Archive for the 'Ecommerce' Category

by Robb Stark
When it comes to clothing, be it for adults or just as well for children, the consumers often times find themselves spending too much money. However, it does not necessarily have to end up this way.

Finding cheap and affordable clothes online is not a tricky thing to do, but a few things are always good to have in the back of your mind:

Do you know the site? Just because it is cheap and/or affordable does not mean that the clothes in question are worth their price. There are plenty of cheap clothes out there of extremely poor quality. If you have not previously experienced the brand of clothing, you should only buy one garment or maybe two, no matter how cheap or affordable they are.

What are the rights of exchange? If you are not happy with the clothes, and want to exchange them with something else, you have to know for how long and under which conditions you have a right to do so. This point is very important so make sure you read the fine print on the webpage in question selling the clothes.

Buying clothes without having tried them on first is a kittle for most people, often times more so for women than men. But if you have chosen an online store with a long right of exchange period you can always exchange them for a different size if the clothes do not fit you the way you want them to.

You also have to delve into the area of shipping charges before deciding to purchase clothes online. Otherwise you may end up spending more money than you would have had you purchased them directly from a regular store. Some online stores have a policy of treating you to a very low or even free shipping charge if you would purchase clothes over a certain amount, others do not. It is up to you to make sure you are not getting over-charged for the shipping costs.

Another issue here is whether or not you should use the regular post system in your country or, rather, have the clothes shipped by any of the many couriers there are to choose from. In the United States, using a courier is the preferred method. One reason is because the United States Postal Service is very slow and unreliable as of late. All the different couriers, like Fedex and UPS all have different options to choose from. Do you want your clothes the next day, within five days and so on? Using a courier when buying clothes from the United States to for instance Europe, the use of couriers can sometimes also mean that you do not have to pay any taxes on top of everything, which is sometimes the case.

Another thing that is good to know as well is that if you buy clothes online from a store located in California for example, that does not have a business registered in the state that you have them shipped to, you do not have to pay any sales tax. Depending on how much clothes you buy, this can help you save a lot of money, if the opportunity to ship the clothes out of state represents itself. Perhaps you can get some friends or relatives to join you in making the order? The more you buy the more you save on not having to pay any sales tax as well as getting a lower shipping cost.

Robb is writing about finding cheap clothes online - Read more at handla billiga or billigt online.

Article Source: How to find cheap clothes online

by DanPartridge
A Zen shopping cart software is an open-source application, which anyone can use, tweak, and have full control of.

There is just some shopping cart software that don’t really fit your taste for one reason or the other. It could be that they are not flexible, making it difficult for you to customise functions and designs in relation to you business. Others are equipped with everything you need but possess a very hefty price tag.

The Zen shopping cart software is an open-source application that opts to provide another alternative for business owners. The features are very easy to use and can easily be modified according to your specifications.

Here are the benefits of using a Zen shopping cart program:

1. It’s practically free. Since it’s an open-source program, anyone can basically use this one. This is the most ideal option for start-up businesses and those who could not afford to buy a more comprehensive online store infrastructure. All you need to do is to download the software and then integrate it later into your website.

2. It has a very easy-to-manage payment processing scheme. The Zen shopping cart software has an easy-to-use payment processing mechanism. You can set up prices for your products, offer discounts to your customers, charge goods to their accounts at one time, and even introduce sale reductions. You can also conveniently set up this e-commerce program together with Paypal and other merchant and payment gateway accounts that you have.

3. The templates can be customised according to your liking. There’s practically no limit as to what you can possibly do with the various templates that you can find in this shopping cart program. You can make use of the HTML editor if you want to modify the fonts, colors, and even the layouts of the page. It’s also compatible with XHTML 1.0, which means that you can basically do the editing even if you have no prior education of any programming language like PHP.

4. It consists of different types of highly useful functionalities. There are different kinds of functionalities that you can tweak in your Zen shopping cart software. You can change your tax rate, identify shipping charges, relate the program with your existing shipping carriers, and even accept and convert payments from other currencies to your own currency.

