online business

I keep an eye on some industries and niches within them that surviving today’s recession.

I concluded that some business, such as scooter, fuel saving, and online business in general is surviving the economy crisis.

As you might notice in Noobpreneur.com, although the blog is mainly on small business, I always favour online business simply due to the fact that its growth is phenomenal and it is self-sustaining and thriving today.

One of the online business I highlight is online furniture retailing. Why?

Furniture online retailing solves the main problem: logistic

No matter how bleak the furniture industry is today - downsizing in several home furnishing big names, such as bedding giant Simmons, and reportedly loss making year in other big names - online furniture retailing is arguably one of the survivor in today’s recession.

Mainly, they offer what their off line counterparts can’t - order processing online and to-your-doorstep delivery services, which most online retailers charge at no cost.

Your benefits? Less hassle, less mileage in shopping for goods, and generally lower product price tags.

Living room furniture can be purchased within a few point and clicks, and you’re done.

Online business: closing the gap between the big names and the unknowns

Big online retailers, such as Overstock.com, offer home furnishing at rock-bottom prices. They have the economy of scale advantages over their smaller counterparts.

However, online shoppers would be interested in small(er) online furniture retailers if they offer personalised service.

In online business world, the gap between the big names and the small(er) names could be eliminated, or at least, narrowed, by offering outstanding, personal, customer services.

What makes a good online furniture retailing and an ecommerce site in general

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Web hosting is the foundation of successful online business. No matter how brandable your domain name is, the wrong web hosting will always mean disaster for your online business.

Here’s the supply and demand thing: with so many people today looking for the right web hosting solution to host their websites, thus born a lucrative online business model: web hosting review sites.

First thing first: what is web hosting review sites?

In essence, web hosting review sites offer recommendations on which web hosting provider to choose, and why.

The recommendations themselves are from two sources - what the web hosting review site owner think and what the web hosting customers think.

A good site, such as this Web Hosting Reviews, combine both the site owner’s and the customers’ opinions.

What to include in a web hosting review site?

Generally speaking, you have to include Web Hosting Comparison Chart.

Visually compare web hosting providers help the site’s visitor to choose which providers are highly recommended, and which ones should be avoided at all cost.

What to compare - Web hosting review sites usually compare features, pros, cons and overall ratings of the highlighted web hosting provider.

To add value, some sites do offer recommendations based on your case - If you want to host, say, a blog, then you should seek recommendations on web hosting that offer bloggers more perks than the others.

Why web hosting review business is a lucrative, win-win business

The web hosting review site owner’s revenue is mainly from affiliation with the web hosting providers.

Their payout for each successful sign-up can range from tens of dollar to more than one hundred dollars - a reasonably hefty amount of profit sharing with affiliates, which describes why web hosting review business is lucrative!

A web hosting review site offers a win-win situation for both the site owner and site visitors - site owners can earn from every affiliation, while site visitors can decide what is the best solution for them.

For the site visitors, following the recommendations are surely avoid them from all the hassles of choosing the wrong web hosting, that might include lackluster reliability, poor customer support, moving sites to new web hosting, etc.

Things to look out for starting a web hosting review business

This type of online business requires you to be trusted and unbiased. Your customers are smart people, so don’t you ever think to lure them to choose the web hosting providers that offer the best payout for you!

Moreover, you should incorporate testimonials to accompany the web hosting ratings - Testimonials are definitely strong sales pitches. Just make sure you use legitimate testimonials with some assurance that they are legit.

One last thing - lucrative always means tough competition. With so many web hosting review sites on the Net, making yours stands out is a challenge. Just make sure you are ready to stand above the rest!

Ivan Widjaya
Thinking about starting one ;)
Image by striatic.

I just found out that the network that I think has a lot of potential (and has helped bloggers like me) says goodbye to its members.

BlogRush is one of the promising start-up in late 2007.

The main idea is wonderful - sharing the blog contents among members, thus increasing visibility for the blog posts. This, in additional to the unique system of traffic referring has helped good bloggers with even ore visibility.

Unfortunately, as I learn from the BlogRush website, many game the BlogRush system, and some other hack the systems - all in all, resulting in an inconsistent system.

