PC Security: Google Docs - latest tool for spam tricksters

Spammers have started to use Google Docs to deliver their unsolicited messages in a continued effort to circumvent spam filters, according to McAfee's spam researchers. Google Docs is Google's online rival to Microsoft's Word text processing application.

By hosting their message on legitimate sites such as Google Docs, spammers make it harder for anti-spam technology to block the messages.

As a result, the junk mail can slide under the radar of many e-mail filters.

In the Google Docs attacks spammers send a simple text e-mail that includes a link to a document hosted on the Google service. The Google document actually includes the spammy message, for example advertising medications, stocks or other items.

The Google Docs spam is similar to image hosting spam, whereby spammers use legitimate image hosting services to serve up their message.

The volume of Google Docs spam isn't very high. On a recent day McAfee Avert Labs' spam traps captured 517 spam e-mail messages that included links to Google Docs. Internet users should be aware that a link to any Web site, including Google Docs, could be malicious.

Spam poses a significant threat to businesses and consumers. Not only does unwanted e-mail clog inboxes and take up time, cybercrooks use spam to deliver malicious software or trick unsuspecting consumers into giving up personal information through phishing attacks.

McAfee's anti-spam technology currently detects and blocks the Google Docs spam.

More at: http://www.mcafee.com/

eCommerce: How to get the best out of suppliers, and profit from eBay

Jamie Hanton of SaleHoo spoke with Simon Slade, and offers advice on how all types of seller can profit from eBay

“At SaleHoo we've seen tens of thousands of people start eBay businesses and we've also seen a great many begin with unrealistic expectations of success. There seems to be a belief that buying wholesale goods and then selling them on eBay is a sort of ‘get rich quick’ scheme, where sellers can make enormous profits from very little investment or work.”

Slade says this misguided belief stems from the myth that finding a supplier with bargain basement prices is more important than developing a business strategy. The reality is that you need to invest time and thought into your eBay business.

Researching your intended market thoroughly is paramount to your success. Do you know how your market thinks? What problems do they have that you can solve? Which is a higher priority: price or quality? It is also crucial to spend time finding reliable suppliers and spend a bit of time thinking about which supply option will best suit your business: dropshippers, liquidators, and manufacturers as they each have pros and cons.

So before rushing off a huge order to the first supplier you find, stop a moment and make sure you’ve followed our steps to get the best out of your suppliers and make profits on eBay.

At the beginning: What are you going to sell?
Before you can start to look for a profitable supplier, you need to decide what to sell. Many people just look at what’s selling well in the market and go with that. This is certainly a potential strategy, but there is one major flaw: competitors. ‘Hot’ items are common knowledge and you’ll most likely be up against some heavy-weight competition – including Department Stores! Not surprisingly, competition this big can be ruinous to a small seller.

A better idea is to follow in the wise words of Confucius: “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Give your business a fighting chance by choosing something related to your interests. This strategy also has the advantage of immediately narrowing the field and restricting your options.  

Yet another wise individual once said that creativity is enhanced by a degree of restriction. If you give someone a choice of 5 business ideas and ask them to choose the one they like best, then they will probably be able to tell you within a couple of minutes - perhaps immediately. On the other hand, if you tell someone they can start a business in any area they wish, they will probably still be making their mind up two months later!

Selling something you love is not only motivating; it is also a lot easier. For example, let’s say you decide to sell designer fashion because, although you've never had a personal interest, you see it sells well. This might be fine at first, but just wait until problems arise and you have to think about fashion 24 hours a day to get them solved. At times like this, even the prospect of good money isn’t always motivating enough!

On the other hand, when you share your buyer’s knowledge and passion, you’ll find it a lot easier to make good business decisions because you already know your market and feel excited about what you do. Do you love fashion or movies? Perhaps you feel excited about the thought of new gadgets and technology? It’s likely that there are plenty of other people who also share your interest – giving you an instant audience for your product.

Jot down your interests and then make a list of products that are related to these interests then put this information into a business plan. I guarantee that the mere act of putting your business down on paper will give you a much clearer idea of where you are going and what you need to do to get there.

