Archive for the ‘internet usage’ Category
Monday, September 16th, 2013
From its humble beginnings as a five-person operation above a Perth hairdresser just a few short years ago, Moko has come a long way.
Photo credit; Richard Patterson on Flickr
And it is now set to try and crack the United States college market with its mobile social media advertising platform, plus a $US1 billion capitalisation on the world’s biggest technology stock exchange.
Next month, the Western Australia company will launch a service to connect advertisers with 5 million American college students, the ready-made audience that gave Facebook its start.
Although this means it will be competing with Google and Facebook for a portion of the $US7.65 billion ($A8.5 billion) US mobile advertising market, this is the first stage of a plan to list on Nasdaq, according to chief executive officer and founder Ian Rodwell.
Its first major deal with the American Collegiate Intramural Sports (AMIS) association gives it an initial audience of 5 million university students (out of 21.6 million) at 200 colleges across the country.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, mobile advertising, Moko, online, Perth, social networking, Western Australia
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, internet usage, investment, media, online business, Online Sales, social media, social networking, Success story | No Comments »
Friday, September 13th, 2013
Photo credit; Tristan The Booklight on Flickr
Chris Burgess, Chief Information Officer for a non profit in Melbourne and manager of DNTrade, an online forum for discussing Australian domain names and online industry topics, shares his insights into what Australian businesses need to keep in mind when choosing a domain name.
Among his advice, Burgess recommends hosting your website with a hosting provider that has good support.
“It’s important to be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone if something isn’t working,” Burgess says.
Check out Burgess’ comprehensive advice on Australian domain names here.
Tags: Australia, business, Chris Burgess, DNTrade, online
Posted in Australia, business, domain names, E-mail & the internet, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores | No Comments »
Thursday, September 12th, 2013
Businesses.com.au has recruited Managing Director of Cudo and Deals.com.au Adam Schwab to share his insight about dealing with daily deals sites with readers.
For the uninitiated, deal sites are ones like Groupon, LivingSocial, Spreets, Cudo and Scoopon. These sites sell products and services from another business to site visitors and their database of subscribers that they have created. The deal sites advertise their clients’ services or products and collect money for vouchers for buyers to present to a merchant. For products, the deal sites send cash and the address to send the goods to the business that pays a commission for the sales service.
They basically act as a middleman between business and consumer, but they can draw in a lot of business so can be worth it for businesses to deal with.
But merely putting your service on these sites isn’t always a good idea, as businesses.com.au shares the horror story of one salon owner who advertised on one of the daily deal sites only to find she was unable to handle the influx of business it brought her.
With avoiding that kind of pitfall in mind, businesses.com.au invited Schwab to offer a bit of a tutorial on using the deals sites and what to expect.
You can find Schwab’s insights into Australia’s daily deals industry here.
Tags: Australia, business, Cudo, daily deals, groupon, LivingSocial, online, Scoopon, Spreets
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 10th, 2013
A recent report shows that Australia now leads the world in the pace of online business start-ups. Internet start-ups have increased 200% from 2010 and 2012, four times the pace in the United States and Britain.
With so many new startups popping up, Dynamic Business has released a set of tips for Australians who want to get in on all the startup action:
Manage your time. Whether you’re an early riser or prefer burning the midnight oil, find what works best for you. Running a store can require a lot of time and energy, but it’s important to separate your stress. Don’t let the worries of one job impact another and develop (and stick to) a routine that maximises productivity.
Think easy. Great designs are nice, but if your online store isn’t intuitive for customers, all bets are off. Re-evaluate the functionality of your homepage and make sure customers can get to where they’re trying to go.
Focus on quality. Use high-resolution product images and take the time to write detailed product descriptions from a customer’s perspective. If you want customers to spend the time reading it, spend the time writing it!
Try new forms of marketing. One of the most critical aspects for any online store is marketing, but it can be costly. Content marketing, such as blogging, is a great, low-cost alternative and offers small businesses a big bang for your buck.
Find your inspiration. Ultimately, success often boils down to having the passion and drive to keep things running through the highs and lows. When the going gets tough, remember what inspired you to start your own business. If you’re doing something you love, your passion will shine through and motivate to push on.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, startup
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, innovation, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, social media, social networking, technology, Woo Plugins, WooCommerce, WooCommerce Extensions, WooCommerce Themes | No Comments »
Friday, September 6th, 2013
Australian Mike Langford quit his IT job and started selling animal onesies online and has never been happier.
