out this week and will continue throughout the next few months.
The new LinkedIn places a greater emphasis on photos -- they are larger, serving as focal points on the page.The design is more streamlined, fonts have been changed, and the administrative features are more intuitive. For example, it is easier to update profiles and search for information on the site.

There is a visual tool that provides insights on the people and companies in a network. The new site also integrates better with LinkedIn's newly deployed mobile app.LinkedIn did not respond to our request for further details.In general, users seem to be satisfied with the changes. At the very least, there isn't a brewing outpouring of distress over the sudden change, as often happens when Facebook tweaks its site. Given the extensive facelift LinkedIn just gave itself, the intriguing question is why no fuss?

Facebook vs. LinkedIn

One reason may be that LinkedIn plays a different role in people's lives, said David Johnson, principal of Strategic Vision. "People use Facebook every day -- it is part of their daily routine."
Oftentimes, Facebook's changes either impact user privacy or somehow alter the way people interact with others. "People don't like that kind of disruption," he told the E-Commerce Times.
There are a billion users on Facebook now, and keeping all of them happy would be impossible, noted Andrew K. Johnson, public relations manager with GreenPath Debt Solutions.
"As users access Facebook on a consistent basis -- hourly, in many instances -- any slight changes can upset their daily routine of posting links, photos, thoughts and more," he told the E-Commerce Times.
LinkedIn attracts a segmented, business-oriented population, he noted, and it's likely people log onto their LinkedIn accounts less frequently than they access Facebook.
"LinkedIn's changes related to better use of images, as well as better descriptors for organizations, are a positive step in making it a more user-friendly social media tool," said Johnson. "As many use it to promote their work experience, businesses and more, such changes can be viewed as positive."

User-Focused vs. Advertiser-Focused

LinkedIn's emphasis on users, as opposed to advertisers, has encouraged user loyalty to the site, Peter Cohan of Peter S. Cohan & Associates told the E-Commerce Times. The fact some members pay for their accounts has much to do that with that, of course.
"Facebook is advertiser-driven, and its main focus is on making its advertisers happy," he noted, "so changes it introduces are geared to them -- not the users."

A Straightforward Mission

The job of managing changes is much easier for LinkedIn than for Facebook because of the way users access their LinkedIn accounts.
Linkedin is less personal -- it's more about an individual's professional persona, noted Tom Edwards, VP for Digital Strategy at The Marketing Arm.
"The focus here is enabling an individual to showcase their experience and skills from a profile perspective," he told the E-Commerce Times. Also, updates to the LinkedIn profile aren't part of the core profile experience.
"Due to this separation and the more static nature of an individual's profile, changing how data is presented is not a foundational behavioral change, and thus it does not elicit the type of feedback Facebook may receive -- such as when Facebook converted to Timeline," Edwards explained.
The majority of LinkedIn's user base consists of business professionals looking for networking opportunities, which is much different from the majority of Facebook's user base, noted Ken Wisnefski, founder and CEO of WebiMax.
"Put simply, Facebook's changes impact a slightly different audience."
_____________

The sole purpose of adding this report about LinkedIn is to show the big picture of e-commerce. This is called doing business on the internet and business on the internet has whole new meanings. Its just like when you move to a different region for a living or business.

The way you live in USA, the way you drive to your office go to your bank, look for a job eat drink or do any thing is the same but when you move to middle east or south east Asia. You do the same business but you need to learn even the bus routes, street addresses, have to learn the way they do the same business you are already doing because in that region its unnecessary to learn you cant do business without it.

The same way selling on the internet or having a business transformed on the internet has a whole new meaning of business you cant say you are the best seller of your products so you know how they would sell on the internet too. You require professional help of e-commerce or e-business specilaist to teach you how you sell on the internet.

The Way you sell online

2012-08-07T23:20:00.001-07:00

You think that it would be pretty easy to have somebody that wants to buy something from your website, to have that purchase go through, and have the money get deposited into your bank account. But there are actually several more steps involved, that’s why it can get confusing.

First of all, you need a Shopping Cart.

A website and a shopping cart are separate and should be separate, but shouldn’t be complicated to integrate the two.

A lot of times, there are a lot of shopping cart companies out there that have a lot of strengths and good shopping cart but they also try and convince you to manage your website from within the shopping cart. That doesn’t work so well, especially if you want a custom or real professional website.

Moving on, a shopping cart allows a customer that is on your website to select a part of the service that they want and add it to their shopping cart. They can then proceed to purchase that by entering their credit card information.

The next step is the gateway.

Once they have entered their credit card information, it’s a gateway that takes that credit card information and processes it to see if there’s authorization to proceed with that transaction. Once that is authorized, the gateway will then process that credit card, pull the funds and send it to the merchant account. Now, the merchant account is where the funds will reside for a short time and you can set it up to automatically transfer the funds from that merchant account to your bank account or your credit union or your check account - whatever for your business.

