November 28, 2008

Shipping Software



If you have an auction site business or ecommerce web site, you are probably dealing with many items each day that need to be shipped. Shipping items can take a lot of hard work and can be very time consuming. If you want to save valuable time each day while increasing your businesses organization, you should look into shipping software.

There are several types of shipping software available and most software is very easy to use and affordable. Many people love the convenience of shipping software. Most shipping software integrates with payment processors such as Paypal and can automatically print out shipping labels for items that were sold.

Another great shipping software feature is that you can buy postage online and print out shipping labels which include the postage fee. These shipping software options allow you to print out professional labels with postage already paid for the item. Many shipping software programs can even mask the amount of postage you pay on the label, so the sender doesn't know exactly how much you paid for shipping. This is a great feature for Ebay sellers that charge for handling and other services in their shipping fee. So if you are looking to automate your ecommerce or auction site business, use shipping software to save time and money.

November 20, 2008

Business Employee Blunders



Everyone wants to improve their business. No one that owns a business should ever be comfortable with their current position. You should always strive to be better, no matter how good you are doing at the time. However, improving does not always meet on the customer side of your business, but rather how you handle your employees. After all, just like a business is nothing without customers, it is nothing without good employees.

So what are the ways you can improve your business on the employee level? You may be making some blunders that are greatly jeopardizing your employees happiness and wellbeing and not even know it.

Using customer feedback to determine what is wrong with your company.-
This may be one of the worst mistake a business owner can make. Sure, you want to listen to your customers feedback, but you will want to take what they have to say with a grain of salt. Why? Because what the customer says is one sided, and does not accurately describe the situation. If this situation happens with an employee too many times, and the employee does not get the opportunity to present their side of the story as well, then the employee will begin to have issues, especially when it comes to dealing with a problematic customer. Your employee may find it easier to walk away rather then deal with the situation. By avoiding this situation, or at the very least, allowing your employee to defend themselves, you will avoid a potentially hazardous situation.

Another form of this blunder is by producing feedback or survey forms, and basing any type of merit reward on these. The main reason that this will not work accurately is because of 2 facts. First, the customer is more likely to fill out a survey if something was not right, rather then excellent customer service. Second, the best employee in the world may never receive a survey review, while a bad employee, who just happens to be in a good mood that day, receives a few. This is unfair to everyone involved.

Introducing set merit rewards- Merits should be just that, rewards. Not all good deeds are the same, so they should not receive the same reward. Imagine if you were the employee who saved 15 customers from stopping service, and you received the same reward as the person next you did, yet they only saved 3. Would that make you feel unappreciated?

On the other end of the spectrum, you could use caution when rewarding employees for recovering from a foul up. If a employee messes up, and then corrects the problem, they probably should not receive a reward for it. This makes it seem acceptable to mess up, provided that you can redeem yourself.

Giving your employee a set way to sale products or deal with customers- You may think that your way of selling your product or business to customers is the perfect way to sell, and that everyone should use your approach. While your way of selling may work for you, it may not work for all of your employees. Why? Because everyone has a different personalities, and your way of selling just simply may not work for them. If you allow your employees freedom to sell, as long as their way is not immoral or harmful to your business, will benefit your business greatly.

November 15, 2008

Forex Courses



You have probably heard about Forex before. Forex stands for foreign exchange trading and is very popular for online web marketers as well as online day traders. No doubt, there are plenty of people that profit from Forex trading, however, just like any other investment vehicle; Forex has its risks and advantages. If you are looking into Forex trading, you should consider taking a Forex course, to find out if Forex is right for you and also learn the ins and outs, so that you can be a knowledgeable trader.

Forex courses are either given in person or taught online. Many people that live in a big city can easily attend a Forex course. Most of the time, Forex courses only take a few days and you can really learn a lot as well as meet people that are also planning on becoming Forex traders. If you are not in a big city or rather learn from the comfort of your own home, you can take online courses. These courses usually include downloadable materials, interesting forums and instruction with a Forex trader.

