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    Identifying, Creating and Using Your USP?
    What's your USP? Don't know, or worse still, you've never heard of it.USP is an acronym for Unique Selling Proposition. It's vital for every business to identify its inherent USP or if it can't identify it, to create it.If yours is a firm that sells gold coated widgets and there are NO other firms selling the same product, then you need not worry about your USP - you have one by default. The default being that you have a market monopoly. Provided the product is in demand, you can charge just about any price you like and you have no worries with competition. Your product is unique - that's your USP.But say your business is installing airconditioners and there are six other firms doing the same thing in your region. What's your USP? This is where it gets difficult. You don't have an inherent USP, so you need to create it. If the other firms provide the same range of airconditioners and prices are reasonably comparative,
    some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase

    Internet Marketing Models that Work
    Model #1 - The list building affiliate model.This is maybe the simplest yet most powerful internet marketing model you can use. In its most basic form it consists of a squeeze page that captures the name and email address of your prospect and adds it to your autoresponder then redirects them to an affiliate product sales page.The key in this strategy is to pre-sell the affiliate product on your squeeze page and in your autoresponder messages. Usually a soft sell works better. Once it’s set up you simply drive targeted web site traffic to it and track your conversion rates.Model #2 – The one time offer model.This model requires that you have a product or series of products that you have the rights to sell. You offer a free report on your squeeze page, add opt-ins to your autoresponder than redirect them to your one-time-offer page. Here you make a sales pitch for your product with a strong sense of urgency because the offer is a
    For online businesses with their main goal of selling products, shopping cart abandonment can mean the difference between profitability and loss. But since recent surveys suggest that less than 50% of retailers know their shopping cart abandonment rate, let’s review what it is and why it is important to know.

    What is “shopping cart abandonment”?

    Basically, shopping cart abandonment is when a visitor initiates your checkout process but leaves before completing their purchase.

    Why is it important to know?

    Industry publications report a 70% average shopping cart abandonment rate for the majority of retailers. Since, on average, websites convert visitors-to-sales at a rate of 1% to 2% then 98% to 99% of the visitors to your website leave without purchasing!

    These percentages identify an enormous improvement opportunity for online businesses.

    A Traditional Retail Example of Shopping Cart Abandonment.

    Let me illustrate shopping cart abandonment using a traditional department store.

    Imagine walking into your local department store to pick up a gift for a friend’s wedding.

    You find the three items you want but together the price exceeds your budget so you drop one of them and head with just two to the checkout counter.

    When you get close to the checkout counter, you grow frustrated with the long lines ahead. After a ten minute wait in line, the cashier asks you to complete a membership form before they will compete your purchase.

    The membership form requires your driver’s license information so you pull out your wallet while people behind you start huffing impatiently.

    As you register, you mind lingers about whether two items is just too much for your friend’s wedding gift. “I mean they only gave us one item for our wedding” you think. So you ask the cashier to remove one of the items.

    While ringing up your one item, the credit card reader fails. After the fourth swap by the cashier, you panic wandering if your card has just been charged four times.

    At this point you give up and leave the store empty handed. While storming out you wander if the department store up the street will make your purchase any easier.

    Know These Top Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

    This example is filled with some of the top reasons why visitors to your website may abandon their shopping carts. A recent study by Vividence Corporation, a Customer Experience Management company, reported the most significant reasons for Internet shopping cart abandonment are:

    • High shipping prices or long delivery times

    • Comparison shopping and browsing

    • Changed Mind

    • Total cost of items is too high

    • Checkout process is too long

    • Checkout requires too much personal information

    • Site requires registration before purchase

    • Site is unstable or unreliable

    • Checkout process is confusing

    Seven Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions for Your Online Business

    Although some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase,

    The Chinese Denim Market
    Under the MFA quota system, each supplier country poised to its limits on the volume of textiles and clothing that may be imported from each individual nation with which it trades. From about 60 different countries, U.S. quotas comprised of 2,400 products. It was anticipated that the removal of these quotas will mainly be advantageous to Chinese (and to a smaller amount to Indian) producers, who are capable to challenge their international competition due to its combination of an undervalued currency, low wages, and outright labor domination. In an incongruous twist, the majority of developing countries, who insisted on the phase-out of the MFA as resources to raise their exports of textiles and clothing to well-off countries, insisted on an extension of quotas or some other system that can assure them any share of prosperous country markets provided the projection of China's awesome supremacy. China, with the help of some other large developing countries,
    ite leave without purchasing!

