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zopoxo · 1 month ago

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How to Cut Shipping Costs with Courier Services?

Did you know that in India, about 60% of online orders come from tier-two cities or smaller ones? With eCommerce businesses penetrating deep into society and online shopping becoming the new normal, boosting your courier services is a must.

Today, a lot of leading eCommerce players in India and the globe are providing one-day or even same-day deliveries. Hence, not providing on-time deliveries to your customers will anyways cut you out from the competition.

Choosing the right courier services for your eCommerce business will help you deliver your products faster and safer to your customers. But what about the costs? People think that there is a large amount of cost associated with providing fast courier services.

Somewhere it is true, but here is the catch. There are certain ways in which you can ensure cutting shipping costs with the right courier services.

In this blog, we will aim to look into these ways and find out how you can optimize costs for your courier services. So, let’s proceed with our blog.

Top 7 Tips To Cut Shipping Costs With Courier Services

As an eCommerce business owner, balancing between shipping costs and providing on-time deliveries is one of the major challenges. So, in the section below, let us find out the tips you can follow.

Negotiating with Multiple Courier Partners

One of the best ways to get the best costs with your courier services is by directly negotiating with multiple courier partners. With this, you will be able to get the best costs according to your shipping volume and several other factors.

Shipping companies are open to negotiation, especially if you offer high volumes of shipments or steady business. Hence, do not hesitate to ask for discounts or customized pricing, particularly for specific shipping zones or frequent routes.

Regional couriers may offer more competitive pricing for local deliveries, so it is worthwhile to explore those options for nearby orders.

Partnering with the Right Courier Aggregator Services

Now, as an online business owner, it is not always possible to negotiate with all courier services available yourself. So, here is when you should partner with the right courier aggregator services.

Courier aggregators, like Zopoxo, have revolutionized how businesses handle shipping. They allow businesses to access multiple courier services through a single platform, providing competitive rates and flexible shipping options.

Aggregators negotiate bulk shipping rates with major courier companies and pass on those savings to you. This makes it easier for small to mid-sized businesses to access the same discounts typically reserved for larger enterprises.

Instead of relying on one courier company, these platforms allow you to select the best option based on delivery time, location, and price for each order. Moreover, the automated systems also help streamline logistics, saving on both time and operational costs.

Packaging Optimization

You need to note that dimensional weight pricing (DIM) has become the new standard in the courier industry. Here, the shipping costs are not just based only on the weight of the package but also on its volume.

Hence, by choosing more compact and appropriately sized packaging, you can reduce your overall shipping fees.

Less packaging material means lower DIM weight, which in turn reduces shipping costs. Therefore, make sure your packaging fits snugly around products while ensuring they remain protected during transit.

Using Right Warehousing Solutions to Reduce Shipping Zones

Shipping costs rise with distance, especially when crossing multiple shipping zones. By using strategically located warehouses, you can ship products from a location nearest to the customer, reducing both costs and delivery times.

Storing inventory closer to high-demand regions cuts down on long-distance shipping, especially when dealing with national or international orders.

Offering Flat-Rate or Free Shipping Strategically

While flat-rate or free shipping can be an attractive offering to customers, it is important to structure it carefully to avoid incurring unnecessary costs.

By absorbing part of the shipping cost into the product price or setting a minimum order value for free shipping, you can balance customer satisfaction with cost control.

Consumers are more likely to complete a purchase when shipping costs are transparent or removed entirely. By setting thresholds (e.g., free shipping on orders above a certain amount), you encourage larger purchases while still covering shipping expenses.

Implement Real-Time Shipping Rate Calculators

Integrating real-time shipping rate calculators on your website can give customers a transparent view of shipping costs. Moreover, these calculators can automatically select the best courier service based on cost and delivery speed.

Customers appreciate knowing their shipping options upfront. Hence, by showing real-time rates from multiple carriers, you can ensure customers pick the most cost-effective option, reducing cart abandonment due to unexpected fees.

Streamline Returns with Cost-Efficient Solutions

You know that returns can add up to your overall shipping costs if not managed properly. A well-planned returns process, including choosing the right courier partner, can help you minimize these expenses.

Many courier services offer discounted rates for return shipments, or you can negotiate for cost-effective reverse logistics through a courier aggregator platform.

Wrapping Up

Cutting shipping costs without sacrificing quality or delivery speed is a balancing act. However, it can be achieved with the right approach. By choosing the right courier aggregators like Zopoxo, negotiating with partners, optimizing packaging, and using strategic warehousing, you can reduce costs and improve margins.

Implementing these strategies will not only help your business save money but also offer a better customer experience, ultimately driving growth and loyalty.

Post Tags:#courier services

#courier aggregator #best courier services #best shipping services

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marketsom-blog · 5 years ago

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Online Shopping Fo Home And Garden

We stay in an era of style even within the busy and hectic life. At instances, it turns into very tough for many of individuals to go to market to shop. http://www.marketsom.com/Protecting in view the growing demand of on-line buying, entrepreneurs have created many buying portals on-line which are very inspiring and worthwhile for the purchasers.

Online purchasing is rapidly becoming the first choice of individuals on the earth for modernized or traditional procuring. Regularly, online shopping is being accepted as the brand new and Social profile here fashionable means of procuring. It's turning into standard as a result of people have many other issues to do of their busy life and purchasing online saves time in numerous methods.

The method of buying online has turn out to be quite simple and easy. We have now plenty of examples of websites that facilitate online shopping in the United Kingdom, where you may simply make purchases on-line with great gives and discounts. You can also find a listing of online shopping; which can make it easier to to ensure secure access and safety of your particulars. So you may store online with great conviction. You may also easily get all the main points about the range of products, providers delivery, price, special affords and items, and so forth.

On-line purchases will not be only safer, however it's now simpler than ever. Buying online might be as straightforward as shoppers wish it to be. Internet buying might be stuffed with fun, very simple and handy. One benefit of purchasing on-line is that one will be able to use the ability of the internet to seek out one of the best deals accessible for objects or providers in the markets of the world. Search engines like google and yahoo will enable you to to seek out top quality merchandise in a easy and straightforward method.

Another advantage of buying on-line is one also can rapidly discover the presents of items or providers with many various suppliers just by sitting at one place. Perhaps one of the best potential locations for shopping centers can be Here is our Blog found on-line. On-line procuring is a web based market the place numbers of shops of various manufacturers provide their companies below the identical website for 24*7 that is made available everyday and every time of the 12 months.

Purchasing neighborhood usually refers to a group of buyers who are linked with one another online. They put forward their expertise and data in the lengths of writings with the nice and dangerous qualities of the products that they've bought. These feedback and evaluations often help different buyers, especially those planning to buy merchandise via the Internet to make the fitting selection.

One of many major causes that the shoppers are usually not positive with procuring on-line is lack of know-how and knowledge about the high quality of the products and retailers. While online retailers have a strong brand publicity to comfort the shoppers, which smaller retailers wouldn't have. Nevertheless, a major motive for the continuous Marketsomprogress in online buying is due to the growing confidence of customers in purchasing the websites on-line. Different major elements are the huge choice of merchandise that is obtainable to customers online, the current development and effectivity of transport companies dealing with Web visitors, and growth of excessive-speed Web.

Whereas procuring online it's also possible to ship particular gifts to your loved ones on special events, as there are on-line stores that present the providers to send items as properly. Websites which might be designed to ship presents on-line include nearly all varieties of present gadgets ranging from flowers to jewelry objects, from candies to perfumes and games and so forth. which are designed for nearly every kind of special occasion within the life of the particular person.

Thus one can simply say that the web shops have introduced a revolutionary and sensational change in at this time's racing world with their nice providers and choices. So do not waste your treasured time in fascinated with how one can buy any make up fashion product? Simply go browsing and enjoy the services of the net store which will fulfill your need with comfort and very conveniently. You'll certainly receive benefits in numerous on-line stores compared to shopping from the native markets.

Purchasing online is a wonderful strategy to find bargains with out having to depart your home. The huge collection of merchandise and large number of locations to find them simply make this the easiest way to shop, particularly if you're limited to when you can store.

Nearly every thing you'd ever want to buy is on the market on-line; from handbags to designer jeans, to toiletries, and pet provides and even accessories and restore elements in your car. However are you truly getting a better deal by purchasing on-line? When does is make sense to purchase online? What are the professionals and cons of procuring on-line? While you factor in the costs of transport and the inconvenience of not getting what you need when you want it, some folks would quite just go to a retailer and purchase what they need.

Clearly, there are occasions when shopping on-line will not be the most suitable choice. Consider although, that you have finished some in-retailer buying and you recognize precisely what you want however you feel that prices could higher on-line. So where then is the perfect place to make true comparison-procuring. You could possibly go directly to websites specializing in what you're in search of or you could possibly go to an internet shopping center and choose the category of what you might be in search of and choose the corresponding sites in that category.

Contemplating there are many online purchasing malls, to choose so what criteria then do you choose an internet shopping mall. There are numerous concentrate on sure merchandise classes and there are some that supply a wide variety of stores. Among the finest on-line all is a portal shopping center. This on-line shopping center provides over lots of of stores in many classes. In case you a searching for out of doors equipment or anything else.

Even if many of the aforementioned retails stores have an e-commerce site, most like the comfort of shopping these stores from within one location. An online shopping center gives all that plus presents rebates for purchasing with them. Often time procuring with them additionally allows at no cost transport. There could also be other online shopping malls, that offer the identical merchandise, however should you look intently, typically the merchandise really come from these main shops. Typically occasions, by coming from these shops provides to the shipping and handling fees.

If you choose buying huge identify department shops to smaller specialty shops, an online shopping center affords procuring by stores like Amazon, photo voltaic mild retailer and Internet Shops. In case you had an inclination to shop these shops anyway, you may as well go through a web-based shopping mall and get money back.

Online purchasing is turning into increasingly more fashionable annually as folks embrace the convenience, choice, and low costs available when procuring on-line. In this article I speak to a few of the execs and cons of on-line shopping.

There is something to be said for strolling into a bodily retailer and with the ability to see, touch, and easily ask questions about a product. One might argue that brick and mortar purchasing is a extra partaking expertise, often stuffed with background music of some type, along with the sights and sounds of different clients and clerks obtainable to supply assistance when wanted. Different products will be compared side by facet with very little effort.

One advantage of brick and mortar buying is its organization, which allows one to find the correct department and the fitting shelf pretty simply. Every thing the shop affords is made obtainable through a format of straight-forward, logical departments. Online websites provide an organizational layout and text search functionality, but this different Wikipedia here approach of locating a product of interest is one online buying difference that takes some getting used to. Different benefits of brick entrance buying is with the ability to get out of the house, train a bit, breathe some outdoor air and avoid cabin fever (the sort of exercise was quite important within the winter when I lived in Chicago).

Individuals that are cautious in nature may find sure features of online purchasing a bit laborious to get used to, similar to getting acclimated to what would be the equivalent of searching for merchandise with tunnel blinders that only allow a very narrow view of what is immediately ahead of one's eyes. Brick and mortar stores are physically arranged to make it more possible that sure gadgets will likely be seen greater than others. Online stores additionally present give attention to certain merchandise over others.

Most web sites contain product descriptions, however the descriptions might be both too normal or too detailed, making it difficult to match two or extra merchandise on their options. If the consumer has a query that is acceptable for a human being similar to a clerk in a retailer, the place does the net buyer go to ask the query? There's something lost in not having an knowledgeable particular person accessible to provide an immediate answer. Many widespread on-line buying websites now provide buyer reviews-independent critiques supplied by clients that have purchased each product. These reviews go a long way toward offering enough detailed details about a product so one can decide whether or to not purchase it.

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acorviart · 5 months ago

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Wow normally I respond to hostile emails privately to keep things professional, but I'm actually going to post these here, because this person clearly still follows me and reads my posts (they're referring to the little anecdote I put at the end of the previous readmore), and my response will have some useful info for everyone else! Also this is the first time I've received follow-up hate, I'm very flattered honestly.

1. "hire another person" yeah hang on let me just go hire an international law expert with all the bags of money I'm making from my little one-person art shop

2. "my precious USA" you know that. I do ship internationally right. Like that is a thing that I actively have done since I opened my shop, and I was happily selling to the UK and EU and only stopped when all the restrictions were put in place.

3. "switch to selling on platforms that take care of the shipping" Here's the useful info for everyone else that I wanted to post, since I know that there are a lot of people who follow me that also want to start their own shops: there are no popular selling platforms that will just "take care" of this stuff for you!

Not Etsy, not Shopify, not Big Cartel, not Squarespace, etc. Etsy is a little confusing, because Etsy DOES have the ability to collect VAT for EU and UK orders, but VAT (Value Added Tax) is not the same as the packaging regulations that are my main reason for restricting shipping to the EU. I could, potentially, open an Etsy specifically to sell to UK customers, but I don't do that, because handling the inventory and expenses and bookkeeping of a second selling platform for the probable less-than-10 orders I'd receive per year doesn't pass my cost-benefit check.

