Innovative Approach

How are you.

I am a new blogger for Uniqueweb Technologies.

Guys, get ready amazing stuff coming soon.

-    Rajan

Everywhere there is a mania for either creating or enhancing the online sales. Online sales has a somehow a deep impact on internet entrepreneurs and they are excited about that.

Its indeed true to say that everybody has to come online now or in near future, if we look at the internet stats we will find that even the developing nations are jumping up. The growth has been dramatic for Africa and Middle East which were far from the internet world. Check : http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

In the past when web was on anvil, it was nothing but a mere destination where we could upload about our business in the same manner as we get our brochure or business card printed.

No one thought about the monetize factor of web. None think that it could act like a virtual market as brick and mortar store where people will come, review and buy a product or the services.

I would say that web has improved a lot since its inception and still it is in its infancy and needs loads of innovative revamps.

Anway let’s move onto the topic of this post.

ONLINE SALES

I have a web presence and…………..??…..and…….my sales through my site is…$ something or is that NIL.

So creating or enhancing sales online is now the motive of any businessmen and intelligent marketers are working hard to achieve this goal. I would say that having a site or getting it SEO’ed etc. can bring you sales overnight is a false. It has been observed that several entrepreneurs run hundred and thousands of dollars of adwords campaign themselves with zero or 0.1% conversions.

Hence the online sales is nothing but conversions.

For a physical shop we will say –

•    How many customers visit our shop
•    How many of them were relevant customers or they were just researchers.
•    How many customers were really engage with our sales boys / girls.
•    How many did a purchase
•    Ultimately what is the revenue figure.

In the same environment online marketers mine their analytics tool for these questions and they do get the desired replies from the tool itself.

The tool can only do interpretations of factual values but it cannot tell you exactly what’s happening on the site and why the sales is not too much even in peak seasons.

There are several items which contribute to high online sales and they are :

•    Website Marketing should be done in such a manner that we are receiving only those visitors who are likely to buy our product. If you are selling some DVD’s for hypertension patient, you must advertise yourself over heart related forums, community, blogs, portals etc. rather than on travel site.
•    The site should be designed in such a manner or the layout that visitors can locate their required product within seconds. It happens on most of the site where visitor never get the product which he/she is desiring although it resides on some part of the site.
•    User friendliness is the key element which leads to conversion, really if the site cannot present itself to the end consumer they will hate it rather than to buy something. Proper navigation with advanced search options should be enabled.
•    Coping with the ongoing competition is must, so if you are selling an X product at price $10 and that product is branded and is being sold by other online enterprenuers then you need to check the delivery rates. There might be some one who is selling that product for $6 (but he is charging more on shipping), here you could do some sort of competitive intelligence to lead the game.
•    Last and not the least is the “Trust” and proper CRM. People buy things from Amazon or Walmart blindly because of their trusts as there will be a delivery after a purchase with no falsehoods. Several dishonest online entrepreneurs have created a sort of misunderstandings amongst the online users about trust, they have breached their customers and shut down their businesses after big frauds. I would say that if you are opening an online biz start building trust and when you trust is branded just check its impact on your online sales.
•    The other point to be think of is that your website is just like your office so you must visit that daily, experience it, monitor it, enhance it and think what you can do more for your end consumers. Please note that unlike physical shops where you are interacting with your consumer is easy but on website you cannot talk with every customer (though the online chat / toll free support can do that) so make your site a self acting machine.

At the end creating or marketing a business is not that tough, the most tougher part is to make it successful.

I request to all online entrepreneurs to think like a consumer and work around to improve their online biz. I fully assure you it will enhance your “Sales”.

We love mass media whether its newspaper, magazines, television, radio or internet. But we do hate advertising which indeed is the key factor which is driving these businesses as it’s the only way through which this media make up the monies.

There is no doubt in saying that mass media is an essential part of the society and we cannot survive without them. But its spontaneous advertising which makes us feel angry sometimes pale etc.

