Economic Crisis
July Deficit: $181 Billion; Total for 2009: $1.3 Trillion ($1,300,000,000,000)
by Ed. on Aug.11, 2009, under Economic Crisis
The US annual budget deficit approached 3 times the highest annual deficit in the past. 2009 spending is now $1.3 TRILLION over 2009 revenues.
Wow. We’re just a little over halfway through the year.
One estimate predicts a deficit of $2.2 trillion by the end of the year.
The budget for the entire federal government in 2003 was $2.2 trillion, now we are well on track to borrow that same amount just for this year’s spending.
In 2008, the projected deficit for this year was expected to be “a record” $480 billion.
Obligatory ‘Twitter Down? Who Cares?’ Post
by Ed. on Aug.07, 2009, under Economic Crisis
Being noted everywhere. Twitter is down. Or was. The way it was last night, it will probably be up and down all day. DDOS attack they say.
Can anybody just wait petiently until it’s back up?
‘E-commerce Sours’ Headlines Misleading for Small Web Sites
by Ed. on Oct.25, 2008, under 800Cart, Economic Crisis
We’re seeing the headlines everywhere it seems, just like at internet.com: ” Flailing Economy Finally Sours E-Commerce Sales“ But the story goes on to say that 12% growth is still expected for online sales this season (the ’sours’ part is that we had 20% growth in this period last year).
But gas prices are down – something that occurred recently after the e-commerce talking heads prepared their pessimistic reports. Even in California where we write from, gas prices are way down, well below $3/gallon where we saw $5 gas just a few weeks ago. So household budgets may see some additional funds free up.
As we noted a few days ago , there is an opportunity here for online merchants who are trying to expand sales, while being careful with their marketing and promotional dollars. Combine this with the information we reported a few days ago that dollars are deserting the big online retailers and you have ‘opportunity’ spelled with a big O.
E-Commerce Despair Reports Are Misleading
by Ed. on Oct.19, 2008, under Economic Crisis, SEO
The headlines in times of crisis can be more than misleading. Witness Richard Waters’ headline at the Financial Times: “eCommerce on the ropes“.
Stop there and you may feel your small business is doomed.
But as those of us in the center of the business already know, Waters is talking about the big boys like eBay who have run into serious trouble. Sales are actually expanding for many smaller online merchants. Waters goes on to say that shoppers are searching out smaller e-merchants (like you) for better deals. They are searching a little deeper on search engines like Google and clicking on Adwords ads and on natural search engine results. The same revenue that used to go to eBay and the other big boys is coming looking for you.
As businesspeople, we often forget that one of the co-meanings of the word ‘crisis’ is the idea of ‘opportunity’. Indeed the chinese ideogram for ‘crisis’ is composed of two symbols: the first, of course, danger, the second, oppportunity. There is wisdom in remebering this!
My dad always said that if it’s raining soup, you should take your soup bowl and go stand under the cloud.
Where is the cloud? Where should we go stand? Well, as noted above, shoppers are indeed digging a little deeper to find the deals – they are examining natural search results a little more closely and they are looking at adwords ads more closely – and they are clicking! This means they are coming to see you, if your link is there.
The pool of shopper funds available to you has not dimnished all that much, and the greatest news is that these funds have deserted the big guys and are coming looking for you!
Is your link there?
We have 2 strong suggestions for you to make sure it is! Suggestions that will make sure that you are standing under the cloud where it is raining soup. Actually, it’s a 1-2 knockout punch for web marketing and ensuring your online success during difficult times. And ensuring that you will prosper when the difficult times pass.
ONE: If you are not using Google Adwords, yet, then use it! Even if you set a low ad budget like $50/month, Google will honor your budget and will not go over the spending limit that you set. And you only pay for clicks to your web site, so every penny you pay for a click delivers a shopper to your web site. If you have never used Google’s Adwords before, now is the time to start – with any budget – no matter how small.
TWO: Start working to raise your natural page rank and search engine returns. If you are an 800Cart customer, you have one great tool available to you – one that you can set up in 10 minutes – that will do more to promote your page rank than any other single action you can take. This action will yield results better than anthing you can do with weeks of continuous effort! This is to set up SEO and Suggestive Sell on the ‘SEO/Suggestive Sell’ page of your cart control panel.
What challenges or tough decisions do you face in this 10 minute setup for SEO/Suggestive Sell in your cart control panel? We worked hard to make sure that the answer is NONE! Here’s why:
1. The SEO/Suggestive Sell page in your cart control panel allows you to turn images OFF in your WebShowCase, so even if you have not uploaded product images yet, your product information can display without broken image symbols.
2. You only need to provide the SKUs for 3 of your most popular or most profitable products which will always be offered to your customers when they are in their cart. This helps build sales for you and is one of the key aspects of the SEO strategy built-in to the 800cart.
3. The crucial part that makes all this work, a link from your web site to your WebShowcase, can be done as a tiny picture of a secure lock which is unlikely to be clicked – if it is clicked, it leads to the Security/Privacy page of your cart, reassuring your shopper that purchasing from you is not only secure, but is PCI compliant, safe and private. A win for you no matter what!
Is prospering during the crisis worth spending an extra 10 minutes in your cart control panel to set up SEO/Suggestive Sell? We think most 800Cart merchants will agree with us that it is.