5. It doesn’t take too long to set up. The Zen shopping cart software can be installed in less than an hour. As a matter of fact, you only need to set aside around 20 minutes of your time. This only proves that it’s a no-hassle software.

6. Security is at its best in Zen shopping cart program. This application can work with any kind of SSL technology, which you need to secure credit card payments of customers. Moreover, you are also given your own account in accessing the control panel, so nobody else will be able to change the settings, unless you allow someone to do so.

The Zen shopping cart program can also help you in your marketing efforts, such as the addition of banners, setting up of mailing lists, and distributing newsletters to the inboxes of your subscribers.

Do you need help with your shopping cart? Ask the experts by at Absolute web design.

Article Source: Zen Shopping Cart Software: A Great Alternative to Limited Options

by Michael Laleye
Anyone who starts an internet business to profit from e-commerce has high hopes for success. Many feel that with just a few simple ads the business will boom and take off into a major business. However, many find that customers are actually few and far between when it comes to an internet based business idea. With the following solutions you can help to market your internet home business idea and turn it into a success.

Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization(SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results. By choosing the one word or phrase that describes your e commerce product or service you have partly search optimized it. The basic concept is to weave that phrase of word into your website content to let the search engines know what your internet business is all about.

You also have to submit your site to the search engines themselves to speed up the time it takes for the search engines to find out that your website is even on the map. Once you’ve done that you can get the search engines to start sending traffic to your site by promoting it on other websites such as article directories on other sites related to your affiliate program’s products or services, using your main keywords as text links. Search engines bring your e commerce website very targeted traffic is one of the most popular internet solutions for e commerce websites.

Article Marketing
Write articles and submit them to e-zines, web sites and magazines that accept article submissions. Include your business information and web address at the end of the article. This method, of done consistently, over time will have an explosive effect on your traffic and link you to places where people can find your e-commerce business web site all over the internet. Article marketing is an important part of search engine optimization. The title of your articles as well as the link text you use to add a clickable text link to your site should be words that describe your internet business niche.

Pay Per Click
The world of pay per click advertising is very competitive and the words you might want to bid on can be out of your budget. The key is to find the low competition variations of your main keyword that are less popular and therefore will cost less. The best tool one can have when looking for low competition keywords in their niche is a keyword analyzer software which can be purchased or found for free online. Some keywords tools are very good for doing pay per click research because they not only give you a list of alternatives for any search word you enter, they will also display the number of searches for that keyword and the number of campaigns already running for the keyword phrase you entered.

This is the information you need to find keywords you can bid on without going over budget. An analyzer tool also allows you to find keywords to bid on that are uncharted, meaning they get a good number of monthly searches but there are no campaigns running for that keyword. Without a keyword analyzer tool you can also find out how many campaigns are running for any keyword by simply typing the word into in the search engine and counting the ads.

Ezines
Start an e-zine for your home business web site. When people read each issue they’ll be reminded to revisit your website. They’ll see your product ad more than just once which will increase your orders. Instead of having somebody click on your web site and leave, you can recycle that visit and continue contact them with your promotions while at the same time giving them something valuable.

If you have your own website or blog, you MUST promote it to achieve visitors and more importantly sales. Visit our site today and learn exactly how you can best promote your website using these methods and more. E-Commerce Internet Solutions For BusinessStart your own Internet business from home. Build residual and leveraged income to create real wealth. Free Signup!

Article Source: E-Commerce Internet Solutions For Business

by Macit Webmaster
Website owners and marketers have often asked me to explain the importance of Google rankings vis-à-vis the prospect of their online businesses. In response, I have always stressed on the importance of Google rankings asserting that it is a powerful tool that can affect any online business immensely. To be precise, an online business may boom or go bust based on the website’s position on Google.

As my response often fail to convince them completely, the marketers further query me about the exact value of a top ranking on Google and the benefits their businesses can derive from a top Google grade.