Got a product? Great! Is there a market for it?
The next step is to research your ideas. There is no point selling something that thousands of other people are already selling – nor is there any point trying to force people to buy some new invention they don’t want. However, all too many sellers just see the popularity of the item and dive in head first. Over-saturated markets mean a lot of work for very little in return. Throw big, established sellers into the mix and it's almost impossible to compete.

What you should be doing is looking for niche markets that have low competition and high demand – and be prepared to continually adjust your market as the demand changes. Things change so rapidly on the Internet that to be successful requires making constant tweaks and adjustments to your idea to fit changing demand.

Experimentation is essential! Always test a product idea with a sample lot first. Never, ever buy in bulk with the assumption that you’ll be able to sell it all – you might have a nasty surprise.

 
Instead, buy in small quantities and test 2 or 3 different products at a time. Try different pricing points and adding value. For example, rather than selling Frisbees individually, you could try making up a ‘Family Sports Pack’ with a Frisbee, tennis balls, hula hoop, and a jump rope. This is a great way of increasing value and attracting people looking for a good deal.

Finally, timing can be everything. A product that isn’t selling well now might suddenly become more popular in a couple of months time. For example, a couple of years ago the only people who counted knitting as a hobby had gray hair and wrinkles. These days it’s a different story. A few models were photographed knitting backstage, and now, everyone’s hunting for specialty wool and knitting patterns.

This highlights the importance of keeping up to date with current trends via the media. Again, if you are interested in your market this won’t be hard. A regular Vogue reader would quickly spot this trend – while a seller uninterested in fashion trends and related hobbies may not.. It’s amazing what niche opportunities you can stumble across if you go looking within your market.

Product – Check, Market – Check, Stock – Uhhh
Sourcing Your Product

Niche products are hard to find precisely because they aren't wanted by everybody. Thus, finding a supplier will take quite a bit of work on your behalf as these items usually can't be purchased from individual wholesalers. Instead, you'll have to contact large wholesalers, liquidators or even contact the manufacturer directly.

Finding suppliers can be like looking for a needle in a haystack especially if you just use Google your product in the hope of finding a superstar supplier. Wading through thousands of results is not an efficient way of spending your research time. And then, once you find the suppliers how can you be sure that they are legitimate and reliable? Using a product sourcing directory is one step that buyers can take to ensure the suppliers they intend to use are the real deal. It's best to go with a web-based directory that updates its listings and provides reviews of the suppliers in its list. Online product sourcing directory SaleHoo.com provides information and reviews for all types of suppliers. If you would rather go straight to the source here are the main types of suppliers you're likely to come across and a recommended suggestion.

Wholesalers
Wholesalers buy stock in bulk from the manufacturer for a very low cost per unit. They then distribute it to retail stores and sellers. Buying wholesale is a great way of making medium level purchases. You can buy goods at a very low cost per unit from wholesalers, leaving plenty of room to profit. Once you have established an account with a wholesaler, you have a reliable, long-term supply.

And the cons? Wholesalers generally have minimum order requirements, usually around $100-$300US, designed to stop people from purchasing single units.

Here are some Wholesalers to try:

• Electronics Wholesaler: www.dbldistributing.com This supplier is a market leading wholesale distributor of consumer electronic accessories. With a diverse range of products and a stock count in excess of 17,000, they have the marketplace power to provide excellent prices. 
• Chinese Wholesaler: www.golbalsourcesdirect.com This supplier lets companies of all sizes buy products from original manufacturers in China at low factory prices and wholesale prices. Products range from consumer electronics and general merchandise, to premiums and DIY products. Keen to do business with anyone, they welcome small lot orders. 
• Computer Wholesaler: www.evertek.com This American wholesaler, established in 1990, is up to date, reliable and enthusiastic about selling products at low prices. They stock an immense range of electronic goods. Indeed virtually any consumer product that has a circuit in it can probably be found in their catalogue! Instead of just accepting a quoted price for something, with some products this wholesaler gives you the chance to make an offer of your own.
  

Liquidation Sales/Clearance
Liquidation sales occur when a store wishes to get rid of stock and liquidize assets for a move, or, when a company has gone bankrupt and assets are being liquidized to help repay debt. The main advantage of a liquidation sale is that good quality, near-new or new merchandise is sold off very cheaply. You can usually request an inventory of the sale before you go, so it’s reasonably straight forward to see whether there will be items of interest. The only difficulty with liquidation sales is that you can’t predict when they are going to be held, so they cannot provide a reliable, long-term supply of stock.

