If you love making crafts, saving money on craft supplies can make your hobby even more enjoyable. This article explores several ways to save money by using the Internet when shopping for craft supplies, materials and tools

The first place to look for bargains is eBay. Depending on your craft, you can either search by keywords like “quilt supplies” or browse through the eBay categories until you find the one that matches your needs. Personally, I would try both searches when seeking the best deals. The reason to search both ways is that not every eBay seller knows to include the keywords you use in their listings, while they may at least place the item in the correct category.

eBay also has a category called “wholesale lots.” Check out the listings there for buying supplies in bulk. Be sure you can either use all the items in these big lots or turn around and sell them yourself.

Craigslist is another place online to shop for crafting materials and tools. I have found many listings for equipment I needed there.

Locate online craft supplies by doing a Google search based on your hobby. For example, if you are a woodworker, search for “woodworking supplies.” This is a great way to identify niche craft supply sites. Sometimes searching for “craft supplies” alone isn’t specific enough. Try including words that describe your craft like “jewelry findings,” “stained glass supplies,” “weaving yarns,” or “doll making supplies” depending on what you make. Many suppliers offer mail order catalogs in addition to their online stores.

Sites that sell finished handmade goods also offer craft supplies. For instance, both Etsy and Artfire allow vendors to list and sell craft materials on their online store fronts.

Other places to shop for bargains online include the websites of major retail craft supply stores like Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Joann’s. Sometimes these sites will run “Internet only” bargains where you can really save some money if you buy online.

If you are a professional crafts person who sell crafts you make, consider bypassing retailers and middlemen by buying supplies direct from the manufacturers. Most manufacturers will require a state sales tax identification number to sell wholesale to you, but those are easy to get. The Thomas Register online lists most of the major manufacturers in the United States by product and by category. When shopping for yarns, I found several mills that would sell to me directly at very low prices. But I had to buy $500 worth at a time. Still, for a production crafts person, this can work out in the long run.

Though the Thomas Register lists U.S. manufacturers, you may be able to find even lower prices by going online to shop overseas. Alibaba is an Internet based clearing house for networking between buyers and sellers internationally. There are however drawbacks in buying craft supplies from other countries. You will probably have to buy in very large quantities. Handling imports may require you to have a trade agent who takes care of the shipment when it arrives. And you won’t have legal recourse if you aren’t happy with what you get.

In summary, start simple by searching online with words specific to your craft. Check out eBay, Etsy and Artfire for supplies listed by vendors there. When you move into production crafting, look towards buying craft supplies wholesale from manufacturers and maybe even from overseas. You can always turn your excess craft supplies into it’s own business.

Export marketing is a serious issue for most growing companies in today's interconnected global economy. Whether to export or not, where to and how to, are the major questions for companies willing to expand their international markets.

Export marketing is not just a process to find buyers / importers and approach them with the expectation of export orders but a well planned strategic marketing process one should follow and performed well to get success in International Market. Since last 10 years of my International Marketing consultancy practice, I have found that major export marketing efforts get failed due to lack of implementing strategic marketing action plan.

So what is that strategic marketing action plan ..?

Strategic marketing action plan is a set of key functional areas of export marketing which should be performed well and followed step by step to get succeed in Export marketing. Performing following key tasks step by step will give you a rapid success in export marketing with sustainable and profitable export sales growth.

Step-1: Identify your target market

First step of export marketing is to identify target market and market needs where your products / services has good market potential and demand. There are many countries in the world and you should pick right one (s) for your product and services. If you know your target market and market needs, you could easily get export orders from those countries. You can identify target market by conducting International Market research activity that will give you detailed knowledge of opportunities in International market.

Step-2: Developing Export Marketing strategies

After identifying target market, second step of export marketing is to develop a right Export Marketing Strategies including market entry strategy, positioning strategy, product strategy, pricing strategy, branding strategy, supply strategy and promotional strategy according to target market needs. Based on the conclusions of the International market research, you will be able to develop the strategy to meet your export marketing objectives. Your Export Marketing strategies should be able to develop a sense,

o To enter in right market where your products / services has good market potential and demand
o To position appropriately that give you and edge over competitor
o To develop products / services that satisfy needs of buyer,
o To offer prices that give both of you and your buyer a competitive advantage,
o To offer own brand or private label solution
o To supply as per ready stock or buyer's requirements
o To promote your company that creates awareness among buyers / importers

If you have developed right export marketing strategies you could enter and develop international market faster with sustainable export sales growth.

