What you will read is just my daily rantings. If you feel that you will be offended please fuck off.
The Soul
the name: Jacquine Anne Faith Chow
age: 21 (on 27th August)
zodiac: Virgo
location: Myself
loves: Garcia, Barry, Shirley, Gabriel, Ken, Giri, Mich, Meghan, Vicky, Steph, Rina, Nicole, Heng heng, Stephie, Grace, Jup Jup AKA Clara, Weili...
hates: Nosey people, egotistic people, self proclaimed gentlemen etc...
wants: to find satisfaction in life
needs: to get a life
believes in: myself
fears: death. Not of my own but of my loved ones
doubts: everyone else
incur my wrath at jacquine@gmail.com
- Lord Of the Rings Trilogy!
- Dan Brown
- Tim Burton's Works: The Melancholy Life of the Oyster Boy, Nightmare Before Xmas
- Neil Gaiman's Words: Sandman, Mirrormask
- Luis Royo's Art
I believe that microsoft surface is the future of the computer age. The Internet has only taken 4 years to reach out to 50 million users therefore microsoft surface would seem to be the next new age's computer platform. Microsft Surface solves one of the oldest problems that comes with most PCs. COMPUTER WIRING! Microsoft Surface is one technology that has no cables or external USB ports for plugging in peripherals like thumb drive. It also has no keyboard, no mouse, no trackball, nothing at all except its screen. It seems that Microsoft Surface trancends the physical realm and links the virtual world with the physical for example, dragging photos into a digital camera just by placing the camera on top of the Surface!
Microsoft Surface is a creation by Bill Gates that looks suspiciously like a coffee table at first sight.
He awaits for me at the end of the tunnel 10:31 PM
I started online shopping when i was in secondary school and honestly spent alot of time and money purchasing items. However, when i started poly, i felt indignant about letting people earn money from me as online businesses seemed easy to me. So i started out with re selling items that i bought before which did not suit me. At the start, the items did not sell well as i was lazy and reused the pictures from previous sellers that i had bought the items from. Subsequently, i realised that the pictures were the problem thus i took a whole day, borrowed my dad's digi cam and re took the pictures for all my items.
the problem with this arrangement was that i was not making money but more of claiming back what i had spent, thus i looked for cheap items from overseas that were sold for higher prices locally and posted it on yahoo auction. this continues for about a year before i realise that i risked having items not being able to be sold and that more left over stock meant more money wasted.
9 years down the road, i now do preordering for comics and statues as well as online sprees that do not require me to fork out a cent as the payments are made by the customers before hand. What i serve as is a middle man (or woman) to these people and i earn from a commision base. The intake may be lower but i do not risk having my own money stuck in stocks. I do plan to explore more of online businesses and hope to be able to set up one by the end of this year.
He awaits for me at the end of the tunnel 10:20 PM
E-marketing means using digital technologies to help sell your goods or services. These technologies are a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods whatever the size of your company or your business model.
The basics of marketing remain the same - creating a strategy to deliver the right messages to the right people. What has changed is the number of options you have. Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing mix. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small businesses.
The benefits of e-marketingE-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Specific benefits of e-marketing include:
Global reach - a website can reach anyone in the world who has Internet access. This allows you to find new markets and compete globally for only a small investment.
Lower cost - a properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods. Trackable, measurable results - marketing by email or banner advertising makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about customers' responses to your advertising.
24-hour marketing - with a website your customers can find out about your products even if your office is closed.
Personalisation - if your customer database is linked to your website, then whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.
One-to-one marketing - e-marketing lets you reach people who want to know about your products and services instantly. For example, many people take mobile phones and PDAs wherever they go. Combine this with the personalised aspect of e-marketing, and you can create very powerful, targeted campaigns.
More interesting campaigns - e-marketing lets you create interactive campaigns using music, graphics and videos. You could send your customers a game or a quiz – whatever you think will interest them.
Better conversion rate - if you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, post a letter or go to a shop, e-marketing is seamless. Together, all of these aspects of e-marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.
Implementing e-marketingThere are three stages to implementing an e-marketing campaign.
