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| Make That 3 Billion |
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MAKE THAT 3 BILLION
My previous article I wrote called "One Point Two Billion"
attracted quite some attention, the downloads through all
the article syndication services has been astronomical
compared to any other articles I wrote which are still with
them.
It seems the numbers game is popular not only with the
accountancy profession, but with just about anyone running
a website who is interested in more sales from anywhere in
the world.
The internet has proved to be the great leveller, even a
grandmother I know has made hundreds of thousands of dollars
just from publishing a couple of e-books, business of that
magnitude is not now confined to those people with large
sums of investment capital, teams of accountants, planners,
secretaries, swanky offices etc. Anyone, even you, can make
money regularly on the internet, just aim for a goal and
'go for it!'
The costs of setting up have never been lower, the ease of
making web pages has never been easier, ( I make my web
pages in Notepad, which is on every Windows computer), and
the potential audience for your web pages has never been
larger. So what are you waiting for?
The sheer mountain of information available through e-books
on any subject and especially on setting up a business on
the internet would take you a lifetime to read through, so
just be selective and read only what you need to know about
and get started in that business. Businesspeople who have
'been there-done that', have written up an enormous amount
of e-books to pass on their knowledge and experience,
pitfalls to avoid, how to spend your advertising dollars,
and just about everything else you need to know about to
ensure success. So profit from their experience, avoid the
pitfalls, do what they say you should do, and you should be
in a profitable business in no time, just the way they did it.
No large sums of investment are needed, just time and
dedication.
If you provide an excellent service that benefits all your
clients, they will recommend you to their friends,if on the
other hand you want to be a 'scammer' and a 'fly by night'
operator determined to 'rip-off' as many people as possible,
you will come to grief. You will find your web hosting
account rapidly terminated, your e-mail account likewise, and
your name plastered all over the forums and newsgroups.
You get out of life exactly what you put in.
There are still mysteries about life we still don't understand
and this is the reason we come to grief, but on the other hand,
if you work for the benefit of others, this 'mystery of life',
for want of a better name,cuts in and helps us along, we go
with the flow and good things start to happen.
I could tell you of many experiences I have had, both good and
bad, which I have learnt a great deal from, but space precludes
that, maybe one day.
All right, you win, I will tell you of one particular incident
more recently and then move on with this article.
I carried a St.Christopher medallion on a gold chain in my wallet
for six years, given to me by the wife of a good friend overseas,
'it will keep you safe' she said. I received a new wallet for a
Christmas present and changed everything in the old wallet into the
new one, except the St. Christopher medallion, it was looking a
bit 'worse for wear' and I decided to put it in the cupboard.
That day I lost my mobile phone!
For two whole days I felt a loss which can only be described as
a 'bereavement'. I had lost touch with the network I was attached
to night and day, seven days a week, I felt bereft. I did not know
if someone was trying to ring me, whether something was urgent I
had to know about, my sense of loss was total.
Was this to do with the St. Christopher medallion?
I thought surely not.
That was on the Tuesday, by Thursday morning I had decided to put
that 'good luck' St. Christopher medallion into my new wallet.
My mobile phone turned up via a 'good samaritan' who would take no
money as a reward whatsoever.
I was never more pleased to see my mobile phone.
So what happened here?
Was it something to do with the St. Christopher medallion?
Was it because I had 'bad thoughts' that it was the 'worse for wear'
so discard it as inconsequential?
I don't know the answer.
There have been too many such incidents in my life it would take
volumes to relate the details.
We don't know these 'mysteries of life' but one thing is important
-keep a positive outlook to everything and everyone and good things
will happen for you.
It's difficult to visualize how many people that are out there who can
log on to your website. It's also difficult to understand what kinds
of people they are, what background and education they have had. Why
they are logging on to your new site. What do they expect to see, or
learn, or buy?
How will they benefit from visiting your site?
Will they buy a good product, or learn something, or get some amusement
or entertainment from it?
Here are some figures to think about:-
1. Adults aged 65 and over are the fastest growing age group taking
to the internet, according to Nielsen/Netratings.
The number of adults from around the world over 65 who use the internet
has grown by 25% over the past twelve months, with 9.6 million now
accessing the web.
The number of female seniors has seen the most significent growth,
jumping 30%. Male seniors jumped by 20%.
2. 44% of Western European internet users shopped online during 2003.
(Jupiter Research).
3. 55% of the population of Spain are expected to be using Broadband
internet by the end of this year.
(Jupiter Research).
4. 50% of the U.S. population expect to be using Broadband internet
by 2008.(Jupiter Research)>
5. 1 in 5 internet users download music according to Nielsen.