Clearance sales occur at the end of the season or the financial year when stores want to get rid of old stock, returns, and damaged goods. Like liquidation sales, clearance sales are designed to get rid of stock quickly, so prices are usually rock bottom. The difficulty with clearance sales is that you often have to buy by the pallet load – sometimes without knowing exactly what is inside. Occasionally, this can result in nasty surprises such as badly damaged items, worn clothing, or items that the store just couldn’t shift and will be difficult to sell.

Both liquidation and clearance sales can be wonderful sources, but they usually require spending $1,000+ and you may end up with stock that’s hard to shift. Try:

• Liquidation Auctions: www.liquidation.com This supplier has a wide variety of categories that include apparel, computers, electronics, housewares, industrial equipment and vehicles. Bulk lots are sold by the truckload, pallet, or small package and conditions range from new in a box to customer returns and used.
  

Manufacturers
Manufacturers produce the product and as the first link in the supply chain, they are able to give you the best prices. However, because distribution is not their primary concern, minimum orders are normally high. Typically you will need to order 1000+ units or by the container load, thus this is usually not a viable option for beginners. For established sellers, buying directly from the manufacturer is the most cost effective way of buying bulk merchandise.

Alternatively, some SaleHoo members use the forum to group together to buy a container load of merchandise, sharing the shipping costs across the group. This is not something SaleHoo is directly involved in and the responsibility of organizing these ventures rests on the members.

If you do end up with a bunch of stock you can’t sell, try listing it as a wholesale lot on eBay. Many sellers have successfully used this technique to get rid of dead stock!

• Chinese Manufacturer: www.gttoys.com/en/home.asp They are a China based company specializing in the manufacturing of toys including ride on toys and crafts. They have a new brand name that supplies hand held games and learning computers as well as remote controlled toys. They strive to offer the cheapest pricing available. 
  

Business is Personal
What to do once you've found a supplier

Email is a wonderful thing and it saves a lot of time but building up personal relationships with suppliers is absolutely essential for getting the best priced goods.

Making a phone call, starting up an email exchange, or having regular chats on a messenger service and getting to know the supplier are all great ideas. The time you spend building a relationship will not only mean you’re in a stronger position to get better prices, but, because you know your supplier, you’ll be more confident that things will go smoothly when you finally do place your order.

This is especially important if you're thinking about using suppliers that aren't located in your country. It is absolutely crucial that lines of communication are kept open when dealing with Chinese suppliers as negotiating is a key part of doing business with them. Prices and shipping costs can be reduced with a bit of haggling.  

eBay businesses are as varied as the bricks-and-mortar retailers on the High Street. Keep in mind that these strategies are guidelines and that each business will differ. Remember that if you invest enough time and effort into researching your market and finding quality reliable suppliers your eBay business is more likely to succeed.

News: Free broadband..

Free broadband is a good thing - however what it mostly provide is guaranteed customers for the landline services of companies such as TalkTalk, Sky and others. Always make sure you know what your entitled download is - e.g. 40Gb for TalkTalk - and make sure that the download speed available will meet your needs.

Link: http://www.talktalk.co.uk/

Buyers Workshop: Look around when shopping

It's worth looking around when on eBay. We use as an example, eBay Advisor magazine. You'll find copies on eBay reaching £9.95 plus postage each; but without too much effort you can also find sellers offering them at the cover price or below. We hope our rather crude video makes the point ;)

eCommerce: Speaking my language?

Andy Wood highlights the importance of Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is now a universally accepted concept amongst marketers. According to our research it is now at a stage of market maturity where, in 2007, the proportion of the UK’s top 500 companies with a Head of CRM, comes in at approaching half (48%) up four percentage points since this survey was last conducted in 2005 (44%). And the impression that one gets from ongoing reports on the technique is that few companies have failed to implement some form of CRM initiative.

Customers have come to expect that they will be dealt with in a meaningful and personalised fashion. This expectation has meant that when companies do talk relevantly to their customers, using the information that they have collected on their profile, their preferences and most importantly their transactions, the rewards – in terms of customer retention and increasing value to the firm, are often stellar.