$37.7 million worth paid results daily

The earnings report published by Google in June 2008 shows that the sites owned by the search engine giant yielded revenues worth $3.40 billion primarily from the search results during 2008 Q1. Translated to daily earnings, this is a whopping figure — $37.7 million a day!

Well, going by the above figures, it is not only easy to comprehend the importance of Google rankings, but also assess the worth of being listed on the search engine’s first result page. Even a layman would be able to tell that the advertisers would not cough up so much money if the Google rankings did not generate enough revenues for them. Google’s huge earnings only signify the worth of the paid search results on its websites.

More value for listings in the natural search results

A recent study conducted by iProspect established that 60.5 per cent of Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL users preferred the natural or unpaid search results to the paid search results for any pertinent inquiry. The study further found that while 72.3 per cent of Google search engine users selected natural search results as the most applicable, the figure was 60.8 per cent for Yahoo!

Moreover, researches conducted by Enquiro and iProspect exposed that while 60.5 per cent to 70.0 per cent of the Internet users have faith on natural results, only 30 per cent to 39.5 per cent of them rely on paid results. From the above findings we may conclude that an online marketer will receive more clicks with a natural search engine listing compared to the paid listing.

Interestingly, during the latter half of 2007, information related to an in-house Google tool that consigned dollar values to the search results on the website was let slip. On investigation, it was detected that news regarding the tool leaked while it was being used by the company’s AdWords marketing team working on a project to facilitate the process of prioritising new client acquirement.

Higher ROI from natural search results

The above illustration shows how a listing in the natural search result is of much more value when compared to the scheduling in paid results. The reasons behind this are:
• Most Web surfers click natural search results regularly
• Most Web surfers prefer and trust natural search results

It is an accepted fact that natural search results provide the major part of targeted traffic to any website, even now a large number of firms spend their entire online marketing budget on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) programmes rather than investing in the more organic search engine optimisation (SEO) process.

It has been proved beyond doubt that compared to the PPC campaigns, optimising a website for top rankings in Google’s natural search results offers much higher return-on-investment (ROI). Moreover, you are likely to get the value of your investment in search engine optimization more easily and quickly.

Macquarie IT is Australia based web development company providing internet marketing, search engine optimization, website design Australia, website development, Graphics designing services.

Article Source: The True Value of Google Top Rankings

by Macit Webmaster
Offline shopping still holds priority

A research conducted by OTX and The Intelligence Group during June this year states that around 60 per cent, i.e. nearly six out of 10, teenagers in the US have bought something or the other at some point of time through the Internet. Teens who confirmed having made online purchases revealed that on an average they spent $46 a month, while over 25 per cent of them said that they spent $50 and further every month.

Significantly, a majority of these teenagers spent most of their online purchase money on garments and music. Buying books, electronic items and DVDs came next on the priority list.

The finding in the OTX study points out that the Internet is not the sole media for the US teenagers for making purchases. These teens also use other forms of purchases as they do not want to depend solely on the Internet or buy everything online. Statistics provided by OTX shows that while 82 per cent of the US teenagers prefer to make purchases from the real shops, only 18 per cent confirmed that online shopping was better.

In an article published in the June 2008 issue of STORES, TNS Retail Forward vice-president Mandy Putnam observes that the young generation in the US still has a preference for shopping at the brick-and-mortar shops as they like the “sensory stimulation that accompanies shopping with friends at stores”. However, she admits that online shopping is teaching the US teens to be smarter shopper who are able to get the maximum value for every dollar they spend.

According to Ms Putnam, the US teens are fast becoming knowledgeable and confident online shoppers as they not only click incessantly to locate the products of their choice, but also evaluate them thoroughly before making any purchase. More importantly, these teens are keen that they find the right product at the price they are prepared to pay or one that they think their moms would approve, Ms Putnam remarked in the STORES article.

