NetSnips

Should You Tell Clients You Work From Home?

2005-05-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

If you run your small business / home business from your home, should you tell clients you work from home?

It depends. However, depending on the industry you're in, it's becoming more acceptable to tell your clients that you work from home--even conduct client meetings / sessions at your home.

Perceptions indeed are changing when it comes to running your business from your home.

Most Shoppers Think Local

2005-05-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

All things being equal, who would get your business: a local, national brand name chain or a locally owned, small business owner?

According to a recent survey (Most Shoppers Think Local) 93% of us prefer the local small business owner.

So, small business owners take heart! People prefer dealing with you--especially if you can offer friendly and knowledgeable customer service.

People really do like supporting the home team!

The Entrepreneur As American Hero

2005-05-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

A snippet of Walter William's speech at Hilsdale College on entrepreneurship caught my eye and reminded me of the value entrepreneurs have in our society.

Capitalism is a worthy cause. There is no dichotomy between serving people and gaining a profit from doing so. In fact, you can often serve people better when charge the people you are serving. The alternative--in the real world--for providing a service that no one is asking for is a going-out-of-business sale.

When will American citizens demand better service from their public institutions?! Wait a second...isn't our government the nation's biggest employer? (Yep) Nevermind.

Tip of the hat to The Entrepreneurial Mind (Dr. Jeffrey R. Cornwall)

What Big Online Retailers Don't Want You to Know

2005-04-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Intimidated by large online retailers? Think your online retail business is getting creamed by the giant online retailers? Not so fast! If you have a professional looking web site, cater to a niche market, and deliver personalized service, you can win customers and thwart the "big boys."

Owning a Small Business -- Want One?

2005-04-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ever consider starting a small business? You're not alone. A recent survey indicates that many of us do consider seriously starting up our own small business in the next 5-years. In addition, many of us indicate that the Internet would play a vital role in launching a small business.

Current small business owners realize the importance of the Internet to their business. Existing entrepreneurs embrace the Net for E-commerce. In fact, the number of small businesses using E-commerce on the Internet tripled between 2003 and 2004.

So, when you're ready to launch your small business, make sure you have an affordable website solution to establish your business presence online.

Small Business Dictionary

2005-04-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you run a small business and need to brush up on small business terms, head on over to the Dictionary of Small Business. To date they have over 2,500 entries that assist you in reviewing common definations such as Net Worth as well as uncommon definitions like Time-Price Differential.

Attracting Women Shoppers on Your Web Site

2005-04-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Guess who bought the most online in 2004? Hint: It wasn't men. It was women.

Assuming you do business on the Internet, here's a list of what women want online.

Read it, ponder it, implement it!

Need Employees? What Job Seekers Will Do To Work

2005-03-14T18:19:00.000-08:00

Workers seeking employment will do the following to find work:
- change industry (82%)
- accept lower salary (66%)
- take lesser title (65%)
- relocate (34%)

This means 6-of-10 people will change careers, receive lower pay, and/or accept a lesser title in order to land a job that will last longer than their previous job. Job security sure isn't what it used to be!

Source: DBM survey (USA Today)

The New Entrepreneurs: Able To Do More Because of Technology

2005-01-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

Why are older Americans successfully entering into the entrepreneurial ranks? One of the reasons is lower-cost technology. In other words, what used to be outrageously expensive for owning your own business (in terms of technology) is now very affordable.

Source: USA Today

Baby Bells Salivating At Owning Another Monopoly -- High Speed Internet

2005-01-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

The Baby Bells are positioning themselves (quietly) to dominate another industry. Is anyone surprised? Prediction: Uncle Sam will have to play referee yet again to prevent another monopolistic empire from occurring.

Source: USA Today

Cell Phones Don't Harm the Human Body...or do they?

2004-12-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Some of the top cell phone manufacturers don't like "hearing" that cell phones may cause damage to the human body. No surprise here! Prediction: research concerning this issue will go on forever. Meanwhile, people will continue to develop diseases that have at least one thing in common: cell phones. Eventually, there will be a conclusive link between cell phones and certain disease types.

Source: USA Today

PS> If you're really worried about this issue, there is a great product on the market that the author has been using for years that stops harmful radio waves from penetrating the body (developed from NASA technology). Contact me for additional information.

Holiday Buyers Say They Will Shop Online More in 2004

2004-12-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

Nearly 25% of consumers say they will do more shopping online this season as compared to last year. 66% will do about the same and 10% will use the Internet to shop less.

Source: USA Today Snapshots (Money)

Google -- Think beyond Search Engine; Web Portal

2004-12-20T08:48:00.000-08:00

Google has plans--big plans--for helping you find the information you want. This includes social networking, photograph organization, maps (3-D!), and more coming to your Internet browser. Look out Yahoo & MSN! Google's 2005 mantra is "Bringing more information you want." Cool.

Source: USA Today

Online Retailers Make A Profit, Cut Marketing Costs

2004-06-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Online retailers as a group turned a profit for the first time last year as sales shot up 51% from the year before, according to a Forrester Research study, sponsored by the online trade group Shop.org. Collectively, the 150 retailers surveyed raised their operating margins to 21%. They achieved profitability by slashing average marketing costs per order to $2 in 2003 from $10 the year before.