    These percentages identify an enormous improvement opportunity for online businesses.

    A Traditional Retail Example of Shopping Cart Abandonment.

    Let me illustrate shopping cart abandonment using a traditional department store.

    Imagine walking into your local department store to pick up a gift for a friend’s wedding.

    You find the three items you want but together the price exceeds your budget so you drop one of them and head with just two to the checkout counter.

    When you get close to the checkout counter, you grow frustrated with the long lines ahead. After a ten minute wait in line, the cashier asks you to complete a membership form before they will compete your purchase.

    The membership form requires your driver’s license information so you pull out your wallet while people behind you start huffing impatiently.

    As you register, you mind lingers about whether two items is just too much for your friend’s wedding gift. “I mean they only gave us one item for our wedding” you think. So you ask the cashier to remove one of the items.

    While ringing up your one item, the credit card reader fails. After the fourth swap by the cashier, you panic wandering if your card has just been charged four times.

    At this point you give up and leave the store empty handed. While storming out you wander if the department store up the street will make your purchase any easier.

    Know These Top Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

    This example is filled with some of the top reasons why visitors to your website may abandon their shopping carts. A recent study by Vividence Corporation, a Customer Experience Management company, reported the most significant reasons for Internet shopping cart abandonment are:

    • High shipping prices or long delivery times

    • Comparison shopping and browsing

    • Changed Mind

    • Total cost of items is too high

    • Checkout process is too long

    • Checkout requires too much personal information

    • Site requires registration before purchase

    • Site is unstable or unreliable

    • Checkout process is confusing

    Seven Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions for Your Online Business

    Although some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase

    It's a Community Thing!
    You have this great website, you have sent out e-mails regarding your services, printed out hundreds of brochures which you have given to friends and relatives, but what you really need is to get people talking about what you offer. You know that if you can do that, people will recommend you to others and your client base will begin to grow. Sounds great, doesn't it? But how on earth do you get people talking?Two words: ONLINE COMMUNITYCommunities come in all shapes and sizes - from sharing coffee with neighbors over the garden fence to sharing ideas in an online chat room. Whatever the venue, building communities is integral to human existence and exchange.And for new businesses, a community can play a key role in customer relations, promotion, performance enhancement, sales, recruitment, profits... Online communities are a great way of finding out what your clients think of you and your ideas, building loyalty and providing top quali
    embership form requires your driver’s license information so you pull out your wallet while people behind you start huffing impatiently.

    As you register, you mind lingers about whether two items is just too much for your friend’s wedding gift. “I mean they only gave us one item for our wedding” you think. So you ask the cashier to remove one of the items.

    While ringing up your one item, the credit card reader fails. After the fourth swap by the cashier, you panic wandering if your card has just been charged four times.

    At this point you give up and leave the store empty handed. While storming out you wander if the department store up the street will make your purchase any easier.

    Know These Top Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

    This example is filled with some of the top reasons why visitors to your website may abandon their shopping carts. A recent study by Vividence Corporation, a Customer Experience Management company, reported the most significant reasons for Internet shopping cart abandonment are:

    • High shipping prices or long delivery times

    • Comparison shopping and browsing

    • Changed Mind

    • Total cost of items is too high

    • Checkout process is too long

    • Checkout requires too much personal information

    • Site requires registration before purchase

    • Site is unstable or unreliable

    • Checkout process is confusing

    Seven Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions for Your Online Business