Anyway, let's take LUCID, Germany's packaging regulation system, as an example, because that's actually one that Etsy has more guidance on. Squarespace, Big Cartel, Shopify, etc are different. I'd have to register for a LUCID number with the German government, then find a dual systems company to handle the recycling and paperwork for me, then file reports to the LUCID system myself, and then I'd finally be able to enter this number into my Etsy account. Etsy (and by extension, all the other platforms) doesn't do any of the actual hard stuff for you—you still have to figure out the paperwork and payment.

Now realize that this is ONE country out of the entire EU, that every country has its own system to follow (some of which are significantly more expensive than LUCID), and LUCID is also the one with the most guidance from selling platforms by virtue of it being one of the first introduced. Etsy has some guidance for France, but again. Two countries out of many. Big Cartel, what I currently use, has absolutely no guidance on this. If reading LUCID's spelled-out registration process sounded time-consuming to you, imagine trying to learn what every other country's process is like with zero help and a language barrier.

There's really no easy way to "take care" of this, which is why so many businesses in my circle of small art shops have just removed EU shipping. Some are skirting by completely fine and still selling to the EU, but I'm just not risking that. There might be third-party or add-on services I'm not aware of that could help with navigating all these systems, but again, those cost money. I'd probably lose money paying all the various fees, since historically, my EU sales have also been low from the start.

Also, there are no platforms that just "take care" of the physical shipping process for you unless you're using Print-On-Demand Sites (like Redbubble or Society6), which are an entirely different type of platform and selling method. Those take a majority cut of sales, tend to have lower quality since you can't quality check products or control the manufacturing process yourself, and are rife with stolen art. They have their own advantages and reasons for why people use them (the tax and bookkeeping work is significantly easier when you're not handling merchandise yourself, for example), but to sell product through your own hands as a one-person business, you have to handle all the physical packaging and shipping.

I feel like all I do is complain about the packaging regulations, but I do want to make it clear that I think their intent is completely fine? Packaging is so wasteful, especially from corporations that send millions a day. I just wish that the systems they set up were easier for individuals to navigate.

Also yes I am lazy actually and don't want the headache of trying to do all this paperwork, because I have to run literally every other aspect of my business and also work other jobs ❤️

Europe VAT laws not changing any time soon, recent. If understand FAQ well, mean shipping to Europe impossible for several years minimum?

That's correct, I won't be shipping to the EU for the foreseeable future due to some import packaging regulations that either have already been implemented or are planning to be implemented in the future.

Note that this is for EU countries only—I can ship to all other non-EU countries like Switzerland, except for the UK due to the UK's own convoluted VAT system.

The only workaround I can offer for EU folks is that you can have a friend or family that lives in a non-EU country place an order to deliver to their address, and then they are able to ship that order to you marked as a gift. Not an option for everyone, I know.

Longer explanation under the readmore for those curious:

As it stands now, each EU country has its own system and fees that I can't keep up with (for example, France would cost me 80 euros per year), I'd need to individually register and report to each country, some require reporting and tracking of what sources of packaging I use, I believe? It's all very complicated, and it makes my head spin just trying to figure out what the requirements actually are, so that's why I stopped shipping to the EU entirely out of an abundance of caution. I also just don't get enough sales to the EU to justify the headache, I'd probably actually lose money paying all the fees. Actually, while I was looking up details while writing this post, apparently there's a new PPWR that's going to replace the old EU Packaging Directive? This is why I can't handle this (ಥ﹏ಥ)

As for why this doesn't seem to be affecting all companies—corporations can obviously afford their own professionals whose entire job is to handle this stuff, and the requirements are also different for large vs small volumes. Meanwhile, a lot of other small or 1-person businesses straight up don't know about these requirements, because it's not like there's a memo passed around about updates to international shipping law. It's also even more confusing because some packages are slipping by without any issue, probably in part due to how the regulations are still new and still being implemented, so I assume it's kind of a mess.

I know of a few people who are willingly taking the risk and shipping to the EU anyway and have had no consequences (for now at least), but I'm not risking the fines ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now for the UK, their VAT system doesn't have anything to do with packaging, but what it does require is similar registration with the government, and I'm required to collect and pay the VAT myself. No thanks!

TLDR; laws hard. laws also expensive. too stupid to figure out and too fearful of fines. no ship to countries

fun story: someone also once emailed me this long diatribe about how they think I'm shit at research and that I'm just making all this up (specifically just to screw with europeans or something, I guess?), so I sent them a few links to the literal official government websites where I got my info (like that UK one), and they never responded. lol

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sadbeautifultragictaylorsversion · 6 years ago

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So... it’s been 2 weeks since my Taylor Swift merch package has been dispatched and it’s finally arrived in the U.K. and gone through customs.

I’ve got a letter from Parcelforce about paying taxes for the merch, and the taxes are about £10, which I factored into my costs, but they’ve added a “clearance fee” which is basically the Parcelforce fee for handling and administration, it’s £12 so my total extra that I need to pay is £22!!!!

This is absolutely ridiculous, the tax I needed to pay is LESS than its handling fee. You haven’t told me about any sort of extra cost except for taxes and duty (I didn’t need to pay duty) and now you spring £12 on me? I thought by buying more and getting free international shipping, I would be saving myself £24, but it seems I need to pay nearly that amount anyway.

Also, I’d like to point out that my country’s tax is 20%. Yep, 20%. Most countries are only 5, or 8, or 10%, but my country is double/triple/quadruple that. I have to pay so much more than swifties in other countries on my merch, and it’s not even going to Taylor.

Not to mention the exchange rate of USD to GBP is absolute shit because of brexit, as well as the transaction fee for converting USD to GBP when buying the merch in the first place, around £4, was not mentioned as an extra cost to me either.

Honestly, ordering this Taylor merch has been a nightmare and sadly I don’t think I’ll order from the Taylor Swift store or order anything from abroad again.

This is one of the many pains of being an international swiftie. Now you know why we complain?

@taylornation

#okay rant over #im just really mad at the situation #taylor #taylor swift #taylor alison swift #taylorswift #taylurking #taylor nation #taylornation #reputation #taylor swift reputation #merch #ts merch #taylor swift merch #international swiftie #international fans

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jaivendra · 4 years ago

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We all know Apple is an American company and enjoys making an outsized chunk of their revenue domestically. But Apple sells its products in many international markets and even has retail stores in 24 foreign countries. Some of those markets, like Japan, have access to Apple products at a price like the US. For example, an iPhone XS costs 112,800 yen in Japan, which is about 1,058 USD. And when you consider the country’s 8% sales tax is included in that price, it actually makes the iPhone XS about $20 cheaper than in the US. Although this fluctuates depending on the conversion rate. But not every country is lucky enough to pay comparable prices for Apple products. To buy the bottom model iPhone XS, you’d need to pay $1,235 in Mexico, $1,285 in India, $1,454 in Sweden, and $1,800 in Brazil. And these high prices have prompted customers to fly to the US just to buy a new iPhone. So why exactly are Apple products so expensive in these countries? Well, that’s exactly what we’re getting to determine today.

So one of the most important reasons why Apple products are so expensive overseas is due to taxes. And the perfect example of this is often the worth Added Tax or VAT, which exists in over 140 countries around the world. But despite its prevalence, it isn’t something that exists in the US. So let me explain how it works. In places just like the European Union, a VAT may be a consumption tax added to the worth of products and services. Products exported abroad aren’t typically subject to the worth Added Tax, but imported goods, like Apple products, are. And counting on the country, prices of those goods can increase up to 25%. And unlike the US, consumption taxes in most countries abroad are included during a product’s retail price. So when you notice the iPhone XS selling for $1,454 in Sweden compared to $1,000 in the US, that isn’t really a fair comparison, since US prices don’t include local sales tax. Now if you’re doing the math, you’ll find that iPhone prices in countries like Sweden still don’t add up. Because if their Value Added Tax is 25% on a $1,000 phone, they should be paying $1,250. But instead, the iPhone XS is priced about $200 higher. And that’s because taxes are simply a part of the complex equation companies like Apple use when calculating retail prices. Another factor to think about are any associated costs with importation. Things like import duties, shipping, insurance costs, and tariffs all contribute to cost inflation when selling products overseas. India is a great example of this. They've enacted something called the Foreign Direct Investment policy which punishes foreign companies who don’t source at least 30% of the components of their products from Indian suppliers. And since Apple doesn’t meet that standard, they’re restricted from opening retail stores within the country additionally to being hit with a 20% tariff. There’s also an 11.4% customs duty on imported products in addition to the Value Added Tax that we discussed earlier. And when you add all that up, it isn’t surprising that customers in India pay a 28% premium for products like the iPhone. Now Apple is taking steps to not only price their products more competitively in India but also to open their first mercantile establishment within the country. I’ll talk about that in more detail near the end of the video. Now you'll imagine import costs only being an element in foreign markets, but they will also affect customers within the US. Recently President Trump planned to implement a 10% tax on Chinese imports by September 1 which would affect tech companies like Apple. Now that deadline was pushed back to December 15th, but Tim Cook would really like to ascertain the tax eliminated altogether.

Also Read:- Who Stopped WannaCry Virus? Full Details

In fact, he met with Trump in the week and apparently made a convincing argument since Trump told reporters, “Tim was lecture me about tariffs and ... he made an honest case ... that Samsung is their favorite competitor and Samsung isn't paying tariffs. I assumed he made a really compelling argument so I'm brooding about it." Now if the choice isn’t reversed and Apple has got to pay the ten tax, they’d need to make a decision: Increase prices within the US by 10%, or keep prices an equivalent and permit their profit margin to require a serious hit. Both of which are dangerous for the corporate. If Apple raises prices it might exacerbate the difficulty of slowing hardware sales, but if they permit their margins to fall 10%, it might severely damage their profit potential.

So counting on how this story plays out, US customers made soon be feeling the consequences of tariffs that foreign countries are handling for years. Something else which will contribute to high prices is legally binding consumer guarantees that exist in places just like the EU. for instance, once you buy an Apple product within the US, you receive a typical one-year limited warranty that covers faulty parts, product defects, or other conditions that the manufacturer is liable for. But the matter is companies are liberal to define their warranty terms as they see fit. That’s why only certain components could also be covered, otherwise, you may need to pay a fee to ship the merchandise back to the manufacturer. And that’s exactly why the EU established a consumer guarantee that gives customers far more protection than a typical warranty. Customers within the EU are entitled to a minimum two-year warranty in addition to the quality manufacturer’s warranty. And this adds quite a little bit of liability for companies like Apple who typically offset the danger by increasing the worth of their products. But when it involves foreign markets, a serious concern is that the volatility of every country’s currency. Just take the united kingdom for instance. When Brexit happened, there was a 19% drop in the worth of their currency compared to the dollar, which caught tons of companies off guard and caused them to quickly adjust their prices to stay pace with the UK’s currency fluctuation Apple understands which foreign markets are most vulnerable to this volatility and preemptively raises their prices. you'll see this clearly with South Africa. Notice how the worth of its currency has fluctuated over the past five years compared to the EU, Australia, and Mexico. which volatility may be a major reason why Apple inflates their product’s prices in South Africa beyond what’s typically seen in other foreign markets. But so as to really understand Apple’s pricing overseas, we've to think about the American market. Because consumer behavior within the US is often quite different than those in other regions, mainly because American society is extremely consumption-based. we have the foremost credit cards issued per capita within the world, with everyone charging a mean of $4,000 annually. Compare this to other countries just like the UK or France, which opt instead for Debit Cards and thus charge but $300 on their credit cards per annum. you'll see companies like Apple capitalizing on America’s “buy now, pay later” mindset by offering monthly payment plans for his or her products. and every one of these amounts to US customers buying a better volume of products more frequently, allowing Apple to charge but other countries which don’t have a comparable level of consumerism.

Also Read:- Why Israel Is A Tech Capital Of The World?

Now up to the present point, we’ve discussed pretty concrete reasons why Apple prices their products higher in some foreign countries. But there’s one last fibrinogen want to debate that’s less easy to prove with hard facts, which is the brand image. Apple is taken into account as a premium brand in countries like India where the typical smartphone asking price is $200. So when it involves the iPhone XS price of $1,285, it is sensible that only the rich class in India could afford them. And if Apple knows their product will only be accessible to the upper crust, why not charge the maximum amount as you can? It’s an approach taken by many luxury clothing brands, whose customers haven't any problem overspending on items that ultimately function as a standing symbol. And you'll find evidence of this when comparing the iPhone’s price to other flagship smartphones. for instance, the Galaxy S10 retails for $900 within the US and $935 in India. a rise of just $35. The LG V40 retails for $900 within the US and $700 in India. That’s a reduction of $200. And once you compare those prices to the iPhone’s $285 premium in India, it supports the thought that Apple is just extracting the maximum amount of revenue from customers in India as possible, since they know people with money with pay any price for his or her premium phones anyway. it might also add up then that iPhones have only captured about one-hundredth of India’s smartphone market, which may be a shame considering India’s sizable population. But Tim Cook has made it clear that Apple has an aggressive decision to grow their presence within the region and make India one of their biggest sources of revenue. It all started earlier this year when Foxconn began trial runs of iPhone production in India, setting the inspiration for Apple to at least one day manufacture their smartphones within the region and satisfy the 30% local sourcing rule. this is able to allow Apple to avoid India’s 20% tariff additionally to opening their own retail stores within the country for the very first time.