Step-3: Preparing Marketing Communication tools

Once you have developed strategies based on target market needs, third step is to prepare informative and appealing marketing communication tools like Company Profile, Sales letter, Product Catalog, Brochures, Website etc. that can supports in positioning and promoting your company. Your all marketing communication tools should be well designed, informative, professional and appealing that can deliver all necessary information of your company and products / services to prospective buyers / importers and influence their decision to start business communication with you.

Step-4: Promotion

After preparing marketing communication tools, next step is Promotion which plays a major role in export marketing success. Main objective of promotion is to create awareness among buyers / importers of what you are and what you offer. Promotional mix should be cost effective and should deliver right message, in right time and at right place. Promotion should lead buyers / importers to get attention, capture interest and take action in initiating business communication with you. Internet is the best cost effective and fastest promotion tool in present export marketing practices. It has been seen that major buyers / importers using search engines, B2B portals and directories to find and contact genuine suppliers. So presence of your company profile and products / services in major search engines like Google, yahoo and B2B portals like Alibaba.com will give your company a global exposure and creates awareness among buyers / importers effectively. Participating in Trade fairs, Exhibitions and catalog shows is also a good offline promotional strategy which can generate a direct and live contact with buyers / importers.

Step-5: Generating Export Inquiries

Success in export Marketing begins with generating genuine export inquiries from prospective buyers / importers which requires expertise and focused work of promotion, sourcing genuine buyers and approaching them professionally. One should study buyer's profile and / or buy leads to know whether you can offer them what they require. It has been seen that many suppliers contact majority of those buyers / importers who have no interest in their product / services without understanding their profile and needs. A Buyer / importer can send you inquiry only when he needs your products / services either better than his existing supplier in terms of either Quality, Price, Services and / or developing more suppliers and / or for other reasons. So contact them by offering competitive advantage which can get them interested to send you inquiries which can be converted in to export orders by communicating and negotiating professionally.

All above steps are inter connected and can only give results if each step performed or performing well. Export marketing is a continuous process and all those key functions can be reviewed and modified time to time as per changing global economic and market situation.

There are many stories we have all heard about computer hacking, Identity Theft, and other bothersome or criminal exploits involving digital assets. We all try to safeguard our systems and our data, but it is extremely difficult now that there is so much data and so many devices involved. The amount of interaction and the amount of data has multiplied many times over with the introduction of Smartphones, Cellular Networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Who had the foresight to realize that your refrigerator or your car might provide an easy way to hack into corporate or government networks? We really do need to “protect” everything. One clear illustration of how rampant computer hacks are becoming is the existence of “Collection #1”, which is a huge data folder that exposes nearly 800,000 email addresses and about 21 million passwords, all in one folder about 87 gigabytes in size. Unlike breaches with criminal intent Collection #1 is just out there on a public hacking website for anyone to see – it is not for sale!!

Securing digital devices and data still relies on encryption, the process of recoding data using a digital “key” and unlocking that data only with the same identical “key”. Individuals and corporations can maximize the effectiveness of encryption by using “strong” passwords, where you mix in capital letters, symbols, and numbers. Cracking modern encryption keys is very difficult, as encryption has come a long way from the original method used by Julius Caesar of simply choosing a space offset for each letter of the alphabet eg: offset of “2” where every “A” is recoded as “C” etc. There are only 25 possibilities for this recoding, so it is quite easy to crack a Caesarean code. Data encryption has taken many leaps forward in the intervening years and is now considered to be quite un-hackable. The easiest targets for hackers are written down passwords at your desk, and loose talk at the water cooler.

However, with Quantum computing now emerging, the ability to crack strong encryption keys is getting closer, simply because Quantum computers are so fast and powerful that they can try many guesses in a very short time. This is the “brute force” hack, where given enough guesses, the correct key will eventually be found. What currently might take 100 years of guessing with a fast, classical computer might take only 5 years with Quantum computing.