Just to mention some instances,

Newspaper :
Looking at metropolitan page for trade fair news which happened yesterday but its so cluttered with ads that its consuming a lot of time for finding the stuff you are looking………….Finally you quit or else spend more time to get the exact information.

Magazines :
Reviewing the health section in the magazine and the content is syndicated with ad saying “Looking for a battery”……………..seems unprofessional but it will make you feel uncomfortable with the magazine.

Television :
Watching my favourite movie on HBO, actor holding the gun………………..Movies haults and popup ad of a washing machines comes, you are pissed off and switches to another channel until the movie returns.

Radio :
Calmly you are listing to a pure melody of Bryan Adams……in between a rough voice came in “Hurray you can win a trip to Caribbean, Call 8880 now.

Internet :
Internet comprises of web and ultimately we have websites which though yields a lot of information but are so cluttered with flashy banners, ads, pop ups that we do exit due to non friendliness nature.

There is a word “SPAM” of which we are aware of, in general it means unwanted advertising or unwanted pitch for a sale.

But these verticals – TV, newspaper, radio or internet are managed by people who are though great but still they are unable to find better ways to monetize them.

Really there is no way of making monies out of it without making the user unhappy.

Its not like that. Just to put a brief on search engine industry and their methodologies.

Search targets only those advertisers who are looking for a particular thing at a time. So if you are looking for “sun glasses”, you will see the results along with good ads related to “sun glasses”

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sun+glasses&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B5GGGL_enIN316IN316&ie=UTF-8

Search has put a huge impact in the world of targeted advertising and that is the only reason Google has become a multi billion dollar industry in few years. None of the advertising channels are able to cope with search even they are operating since 1800s. (Newspaper and Radio for instances)

So search has changed the scenario of advertising and it’s an innovative approach (Guys the keywords based advertising was is not a google property they borrowed the same from overture).

Lets discuss that how we can make all channels fully consumer oriented and keeping advertising in mind as we can never ignore this as it’s the only thing which is driving the business.

I would like to say that since old time we have classified sections on the newspaper segmenting – Jobs, Matrimonials, Automobiles we can do the same for other stuff.

If you are running a radio channel and there is  an interview with Dr. XYX, highly expertise in Diabetes. We can invite the sponsors who are offering insulin, glucometers and other diabetes related stuff rather than running the ad of a “Laptop or Blackberry.

Same can be implied to magazines, TV shows etc. The word “TARGET” has to be kept in mind and we can see the results like anything.

Now social media platforms provide ads which can be tailored in a very effective manner.

Eg.

My company is selling health insurance in California for the people who are from 28  to 45 years of age with 10% rebate to female.

A campaign keeping these attributes in mind can be formulated and we can track and benchmark our success.

So friends time to switch from traditional to targeted advertising if we want sales oriented and consumer friendly advertising model.

This has been a very debated topic as how offline campaigns helps the online business and vice versa. Lets move onto to the physical world and consider our brick and mortar store. We do promote our business via several marketing channels.

Lets put a case study for this.

I have a mobile store in India and I am looking to increase the sales. I am running my campaigns on newspaper classifieds, display banners on streets and publishing my store over the metro stations. I will definitely have sudden jump in sales. No doubt in that.

Still I donot have any webpresence and is not doing any marketing. I get my website designed for my mobile store and start the marketing of the same. Though the site is very simple just few important models of cell phones still I am looking if some buzz can be created by the site. So in all offline campaigns including newspaper, magazines, road banners I start publishing my URL alongwith my products and promotional offers. In my country there is hardly any market for ecommerce where people will buy a mobile phone online but as per researches from several internet companies and boards its been found that people research, review online and buy offline.

Hence the conclusion is that a person who has seen my URL could land on my websites for more information and after review of the product visit my shop tomorrow to exactly buy his desired mobile phone.

Another way I did some internet marketing for my website and it is pretty visible in search engines. I am also running a group on cell phones industry in India over Facebook. I am also running a banner ads campaign on leading Indian portals about my services, offers etc.

