NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
After the Shakedown: Benefiting from the New
E-Commerce Environment
The e-commerce industry has finally taken off its rose-colored glasses. Or, more
precisely, it's had them unceremoniously ripped off. When the dot-com bubble burst some 18
months ago, Internet investors began backing off and brick-and-mortar retailers were
suddenly not so keen to extend into e-commerce. Was this knee-jerk reaction warranted?
What opportunities remain in the aftermath of the e-commerce shakedown? And how can
cautious e-tailers successfully tread the recessionary waters of post-boom cyberspace?
Battling Bugs -- Inoculate Your System
Against Virus Attacks
Few potential problems cause more anxiety for business owners and managers than the threat
of a destructive virus. Any time your employees connect to the Internet or read email,
they throw the doors open wide for a potential infection. Allowing employees to share
removable media such as floppy disks or CD-ROM disks with others can also put your system
in jeopardy. And once one computer on your premises is infected, the results can be
devastating.
Both Sides Now: Creating
Partnerships
Successful e-commerce is all about niche marketing, but satisfying your niche can require
offering more products or services than you can handle. Strategic partnerships can help
you develop new business and maximize profit on sales you already make.
Can You Afford to Risk Your Customer's
Privacy?
Businesses who risk their customers' privacy are risking their customers' loyalty and
continued business. Examine the issues and learn what you can do to help protect your
customers' privacy, help them learn how to protect themselves, and reap the benefits of
continued or improved customer loyalty.
Cart Abandonment: What Happened?
In 1999, $6.1 billion in potential e-commerce was lost because customers abandoned their
online shopping carts in the middle of their virtual aisles
and decided to shop elsewhere. Many of those transactions could have been salvaged if the
companies had paid attention to three main reasons for abandonment.
The Case of the Stolen Identities
Identity theft is a serious problem facing today's online business owner, because it
smacks e-commerce firms with a double-whammy: loss of funds plus the equally damaging
public relations nightmare that can result. In fact, some people think fear of identity
theft is a major factor impeding the advancement of e-commerce. But in addition to
identity theft, both your own plus that of your customers, you must also be cautious about
unauthorized access and use of your company's proprietary data.
Chat for Business
For the latest boost to your Web site’s popularity -- beyond email, beyond banner ads, beyond search engine rankings - - try
Internet chat to build the kind of community that creates outstanding promotional results.
Content Can Make or Break Your Online
Business
Tailored content can provide cross-sell and up-sell opportunities for your site.
The Cooperative Side of Competition: Coopetition
The commercial world is highly competitive, so cooperating with competitors can be viewed
as losing one's competitive advantage at best, or selling secrets to the enemy at worst.
There doesn't seem to be room for cooperation in today's business environment. There's no
room, that is, unless you're an entrepreneurial spirit looking for a new way to expand
your business. Then cooperation with the competition becomes not a business taboo, but a
new, sanctioned modus operandi known as coopetition.
Creating Online Community
The Internet helps make shopping quicker, research faster, and connecting with individuals
from around the globe easier than ever. Community, in the online sense, implies shared
interests, not shared geography. A sense of community can develop via email, through
message boards, in online chats, through personalized visits to content areas, or through
a combination of communication technology.
Direct Mail Marketing Online
To reach the millions of potential consumers on the Internet, e-tailers are reverting to a
tried-and-true method of marketing -- direct
mail. On-line, you can pitch to a select list of targeted potential customers with one
click. Using email is quicker, easier, and cheaper than traditional mass mailings, but
getting it opened before it hits the trashcan has never been harder. Even old mail order
pros have to pay attention to the rules of marketing in cyberspace in order to succeed.
Earn Customer Trust -- Use Powerful
Testimonials
Unless your cyberstore has the established reputation of a reputable brick-and-mortar,
you're at a disadvantage. Customers may come in and browse, but unless you can establish
trust, they may not stop to buy. One way to establish trust is to use the testimonials of
satisfied customers.