Meanwhile, the Piper Jaffray’s April 2008 ‘Teen Spending Survey’ points out that while the US teens may be enthusiastically shopping online, the amount of money they have been spending on purchases through the Internet is likely to be affected owing to the economic regression. The observation is not without any base, as Piper and its research associate, DECA, a student marketing association, have established that in the wake of the economic slowdown, the growth in annual online shopping spending was lower by 15 per cent and 11 per cent with young men and young women respectively.

On the other hand, The Harris Poll established that online shopping expenditure among 13 to 21 year-olds had reached $120 billion in 2007.

Macquarie IT is a leading AUS based marketing company offering Internet marketing, Search engine optimisation, I-staffing services, project management, software development service, logo design, ecommerce web development across the globe.

Article Source: US Teens Spending Lesser on Online Purchases

by Macit Webmaster
Escalating fuel costs tempt consumers to shop from home

According to a report released by the UK trade group — the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), while retrieving information from the Web and communicating with others are the two most prominent online activities of the Internet users in the UK, purchasing goods and services are a close third on their priority list.

Till some time back, most Internet users in the UK primarily used the online services to make travel arrangements or book hotel accommodation. But over the years the use of the Internet as well as the assortment of products purchased online have grown significantly. The online purchase of books, music, tickets, clothes and even electronic gadgets have for long been the leading retail items in their e-commerce list.

Currently, all large supermarket chains in the UK have exclusive and well ingrained online stores that are not only dependable, but also have effective delivery systems. Consequently, this has made online grocery shopping particularly appealing to the consumers. A survey conducted throughout the UK found that 44 per cent of the respondents across the nation were attuned to online grocery shopping. In London, the figure was higher as nearly half of the population there said that they had shopped grocery online.

Internet marketing analysts feel that this new and growing trend is like music to the online retailers’ ears. According to Karin von Abrams, a senior analyst with an e-commerce website, the rising fuel costs will only help to increase the number of online shoppers in the UK and elsewhere. If these online consumers are assured that they are receiving the best value for their money, there is no reason why they wouldn’t prefer shopping from the comforts of the home.

A study conducted by Verdict Research has projected that spending on the retail e-commerce will touch the £44.9 billion ($83.9 billion) mark in 2012.

On the other hand, compared to the Verdict Research report, the Mintel International Group has forecast little lesser online retail sales in the UK during the same period. Mintel’s report projects the sales to be around €56.0 billion ($73.36 billion) in 2012. Incidentally, though both the companies have made projections for 2012, neither of them has published the online retail sales figures for 2008!

Meanwhile, Karin von Abrams has stated that apart from the existing retail online businesses, more and more companies dealing in diverse items are sure to benefit from this growing trend of online purchases. According to Ms von Abrams, despite the current worldwide economic slump, efficiently operated department stores like the UK bedrock retailer John Lewis are likely to reap the benefits of shopping through the Internet.

A leading Internet marketing company offers leads for sales tactics, search engine optimisation, cost per click, pay per click, email marketing services in Australia, Europe, USA, UK and across the globe.

Article Source: UK Experiences Online Purchase Growth in Diverse Areas

by Christopher Cartre
Search Engine Marketing is only 50% complete when you start getting visitors to your website in volume due to successfully achieving high rankings for your targeted keywords. You now have visitors … now you need buyers.

No one knows on day one what will convert visitors to buyers. We know that the first objective is to get the attention of the buyer within a few seconds because that is all the time you have to “grab” the visitor. Website visitors have a short attention span and an even shorter level of patience to find what they are looking for. After all, they are just one click away from looking for someone else.

Clearly you must begin with your landing page which is usually your home page. Regardless of your landing page, it must be exactly relevant to the keyword that the page was found for. The content must be right on target.

You must have a “conversion funnel” … the path you wish the searcher to take to result in a conversion. Not everyone will follow this conversion funnel because everyone is different. However, creating a logical chain of information and process steps are key to maximizing interaction and minimizing frustration.