    Although some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase

    Without Search Engine Optimisation Your Website Could be Lost
    Building a great internet site is a wonderful achievement. But it could also be a complete waste of your time and money unless potential clients can find it. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one way to ensure your site is seen in the most crowded marketplace ever conceived.So what is Search Engine Optimisation? To understand Search Engine Optimisation you must first consider how people actually look for – and eventually find - products and services on the web.Research shows that more than 80 per cent of the world’s 290 million internet users (10 million of them in Australia) use search engines to find what they’re after.There are many search engines available to consumers – the better known include Google and Yahoo! – but in general they all work the same way. Typically a person will enter a keyword or phrase into the search engine and immediately receive a list of recommended web pages.Internet users are impati
    andonment

    This example is filled with some of the top reasons why visitors to your website may abandon their shopping carts. A recent study by Vividence Corporation, a Customer Experience Management company, reported the most significant reasons for Internet shopping cart abandonment are:

    • High shipping prices or long delivery times

    • Comparison shopping and browsing

    • Changed Mind

    • Total cost of items is too high

    • Checkout process is too long

    • Checkout requires too much personal information

    • Site requires registration before purchase

    • Site is unstable or unreliable

    • Checkout process is confusing

    Seven Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions for Your Online Business

    Although some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase

    Opt In Direct Email Marketing – How to Succeed
    Opt In Direct Email Marketing – How to SucceedOpt in direct email marketing is the action of using email marketing to its fullest, directly contacting willing subscribers who have opted in to your email list at some time in the past.Opt in direct email marketing is probably one of the best ways to create a long term income online, and I think that sometimes new marketers start building their list far too late in the game because they are too interested in making the quick buck. It takes a few months generally to start making much money online anyway, so you might as well do it right from the very beginning.So how to you use opt in direct email marketing to become wildly successful online?1) Put an opt in email box on every web page you have2) Create a squeeze page (a web page designed just to collect email addresses and names via an opt in email box) and use it for all your marketing3) Learn to write opt in ema
    some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

    1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

    Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

    After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase, you can pre-fill the information (or request less of it). This enhancement removes the visitor’s buying barriers and enables them to perceive the registration as a value-added customer benefit.

    2. Show shipping costs and other costs (i.e. applicable taxes)

    Show the visitor all costs associated with their product purchase either in the first step of the checkout process or even in the product description. If you offer multiple shipping methods then default the shipping cost to the most popular one. If you apply taxes for certain States then communicate this early in the checkout process. Sometimes, retailers it is relevant for their market to ask a visitor for their zip code which can be used for calculating tax.

    3. Build Confidence and Trust Throughout the Checkout Process

    Place your guarantee, return, privacy, delivery, customer service and security policies in visible and relevant areas throughout the entire checkout process. Adding the policies at the very bottom of the web page is not effective since you are causing your visitor to search for it. Add the individual policies next to the information field or line item where it is most relevant to the visitor.

    For example, add the privacy policy next to the email address field in the checkout process and add the delivery and return policy next to the shipping cost line item. In addition, add your security policy next to the “checkout” button.

    Also, add your physical address and other contact information at the bottom of every web page. Usability studies suggest adding an “About Us” and “Contact Us” links to your navigational structure to build confidence and trust as well.

    4. Add a progress indicator on each checkout page

    Is it important to let visitors know how many steps are in your checkout process and to show progress as thy work through it. A progress indicator is commonly located at the top of the checkout pages and is clearly numbered with the current step highlighted.

    Make sure that you provide visitors the opportunity to review what they did in previous steps without erasing the information they had already entered.

    If a visitor enters information incorrectly or forgets a required field, have your checkout process remember their correct information and identify the missing information clearly. Do not make people repeat an entire step because of a missing field.

    Surprisingly, the number of steps in your checkout process may not have a significant effect on your visitors’ commitment to purchase. Although for many businesses, a two to three step checkout process is ideal.

    5. Provide purchase options

    Offer your visitors the opportunity to call a 1-800 number for customer support or online chat like LivePersonTM (www.liveperson.com) during your checkout process.

    Visitors may be uncomfortable with completing a purchase online or become confused during checkout so clearly present your 1-800 number and/or online chat support link on every

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