E-commerce, At Your Service
As the Internet world has boomed and technologies expanded, millions of Web sites have
been launched, with many Web commerce executives hoping for to break new ground in sales,
branding and customer base. But the success of a Web site depends on a lot more than just
a great appearance and high tech functionality. Good old-fashioned customer service is
still a major factor to Web success.
E-learning -- Just in Time
Staying ahead of the curve, in the loop, on top of things -- no matter how it's phrased,
it all comes down to one thing: acquiring knowledge. A well-trained, knowledgeable staff
can mean the success of your business. But how do you stay current without breaking the
bank? Small business owners in particular can find the cost of conferences and travel
prohibitive. Beyond the monetary considerations, there's also the time spent away from
work. If you need employees on the job, how do you get them the training they need?
Electronic Cash: A New Way to Pay
There was a time when payment for services rendered was a straightforward. Then came
currency, credit cards, and finally debit cards. All these payment methods were meant to
make things faster and more convenient for consumers and merchants alike. On the Internet,
there's a new way to pay: electronic cash. What is electronic cash? How does it work?
What's the advantage to your business -- and to your customers?
Electronic
Signatures: Making the Dotted Line Disappear
Soon, with a click of the mouse, you'll be able to apply for a
loan, buy insurance, and open a brokerage account, all while seated in front of your
computer. Electronic signatures will be as legally binding as your handwritten signature
starting October 1. What are the legal guidelines for making electronic transactions and
how will it work? Will it help your business prosper or is there a downside you should
know about?
Enhance Your Site with User Friendly
Content
You've expended a tremendous amount of effort building your business. You've invested
countless hours making sure your products and services meet the needs of your customers.
You've moved into the 21st century by developing a Web site to help your business grow. Is
there more you can do to make sure your e-business continues to grow and thrive? You bet!
Enhance Your Web Site with News Services
Where can your customers and clients turn
when they want the latest national, international, and business news? To your Web site, of
course.
Enhance
Your Web Site with News Tickers
This month’s buzz-phrase is "added value." Find out how enhancements to
your company’s Internet site might retain your first-time, Web-surfing visitors and
prompt them to return again and again. The trick is to provide them with enough
entertainment, community, and information that they won’t see the need to click
elsewhere!
Expert Advice -- Marketing Your
Knowledge
Experts are all around you. Pick up any business or news-related publication, and you'll
find articles quoting experts on a variety of topics, from political issues to e-commerce
trends to tax advice to marital statistics. Combining experience, facts, and opinions,
experts add insight and liveliness to news stories. But experts who are quoted in the
press are not just helping their media friends write a better story. These experts are
developing a product and brand name -- namely, themselves.
Franchise Opportunities
on the Internet
Explore the options of franchising on the Internet.
Getting Visitors to Stay: You have
Five Seconds
Internet surfers are moving through cyberspace at ever-increasing speeds and anything that
slows them down is met with instant rejection. If your Web site doesn't move customers to
another page within five seconds -- Click!
It's likely the customers themselves will move on -- to a different Web site.
Holiday Cheer for E-tailers?
The annual winter holiday season -- the main event for retailers and e-tailers across the
country -- has arrived. Your customers are ready to buy, but are you ready to deliver the
goods? Learn what you can do to help insure your online success this holiday season.
Incentives: Getting Shoppers to Buy on Your Site
When a brick-and-mortar retailer opens a new store, that store
can have all the bells and whistles, the greatest variety of merchandise at competitive
prices, outstanding customer service, expanded hours, even free parking. But what can you,
the e-tailer, do to make sure that "if you build it, they will come?"
Incentives to Buy
Sometimes it takes an extra push to convert shoppers to buyers: remember the days of
trading stamps? The incentives have changed, but retailers still offer "candy"
to tempt shoppers. Some of these promotions are the same ones used by brick-and-mortar
stores; others are unique to Web sites. What are the advantages and downfalls of these
incentive programs?