Quantum computers use the fundamentals of quantum mechanics to speed up computations, using flexible qubits instead of classical bits which can only be a ZERO or a ONE. Qubits can be either, both, or something in between. With quantum computing we should have the ability to design purpose built algorithms to solve specific problems, such as cracking codes, and designing un-crackable codes. The current leaders in the Quantum computing space are IBM, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Intel, D-Wave Systems, and Rigetti Quantum Computing. The race is on to see who will dominate with Quantum solutions for the broad marketplace. In the next 10 years the number of Quantum computers will likely overtake the number of classical computers, ushering in a new era of computing, with speeds and power unimaginable just a few years ago. This will require more stable hardware, commercial software development platforms, and large, fast, cloud computing capabilities.

Let Trend Disruptors be your guide to the future, as we continue to identify technology investment opportunities that can lead to financial success.

Stay tuned!

Everyone loves a bargain.

We love that feeling of uncovering a hidden gem that everyone else has overlooked. The mispriced vintage Corvette with the small scratch in the quarter panel that you could easily buff out. The big-screen HD TV in the open-box area of your local electronics shop.

You get the picture.

But even your most savvy bargain hunters have nothing on investors looking for “the next big thing.” In fact, this speculative drive to “get in early” often leads investors sorely astray.

Their emotions get the better of them, as they inflate what are essentially short-term market trends into major stock-trading drivers.

This leads to unreasonable expectations and equally unreasonable stock prices.

It leads to irrational trading.

One of the best examples of irrational expectations this year is Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD).

Cryptocurrency Craziness

In July, the stock was riding high on an influx of revenue from the growing cryptocurrency mining market. Ethereum was the “next big thing,” and investors were speculating heavily with AMD’s value despite signs that this fad wasn’t going to last.

Even Wall Street analysts were guilty of pumping up AMD stock amid the Ethereum fad, with several boosting their ratings and price targets to, honestly, unsustainable levels. AMD stock quickly shot into overbought territory, driven by a fad and a wild surge in emotional investing.

Back then, AMD was due for a correction as “profit-takers emerge, and the more bearish contingent in the brokerage community begins to sound off on valuation concerns and cryptocurrency pitfalls.”

This week, Morgan Stanley did just that. The brokerage firm said that “cryptocurrency mining-driven sales for AMD’s graphics chips will decline by 50% next year, or a $250 million decline in revenue.” Morgan Stanley also noted that video game console sales would drop by 5.5% in 2018, but that’s a drop in the bucket for AMD, and investors were likely already expecting this given the age of the current generation of consoles.

You could almost hear cryptocurrency speculators’ hearts break as AMD stock plunged 9% following the report.

The Real AMD

To remember the real reason you should be investing in AMD, we have to look back to 2016. The company caught fire early last year when it previewed several new chips, including its new central processing unit (CPU) chipset, Ryzen, and its new graphics processing unit (GPU), Vega. Both products held considerable promise, and AMD was expecting strong sales once the chips launched.

But both Ryzen and Vega blew analyst expectations out of the water. When they hit the market earlier this year, Ryzen and its sister chip, dubbed Threadripper, not only outperformed competing chips from Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), they beat them in pricing as well. At the same time, Nvidia Corp. (Nasdaq: NVDA) was touting its Titan Xp GPU as the fastest in the world, but AMD’s top-of-the-line Radeon Vega Frontier Edition GPU quickly stole that title.

As a result, AMD saw its market share in the desktop PC market rise roughly 45% to its highest level of that past 10 years at 31%, while Intel’s fell to 69%. It is also stealing server-side and data center market share from Intel via the increasingly popular Threadripper CPU.

And that is just AMD’s core business operations. When we get to areas like virtual reality, driverless vehicles and artificial intelligence, AMD is already on the cutting edge and poised to be a market leader.

Many of you at this point may be asking: “But what about AMD’s weak earnings report last week?”

And I would counter with: “What weak earnings report?”

Just look at the numbers. AMD earned $71 million last quarter on revenue of $1.64 billion. Not only did this top Wall Street’s expectations, it put last year’s loss of 50 cents per share on revenue of $1.31 billion to shame. What’s more, AMD boosted its full-year revenue growth forecasts from mid- to high-teens to above 20%.

So why did AMD stock plunge roughly 20% after such a stellar report? Because the company said that fourth-quarter earnings would fall 15% sequentially (even though that’s still a 20% increase year-over-year). Once again, it all comes down to an irrational level of bargain hunting, and an excess of emotional trading.