Evaluate the marketing options
Email - great for building relationships and keeping your customers up to date with offers, and is less intrusive than telephone marketing. However, growing concerns about spam mean you need to make sure you adhere to government regulations. For more information, see the page in this guide on legal considerations in e-marketing. SMS (short messaging service) - almost everyone has a mobile, so marketing via text messaging is a viable option. However, the personal relationships people have with their phones means marketing needs to be carefully considered.
Websites - a hugely flexible option to meet any marketing need. However, with so many other websites, you need a strategy for getting yours noticed and used.
Plan the rollout phase Look at training implications, especially of building and running a website and think about the costs involved. Decide which staff will require training and allow time for them to adjust to the new system. Do you need to review your customer contacts database? Before beginning a new marketing campaign it can be a good time to reorganise your data. If you're building a website, how are you going to promote it? Will you submit it to search engines? Is it worth paying an agency to boost your rating? It might be wise to start with a soft launch - perhaps just to existing customers to see how the website beds down before you begin to give it stronger marketing support.
Implement e-marketing 1. Roll out any necessary training. 2. Encourage staff involvement and feedback. This will help to smooth implementation, as staff buy-in can make or break a technology project. 3. Consider setting up a cross-departmental taskforce to manage the implementation process - it will help with staff buy-in and ensure that implementation works business-wide. 4. Continually review your practices against e-marketing regulations.
Monitoring the effectiveness of your e-marketing campaign Unless you can find out why people visit your website, you won't know which marketing campaigns have been successful or where to invest more money.
Tracking and site analysis tools A number of suppliers sell tracking tools that can tell you where visitors come from, what they do while on your site and where they go when they leave.
If you search the Internet you might come across a free trial - but bear in mind that you'll need a large amount of data for the results to be significant.
You - or whoever has access to the server hosting your website - will also be able to access a log file - a recorded history of all requests for pages on your site. It includes details of the page requested, the time and source of the request.
The problem with monitoring a log file is that it grows so quickly that you need software to glean anything useful from it. A website analysis tool is a piece of software that you can use to measure the usage patterns of your site. It does this using statistics such as the total number of visitors, the number of new and returning visitors, which search engines they are finding the site through, and which parts of the site they are making particular use of.
Some website analysis tools, such as Analog, are available free from the web. Other popular packages include Wusage and WebTrends.
User surveys The only other way of checking how visitors reach you and whether you're providing what they want is to ask them.
Ideally, you need to know how they found the site, whether it is their first visit and why they're visiting. Pop-up surveys (new pages containing surveys that open in separate windows) are a good way of gathering this type of information - but users may simply ignore them, particularly if you ask too many questions.
He awaits for me at the end of the tunnel 10:08 PM
THE NEEDS OF E-BUSINESS SECURITY While putting business systems on the Internet offers potentially unlimitedopportunities for increasing efficiency and reducing cost, it also offers potentially risk.
The Internet provides much greater access to data, and to more valuable data, not only to legitimate users, but also to hackers, disgruntledemployees, criminals, and corporate spies.
Increased Data Access One of the chief e-business benefits of the Internet is “disintermediation.” The intermediate information processing steps that employees typically perform in“brick and mortar” businesses, such as typing in an order received over the phoneor by mail, are removed from the e-business process. Users who are not employees and are thus outside the traditional corporate boundary, includingcustomers, suppliers, and partners, can have direct and immediate online access tobusiness information which pertains to them.In a traditional office environment, any access to sensitive business information isthrough employees. Although employees are not always reliable, at least they areknown, their access to sensitive data is limited by their job function, and access isenforced by physical and procedural controls. Employees who pass sensitiveinformation outside the company contrary to policy may be subject to disciplinaryaction; the threat of punishment thus helps prevent unauthorized access.Making business information accessible via the Internet vastly increases thenumber of users who may be able to access that information. When business ismoved to the Internet, the environment is drastically changed. Companies mayknow little or nothing about the users (including, in many cases, employees) whoare accessing their systems. Even if they know who their users are, it may be verydifficult for companies to deter users from accessing information contrary tocompany policy. It is therefore important that companies manage access tosensitive information, and prevent unauthorized access to that information beforeit occurs.
