The Next Great Entrepreneurs – Mobile Applications
Published April 19, 2011 | 
Luxury Mobile Applications Come of Age
Top luxury brands have enjoyed successful testing and experimentation with e-commerce for a couple of years, and are venturing into social media, at a much greater pace than ever before, driven by the realization they don’t want to miss the soon-to-explode mobile device shopping surge on the near horizon. Ongoing research on wealthy consumers that use of mobile devices show over 75% compare prices via their mobile devices, while a rapidly growing near 30% have purchased via a mobile device.
We are rapidly approaching the point where due their extremely convenient nature, mobile devices are starting to replace the laptop for many activities and transactions and top luxury brands are running to be out in front of the trend for the change.
It is important to remind ourselves that whether face-to-face personal interaction, Website or Smart Phone application exchange, it is important to build and maintain the strong consumer relationship that brings ultimate high-value to any resulting sales transaction. If the customer continues to return, the relationship has had a successful affect directly on the brand value in the customer’s mind. The good news is that when the loyal customer decides to make a purchase, they will typically buy more, as well as spend more.
Research has shown that 80% of High-end brands, as well as other brands aren’t engaging with their customer base through their Smartphone, so there is still enormous potential to be explored and developed through intelligent mobile marketing.
There has been an explosion in apps and Smartphone usage that proves consumers now view mobile as an essential channel for information, communication and entertainment. Retailers are now presented with the golden opportunity to foster and encourage this appetite by providing smart, effective mobile sites, along with the commerce tools that will move mobile marketing from the fringe directly into the mainstream.
The nearly exponential growth of mobile marketing is leveraging ‘real’ consumer demand. In effect, areas such as ‘direct to bill’ and ‘direct pay’ are a whole new opportunity for operators and manufacturers to embrace.
The new generation of even more powerful Smartphones and Tablets along with ever-present 3G, 4G and WiFi will help the mobile industry rapidly achieve the growth that has been promised the last few years.
When you combine this with more location-based applications and services that appeal to users on the move, it means 2012 and beyond will truly see the industry come of age.
The Next Great Entrepreneurs – Shopping Goes Social
Published April 6, 2011 | 
Believe it or not, virtually half of all Americans are now members of at least one social network, with many that are members of multiple networks, and of course spending more money while they’re at it. That’s an eCommerce spending rate that has doubled from just a short couple of years ago. Recent research indicates social media users are spending on average, approximately over one and a half times more time online than the normal web surfer. Actually, intense Facebook users spent an average of $67 online during the first quarter of the year, when compared with less than $50 for the common citizen of the Web, according to very recent research from comScore.
Strong evidence indicates that eCommerce has gone social, meaning the days of one-way, private online shopping are long gone in the past.
In looking back over the brief history, the first to really go social were online flash sale sites, where incredibly steep discounts are offered to members for an extremely-limited time. Sites like Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Rue La La and DailyCandy’s Swirl mimic designer sample sales, offer luxury fashion for a small portion or mere fraction of the retail price. These sites rely a great deal on conversations taking place online as a driver for sales. Stylishly so, because a recent MediaPost study revealed that approximately 60 % of consumers rated “personal advice from friends” as the most valuable and influential source of 
information for their purchase decisions, and 51 % of Twitter users reported they follow companies, brands or products on social networks.
In addition, going social are collective-buying sites including Groupon and LivingSocial, which are appearing in most urban areas across the U.S., and each day members are e-mailed discounts offered by local businesses. These sites have integrated tools allowing users to very easily share deals, recommendations, and plan activities with friends in their social networks on Facebook and Twitter respectively.
An interesting transition has occurred over the past several months, as companies have lost “total control” over their specific brand’s message. 
That responsibility has actually shifted into the control and hands of the social web, made evident by a recent increase in the number of consumer product review sites like ThisNext, Viewpoints and Milo.
Finally, new social shopping startup ventures continue to crop up all the time. For example, one is Swipely.com, which its social affect is to politely “turn purchases into conversations.” It does so when users swipe their credit or debit card, and the transaction shows up on the site, for the community to discuss, if it so chooses.
Tax Basics for eCommerce and eBay Sellers
Published March 7, 2011 | 
E-commerce businesses sell products and services for profit by way of the Web to customers throughout the global economy. Typically, if your for-profit business has a location in a state where your customer that makes a purchase form you resides, then you will be required to collect and remit sales tax.