Investing in Advanced Micro Devices

But you are in luck! This emotional storm has left AMD trading at a considerable discount… and quite a bargain given its considerable growth potential – AMD is expected to see sales grow about 17% next year, compared to 12.3% for Nvidia and a measly 2.3% for Intel.

The stock has more than 30% upside through next year. How many other large companies, aside from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA), can you say that about?

So, ignore the cryptocurrency hype and focus on AMD’s core products and its potential with leading technologies like AI and data centers. I won’t promise you a smooth ride, but it should be quite a profitable one.

There is no single prototype for living green. Lowering energy bills is the best way to increase long-term affordability of home ownership. Some builders create smaller spaces with a luxury feel or rustic Santa Fe style adobe housing. The quest to lower electric bills increases the foreign market for solar and wind energy.

It is not one size fits all. Going green is based on lowering your carbon footprint. It includes a new solar or hybrid car, solar pool heaters, solar hot water heaters, increased attic or wall insulation, and energy-efficient home monitoring systems to reduce energy use.

Installing solar lights along the driveway is easy and affordable. Solar gates are used on ranches for over a decade preventing expensive electric wiring in remote areas.These solar gates work very well with back-up batteries.

Water issues are a key driver in green living. It requires switching out shower heads for those which use less water and replacing old toilets with low-flow toilets. Overhauling older home systems with new solar air conditioning, tank-less hot water heaters, water efficient dishwashers, and solar exterior house lights bring a new hipness to older homes.

California has experienced drought for over a decade. Electronic metering and remote metering systems reduce water usage and lower water bills. Native landscaping often lowers the water bill in many areas of the world.

Green living is centered around living with less waste and higher energy efficiency. Green home are optimized for energy-efficient appliances, solar heating and cooling systems that use less energy and water. Green building materials could be recycled or natural.

Green energy includes windmills, recycled water for lawns, cisterns to collect water, and/or solar energy. It could be lowering water usage and rezoning AC systems to react to smartphone APP. It is possible to use smartphone APPs to lower the thermostat for your home while riding down the office elevator to your car? Many home automation systems control kitchen appliances, light bulbs, hot water heaters, home thermostats, and pool systems. The best systems offer exterior and interior lights, along with home security systems. The smartphone APPs are encrypted and fairly safe. Nothing is perfect and hackers can get past the encryption protecting car computers for navigation. Switch passwords often and never give these to your neighbors.

Windmills and solar farms can seem expensive. These renewable energy systems can be financed. Home owners can sell the excess power to the local utility company. Windmills have few maintenance issues and may last a century or longer.

The leading market players and development frameworks – Flutter and React Native have become top contenders competing to prove their worth across cross-platform mobile app development. People looking to develop apps more quickly in less cost are scratching their head as they find it extremely difficult in identifying which framework best fits their app idea.

Making this exercise a bit easy, in this article, we have covered the most crucial comparison points that will help you gain meaningful insights on choosing either.

What is Flutter and React Native? A Sneak Peek

Flutter is a mobile app SDK that allows you to write an app in one database and compile to both Android and iOS OR take it as a Google’s portable UI toolkit for building natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.

React is a Facebook’s JavaScript framework used for writing real, native mobile applications for iOS and Android.

Comparison Factors

A. Programming Language

React Native uses JavaScript as a programming language that is widely used by web developers which makes it easy to adopt. While Flutter uses Dart programming language that is seldom used and less popular in the developer community- through which we can easily conclude React takes the lead.

B. Technical Architecture

React Native uses JavaScript Bridge to communicate with the native modules and contrarily, flutter has all those native components needed for app development in the Flutter Engine or framework itself which makes its performance better than the former.

C. User Interface

Flutter apps look good across all OS versions because of their one codebase and component-rich nature that means the app will behave naturally and copy their native components whereas, Native’s application components looks just like the native ones. So if you want your app to look almost the same across platforms then you can use React.

D. Time to Market

React is, of course, faster in development but a bit less than flutter. Taking into account, it uses the bridge and native component which requires separate optimization for each platform that increases the time to develop.

E. When not to Choose

If your app design is platform-specific, requires multiple interactions with an OS, needs minimalist UI and is particular about phone hardware than flutter isn’t the framework you should go for. You should opt for native app development whereas, if your app requires custom communication via Bluetooth, have to handle some complicated task in the background and you’re looking to develop an Android-only app then for sure you should go for native app development. Since it is good for iOS app development.