Much More Valuable Data E-Business relies not only on making business information accessible outside thetraditional company, it also depends on making the best, most up-to-dateinformation available to users when they need it. For example, companies canstreamline their operations and reduce overhead by allowing suppliers to havedirect access to consolidated order information. This allows companies to reduceinventory by obtaining exactly what they need from suppliers when they need it.Streamlining information flow through the business system allows users to obtainbetter information from the system. Now, businesses that allow other businessesand consumers to submit and receive information directly through the Internet canexpect to get more timely, accurate, and valuable information, at less expensethan if traditional data channels were used.Formerly, when information was entered into a business system, it was oftencompartmentalized. Information maintained by each internal department, such assales, manufacturing, distribution, and finance, was kept separate, and was often by physically separate and incompatible databases and applications —so-called “islands of information.” Companies have found that linking islands ofinformation and consolidating them where possible, allows users to obtain betterinformation, and to get more benefit from that information, which thus makes theinformation more valuable.Improving the value of data available to legitimate users generally improves itsvalue to intruders as well, increasing the potential rewards to be gained fromunauthorized access to that data, and the potential damage that can be done to thebusiness if the data were corrupted. In other words, the more effective an e-business system is, the greater the need to protect it against unauthorized access.
Scalability with Large User Communities The sheer size of the user communities which can access business systems via theInternet not only increases the risk to those systems, it also constrains thesolutions which can be deployed to address that risk. The Internet createschallenges in terms of scalability of security mechanisms, management of thosemechanisms, and the need to make them standard and interoperable.Security mechanisms for Internet-enabled systems must support much largercommunities of users than systems that are not Internet-enabled. Whereas thelargest traditional enterprise systems typically supported thousands of users, manyInternet-enabled systems have millions of users.
Manageability Traditional mechanisms for identifying users and managing their access, such asgranting each user an account and password on each system he accesses, may notbe practical in an Internet environment. It rapidly becomes too difficult andexpensive for system administrators to manage separate accounts for each user onevery system.
Interoperability Unlike traditional enterprise systems, where a company owns and controls allcomponents of the system, Internet-enabled e-business systems must exchangedata with systems owned and controlled by others: customers, suppliers, partners,etc. Security mechanisms deployed in e-business systems must therefore bestandards based, flexible, and interoperable, to ensure that they work with others’systems. They must support browsers, and work in multi-tier architectures withone or more middle tiers such as web servers and application servers.
Hosted Systems and Exchanges The principal security challenge of hosting is keeping data from different hosteduser communities separate. The simplest way of doing this is to create physicallyseparate systems for each hosted community. The disadvantage of this approach isthat it requires a separate computer, with separately installed, managed, and software, for each hosted user community, providing little economiesof scale to a hosting company. Mechanisms that allow multiple different usercommunities to share a single hardware and software instance, keep data fordifferent user communities separate, and allow a single administrative interfacefor the hosting provider, can greatly reduce costs for the hosting service provider.Exchanges have requirements for both data separation and data sharing. Forexample, an exchange may ensure that a supplier’s bid remains unviewable byother suppliers, yet allow all bids to be evaluated by the entity requesting the bid.Furthermore, exchanges may also support "communities of interest" in whichgroups of organizations can share data selectively, or work together to provide ajoint bid, for example.
Assurance E-businesses need some form of assurance of the security provided in thetechnology products they purchase. For such assurance, there are internationalstandards used to validate vendors’security claims against established criteria informal evaluations.Security evaluations are carried out by independent, licensed and accreditedorganizations. The evaluation process, from inception to certificate, often lasts upto a full year (and sometimes longer). Vendors who have undergone evaluationsof their products learn to improve upon their development, testing and shippingprocesses as a result of completing the demanding process.Security evaluations are perhaps the most effective way to qualify a vendor’sassertions about its security implementations. Is a product that has not completedsuch evaluations secure enough to run an e-business? Is it secure enough toprotect an organization’s most sensitive data? E-businesses demand that thesoftware and hardware vendors they select ship certified, provably-secureproducts. Assurance afforded by independent security evaluations lets e-businesses be assured of the products they purchase and deploy.