Visitors are coming on my site for reviewing, researching and if the offer suits then they visit my offline shop and do a purchase. So offline is leveraing online and similarly online is helping my offline shop.
So this is one of the simplest way via which we can synchronise both online and offline world easily.

Big corporates publishes their URLs over T-shirts, Coffee mugs, Pen etc. just to brand their websites so a visitor must tend in anyway to open their website.

Similarly if you are running an online business it will create awareness about your products, services amongst the online community thereby becoming an effective channel for our shop.

A large number of retail stores in USA have a giant online presence and they do have physical stores too. For Eg. Walmart which runs both in online as well as offline worlds.

The need to derive benefit from online-offline synchronization is yet to be adopted by the entrepreneurs as its very rare.

Marketing says “Be everywhere whether its sky, land or sea”, capture the untapped venues if not. This is the only way to build a very strong business across the globe.

Few tips to leverage your website from offline world :

•    Publish URLs in your business cards, letter heads and other stationery objects.
•    If you are running any TV, magazine or newspaper commercial do circulate your URL and it should be big enough to be visible (I have always seen www.domain.com of font size which is never viewable by strong eyesight guys)
•    Print the URL in all sorts of novelty , promotional items and distribute it free as per your marketing budget.
•    Try to publish URL in places which have your target audience, for eg. If you are running an online pet food shop then publishing the URL in nearby regions of pet hospital, sanctuaries, shop etc. will be a big plus.s
•    But always keep business ethics in your mind and it should never look that you are circulating your URL like anything similar to mass mailing spam.

If manipulated properly and done intelligently offline too can generate a lot of decent visitors for your website besides the online presence could drive the offline customers to your shop.

So time to study your product and service…………………….then launch

Internet marketers are in a state of war amongst themselves as there are several channels coming in with social media on top. Its true that search is still in its infancy are people are not able to utilize or explore the search.

For eg. Google offers several operators and functionality for helping the searcher.

Instances :

Calculations :
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=2%2B2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=n1g10&fp=JJ2lHziMUzc

Weather :
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=delhi+weather&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&fp=KEpD_Jynnu0

Time :
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=delhi+time&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&fp=KEpD_Jynnu0

Stocks:
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=goog&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&fp=KEpD_Jynnu0

Airlines :
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=A467&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&fp=KEpD_Jynnu0

Mappings :
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=delhi&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=KEpD_Jynnu0

Documents :
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B5GGGL_enIN316IN316&q=delhi+history+filetype%3Apdf&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Besides there are several advances features of search : http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en&q=delhi&restrict=& which a common person is unaware of.

Though there are several products of google which can be found at labs.google.com and people are rarely using most of them. So if we say that search is everywhere its true but its proper utilization is still lacking and the netizines are yet to have full acquaintance with search and how it can help them solving their real world problems.

And now we have the social media which is associated with people sharing the information amongst themselves. This is today a buzzword and growing at an exponential growth rate, although search too has grown at the same rate. But here is a difference with both the platforms.

Search – Provides information about a product, services or anything mentioned anywhere on the web.

Social media – It provides privilege for people to share their information about themselves or their product or the services amongst their friend or network.

Both search and social media cannot be correlated as they are entirely different facets of internet but for some reasons they both are growing at immense pace.

Now the main part of this post what should a businessmen adopt for online marketing – Search, Social Media or both. Really a damn tough question but as per current scenario search is in full swing with social media coming in.

As per statistical information search the most common amongst interent users, even its used by people who use internet more often. After email its search which is driving web. But still social media importance cannot be ignored and if utilized properly a business can gain maximum profit if it adopts social media as marketing tool with the help of experts. The problem lies with the poor consultancy given by internet marketing companies which leads to failure in most of the campaigns.

As a matter of fact Facebook has more than 200 unique visitors which makes it a hub for marketing any product or services.

Still a long way to go………….but as per my understandings the search should atleast be adopted by businessman for their websites and later the migration from search to social can occur.