So those are the steps.

It’s a little bit more involved than you might have thought originally just to make a simple sale on your website.

The simplest way that I recommend in getting started is the way that I used when I got started which is Paypal.

The reason why Paypal is such a good place or Gateway to start is because it takes care of three things in one. Paypal is the shopping cart; it’s also the gateway and the merchant account. You can set up an account with Paypal.

E-mail Marketing

2012-07-23T06:11:00.001-07:00

In its broadest sense, the term covers every email you ever send to a customer, potential customer or public venue. In general, though, it’s used to refer to:

Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again
Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship
Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people

Why is email marketing so popular?

Email marketing is so popular because:

sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication
email lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message)
email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right

For more information, see the article Why do email marketing?.

Let’s briefly review the three types of email marketing:

1. Direct email

Direct email involves sending a promotional message in the form of an email. It might be an announcement of a special offer, for example. Just as you might have a list of customer or prospect postal addresses to send your promotions too, so you can collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses.

You can also rent lists of email addresses from service companies. They’ll let you send your message to their own address lists. These services can usually let you target your message according to, for example, the interests or geographical location of the owners of the email address.

2. Retention email

Instead of promotional email designed only to encourage the recipient to take action (buy something, sign-up for something, etc.), you might send out retention emails.

These usually take the form of regular emails known as newsletters. A newsletter may carry promotional messages or advertisements, but will aim at developing a long-term impact on the readers. It should provide the readers with value, which means more than just sales messages. It should contain information which informs, entertains or otherwise benefits the readers.

3. Advertising in other people’s emails

Instead of producing your own newsletter, you can find newsletters published by others and pay them to put your advertisement in the emails they send their subscribers. Indeed, there are many email newsletters that are created for just this purpose - to sell advertising space to others.

Where’s the catch?

This all sounds great of course. Imagine how much cheaper it is to send a message to thousands of email addresses, rather than thousands of postal addresses!

It’s not that simple, unfortunately. Quite apart from the complexities of designingand delivering email messages to the right people, getting them to actually readand respond to your message, and measuring and analysing the results, there is the issue of permission.

What’s “permission”?

Responsible email marketing is based on the idea of permission. This is a complex issue and the subject of intense debate in the marketing community.

Essentially, you need an email address owner’s permission before you can send them a commercial email. If you don’t have this permission, then the recipients of your mail may well regard your message as spam; unsolicited commercial (bulk) email.

You do not want to send spam!

If you are accused of sending spam, then you may find your email accounts closed down, your website shut off, and your reputation in tatters. In some parts of the world, you may even be breaking the law.

Quite apart from these practical considerations, there is also a strong argument which says that long-term successful email marketing relationships with customers and others can only work anyway if they’re permission based.

The big question, of course, is what constitutes permission…and that is the main subject of debate. It’s important to remember that it’s not your views, or even the views of the majority, that count, but the views of those receiving your emails and those responsible for administering the infrastructure of the Internet.

An example of permission is when your customer buys something from your online store and also ticks a box marked “please send me news about product updates via email”. You now have “permission” to send that person product updates by email, provided you also give them the opportunity to rescind that permission at any time.

Educate yourself

It’s important to stress that anyone considering email marketing must read up on the subject of permission and spam. If you don’t understand the importance of permission and the risks of ignoring it, then you could be heading for commercial disaster.

Don’t panic, though. It’s actually relatively easy to ensure that the address lists you use or build yourself are permission-based. Let Solution help you create a real e-mail marketing campaign.

Top Bulk Sales Revenue Generating Websites

2012-07-14T07:32:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the top Revenue Generating Websites in whole sales business. These were selected for their annual sales in access of $1billion.

1 Castco Wholesales Corp

Costco Wholesale operates an international chain of membership warehouses, carrying brand name merchandise

2 C&S Wholesale Grocers

C&S Wholesale Grocers is the lead supply chain company in the food industry today – and the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S. Supplying independent supermarkets, chain stores and institutions with over 95,000 different products

3 BJ's Wholesale Club

BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc., commonly referred to simply as BJ's, is a membership-only warehouse club chain operating on the United States East Coast, as well as in the state of Ohio. The company is ranked #232 on Fortune magazine's 2010 listing of America's 500 largest public corporations.

4 Associated Wholesales Grocers

Associated Wholesales Grocers is the second largest retailer owned grocery whole seller in USA after Wakefern Food Corporation.

It is interesting to see that there in quite a nominal competition for bulk sales business but looking at the number of bulk sales websites, that generate huge revenue, it looks like the offline Whole sellers have enough business and don't need to grow more or may be they still do not believe in transformation of whole sales business into electronic business online.

No matter what the reason is, we believe in transformation of every business in the world into e-business and Solutions strives for making all real business people understand the need of the day.