In general, sales tax is the tax collected by the end user (the last to purchase) of a product or service. Understand that each state has their own rules regarding what is considered a taxable product or service and what is not.
Your products or services may be taxable in one state, but not in another. In some states if you separately state items on your invoice they are not taxable, if you lump them together, they become subject to sales tax. In other states, the opposite viewpoint or definition might be in effect.
It is up to you, the Entrepreneur or small business owner to determine and understand exactly what the rules are for the sales and use taxes you are responsible for collecting whenever you sell a product or service of your business.
Make it a strong point to follow all the rules and regulations required for you to properly operate your business right from the beginning. You can then be confident your hard work at building a successful business won’t be cut short by something you should have done correctly from the start.
Now, nothing is truer than you can’t run and hide from the tax man. Hopefully it won’t be news to you that as an eBay seller, you might be required to pay tax on your earnings.
I’m not sure why many people believe that just because they are doing business over the Web that means they are exempt from paying some sort of taxes. Understand that if you regularly acquire items and sell them for profit then it is a business, and most countries completely recognize and consider that you are trying to make a profit on the items that you are selling on eBay or an eCommerce site, therefore, tax is due.
One rule to remember is if it has a “paper trail,” then it can be taxed, and with that being said, the US, UK, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, all require tax payments when you are selling items to make a profit.
If your residence is in and you do business from anywhere in the US, then you are subject to a sales tax. To do this, you are going to need an ID. To get a Sales Tax ID, visit http://www.thestc.com/ta.cgi?STRates to find your local state office. On the website, you will see your state, the tax rate, and any exemptions that you may rate.
To see if your county demands a sales tax, do a simple search of “your county name + sales tax.” There are some people that believe eBay is responsible for delivering 1099′s after the seller has reached a certain amount by the end of the year. This is NOT true, since eBay is only the facilitator for auctions. 
However, if you use PayPal or another online payment processing service, PayPal is responsible for keeping all records of transactions.
What you do is either request or print off a transaction history for the year and start inputting all transactions of sales, and everything that is transacted through your PayPal account should be claimed and presented. This is the reason why it is highly recommended to have a bookkeeper, especially if you are not good at keeping your books organized and in proper order. If you are in business your mindset should be that you are always prepared for an audit.
Some sellers have more than one PayPal account, with one PayPal account strictly for their eBay store. You can have a Personal PayPal account, as well as a Business PayPal account. You should consider doing the same for your bank checking, with one account strictly for your eBay and other online sales (i.e. Amazon.com etc.).
You should be aware that there is legislation taking place in the US that requires PayPal to report anyone with over $20,000 in payment volume or 200 transactions a year. 
So if you are all over the place with mixing personal purchases and transactions with your business account, then you are going to need to have somebody go through each and every transaction for the year and file it correctly.
This won’t come at a cheap cost, as you will need an accountant to do this for you. This is precisely why I recommend from the very beginning that you keep all personal costs and PayPal business transactions separate. That means if you want to buy something on eBay, you should use a separate ‘buying’ eBay and personal PayPal account.
Understand that every country has certain changes in legislation and rules for filing your taxes. The biggest thing you need to remember is that if you make a profit on any transaction, you have to report it to the tax man in whichever country you reside.
Finally, I would strongly suggest that if you sell online (eCommerce) for a profit, you get yourself a tax professional to look over your income and expenses; therefore you can never be too organized.
Search Engines and Optimization
Published August 27, 2010 | 
I think I’m safe in saying that anyone who operates a website wonders how to get it into the top 10 search results, and that one thought has created an industry with the tools and knowledge to answer this very question, and the process has come to be known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO.
Many say that SEO methodology has become more of an art employed to bring improvement to the ranking of a website in Search Engine results given certain targeted “keywords,” and I tend to agree with that consensus. You need to understand that “keywords” are the words or phrases that your target market uses most to limit search results to more specific sites including product or services that you might offer.
To illustrate, you might want your website to rank high for “Disc Golf accessories,” but you couldn’t care less if it rates high for “Garden Supplies,” because that is NOT your target market niche.
