Ebay Tests Digital 24-Hour Shopping Windows in Brick and Mortar Storefronts |  |
- Ebay Tests Digital 24-Hour Shopping Windows in Brick and Mortar Storefronts
- 5 Reasons Why Signs Work For Your Small Business
- The Rumors Are True, Facebook Gets Hashtags
- Time is Money: Are You and Your Employees Effectively Managing It?
- IBM Acquires SoftLayer: Will Small Biz Hosting Remain?
- QuickBooks Online Tips from CPAs Who Know
| Ebay Tests Digital 24-Hour Shopping Windows in Brick and Mortar Storefronts Posted: 13 Jun 2013 02:00 AM PDT
Retailers looking to sell more merchandise may not need more physical space to do it. They may soon be able to extend the boundaries of their brick-and-mortar shops with large digital screens — if an eBay test proves viable. Ebay is introducing “24-hour window shops” in certain areas of New York City. The “window shops” are actually touchscreens measuring 9 feet across and 2 feet high. They allow customers to purchase products a physical retail store may not have in stock. They will also be used to allow purchases after store hours. And they can be used in vacant storefronts or other locations, to extend the physical boundaries of brick and mortar retailers. In fact, the test run for the new windows includes four screens in front of closed stores located in busy parts of New York City’s Soho and lower east side. That test run began last week and will continue through July 7, Reuters reports. Ebay partnered with Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc. for the beta run of its new shoppable windows venture. The digital store windows will allow the clothing retailer to launch its new Kate Spade Saturday fashion brand without initially opening additional physical retail stores. “This ability for consumers to shop not only online and offline, but also locally and globally, is why eBay Inc. is particularly excited about its latest shopping innovation. With our partners at Kate Spade Saturday, we are launching four 24-hour Window Shops in Manhattan,” announced the official eBay blog. Ebay will sell 30 items from the new fashion line via this 24-hour shopping technology, during the test period. The experience is more like shopping at a physical location than shopping online in another way too: immediacy. Purchases are delivered to customers by courier within the hour with payment managed through PayPal Here, a mobile payment service developed by Ebay. Opportunities may be available for other retailers to take part in Ebay’s new “shoppable windows” venture once it passes the testing phase. Steve Yankovich, vice president of innovation and new ventures at eBay told Julie Strickland of Inc.com the best approach for businesses interested in trying the platform is to adopt PayPal technology since that’s the method “shoppable windows” will use to make sales. Image: eBay The post Ebay Tests Digital 24-Hour Shopping Windows in Brick and Mortar Storefronts appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 5 Reasons Why Signs Work For Your Small Business Posted: 12 Jun 2013 04:00 PM PDT
In a square mile radius in Germantown, Maryland are about 6 Asian grocery stores. Yet I visited the one store whose location was way off the main road and was difficult to find. I saw a sign for the business in another Asian grocery store and knew that they stocked goat meat, which is a delicacy for meat eaters from the Indian sub-continent. I can’t tell you how many countless times I have used a new business based on their business signs. Business signs work – and here’s why. 5 Reasons Why Business Signs WorkLocationFor a brick and mortar small business your sign is important as it acts like a guidepost to guide customers to your place of business and attract the attention of new customers. If you are a new business, people driving by will be attracted to stop in and try your business. People moving to the area look for local businesses that they can start visiting. Brand PromiseA sign should always be neat and bright and should convey the promise of your brand, convey the high standards of your business, your differentiation. A sign board that is damaged or smudged may fail to convey your brand.
