Archive for the ‘selling online’ Category

David Jones online sales up 1,000%

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013
1000 - Miguel

Photo credit; Miguel on Flickr

While sales growth for David Jones is flat-lining, its online sales increased by more than 1,000% in the first quarter of this financial year just ended.

Compare that to total sales revenue of $424.2 million, up just 2.1 per cent.

David Jones didn’t put a dollar figure to the online sales.

The key takeouts from the quarterly David Jones report:

* New South Wales and Victoria stores are the strongest for sales.

* Online sales up more than 1,000 per cent in the quarter. Its relaunched webstore is 12 months old next week.

* Total Sales up 2.1 per cent to $424.2 million from the same quarter the previous year of $415.6 million.

* Like for Like Sales down 0.3% to $414.2 million from $415.6 million.

* Sales were up 0.6 per cent excluding the disruption impact of the Canberra Centre store
refurbishment

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CEO of eWay vows to drag Aussie businesses to ecommerce, even if they are kicking and screaming

Monday, November 18th, 2013
Illustration credit; Tsahi Levent-Levi on Flickr

Illustration credit; Tsahi Levent-Levi on Flickr

The CEO of Australian online payment gateway provider eWay has taken it upon himself to try and coax more Australian businesses to embrace ecommerce by dramatically overhauling the speed at which businesses can gain a merchant account and get paid after transacting.

“We are going to change the speed of how long it takes to get a merchant account. Right now, if you try to get a merchant account, it takes four weeks, six weeks, six months,” eWay CEO and founder Matt Bullock says. “We are pushing it down to four days, and then we will change that down to four hours next year, then eventually get that down to nought hours. That is by getting rid of a whole bunch of banking processes which are busted, and us fixing them and doing them properly.”

The increased speed comes at a price: 2.2 percent and AU$0.30 per transaction, and an AU$25 per month fee. However, that also includes 24/7 support, which banks don’t offer.

Bullock says the higher cost won’t deter merchants, as they are more concerned with the issue of the time taken to get online, get trading, and get paid.

“You talk to the [payment] gateway [company], they say, ‘go away and talk to a bank’,” Bullock says. “You talk to the bank, and that is a long and painful process; sometimes you finish through it and sometimes you don’t. We’re saying, ‘talk to us, you don’t need to talk to your bank. We will do it all and we’ll do it quicker than the banks have ever done it before.’”

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CMS Critic gives you 10 reasons to embrace WooCommerce for your online startup

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

 

Photo credit; SEOPlanter on Flickr

Photo credit; SEOPlanter on Flickr

CMS Critic has published its 10 reasons why people thinking of creating an online store should think about using WooCommerce.

Kaya Ismail, who wrote the piece, says you’d be hard-pressed to find a similar plugin which holds the same level of potential as WooCommerce.

WooCommerce now supports a sizeable slice of the ever-growing ecommerce pie, with over 1.6M downloads from around the world.

The open-source platform provides users with a feature extensive, yet hugely user-friendly experience, making it perfect for ecommerce startups to get a feel for online business in a way which is easy to digest, and doesn’t cost too much money.

CMS Critic’s reasons to check out WooCommerce for online startups:

1. It’s Free

Despite being free and open-source, WooCommerce offers extensive features out of the box, whilst also being extremely flexible both by nature, and via the additional of extensions.

2. Huge Flexibility

Merchants using the platform can exercise a whole lot of flexibility with their products, without having to know too much about the technical side of things.

3. More Than Ecommerce

WooCommerce doesn’t force users to go beyond their comfort zone when building their online store, yet at the same time, it readily opens the door for more than just ecommerce.

For example, WooCommerce users can build a fully functioning store within a professional website, alongside an integrated blog.

4. Familiar Friendliness

With WooCommerce being a WordPress plugin, past users of the platform will benefit from being able to recognize the user-friendly WordPress interface. That kind of familiarity when building an online store could easily save time and confusion, whilst bolstering creativity.

5. Vast Customization Options

Currently, users can choose between 39 different WooCommerce enabled themes. Once a theme has been selected, you can then get to work on changing pre-set CSS styles and colour themes, tweaking the code and experimenting with the special features which each theme offers.

6. Professional Yet Simple

Built into the platform can be found detailed order tracking and customer engagement tools, which allow merchants to view past and open orders, update delivery statuses, apply discounts and so forth. Pretty much everything else you need for a professional ecommerce setup, is part of WooCommerce, right out of the box.

7. Analytics Made Easy

The built in analytics system makes a wide array of statistics crystal clear. Figures like total sales, sales by date, average order totals, individual customer statistics and much more are all neatly presented via graphs, without the user ever having to leave their admin panel.