Also Read:- Why Cartoons Never Grow Up?

In fact, Apple has already finalized an inventory of several locations within the country where they could build their store. But they're going a step further by saying they’d overhaul the company's relationship with independent retailers, and improve apps and services aimed more closely at Indians. So while Apple is understood for being a dear brand within the US, their products are typically even costlier abroad. Perhaps they will take measures like those in India to scale back their tax burden and drop prices, but it’s more likely that customers in foreign markets will need to continue biting the bullet and distribute the additional money for his or her favorite products.

#Article #Education #Tech Questions #Technology

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donald-clemons · 4 years ago

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How Much Are Chargebacks Really Costing You—and How to Combat Them

Chargebacks can be a serious disturbance for any business. In the US alone, 25 million transactions are disputed each year, and that number is only expected to grow—especially with the rise in online shopping due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even the best-intentioned businesses are vulnerable to chargebacks. Consider the following:

81% of customers file chargebacks with their banks out of convenience rather than speaking with the merchant directly, a phenomenon known as “friendly fraud.”

The rate of consumers initiating unjustified chargebacks is growing at a rate of 41% per year in a phenomenon known as “cyber shoplifting.”

A customer who successfully files a chargeback is 9x more likely to file another.

Unfortunately, the chargeback process is still confusing to many merchants, and it can be difficult to determine the best way to approach disputed transactions. Below, we outline the most vital information ecommerce merchants should know regarding what chargebacks are, how to handle them, and strategies for avoiding disputed transactions in the first place.

Chargebacks Explained

A chargeback occurs when a customer files a dispute with their card-issuing bank about a specific charge on their account. The merchant’s payment processor then debits the contested amount from their account and forwards them the dispute for review. From here, merchants have a set amount of time to respond to the dispute with compelling evidence that the charge is valid. The response is then reviewed by the issuing bank, which can either uphold (customer wins) or decline (merchant wins) the chargeback.

There are over 150 different types (“reason codes”) of chargebacks across the four major credit card providers; however, not all of them are applicable—and many are incredibly rare—for businesses in the ecommerce industry. The most common types of chargebacks among ecommerce businesses are Fraudulent, Credit not processed, Consumer dispute, and Technical/processing error.

Fraudulent: The customer believes that someone else used their card to charge the transaction in question.

Credit Not Processed: The customer returned the product(s) they ordered and never received the agreed-upon refund or credit.

Consumer Dispute: The customer never received the product(s) they ordered or claims they were not as described, defective, or damaged.

Technical/Processing Error: There was a technical issue during checkout; for example, the customer was charged twice for a single purchase.

Handling Filed Chargebacks

The main benefit of responding to chargebacks is the potential to recoup lost funds. This can be especially attractive to businesses because they are charged a fee for each disputed transaction regardless of the outcome. Responding to chargebacks can be beneficial in disputes regarding big-ticket items, since losing that revenue can impact your bottom line. However, responding to chargebacks is widely considered to be more trouble than it’s worth.

For one thing, chargebacks can take a massive amount of time and effort to handle. Full resolutions can take anywhere from one to six months, depending on how persistent the customer is. Additionally, as a rule, chargebacks are skewed in favor of consumers—after all, the process was initially created to protect consumers from dishonest merchants.

Business owners who decide they do wish to respond to chargebacks don’t have to start from scratch. Software such as Signifyd and Verifi can help manage chargebacks in-house, while managed services offered by companies such as Accertify and Chargebacks.com are good resources for outsourcing the work to experts familiar with the process.

Avoiding Future Chargebacks

The best way businesses can avoid losing time and money to chargebacks is to do everything they can to prevent them in the first place. This is especially important because businesses that receive a lot of chargebacks may have their account cancelled and flagged as fraudulent. The best ways to prevent chargebacks are to be both proactive and vigilant.

Be Proactive With Presentation & Service

The more merchants convey what customers can expect from the product and the process of receiving it, the less likely they will be dissatisfied with what they receive—or the amount of time it takes. Here are some ways businesses can be proactive in preventing chargebacks:

Depict products honestly and in great detail. Make sure each product is described exactly as it will arrive. Upload clear images and write descriptions that include important information like dimensions, compatibilities/incompatibilities, weight, color, and more. The more accurate the presentation of your product online, the less likely customers will feel like what they received was not as described.

Make sure the return/refund policy is easy to find before the order. If customers are aware of rules and processes before placing an order, they’ll be more comfortable purchasing in the first place. Then, if they wish to return the product for any reason, they’ll know they have a clear path toward getting reimbursed and will (likely) try that method before involving a bank.

Provide exceptional customer service. Make sure contact information is easy to find. If a customer can talk to a live person and explain their issue, they may be willing to reach a compromise before they resort to a chargeback. If the customer is asking for an exception to clearly-stated refund policies, pay attention to their demeanor—sometimes it’s worth issuing a refund anyway to avoid the headache of a chargeback later.

Don’t charge until the items have shipped, and send follow-up emails for every step of the order. Keeping customers informed of the status of their order is an easy way to instill confidence that their product is on the way and has not been forgotten. Customers are less likely to dispute a transaction for non-receipt of goods if they can see exactly where their order is and aren’t charged too soon for it.

Keep track of returns and issue refunds promptly. One major concern for customers is returning a product to an online store, but never receiving their money back—thus losing out on both the product and their money. Alleviate this fear by keeping customers informed throughout the return process, and make these transactions a priority on your end to ensure customers get their money back as soon as possible.

List adjusted price and shipping times clearly for international orders. While international orders are a great way to grow a business, they are riskier. If a customer’s local currency is not displayed, they may get confused about the amount they are paying and file a chargeback when the amount on their bill does not match. Clearly list the business location, local currency, and export/shipping restrictions to avoid this.

Vigilantly Monitor Orders for Unusual Activity

Being vigilant can be much trickier than being proactive. Successfully vigilant businesses monitor their orders for activities that are often associated with chargebacks. Many payment processors have become quite clever at detecting fraud, but businesses can incorporate an extra layer of protection by making sure each purchase seems legitimate before fulfilling an order. Here are a few transactions that may indicate fraudulent activity:

Shoppers placing large orders without preference for size, color, make, or model of goods/services

Unusually high transaction amounts

Existing shoppers who suddenly order a substantial volume of goods/services

Single customers that provide more than one card to cover an order or set of orders

Shoppers that order more than once in a given day

Multiple transaction attempts with a failure at the first attempt

These can be legitimate transactions, but they can also be fraudulent. Being on the lookout for this behavior, as well as having additional safeguards in place like address verification (AVS), asking for CVC codes, and adding velocity controls can help prevent chargebacks.

In addition to odd purchase behavior, monitor your billing system for any issues or glitches. The faster you can identify an accidental double-charge, issue a refund, and inform the customer, the less likely they will be to try to fix the issue through their bank.

In Conclusion

Every business will have to deal with chargebacks in one way or another. Being proactive and vigilant will allow businesses to focus on growth instead of wasting time on disputes with customers. If you have not done so already, talk to your payment processor about fraud tools that are already built into their system to help prevent chargebacks.

How Much Are Chargebacks Really Costing You—and How to Combat Them published first on https://yousweetluxury.weebly.com/

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sarajonesc · 4 years ago

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How To Start A Drop Shipping Business In Canada (Quick Start Guide)

A humongous number of Canadians spend their money online when it comes to buying products such as clothes. The amount being churned out by the eCommerce industry of this country annually is not even funny. Drop Shipping is a game-changer in this field. You manage to make good money from the comfort of your home, never having to take stock of the products that are being purchased off of your site. It is this ability to power through the intricacies of business, that allows you to focus on innovative methods to increase your profits. Success stories of people who Drop Ship are a-plenty. You will come across many such individuals, if you have not already, who have managed to make significant profits. These are people who make sure that their profits are turned into investments that can be shown off with pride. You do not have to follow the same path, make the same investments, or even purchase the same things. To turn a profit with Drop Shipping, all you have to do is get a good grasp of its principles. Do not worry, I have talked to and worked with enough people who Drop Ship to help you through the process of setting up shop. My interactions have also helped me learn the success mantras that have been handy for most of these individuals, along with the risks present in the game. Keep reading to get a detailed overview of this venture.

What is Drop Shipping?

A method of fulfilling retail needs, Dropshipping is a process where the online store does not have actual control over the products it sells. The store instead purchases the product from a manufacturer and has it directly shipped to the consumer. This allows for the seller to not handle the actual transaction at all and entirely focus on the profit mechanism involved in this process. It stands out from the standard model of retailing by not stocking or owning an inventory of the product. The seller, then, is responsible for the reach of the product. They have to look for manufacturers and decide what the share will be in terms of purchasing. The inventory visible on the site also does not need to be limited to a single manufacturer. The seller can always diversify in terms of the products they want to put out in the market. You can easily take the amount given to you, place the order to the manufacturer, and keep the difference in the selling price that you put vis-a-vis the actual selling price. You get to decide what your share will be considering that you will be undertaking the project of growing the reach of the product.

What to Sell?

This is one of the places in your Dropshipping business that will require your complete attention. Creating a store and filling it up with random products will do you no good. You will have to carefully curate what is new and trending while keeping in mind what is it that customers might be looking for at different times. All businesses are based on proper groundwork and research. If you are going to invest your time in this venture, you must have a fair idea about the market as well as your customers. These are two of the biggest tools in any good businessman’s arsenal.

Considering that a lot of your traffic will be directed through social media sites, you must spend a considerable time on Facebook and Instagram. This is to get a sense of what others might be selling, what kind of trend is currently settling in, and what kind of products catch the consumers’ eye. It would be beneficial if you also keep an eye out for quality. If that is something that interests you, definitely try one of the products before putting them on sale.

Is Dropshipping an expensive venture?

If you were to go out, rent a space, create an inventory, and then wait for customers to turn up to your physical shop, then it would be an expensive venture. If you were to hire a web developer to create a website, pay your server and hosting charges, and then wait for traffic to come your way, yes it would be an expensive venture. For Dropshipping, neither of the two scenarios listed above are important. Instead, you are far away from exhausting yourself physically or mentally when it comes to setting up shop. The internet is a real blessing when it comes to things such as this. You can easily sign yourself on one of the various sites that allow you to rent a space online, and curate your collection to sell. The price is not extravagant, and you can easily pay it off with the profits you make each month. Most such sites offer interesting add ons to attract consumers. Some of them allow consumers to create their cart and check them out at their convenience. Products that have been picked once, will not disappear! They even offer coupon code boxes that allow consumers to access the deals you set for them. One of my personal favorites is Shopify. With its nominal rates as well as a user-friendly interface, it is perfect for the seller and the consumer. You can use Shopify features to make sure that your shop stands out from the crowd and easily attracts customers.

Is Drop Shipping Risky?

As I have mentioned above, Dropshipping eliminates a lot of risks that are anyways part and parcel of any business venture.

Your investment remains minimal because you do not have to purchase any bulk quantity of stock from the manufacturer.

You do not have to wait for profits to appear if and when your initial stock has been ordered.

In this model, you can quickly gauge if your selection of products is turning in a profit. If it isn’t, at the same speed you can change the selection on your online store.

It is a dynamic process that allows your business to flourish.

Considering that this is an online venture, the biggest roadblock will only be refunding customers their money. For this, you can always plan your earnings accordingly.

Is Drop Shipping Profitable?

Honestly speaking, yes you will be able to make profits. The margin of that profit will be solely dependent on how you carry out your business transactions. You must keep track of the costs you will have to incur while conducting this business. Once you are in the game, it is important to calculate things like how much money you will be spending on acquiring the product from the manufacturer and how much will you be spending on other forms of advertisements. These are the actual costs of business, and upon this, the condition of your business be decided. Acquiring products and selling them is where you will be making your profits. You will have to strike a deal with your supplier, and provide their products at a cost, where it meets his needs and leaves money in your wallet. You will advertise manually when you begin in this trade. If you want to expand you must spend a small portion of your profit on buying ad spaces and the likes. Remember that you will have taxes to pay and make sure that you factor it in while investing your profits. You must have a plan in place before you start actively polishing the contours of this venture.

Nobody becomes a millionaire overnight, it is the process of smart investment and quick capital gains that lead people to move up the ladder of success.

How Do We Start Drop Shipping in Canada?

Now that we are familiar with what Dropshipping is, let us move towards how to start this business while sitting in the comfort of our homes.

1. Plan and Create a Structure

The first order of business is to decide between a sole trader and a company the moment your profit crosses a few hundred dollars. To set up as a company would mean that you pay a formation fee and create a business account in the bank of your choice. On the other hand, if you set up as a sole trader, you will bear the brunt of the entire process on your seld. Take help from an accountant for either declaration so that you do not miss out on anything of importance while registering yourself. This will save you a lot of time and money in the future. You might have heard that a good foundation is what decides the strength of the institution.

