Archive for the ‘selling online’ Category

Australian Woodwork switches focus exclusively to online business

Wednesday, December 18th, 2013
Photo credit; Jordanhill School D&T Dept. on Flickr

Photo credit; Jordanhill School D&T Dept. on Flickr

New South Wales-based Australian Woodwork, one of Australia’s top woodcraft companies, recently announced its decision to completely move its business online.

By becoming an internet-only business, Australian Woodwork hopes to appeal more to a larger online market.

The company’s goals include successfully developing an interactive website for its customers where they can view and purchase furniture and one-off items, as well as talk to company representatives in real time. Australian Woodwork is also developing an advanced virtual showroom for customers who want to see the company’s selection of products.

It will also integrate Australia Post services into its site. This ensures that domestic and international customers can obtain live quotes on postage charges.

To read more on this story, click here.

Western Australia tourism business discovers power of social media just in time

Monday, December 16th, 2013
Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

A Western Australia tourism business on the brink of bankruptcy discovered just how powerful social media could be in the nick of time.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars on traditional advertising for his one-man Margaret River Discovery Company and getting nothing in return, Sean Blocksidge was five days away from packing it in for good when the social media gods smiled on him. A few couples who had partaken in tours with his company, which provides 4WD tours of the rocky coast and canoeing on Margaret River’s famous waterway, left positive reviews on TripAdvisor and opened the floodgates for Blocksidge.

“I didn’t understand the power of this thing,” said Blocksidge. “And the algorithms behind it suddenly spun me up into the number one thing to do in Margaret River. That was it. The next morning, everything turned around. The phone and email went nuts and I’ve never looked back. Chock-a-block every day.”

For two straight years, it was then listed as the number one tourist activity in Australia.

And every day, Blocksidge does his due diligence by spending 15 minutes taking and uploading a photo of the region to his Facebook page, which auto-links to Twitter, and he then re-posts it to Instagram.

If it’s picked up by TourismWA, his image is viewed by millions.

To read more on this story, click here.

Click Frenzy sale exceeds expectations according to founder

Friday, December 13th, 2013
Photo credit; Matt Trostle on Flickr

Photo credit; Matt Trostle on Flickr

Last month’s Click Frenzy online shopping event was a huge success, founder Grant Arnott said.

The 24 hour shopping bonanza ended at 7pm on Nov. 20 and over the course of the event, Arnott said the site had received over 1 million visitors and driven 1.6 million clicks through to the 300 participating retailers.

Local online retailer, The Iconic announced its first $1 million shopping day thanks to the event.

“We’re now thinking our initial estimates of $15 to $20 million in revenue [generated by the event] are pretty conservative,” Arnott said.

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MYER says online business will be profitable within two years

Wednesday, December 11th, 2013
Photo credit; Timothy H on Flickr

Photo credit; Timothy H on Flickr

The Myer department store chain says it is cautious about the year ahead, given the difficult economic environment and weak consumer sentiment, but insists its online division will start seeing a profit by 2015.

Chairman Paul McClintock said that while sales in the first quarter reflected a modest improvement in consumer sentiment following the September election, the challenging conditions have continued.

The group remained “cautious about the year ahead given the challenges of the economic outlook and consumer confidence,” McClintock said, speaking at the group’s annual meting in Melbourne recently.

He said the business would be affected by major refurbishments and face increased operating costs in 2014 and that Myer would benefit the following year from “stronger fundamentals as a result of the completion of major refurbishments, the online business becoming profitable and the ongoing optimisation of our store network”.

During the current financial year, three of Myer’s top 20 stores will be refurbished.

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Surfstitch considers IPO

Monday, December 9th, 2013
Photo credit; Daniel Flower

Photo credit; Daniel Flower

Australian company Surfstitch, which claims to now be the the world’s largest online sports apparel and fashion retailer, is considering going public on the ASX.

The news comes from co-founder Justin Cameron as Surfstitch sits as the market leader in Asia and Australia and is starting to dominate European online fashion retailing.

According to Cameron, who co-founded the business with Lex Pedersen, the business is already the largest online action sports and fashion business in the world.

He pointed out that Surfstitch’s main competitor in the US, swell.com, isn’t doing nearly the business that Surfstich is. He knows this because swell.com is owned by Billabong, and Billabong is a shareholder in Surfstitch

“So I know what that business is doing and it’s not doing anywhere near what we’re doing [in terms of turnover],” Cameron said.

In Europe its main competitor is Blue Tomato, which reported annual net sales of $42.3 million for the year to 30 April 2012, of which 75% was generated through e-commerce.