I am writing this post so as to thrown some lights on Indian enterprise web and what we have created so far since the inception of world wide web. The web came into presence in about 1991 but in India the approach was in late 98’s when some few websites came into presence and few corporates start booking their domain name.  I will not discuss about the size of the web industry or the outsourcing concept here but the driving forces behind the internet.

We all know that there are many millions of websites over the net but if you analyse it deeply we will see that some of the websites have marked themselves and establish their potential identities in the internet. No doubt we are amidst of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook, Paypal etc. but if we look at the country(s) they have originated we will find that all of them are from USA, whether their owners or the technical executives are all based in USA. Its true that silicon valley is full of  young, innovative and rich people but this doesnot mean that the same cannot happen beyond this.

Let me give you a very fine example of Baidu- which is most trafficked search engine in China, Google and others have tried lot but cannot to defeat Baidu, still the major search market cap is with Baidu, so they didn’t give any chance for Google China to rise, infact google algorithm is very strong, effective and precise. But Baidu has done a good job by offering very good service thereby outgoing google. (Guys I am not an enemy of Google or an advocate of Baidu but this is true).

I have presenting this case study before heading deep into my post as we always say that US based sites predominant web.

Now get back to big portals of Indian industry we find several news, jobs, matrimonial, social media portals in India but none of them have established their identity over the globe. Nodoubt there are several success stories of Indian based portals but the penetration is limited to Indian subcontinent or the NRI’s (Non-residents Indians). Just for examples we have a lot of social media portals coming in but still Orkut and Facebook hold the major market stake in India.  If you look at the search Google dominates the same though a lot of local Indian search engine are trying to capture but there traffic is just a fraction of the big daddy – Google.

So what is lacking here my friends – is it talent, money, innovation, thinking or efforts. If you look at Google its backrub idea was being given by Indian Mr. Rajesh Motwani (he is no more now but indeed a great fellow), Sun by Mr. Vinod Khosla and Sabir Bhatia’s hotmail story is really interesting.

Please wait……………….these entrepreneurs did these tasks from abroad and not in India.

So this question really pitches me a lot as we have one of the worlds best talents, currently we have almost all IT and web companies operations in India and our IT professional are rated high but we really lack something or there is a hindrance in our thoughts that we cannot win the global market.

Few things I found myself through study, research and interviewing people in India which leads to some sort of  weakness in Indian web industry is :

•    There are no innovative entrepreneurs who can think like a consumer
•    There is no business intelligence or the competitive intelligence involved before launching any internet product.
•    There are several venture capitalist but all went ROI instantly which makes them hesitant to invest. (Please note that Google was launched in late 1997 and start making money by selling advertising after a year or two).
•    The manpower is not motivated if the project target audience is India as it is treated as boring or sleeping market.
•    Proper managerial and strategically skills are not present amongst the entrepreneurs nor in their staff. (Really they can do the best management and plan the best strategy for their clients situated abroad)
•    Money, money and money is their only concern and they want success overnight.
•    The product is launched but there are no new items or interesting things coming in which ultimately pulls the visitors. (Gmail is the best example here which has completed captured the entire email market in India leaving behind the major players, this is only due to new features coming up regularly)
•    Spam or widespread advertising is another factor which prohibits the user from coming to Indian portals as they are stuffed with heavy / massive flashy ads and hiding the main content which is the root cause of huge bounces.
•    People work only for money and not for achievement or awards which again slows down those activities which needs investment as ROI is in the mind.

Really loads of them but I have a hope one day the Indian youth will rise as Sabir Bhatia did with Hotmail something giant will happen here and our product will spread across the globle.

My friends lets try something new for our markets and prove ourselves in the world that we can really create something innovative…………………….(I am also planning something my friends, cannot tell you right now for some global penetrations)

There are about two products of 20th century which are treated as innovative and has changed our lifestyles and they are Computer and Mobile Phones. Both these electronic instruments has put a huge impact on masses and now they on verge of big change.