Increasing Your Income
with Affiliate Programs
If you're not accepting banner ads and joining
affiliate programs, then your Web site probably is not earning as much money as it could
be.
Is
Online Banking Right for Your Business?
Of course, not just a portion of a Web site, but a site in its entirety can provide added
value to your brick-and-mortar business. For example, many people are not (yet?) willing
to go online for all of their banking needs; but they sure appreciate the convenience of
after-hours banking options when their financial institution has a substantial Internet
presence. And if you’re a budding entrepreneur, you may find that growing your
business online as well as off will attract certain kinds of all-important capital for
your venture.
Keeping Ahead
of Your Internet Competition
Even though you are online, you still need to keep an eye out for your competition.
Find out how to locate and assess your competition to make their weaknesses your
strengths.
Lengthening the Retention Span
An ever-growing economy combined with a changing work ethic in younger employees have
brought many companies, small and large, online and brick-and-mortar, to a staffing
crisis. Companies that rely on long-term benefits such as 401k programs and health
insurance are finding that employees view that as ho-hum. Employees want their benefits
with a twist, which often involves immediate gratification rather than long-term
investment. What kind of innovative perks are leading the way?
Life in the Fast Lane: High
Speed Internet Connections
Without a high-speed Internet connection, you and your employees waste an appalling amount
of time connecting to the Internet, waiting for pictures to download, and surfing from
page to page. But it doesn't have to be that way. A high-speed Internet connection will
put you online with one click of the mouse.
Main Street or Cyberspace
Brick-and-mortar locations still have a lot to offer, but for many business models,
choosing where to put a storefront has become less important than deciding whether a
physical storefront makes sense at all. Before you make your next capital investment, find
out whether your business has a place in cyberspace
M-Commerce: Future Shopping
After e-commerce came m-commerce, and its potential is just evolving. Shopping on the
Internet via cell-phone or PDA will become the norm for millions of busy consumers, but
vendors beware -- m-commerce signals major changes in how you design your Web site.
Netiquette: The Etiquette of Doing Business on the
Web
Do you ever stop to think about how your customers will perceive your email or your chat
communication before you send it? How do they see your Web site? Online and off, showing
consideration for your customers is the first rule of etiquette. But taking this
common-sense approach in the cyber world can be harder than it seems. Mastering a few
simple techniques will help prevent the misunderstandings that can reduce the
profitability of your Web presence and improve both your service level and your customer
satisfaction.
The New Frontier: Generation Y and
E-Commerce
Generation Y, the group comprising ages 10 through 24, is ready to rumble onto your
e-commerce site and buy, buy, buy. Having grown up in the digital age, they have no qualms
about spending money in your cyberstore. But there's a problem. Buying on the Internet
requires a credit card, and these young customers don't have them. New payment options are
coming on-line to make sure that this demographic group isn't left out.
Nine Keys to a Better Web Site
Implement these easy tips to make your Web site user-friendly and a step above your
competition. All you have to gain is increased traffic and sales.
Online
Banking
For customers who are tired of standing in line at bank counters or breathing exhaust
fumes at drive-throughs, online banks may have just the solution. Deposits, withdrawals,
bill payments, and other transactions can all be handled electronically. How does it work
and is cyberbanking for you?
Online Credit Card Fraud: Fighting Back
Internet credit card fraud may be a major obstacle to online purchasing confidence, but
the real victim of this crime is you, the merchant. The incidence of fraud perpetrated by
merchants on unsuspecting customers is miniscule in comparison to the ever-growing rip
offs to which computer savvy pickpockets subject merchants. What safeguards can you use to
protect your online business from these cyber sharks?
Online Credit Card Processing
According to some sources, Web sites must accept credit cards or risk losing 60 percent of
their business. Learn the steps to online processing and where to find the best
rates and fees for your site.