Here is to highlight the statement by John Reese, the owner of BlogRush:

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Another case study of big Internet start-up failure

This is another case of big Internet start-up failures - the saying ‘In great power, lies great responsibilities’ is fulfilled, again and again - the bigger you are, the more people try to take advantage of your system and test the depth of your team.

Today’s survivors - Digg, Facebook and the likes are put under constant challenge and thrive - that’s why their market values are sky-high.

Lessons learned from the BlogRush case

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I’ve written about the recession that is (finally) gotten into the online marketplaces before - Online Marketplaces Hit by Recession? - the recent development on AdBrite confirmed that recession is on online marketplace right here, right now.

The breaking news on the lay off on 40 per cent of AdBrite’s employees, including two executives two days ago by TechCrunch has really awaked us, finally.

AdBrite, one of the top five advertising networks according to Comscore, was said to underwent a major cut mainly to keep it afloat and profitable.

Why such top advertising network underwent a major cut?

Reading the colourful comments written on the TechCrunch blog post is mind boggling, as well as eye opening - while some blame the economy, others blame the questionable business model of Adbrite and today’s online advertising network as a whole.

I think that the economy plays a somewhat major role in AdBrite’s recent development. The recession affects AdBrite’s advertisers and publishers, and this eventually and logically affects AdBrite’s revenue count.

However, the economy is not the main culprit of the massive employee lay off, in my opinion.

I am no expert in online advertising, but I agree to some of the TechCrunch blog post commenters that think the AdBrite situation as a result of poor adversiting system quality, especially compared to Google AdSense.

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You have a great idea. You have chosen an excellent business name. You have created all the concepts and the systems to run your online business to success. You have the team to run the online business.

Next - you have to choose a great domain name. If it’s merely ‘good’, your online business is only half the potential. Period.

Choosing a great domain name is just as important as choosing a great business name. Fail to do so in the first place will damage your business potential.

You might ask, what’s in a name? In business, as well as in our daily life, a name can command respect, trust, and worthiness. Just to make my point, you simply don’t want to name your child Lazy or Stupid, do you?

What to look in a domain name

Having your business name as your domain name is not always a good way to go.

If your business name is Amazing Retail Company selling laptops, choosing AmazingRetailCompany.com might always seem logical to do.

However, in my opinion, this is not the best route to take.

I recommend you to have keywords in it.

What’s in a keyword? Choosing the right one for your online business will almost always guarantee more organic traffic and better position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

For the above example, I would prefer to choose AmazingLaptops.com than AmazingRetailCompany.com.

Where to look for a domain name for you

I highly recommend you to use domain name suggestion tool, such as AptDomain.name.

I use AptDomain.name to look for domain names with the keywords of my choice. The site will suggest you the domain name filled with the keywords you specify, if any. If yours is available, you can buy the domain name from the site.

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Despite all the negativities around payday loan, it is proven to be one of the methods that may help you fund your online business startup.

What is a payday loan?

Payday loan or payday advance shares a similar concept to cash advances - a short term loan granted to borrower that should be repaid in full, plus a relatively high interest, when the borrower receive his/her next paycheck.

Typically a payday loan amount ranges between $100 and $500 and is due in less than one month period.

The use of payday loans

Payday loan is one of the strong candidates to finance your small online startup that requires less than $500 in investment fund.

The main benefit of payday loans, especially for those that are offered online, is fast turnaround time, easy to apply and low-credit-score-friendly. The main drawback, of course, is the high interest rate, typically around 400% APR.

One example of online payday loans provider is Payday One, offering state licensed cash advances, based and licensed in the US.

In my opinion, payday loan is best fit for a part-time entrepreneur, full-time employee with poor credit score (due to a previous bankruptcy, for example) entering the online business market, as Internet business are typically low in investment.

How to start an online business with payday loan: a possible scenario

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If you are planning to open an eCommerce store, please consider to think small.

Why?

First, let me tell my story. I am embarrassed to say that I have started an eCommerce store before, and I failed.

Why I failed? Because I took ‘think big’ principle a bit too far.

I open an online natural remedy store on my own - I use Joomla! CMS, I buy a professional template, I buy a premium shopping cart script, I partner with a dropshipping company, and I purchase SSL to secure transaction. I do SEO, marketing, promotional campaigns myself.