In the last two years, the financial services sector, in particular, has massively reduced the amount of direct mail it sends out, but has focused the budget thus freed up on making their communications more relevant and targeted in order to vastly improve response and retention rates. Our recent research proved, for the first time, the correlation between relevant communications and customer satisfaction, itself an absolute prerequisite for any customer retention and development strategy. To put things plainly, relevant communications cement customer satisfaction; and customer satisfaction encourages people to stay and spend more.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on the practicalities of implementing effective and relevant customer marketing. To do so, one has to embrace the notion of a customer “journey”, moving incrementally from low-loyal, infrequent spenders, to high-loyal frequent spenders.

The customer journey is simple in principle and execution. It is intrinsically linked to our view that more profit from customers can be driven from four actions:

• More customers
  
• Spending more
  
• Spending more often
  
• Less attrition
  

In a further strand, the CRM phenomenon is not just a private sector one. The public sector has noticed the efficiency and effectiveness of ‘joined-up’ or – otherwise put – ‘single customer view’ communications and strategies. In the public sector, the object in view is not to increase sales and profits, but rather to understand and satisfy the citizen through better, more co-ordinated delivery of public services. The phenomenon in the public sector has retained the acronym ‘CRM’, but has renamed it Citizen Relationship Management. The technique remains basically the same, but in the public sector tends to concentrates on the most needy in society – a wealth reversal compared to the types of people who are most keenly targeted in the commercial sphere.

In any case, the notion that targeted, data-based, relevant communications produce the best outcomes, is common to private and public sector alike.

GI Insight’s latest research examines the level to which the British customer or citizen feels that the most important organisations they deal with on a day-to-day basis are communicating with them. Is it relevant? Has the organisation gathered key information on them – their circumstances, tastes, preferences and, above all, transactions? Has that information been collated and analysed so that communications, strategies, offers, service propositions, and so on, are relevant and targeted to the individual? In short, is the information held on the recipient being intelligently used? We know now that, across public and private sector organisations, the effective use of information for marketing and/or customer/citizen management can reap the most extraordinary dividends, both in terms of outcomes and efficiencies.

The results were converted into an index which showed the percentage points above or below average for communications/marketing relevance. In brief, the findings are as follows:-

GI Insight research from early 2007 proved the correlation between relevant communications and customer satisfaction; and customer satisfaction is the absolute pre-requisite for improvements in customer retention and spending. This current study, which has asked consumers about the relevance and targeting of communications they receive, shows a clear disparity between database marketing standards in different industries.

The mature techniques of British Supermarkets stands head and shoulders above the other sectors studied. As an aggregated set of sectors, retailers in general are obviously getting the targeting game right more often than financial services, although the finance super-sector’s average is being dragged down by the poor performance of credit card issuers. It can be no coincidence that these findings correlate strongly with the penetration of loyalty schemes in each of these sectors, suggesting that such schemes are critical to collecting sufficient data on the customers, especially in terms of associating transactions with customers.

The poorest at personalised and relevant communications are the public sector, both at the local and national government level (-18% and –19% respectively). This finding shows that citizen relationship management, which has taken its inspiration from the groundwork of customer relationship management techniques in the private sector, still has a long way to go in effectively implementing data-based communications with the general public

Perhaps most importantly, this study reveals that an overemphasis is being placed on targeting efforts towards younger age groups, in contrast with the 45+ consumer. This is in despite of the fact that the 45-65 age band is the highest earning, and that the departure of children from the family home often massively increases disposable income and, ironically, also creates demand for capital release financial products in parental support of those departed offspring as they set up home themselves. Banks are, surprisingly worst at taking advantage of targeting this wealthy group.

Two main conclusions summarise this report’s key findings. First, it reveals which sectors need to improve their standard of customer relevance and targeting, and shows through the iconic gold-standard of the UK supermarket sector, what can be achieved. Equally, it reveals the prejudice of marketers across all sectors in over-concentrating on the younger consumer to the neglect of high-potential, wealthier, and possibly more appreciative older customers.

eCommerce: Xara Xtreme Pro review

Professional graphics software for under £150? David Bradforth takes a look

Xara Xtreme Pro is the latest development of a program that started in the early 1990's as ArtWorks - a Corel-beating application for RISC OS computers. Essentially Xara Xtreme Pro is a graphic design package, with particular strengths at producing quality vector artwork as well as Flash animation for use on web pages. Or that's how it started. Xara Xtreme Pro adds a little further on that.