6. Online shoppers in Australia for DVDs. is now the fifth fastest
growing online purchase category after travel, concert tickets,
accomodation, and books, growing by 30%
(ACNielsen Consult).
7. 22% of U.S. consumers shop online at work.
8. 67% of 12 to 24 year olds online in the U.S. have downloaded music
from the net.
9. 40 million Americans have downloaded music from the net, equivalent
to one-fifth of the U.S.
It's not hard to see that the net is a hive of activity and people are
paying for things they want, music in particular.
Content has not been a thing that people have been keen to pay for
except sex sites, one of the most successful ecommerce businesses of
all time. Newspapers online charge for content with some success, but
a survey by Jupiter Media Metrix claims that 70% of adult online users
don't see why they should pay for content. The researchers project that
revenues will only grow to $US5.8 billion by 2006 for online content!
Of that revenue the highest earners will be "Audio and Video
Entertainment and Games'. This survey also shows that 42% of net users
grudgingly expect that over time they will have to pay for content on
the net.
So, which way will you go?
Will your site be a subscription only site charging a monthly fee to
access the content? Look at the history of one such subscription only
site called Salon Magazine. They changed to a subscription only site
and over the first six months only signed up 25,000 users, out of
3.8 million users per month who used the site previously.
Statistics are a wonderful thing as many accountants know too well. Will
you be guided by all the statistics available through all the research
companies out there when you build your website?
Yes, the numbers game attracts a lot of attention has I stated at the
beginning of this article. Always remember though, that all these users
in these stats are only human beings and want, need, and desire pretty
much the same things you do, and set up your website accordingly. There
are enough humans out there to visit your website, whatever you decide to do.
Oh, and did I mention?
The worlds population of humans is now 3 BILLION!
_____________________________________________________________
The author Tony Dean runs a web site where he has free ebooks
for instant download as well as sells ebooks and software.
"The Best Ebook and Software Site On The Net!"
Http://www.ebook-sales.com
_____________________________________________________________
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| One Point Two Billion |
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Business and Economy >
Business >
Sales |
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One Point Two Billion - Or More
In this surreal world of the internet, anyone, even you, can
put your point across to a staggering number of people in
every country on the planet.
From political activists to artists and writers, can now find
an audience to take notice of them where they could not get
much attention in their local community. Their horizons have
been dramatically extended, so their work will travel on
indefinately with no end in sight as in entering a collosal
black hole.
Where does their online work go? Where does it come to a stop?
The answer is, it will go on as long as the internet is there.
Even after they have no longer maintained a web site, their
work can be handed on to other sites, to add content.
There are too, website archive sites who keep copies of websites
for people to look at now and in the future. Twenty years from
now people will be able to look through archived websites to see
what was new then, what were the prices, what the stock market
was doing, what writers and artists were putting out, and the
list goes on and on. Ideal for a writer in the future.
Not only will people be able to see what was going on, but in
some cases will be able to hear what people had to say, for
websites now are using music, video, and sound.
For those aspiring authors, and everyone it has often been said,
has a book within them, can write their great work of literature,
compile it to an e-book, and pass it around the internet, where
it could go the rounds for ever more, long after the author has
died. Conventional authors could hardly say that about their
hardback or paperback books.
At this moment in time, maybe only 40% to 60% of people in any
country log on to the internet every day, but the numbers keep
growing every year, and for those wanting to make a living out
of the internet, the future potential is enormous.
Consider the Asian market where the internet is fairly new, with
China as the next real big explosive market with unlimited
potential. Credit cards in China are unheard of, except for an
elite minority. To receive payment for anything over the
internet you would either, have to wait another 50 years if you
want to be paid by credit card, or persuade your Chinese clients
to open an internet payment account online with the likes of
Stormpay, which is an innovative new company, who will take any
form of payment to credit your new account, even cash, or bank
check. Stormpay even have 'WalkUp' offices around the world in
major cities and more are being established where a client can
deposit cash to credit their account for use on the internet.
Then the client can pay for anything on your site,
e-books, software, music etc., if you also open a Stormpay
account for receipt of the credits, all you need to open an
account initially, is an email address. Could not be simpler.
Credit cards over the internet could be a thing of the past,
many people still will not use credit cards over the internet
because of hackers, so what better way of secure transactions
do you need than a Stormpay account? It gives confidence to
your clients who need not hesitate to make a payment, there and
then, for whatever type of goods and services you provide.