For the uninitiated, a onesie is a full body pajama (think what babies often wear) and an animal onesie is a onesie with an animal theme to it (why should babies have all the dress up fun?) By the way, these oneseies are for adults.
Langford started his site www.animalsuits.com.au in July 2012 using WooCommerce and it is now his full-time endeavor.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: animal onesies, Australia, business, online
Posted in Australia, business, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, WooCommerce, WooCommerce Themes | No Comments »
Thursday, September 5th, 2013
Online clothing swapping site 99Dresses, founded by Nikki Durkin from New South Wales in 2010, has been growing since the day it launched.
The young entrepreneur said that it was a tough go launching the site, but once she got it up and running, she valued the experience and learned a lot from it.
“The most challenging thing is figuring out you’re going to run out of money before you’re going to take off. It’s frustrating; it’s a tough feeling. You feel like you’re drowning a bit, but I got very lucky,” Durkin says.
That luck was in the form of her decision to enter a $10,000 business competition, which she won, followed by her admission to Y Combinator — an organisation that provides seed funding to a select number of start-ups.
To read more on this story, click here or here.
Tags: 99Dresses, Australia, business, New South Wales, Nikki Durkin, online
Posted in Australia, business, innovation, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 4th, 2013
Pamper Hamper Gifts, which won an Australian Small Business National Winner award in 2012, was established way back in 2004 by Bianca Kristallis.
Based in Sydney, Kristallis had the vision for her business after seeing that hampers were hampered by an inherent tackiness. Believing she could do better and bring the ‘wow factor’ back to hamper gifts, and Pamper Hamper Gifts was born and is still going strong today and winning business awards along the way.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, award, award winning, business, gifts, hampers, New South Wales, online, Pamper Hamper Gifts, small business award, Sydney
Posted in Australia, awards, business, gift guide, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 4th, 2013
Online crowd sourcing site Kickstarter has announced that it will open up to Australian and New Zealand projects in the near future.
Kickstarter is hosting sessions in Sydney and Melbourne this month for people who have project ideas.
Founded in 2009, Kickstarter allows people to pitch their ideas to the general public to solicit funding for their ideas to get made. Movies, video games, gadgets and music has all been funded through the U.S.-based site.
To read more about this story, click here.
Posted in Australia, business, Crowd funding, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, investment, online business | No Comments »
Monday, September 2nd, 2013
Naomi Simson, founder of online gift retailer RedBalloon, says people wanting to start their own business should be detailed and visionaries.
“I usually defer to businessman and entrepreneur Jack Cowin who puts it better than I ever could,” Simson says. “I saw Jack present at the EY Entrepreneurs workshop, where he opened with the quote ‘an entrepreneur needs to be a cross between a microbiologist and an astronomer’. He believes that true entrepreneurs are special in that they can be both detailed and visionary.”
Simson says great entrepreneurs are curious, persistent, are searching for better ways to do things, endlessly positive, focused and have exemplary people skills. While entrepreneurs can be born with these traits, she says some can also be learned.
“Curiosity and positivity are hard things to teach — you either have them or you don’t,” she says. “But characteristics like focus and persistence can be learned, and need to be — without them you’re unlikely to make it as an entrepreneur or business owner.”
Simson attributes the success of her own business to tenacity and hard work. “It was almost three months before RedBalloon made its first sale,” she says. “People used to ask me ‘when were you going to give up?’ but the thought never crossed my mind. I never, ever thought that it would not work and I never contemplated throwing in the towel.”
Simson also says that entrepreneurs don’t get discouraged by failure and, in fact, learn from it to make their next endeavor successful.
To read more on this story, click
here.
Tags: Australia, business, gifts, online, Red Balloon
Posted in Australia, business, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online stores, selling online, Success story | No Comments »
Friday, August 30th, 2013
Erica Fanning established the self-titled Erica Fanning Interior Styling in Sydney in 2012 with the intention of being able to provide interior decorating services to anyone in Australia and beyond via e-decorating. E-decorating sees people send Fanning their room dimensions via email and getting a complete room design package back, complete with places where clients can purchase everything needed to complete the room’s proposed look.
For more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, Erica Fanning Interior Styling, interior decorating, New South Wales, online, Sydney
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, innovation, internet usage, online business, Success story | No Comments »