Most people of course don’t realize that Search Engines are actually very limited software programs, which don’t have the intelligence built into them to understand everything they encounter on the Web. What they use is constantly evolving rules to score and rate a website’s capability to answer a very specific question, and now that we understand this knowledge, we can break down the Search Engine Optimization process into the following three categories:
HTML code: This is the part of Search Engine Optimization for programmers, since an in-depth knowledge and understanding of web coding standards and techniques is required, and typical software packages have historically produced poor results which take a lot of the human touch and intervention to ensure optimum results.
Tailoring the Content: When given a set of keywords, a Search Engine rates pages according to their respective relevancy, so that you have to build your content with those specific keywords always in mind. What is fundamental to determining just which keywords are relevant is a complete understanding of your target market niche, including knowledge of the typical questions they ask when searching for answers. Is important for you to know and understand there are websites (i.e. www.wordtracker.com, www.google.com/insights/search, etc.) dedicated to helping you determine the most commonly used keywords, and you should make extensive use of them.
Keep in the back of your mind throughout the process, that this is not a race of numbers to see how many keywords you can fill the page with, because there is an optimum keyword density. Too dense with too many keywords and it will be considered spamming, and you will most certainly be penalized. Too little, and you are neither ranked nor considered an authoritative source of information. It would be wise of you to dial in on a specific set of keywords, and remember you are trying to optimize for only those asking a specific question.
Entrepreneurs, the Global Recession and eCommerce
Published July 9, 2010 | The main question to Global Entrepreneurs using the Web for eCommerce is how does the current global economic recession affect their commerce opportunities on the Web?
Recession is a relatively ugly word that continues to be referred to with great regularity as many think we are no longer in recession, but still a hair’s width away from slipping back into a “recession,” 
as many factors seem to be lining up to contribute to a new economic recessive event, worse then the previous. The current economic stagnation appears to be putting a stranglehold on more and more local markets, turning some into ghost towns as their inhabitants continue to abandon them for the hope of better futures.
The real estate industry is one that still has to deal with many serious issues, the value of the dollar is recovering, and unemployment continues without abatement, as the promise of cost and tax increases is looming on the horizon of 2011 and beyond, all contributing strongly to the future “economic uncertainty” that chokes off any hope of the level of recovery needed to spur increased economic activity including consumer demand, spending, and associated job and wealth creation.
On a more relevant and practical level, the question for anyone with an online business is how will the state of the global economy affect them? It is 
important to keep in mind that the same question exists no matter what the state of the global economy including good, recessive, depressive, or malaise, and with the mixed bag the Web and Social Media Technology always presents, you have to look for and always be aware of the silver linings.
What you have to remember when preparing for with the Web, is that business results tend to happen at a fast pace, unlike brick and mortar businesses that see delays in trends of months sometime, Web trends quickly provide evidence that make themselves apparent, and any drop in demands for products or services is felt in a very short time, sometimes a matter of days.
First, let’s examine the bad affects of economic recessions, which leads to one very predictable action, and that is a sometimes severe downturn in spending, and it’s a widely recognized fact that when people are not confident about the future, they tend to hold on to their money until confidence slowly returns. 
This of course means the general trend will be fewer dollars spent at many online businesses, a trend that’s even truer if the products and services offered are not valued by consumers as necessities of life.
There is a silver lining to keep in mind however, and one that you must plan for as the recession continues to slow, eCommerce leads to some positive results, one being less competition, since many competitors will disappear as a result greatly reduced marketing efforts to preserve remaining levels of cash flow including eCommerce efforts that they could never fully embrace and understand. On the contrary, focused and prepared Entrepreneurs recognize and capitalize on these opportunities to seize market share through fine-tuned search engine optimization, since when online businesses reduce their optimization efforts, the results are lost rankings with the search engines, and associated lost revenue producing opportunities of sales and advertising, while the prepared Entrepreneurs assume their place in the eCommerce market.
Another long-term silver lining is how changing consumer shopping habits are beginning to increase Web eCommerce traffic even further. Remember the global economy is dynamic, and naturally goes up and down, so try not to get to stressed when downturns happen and take the opportunity to put in place the tasks you need to accomplish and maintain optimal search engine optimization, and keep traffic flowing to your site regardless what state the economy is in, and with time the economy will experience strong growth again, and you will be positioned to enjoy even greater “Webtrepreneurial” success.