Computers were introduced by Charles Babbage in 1837 but it find its place in common houses in late 1980s and with the advent of Windows which proved to be the most user-friendly platform it reached the houses with accessibility to kids and teens. Since then computer has been helping us all around to solve our deadly problems and it a one of the most powerful machine, no doubt in that.

But as stated the word change keeps hovering in the mind of intellectuals and they try to make something much better we get new forms of computers like laptops, palmtop etc. And today the instrument which we say cell or mobile phone meant for just telecommunication has itself turned into a computer and is impacting the computer world. I would like to change my topic post as it is to describe the potential of web over mobile so lets get to know the internet.

Hence we have internet on our system  use for checking mails, sharing thoughts, photos, videos amongst our friends, doing banking transactions and everything. I can almost say that a computer is almost useless if its without internet hence it is like a lifeline for any computer. Everyone of us now are addicted to web which is sometimes called as webmania. Persons from every age group is now surfing web for information, entertainment, business etc. so it now a part of life. So lets find out the basis requirement to surf the net, its nothing but a computer / laptop etc. with an internet connection. So we can only do surfing if we have some system in place with internet connection, this sometimes puts a hindrance on our will to do surfing if we are not with our computer may be away from office or home.

But if you have your cell phone and there is net connectivity may be GPRS or something you can access the web there and then. iPhone and Blackberry are real world examples which proves that the internet can be made mobile.

As per Jupiter search the mobile web users will cross 1.7 billion by 2013 and in Japan the scenario is such that mobile web users equals the PC web users. The figures are also amazing in developing states like India and Thailand where the same thing is happening and with the advent of 3G which is broadband access on cell phone, the market will improve gigantically.

Lets brief out what people are doing on mobile web :

•    Emails
•    Chatting
•    MMS
•    Twetting (Really a damn feature of twitter)
•    Watching Videos
•    Listening Songs and Podcasts
•    Mobile banking
•    Mobile shopping (shopping things on mobile phones)
•    Search (A very growing marketing as geo-targeting is possible)

Not only this most of the mobile advertisement platforms have been launched like admob.com, Google Mobile, Yahoo Mobile, Facebook Mobile etc.

With a revenue of USD 4 billion in 2008 it  shows the better signage of this growing industry and its expected to double fold by 2010. Check the latest stats at Clickz : http://www.clickz.com/3633115

Though the market is shine and will prosper but there are huge setbacks to it only due to lack of concern by the telecom industry.

Few factors which is hampering the industry is :

•    High cost of net connectivity
•    Low speed of net
•    Non availability of proper software to run the web easily, for eg. Mobile browsers.
•    Security threats are always there and there is a rumour that mobile transactions / dealings are never safe.
•    Lack of knowledge to the mobile users that they can access the web is once again a hindrance.
•    Mobile companies are not working heavily on making fully web compliant mobile phones
•    Carrier services are not following the right protocols.
•    Web developers / designers are not following web mobile standards.

So these are few of the challenges which this growing industry is facing but it will all be overcome by more young entrepreneurs coming in field and doing a big change in the whole machinery.

I must say that entrepreneurs must start investing some pie of their advertising on mobile as it brings up you to the direct consumer even if he/she is on the way. And my other message goes once again to the online entrepreneurs to launch their mobile compliant sites for visibility across mobile world.

Oh I really forget to say thanks to the inventor of Mobile Phones “Mr. Martin Cooper”.

I recently read the news of that the newspaper industry mainly in USA is in jeopardy and is seeking a bailout.

This is so astonishing because if you see any of the US newspaper whether its New York Times, LA Times, USA Today etc. were started in late 17 or 18 centuries and were / are considered as the major assets of information to the masses. If we look at the history of these newspapers they have really covered the political, social, scientific, technological, economic events in such a manner that they are the most admired memento of press. By Press we mean Liberty which cannot be destroyed or closed. Anyway lets find out why is this happening and what can be the alternate solution as by today most the leading newspaper are on to layoff their staff.

After reading several articles I found that it’s the masses which have somehow endangered the newspaper industry and it can be the masses who can roll it back but in a different manner.