For the first time, Xara Xtreme Pro supports multi-page documents. This allows for simple DTP-style layouts to be produced, of both single or double-page spreads. Producing a magazine such as the one you're reading is very much possible, and you can flow within the text any vector or bitmap images you so chose.

PANTONE spot colours are supported; so if you don't find the exact could you require within the usual CMYK range you can opt for one of those - and the end result will include the PANTONE definition for printing. (The problem with PANTONE colours is you will have to pay extra to a printer for a fifth colour out of the CMYK ranges to be printed; the advantage however is that you can print gold using this technique).

The export features of Xara Xtreme have been improved, so you can both import and export XPS and RAW format images; ensuring consistently high quality whatever your end purpose is.
When it comes to professional print output, native export in PDF/X format ensures that what you see on the final printed page is as you'd expected from your screen-based proof.

As an added freebie, Xara3D 6 has been thrown into the bundle. As a very capable program in its own right, Xara3D is a welcome addition allowing you to focus on producing attractive headings for your documents and websites before manipulating the end files.

If we were to compare Xara Xtreme Pro to Adobe Illustrator CS3, we'd probably do neither program justice. Xara Xtreme has always been the faster program to use, both in rendering speed and overall time to produce final product; the creative potential for which has been greatly extended by the addition of basic DTP functionality.

What we liked most about Xara Xtreme is still here in Xtreme Pro; and at a price that's more than justified. The trial version is available on the Xara website so that you can experience Xara Xtreme for yourself - make your own mind up. It's good though.

Available from Xara (http://www.xara.com) at $249

eCommerce: Business Accountz review

David Bradforth takes a look at a user-friendly approach to business accounts, designed from the start to be jargon-free

We can say with some confidence that producing accounts for any size of business - small, medium or large, is a time-consuming process that depends to a very large extent on the person preparing the accounts having an understanding both on the nature of the business and also on the terminology behind accounts.

With some fifteen years of development behind it, Business Accountz may be the first accounting package aimed at businesses simply intended to make that process easier.

Supplied on a single CD-ROM and suitable for use with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, Business Accountz operates on the double-entry accountancy principle. Essentially, for everything that comes into the business there's a duplicate entry into a log elsewhere within the business accounts.

It's a nice idea in principle - very straightforward to follow and works very well if somebody spends a half hour each day entering all of the business transactions into the program.

Business Accountz has been designed for use by Sole Traders, Partnerships and Service-Based companies (so those who don't have to deal with stock). They use a principle called Rapid Data Entry meaning essentially that as your transactions are made and entered into the program the figures are reflected elsewhere giving you an instant indication of your profit, costs and so on.

For each customer account you create, an invoices/queries made against that account are reflected in a comprehensive customer history which provides a sound foundation for further discussion on developing that client relationship.

The invoice component of the program is very straightforward to use. You can customise the invoices much as you would in a desktop publishing package; adding in your own graphics for headed notepaper (or deleting the graphics alltogether so as to use pre-printed headed notepaper). It's very intuitive in use, and logically laid out.

At the core of Business Accountz are just that - accounts. You can have purchase accounts, sales accounts - in fact any type of accounts you wish; and they're unlimited. If you have divisions this allows you to trace income on a divisonal basis and to divide the income appropriately.

The business reports are fully customisable, but in their default state provide the essential information many businesses require - the state of the business at that point in time; giving a clear idea of what your cash flow situation is likely to be in a month or twos time.

The manual supplied with the package is very well written; and the tutorial videos supplied on the CD-ROM allow for no doubt when it comes to using the product itself.

It's quite admirable that the program works as well as it does across three computer platforms; and while the manual does explain the interface thoroughly there are quirks to the interface - the Mac version is not 100% Aqua, the Windows version not 100% Vista and so on.

Despite this we do have an accounts package that does what it sets out to on the tin. It provides the smaller business with the means of keeping accurate track of the state of their business without confusing them with terminology. Given that time is money, Business Accountz will pay for itself in a very short space of time.

Available from Accountz.com (http://www.accountz.com) at £69.99