Forex courses can be very inexpensive. Many Forex courses can cost as low as $200 and offer a great return on your investment by teaching you important information about Forex. Other classes can be more expensive, but provide much more extensive instruction and special tools to make your trading easier. So if you would like to learn to trade in the foreign currency markets, check out the many Forex courses either on campus or online to teach you the proper way to trade.

November 5, 2008

Buy in Bulk



If you own a small business, then you probably look to save as much as you can to squeeze out a profit. Many businesses save money by buying in bulk. If you have a small business and would like to buy in bulk, here are some tips.

Small business owners can save thousands of dollars each year by purchasing in bulk. No matter what your business is, you can save. Many people usually join price clubs that service almost all small businesses by offering deals on paper products, food, office equipment and travel. Price clubs are enterprises such as Costco, and Sam's club. It is very easy to join these price clubs and you can save lots of money buying supplies that you need.

If you are in a special business, you might want to shop online. Many small businesses are finding cheap suppliers on auction sites such as Ebay. Many liquidators need to sell supplies in bulk and a lot of businesses are buying them up very quickly. Years ago, it was almost impossible to network with so many liquidators in a very short time. The internet has made getting in touch with suppliers extremely easy. So if you would like to save money, especially for your small business, buy in bulk.

November 1, 2008

Your Business Website



Did you know that your business cannot afford to not have a website? It's true, in the 21st century, even the smallest businesses have websites, and the reasons are clear. Over 90% of all households in America now have some form of internet connection, whether it be high speed broadband, or dialup. Out of these 90%, about 65% start their search for new products or services online. Numbers like that tell you that you cannot afford to NOT have a website.

So you have decided that you need a website, now what? Depending on your computer skills, there are two options: Make your own website or get it made by a professional. We will dive into both.

Making Your Own Website

Making a website may sound easy, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, much like running your business. You will not only need to research about your industry, you will have to dive into a whole new industry, the website industry, as well.

First and foremost, you will need a name and a place to keep your website.

Your name, known as a domain name in the internet world, will be the way that people access your website. You will need to pick something that is easy to spell and to remember. There are literally billions of domain names currently, so you may have to get a little creative. Domain names are a yearly fee, typically around $10.00.

A host company hosts your website on their servers. Hosting is a monthly fee, ranging from $3.00 all the way up to $15.00+ depending on the type and size of the hosting. There are 3 main things to look at when you are deciding on hosting.

1) Space size- How much room with you have to host your website? Hosting size is measured in megabytes (mb). Take into account that a typical, status page is about one tenth of a megabyte, and go from there.

2) Bandwidth size- each time a visitor visits your right it takes bandwidth to display the website for him. Bandwidth is typically measured in Megabyte (mb) or Gigabyte (gb). The higher amount of bandwidth available, the more visitors you will be able to show your website too.

3) Special features- Since you are new at making websites, you will want to look for a hosting company that offers specials features for new designers. These features may include a website builder, forums, guest books, counters, Invite pages, and so on. This is especially useful as installing these types of features yourself can get somewhat complicated.
After you find a hosting company and a domain name, you will then need to build your website. Websites are coded in a language known as HTML. Unless you are extremely experienced in HTML, you will not be able to code a website by hand. Instead, you will need to use a website builder to complete the job.

There are several free website builders available online. Just use your chosen search engine and see what you come up with.

If you want to get a little more fancy and have more options available to you, then you may want to consider paid software programs such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, both of which are available for about $100.

While making your own website seems better from a financial aspect, you also have to consider the quality and effort a professional teams of website designers can offer you.

Hiring A Professional

Hiring a professional may be your best option if you do not the time to build a website for yourself or if you want special features within your website.

Remember, the professional does this for a living and will provide you with the highest quality. They will also typically handle everything from buying and setting up the domain name to updating the website on a weekly basis.

A professional will sit down with you and discuss your ideas and aspirations. Once they believe that they have a good idea of what you are looking for, then they will create your website.

Hiring a design professional can vary, depending on your region, and what you want on your website. Typical prices are anywhere from a couple of hundred, well in the thousands.