know your business niche, give good service – ebusiness tips

Know your business niche and give good service are two tips from Melissa Norfolk, the author of the Australian and New Zealand edition of Starting an Online Business for Dummies.

More tips from Melissa and information about her book are here.

the Google cloud with the not-so silver lining

A glitch saw a small number of private Google Docs files stored on the net made public – and could put a big dent in people’s confidence in ‘cloud computing’, the National Business Review comments.

And we would have to agree at this stage. Huge potential for small businesses but not enough transparency or control around data security at this stage, especially considering it is the second reported glitch in Google’s service in only  a couple of months.

online advertising shows strength of online business

While traditional advertising revenues plummet, online advertising is holding up well, showing – I think – the strength of online business and shopping, the online environment’s ability to pull customers even in difficult times and, so, the need to keep your e-business humming!

The New Zealand Herald reported that interactive (online) advertising wound up 2008 with revenue up 43 per cent compared with 2007.

The result increases online’s big lead on outdoor advertising. And it takes it within striking distance of its ambitions to pass magazine advertising revenue later this year.

The Herald reported that advertising revenue from search and directories was the biggest growth area increasing 75 per cent from $34.1 million to $59.71 million. Display advertising grew from $42 million to $58.1 million.

And new figures from the Advertising Standards Authority show online has increased its share of advertising revenue from 5.8 per cent to 8 per cent.

make it easy for the customer and make it cheap

Some good lessons here for small online businesses from one of the superstars of online trading: Amazon is making healthy profits in hard times. Its motto: Make it easy for the customer and make it cheap.

As well as value, Amazon also offers convenience and greatly improved delivery times.

how to make money from online communities

A bunch of Kiwis have set up a growing online community (based to start with in England) around cycling for charity and have pulled some impressive sponsors on board who recognise the value of the community.

To build a self-supporting community, they recommend:

• Understanding the profile you’re helping your community members build – make it something they’re proud of.
• That every action in your community, is an opportunity to promote, add life and currency to your community.
• Knowing the goals of your community and the numbers or metrics that define your community’s success.

four web businesses amongst top Kiwi start-ups

To see what is hot in the e-business space right now, check out four of New Zealand’s top start-up companies for 2008 — four web businesses praised for their strong ideas and great execution.

Here’s an article explaining them, and below are links to their websites:

Bookhabit – an online book store with an innovative business model for self-publishers
Endemic world – an online design store for N ew Zealand products
Unimarket – an online (SaaS) multi-tenant eProcurement solution
Celsias – a website that helps people and organisations do practical things to combat climate change.

want to get into digital publishing?

Digital publishing – what is it about and how to get into it? Seminars in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch next month will explain all.

The Digital Publishing Forum will provide insight into what is happening internationally and in New Zealand, and guest speakers from the industry will explain what they do and how they do it.

The seminar is spookily well-timed! The newly launched e-book reader Kindle 2 (from Amazon) is getting heaps of positive press and looks set to be a huge seller, even more so than the Kindle 1. It could do for e-book sales what the iPod did for sales of online music.

E-books currently make up less than 1 percent of the total book market, so there’s tons of opportunity to get on board early in this sector and develop an innovative business model.

One company that has done this is New Zealand’s BookHabit, an online book store where writers can upload their own books to sell, and readers can download the first chapter for free.

nose-hair trimmer takes on the world!

We get excited when we hear of Kiwi businesses doing well online and using the interweb to take a product to the world.

After a bit of noseying around online recently, we came across a couple based in Taupo taking their Groom Mate Platinum XL nasal-hair trimmer global!

Selling millions of their product through Amazon, as well as from their website. Last year it was Amazon’s biggest selling personal care item.

And who would have thought – their customers seem to love talking online about the product.  Something as mundane as a nasal-hair trimmer is getting several hundred online comments from enthusiastic owners: Best nose job I’ve ever had, says a well-trimmed bloke from New Orleans.

Don’t turn your nose up at it: it’s a product any hairy bloke would want; and the power and reach of online marketing is making it a winner.

The National Business Review profiles the company behind the trimmer.

i wouldn’t bet the house on it

A bit of a lesson here, I guess, that not all innovative, genuine and smart ideas for online business will meet the ‘is-it-legal’ test:  take a look at the the idea and the the legal opinion.

online business models explained

A good, academic article here that explains in detail the different types of online business models.  Could be helpful for showing you what is possible online for your e-business.

And what is a business model? Well, as the article explains, “it’s the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself — that is, generate revenue. The business model spells-out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain.”