2. Manage Accounting

This will decide you and your companies’ future in the long run. Make sure that you keep a track of the amount that is coming in, and the amount that you are spending. This includes keeping a log of your purchases and sales. It also takes into account the amount you have spent on advertisements as well. For this, I would suggest that you create an account on applications that provide dedicated service to things such as this. Wave and MyOB are two such applications that digitize your spending and income by putting them on charts and bar graphs. Connect your banking accounts and cards to keep a complete check on the incoming and outgoing money in your company. If you start doing this religiously, filing tax returns will no longer be a headache. You will be able to save a lot as well as direct your spending accordingly when it comes to conducting your business.

3. Create your Own Store

My advice on this is to go with Shopify. It does not have any minimum commitment and you can use their free trial to get a feel of how this venture could look like. Shopify has a huge array of templates that you can put to good use to make your store more interactive and fancy. Apart from the few pre-loaded themes, you can opt to buy one made by one of many designers in here. With its free training and community forum services, it is already a step ahead of everyone else because it infuses the activity with trust and network building. You can start your store in a couple of hours. Choose an URL and buy a domain name via Shopify, your shop is ready to go.

4. Start Basic

Trust me on this, do not move to specialize in the first instance itself. Test out the market by seeing what is in demand. For this, I would advise you to start a store that caters to the general needs of the public rather than being its niche. This is only because consumers and markets are both volatile. They change their needs and tastes very quickly. Obviously, there is a need for advertisements to shift their notion, but that is for a later stage. Once you start selling, you can keep track of what is garnering the most amount of traffic and when. If it something that you can narrow down, then definitely move to create your niche.

5. Sell Your Products

For this part, we have to make sure that you simultaneously focus on two things. Firstly, scout, research, and look. You can never spend just adequate time on social media when you are in this business. Constantly surf Facebook and Instagram to see what is trending along with what is needed. Keep an eye out on places such as aliexpress.com and Sell The Trends to see the best products available. Use a platform such as Intellygence on your computer to keep a track of these things. Only when you do things like this, will you be able to successfully get good products for your business.

Secondly, smartly advertise. Use Google ads, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube to market your shop. Make sure that you have a keen eye out for social media marketing. Do not fall for ad spaces on ancient sites. Remember, your products and your shops are only as good as the number of people they are visible to.

Want To Learn How To Do Dropshipping Properly?

Now, a lot of people after reading a little about dropshipping or watching a couple of youtube videos start dropshipping. While some people might get lucky most people will fail. There are a couple reasons for this. Firstly, since this is a low barrier of entry business many people are already doing it.

Meaning it’s already much harder to begin with if you’re a beginner.

Another reason why most people fail is that they just don’t do anything properly. Of course if your new and if you follow some youtube videos showing you simply creating a store then advertising it, you’re going to fail.

There are also people who do all these and then they give up. Then they make videos on youtube saying dropshipping is difficult and it doesn’t work.

Worst of all would be where you go out there and end up losing a lot of money because you’re new to paid ads and you decided it was a good idea to run facebook ads because they showed in a youtube tutorial.

This is EXACTLY why I recommend you get a proper course to learn dropshipping.

Now there are a lot of crappy dropshipping courses on the market made by gurus in their Lamborghini’s claiming you will become an overnight millionaire if you buy their overpriced course with thin content just because they managed to get some sales on their Shopify store.

I have personally taken a lot of these courses and trust me it sucks. What I suggest is buying a solid course which isn’t overpriced or overhyped.

By far the best course on the market today for dropshipping would have to be eCom Elites by Franklin Hatchett.

Why?

Well, first off this is an actually affordable course for one. Second, some modules in this course have more CONTENT than some of the many popular dropshipping courses which ask you to pay thousands of dollars just to buy it then they might try to upsell you.

Lastly, this is a course by Franklin Hatchett, he has been doing drop shipping even before it was famous and trending on youtube. He’s been doing dropshipping for over 8 years. He isn’t your typical Lamborghini guru who had like one or two stores successful and then decided to make a course on it.

Try it out for yourself here (There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee so, you can try without losing money! By the way, I will be writing a review eCom Elites very soon!)

The post How To Start A Drop Shipping Business In Canada (Quick Start Guide) appeared first on Maple Loonie.

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americasgiftto238 · 4 years ago

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cardamomoespeciado · 4 years ago

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"Sender is China" Surprising purpose of "Mysterious Seed" sent to private home

Motomi Sakai

In the United States and Japan, there are many cases in which seeds of unordered plants arrive from China. Who is sending it and for what purpose? Motomi Sakai, a journalist in the UK, said, "The sender was a company in China. If you guessed the aim of sending it, you might have targeted a country that conflicts with China."

Image provided by US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Seeds Seen to Be from China, Released by USDA-Image courtesy of USDA

"Mysterious seeds" that arrived in the United States and Japan

As the new coronavirus infection continues to spread, strange problems are emerging in countries such as the United States. It is said that unsolicited plant seeds will be sent to individuals by international mail from countries suspected to be China.

"Mysterious seed" that I don't know who sent it for what purpose. Even if you get a mysterious junk e-mail with an attached file in your e-mail inbox, you may feel more anxious than if you get an envelope with your address and name. ..

A parcel that contained seeds. "CHINA POST" is written [Image provided by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)]

In the United States, we have already confirmed arrival in all 50 states. Cases have been found in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and it is known that they have reached Japan. On August 4, Japan Post warned on its website that it refused to accept a series of mail items without opening them.

It is undeniable that if this seed is planted, a highly toxic plant may grow, and if it is mistreated, it may destroy native species or have a great impact on the human body.

As with the new Corona, the inflow of "Nazo Seeds" into Japan must be firmly stopped by "Countermeasures at the waterfront." But who exactly is the Lord who sends them to? What is the purpose of seeding major countries?

The US asserts that "14 species of plants have arrived from China"

The coverage of this "Nazo Seed" has been gradually spreading around the US media since July 27.

The Japanese report, which seems to have been relatively early, would be CNN's Japanese version, "Watch out for suspicious mail with seeds, US states call out to ship from China" (July 28). Or? According to the report, in each state in the United States, a series of reports were received from the residents that they received mail containing seeds that they did not order. Seeds are believed to have been shipped from China, and state authorities warned against sowing seeds and opening bags as they could be an invasive alien species.

Around the same time, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s International Plant and Animal Quarantine Division (APHIS) set up a site entitled "Agricultural Department's Unwanted Survey of Seed Packages from China." We are making announcements to the public. Although the point of interest is to say "from China," anyway, the following is a summary of the situation that APHIS knows so far.

USDA Announcement on "Mysterious Seeds"

・On the Web, write "Postal items containing suspicious seeds that may be from China"

・Delivery to 50 states, UK, Australia

・The seeds that arrived in the United States have been confirmed to be "14 plant species" so far.

・As a result of the inspection, "It is unlikely to directly affect the human body", explained

・APHIS will collect the data. Received samples from 22 states

The contents are cabbage, morning glory, various herbs...

Even in the United States, bringing plants and seeds is "strictly regulated by the Plant Protection and Quarantine Program under the Ministry of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Quarantine Service (CNN article)." Against this background, many of the seeds that arrive as "small packages" with the "China Post" invoice are sent by falsifying the contents as "rings" and "accessories" to the customs authorities. There is.

Image provided by US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Seeds stored at the US Department of Agriculture-Image courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

But before these problems came to light, a woman in Kentucky had already planted the seeds sent from China in June, thinking they were coming from a local gardener club. Say. On the website of the local station, there are photos of the flower pots that actually sprouted.

Among the "puzzle seeds" that have arrived all over the United States, APHIS has been able to recover from 22 states, and 14 seeds have been investigated. So far, he has declared mustard, cabbage, morning glory, herbs (mint, sage, rosemary, etc.), lavender, hibiscus, roses, etc. However, since it will continue to arrive even after this, the possibility of finding dangerous plants cannot be said to be zero.

Sender is a Chinese company that undertakes overseas transfers

The US Department of Agriculture is asking the public, "If you receive suspicious seeds, put the envelopes in the ziplock and send them to APHIS or contact them." It seems that there is also an intention to investigate that the envelope comes from China. On the other hand, China's reaction is as follows.

"A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said in a press conference held on July 28 that he insisted that the voucher was counterfeit and that the information on the voucher was not accurate." The article argued that the unidentified seed was not mailed by China Post, and pointed out that it might be a scam that cheated on China Post (Searchina, August 4).

Based on the invoice photograph of "Nazo Seed" that arrived in the United States and Japan, I tried again to find out where it was sent from. Using the telephone number (+86-17727553512) on the invoice as a clue, I found that "Taiji Logistics Co., Ltd.," which is one of the companies that receive overseas forwarding service from an e-commerce vendor in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. It turned out to be The company undertakes a service to collectively transfer small packages for overseas at a bargain price, and in Japan, it operates as a third-class mail discount agent. Considering that, it is very likely that the invoice itself is genuine.

However, when I read the guide of Taiji Logistics, it says "animals and plants" in the prohibited items, and seeds are not listed, but it should be seen as one of the restricted items that should be expanded.

The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Water "Do not plant in gardens or planters."

Regardless of who sent it, even in Japan, there was a demand for measures against the edge of "mysterious seeds," but the responsibility is the plant quarantine station, a division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Below is a summary of the current impacts in Japan.

"Mysterious Seeds" Impact on Japan (Summary of the author)

・According to reports from domestic companies, there are examples of arrival in Kanagawa prefecture, Aichi prefecture, etc.

・Recipient's address or name may be stolen by a third party

・The contents are misrepresented as "rings" and "accessories".

・Voluntary collection by the Ministry of Agriculture

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Plant Protection Station website recommended on August 4 under the title "Please contact the Plant Protection Center if you have mailed a plant that you have not ordered from abroad."

"It seems that there are some cases where seeds have been sent from overseas even though we have not placed an order recently. According to the Plant Protection Law, seeds and other plants must be imported unless they are inspected by a plant protection officer. If you pass the inspection at the time of import, a stamp (plant inspection pass certificate) will be stamped on the exterior.(Omitted) Even if you receive seeds that you do not know, do not plant it in the garden or planter etc. Please"

Do you not collect or analyze

As mentioned above, the writing is done without any trouble. Furthermore, there is no tone that asserts "comes from China" as in the United States.

However, unfortunately I don't feel like actively doing analysis, etc. "If you can pay the shipping fee, please send it to the nearest plant quarantine station. Masu”.

There is no certainty that this will not affect the human body itself, as well as concern about what to do if it affects native plants. To reassure the people, I think it's okay to show an attitude of positive collection. Is it too much to say that it resembles the passive response in Japan when the new Corona became a problem in China?

I thought about three reasons "for what purpose?"

Even if the sender is known, there is still the question of who and what purpose is being pursued in regard to the "puzzle seeds".

Several scenarios are possible. The summary is as follows, but the third is probably the most serious.

1. Possible brushing fraud

The Japanese media also quote the possibility of "brushing fraud" by citing American media. "Blushing scams" are a type of online scam where you can send your own product at a low cost and write a good review online using that person's name as if he or she wrote it.

2. Highly dangerous plants grow

This is a scenario in which a plant with extremely high risk is growing and it is expected that handling it will cause serious damage to the human body. Although it is unconfirmed information, there is also a story that "Giant Hogweed seeds have been sent" which may cause blindness when sap gets into the eyes. In addition, there was speculation that radioactive substances might be mixed (so far, there has been no specific detection).

However, it is necessary to pay attention to what is true for a while, as some testimonies say that when the moss was planted together in the same flowerpot with the seeds sent from China, that was the only thing that died.

Is the target "a country" rich in nature?

3. Derange the habitat of plants and animals in the destination country

A scenario in which it is expected that the seeds of a certain species will be germinated and propagated, resulting in the elimination of plants of the native species and cutting the habitat of animals. Invasion of alien species is a major threat to countries with many natural heritage sites.

Australia is one of the most famous countries that completely refuses the inflow of various foods including seeds, plants and meats. When I spoke to a friend in Australia again this time, he said, "I scan all incoming mail and thoroughly check it, and I do not think that the seeds will arrive at my private house." Can be taught well at school, and I will never plant it just because I received it."

If something goes wrong with harvesting crops in one country, "a few grams of seeds" could be a powerful weapon for attacking another country.

Although they are in conflict with China due to the Hong Kong and corona issues...

The truth of these scenarios cannot be known at this timing. However, the two countries of Australia and China are in direct conflict with China, in addition to the problems concerning the national security law introduced in Hong Kong and the demand for information disclosure of the new coronavirus.

Australia was very dependent on China for its economy, not only for inbound tourists visiting Australia, but also for exporting mineral resources and accepting Chinese students, but Australia has hardened its attitude to return to the palm of the hand. I'm buying a slump. The anger of governments, including Australia, would increase further if "dangerous seed delivery" was defined as a new operation that was tactically lacking.

"The seed of mystery" which became a big problem across multiple countries. Without the spread of the new coronavirus, it would have been "direct mail came from somewhere." I was reminded that the incident suddenly poses a risk that somebody's personal information is leaked to some country, and unidentified goods are at hand.

