Insights, Ideas, Results
Perhaps your small business has been doing okay, or even pretty well. However, you are ready to take it to the next level. One small problem (actually not so small) – You are unsure where to start. The choices are overwhelming. Focus on social media? Focus on expansion? Focus on renovating the interior of the main office? What is a business owner to do? Hopefully, the tips that follow will help you gain a measure of clarity.
Starting a new eCommerce business could be the best way to earn a decent wage this year. We all know the job market is in dire straits, and so going self-employed is an attractive option. However, many people won’t know how to attract customers and achieve high sales levels. Considering that, we’ve published some step by step advice on this page you can follow. You’ll still need to perform more research if you want to make a killing. Even so, this article should make sure you start walking down the right path. If you have enough cash to spend, you should always employ the services of a business advisor. That will limit your mistakes and your exposure to risk.
It is every small business owner’s dream to be like Amazon. Here is a web titan that started with just selling books online and has grown into online juggernaut that is giving nightmares to Wal-Mart. Being a small business online, it’s tempting to want to take on Amazon. But that’s like a gnat pitting itself against a god. Your best bet is to find your tiny corner of the web and dominate it on your own terms. While this helps you fight Amazon with your own niche, you will still face thousand other websites jostling for the top spot on Google rankings. So how can you make your website stand out from the crowd?
There is an information explosion happening around us like never before. Every second there are millions pieces of information being created and consumed. They come from all different sources and media. Whether it is tweets, photographs, videos, articles or any other form it as become nearly impossible to keep up with this surge in information for any business. Just Google your business name and find out how many links you get for your business. Some links will be good, some bad. Some will be true, while others may not be.
E-Commerce has come a long way from its earlier days when it was considered a major undertaking to set up an online shop. Companies used to spend millions of dollars and had to hire expert software developers to build e-commerce website. Nowadays you can buy, or even rent, software that provides all the functionality needed for online e-commerce store out of the box. The biggest decision you have to make is what type of software to purchase and how much customization you should do. For any online e-commerce software shopping cart is the backbone that provides the most critical functionality.
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Here is a quick question for you. Let’s say you are looking for a restaurant to go out for evening dinner with your friends or family. Where would you turn to find out? In the old days your answer would have been Yellow Pages (remember those thick books you used to keep?). Not anymore. These days more and more people are turning to web sites such as Google Places and Bing Local to uncover local businesses. These Online business listings, along with review sites such as Yelp, are becoming the new “Yellow Pages” of the Internet age.
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Those who are regular readers of this blog know that I am a big supporter of small businesses many of whom feel that they are at a disadvantage when competing with large corporations. I firmly believe that not only can small businesses compete with their larger rivals,but can beat them at their own game. We showed some of the techniques you can use to beat large competitors in earlier post.
In my view large corporations gain advantage against smaller rivals with economies of scale and having better access to capital and business tools. However, the Internet is changing the playing field in favor of small business owners. SohoOS is one promising start-up that aims to level the playing field in the area of business tools. SohoOS shares our vision of helping small business owners effectively compete with and beat their larger rivals who hold unfair advantage.
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Do you want to start an online retail store, but are always afraid of effort and money required to do so? I have come across a cheap and elegant solution that has the potential to help you with it. The solution comes from a start-up called Goodsie. I checked out their web site and was very impressed with its functionality and ease of use. You do not need to have computer programming knowledge to use this software, which is a great relief to many of us who do not have that skill or don’t want to deal with that hassle.
While online retail stores have been around for some time, small business owners have been at a disadvantage against their larger rivals due to their lack of skills and money required to build and run online retailing. You can use Amazon or eBay, but you are likely to be drowned out amongst thousands of businesses who are jockeying for the top position. That is why I strongly believe in having your own online store with a unique identity that you can control. Goodsie lets you do that easily.
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