Consider another aspect of selling to Asia and China in
particular. Most of the internet to-day is based on the English
language, but that is not the language they understand in Asia
and China. So, to sell to them you would have to make your site
multi-lingual. This could be just a few captions in Asian or
Chinese languages together with a button they can click on for
web pages in their own language. Or failing that, clicking on
a picture of an item on the screen can bring up a voice in
their language to explain what it is and how much it costs, and
to pay for it, they don't need a credit card, just click on a
link to Stormpay's site and sign up for an account and
subsequently they can pay for anything on your site instantly.
The voice in their own language can be reassuring to the client.
Consider once again, if you intend selling to the vast Chinese
population, the enormous potential of this untapped market, if
you could only make a single dollar from each one living there,
you would be rich beyond your wildest dreams, for the population
totals ONE POINT TWO BILLION and still counting.
_____________________________________________________________
The author Tony Dean runs a web site where he has free ebooks
for instant download as well as sells ebooks and software.
"The Best Ebook and Software Site On The Net!"
Http://www.ebook-sales.com
There is a link for Stormpay on his site for convenience.
_____________________________________________________________
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| The Another World: Outsourcing From Inside |
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The Another World: Outsourcing From Inside
Speaking of outsourcing I mean a wider sense than just hiring of manpower from abroad for some remote work. I can mark out four types here:
1. Outsourcing itself. A US or Western Europe company (let’s call it “the West”) hires an employee from Eastern Europe, Asia, etc., i. e. from a country with more poor economy (let’s call it “the East”, though it is not quite correct). This employee performs remotely some part of the work for a company from the West.
2. A company from the West hires a company from the East that performs all the work content for an employer and gives the ready product. In this case an employer appears for a reseller.
3. Not quite outsourcing, but it is related to outsourcing. A company from the West orders a product or a service at a company from the East for private use that is much cheaper than an analogous product/service by a company from the West.
4. Not outsourcing at all. An employee from the East moves to the West and works at a company.
However we are not interested in the fourth type now. The problem of outsourcing arouses a lot of discussions. On the one hand – those who immediately order and perform, on the other hand – specialists from the West who are being ousted from the labor market by specialists from the East. And it is the only significant disadvantage of outsourcing.
Surely, for people who lose their jobs because of foreigners this disadvantage is very significant, but nevertheless we should take into account the fact that only in the USA there are 340000 vacancies for programmers. Programmers from the West have two ways out: improve their professionalism to the level that no outsourcer could compete with them or to move to the East and become outsourcers.
So what can be opposed to this disadvantage? There are quite a lot of advantages. The most obvious among them is the considerable disparity between manpower costs in the countries of the West and in the so-called Third World countries. There are a lot of reasons; it is a question for economists, but all that comes down to the fact that the cost of living in these countries is much lower than in the USA or countries of Western Europe.
On the other hand, the professionalism of programmers, designers, etc. from not market-economy countries is highly competitive with the professionalism of Western specialists. The education system in the Soviet Union (and later – in the countries that became the USSR’s successors) is considered to be one of the best in the world; many specialists go to the West to work there, others are engaged in outsourcing. I am speaking of the countries of the former Soviet Union, because working with outsourcers from these countries is more profitable than with their Asian colleagues and developer from other countries of Eastern Europe. Of course, the benefit lies in the lowest manpower costs.
Now let’s appeal to the figures. When managers of a software or web design company plan to have resource to outsourcing, they usually aim to cut down expenses to 30% and more. I suppose that starting not only from labor hours, but also technicality, expenses can be cut down to 50%. These figures may be a little bit different depending on outsourcer’s geographical situation. As I already mentioned, if working with such countries as Russia and Ukraine, the profit gets still more. And it is while the quality is of the same high level.
Year by year greater and greater number of Western companies realize the advantages of outsourcing and collaborate with Eastern companies. As the IDC’s and Meta Group’s research show, 60% of midsized companies resort to outsourcing in IT development and web design. Forrester Research foretells that within the next 15 years 3.3 millions of jobs and $136 billions will move abroad.
Comparing different types of outsourcing, namely – the first and the second types, it must be said that the second one makes more profit since the cost value in this case will be less. The same reason is for buying a ready product or service by a company that is situated in Ukraine or Russia. Some companies are engaged exceptionally in reselling. That means that they find clients, pass an order to an outsourcer, pass the ready product/service to a client and get the profit that amounts to 100% and more.
Harking back to the words of some people who tell that outsourcers “steal” Western specialist’s work, I could say as follows. Economy controls the situation. It is market.