All is text-book, what-should-be-done, and best practices. I think big - I envision my eCommerce store to run, grow and make me some money online.

I turned out wrong - my hosting company performance is lackluster, and the SSL I bought is collecting dust. In fact the whole website and business concepts I have are collecting dust!

I have invested thousands of dollars, and I can never be able to recover my investment. I learned the hard way that start small, simple and ‘light’ are the best way to ace in eCommerce.

Think small, act big with hosted eCommerce

One of the small, simple and ‘light’ steps that I should have taken that day is having my eCommerce store hosted by a professional eCommerce hosting service provider.

A hosted eCommerce service provider is a company offering you the ability to host your online retail store, as well as the tools to manage your back-end operation.

I found that Shopify is one of the better hosted eCommerce services on the Net.

For a small sum of money per month, even for free, you can host your eCommerce store at Shopify, and stop worrying about SEO, web hosting, bandwidth and security issues. you can start focusing on your business - something that I failed to do before.

You might think, “monthly fee? I don’t like it. I’ll start on my own, on a tight budget, immediately!” - I recommend you to rethink your online business strategy and highly consider the overheads, in term of money and time, to run on your own. Especially if you are not an experienced eTailer or programmer/designer.

Shopify offer you a simple and fast process, from sign-up to up-and-running eCommerce store. Ready made templates, loaded shop features and store management help you to start your business immediately.

Even if you don’t like the ready made design, you can always hire a designer that Shopify can recommend, or go DIY. In my opinion, the stock designs that Shopify include to each store is better than most eCommerce store design on the Net.

If you are interested in offering the hosted eCommerce service to your clients or collegues, Shopify Affiliate Program allows you to do just that. Shopify offers you 20% revenue share for all eCommerce systems created.

And no, I’m not their affiliate - so you can trust me on this :)

How to make more money online with hosted ecommerce

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This blog post is inspired by Yaro Starak’s blog post - Is Internet Marketing Just Another Fools Gold Rush?.

He mainly talks about the analogy of Internet marketing as fools gold rush - that is, the period when gold rush craze era begin. Yaro explained that during that time, the smartest of all is the business people that sell shovels, picks and other tools to search for gold. The first and early prospectors did struck gold, big time. Unfortunately, as the story of their success spread like wild fire, most new prospectors left empty handed.

The analogy explain Internet marketing - many said Internet marketing early ‘prospectors’ are the one who struck gold and being rich, while Internet marketing experts sell tools (”shovels and picks”) on how to make money online, as the craze era begin, just like the gold rush era.

Some so-called Internet marketing experts sell getting rich online tools, that actually don’t make them rich themselves! This is what Yaro called the blind leading the blind.

While Yaro agreed at some point that the reality of Internet marketing is just like the modern world pyramid scheme, he insists that the continuing growth of resources and demand will keep Internet marketing and online business a promising land. Moreover, he indicates that today is just the early days of the Internet marketing industry and online business as a whole.

But then, why only a few made it, if it is still early?

How to be the few who made it

Here is a question that you have been asking yourself during your make money online journey - “If online business is so lucrative, why only a few made it?”

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About six months ago, I enter the online business and the make money online market as a newbie.

I’m still learning today and all I say is, you cannot stop learning if you really want to get something out of the Internet.

I recommend you to have the right mindset before you start your online entrepreneurship journey.

The right mindset is very important

You might be offered convincing products and services to help you shortcut into online business and make money online market. I suggest you NOT to believe each and every of them.

There is no easy way - “Get rich quick by joining my training program” and the likes are urban legends; “Make $ xx,xxx per month in 30 days easily” is a fairy tale; “No technical skills needed” offer is one of the worst selling proposal I have ever heard.

If you want to make good money from the Internet, your critical success factor is your willingness to work hard and to learn. THEN, you will see results s-l-o-w-l-y.

I agree to Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad’s statement - “The first million is the hardest to achieve. After that, the next millions will be much, much easier to get.”

I also learn from the A-list bloggers, such as Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak, that the best way to receive riches from the Internet is by being persistent, being resilient and learning continuously.

Where and how to learn the How-Tos

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