SUMMARY E-business depends on providing customers, partners, and employees with accessto information, in a way that is controlled and secure. Managing e-businesssecurity is a multifaceted challenge and requires the coordination of businesspolicy and practice with appropriate technology. In addition to deployingstandards bases, flexible and interoperable systems, the technology must provideassurance of the security provided in the products.As technology matures and secure e-business systems are deployed, companieswill be better positioned to manage the risks associated with disintermediation ofdata access. Through this process businesses will enhance their competitive edgewhile also working to protect critical business infrastructures from malefactorslike hackers, disgruntled employees, criminals and corporate spies.
They are not updated regularly. If you aren't adding new products or tweaking the descriptions on your items, then you've set yourself up for failure. People like coming back to sites because they want to see "What's New" or "What's Hot." You should be making changes at least once per month.
Things never go on sale. In the land of Blue Light Specials, people expect sale items when they visit an online store. Heck, sometimes the sale button is one of the first things I click on when I go to one of my favorite makeup online stores Sephora.com.
There aren't any coupons offered. This goes along with number 2. Everyone is looking for the best price online. Exclusive coupons are a must and make the consumer feel special. It also helps store owners track where traffic is coming from if they give their coupons a special name based on the magazine or online add they are tied to.
Its hard to find what you're looking for. Nothing is worse than an unorganized site. You should take your consumers top 10 choices and put them on the home page. Also, your items should be one or two clicks away and categorized with common sense.
The product pictures are awful--blurry and amateur. We have a client in Dallas who runs an online store for women's denim and accessories. Since day one, they decided to take their own pictures even though I strongly suggested they hire a professional. Its been 2 years and they still complain their site isn't getting the orders they expected. I remind them of the reason--their pictures. Have they changed them yet? No, I'm still waiting...
Folks, hear me out on this. If you are going to put up a site, its has to be top-notch or don't even bother! Your product pictures should be professionally taken or no one will take you seriously enough to give you their credit card.
The site doesn't tell visitors about the owners. Yes, your site tells your consumers everything about Dolce and Gabbana, but why should I buy their products from you? Every good ecommerce site should tell something about the owners and their philosophies in order to gain consumers trust.
There is no 800 number, address, email or way to contact the owners. Another big one folks. If I can't reach you, that tells me you don't want me to for some reason. I get very suspicious and move on. All three of these things should be there.
The site is designed poorly. Once again, if the site isn't designed professionally and is not engaging, consumers aren't going to take you seriously enough to give you their credit card. Note: Watch your typos carefully. I can't tell you how many people will judge you poorly based on misspelled words!
The Checkout Button isn't prominent. This is a point of frustration for a lot of online shoppers. If they can't checkout easily, they will leave. They won't give you a second chance either.
There is no security key at the bottom of the browser. 90% of online consumers won't buy from a store that doesn't have a secure checkout. That's a huge number of people to turn away.
He awaits for me at the end of the tunnel 9:51 PM
Reasons for Success in International E-Commerce: Speaking the Customer's Language Two dynamic forces of our time--globalization and the online movement--continue to flourish in many countries. However, a tremendous export market exists in addressing foreign markets, as going global is no longer considered an alternative but a necessity for business survival. If your business has not gone global, you can bet that your competitors have a plan to get there, regardless of their geographical location. The Web has helped remove barriers between countries, but there are still numerous opportunities to address foreign markets. Today, there are only 7 countries where English is the primary language spoken, some half a billion people, and where the combined economies represent 30% of the world's economy. The combined populations of these countries represent 8% of the world's population. Companies that continue to target this small fraction of the world market will miss out on capturing a large potential market.
According to the latest statistics (http://www.euromktg.com/globstats), 91 million people access the Internet from English-speaking countries, whereas 80 million people access the Internet in other languages. In 1997 the latter group represented only 10 million people--a eight-fold increase in less than two years.