Source: Information Week

PC market to enjoy healthy growth

2004-05-31T18:52:00.000-07:00

The global PC market will experience double-digit year-over-year growth in 2004 and 2005, according to a report Piper Jaffray released Wednesday.

Source: news.com

Many Wireless Networks Lack Security

2004-05-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

With a laptop perched in the passenger seat of his Toyota 4Runner and a special antenna on the roof, Mike Outmesguine ventured off to sniff out wireless networks between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He got a big whiff of insecurity.

While his 800-mile drive confirmed that the number of wireless networks is growing explosively, he also found that only a third used basic encryption—a key security measure. In fact, in nearly 40 percent of the networks not a single change had been made to the gear's wide-open default settings.

Source: eWeek

Microsoft Stretches Product Support to 10 Years

2004-05-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

"Starting June 1st, Microsoft will offer an expanded product-support lifecycle policy, providing customers with a minimum of 10 years of mainstream and extended support for business and developer products...."

Source: NewsFactor

2004 1st Quarter Retail E-commerce Sales up 28% from One Year Ago

2004-05-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2004, not adjusted for seasonal, holiday, and trading-day differences, was $15.5 billion, an increase of 28.1 percent (±2.9%) from the first quarter of 2003. Total retail sales for the first quarter of 2004 were estimated at $834.8 billion, an increase of 8.8 percent (±0.6%) from the same period a year ago.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Google Users are getting what they expect

2004-05-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

90% of Google users reported having a strongly positive experience, while only 68% of users said the same of Yahoo, 50% for Ask Jeeves, 48% for Lycos and 41% for MSN.

Source: News.com

E-Commerce Up to 1.9 Percent of All Sales

2004-05-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that online sales, not including travel or other services, grew 28 percent, reaching about 1.9 percent of all sales. That's up from about 1.6 percent the same quarter the year before.

Source: MarketingVOX

Small Businesses Keen on Big Net

2004-05-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Small businesses in the US are embracing the Web as a marketing tool, using it to a greater degree than more traditional advertising methods.

Source: eMarketer

Google Moves Toward Clash With Microsoft

2004-05-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Google, the Web search engine, is preparing to introduce a powerful file and text software search tool for locating information stored on personal computers.

Source: NY Times

New Standard Could Reduce Spam

2004-05-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Yahoo releases a new e-mail standard called DomainKeys that could stop spammers from using legit e-mail addresses to disguise their evil mass mailings. (Yeehaw!)

Source: Wired

Search Engine Stats (The Big Three)

2004-05-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

Roughly 41 per cent of U.S. Web users went to Google's search engine in March, compared with 31 per cent for Yahoo and 28 per cent for MSN.

Source: Nielsen/Net Ratings

"Cheap" and "Free" Keywords: Not Always a Bargain

2004-05-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

In an ongoing paid search advertising campaign, a large insurance company expressed interest in appending some of its keywords and keyword phrases with the words "cheap" and "free," as in "cheap health insurance" and "free insurance quote."

We tested these phrases and noticed some trends. Keywords and keyword phrases with solid conversion rates plummeted when "cheap" or "free" was appended onto them....A second phenomenon is the relationship between longer keyword phrases and higher conversion rate....The longer the keyword phrase, the higher the conversion rate.

Source: ClickZ

Personal Surfing Just Part of the Workday

2004-05-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

Did you know that one online movie trailer can use as much bandwidth as 10,000 e-mails? Most employees aren't aware of the data clog either, as they use corporate networks for personal usage.

Source: EarthWebNews

Net Drives Profits to Small Biz

2004-05-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

The Internet equals profits for more than half of the 400 small businesses (SBs) that participated in an eBay-commissioned survey, conducted by ACNielsen, and a small portion reported that without the Web, they wouldn't have a business.

While 51 percent of the respondents indicated that the Internet has improved their profitability, 58 percent said the medium has helped their businesses grow or expand. Fully one-third of the survey participants, which included merchants who have used eBay, sell goods and services online, and 15 percent said the Internet is essential to their survival.

Source: ClickZ

A Perfect Market

2004-05-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

According to America's Department of Commerce, online retail sales in the world's biggest market last year rose by 26%, to $55 billion. That sounds a lot of money, but it amounts to only 1.6% of total retail sales. The vast majority of people still buy most things in the good old "bricks-and-mortar" world.

But the commerce department's figures deal with only part of the retail industry. For instance, they exclude online travel services...financial services, ticket-sales agencies...online pharmacies....

And there is more. The commerce department's figures include the fees earned by internet auction sites, but not the value of goods that are sold: an astonishing $24 billion-worth of trade was done last year on eBay, the biggest online auctioneer. Nor, by definition, do they include the billions of dollars-worth of goods bought and sold by businesses connecting to each other over the internet. Some of these B2B services are proprietary; for example, Wal-Mart tells its suppliers that they must use its own system if they want to be part of its annual turnover of $250 billion.

So e-commerce is already very big, and it is going to get much bigger. But the actual value of transactions currently concluded online is dwarfed by the extraordinary influence the internet is exerting over purchases carried out in the offline world. That influence is becoming an integral part of e-commerce.

Source: The Economist

Holiday Online Spending

2004-05-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Did you know that consumers spent a record $18.5 billion, excluding travel, shopping online during the 2003 holiday season? This represents a 35% increase in spending over the $13.7 billion spent online during 2002 holiday season.
SOURCE: Nielsen/NetRatings 01/05/04