F. Community Support

Since React was launched much earlier than Flutter, it has gained a significantly good amount of popularity but flutter is still nascent in its stage with a growing community.

G. Testing Support

The React Native community has no official support for UI level testing and integration; it uses third-party tools like Detox and Appium, whereas flutter has a rich set of testing features like widget testing which makes it much greater than React.

Conclusively, flutter is still naïve but is actively working to enhance its stability and there are many apps build with Flutter some of them being Xianyu app by Alibaba, Google Ads app, App for JD finance, Hamilton app, etc. And the popular apps build with React Native are Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Skype, Tesla, Wix, etc.

Considering the comparison above, you can likely reckon which framework will suit best for your mobile app development.

Are you one of the many that tried starting an online business but stopped before generating any sales or income? Every new business will have its own opportunities as well as challenges and difficulties. One of the hardest things to decide for many is actually the very first step, choosing a product(s). This is one reason that many quit before they ever really begin.

There are any number of ways to search for good product ideas within a chosen niche and I’ll give several good ones here. Keep those listed here in mind when selecting products to promote. Studying the different avenues for finding great product ideas can be beneficial in helping uncover opportunities to promote and sell online.

1. What do You know – your own experience can give you a strong competitive advantage. Many enter into the online marketing world at an older age, as an encore career, with lots of knowledge from their previous career. One can start a website with career knowledge and promote related or relevant products and do quite well.

2. Research the common problems within your chosen niche and have solutions available, for those seeking the answers. It’s great to have as many of the problem solutions as possible in order to be an authority within your niche. Recommend and have available a product(s) to promote, an affiliated item or your own, that will help the seeker out.

3. Follow customer passions – people spend a lot of money on their passions and habits. If you are passionate about something, chances are that there are millions of others with the same passion and will purchase relevant products within that niche. Following your own heart and compassion is one of the best ways to make money online.

When you build a business around your own personal passion and sell products within your niche, you’ll have the strength and tenacity to overcome all hurdles and problems during occasional difficult time periods. Staying motivated is essential to online business success.

4. Create your own brand – get a really good understanding of who your potential audience and customers are. Also, understand the process of creating your own brand and where to find the best sources of each product to brand as your own.

Many hot-selling items are made in China and can be re-branded with your own product name. These items can be purchased on sites like Alibaba dotcom for less than half of the cost of purchasing in the US, then shipped to Amazon or another storage facility and sold.

5. Trends – taking advantage at the start of a trend allows you to establish the product and your authority early on and you can really capitalize on the trend. Capitalizing early on a new trend will make you one of the first websites being indexed by the search engines and can help you climb to the top of the rankings quickly.

Each opportunity will require its own mindset and strategy to reach the largest audience and peak sales.

While there has been series of scam associated wit this area of expertise, I would like to crave your indulgence by making you understand the simple and straight forward means of making money as a crude oil facilitator. The truth of the matter is that you might not really be seen. All you have to do is to link a genuine buyer to a genuine seller and you get your cool profit. The only expense you would incur is paying for internet facility, making phone calls and putting up little adverts on strategic places.

Crude oil business is a booming and thriving one and anybody who is ready to make good money should go into it. Ignorance deters most people from delving into opportunities like this. What you do not know, you do not know until you get valuable information from people that have been there. Crude Oil is known as black gold and it is the basis from which we derive petroleum products like diesel, fuel, kerosene, coal, coke and a host of others. These minerals are required on a daily basis. We are aware of the fact that we need fuel to move our vehicles. This is a popular demand.

You can become a facilitator in a crude oil deal by following these simple steps:

1. Source for a genuine seller and be sure they have proof of product. Some pose to be sellers but they have nothing to show for it.

2. Source for genuine buyer, you can do this buy posting leads on the internet. Alibaba is a good place to start.

3. Buyer signs Sales Purchase Agreement which include your banking details as a facilitator. You can earn up to $0.50 as a facilitator. Imagine a buyer purchasing 2 million barrels of crude. Do the mathematics and see what you have. It is simple and straight forward.