Confused……………….Lets dig deeper.

I would like to state Darwin’s quotations “It is not the most stronger or the intelligent who will survive but the one who is most responsive to change”. CHANGE is the law of nature, so if you cannot change then you must quite or decline.

The primary objective of a newspaper is to convey relevant and updated information about the happenings to the people. This been followed since centuries and really the newspaper has been a landmark in the political revolutions across the world. But now this its impact is diminishing. There is no doubt that television and its news channel has give a setback to the newspaper industry but it has faced an extreme challenge by an enemy which is called “INTERNET” via which its possible to circulate the latest news instantly throughout the globe.

Internet has bring up the news world so close that its easy for us to get the latest happenings even if we are working in our office. Just log on to your favourite news site and its all yours. Giant news portals of BBC, CNN, Google as well as Reuters have simplified and put the entire world news in just one basket. Hence people are reluctant even in buying a newspaper as they get the same over the internet which is free and accessible to them in their offices where they spend their maximum time.

Hence its concluded that newspaper have been given huge setback by TV channels and internet. So the industry will die, no it will not if it moulds itself with the latest standards thereby recalling the protocol of Darwin.

So its time for all newspaper to launch their news portals with something different. Almost all newspaper have their official sites but they are unable to grasp the pie from Google news or CNN as they late comers but if you look at the history the newspaper journalists are the real news provides rather than the TV or website correspondent.

You will surely think that how can be it possible, let me give a very good example of nytimes.com which is the official website of New York Times, a newspaper which was founded in 1851. This news portal has really drived tremendous traffic by providing the unique, fresh and interactive stories to the users. Being a veteran in news industry it has established a very potential identity in online world. The site NYTimes.com is not even famous in USA but its visitors are across the globe it has millions of hits. So what they did can be replicated by all newspapers and they can penetrate online which is cheap, faster way of conveying information the users. This way they can really cope with current problem of financial crisis. We all know that everything in media whether its in newspaper, radio, TV or Internet bags its money by selling advertising so this can be done proportionally by the respective newspaper giant whether they want to penetrate in TV, Internet or both. But they have to change otherwise they cannot generate fair revenue with their current physical newspapers which will though never die but will diminish to a great extend.

So the bailout needs to go on so that the “Press” which is called “The Fourth Estate” is survived and necessary measures should be taken by their entrepreneurs to move on to innovative methods so that the business can be enhanced.

At the end I would like to say that this is happening in several countries even in India with people discarding the newspaper as they find the TV or the internet as quick and easier way to access news and the newspaper have either created or under process of enhancing their news portal for the future threats. For Eg. Times of India has a big news portal besides a TV channel which shows the signs of newspaper entrepreneurs penetrating in other media.

I am getting to much anxious to write on this subject because there so much I have in my mind that I cannot downpour in this concise post, anyway I will try to explain the importance of ecommerce and its impact on human life and how can we leverage this great business.

Ecommerce is not a new term but it has been practiced since 1970 which involves Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer as by its definition it says “Trading through Electronic signals”. Online shopping was first invented by Michael Aldrich of UK in the year 1980 but it was too restricted and was out of rich of common masses.

Hence when the web came into being in 1990 it begins to spawn innovate ideas and ultimately several online shops came into being. In 1994 an entrepreneur named Jeff Bezos (I hope many of the reader are aware of this great personality) launched Amazon.com which was and is the most successful ecommerce portal ever. Currently it has a market cap of 36 billion dollars with an employee strength of more than 20K has been one of the encouraging enterprise to the venture capitalist who are in mood of investing in ecommerce business.

So what is the importance of ecommerce in our life, is it “Desire, Want or Demand” or something else. I would that still the ecommerce is in rudimentary phases but it has become a part of our life especially the HNI (High Net worth Income) citizens. It has helped both the businessmen and the customers to transact with interactions.