Throughout the conversion funnel, beginning with the landing page, there must be a readily identifiable and easy to see “CALL TO ACTION.” This is simply an invitation to the visitor to click or directly enter information whether it is a direct purchase, request for information or phone call, or filling in a lead or contact form. Everyone is different as I stated and the call to action needs to be consistent and easily accessible at all stops along the conversion funnel. Some will convert at the beginning of the funnel and some at the end and some in between.

However, the best laid plans often do not work as expected. This is why it is essential for constant analysis of the stats of the website. What are the entry pages? Keywords used? Exit Pages? How much time is being spent on all of the pages? What pages seem to get the most exits? Where do people spend the most and least amount of time?

The answers to these questions opens the way for testing of different page strategies with varying placement of text and visuals as well as dozens of other variables that may or may not prove successful. However, this A/B style testing done on a consistent basis will provide the data necessary to provide conclusive results telling you which of the tests work the best and under what circumstances. For instance, one of our clients, after achieving excellent search engine rankings for many important keywords were getting conversion rates we felt were below what we would expect. We started A/B testing for several variations of the landing pages and before long started to see a very distinguishable pattern. In this case, those landing pages with the placement of images in a certain configuration with the form on the right side of the page yielded the best results. While we will continue testing as part of our SEO process, we have seen a 700% increase in conversions within the past 60 days. Another client saw a “run rate” of orders within the first 60 days subsequent to changes in the ecommerce section yielding unit and sales volume TEN TIMES the results before the A/B testing was implemented.

Keep in mind that all industries and all businesses are different. Add to this that trends are ever changing. This is why there isn’t one formula that fits all. However, the process remains the same. Testing conversion strategies and monitoring the stats very closely along with the necessary adjustments are the keys to conversion optimization which is the ultimate measure of success for any Search Engine Marketing program.

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Article Source: Converting Visitors to Buyers

by Macit Webmaster
On-demand TV on the rise

Recent reports say that telecom service providers Verizon and AT&T are offering Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) services to subscribers in the US. And a website has predicted that compared to the present 3.3 million subscribers now, the US will have around 12.7 million IPTV users by 2012.

Interestingly, one will find that the recent move by Verizon and AT&T comes in the wake of a global rise in the number of IPTV subscriptions. Already the number of IPTV subscribers in the US has doubled between March 2007 and March 2008. A study conducted by Point Topic and sponsored by The Broadband Forum says that the rise has been continuing for the second consecutive year as the IPTV subscriptions had doubled in the 2006-07 fiscal too.

It may be worth mentioning here that the global rise in broadband subscriptions, which has already touched the 370 million mark, has essentially stimulated the IPTV growth. What is, however, significant is the fact that the service providers have not made the total number of IPTV subscribers in the US available for the public, but released a region-wise break-up of the broadband subscriber figures.

According to Point Topic senior analyst John Bosnell, IPTV operators around the world have shown that the “systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers.”

Significantly, with the IPTV spreading its wings in the US as well as in other parts of the globe, all content is now available on demand. The Internet users are familiar with the process of searching and retrieving information from the Web. Likewise, IPTV service providers allow the subscribers to interrelate with the TV in a similar manner. If you are an IPTV subscriber there will be no instance when you will feel sorry for missing a show! IPTV stores all programs which can be later retrieved from the network. Isn’t it something great and similar to the Internet content available on the Web?

The most noteworthy aspect of the IPTV technology is that it brings new hopes along with added opportunities for the marketers. Moving a step ahead from the micro-mailing facility through Internet marketing, IPTV now offers marketers micro-marketing through addressable advertisements. Like the Internet allows the online publishers the facility to promote their products and services through videos, the IPTV technology too offers the subscribers the advantage of conveying long-term revenues for niche video content providers.

According to the Point Topic research findings, currently 15.5 million people subscribe IPTV services and among them 8.4 million subscribers are from Europe.

Nevertheless, compared to the Internet, the IPTV technology is still in its formative years and the guesstimates regarding its subscriptions differ. For instance, Informa estimates the worldwide IPTV subscribers to be 38.4 million between 2011 and 2012, while iSuppli projects the figure to be over 100 million during the same period.