8. Apps Galore

There are hundreds of WooCommerce Extensions available, some of which are free, and some of which require a fee. From these extensions, one can find applications relating to accounting, payment gateways, marketing, reporting and more.

9. Room For Growth

As simple as WooCommerce is as an ecommerce platform, it also allows you to exercise some growth and expansion in terms of how you manage your store, products and customers.

10. Because WooThemes

They  have a wonderful track record of being reliable and exceedingly professional with both their products, and their support system. On top of a myriad of real, contactable people to talk to, WooThemes users can benefit from community forums, video tutorials, and more.

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Harvey Norman is late to the online party, but a welcomed guest nonetheless

Friday, November 8th, 2013
Photo credit; Nicolas Nova on Flickr

Photo credit; Nicolas Nova on Flickr

Harvey Norman has moved from confrontation to convert when it comes to online sales.

The retailer’s executive chairman Gerry Harvey famously described internet retail as “a lot of crap” in 1999 and was skeptical about it even as recently as 2006.

In November 2011 Harvey Norman finally joined the 21st Century and launched a website  that now accounts for 2% of group sales and is reporting annualised growth of more than 100% as sales from the Australian business overall have fallen for six of the past eight quarters.

“We were a little bit behind but we’re catching up,” says Gary Wheelhouse, Harvey Norman head of digital. Harvey Norman was so behind, in fact, that Wheelhouse’s job title didn’t even exist three years ago.

But he agrees with the prediction of Myer boss Bernie Brookes that Australia will follow the US and British markets, where big department stores such as Nordstrom and John Lewis are the biggest players in the online sector.

“Pure plays are great but one of the challenges that they have which we don’t is having inventory close to where customers are, and that’s really driving a lot of our thoughts on development,” Wheelhouse says.

“Very few online retailers would be able to get a camera to a customer in Karratha this afternoon, but we can because we have inventory in 170-odd locations across Australia. A lot of our products are about instant gratification — Lumia 1020 phones and Grand Theft Auto 5, people want it right now. That’s one of the big things driving our growth.”

The store network, mostly franchised outlets, are used as “click and collect” points for customers. The payoff for franchisees is that they have a chance to sell the customer picking up their online purchases something else — on that visit or in the future.

“We think of our store network as being our fulfilment partners, and click-and-collect customers buy more when they go into the store,” Wheelhouse says.

“It’s a local Harvey Norman customer, so sometimes they’re buying online and picking up in store, and other times they’re doing research online and then going into the store, so it works both ways. The benefits for franchisees are about servicing their local customer who is going to do the majority of their business with that store.”

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Survey shows majority of Australian businesses suffer from digital illiteracy

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Photo credit; Justin Marty on Flickr

Photo credit; Justin Marty on Flickr

A survey commissioned by PayPal Australia has found that 57 percent of local businesses identify as having such low levels of digital literacy that it is preventing the business from operating more efficiently.

The survey also found:

  • only 51 percent of respondents said they have tried to improve their digital skills.
  • only 26 percent of respondants were selling online
  • just over a third were listing the business contact details online,
  • 65 percent said that conducting business online is the key to growing.

The survey was conducted by Lonergan Research, which sampled 507 Australian businesses with less than 20 employees.

“Small businesses are a cornerstone of the Australian economy; it is vitally important that public and private sector unite to empower their ongoing success, ensuring that technology does not serve to disproportionately favour geographies, demographics, or industry sectors,” said Jeff Clementz, managing director of PayPal Australia.

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Regional Development Australia Southern Inland wants to boost Australian online business presence

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
Photo credit; Angela Thomas on Flickr

Photo credit; Angela Thomas on Flickr

Regional Development Australia Southern Inland aims to help local community organisations and small to medium businesses navigate their way around the internet and take advantage of high speed broadband with the Capital Digital Enterprise Program.

“The Australia Government has done research and the reason this program exists is because it showed that only 23% of Australian businesses have a proper online presence,” project officer Richard Everson said. “So 75% of businesses could do better online, there’s a huge potential there.”

The program will be delivered through a series of free weekly workshops facilitated by Three Sides Marketing as well as one-on-one mentoring sessions.

The two-hour workshops include topics such as:

  • creating a website
  • online marketing principles
  • e-commerce
  • online security, and
  • online business tools.

“There’s 16 workshops in total and we’ll run the circuit three times. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to attend workshops over the two years,” he said.

The program is designed for total novices to those who have already ventured into the online world.

Everson encouraged local community groups not just businesses to take advantage of the program which is scheduled to run until August 2015.

“Almost every single person in Queanbeyan belongs to a sporting group or a church group or a youth group or some sort of association. Don’t think just because it’s technology, it has to be a business,” he said.

“Sporting groups can run a website, send text messages to their players if the game’s cancelled, things like that.