You smile to your bank to get your entitlement. This is a simple and straight forward way to make money. You do not need any form of investment to do this. If you have a genuine buyer and need a genuine seller, you can contact me at anytime.

In 2014, $1.5 trillion worth of goods and services were bought through e-Commerce by shoppers via desktops, tablets and smartphones, according to eMarketer. In 2013, the growth of e-commerce has already significantly outpaced that of brick-and-mortar, globally. The performance is impressive, but not surprising, and we will continue to see worldwide e-commerce growing at an annual rate between 13 to 25%.

By the time you have finished reading this paragraph, 1.2 million USD dollars of online sales have been transacted. As disruptive as it sounds, government worldwide has started taking actions to encourage companies to go digital so as to tap the bandwagon. For example, a number of countries are providing corporate tax incentives for companies to develop web presence. As a result of both top-down driven and organic developments, many developed nations have progressed to a stage where e-commerce and m-commerce are becoming a norm for the local enterprises, but the returns of investment have yet to show promising results.

The motivation behind the incentives from top-level is to progress towards a smart nation- a term coined to associate a well-wired country, where intelligence enabled by digital technology facilitates the economy and social progress. In the context of commercial uses, many of us unfortunately are disillusioned by the prospects of “upgrading” from brick-and-mortar to having a web presence concurrently. Many not only failed to see an increase in revenue, but also faced declines in both productivity and profit due to the additional overhead to maintain the web presence and non-traditional customer interaction, if any.

Truth be told, statistics reflect the optimism of additional sales channels that e-commerce brought to businesses. However, few people dig deeper into the statistics to discover that most of the transactions are dominated by retail giants like Taobao from Alibaba Group, Amazon and eBay-the combined of the Big 3 took up 30% of the total online transactions. One may then pause to consider, “wouldn’t it then make more sense to tap on these platforms rather than creating my own online platform?”

Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized enterprises believe that branding and control are important reasons to do their own, but failed to realise their web presence may never be visited. To make matters worse, in developed countries like Singapore where regulations have stepped in to protect the privacy of consumers, traditional marketing techniques like mass-SMS and email marketing are restricted to those who opt-in only, thus significantly limiting the pool of targeted prospects. This means that the usual way of directing traffic to one’s online platform or website is no longer working.

Companies have to realise that having a digital presence is not a safe haven or a blue-ocean strategy. Rather, doing so invites an additional form of competition-a global one. Launching an online presence without understanding how internet users behave can be a stumbling block for many. Issues like website ranking, page loading speed, user-friendliness and delivery process are the minimum to take care of, let alone issues like online reputation management and cross-platform integration. Therefore, some chose to shy away from the Internet for simplicity.

On the other hand, being able to harness web technology can create new sales opportunity through direct sales, new customers acquisitions or even discover opportunities for new product or service-in demand through data analyses. Here are a few tips to both top-level stakeholders driving the smart nation roadmap, and enterprises to salvage what they have and those who are just starting:

1. Allow people search for your business online easily

Forget about the most beautiful design or digital technology if are not on page 1 of Google today. This is the very first thing you need to do, else your competitors are stealing all your leads. Think about this, if you are looking for the best food in town, how often do you search beyond the first 2 pages of Google? Unlikely.

Myth #1: I’m too late into the game and my site is not going to be in the top page.

Absolutely not. Search Engine Optimization or SEO, a kind of digital marketing solution, is the process of improving the visibility of a website or an online platform. SEO involves a series of best practices, good fundamentals to the website architect and fresh content creation. Many attempted creating contents but forget about the first 2 elements. Keeping in mind the guidelines and implementing small steps along the way are keys to success. Moreover, SEO can be used to target the right audience in the right market through relevant keywords. This has allowed the SEO-savvy businesses to expand into overseas markets without being physically present in the foreign country through leads from abroad. It can be time-consuming and requires expertise to execute well so be sure to hire a SEO consultant who performs white-hat strategies only. The original intent of creating a web presence is to expand your radar, and it does not fulfil the purpose if those who visit your website are already your existing customers.

2. Cross device compatibility and marketing

A well-designed website on desktop may not be compatible with mobile phones or tablets. Compatibility refers to layout, font size and user interaction. A quick diagnosis is if a mobile user has to zoom in to see the contents or links are too close to one another, most likely the website is not mobile-friendly. Note: On April 21 in 2015, Google is releasing a new ranking algorithm to give priority to mobile-friendly sites. This means that if yours is not mobile-friendly, be prepared to face a drop in rank.

