Posts Tagged ‘business’
Wednesday, September 11th, 2013
In a bit of news that will make anyone with an email inbox smile just a little, an Australian man who spammed New Zealand businesses has been fined $95,000 for doing so.
Wayne Robert Mansfield of Perth, Western Australia, sent hundreds of thousands of unsolicited emails to individuals ans organisations in New Zealand in 2010. The emails were promoting his company, Business Seminars NZ.
After more than 50 complaints from recipients who said they had no business contact with Mansfield’s company and had continued receiving messages even after unsubscribing from them, the Department of Internal Affairs decided to take legal action against Mansfield under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act.
High Court Justice Edwin Wylie imposed a fine of $95,000 and awarded costs of more than $8000 against Mansfield in August 2013.
This wasn’t the first time Mansfield has been fined for spamming.
In 2006, Mansfield and his Perth-based company Clarity1 Pty Ltd were fined a total of A$5.5 million in the Australian Federal Court for sending 70 million spam emails to about 5 million recipients between 2004 and 2006.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, spam, spammer
Posted in Australia, business, controversy, E-mail & the internet, fine, Spam Act | 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 »
Monday, September 9th, 2013
Oh Mabel, an organic bed linen brand and online shop, is run by Sarah Power in Canberra.
Established in 2011, Power aimed to start an online bed linen shop that would stock other brands of linens. When she found that other brands just weren’t up to her standards, she created her own line and hasn’t looked back since.
While the shop is on hiatus at the moment, it will be back up and running soon with a new line of Oh Mabel bed linens.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, bed, business, Canberra, linens, Oh Mabel, online
Posted in Australia, business, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story | 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 »
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013
Online store Wired and Wonderful, run by Christina Cridland in Perth, imports handmade African gifts, homewares and jewellery.
Established in 2011 after Cridland felt unsatisfied by her career as a journalist, the store has allowed her to spend more time at home with her young son.
Prior to starting her importing, Cridland visited the shop she was doing business with to ensure it was a fair trade workplace.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: African, Australia, business, jewelry, online, Perth, Western Australia, Wired and Wonderful
Posted in Australia, business, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story | 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 »
Thursday, August 29th, 2013
Australian businesses, much like the rest of the world, have found that outsourcing many activities that can be done online is turning out to be quite lucrative for business.
Global freelancing company oDesk says Australian enterprises are increasingly outsourcing tasks online as the company passes $US1 billion worth of projects.
Matt Cooper, vice president of enterprise and international at oDesk, told StartupSmart blog that passing the project work milestone is a sign that outsourcing work online has entered the mainstream.
“It’s a big thing for us to break that one billion barrier milestone, but the bigger story is that online work is officially out of beta,” Cooper says. “It’s very early still, but it’s a nice recognition that this is really starting to break into the mainstream.”
The figures released by oDesk show Australians have been outsourcing both technical and non-technical tasks over the last two years.
“This is driven by the huge demand for technical talent. I’m in San Francisco but everywhere you go you see articles about the Australian tech talent shortage,” Cooper says.
Outsourcing growth by the numbers:
- Game development – outsourcing has grown by 437%
- Engineering and technical design – outsourcing has grown by 276%
- Mobile app development – outsourcing has grown by 258%
- Human resources – outsourcing has grown by 227%
- Payroll and recruiting – outsourcing has grown by 227%
- legal – outsourcing has grown by 267%.
“The growth in Australians outsourcing legal was an interesting one for us,” Cooper says. “As more and more companies look to grow internationally, they need legal support and talent in a range of countries.”
Cooper says the growth across non-technical tasks in Australia is part of a worldwide trend.
“It’s indicative of a broader trend that online work is no longer tech. When you look at our business in 2008 and 2009, it was almost entirely technical work, but we’ve seen rapid expansion into legal, finance, writing and translations,” Cooper says.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, freelance, oDesk, online, outsourcing
Posted in Australia, business, online business, technology | No Comments »