The
Online World of B2B
Forrester Research estimates that B2B sales online will grow from $145 billion in 1999 to
$2.7 trillion by 2004; the Gartner Group puts that estimate even higher, to $7.29 trillion
by 2004. In either case, experts expect B2B revenues to nearly double each year for the
next four years. With that kind of revenue being dangled like a golden carrot, many
e-merchants are considering developing a B2B strategy. You may be one of them. But before
jumping in too quickly, take the time to learn the differences between the B2B and the B2C
(business-to-consumer) marketplace. They have nearly identical names, but very different
approaches.
Painless Ways to Virtually Extend
Your Office
Discover how outsourcing common functions can make
your office more efficient. Advantages, common pitfalls, and ideas to get you
started will aid any small business that receives help from outside sources.
Passing the Bar: Does It
Pay to Advertise Your Web Site on Those "Pay to Surf" Bars?
Banner ads have become a standard of Internet advertising for most e-tailers. But recent
surveys suggest that click-through rates for banner ads hover around one or two percent
and some industry experts believe that that number will decrease to about one-half percent
by the end of the year. "Pay to Surf" sites offer an alternative, but what are
the pros and cons for business owners ... and consumers?
Preparing for the Worst, Hoping for the
Best
The economic boom of the 1990s is over. Or it's not over. Or the market is crashing; or at
least yesterday it was, but today it's up again. Consumer confidence is unwavering, but
new home construction is down. Dot-coms are dying, except for those new ones being
launched. It can rattle anyone's cage, but if you're a small business owner or a budding
entrepreneur, it's especially unnerving. While the economy goes sliding down a steep
slope, how will you survive?
Prevent Online Purchase Failures
To make your e-commerce site successful, consider why millions of shoppers who tried to
make a purchase bailed out before completion. Then increase your closing ratio by applying
three easy corrections to your own Web site.
Privacy and Personalization -- Finding
the Right Balance
Personalized services are the basis for building long-term, positive customer
relationships. The most effective services add value to the shopping experience while
respecting a customer's desire for privacy by assuring that their information remains
protected within the Web site. How can your business add the value of permission
marketing, rewarding loyalty, and target marketing while maintaining customer privacy?
Privacy and
Personalization: Flip Sides of the Online Coin
As Internet-site technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, e-commerce executives have
caught onto the idea of creating a personal online shopping experience for their potential
customer. Personalization software allows Internet sites to target shoppers individually
and remember not only who they are, but what they seem to like. However, personalization
has its drawbacks. With growing concerns being voiced over privacy issues on the Internet,
personalization has drawn the unwanted spotlight of public and even governmental scrutiny.
How can e-businesses achieve the personalization they want to provide their customers
without crossing the privacy line?
Privacy,
Please
Online privacy issues can be major roadblocks to consumer
purchases on the Internet. Learn what you can do to minimize user privacy violation
fears.
Producing Content for Your Targeted Market
Careful Web site content planning is one of the most critical aspects of developing your
online presence, more important by far than just creating a visually stunning site. To
keep people on your site and bring them back again requires you to give them information
that piques their interest and fills their needs. It requires the right information,
presented in the right mix and appropriate format, and delivered according to an intuitive
navigation scheme.
Quality Content Pays
In real estate, the maxim is "location, location, location." For Web-site owners
and managers, virtual real estate is a breeze: type in your URL and you're instantly
everywhere. In that regard, the Web is the ultimate location. But that's a double-edged
sword. To achieve success on the Web, you have to carve out a niche for yourself that will
put you on the virtual map. To achieve your goals, you need to start thinking in terms of
content, content, content.
Soothing the Savage Mouse -- Dealing
with Unhappy E-tail Customers
As an e-tailer, you want to attract people to your site and hold their interest once
they get there. Most of all, you want them to make purchases now and come back to
buy more later. The one thing you hope to avoid is customer dissatisfaction. But
complaints will inevitably arise, and how you handle complaints can determine whether your
business succeeds or fails.