•    Ecommerce has facilitated the people to order any tangible item just sitting in their home thereby securing time, energy and transportation costs of an individual.
•    Ecommerce has facilitated people to pay bills online, once again saving a lot of physical movements.
•    Ecommerce has facilitated a common business to sell his product across the globe with paying any commission to the 3rd parties.
•    Today millions of transactions do occur whether its an FMCG product, some handicraft, a mobile, software or a computer etc. There was a news that a women from a village in Karnataka, India sold his buffalo online as she was not getting its actual prices (the deal occurred on Indian auction website Bazee.com which now an ebay company)
•    Daily millions of transactions occur via paypal which is an online payment gateway system.
•    Booking of railway, airline, theatre tickets via online has really boosted up the travel and entertainment industry to a great extend.
•    Online stocks trading is another remarkable feature of ecommerce. Now you are just a click away for NASDAQ, S&P etc.

So eCommerce is good, I would say its better than the best because it has helped in reducing road traffic to some level. For instance in New Delhi there are hundred of Pizzas which are ordered on phone or web, if they donot provide home delivery then imaging how many people will rush with their cars to pizza to taste this newly food which is in great fashion now a days. (How much traffic, pollution would it create is beyond imagination). Anyways if we count from any end we will see numerous benefits of ecommerce and we can simply involve this in our life and save our precious time, effort and help the environment ultimately.

As per Nielson here is the % stake of ecommerce transaction with respect to leading countries :
•    South Korea (99%)
•    UK (97%)
•    Germany (97%)
•    Japan (97%)
•    US (94%)
Here are the most purchased items over the net:
•    Books (41% purchased over the past three months)
•    Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (36%)
•    Videos / DVDs / Games (24%)
•    Airline Tickets (24%)
•    Electronic Equipment (23%)

Inspite of its great potential the industry was and is threat because of several factors :

•    Most of the people still belive that online transactions are not safe. (This is not true as all transactions occur on https which is secure server thereby offering the encryption during the sensitive data)
•    People are reluctant to disclose their credit card information on web due to security concerns. (This is really a bullshit as when we pay for our food and handle our credit card to a waiter, didn’t we disclosing our card no., its expiry date and CVV number)
•    But in real there are several online frauds sitting and cheating people with their phishing sites (This is in great vigilance with cyber police haunting all around and the troublesome guys were sentenced too when caught)
•    Several online entrepreneurs start selling their products online with poor site structure full of bugs, no security seal thereby tending the customer to bounce rather than to trade. There are sites which uses “Add to cart” button leading to contact us form, so funny but in real some sites might be handful its there (This is the problem from the vendor as well as the company who has designed / developed the site but it can be ensure at the businessmen atleast that his site meets all criteria for an ecommerce site)
•    If some fraud occurs the company should help its customer in escalating the issue rather than running away as it will create more trust in the customers and the retention rate is high. (There were several cases in travel portals where hackers, hacked several people account and did the transaction but still the portals compensated for the real consumer to maintain the good faith)
•    Last but not the least it’s the education which we need to spread across our planet that come online and trade here. (I am not an enemy of brick and mortar store but the same guys can transform their business and drive parallel profits i.e. from their physical as well as virtual shops).

Here is my story, I was having the credit card since long but I didn’t used it for long but one day when I was filling my vehicle with gasoline, the person who has already get his vehicle filled was paying via his credit card, I was little bit curious and asked him you are paying via your credit card and he said “Yes sir” its safe, secure and even I may have some bonus points if there is an offering going on, moreover I hardly carry lots of cash so credit card is my lifeline”…………………………………So embarrassed, so amused, so surprised I am that I begin to use my credit card and you know I do several transactions on my weekend whether in physical shops or on world wide web.

Moral of the story “Practice and Promote Ecommerce if you are not doing so”. We must teach the world about this great marketing, sales and transaction tool and atleast try to put the transactions in multi-trillion. (Big challenge but lets try out)

Really I have been hearing on “recession” since long that I want to write something on this. Also it has effected the business ranging from SME’s to big corporates so now its also a somewhat buzz word (though it will never) for all of us.