Special OccasionsIn the photo above, SXSW is a large event in downtown Austin and this small business is attracting event attendees walking by. Find local events and community gatherings like parades to create awareness for your business CompetitionWhen Groupon rented ad space outside Living Social’s offices in downtown Washington, D.C. it created some buzz. You see these signs often on highways advertising restaurants or gas stations just a few miles ahead of an exit ramp. Signage is important in a high traffic location as overflow traffic from other places can find your business and make an impromptu decision to use your business. Online-Offline ConnectionTake a look at the picture at the very top of this post from an Irish pub in the Cleveland Park area of Washington, D.C. that advertises their Facebook page. Adding your website url to your sign is a good idea for people who don’t have time to stop and can check you out later. Adding a QR code is a good idea if your sign can be scanned easily. In photos of your business on your website, it may be a good idea to include pictures of your businesses physical location, signage and neighborhood. So that when people visit, they are already familiar with how the business and surroundings look. More and more people are finding your business online, but that is only half the story. If you have a great location, you can also appeal to new people who are walking past your business every day. Do you have a success story about using signs for your business? The post 5 Reasons Why Signs Work For Your Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| The Rumors Are True, Facebook Gets Hashtags Posted: 12 Jun 2013 01:30 PM PDT
The rumors are true. Facebook is rolling out hashtags and now, a Facebook hashtag truly does exist as the social media giant officially announced the new feature after months of speculation. Back in March, we reported on rumors already swirling that Facebook was considering adding Facebook hashtags, a feature often associated with social media rival Twitter, as a way to tie together social conversations on a particular topic. In a post on the official Facebook Newsroom blog, Facebook Product Manager Greg Lindley wrote:
Reactions to the news on the social site where hashtags are already king, Twitter, were mixed as news broke:
Lindley said users on the social media site can now:
Lindley also hinted Facebook hashtags were only the first in a series of new features planned on Facebook in the next few weeks and months. Those new features will include “trending hashtags” and other insights to help users keep track of trending conversations on the social media networking giant. More details on using the new Facebook hashtag feature are located on the Facebook Help Page. Image: Facebook The post The Rumors Are True, Facebook Gets Hashtags appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Time is Money: Are You and Your Employees Effectively Managing It? Posted: 12 Jun 2013 11:00 AM PDT
As a small business owner, you already keep close track of your company's resources, including capital, employees and facilities. But what about employees' time? Time is difficult to quantify and track, and as such, many small business owners mistakenly treat time as if it were a limitless resource. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. A recent study by McKinsey found that only 9% of executives were "very satisfied" with how employees' time was currently allocated. In addition, almost half of executives said that their current time allocation didn't align with the company's objectives. And the average office worker can tell you that far too much company time is spent on trivial tasks, such as responding to emails and attending non-essential meetings. Effective time management is critical to the productivity and profitability of your business. So, how can businesses improve time management? It isn't as easy as just telling employees to use their time more effectively. Instead, the leadership team needs to build a corporate culture that actively supports effective time management across the whole organization. A Culture That Supports Effectively Managing TimeEmployee PrivacyMultitasking is a major buzzword in the business world. Employees are expected to be able to effectively juggle multiple tasks at once. So managers fill their work hours with various projects, meetings and corporate activities. However, studies are increasingly proving that multitasking is ineffective. In fact, Stanford researchers proved that multitaskers have poor organizational skills, are easily distracted and often lack focus. If multitasking isn't the key to effective time management, then what is? The answer is flow. As defined by author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow occurs when you enter a state of intense and effortless concentration on the task at hand. It is often referred to as "being in the zone," and employees are far more productive while in this state than at any other time. To improve productivity, employers should do everything they can to keep employees in flow mode. This means fostering a corporate environment of silence and privacy. Whenever possible, managers should avoid burdening their employees with multiple tasks or distracting them with unnecessary emails and phone calls. Many employees also benefit from having private offices, rather than working in noisy cubicle farms. Fewer, More Effective MeetingsOne of the biggest scourges to effective time management is the corporate meeting. The average meeting takes up valuable time and interrupts the employee flow-mode, while generating very little in the way of meaningful results. According to a Microsoft survey, ineffective meetings are among the top time wasters in the average work week. Additionally, employees spend almost six hours each week in meetings, and 69% of employees feel like these meetings are unproductive. To better manage company time, executives should only schedule meetings that are absolutely necessary. Meetings should have a specific purpose: To make a decision or solve a problem. There