“We do significantly more [than our competitors' revenue],” said Cameron, who also said Surfstitch would turnover $80 million this financial year.

Surfstitch now has five European online stores and also runs Billabong’s e-commerce platform. In total, it manages more than 20 different websites.

“We represent more than 500 brands and have the ability to touch consumers across a number of different genres, including surfwear, sportswear, street fashion and accessories,” said Cameron. “We have seen a significant shift of consumer spending to online and we have been able to capitalise on that.”

Cameron says consumers can access a massive 20,000 different products through the business’s sites, something no other online surf brand can come close to matching.

“We launched before there were daily deal sites. When we started eBay was really the only option [for buying apparel online]. In the fashion space there was only us and ASOS. Being first allowed us to build awareness and scale very quickly.”

To read more on this story, click here.

Australia ranks as one of the world’s most entrepreneurial countries according to new research

Friday, December 6th, 2013
Photo credit; Paul Joseph on Flickr

Photo credit; Paul Joseph on Flickr

The majority of Australians are interested in having a go at entrepreneurship, according to a new global report into attitudes towards self-employment and entrepreneurship.

The 2013 Amway Global Entrepreneurship Report surveyed over 26,000 people across 24 countries and Australia had the third highest rate of positive sentiment towards entrepreneurship with 84% of respondents. That was 3% behind world leaders Finland and Denmark and 14% above the international average.

The study found the leading reason for pursuing entrepreneurship was independence and the opportunity to be one’s own boss. In Australia, 62% of respondents listed those as key attractions.

Pro-entrepreneurial spirit was especially high among Generation Y respondents, with 83% saying they were keen to become their own bosses.

Fear of failure was cited by two thirds of the respondents globally as an obstacle to starting their own business with just over half of Australian respondents (53%) reporting it as an issue.

For Australians reporting a fear of failure as an obstacle to launching a business, the leading concerns were financial burdens up to bankruptcy (38%), threat of an economic crisis (20%), threat of unemployment (15%) and legal consequences such as lawsuits (12%).

Online wine retailer takes home the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award for 2013

Wednesday, December 4th, 2013
Photo credit; Uncalno Tekno on Flickr

Photo credit; Uncalno Tekno on Flickr

Vinomofo, an online wine retailer with revenue growth of 1,723% over the past three years has taken home the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award for 2013.

Co-founder and CEO Andre Eikmeier said the award is recognition of the “impact of a million decisions we’ve made, and the traction in the marketplace. Since we’ve grown profitably, rather than simply pumped capital into marketing dollars to ‘buy’ our growth, it’s something we’ve very proud of. For us, our customers and suppliers aren’t just transacting with us; they have to a large degree invested in our journey. They believe in us, and have championed us from start-up.”

Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 leader Joshua Tanchel said in a statement that Vinomofo’s innovative customer relationship model and its use of social media to enhance consumer engagement contributed to the business’s success.

“Vinomofo has disrupted and redefined the ultra-competitive online wine market since its launch three years ago. They have pioneered a content driven approach that has been a real hit for consumers, helping to break down barriers and open up new channels to market by working directly with wine producers.”

The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Program ranks 50 of Australia’s fastest growing public and private technology companies, based on percentage revenue growth over three years (2011 to 2013).

Total revenue for this year’s Fast 50 winners was approximately $1.7 billion. Average three-year revenue growth for this year’s winners was 222%.

Melbourne-based online foreign exchange broker Pepperstone, which was founded in 2010, won the Rising Star Award, which recognises companies with strong growth potential that do not qualify for the Technology Fast 50 list, either because they don’t have revenue data for three years or they don’t meet the $8 million income threshold to take part in the Technology Fast 50 program.

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Cybercrime still huge concern for Australian businesses

Friday, November 29th, 2013
Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

Business standards company BSI says still too many Australian companies aren’t taking cyber attacks seriously.

 BSI recently revised its Information Security ISO and the 2013 revision by BSI of the international standard organisation’s (ISO), ISO 27001 Information Security, combined with the launch of Star Certification for Cloud security providers represents a comprehensive rethink of the organisation’s approach in addressing cyber security.

BSI’s CEO, Howard Kerr, said that ISO 27001 is one of the fastest growing management systems globally, and the 2013 revision of the standard will assist businesses of all sizes to address cyber security threats.

“The challenges currently faced are quite phenomenal and with the introduction of the cloud, these issues potentially impact the whole supply chain,” he said.

According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report 2013 the risk of a cyber attack on any business has risen by 250% since 2010.

As ARN reported back in October Cyber crime costs Australians $1.06 billion, cyber crime cost Australian business $1.06bn in the last year, and affected 5 million people.