Even if it isn't an attack on a certain country, a single letter may cause disaster. It should be regarded as an incident that has brought awareness to a new danger.

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copierleasecenter1 · 4 years ago

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Everything You Need to Know About a Copier Lease in 17 Minutes

We can start with the basics. And then we can go from there into some of how to save money and other things like that.

How to Acquire a Copier

So the first thing is a corporate lease is a way to acquire a copier. You can also purchase a copier. Lastly, you can also rent a copier, or you can lease a copier.

And then on top of the leasing plan, you’ll have a supply and service plan, which will take care of the following:

Ink

Service

Parts

Labor

Delivery

and more.

So what we’re talking about here is the getting of the physical equipment into your office.

So getting, let’s say, for example, this Xerox CAD 30, and you want it in your office. This lease is a way to get that in there without putting $6,000 or $7,000 down, plus having a monthly payment of $130 to $150 a month.

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How to Calculate Your Copier Lease Rate

The first thing to know is there are tables. When we’re making a copier sale, we’re looking at a table kind of like this:

Q2 Leasing Rates

A Fair Market Value lease means that at the end of the contract, the copier gets returned to a warehouse, and then you’ll be responsible for the shipment of the copier to that warehouse. You’ll complete your lease at the end of the term.

We also have a $1 Purchase option, which means at the end of the lease, you pay a dollar, and the copier now belongs to you.

You have different rates basically because, on the Fair Market Value lease, they’re giving the copier back, and there’ll be a value to that. The $1 Purchase Option lease lets you keep the copier, which is gets factored into the numbers on the table.

What you end up doing is you will take the amount that you’re financing. So let’s say it’s $7,000, and you are going to do a five-year lease. You would be in the $3k to $10k band right here. And so you multiply by 0.0195, And you would end up with about $136.50 on a fair market value lease.

On a dollar out lease, you would do the same thing. You go to the 60-month term, and you see “0.0208.” So you would go $7,000 x 0.0208, and that’s $145.60. So about $9 per month difference. And then $9 x 60 is $540, which is about what it costs to ship it back at the end, anyway.

So, I would tend to do the $1 Purchase Option because then I have an option to run it further afterward. If it’s still running great, I could sell it on Craigslist or use it as a backup.

Other people want to have the payment as low as possible. And they’re going to depend on the copier company to take care of that shipping fee, which will get rolled into the next lease, at the end of the contract.

So that’s two different ways to do a copier lease. And as you can see, there’s these different stairsteps. And so between $1 and $3,000 has a different lease rate factor than between $3,000 and $10,000.

So technically speaking, if we go $2,999 x 0.0235, and that would be $70.47. But if you go $3,000, so you just raise it $1, then that’s $58.50, so it’s $11.50 a month and almost $700 total. So that $1 difference in price makes a $700 total payment difference.

We try to focus on how we make sure that you’re in the right part of the stairsteps so that you can get the best rates possible.

Technically, it may mean adding a hundred dollars to your cost to ensure that your price goes down based on the lease rate factor.

Automatic Renewals

And the next you’d want to know is usually on any of these leases, towards the end of the lease, they have a clause that will do an automatic renewal. And so it’s always good to mark that into your calendar system that will let you know 60 or 90 days before the end of the lease.

You don’t want to automatically renew the year-long copier lease because you’ve already paid for the copier, and now you’re just basically giving the bank extra money.

So it’s pretty much always a bad deal to renew. If you do it a month or two, it’s not the end of the world. If you start doing it for a year, that’s just wasted $1,400 – $1,500.

So I like to have a reminder put into the calendar that lets me know on month 56 that we’re coming to the end of that lease. Ensure that you give the appropriate notifications because there’ll be a clause that says that if you don’t renew within a specific timeframe, you’ll have to keep it for maybe another three to twelve months depending on how it’s written.

Automatic Escalation Fees

One of the other things I try to look for within a lease is automatic escalations.

What an automatic escalation is, is it’s going to take the number like where we had here, $60 a month for that $3,000 copier, and it’s going to say, every year we have the right to raise the lease rate a particular percentage The standard percentage is somewhere around 10%.

So the $60 a month will go to $66, and then it’ll go $72, then $78, then $84. So by the time we hit $84 a month when the rep comes back around, it’s easier to say, “Hey, we can get you into another copier for just $60 a month, basically where you were though at the beginning.”

If you didn’t have that escalator, it would be harder to roll the next copier in because that escalation makes your lease payment higher each year. So I always would avoid escalation fees.

It’s easy for most copier companies to take that out of their contracts. We’d always recommend that when you lease a copier that you make sure you don’t have an escalation fee.

And be sure to mark down when the lease is supposed to expire.

Coverage Limitations

The next thing I would pay attention to is the idea of coverage limitations. That’s on the supplies and service agreement.

So, each copier is rated to do a certain number of pages per toner cartridge.

So if you think of it like each toner cartridges is like a gallon of milk. Each page comes out and expecting that you’re going to get so many cups of milk out of each gallon because a cup holds so much fluid, and you can multiply that out and determine how many cups of milk you’re going to get. They use the same kind of logic for pages.

So you have a toner cartridge, which has a bunch of toner in it. And each page that you print is going to utilize a certain amount of that toner. And it’s based on a recovery trait, and usually, that’s 5% per color. So the color is 20% because there’s four colors, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The black and whites 5% coverage is a typical industry average because it’s only black. There’s no cyan, magenta, or yellow to take into account.

What happens on some leases or some service plans is that if you exceed 5% or above 20% color coverage, then there can be a multiplier added to compensate for the toner usage. So if it turns out that you’re averaging 30% or 40% coverage, instead of 20%, your color rate can rise by 1.5 to 2 times. Check to see if there’s a penalty if you exceed a particular percentage within your coverage.

And so that’s something else that we look at and try to make sure that, you know, if you’re going to lease a copier that you’re paying attention to your coverage, or getting ideally a lease contract that does not have a penalty on color coverage.

What to Look For in Overage Charges

You also want to see what your overages are. Overages technically should be lower in price, not higher, if you exceed the base.

What will happen on a base is that you’ll get a certain number of prints.

So we can use an example of 10,000 prints. Let’s say they’re all black and white just to make it simple. And they’re a penny apiece, so it’s a hundred dollars a month, and you get 10,000 prints. And then once you exceed 10,000, you get billed per print for any that you do over 10,000. So if you do 11,000 prints, then the last thousand would be charged at the overage rate.

Often, I’ve seen that people will make the overage rate higher than the base rate, which doesn’t make sense because most of the service should be contained in the first part. And the overage should be cheaper because the service is already included in the base. And because the copier company is going to want to make sure that their service department is whole. So they’re going to make sure that the service is in there, no matter what. And then, once you exceed that base, the service part has been handled, more or less.

Of course, the more prints to do, you will have more service calls. So there is more service expectation. So you would expect more service calls, but the cost is going to be lower because you don’t tend to find a one for one ratio there. And so if you’re at a penny per page for 10,000, we would expect that once you exceed 10,000, it should be nine-tenths of a penny or something like that. It shouldn’t be 1.2 cents after you hit the 10,000.

Keeping an eye on your base rate, then comparing it to the overage and making sure the overage is lower than your base is a good idea.

How Does a Zero Base Contract Save You Money?

I’ve noticed that a lot of customers are concerned about having zero base. Zero base would be ideal if I were buying a copier because then you’re just paying for what you’re using. You’re not paying for 10,000 prints and then only doing 5,000, and therefore your effective cost per print doubles. So I would always personally get a zero base contract unless I got a massive discount for the inclusions.

So if I went from $0.015 down to $0.01 and I was pretty sure that I was going to use 10,000 and it saved me half a penny per page, then, of course, that makes sense because I prefer to keep the $50 per month. If I wasn’t sure if I was going to do 10,000, there’s no way I would sign up for 10,000 pages because it’s like, they’ll do 3,000 in 1 month or 7,000. And in those months, I’m going to lose 7,000 pages that I purchased.

So I would always say whatever you think your minimum month is that you should do roughly 80% of that rather than signing up for your average because your average is going to fluctuate.

You’ll have some months that are higher than your average and some lower months. So, I would take my lowest month, and then multiply that by 80%. And I would use that as my base.

This way, I knew whatever I was doing, for example, if there’s a pandemic, like what we’re going through currently, and nobody’s working at the office, I’m not stuck paying for 10,000 pages a month while everybody’s gone.

So the idea is to pay for what you use, don’t pay for what you’re not using. And so that’s an essential thing also within your service contract.

Why Higher Copier Speed Isn’t Always Faster

One of the things that we see from some people is if they are looking at different products, what they’ll end up doing is getting, for example, a Xerox Altalink C8070 for $219 a month and 70 pages per minute because of speed.

And so one thing to be aware of is that sometimes these high-speed copiers, like the C8070, go 70 pages a minute when it’s fully warmed up, but it may take longer to warm up.

So, people will take a fast one because they want to go fast like this instead of a slower one. After all, they’re thinking 70 pages per minute is twice as fast as 35.

The one thing to be aware of is that many of these copiers producing 70 pages per minute, anything over 50, can often take longer to warm up. And then if it’s a small job, you’d go faster by having the smaller, more compact copier.

So it’s not always that the higher rated speed is the faster copier. One thing you need to look at is the warmup time because if you don’t factor in the warmup time, it could take 30 seconds to warm up in eight seconds for the other.

So you have 22 seconds of it being able to print, and most of your print jobs will be just a few pages. And so you could find that your day to day printing is slower by going with the faster copier.

It sounds kind of strange, but one thing to keep in mind is the more small jobs you have, the less that speed matters. The more long jobs you have, the more speed matters. If you’re doing 2,000 pages, you know, reports or 1,000-page reports, or even 200 page reports suddenly going 70 pages per minute, it starts making more sense because it takes three minutes to do that job instead of six on a 30 page per minute copier.

That’s something to keep in mind: the longer your jobs are, the more essential speed is. The shorter your jobs are, the less important speed becomes.

Duty Cycle Considerations

There are also duty cycle considerations. If it’s 10,000, 20,000 pages per month, you’re still probably going to want to go to a higher-end model just because of the print volume, not because of the speed requirements. So that’s another thing to consider.

I hope this was useful to you because you know that’s our goal here at Copy Lease Center is to provide great information to our clients. And so if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to give us a call. We always work to get you a fair copier lease, and we’d love to chat with you. Thank you so much.

The post Everything You Need to Know About a Copier Lease in 17 Minutes appeared first on Copier Lease Center.

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clarencenicholsonata · 5 years ago

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UX Research Takeaways: 10 Ways to Improve Your Ecommerce Website Design

The internet’s not the wild west it once was. Back in the day, businesses could throw up a simple website and be light-years ahead of their competitors. But times, they are a-changing.

Build it and they will come rarely works anymore. With over a billion websites on the internet, nearly every market is crowded with options customers can choose from, and increasingly savvy internet users have higher and higher expectations from the online stores they visit. They expect the stores to be mobile-friendly, tablet-friendly, error-free, fast-loading, well-designed…and probably with free next-day shipping! The bar has been raised.

If you’re an eCommerce website owner, this leaves you with a simple, yet critical challenge: where do you focus your (limited) resources to maximize your website’s effectiveness and customer satisfaction? How can you take your site to the next level?

Here are 10 research-backed tactics you can implement to improve your eCommerce website and attract more customers.

Kill the carousel

Image carousels or rotators are popular features to put at the top of eCommerce homepages or category pages. They’re flashy, dynamic, and site owners and designers seem to love them. But do users love them? Generally speaking, no: carousels are not the most effective option for your homepage or category pages. A Nielsen usability study found that users were often unable to find content that was in a rotator:

“The user's target was at the top of the page in 98-point font. But she failed to find it because the panel auto-rotated instead of staying still.”

Replace carousels with static content that presents your core value proposition and makes it easy for users to find the most critical information on each page.

Optimize shipping for 1-2 day delivery

Amazon has had an enormous influence on modern life. One way they’ve shaped the fabric of our society is by changing consumer expectations on delivery speed. Back in the day, 3-7 days was considered pretty typical. But Amazon has conditioned users to expect faster delivery (1-2 days) and online stores are under pressure to deliver quickly in order to compete for customers.

Fortunately, small businesses have some options – and you don’t need to pay for 2-day air shipping or stock products in 140 fulfillment centers across the US. Most businesses can use two strategically placed fulfillment centers to offer 2-day ground shipping to nearly every resident in the US.

For example, if you place your East Coast fulfillment center in Louisville, KY you can ship to the blue and pink portions of this map in 1-2 days with FedEx Ground:

That includes basically all of the Eastern US plus the major population centers in Texas and the Midwest. Then, by adding a fulfillment center further west, you can cover all the population centers on the West Coast in 1-2 days also:

That delivers to the whole country in 2 days or less, except for the Rocky Mountain states, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Voila! You’ve got near-Amazon delivery speeds with two fulfillment centers and group shipping!

Visually prioritize one action on each page

Most internet users skim. According to a study Jakob Neilsen did 22 years ago, about 79% of users prefer to skim - and skimming has only become more prevalent in the years since.

