Are you counting the days till Christmas? Does the holiday season mean anything to your business? If your answer is yes, then probably you have done your share of research on ecommerce solutions to improve the Yuletide appeal of your online store. Days are coming by fast and merchants are soon ringing the proverbial cash registers for end-of-the-year profit. If you’re running out of time and need a quick fix before online shoppers hit the checkout line, make sure you got four essential elements of your ecommerce store decked out!
ECOMMERCE WEB HOSTING
Online merchants are usually attacked during the holiday shopping deluge on their weakest point. They may be well equipped with an ecommerce merchant account, efficient shopping cart, a wacky website design, and all the caboodle but when traffic picks up, their stores can’t handle it anymore. You, however, can:
*Test your ecommerce store for maximum traffic and fastest loading times it can handle.
*Make sure the bandwidth is sufficient and your store doesn’t completely depend on your server.
*Have your store open 24/7 — customer service and all.
ECOMMERCE WEB SITE DESIGN
Just as you would in a flea market, the more attractively you present your goods on display, the more online visitors are likely to buy. Excellent design means good taste and convenience. You may have your site dolled up with Flash and high-res images but if it took five minutes for a BCBG dress in a different color to load, forget it. Your ecommerce solution should be to:
*Spruce up your site with attractive but fast loading images
*Put categories for gender, age, interests, etc.
*Emphasize the discounts and freebies. (Ex. free shipping)
ECOMMERCE SHOPPING CART
‘Nuff said about shopping cart abandonment. Even though a lot of ecommerce solution experts have discussed preventive measures, people inevitably find a way to quit shopping on an ecommerce store halfway. If you’re smarter, you should look at the essential details that your customers need such as:
*Shipping schedule, cutoff dates, deadline for ordering
As my conclusion draws near, you probably would have noticed that all the elements in the truly prepped holiday ecommerce store are related to each other. Your web design meshes with your hosting capabilities; your shopping cart is tied up to your ecommerce merchant account features. Your ecommerce solution to getting people to finally reach past the checkout line requires you to:
*Offer alternative payment methods other than credit card
*Take into account real time reporting and statements
*Make sure your credit card processing system is secure from fraud
There are more ecommerce solutions than I have covered in this article so keep on reading for my updates!
Gerri Bryce is a versatile technical writer specializing in general web content copywriting and consultancy for finance and providers. She has contributed a massive number of articles for today’s most popular technology, gadget, gaming, business, finance, and science news websites. She participates in a number of top webmaster, finance and merchant account forums. Currently, Ms. Bryce lives in Dallas, Texas. She keeps herself abreast with Web 2.0 and cutting edge Internet trends by attending business workshops, online meet-ups, and conferences for merchant account professionals. She also travels extensively throughout the United States and Asia. e-mail: gerri.bryce@gmail.com
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Kicking off the evaluation process is the toughest for us. Question after question kept popping up “Is the property market low enough?”, “Is this property worth considering?”, “Are the numbers the only criteria for investment?” What are we really looking for in real estate investing?? Quick bucks $$ or Regular income…
Bottom-line = Money!!!
Property Agents have tons of recommendations for YOU! How will you know whether they are good investment for you?
There are many factors that need to be considered in evaluating a real estate investment. For example, location, environment/neighborhood, facilities, financing options, rental income, etc. If all above works, it is time calling your agents and set up appointments. Happy Viewings!!!!
Actually it is not difficult and it does not need much of your time to know if a real estate investment is worth investing in the first place. All you need is crunching some numbers with your calculator, and Bingo! You can decide whether the property is worth investing.
Later in this article, we will show you how these numbers work in your prospective real estate investment by two real life cases in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
Numbering GAME Numbers, numbers and numbers.. How do you get them?
You may try calling a few property agents, check with banks on properties valuations and of course there is plenty of information on the Internet. Once you have these numbers you can determine if a real estate investment is worth spending your time for a viewing. “Seeing is Believing.” Check out the property to see the actual condition and the environment, whether it is to your liking once you get your numbers RIGHT! Once you get your numbers, you will see:
Incomes One-time income – selling price Regular income – rental price
See how they (numbers) work.. The basic requirement for a good real estate investment is that the income it generates must be more than its costs.