Dmitrie Highduke,
TheAnotherWorld
http://theanotherworld.com/
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| Why Suppliers should use B2B exchanges |
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Business to business e-commerce is on the rise! Worldwide B2B e-commerce revenues are estimated to reach around US$ 2 trillion in 2004. This is a significant leap from last year’s US$ 1.4 trillion. However, according to a recent survey, although, more than 70% of companies have already used Internet as a purchasing channel, a mere ten percent of their overall spending is directed via the Internet! Contrary to popular believe, this means, B2B e-commerce has still large potential to grow.
Internet has the capacity of changing the conventional way of doing business. Today, you can not only buy and sell your products and services on the Internet, you can, virtually, shift all your business processes to online solutions as well. If you take advantages of new Internet based technologies, the outcome would be tremendously beneficial to your business. How to do this without spending a fortune and not putting a huge pressure on scarce corporate resources? The possible answer could be B2B exchanges!
A B2B exchange is an online marketplace, where buyers, sellers and intermediaries form communities, exchange views, offer products and services, and conduct business transactions.
By becoming a member of a B2B exchange you can benefit in both cost-saving and revenue increase – two primary requirements of productivity increase.
New sales channel
By becoming a member of a B2B exchange, you open a low cost, highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel for your company. You expose your company to a new targeted audience that otherwise would have been untapped. Prospective customers can buy products and services from you, using various venues and features of the B2B exchange, where you are a member.
Marketplace: All B2B exchanges include a marketplace, where suppliers can post sales offer of their products and services. Buyers, looking for specific products, can easily find best suppliers that suit them from the marketplace. A populated marketplace can easily become a good sales channel for a supplier.
Electronic catalog: As a member of the B2B exchange, you are allowed to add all your products or services to the consolidated online repository of the exchange. Adding your products to the repository helps to create online standardize electronic version of your product specification – if you don’t have that before – and use the same catalog with other electronic sales systems – even with other B2B exchanges using XML interface.
You can publish sales offer of your entire catalog to the marketplace, eliminating a need for other web presence. You can add products or services to the repository one by one or you can use XML interface to upload your whole electronic catalog.
Web Store: Some B2B exchanges allow you to convert or integrate your website to their exchange. This helps you to handle sales conveniently from your website and the marketplace of the exchange seamlessly. You can make a web store from scratch with the help of integrated website builder of the B2B exchange as well.
Auctions: One of the great features of many B2B exchange is their auction systems. As we all know from the immense success of Ebay, auctioning is a great way of selling products online. Some exchanges boast reverse auction system, where suppliers bid for a deal posted by a buyer.
As a supplier, you can participate in those tenders without any extra cost involved.
Low customer acquisition cost
Your mere presence in the B2B exchange might bring you new customers! Since the buyers come to the exchange themselves; your cost of getting customers through this channel is relatively low in comparison to other traditional channels. You can even increase your visibility by advertising in the key places of the exchange, where your prospective buyers frequently visit. Being highly targeted, these ads produce incredible results.
Improve customer service
Ability to have constant interaction through the B2B exchange allows you to serve your customers better. You can track the whole ordering process from payment to delivery and bring greater efficiency in customer service. The integrated functions of an exchange such as sales management, internal messaging service, lead management, etc. also help you managing customers service process effectively.
Efficient information sharing method
When needed, you can instantly update your catalog and inform customers about changes. Whether you are launching a new product or having a web seminar, through the B2B exchange you can share the information more efficiently. Some B2B Exchanges use sophisticated knowledge management systems to create, capture, reprocess and reutilize information intended for specific group of audience. These contents or information can be displayed on demand or in time to a member – when needed.
Business processes management
One of the primary objectives of using B2B exchanges for you should be their ability to handle, run and administer various business processes. These solutions assist you to streamline your business, reduce overhead costs and reduce documentary errors.
Using technologies in a bid to streamline business processes like supply chain is nothing new. Companies have been using various solutions to support product development, customer service, procurement and other integral processes for many years. Before the Internet era, many companies have invested enormous amount of money in infrastructure building to automate supply chain process. Today, thanks to the Internet, even small companies have opportunity to use highly sophisticated supply chain solutions for a small cost. Many B2B exchanges, such as Rusbiz.com, allow small companies to use supply chain management solution for a small fee. The major benefits of using supply chain solutions include:
1. Reduced sales time
2. Better inventory control
3. Lower overhead
4. Reduced manufacturing cycle time
5. Reduced cost of goods
Business to business e-commerce is evolving very fast. The fact is, at one point, most of all business transactions will take place via the Internet. B2B exchanges are a way of building cost-effective e-business environment on the Internet, which is capable of producing concrete and quantifiable business benefits to the participants.
About the author
Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com/newsletters/newsletter32.htm
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