Users want to be able to quickly identify what they want to do next. This means that presenting a bunch of equal options isn’t great for users or site owners. Users can skim and move faster (and complete purchases faster) when websites make it obvious which single action the user should take next.

This principle is especially important in your store checkout. MecLabs performed a study where they took this checkout:

And changed it to make it instantly obvious which button the user should click:

The result: eCommerce conversions increased by 37%!

Don’t force account creation

Want to frustrate customers so they abandon your site without purchasing?

According to a Baymard Institute study, one of the best ways to cause shopping cart abandonment is to force users to create an account during checkout. 31% of US adults surveyed said they recently abandoned an online purchase for this reason:

If you want customers to complete their purchase, make it easy for them to checkout without registering for an account on your website.

Fortunately, many eCommerce platforms offer guest checkout as an out-of-the-box feature or as a plugin. For example, here’s the guest checkout option Magento offers by default:

I typically recommend removing even this step, though – take users straight to the guest checkout with a link at the top for users to log in if they already have an account.

Find a way to offer free shipping

In the Baymard Institute study referenced previously, researchers found that the #1 reason for shopping cart abandonment is:

Extra costs are too high (shipping, taxes, fees).

Taxes are beyond your control, but you can work to make shipping costs more affordable for users. In fact, you probably need to offer a free shipping option: the Top 100 Ecommerce Retailers Benchmark Study found that 68% of top eCommerce websites offer free shipping, typically requiring a $50 minimum order to qualify for free shipping.

Here are a few tips for making free shipping a cost-effective option for your eCommerce store:

Use strategic fulfillment center locations to ensure you can use cheap shipping options while still getting orders delivered quickly.

Require a minimum purchase to qualify for free shipping. Offer users an incentive (for example, a free gift or credit) to choose a cheaper shipping option.

Use your free shipping threshold to upsell customers to buy more: “Add $23 more to your shopping cart to get free shipping!” Minimize packaging and processing costs to keep overall costs down.

If needed, mark heavier items (that are costlier to ship) as ineligible for free shipping. Or, require a higher minimum order to qualify for free shipping.

Shorten your checkout process

Not to harp on the same thing, but let’s reference that Baymard study again. It found that the #3 reason for shopping cart abandonment is an overly long or complicated checkout process.

Shortening forms isn’t just for eCommerce, either. Marketing Experiments ran a test that showed a shorter form boosted conversions by 34% - that’s a pretty significant boost!

Back to eCommerce, though. The key is to make checking out as fast and as easy as possible. And this doesn’t just apply to online - customers hate Walmart for making real-world checkout a pain:

Don’t make your online store checkout like Walmart: slow and painful. Make it quick and intuitive by:

Removing any fields that aren’t needed

Making every error message clear and intuitive

Ensuring skimming customers can easily see what to do next

Making your forms fully compatible with auto-fill

Making the visual flow of the process simple and intuitive

Tighten up your security

Customers are (slowly, but surely) learning to care about privacy and security online.

With headlines being published seemingly every day about hackers stealing customer data, government agencies are fining companies - and consumers appreciate it. For example, the UK government recently fined British Airways a record-breaking £183 million because of a data breach that happened in 2018. The government felt that BA hadn’t done enough to protect the data against hackers. While opinion was divided, a survey found that a significant percentage of brits supported the data security fine. In fact, 1 in 10 UK residents wanted the fine to be higher! Ouch.

The fact that customers care about their data security means that eCommerce website owners need to take steps to protect their customers, and just as importantly – demonstrate to customers what they’re doing for privacy and security. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Take the steps needed to become fully PCI compliant (even if your bank doesn’t enforce it). Feel free to use a site seal or website message to tell your customers about this!

Follow any privacy laws that apply to you (for example, GDPR) and list on your website what you’re doing.

Implement best-practice security practices across your website and organization (which PCI requires, anyway).

Implement SSL/HTTPS on all URLs, all the time.

Be 100% certain that you’re not storing any payment card or other sensitive data un-encrypted. In fact, just don’t store it at all – companies like Stripe and Authorize.net make it easy for you to bill credit cards while they handle the secure storage portion.

Offer a satisfaction guarantee

Many companies are afraid to implement a 100% satisfaction, money-back guarantee due to fear that people will abuse the policy. Sure, that does happen.

But in most cases, you’ll get benefits from a satisfaction guarantee policy that far outweigh the costs. A Wiley study found that “selling with MBGs increases retail sales and profit. Furthermore, the second‐sale opportunity created by restocking returned products enables the retailer to generate additional revenues.”

Money-back guarantees offer several benefits, including:

Increased conversion rates. Advertising a money-back guarantee is very effective at removing any lingering doubts and getting the customer to make the purchase.

Lower cart abandonment. Showing your guarantee seal/details in the checkout can help reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Better online reputation. No matter how good your products are, some customers won’t be happy. And some unhappy customers will post negative reviews and complain about social media. Offering a money-back guarantee can reduce or sidestep a lot of that complaining, improving your online reputation and making new customer acquisition easier.

Give instant support options

Customers increasingly expect instant gratification. In the world of WhatsApp, Snapchat, & Tinder…email is just too slow.

The top 100 eCommerce study (linked above) found that eCommerce stores are catching up with the instant gratification trend: 99% of top stores offer phone support and 53% offer live chat support. Another study found that customers prefer live chat to phone or email.

And (in case you’re still not convinced) research by Kayako shows that a majority of companies find that live chat has a positive impact on their sales:

For customers who have a question or want to talk to someone before making their purchase decision, live chat is a great way to make customers happy and close more sales.

Track and optimize onsite search

Onsite search is a far-too-often-neglected feature in the eCommerce world. Research from eConsultancy shows that visitors who do a site search are nearly twice as likely to purchase as users who don’t do a site search.

Here are a few tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your onsite search feature:

Make the search box easy to find, sitewide.

Enable autocomplete to show common searches and suggested products.

Support text searches or product IDs.

Sort by relevancy/best-selling by default.

Auto-correct common misspellings.

Allow users to change sort options on the search results page.

Allow users to filter results by category, rating, and other criteria.

Carefully track the terms users search on your site, checking to ensure good results are being returned.

What are your go-to tactics?

This article is hardly a comprehensive list of research-backed ways to improve your eCommerce store – it only covers a few of the tactics I’ve seen be effective. What are your favorite ways to improve an eCommerce shop?

About the Author

Adam Thompson is a digital marketing and technology manager with 15 years of experience in eCommerce and SEO. After 10 years agency-side, Adam moved into the cybersecurity industry, serving as SEO & SEM Manager for ComodoSSLStore. When he’s not digging in Google Analytics, creating content, or writing code, you’re likely to find Adam enjoying the outdoors near his home in sunny Florida.

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aicelab · 5 years ago

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DropShipping: The 10 most common startup errors

More and more start-up companies in Germany are using DropShipping to fulfill their dream of their own online business. This is no wonder, because only with DropShipping it is possible to offer hundreds of products for sale in your own online shop or on eBay without having to buy a single product in advance.

The reasons for the failure of young companies are manifold

Whoever decides to found their own company naturally wishes to achieve maximum success with the business. At the very least, this means that the company will survive economically and generate enough money to provide the operator with a comfortable life. If this succeeds, then most of the wishes and dreams that led at the beginning to the fact that one has decided at all for a foundation come true.

If it does not succeed instead, then unfortunately one often has to struggle for a long time with the consequences and consequences of failure. So there is a lot to be said for dealing at an early stage with the question of why young companies fail at all. In this way, strategies can be developed in good time to avoid failure.

If we first take a rather general look at the reasons why young companies fail, we usually encounter gaps and deficiencies in terms of financing. The companies run out of financial breath during the start-up phase because the resulting costs were underestimated and the incoming revenues were overestimated. As a DropShipping dealer, you are more on the safe side here, as there are no special costs during the start-up and start-up phase and no high costs during ongoing operations.

Also DropShippers are not protected against missteps

Scheit can be a drop shipping company of course anyway. Here we often have to deal with very specific causes. These relate partly to e-commerce in general and partly to the drop shipping trading model in particular.

Among the causes based on the general characteristics of e-commerce, the lack of or incomplete market analysis should be mentioned above all. Those who, as founders, do not deal extensively with the potential of the targeted market risk financial shipwrecks. A lack of product knowledge has also brought down many a start-up project. If we turn our attention to those causes that relate specifically to drop shipping, then those reasons that are related to the suppliers are particularly noticeable here.

The manufacturers and wholesalers that DropShipping works with have a great responsibility and are instrumental in determining whether business is developing positively or negatively. Therefore, it is important to look here when it comes to finding and combating the most frequent mistakes at the start of drop shipping companies in advance.

Who knows the worst mistakes, can protect himself consciously and effectively

With founding mistakes, it’s such a thing. This includes the most common causes that can lead to the failure of a young company shortly after its launch. Inexperienced founders have the disadvantage that they often do not know these potentials well enough. This hardly gives them a chance to prepare adequately for what is to come. Unfortunately, one usually only has the appropriate experience when one has been in business for several years.

However, it is precisely then that knowledge about mistakes in setting up a company is of little use. Of course, such founders and entrepreneurs are particularly familiar with the causes of failure, as they have already experienced the economic collapse of their companies. Therefore we should find a way to know the most common mistakes of founders in the field of DropShipping without having to experience them ourselves. If this happens, then it is usually already too late.

Now, of course, one could turn to experienced entrepreneurs and ask them to accompany one’s own founding and start-up process and, above all, to make sure that not too many mistakes occur. The problem, however, is that on the one hand there are not very many entrepreneurs who are willing to provide such information, and on the other hand such entrepreneurs also work constantly rather than devote their precious time to advising and supporting future competitors. In search of a better and more realistic way, you will be interested in the following 10 sources of error, which we would like to present to you and give you along the way.

Successful learning from the mistakes of other DropShippers

We have compiled for you the most frequent and most serious causes of the failure of young companies. We have been guided by the e-commerce industry on the one hand and the DropShipping trading model on the other. Therefore, you do not expect unimportant commonplaces, but instead a very differentiated elaboration of the most frequent sources of error in exactly the business area you have chosen.

We recommend that you study the presented errors, reasons and causes very carefully. Try to internalize the individual sources of interference deeply and pay particular attention to the many recommendations in the text that will help you avoid these mistakes. With this you lay the stable foundation stone for a long-term stable company that is economically well off and provides you financially with everything you need.

You should avoid these errors at all costs

In order for a DropShipping trade to start successfully, it is important to exclude potential sources of error. Below are the ten most common mistakes made by inexperienced DropShipping resellers. Those who take these sources of error into account when setting up their own drop shipping business and consistently avoid them have good prospects of a profitable and flourishing company in the long term.

Error 1: Market and consumer interests disregarded

Products cannot be sold without a reasonable demand on the market and a corresponding interest on the part of consumers. Before you decide on a specific trading area, you should carefully analyze the market potential. In this context, do not only examine whether the respective goods are in high demand, but also get an accurate impression of the competition and the current prices on the market.

If you succeed in discovering a promising niche that has so far been little occupied, then your chances of successful sales will increase. If you have well-founded doubts about the success potential of products, then you prefer to choose a different product area.

Error 2: Too little time is invested in the selection of suppliers

Anyone who’s too quick for a DropShipping Suppliers who risks overlooking crucial details. Every potential drop-shipping provider has to be put through its paces before starting a concrete cooperation. This requires comprehensive research, which ideally also involves personal discussions. One way to get in touch with potential suppliers is through appropriate trade fairs and commercial exhibitions.

Extensively test the efficiency of the potential wholesaler. Make some test orders and especially check the quality of the products and the reliability of the delivery. Question existing customers of the respective supplier about their Experience with DropShipping at the company and search the Internet for opinions and ratings.

Error 3: Conditions with suppliers are not well negotiated

The profit is made on the purchase. Remember this old principle of successful merchants and check the purchase prices of your DropShipping suppliers carefully. Wrong shame in negotiating list prices is out of place here. Your counterpart is an experienced dealer and will not feel attacked by an open request for special discounts and better prices.

However, do not only consider the pure product price, but also agree the costs and fees for shipping and handling with your suppliers. Please also talk about minimum order quantities and any surcharges for small quantities that may apply. These conditions must in any case be clearly agreed before the start of the cooperation, as they are very decisive for your future profits.

Error 4: Products are traded that you don’t understand.

When selecting a product area, you should not be guided solely by market opportunities and achievable profit margins. Make sure that you have as much personal reference as possible to your future product range. Keep in mind that you can describe and document products that you know well much better. As a specialist stranger, the compilation of a consumer-oriented assortment would already present you with an almost unsolvable task.

When choosing a specific product group, remember that you need to answer customer questions regularly, both before and after the purchase. If you decide on products that interest you personally, you will follow the markets, the technical innovations and the trends anyway and will not have to invest additional working time for this.

Error 5: The costs in the DropShipping trade are underestimated

Those who opt for a business model based on drop shipping often have the low start-up costs in mind. Even if this business model requires considerably less capital than a comparable concept in classic trading, you will still have to bear various costs. You should be aware of these and take them carefully into account in your planning. Think, for example, of the software and design of your future online shop and the expenses for programming interfaces to the respective suppliers.