Early this year, European currencies merged to become the Euro, a move that stands to phase out local European currencies by the year 2002. The Euro will enhance competition by forcing companies to concentrate on price, quality, and production. Best for Internet vendors, the Euro will make it easier for non-European companies to enter European markets, and will make it easier for a small company to target most of the European market.
Unfortunately, American businesses usually have a parochial viewpoint, and consider international sales "gravy". They brag that without any translation to their Website, they already have 20% of their traffic from other countries (which usually means English-speaking countries). The fact is, when the world market is properly developed, there are twice the sales volume that come from other countries as U.S. domestic sales. The translation of this figure into dollar figures is quite startling. For every $1,000,000 of US sales, a passive approach gives $200,000 in export sales, whereas an active approach to developing foreign markets gives $2,000,000 in sales. Ten times as much! This simple calculation shows how much sales potential is being missed by not taking foreign markets seriously.
Europeans and Asians have used multiple languages for centuries when selling to one another, recognizing that marketing occurs in the language of the target market. As Willy Brandt, the former German chancellor, once said: "If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann muessen Sie Deutsch sprechen [then you must speak German]."
Recent figures from the Forrester Research state that 80% of European- based corporate sites are multi-lingual. (http://www.searchz.com/Articles/0209993.shtml) With a limited number of U.S.-based multi-lingual Websites available, who do you think will have a better chance of capturing the international online market?
There's a big world outside of English-speaking countries, and if companies don't translate their Website, they pave the way for aggressive competition for international business from other countries.
Written by Bill Dunlap Managing Director, Euro-Marketing Associates ema@euromktg.com
He awaits for me at the end of the tunnel 9:49 PM
I found this article that was interesting about E-commerce success
The Secrets to E-Commerce Success By Michael Pastore, The ClickZ Network, Feb 2, 1999 Articles | Contact Michael | Subscribe The explosion of Internet commerce in 1998, especially during the holiday shopping season, proved that selling goods over the Internet is a viable business plan. Some e-commerce providers, however, remain better equipped than others to handle the boom, and thereby find profits in their future. International Data Corp. (IDC) recently conducted a survey of the nation's top e-commerce merchants to find out what strategies work in e-commerce.
Chief among the successful strategies of the market leaders is having clear objectives for corporate e-commerce sites, IDC found. Reaching new customers and increasing customer loyalty were the primary objectives for e-commerce merchants surveyed for IDC's report "The Web Sellers Speak: Learning from the Leaders."
"These leading Web merchants reported that successful online commerce is all about reaching new customers and retaining them," said Juliana Nelson, senior analyst with IDC's Internet and eCommerce Strategies Group.
More than 92 percent of the online merchants surveyed are actively building user loyalty programs, which often involve various forms of customer service, to drive repeat customer traffic, the IDC survey found. Three-quarters of the Web merchants surveyed use personalization and mass-customization features to increase customer.
"Personalized content and products are much more meaningful to the visitor and improve the quality of the experience," Nelson stated.
The IDC study found a crossover effect occurring among business-to- business and consumer online commerce merchants. Companies that sold primarily to businesses are now selling to consumers, and vice versa.
"Merchants must recognize and adapt to this new business-to- business/consumer customer, which is very different from their traditional customer base," said Nelson. "New and innovative thinking on the part of the Web seller is essential for successfully reaching this new customer."
Innovative thinking is critical when targeting international customers as well, according IDC's report. As Internet users increasingly become more global -- IDC research shows that 44 percent of users resided outside of the US in 1998 and 58 percent will by 2002 -- e-commerce is becoming a highly cost-effective method of selling into new markets that are geographically out of reach. Merchants surveyed in IDC's study are very involved in internationalization efforts and are addressing many of the concerns surrounding international commerce as well.
"Due to the pervasive nature of the Internet, merchants must be prepared to agilely handle distribution, logistics, and international commerce issues, which often get extremely complicated, very quickly," Nelson said.
Survey participants also report average costs for building an e-commerce site climbing to nearly $6 million and annual maintenance and promotion costs climbing to $4.3 million and $8.6 million, respectively.
"Merchants told us that the most important lesson they have learned is that they can never rest. The envelope must be continuously pushed for online success," Nelson said.
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