“There’s something for everybody.”

An Introduction to the Capital Region Digital Enterprise Program will be held on Tuesday, November 5 at the Airport International Hotel from 5.30 – 7.30pm. Workshops will be held every Tuesday after that. For more information or to book, visit www.crde.com.au.

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Australia’s top entrepreneurs share the best piece of business advice they’ve ever received

Friday, November 1st, 2013
Photo credit; Laughlin Elkind on Flickr

Photo credit; Laughlin Elkind on Flickr

Australia’s greatest entrepreneurs recently shared the best piece of business advice they’ve ever received with StartUpSmart.com. Here is the rundown.

1. Michael Fox – co-founder of Shoes of PreyKeep focused on one core product

His favourite piece of advice came from investors Mike Cannon-Brookes, (of Atlassian), and David Cunningham: “Keep focused on the one core product; don’t try to do more until you’ve nailed that.”

2. Dean Taylor – owner of online wine selling site Cracka Wines – Always have a back-up plan

His favourite piece of advice is a crucial one for business owners, who always need to be prepared with a back-up plan.

Never walk into a room that you can’t walk out of,” he says.

“The person who said it to me was Brett Chenoweth, an old friend and the former CEO of APN. He swears by it,” Taylor says.

3. Mick Liubinskas — Pollenizer founder – Run the numbers

When Liubinskas enjoyed a short stint at IBM, he met a friend — Kurt Bilderback — who told him to “always run the numbers”.

“Mick, you’ve got to run the numbers. Always. Not to get answers, but to know what the questions should be.”

4. Gabby LeibovichThe difference between success and failure

Leibovich said his favourite piece of advice was actually something he received just a couple of weeks ago from retail entrepreneur Joe Segal:“The problem with people is not that they aim too high and fail, but that they aim too low and succeed.”

5. Gary Ng — manager of E-Web Marketing, a digital agency which has won several BRW “Best Place to Work” awards — Get rid of the rules

His favourite piece of advice was provided to him by his mentor, Anthony Robbins: “The more rules you have about how people have to be, how life has to be for you to be happy, the less happy you’re going to be.”

6. Bruce Billson — Australia’s Small Business Minister — Get to work

His favourite piece of advice actually comes from Jason Gehrke, franchising expert: “For every $1000 you plan to invest in your business spend an hour of due diligence, planning and working out how you can profitably engage your customers.”

 7. Dave Slutzkin — head of website marketplace Flippa –  Listen to your customers

His favourite is a mantra for good customer service — although he can’t quite remember who told him the proverb.

“Customers have your best ideas,” he says.

8. John Winning — head of Appliances Online — Control the supply chain

Winning’s favourite piece of business advice actually comes from his grandfather:

“You can’t control what you sell something for; all you can control is what you buy something for. The market controls the sell price, so the only thing you can control is the supplier relationship and this will help you remain competitive.”

9. Andre Eikmeier — Co-founder of Vinomofo — Be careful what you spend money on

His favourite piece of advice comes from his “biggest inspiration”, entrepreneur Seth Godin.

“Don’t spend your resources on ‘customer acquisition’,” he says.

10. Tristan White — Founder of aged healthcare business The Physio Co. — Don’t try to do too much at once

His best piece of advice comes from George Nadaff, the founder of the American fast food chain Boston Market: “You can’t sit on two toilets.”

11. Naomi Simson — Head of ‘experiences’ retailer RedBalloon — It’s in your control

This proverb comes from a colleague who attended a presentation.

“If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me,” she says.

12. Jacqueline Arias — Founder of Republica Coffee — Your products aren’t special

Her favourite piece of advice comes from Carolyn Cresswell, who founded Carman’s — one of Australia’s other food-based success stories.

“Stop believing that your products are special, and start playing the very best game you can play.”

13. Dean Ramler — Founder of online furniture business Milan Direct — Details matter

His best piece of advice comes from his grandfather, who also worked in the furniture trade.

There is no such thing as a detail too minor!”

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One Cent Flights & Wines take off

Wednesday, October 30th, 2013
Photo credit; Ben Hosking on Flickr

Photo credit; Ben Hosking on Flickr

After filling niches in the emerging group buying marketplace and giving a new twist to the classic auction website, cousins and co-founders Matt and Elliott Donazzan’s pay-to-bid auction sites are now bringing in over $100,000 per month in revenue.

One Cent Flights and One Cent Wines allow users to bid on flights and wine, respectively, for lower prices. The sites put a new twist on the auction site by charging people for bids.

And the sites have taken off so much, the two entrepreneurs have sent their wine and travel company partners significant volumes of traffic.

The Donazzans have hit on a workable model and they’ve recently launched a fundraising round to raise between $1 million and $5 million.