In addition, calculate the costs of setting up your future workplace, creating business stationery and include the advertising and marketing expenses necessary to make your future shop known on the Internet. Although drop shipping allows you to dispense with a warehouse and staff for warehousing and shipping, you should consider early on who can support you in handling customer inquiries and support tasks and what this support will cost you.

Error 6: No regulations are made with return of goods

If you sell products on the Internet to private customers, then you are legally obliged to grant the buyer a 14-day right of return. Remember that this right does not apply between you and your DropShipping supplier. This is due to the fact that there is trade between merchants here and that in this environment the rules of private consumer protection do not apply. Under certain circumstances it may be possible to agree an extraordinary right of return with the DropShipping supplier.

If your supplier is not prepared to do this, you should plan to sell returns on eBay. Keep in mind that you will not normally achieve the originally planned sales price with such returns. Please also clarify with your DropShipping suppliers how to proceed in warranty and guarantee cases. In any case, agree to whom the customer can return a defective product during the warranty period and how it will be replaced.

Error 7: Communication with the supplier is inadequate

In order to convince yourself of the efficiency of a drop shipping supplier of your choice, you should personally and locally get an exact picture of the company of the future partner. Although today a large part of commercial communication is handled by telephone or e-mail, personal contact, especially at the beginning of the cooperation, cannot be replaced by anything else. In direct dialogue, you have better opportunities to negotiate concrete prices and conditions.

In the premises of your potential supplier you can get a comprehensive picture of the seriousness and efficiency of the company. Check whether the products offered are actually in the warehouse and have the processing structures and processes in the company explained to you. Pay particular attention to how quickly incoming orders are processed and ordered goods shipped.

Error 8: The amount of work is underestimated

Online trading via drop shipping involves considerably less processing effort than traditional mail order trading. However, even the modern form of online trading cannot do without planning and structure. It is therefore imperative that you plan in indispensable work steps and increased time requirements.

On the one hand, you should not underestimate the effort involved in the careful care of prospective buyers and customers. On the other hand, the business relationship with your drop shipping suppliers can also involve a greater amount of work if, for example, inventories have to be transferred manually instead of being updated via a data interface.

Error 9: The ability of the goods to be delivered is not checked optimally.

As a drop-shipping online retailer, it is your responsibility to verify the delivery capability of the products you offer. If a product is not available or only available late, this is due to your reputation as an Internet trader. When trading drop-shipping products on eBay, even the seller guidelines oblige you as a seller to make sure that the products can be shipped immediately after the sale.

The consequences of delayed availability of products can also affect you economically. For example, if a customer orders two products, one of which is not available on schedule, you usually pay twice the shipping costs.

Error 10: Goods with high return rates are selected

Product returns are part of the daily routine of every online retailer. Both the law and the general rules for customer friendliness require an unconditional right of return of at least 14 days. In many cases, returned goods can no longer be sold regularly, but must instead be sold elsewhere, usually at a lower price. The resulting losses are to be borne by the online merchant himself.

Against this background, the product areas envisaged should also be reviewed with regard to the return rate to be expected. The market knows of various product categories which are particularly susceptible to returns and can therefore be classified as unsuitable for drop shipping. An example of this is the clothing sector. Here, the return rates can reach up to 40 percent in some cases.

If you know the most serious mistakes, then you are in the best position to avoid them consistently. To complete the picture, we provide you in our guidebook in addition 7 stumbling blocks on the road to success in front of you. So you are optimally prepared to do everything right.

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whittlebaggett8 · 6 years ago

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The perks of REI’s lifetime membership far outweigh its one-time $20 cost, Defence Online

Insider Picks writes about solutions and products and services to help you navigate when shopping on the internet. Insider Inc. receives a fee from our affiliate partners when you get by way of our inbound links, but our reporting and tips are usually independent and objective.

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REI

The $20 lifetime REI membership is a terrific deal.

Customers receive 10% off of practically all the things in the retail outlet automatically (paid back again in an once-a-year dividend), access to users-only discounts, deep reductions on REI classes, situations, and adventures, and can vote on the company’s board of administrators, amongst other perks.

The $20 payment swiftly pays for by itself, primarily if you or a person in your family strategy to acquire from REI.

Probabilities are that you’ve most likely read of REI if you’re possibly an out of doors fanatic or an individual who has just had to obtain a wintertime coat once in their life span. What may arrive as additional of a surprise, even though, is their $20 lifetime membership method.

Although paid retail memberships rightfully encourage some skeptical thinking, this is a person that, all factors considered, is truly an insanely very good worth.

There are the evident added benefits: REI is a residence identify in the outdoor entire world for great reason, and carries a dauntingly huge range. They have a potent feeling of neighborhood and great customer assistance, the latter of which I’m prepared to wager is affected by the previous. If you expend above $50, you get free of charge shipping and delivery. And if you want to seem on-line to see if a item is stocked domestically to get and decide up in particular person at your comfort, you can do that, way too.

Not to mention, they handle their employees fairly dang well, with some of the best advantages for a part-time work out there and that’s generally a little something worthy of supporting, specifically if it does not modify your searching experience.

If you are like most customers, you may well be uncertain the added benefits are actually value parting with $20 upfront – even if they are for a life time. You might be concerned you won’t store there regularly more than enough, getting much more selling price-tag loyal than retailer. Or, if you’re now stocked with gear or just like to vacation light, you could possibly be questioning how routinely you’d seriously use it anyway.

But trying to keep all these factors in thoughts, I’m persuaded REI’s co-op membership is really worth it, even if it is just for a new pair of boots in four many years. REI has a single of the best, no-questions-asked return guidelines (even though curtailed in recent years due to policy abuse), that means that if you do get the exact same pair somewhere else for much less, you could occur to regret it when it is not as simple to replace right after an unlucky crack. And if you materialize to drop your receipt, like most of us are susceptible to do, your membership retains a log of anything you’ve acquired, for a seamless method.

And when all are thought of with each other, that $20 cost tag turns out to be a terrific value.

Below, I just take you by way of all the positive aspects that come with an REI membership, so you can see for your self.

Receive 10% again on your buys

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REI

Basically, all the things at REI is perpetually on sale for you. As much as you are worried, 10% is raining from the sky.

When you get one thing employing your member selection, REI gives you 10% of the rate again in an Once-a-year Dividend in March. So basically, they give 10% of your individual money back to you.

Although you will not get a refund on selected goods (like these presently discounted), you will primarily have a coupon to the retail outlet in typical, which tends to make shelling out on best-providing merchandise that hardly ever hit the clearance rack really feel a tiny little bit far better.

Even though the membership is $20, it’s also for a lifetime, so it’ll fork out for itself over time.

And even if you really do not have significantly religion in by yourself ever dropping enough funds to physically see that $20 fee in your pocket yet again, household users are ready to use your membership as well, earning it easier to rack up purchases and your once-a-year return.

Get users-only particular offers

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REI

Frequently, REI will host member-only revenue where by customers can get up to 50% off. Though you only see 10% back of what you invest in total-value, you may well not have to use that gain as significantly as you imagine.

Participate in, understand, and vacation for a lot less

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REI

When REI features about possessing a local community, it’s intelligent to consider them.

Most REI outlets have recurrent classes on subjects that may well appear in handy for anyone, no matter whether you’re hunting to choose up an activity outdoor and never know where to start off, or even if you want to dare something additional dangerous in the wild wherever blunders have major implications. In the REI outdoor college, you can study every thing from outdoor survival to repairing your bike.

For REI users, these outside classes, situations, rentals, shop sequence, and REI Adventures are possibly massively discounted or completely cost-free. In this scenario, the membership is normally what you make of it.

Entry in-retail outlet REI Garage sales

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REI

The Associates Only Garage Sale is an incredibly preferred occasion for great cause. You’ll uncover somewhat employed or returned gear and clothing shown at huge special discounts. Portions are confined, items are bought as is, and all sales are last, but no just one in the crowd is complaining about that thinking of the price ranges.

Have a immediate effects on the retailer alone

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REI Instagram

In a lesser-regarded but exceptionally awesome part of the REI membership, customers are capable to affect the foreseeable future of the organization that they have become associated with. Every single spring, an election ballot is included with their once-a-year dividend and REI customers are equipped to vote on the company’s board of administrators.

Members are equipped to examine through prospect profiles on their own and then specifically vote for those who replicate their values and their hopes for the enterprise, assisting to be certain REI usually stays real to its core values.

Be a component of some thing great

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REI Instagram

The REI Co-op invests in the long term of the outdoors by providing back virtually 70% of its profits. They spend in the get the job done of nonprofit partners who assistance hundreds of businesses boost out of doors obtain for all, and provide local occasions of stewardship where users can volunteer to protect and extend trails.

Not to mention that if you decide on to, REI associates are capable to donate all or just a part of their dividend to the REI foundation, which supports the natural environment that you love by means of group partnerships and REI grants.

Indicator up for a lifetime REI membership in this article.

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natasatley-blog · 5 years ago

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ebay

Once you know the selling price, you can estimate your final profit. Is the item something you found in your house that you were going to get rid of anyway? Then your profit is the final selling price minus the fees. Is the item something that you purchased for the sole intent of re-selling? Then you need to take the final selling price, subtract the fees, but also the purchase price. Whatever is left is your profit, and only you can determine if the work ahead of you is worth that amount of money. If you're going to accept Paypal for payment (and almost ALL sellers do), you can count on the total fees being somewhere near 15% of the selling price. This includes the insertion fee, the final value fee (which is based on a sliding scale), and the paypal fees. Some sellers try to re-coup this fee by charging a large handling fee, but that practice is discouraged by eBay (and I agree).

So now you have an item that you want to sell and you've decided that you will make a profit on it....what's next? You need to get a picture of the item to show your bidders what they will be getting. You will need either a digital camera or a phone with a camera to do this. Take a few pictures, upload them, and edit them to best show off your item. Is one picture enough or will your item require multiple pictures to best show it off? If you need multiple pictures, you can load them separately onto eBay (only the first picture is free) or edit multiple views of the same object into one picture. I do this with Microsoft Image Composer, but there are several programs out there that can do this kind of task. eBay is becoming more controlling of the pictures on amazon shoppers their auctions, I believe in order to reduce storage requirements on their systems. It is important that your pictures are crisp, clear, and colorful, so do your best with them. A picture truly is worth a thousand words!

The picture is complete and now you need to start the auction. There are several ways to do this. I use Turbo Lister, a program provided free of charge by eBay for medium to high volume sellers (or us busy moms!). It allows me to maintain a template I can change with each listing. The inputs are simple and I can do the work off-line. I put my auctions together during the week and then upload them all at one time using Turbo. This is a great convenience! If you're not going to use Turbo, you will have to enter the information for your item manually through the "sell your item" page on ebay.

There are so many choices to make! First, come up with a title for your auction. Include as many keywords as possible that a buyer might search on. You then need to select a category - look at the category of similar items that have sold, and put it in the most popular category. Now write a description. Be as detailed as you can. Make sure you include information about defects, cracks, repairs, holes, or any other detail about the item's condition. If you're selling clothing, list the size but also use a tape measure to make exact measurements (some sizes vary by manufacturer).

Then you will have to decide what style auction you want. Most auction-style listings are 7-day auctions with no Buy-It-Now. You have the choice of adding the Buy-It-Now option, but it costs extra. If you want your bidders to have the ability to buy your item out-right, you need to decide the price that you will be happy with. You can do a straight Buy It Now listing (no auction), an auction in combination with a Buy It Now (buyers can start bidding at a price lower than the BIN, but if someone comes onto the scene and is willing to pay the BIN price, the item is theirs for that price), or a straight auction with no BIN. You also need to set a starting bid for your item. Some sellers start all their auctions at.99 and let them ride, but it's helpful to think about the lowest price that you would accept for the item you are selling. I usually start my auctions at $9.99, but I've been at this for many years and am experienced in auction trends. Start carefully until you are sure about what you are doing! There's nothing more frustrating than having an item sell for much lower than it was worth - and this has happened to me numerous times! The other side of the coin is the items that sell for far more than you expected, and I figure they balance each other out.

Now you need to make some decision about shipping. First, figure out how you will ship your item. Will it fit in a bubble envelope or do you need a box? I've had great success in getting free boxes from grocery stores. Find the right box for your item, and weigh the item with the box. You'll need to input the weight into eBay so they can compute shipping charges. I usually ship breakable items Priority and non-breakables Parcel Post (packages that are shipped Priority are handled much more gently). If you are shipping books, CDs, or DVDs, you can ship them media mail. It takes longer but is extremely inexpensive! Just make sure there are no advertisements in your media mail items, as anything with an disqualifies your item from media mail shipment. Items under 12 oz can ship First Class. Now you can decide if you want to include a handling fee. I always include a $1.70 handling fee when I am shipping an expensive or breakable item - this is the cost of USPS insurance for items up to $50. I figure if I sell something for more than $50, I will pay for the extra insurance myself since the item did so well! Insurance up to $200 is $2.10, and there is a sliding scale for more expensive items. Just make sure you don't use the word "insurance" in your auction - eBay won't allow it!