Businesses are now doubling their data every 1-2 years, which puts a strain on company infrastructure, and the employees that administer it. Plus, the move to Cloud computing has seen more and more companies putting commercially sensitive information outside the physical company premises – and into the unknown.

Kerr also cautioned that, with the rise of mobility and BYOD, these more flexible forms of working are producing even more security hazards.

“All of these developments are making information security increasingly difficult to manage with threats are growing in sophistication and impact and greater penalties being imposed by regulators for breaches and the risks associated with reputational damage,” said Kerr.

BSI certifies more than 3500 clients in Australia.

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eWay partners with netsuite

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013
Photo credit; Neil Duncan, Deutsche Messe & CeBIT Australia on Flickr

Photo credit; Neil Duncan, Deutsche Messe & CeBIT Australia on Flickr

eWAY, a global online payment gateway provider based in Australia, has joined the NetSuite SuitePayments program to offer businesses greater payment options when using the NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform.

NetSuite said, in a news release, that by partnering with eWAY, it continues to open the door for more ecommerce, retail and wholesale distribution organisations to move their entire business to the cloud-based business management suite. This will help to improve operational efficiency of these organisations and offer their customers a richly interactive and friendly shopping experience.

Headquartered in Canberra, eWAY has processed over 80 million credit cards since it was started by CEO Matt Bullock. It now processes over $300 million per month for its rapidly growing customer base of more than 13,300 merchants in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and the UK.

“Time to go live to market is critical for any ecommerce business and any delays can be costly,” Bullock said. “By combining our leading payment gateway with the NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform, customers now have a solution to turn on online payments within days instead of weeks. Talking to the banks, gaining approvals and completing their forms is a painful process. As a one stop shop for merchants, eWAY makes this process much faster and easier.”

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Step-by-step guide to registering your own small business online

Friday, November 22nd, 2013
Photo credit; Midiman on Flickr

Photo credit; Midiman on Flickr

The Sydney Morning Herald recently published a step-by-step guide for who want to register their own small business online.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Decide on your business structure.

2. Apply for your Australian Business Number (ABN).

3. Check that your chosen business name is available.

4. Register your business name.

5. Register your website domain name.

Step 1: Decide on your business structure
When starting a business choose the business structure that best suits your needs.
Your business structure (aka applicant or entity type) refers to the way you will operate your business.
These include:
  • Sole trader: an individual trading on their own
  • Partnership: an association of people or entities running a business together, but not as a company
  • Trust: an entity that holds property or income for the benefit of others
  • Company: a legal entity separate from its shareholders.
You can change your business structure as your business grows.
Visit the Australian Taxation Office website for more information on each business structure.
Step 2: Applying for your Australian Business Number (ABN)
Your ABN is a unique number that allows you to identify your business to government and other businesses.
You can get your ABN online at the Australian Business Register.
Applying for an ABN is free and should take about 30 minutes.
Things you will need to provide:
  • your personal details
  • your business information
  • your associate details
  • reasons for your application
  • your business activity details and
  • a declaration that the information you have provided throughout the application is true.
Your new ABN will appear on the completed application screen and will be ready for you to use right away.
Step 3: Checking your chosen business name is available
You can check the availability of a business name online at the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) website.
To check if your proposed business name is available:
  1. Search business names register on the ASIC Connect website.
  2. From the drop down menu select ‘Check business name availability’.
  3. Enter the name you would like to search in the field below.
  4. Submit your search by pressing the ‘Go’ button.
If your name is not available, keep searching until you find one that isn’t claimed.
Step 4: Registering your business name
After you have found an available business name, register the name with the ASIC to secure it by:
  1. Going to the ASIC Connect website.
  2. Signing up to create an account with ASIC prior to beginning your application. Once you have your account you can begin the application.
  3. Completing the application. This should take you around 15-20 minutes to complete and at the end of the application you will receive confirmation that your chosen name has been registered.
Applying for a business name costs $33 AUD for one year or $76 for three years. Visit the ASIC website for more information on business name payments and fees.
Your business name is only your identification and registering it does not give you full rights over the name. You should trade mark your business name, too.
Step 5: Registering your website domain name
Your domain name is your website address on the internet and gives your business an online identity or brand for your customers.
When picking a website name it’s best to go with a name that:
  • represents your business
  • is easy to remember, pronounce and spell
  • is three syllables or less.
If you want to buy a .com.au or .net.au web address you will need to have an ABN.
To register your domain name go to the .au Domain Administration Ltd (.auDA) website for links to registrars and resellers, and to confirm current fees and options.

To read more about this story, click here.