“A year ago we were a little start-up, and we’re not a massive business yet, but we’re a niche database player that is getting some success at an early stage,” Donazzan says.

He says their database is currently at just over 200,000 users, and they’re growing by 10,000 a month. They’re aiming to get to two million users in the next 12 to 24 months.

One Cent Flights launched in August 2012. The idea emerged from gaps they kept spotting as Matt was exploring group buying sites and Elliott was running his own eBay business.

“We thought if we focused on specific product niches that people really wanted rather than the broad approach of group buying sites, we could build something big,” Donazzan says. “We launched with flights because we noticed the other pay to bid sites were focused on male-centric products. So we saw a big untapped opportunity with online businesses only ignoring a big part of society and consumers,” he says. “We did a whole bunch of focus groups, and the topic that came up again and again was travel.”

He describes their model of seeking a customer first and then creating a product for them has worked well for their rapid growth.

They expanded into wines after it was the lead product identified by focus groups with another market they believed was overlooked by group buying sites, men over 35.

With plans to expand internationally, primarily into South East Asia, Donazzan says the funds they’re raising will go towards expanding their team of five.

To read more on this story, click here.

Well-known online entrepreneur shares 10 signs that an internet company will fail

Monday, October 28th, 2013
Photo credit; Nima Badiey on Flickr

Photo credit; Nima Badiey on Flickr

Australian internet entrepreneur Fred Schebesta,  who founded online comparison website finder.com.au and is also a StartupSmart mentor, has put together a list of the signs he says show that an internet company is likely to fail.

Here are Schebesta’s 10 indicators that an internet company is set for failure:

1. The owner expects it to go viral

“The most successful viral campaigns out there are for brands that have already established themselves in the market and have an existing following. Viral campaigns drive brand awareness not sales and should support a core marketing strategy, not the other way round.”

2. The chosen idea adds to an already ‘successful’ core product

“A product that adds value to another successful idea can thrive in the beginning however, when the existing product fails or its owner decides that they can create that add-on even better, this business becomes redundant.”

3. The product is good but could easily operate as a free service

“I’ve watched entrepreneurs crumble as larger businesses swoop in and offer a similar service for free. Remarkably I’ve also watched as others try to establish a paid service when it’s already available at no cost to the consumer! It’s not a good idea if money can’t be made from it.”

4. It’s a faceless business

“Brands that are non-personable scream out to customers that they’re money-making schemes. Customers need someone to talk to when things go wrong, otherwise frustrations can kill a good reputation.”

5. The owner has picked a business where others continuously fail

“Two words — group buying. Why do businesses keep trying to establish in this dying market, especially when it’s dominated by a handful of larger businesses? Too often I see business owners who are too proud to change an idea or enter a different market, sometimes you just have to go back to the drawing board.”

6. There is no differentiation to well-established competitors

“Think realestate.com.au or Seek.com.au — they operate so well in the market that smaller competitors don’t stand a chance. When an entrepreneur thinks they have a differentiation, they need to question how long it would be before their largest competitor also incorporates this idea.”

7. The business can’t be explained to a 12-year-old

Over-complicated ideas result in users switching off completely. If a 12-year-old doesn’t understand a product then I say don’t bother taking it any further.”

8. It’s for a niche market, not the mass market

“Australia is already a tiny market to operate in and those businesses with a niche idea are narrowing their success even further. When an idea becomes too specific consumers feel alienated and lose interest.”

9. eBay, Google or Facebook are its biggest competitors

“I am flooded with requests each month from the ‘budding’ Mark Zuckerberg. You are not the next social network. That ship has sailed, now we need to move on.”

10. The owner is trying to find new industries or customer problems to solve

“If a product doesn’t solve an obvious problem or make a customer have an ‘Aha!’ moment then it shouldn’t exist. If there are existing solutions to problems that an entrepreneur is trying to compete then they need to innovate in a whole new way to get audiences on board.”

To read more on this story, click here.

Australian entrepreneurs work long hours on their businesses

Friday, October 25th, 2013
Photo credit; Pavel Medzyun on Flickr

Photo credit; Pavel Medzyun on Flickr

SmartCompany’s annual Smart50, the website’s list of the 50 fastest growing companies in Australia, includes some of the hardest working people in the country.

SmartCompany asked some of the many entrepreneurs featured on the list how many hours they put into their businesses and the answers skewed toward long hours.

More than half (52%) of entrepreneurs in the Smart50 for 2013 worked more than 56 hours a week. A full 10% worked more than 70. Three founders said they put more than 75 hours a week into their business.

Ruslan Kogan, founder and CEO of Kogan, told LeadingCompany last year that he hadn’t had a holiday in seven years.

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