Now you have to decide if you will ship your package overseas. I usually allow this, but I charge a sliding scale handling fee based on what I think the shipping fees will be. There are some fees (Paypal) that are computed based on the total payment, so if it costs $50 to ship that package to Germany, you will see much higher fees because of the high cost of shipping. My average international shipping fee is $5.00, because not only do I get charged higher fees based on shipping, I also have to fill out customs forms at the post office and wait longer while the clerk processes the item. To me, my time is worth money and I charge accordingly. I am up-front about the charges in my listings so my international bidders can decide if the shipping fee is something they are comfortable with.

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lostfoundrewards-blog · 5 years ago

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Integrity Lost - Integrity Found

As a fourth generation banker, I literally grew up at our local bank in Pensacola, Florida, The Citizens & Peoples National Bank. I can't remember a time in my early childhood when I didn't dream about being the president of this great company. To follow in my fathers' footsteps and succeed him as president was the basis of that recurring dream. As a child, I would love it when my father or mother would take me to the bank. I would run around and speak to everyone and I considered many of those employees like my extended family. Everyone enjoyed working there and the warmth and hospitality they displayed impelled me to want to work there someday.

I joined the bank in 1982 and felt that I was well on my way to fulfilling that dream when something happened that changed everything. On October 6, 1986, my grandfather passed away. At the time, he was the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the former president of our bank. As an independent bank with a limited number of stockholders, and he being one of the largest stockholders, our future was pretty certain. We were at that time rated as one of the top 100 banks in the nation in safety and soundness. For a small independent bank, this was unprecedented.

After he died, there was clearly a change in attitude that was led by the Board of Directors to bring the bank forward to be a major player in the Pensacola market. To change how we did business in order to compete with the other national and regional rivals within our community. There was also a faction of stockholders and directors that were insistent to test the waters for a possible buyout although my father was against it.

On August 29, 1988, less than two years after my grandfather's death, the bank was sold to Bank South Corporation, a large regional bank with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Our stockholders got what they wanted, a large paycheck, and our bank the promise of a bright future, better services and a decentralized style of management that would allow our bank to continue with its current management team and Board of Directors. The only difference was our company's earnings were being shipped upstream to our new holding company in order to bolster their own dwindling profits.

As a now publicly traded company and with Bank South's continued struggle to make earnings goals even though our local bank was still doing quite well, I watched my stock value in this new company begin to deteriorate. In 1993, our bank again was sold, this time in a swap between Bank South and Barnett Bank. Bank South was able to get a great deal on some of Barnett's branches in the Georgia market where Bank South had no presence and Barnett (one of our local rivals) was able to acquire our bank and become the largest bank in Pensacola.

This was the beginning of the acquisition and merger boom that was sweeping the nation. This was also the beginning of the mortgage boom that was happening across the country. As the high interest rates of the late 70's began to decrease, banks were creating separate divisions within their own institutions to market services normally handled by their staff of lenders and bank officers. Independent mortgage brokerage companies began springing up all over the country.

Then something happened that changed banking forever. I believe this was the beginning of our downfall and is what put our great country in this financial mess we are in today.

Banks and mortgage companies got the novel idea of providing incentives and commissions to their mortgage lenders in order to boost their loan production volume. They began to steer away from salaried positions to commission only positions. Today this practice has spilled over to every facet of banking including the most basic services. No longer are employees rewarded for customer satisfaction and great customer service, they are rewarded for pushing product.

These types of programs are great when times are easy, but when the ability to sell these products diminishes, many problems begin to surface.

Having worked on both commission and on salary, I have seen first hand the perils of this mentality. Not only have I watched friends lose their jobs, I have watched lenders falsify documents in order to make a loan so they can put food on the table for their family. I have seen a total disconnect from lenders in simple morality. "Sell at any cost" has replaced the Golden Rule.

When my hometown bank was gobbled up by a large corporate bank, I watched the principles with which I had grown up with get tossed out the window and substituted by words such as sales charting, sales referrals, cross selling and sales culture. "Trust" departments were being replaced by brokerage services.

The local banker has gone from a trusted financial advisor to the door to door salesman with financial products to sell rather than vacuums or encyclopedias.

In the late 90's, I worked for Norwest Mortgage, who at the time was one of the largest mortgage companies in the nation. One of our most successful producers out of the gate was a gentleman who had no lending experience at all. He was a salesman from a local real estate company who could sell swamp land to the Pope! The problem was he didn't give a darn about the customer. He would put people in adjustable rate mortgages that paid higher commissions and charged outrageous fees with no regard for the customers' needs. Needless to say, he never received a favorable customer satisfaction survey (which our company would send out after the closing) but he made a ton of money. So the company looked the other way.

At the time the sub-prime market was starting to swell. Driven by the higher yield, investors were beginning to come out of the woodwork. And when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started loosening their underwriting guidelines to get their piece of the pie, the whole sub-prime industry went mainstream. With Wall Street investors chomping at the bit to take advantage of these high risk high yield loans, anyone with a job and few hundred dollars could buy a house. Buying a home with 20% down was the rule, now it was the exception.

Because many of the sub-prime borrowers had less than perfect credit or the homes they were buying did not fit into the box of a normal conventional loan, many mortgage lenders were using this disparity to convince buyers into adjustable rate mortgages with higher rates and would charge excessive fees all the while telling these borrowers they would be able to refinance in a couple of years to a low rate loan. However, many of these sub-prime loans had large prepayment penalties which many borrowers were unaware of until the day before closing. Many of the buyers would go through with the closing anyway due to the fear of losing their down payment they had made when they signed the real estate purchase contract. Thus, predatory lending was born.

Since these types of loans were being packaged and sold to investment groups in the secondary market and not held by the mortgage companies or banks, lenders were becoming less and less concerned for these borrowers ability to repay the loans. They were already moving on to the next sucker!

In the old days, banks did not have the luxury of selling their loans to investors with no recourse. If the borrower couldn't pay, the bank had to foreclose on the borrower and take back the property and re-sell it. That is why banks would require a 20% down payment, to insure that if they did take the property back, they could sell it at face value and use their 20% equity to cover legal fees for foreclosure and pay the realtor's fee and minimize the bank's losses.

Being disheartened by the mortgage industry and the direction my company was taking, I decided to go back into banking and in 2000, I joined a large regional bank. The bank was based primarily in the southeast at that time. I was hired as a branch manager. Although this was a large change from the small independent hometown bank where I had grown up, I immediately connected during my initial interview with the CEO, who was also the senior lending officer over the greater Pensacola, Fort Walton and Panama City markets. He was obviously cut from the same cloth as my father and grandfather and I admired his style of banking.

However, by 2002, he had retired and the bank's focus (like many of the larger banks) shifted to sales. By 2003, I was devoting over twenty percent of my day to documenting sales calls, referrals and cross sales that my employees and I were making on a weekly basis. The company ramped up its already aggressive sales program and incentive plans. The company also began to tie our employee's performance reviews to their success in achieving the sales goals set by the company. If you didn't meet the minimum standards set by the company, no raise! But if you exceeded your goals, big bonus!

While I was working as Branch Manager, from time to time, I would hire tellers and other employees that had previously worked in other branches within the company. One of the employees we hired had come from another branch and told us a story about one of the new accounts representatives from a neighboring town. How this employee would deceive her customers just to sell a product. How she would use her foreign accent to pretend she didn't understand when a customer tried to reject the sale of additional products or services. How she would tell them that she needed the money because her husband was in the hospital. She was consistently one of the company's top producers and would do anything to make the sale. Her supervisor would look the other way because she was getting large bonuses due to her employee's success.

By the end of 2002, I began to notice a trend that really began to make me question the tactics and motives of the senior management at our head office in Birmingham, Alabama.

As the year rolled on, the company would position themselves competitively in our local markets and many of my fellow commissioned employees (like myself) were able to push ourselves to reach the company's' lofty sales goals throughout the year because of a fear of losing our jobs. But like clockwork, around October, November and December of every year, our loan rates would increase and deposit rates decrease just enough to put our company at a disadvantage in our local marketplace causing many of our managers to miss the mark of reaching our sales goals by the end of the year or to some degree, decrease the amount of the bonus we would have expected had we maintained our ability to compete.

I would imagine that the company saved millions of dollars in unpaid bonuses each year by using this tactic. They would push loan and deposit growth by offering large bonuses, but make it next to impossible for the managers to reach their goals by the end of the year. By January or February, we would regain our competitiveness in our local market. Coincidence? You be the judge.

In this new age of banking, integrity and morality for the most part has become lost in this new generation of bankers. The senior management in most banks today is all about the money. They have grown up with different values than those bestowed upon me by my mentors like my father and grandfather. They have all since retired along with the respect, trust and admiration that the name "banker" represented.

Integrity Found:

So where do we go from here and how do we fix this problem? How do we get back the trust of the American people and restore the integrity of the nations banking system?

Step One: Repair Safety and Soundness.

To do this we must change the entire compensation structure of the banking system. This will need to be implemented not only on the lending side of the fence, but also the deposit and investment side as well. Although this will be a monumental task in itself, it must be done. We must remove the carrot in front of the horse and return to the days of performance based on customer satisfaction rather than production volume. We have to get back to quality over quantity, performance over production.

Would an employee be willing to put his/her job on the line by bending the rules or falsifying documents to make a loan if there was no additional incentive or cash in their pocket to do so? I doubt it. We need to eliminate that temptation altogether.

It is also time to eliminate some of the ridiculous loan products that allow borrowers to finance 100% of the purchase price for a home. It is time to get back to the days of requiring borrowers to put a substantial amount of their "own money" into the purchase of their new home. No more free rides. No more deals where the bank finances 80% and the seller finances the additional 20% as a second mortgage so the buyer can purchase a home with no money down. The fact is, and the statistics prove, that borrowers with little or no money invested in a property are much more likely to default on their loan than someone who has put a substantial amount of their own cash into the purchase.

Step Two: Consolidation and Collaboration.

I was trained as a lender to make sound lending decisions in every aspect of lending: retail, commercial and mortgage lending. Today we have retail lenders, commercial lenders, conventional mortgage lenders, sub-prime mortgage lenders, leasing specialists and the list goes on and on. By consolidating some of these services and divisions back under one roof, the savings would be considerable. This would also make the job of oversight by regulatory agencies like the OCC, FDIC or NCUA a lot less complicated. The ability of a financial institution to hide its problems by splitting into different entities has created a smoke screen for troubled companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG.

It is also necessary that our financial regulatory agencies also be consolidated. These agencies essentially provide the same services but with no communication between themselves. Not only will consolidating these independent organizations eliminate a huge duplication of duties, it will allow this single organization to collaborate with each division more effectively to prevent gaps in oversight and to paint a clearer picture of our country's financial condition.

It is also imperative that these regulatory agencies hire experienced auditors that have a thorough knowledge of the lending industry. I've seen so many State and Federal auditors come through the system fresh out of school that frankly don't know what they are looking for. Our country must be willing to pony up and recruit experienced lenders to be the watch dogs and protect the public's money. The regulatory agencies must also be willing to take a harder look, review a larger percentage of a bank's loan portfolio in order to prohibit more bad loans from slipping through the cracks unchecked.

I also think it is high time that Credit Unions that operate outside the boundaries of providing the basic services of deposits and personal loans be taxed just like banks and any other for-profit financial institution. If they wish to maintain their current non-profit status, they must adhere to restricted more stringent guidelines for membership. These new tax revenues will help to subsidize the increase in costs for more stringent oversight by the regulatory agencies.

There also must be a fundamental change in the mentality of the owners of these companies (i.e. stockholders). As one of my good friends and local bank president, Ken Naylor said, "A bank was like a three-legged stool." "Each leg represented one of three principals: 1) Soundness, 2) Profitability and 3) Growth." "If a loan wasn't sound credit-wise, then that leg would be too short and the stool would fall over." "Or if a loan was good on credit but priced too thin (not sufficiently profitable), then the same result would occur." "As for growth, all of the legs had to grow simultaneously and at the same rate or one leg would grow too fast and the stool would fall over."

Stockholders along with Wall Street analysts have become consumed by growth and profitability. They have overlooked the need for safety, soundness and most importantly stability. More is not always better. Just ask the stockholders of Washington Mutual, IndyMac and Wachovia! As a stockholder, you need to take a serious look at the management team YOU vote for and place in power. Are they too walking out the back door with their pockets full of multi-million dollar severance packages while your company's very existence hangs in the balance? Stockholders will need to take a more active role in the direction their company is heading.

By following these steps outlined above, I believe that the banking industry can regain its integrity. It won't be easy, but it will be necessary if our country ever expects to win back the trust and respect of the American people. My ideas will not be popular with many senior management teams because it requires an admission of guilt and faulty decision making on their part. They have spent millions and millions of dollars developing these sales strategies in the hopes of gaining an advantage over their competition. They have taken their eyes off the ball! visit our website https://www.lostfoundrewards.com

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