should be a detailed agenda of issues to be discussed and in what order, and the amount of time allotted to each. If a meeting is only designed to impart information, consider sending out an email instead. Many meetings can also be made optional, so if an employee is in that critical flow mode, he or she can opt out of the interruption. Time TrackingEvery executive knows that in order for a company to move forward, there needs to be a clearly defined set of objectives and goals for the future. However, just laying out these objectives isn't enough. Too often, executives and their employees become mired in day-to-day tasks and never find the time to advance long-term goals. This is where integrated, electronic time tracking comes in. Effective electronic time tracking systems should capture costs as well as the time spent for each individual employee and project, and then integrate this information into a comprehensive view of company time allocation. In this way, you can determine whether your company's current time allocation aligns with your company objectives. As with any resource, correctly allocating time will reduce waste and facilitate company growth. Peter Druckers, the legendary management consultant, once said:
In the business world, time is precious. It is in every employer's best interest to promote a corporate culture that measures, manages and values it. Unproductive Meeting Photo via Shutterstock The post Time is Money: Are You and Your Employees Effectively Managing It? appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| IBM Acquires SoftLayer: Will Small Biz Hosting Remain? Posted: 12 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT
IBM is acquiring SoftLayer Technologies, a company specializing in hosting and cloud infrastructure. The deal is in the $2 billion range. SoftLayer, based in Dallas, Texas, claims to be the world's largest privately held hosting company. It has 25,000 customers, many of them large customers like AT&T. GI Partners purchased the equity in partnership with the company's management in August 2010. According to a Reuters report, IBM plans to "create a new division for clients interested in so-called cloud services, a move to better compete with larger rivals in the space." Senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services Erich Clementi says the acquisition is aimed at serving larger clients. "As businesses add public cloud capabilities to their on-premise IT systems, they need enterprise-grade reliability, security and management. To address this opportunity, IBM has built a portfolio of high-value private, public and hybrid cloud offerings, as well as software-as-a-service business solutions," said Clementi in the official announcement. "With SoftLayer, IBM will accelerate the build-out of our public cloud infrastructure to give clients the broadest choice of cloud offerings to drive business innovation." But What About Small Business Customers?However, our own experience shows how small businesses needing to scale growth may benefit from the resources IBM and SoftLayer together bring to the table. It all depends, though, on IBM’s approach to smaller customers post-acquisition. It remains to be seen whether IBM will value small business customers or move away from them. SoftLayer is the hosting company for Small Business Trends (this publication) and certain of our cloud applications, such as BizSugar, and our proprietary Awards platforms. "I have to believe we're among the smaller customers," says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends. "So far that has suited us just fine. Over the years we've had a number of bad experiences with hosting companies whose target market is small businesses. Sure, they were inexpensive. But lack of responsive service and unreliability were key issues. We had one hosting company show us the door, because we needed service but the company was charging a cut rate and didn't want to spend any time on us. So for our larger sites we deliberately aimed up at a hosting provider used to serving larger customers, even though we paid a bit more. Service has been reliable, and we’ve had access to sophisticated monitoring tools." However, she notes, “We’re taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude as to the direction IBM takes the company in. Will they move away from standard hosting, especially for small businesses, to pursue their larger vision of cloud services for big enterprises? That’s an open question in my mind.” Lance Crosby, founder of SoftLayer, sent an email notice to existing customers saying it would be business as usual. We’ve embedded the text below – just remember that once the transaction is complete IBM will be calling the shots, not necessarily Crosby:
IBM Photo via Shutterstock The post IBM Acquires SoftLayer: Will Small Biz Hosting Remain? appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| QuickBooks Online Tips from CPAs Who Know Posted: 12 Jun 2013 05:00 AM PDT Sponsored Post If you’re a CPA, you know how time consuming it can be requesting data files from your clients. Bryce Forney is a CPA who uses Intuit’s QuickBooks Online Accountant to better serve his small business owner clients during tax season and throughout the year. Since all the data is stored in the cloud, he can get the data he needs at any moment without having to inconvenience his clients. Once you’ve gotten started using QuickBooks Online, what’s the first thing you need to do when looking for new clients? Get certified! Stacy Kildal, CPA, gives QuickBooks Online users some vital info on how to attract customers. Getting certified will get you listed at findaproadvisor.com, which ensures that potential clients will find you and feel secure that you know the product back to front. Hear from more accounting professionals about the benefits of the cloud and learn about timely accounting trends at: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntuitAcademy The post QuickBooks Online Tips from CPAs Who Know appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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