If the selling price of a real estate investment is more than its purchase price and startup costs, this investment generates capital gain.
If the rental income of a real estate investment is more than its monthly expenses, this investment generates cash flow.
If you are looking for capital gain, the gain or loss depends very much on the real estate market. Hoping to make money from capital gain on real estate is like buying a product and hoping the value of the product will go up with time. On a long term basis, real estate will be appreciating in value because of inflation, but the gain is not guaranteed.
On the other hand, a real estate investment that generates cash flow effectively put money into your pocket every month, while your equity in the real estate investment increases over time. This is the real estate investment that we are looking for – an investment worth investing.
Too good to be true? With this recession time, you will ask yourself, “Is it the RIGHT time for me to start investing in real estate? Everything is so uncertain NOW.”
In Johor Bahru, you can find plenty of real estate investments worth investing at this juncture. We discovered most of these investments that generate substantial cash flow are mainly apartments or condominiums. You can read from our upcoming article to know why apartments or condominiums are better real estate investments in Johor Bahru. Here are two recent real life cases of real estate investments worth investing in Johor Bahru.
Case 1: We found a condominium in Larkin area of Johor Bahru in Octorber 2008 selling at $160,000 with existing tenant. Monthly rental income is $1400 while monthly maintenance cost is around $300 (maintenance fee plus sinking fund plus quit rent).
If we finance 90% of the purchase price to buy this condominium with interest rate 4.85% with a tenure of 30 years, monthly loan repayment is estimated to be $760. Thus, this condominium is generating a net cash flow of $340 every month, $4080 every year.
Total capital outlay for this investment is $24,000 for down payment including other startup costs like legal fee and brokerage.
Effectively this investment gives us a yearly cash-on-cash return of 18.5%. In other words, within 6 years we would be able to take back our capital $24,000! The best thing is we still own the condominium. It will keep putting money into our pocket every month. We also have the option to sell it away when the market is good.
Case 2: There is a 3-rooms apartment in Tampoi sold at $125,000 in Octorber 2008. Monthly maintenance cost is about $150. If we finance 90% of the purchase price with interest rate 4.85% with a tenure of 30 years, monthly loan repayment is estimated to be $600.
Expected rental income for a fully furnished apartment in the area is about $1200. With furnishing cost of $10,000, total capital required for this investment is around $27,000, while total monthly cost is $750.
The apartment is expected to generate a net cash flow of $450 every month, $5400 every year. Cash-on-cash return on this investment is 20% which we can expect to take back all the capital within 5 years.
Sound interesting right? Of course, so far we are only talking about numbers. A good real estate investment does not rely on purely numbers. You still have to go and have a look at the building structures, study the location and neighborhood, and perform other checks before you make your decision. What we have discussed, however, can save you time and give you more ideas on the potential returns of a real estate investment before you tell your agent which real estate you want to view in the coming weekend.
Read more about real estate investment tips at http://reijb.com
We write regularly about real estate investment. Some of our featured articles include:
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Coming from a humble little town called Tangkak in north Johor state of Malaysia, OngKL has chances to learn and work both in Johor Bahru and Singapore – a conurbation with 6.49 million still fast growing population – since year 1996. He is now having a chance to contribute back to the community by sharing what he sees, what he knows and what he learns in this wonderful place.
Are you tired of the pea-brains and jerks that you have to deal with at that lousy job every day? Are you making enough money to make it worth your while to stay there and suffer? If not, then get the heck out of there! Start YOUR OWN Business!
So many people around the world have their own home based businesses and you can finally do it too, if you want to! I am not talking about some silly, crackpot scheme where you buy seven thousand dollars worth of vitamins that end up in your garage next month!
Here are a few awesome home business ideas:
#1: For starters, you can visit my fabulous website where I sell many things both retail and wholesale! I am happy to sell items in small quantities, at wholesale prices, to individuals who might not even have a business, and all the annoying paperwork (business licenses, tax ID #s, et cetera), BUT they would like to simply re-sell these items to people in their neighborhood! When you see something that you would like, please send an e-mail to find out the price for the number of pieces that you want!