Stastics Overload -- But What
Does It All Mean?
Your site may have a high number of visitors, but what is your site's
"stickiness" factor? In other words, do visitors stick around and become
customers? If not, how much time do they spend on your site and at what point do they
leave? Where do they come from? The answers to these questions are vital.
Strategies for Search Engine Placement
Search engines have become one of the most powerful tools on the Internet. Being detected
by the leading search engines and getting listed among the top 20 search results in the
target category is the goal for e-business owners determined to succeed. It's still the
best way to gain traffic, but how you can make it happen is the tricky part.
Thinking Big: The Truth About Going
Public
Making millions from an Initial Public Offering (IPO) sounds tantalizing. Before you
pursue an IPO, familiarize yourself with the steps necessary for an offering.
Translation Option Translates
to More Sales
Online businesses seeking success in the global marketplace face a real challenge when it
comes to communication. When a business and a customer cannot communicate in the same
language they need a translator. There are two choices: translation software or a
translation service that employs humans to do the job.
'Twas the Season for Learning from
Online Mistakes
Despite the "buzz" surrounding holiday season online sales and profits, many
mistakes prevented companies from realizing the full power of the Internet. Find out
what successful sites did to ring up holiday sales, and how you can apply those lessons to
your site.
Unionization of E-tailers: Is Amazon Starting Another
Trend?
As retail business has changed to take advantage of Internet marketing and sales
opportunities, labor organizations are also beginning to adapt to new online workplaces.
Labor organizations have recently entered the online business arena in a high-visibility
unionization effort at Amazon.com. Many of your own employees may have the same concerns,
and taking advantage of Amazon's example to address these problems may help you to avoid
unionization efforts in your own company.
Using Graphics to Sell Products
E-commerce Web sites depend on graphics, but the success of any site, including yours,
depends largely on how quickly it can deliver those graphics and related information to
its visitors. Several new graphics technologies are making those deliveries faster,
easier, and more effective.
Web
Site Promotion Strategies
Building an online presence is a challenging proposition. "Build it, and they will
come" does not go far enough. Your marketing efforts must have depth as well as
breadth and your whole Web presence needs to be geared toward promotional enhancement.
Accomplish these goals, then watch your click counter spin.
What
Do They Want? Words or Pictures?
Foremost among the strategies that have been and still are constantly revamped are ways to
grab and sustain the online user's attention. A business's online success hinges solely on
the design of its Web site, so all the elements working together on that welcome page have
to be totally appealing, compelling, and most especially, effective. The question every
online business owner and Web designer must therefore answer is "What do the users
want?"
Winning
Ways
We all love awards. A well-timed Academy award or Pulitzer can move an actor or writer up
several notches in terms of respect, pay, and overall name recognition. But just as the
Academy awards have spawned an entire industry of lesser awards, diluting the overall
award process, denizens of the Internet are in danger of succumbing to "award
fever." While awards can be a great public relations boost, how worthwhile are they
really, and how in the vastness of cyberspace does your site get the attention it
deserves?
Work At Home Moms Can Succeed
Working at home is an excellent way for mothers to stay in the business world while
providing a stable home for their children. Read why and how moms are succeeding in
the online business world.
Whose
Property Is It Anyway? The Fight for Domain Rights
Do you own the rights to your domain name? Probably
not, according to at least one a U.S.
District Court judge, who says that domain names are not property and therefore can't be
stolen. But there are ways to protect the very real investment you have in your domain
name.
POWERSITE PLANNING FORMS
PowerSite Estimate Worksheet
The first step to evaluating your Web site needs. Whether you have an existing site or are
considering a new site design, use this form to spark thinking about the major aspects of
your decision. The form will help you consider purpose, budget, audience,
technology, maintenance, contents, and structure. If at any time you would like an
estimate, simply submit the form online, or print it out, complete it and fax it to us.
We'll be happy to provide you with a proposal.
 
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