Get the details about how to booming internet marketing blog on the web. Macquarie IT is leading internet marketing company offering web designing, web development, search engine optimization, I-staffing services in Australia.

Article Source: Broadband Boom Fuels IPTV Growth

by Roberto Bell
A lot of marketers these days are sinking their teeth into creating and selling high ticket information products like advanced coaching programs, teleseminars, bootcamps, one-on-one coaching, etc. These products provide these marketers an outlet so they can share their specialized knowledge to their customer base while earning huge amount of money in the process. Are you one of them? Then, you need to figure out the best ways on how you can properly advertise your offerings online. You need to do this so you can easily tap the global market that can help you boost your sales and online revenue.

Here are the 4 rewarding ways to jumpstart your high ticket marketing:

1. Plan ahead. Before you use any marketing tool, make sure that you have specific plan of action that can guide you all throughout. List down all the things that you would like to do to promote your products and ensure that you have enough time and resources. Also, identify the marketing tool that can help you connect well with your potential clients and those that will fit your budget.

2. Set your objectives. What exactly do you want to achieve in promoting your products? Would you like to sell at least 7 high ticket information products within a month? Your marketing efforts must be aligned with your goals. If you think that you can sell one product for every 1,000 potential clients, then you must know how to drive at least 7,000 interested people to your website.

3. Use article marketing. This is one of the best marketing tools that I can recommend to you. Aside from the fact that you can use it for free, it can also help you bring qualified traffic to your website. All you need to do is distribute well-written and informative articles to article submission sites and you’ll earn quality inbound links for your website that can help in improving your page ranking. This can lead to more traffic and improved sales leads.

4. List building. You will never succeed online if you don’t have your own opt-in list. You have to remember that most of your sales will most likely to result from your follow-up emails as very few people will make a purchase the first time that they visit your website. So, learn the best ways to effectively capture the email addresses of your potential clients so you can easily build an ongoing communication with them.

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Article Source: High Ticket Marketing - Revealed - 4 Rewarding Ways to Jumpstart Your High Ticket Marketing

by Tony Hanes
I’m going to tell you how I started my own Skateboard Business which is the same basic formula that I used for all my internet sites.

Using google adwords tool, I typed in various keywords until I found a general keyword that had many monthly searches, in the case Skateboard. Typing in Skateboard into the search box will reveal a multitude of other search words related too the root word of Skateboard. In this case, I was able to locate a series of other words that had little competition; the competition is also shown and you need to select the keyword which have a decent search volume with little competition.

The following words were generated for me that I picked out of the list. After using the root word I had selected Skateboard I was able to find these secondary words or phrases;

DC Backpack, tec skate helmet, baker helmet, wheels for skateboards, how to clean skateboard bearings.

These phrases had decent search volumes and little competition.

Then I made a second list of search words that were not as good but were ok:

complete skateboarding, bearings for skateboards, wheels for skateboards, tec skate helmet, baker helmet, dc back pack, skating backpack

Now that I know what search words and phrases I need to use, I then find a drop shipper of complete skateboarding gear that carries these things that people are looking for. After having done that, I build my web page around these keywords using them in the meta tags and in the text of the web page to optimize the web page for these keywords; this helps search engines to locate my page when people do a search engine search for any of these keywords I’ve selected.

Now that I have my web page set up, I set up my account with the drop shipper who sells these products that I have made my web page around. When a customer comes to my site to buy something like a “skating backpack” then they buy it from my site and pay me through paypal. Then I send that order to the drop shipper and give them the address of the customer who purchased the skating backpack and they will deliver the skating backpack to the customer. Then I pay the drop shipper for my cost, and I keep the difference between what I paid and what the customer paid.

This exact same process works for any type of online business that you would like to start as long as you can find a drop shipper who can provide the product that you are wanting to sell. You can find a drop shipper the same way you find out about everything else, using google search.

http://www.yourskate.com

Article Source: How to Start your own Home based Internet Business