There are millions of layoffs this time throughout the globe that it has made political leaders, businessmen, labours etc to think as why it happened and how to deviate ourselves from this deadly daemon.

Today just ask your friend or a person walking down the street why the recession has occurred, he or she will give you very vague answers that will never satisfy you. But there is a reason behind recession and the layoff crisis across the world.

The word which has led the entire world into recession is nothing but “CREDIT”.

Oh no, you are amazed to hear this but I have ample proofs to prove this.

This was initiated within USA where all people heavily depends on credits facility whether to buy a house, car or start up the business. Even the maximum credit card users are in USA that’s why ecommerce is common in US. So what has really happened all the credit providing companies usually mortgages firm, bank issued loans blindly to the common masses like anything. As there are several companies involved in credit facility so there is cut throat competition and each one of them try to beat their rival by relaxing the terms and condition in providing funds to common man.

We have seen a tons of ads saying –

Build you dream house in a day, Call : 1-800-00000

Buy a car, no paper formalities, Visit our office at : XYZ

Get Instant credit card and win a trip to Malaysia by shopping $ 4K in 2 weeks.

This isn’t too erotic for a common man who mere salary is less than $3K / month. But these companies did a great job in grabbing them and finally converted into sales. Indeed a great job by mortgages or loan agents that they have made up their targets very easily.

Alas what happened :

Most of the people were unable to pay their debts on time and surrendered their good (whether house, car or any enterprise) to the concerned organization from which they have obtained loans………..so absurd “Do the debtor or the organization ever know from where this money was borrowed it was none but the common man”?

US banks started getting bankrupted with Lehman brother heading first, Citigroup too was on the way (Thanks to Mr. Obama whose bailout maintained their survival), and Even Bank of America is till in difficult situation.

Now the US banks are closely linked with all international banks so everyone went to downturn economy due to this as one of them were able to pay debts. And due to this investors were filled with extreme fear and all foreign investors sold stocks from the foreign market  with NASDAQ, S&P, DOW JONES, NIKKI etc. felled like cards. In India the SENSEX (stock exchange) when down from 22K to 9K.

As a matter of recession companies started layoffs to as to reduce the running costs. Sectors primarily effected were / are – Banking, Finance, Real Estate and Automobiles. But all these fields are inter-related to others so IT, Retail, Telecom etc. went into recession and these companies too started layoffs which is still going on.

Check the biglist from Techcrunch here :  http://www.techcrunch.com/layoffs/

The immediate solutions of this problem is nothing but regular bailouts, though its going on in several countries whether its USA or a G-7 summit every political leader and economist is trying to help each other. Nothing to say hear the world seems to be united here atleast (leaving all external political mashups). Bailout is not that easy as it requires trillions of dollars to clear the recession and that is why its not getting away sooner but will consumer another year to stabilize the global meltdown.

Two last questions which are burning but needs escalation is –

Who is responsible for this recession?
The answer is simple, it is both the financial institution who is giving away the credit blindly to the common man and offcourse the masses who are undertaking such loans which are almost impossible for them to pay.

How to avoid such calamities that it will not happen in future?
Its nothing but making credit policies damn tough so that the loans is distributed as per persons income and callibre, how come you allot a credit card worth $ 8K to a person who is a plumber with a salary of $ 2K per month. Hence the terms and conditions needs to be very very strict and the background screening of the papers should be done for an individual before allotting big loans otherwise we will face this calamity like Tsunami.

So this was a case of USA but similar practices are going on in developing states including India, as I belong to India I can say that its recession nightmare which has somehow paused or slugged some financial institution to distribute credit like anything but the banks here too are quite blind and offer the credit as peanuts. If not checked surely the biggest hit will be there which we cannot control.

So the best practice is to be followed by government to put strict rules and regulations against the financial institution so that they restrict themselves by going too relax to the common man.

Friends, believe me recession will end this year but it has affected the lives of several people, families etc. so lets pledge not to go for the credit limit which we cannot pay.

Thanks