#2: On the website, we have a few wholesale package deals already listed, such as these
These fantastic and popular Self-Defense Pepper Sprays are legal in all of the United States, but there are a few states that have very specific laws as to where and how you can purchase one! If you live in the continental USA, but NOT in MA, MI, NY, and WI, and you are 18 or older, then we can ship these to you! You can peddle them around your town, and tons of people will buy them on impulse, as they are not available in every corner store!
#3: If you don’t care for or don’t want to sell face to face, then simply and then visit a place such as GoDaddy.com to set up a simple website where you can sell the items you choose to sell…Online!
#4: You can easily start a business in your town, offering a service, such as auto washing, waxing, and detailing, baby-sitting, dog walking, typing term papers for students, running errands for busy people, and so much more! When you start doing a great job for people, you will get referrals and some word-of-mouth advertising! I also have an eBook with Over 111 Great Ideas How You Can Make Money From Home Without Being A Slave To A Job! You can order it on my website for less than the cost of an over priced Cappuccino and Pastry at a Silly Coffee Chain Store!
#5: Most of the awesome merchandise on our website is listed in some great, top-quality, full-color catalogs featuring lots of great items that YOU can sell by simply showing these catalogs to other people in your neighborhood or community and taking orders (with payments) from those people! People LOVE to buy from catalogs and they have done so for over a hundred years! You can cash in with capturing some of that business for yourself! Earn a 25% commission as soon as you get one or more of these catalogs in your hands!
#6: If You can write, then you can begin your own business writing article marketing pieces for people who have their own websites! That is how I, Father Time, got started on the Internet! I had been a published writer for 32 years without even using a computer or the help of the Internet, but then I began writing article marketing pieces as a ghost writer for other people who had their own websites that they needed to promote!
You might be surprised, but there are tons of people out there who have a website, but they may not have the time or the ability to write some content, articles, and so forth to promote it, and they will happily pay you, if you can write for them! They can PayPal the funds to you and you can e-mail them the articles which they will post on an article marketing website such as ArticlesBase.com which is my favorite of them all!
#7: You can also develop your own Home Party Plan Business of Selling Merchandise Using Those Catalogs listed above! Or you can sign-up to be a DEALER of products from Tupperware, Avon, or Fuller Brush…these are three FABULOUS companies! You have to work, though, you cannot just buy the starter kit and then do nothing!
There are seven great ideas to get you started thinking about freeing yourself from the bondage and slavery of that job, and there are over a hundred more in my awesome eBook which you can actually order right now, and it will be e-mailed to you as a Microsoft Word attachment. Then you can get started earning money within a few days or maybe even a few hours, depending on what you choose to do!
Please don’t let a negative person in your life tell you that you cannot do this!
I AM TELLING YOU THAT CAN DO WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE TO DO!
“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.”
Good Luck and Many Blessings to You!
Father Time has been a published writer for over thirty two years and particularly focuses on motivational and self-help writing and speaking! He also has many years of sales experience and writes sales & marketing training and materials. He has a fabulous new eBook out that features over 111 Ideas How YOU Can Make Money From Home With Your Very Own Home Based Business!
Father Time currently does a lot of writing for hire, especially article marketing pieces for folks who have their own websites to promote. IF you have a website, you should contact him for some good writing to promote your site; right away! You will be glad that you did!
Father Time also deals in wholesale merchandise of a wide variety, and is especially interested in helping ordinary people who need to earn extra cash, by allowing them to buy a small quantity of wholesale items for the purposes of reselling these items for a cash profit. This is a very simple way to earn an immediate cash income! It would be just like the folks who sell those well-known vitamins, cleaning supplies, or cosmetics, but you won’t be selling something that a million others are selling!
His website is: If YOU are simply purchasing merchandise at retail, YOU can save an extra 15% off. (Sorry, discount does not apply to writing, readings by e-mail, eBooks, or on wholesale packages) The coupon code is: SaveNow