Myth #2: I have a mobile app and website that can accept payments from my clients. I have therefore used omni-channel strategies.

Omni-channel is multi-channel retailing concept that has been misused frequently. One underlying assumption that is often overlooked is that the different sales channels should offer a unified and consistent customer experience. This includes both user experience and marketing, and any one channel that “screws up” can immediately hurt the image of the company’s brand.

Perhaps what people are really missing out is the exceptional importance of identifying the various segments of your customers by the type of channel they used. This means that a significant proportion of your customers might prefer to use mobile to make transactions. The user patterns can also make a difference. The same individual could be using mobile in the day and back to desktop in the night time. Such segment identification can really provide insights to your marketing strategy as you might want to customise advertisements or incentives, or even by the time of day for different channels.

Doing so therefore, can potentially maximise your revenue generation on a daily basis, and also justify the ROI of your marketing expenses, leading to unexpected surge in your bottom line for the whole year. Even though there are quite a number of tools available in the market, the take-up rate is low due to the lack of awareness. If time does not permit, always hire a professional digital marketing consultant who understands your business.

3. Social creation

Customer-centric business model seems like an obsolete concept when we are already seeing active movements in social co-creation where customers help companies to define its new products and services. Millenials are digital natives born in the age of Internet and they can see more part of the “world” than us (through the Internet of course). This means that their expectations would be more demanding and varied, and at the same time see what our competitors are doing and perhaps demand the same or more from our service offerings. It would be a smart move to rope them into the creation process to enjoy this free power of creativity. One good example is Threadless, where designs of T-shirts are created and chosen by the online community. Another is the FreeStyle machine, a new generation of dispenser that allows people to mix and match flavours to create more than 100 types of drinks for the brandowner to discover opportunities for new product launches that can appeal to the mass market.

Myth #3: My business is not in the retail or food & beverage line. Social creation doesn’t apply to me.

Absolutely not. Look at Microsoft that uses co-creation to create new generation of ad formats, FedEx crowd-sourced ideas to deliver live tissues for organ donations across borders, and many more examples. Co-creation at its lowest level can be in the form of crowd-sourcing ideas from your employees to solve internal problems or even discover new opportunities through their interaction with customers. At a higher level, crowdsourcing can solicit ideas to enhance service experience, inspire new product or service development. The key is to interact with the online community to enhance their opinions, insights and wants.

The principle of reciprocity is still applicable as it is before the Internet era. While you gain information in the cyber space, also contribute to the online community. Post interesting contents or articles online so that people can see you. One simple tip is to add graphics to your post as such insertions have been proven to receive 55% more views than those without. Do not forget to embed social media sharing buttons to allow your readers to re-post to the wider community. They are not only endorsing you, but also serve as a free marketing tool. Having said, if lack of time is an excuse for you, you can still leverage on contents created by others. We call this process “content curation”. Choose contents that are both interesting and relevant to your business, and add value to them by sharing your insights or opinions before re-posting them to your social media channels.

You have always dreamt of having your home office where you can do your work without any distraction. However, you do not have the money to construct a permanent structure to create a home office. This is one reason why semi permanent room dividers are popular among budget-conscious homeowners because they are designed to be useful only when needed.

There are many styles of semi permanent room dividers-sliding, hanging, freestanding and folding to name a few. Some of the best available semi permanent room dividers are listed below.

Forged Metal Room Divider:

This solid panel room divider is constructed from durable forged metal with nub heads, warm brown finish and golden trim accents. It has adjustable 3-hinged panel. It measures 64 inches wide by 1-inch depth by 72 inches high. This divider is sold under item number SCR103 at iroomdividers.com for only $ 699.98, 22 percent or $ 200.01 less from the retail price of $ 899.99.

Stainless Steel Metal Screen by Shenzhen Youpin Metal Craft Co Ltd .:

This decorative, temporary stainless steel screen has delicately engraved flower. The rectangle shape screen features a window-like appearance and excellent quality. This screen is the best replacement to have in your apartment, flat, loft or even in a dorm. For a reasonable price, go to alibaba.com.

Screen Overlay African Animal:

These themed partitions or separators feature PVC photo posters which make them the perfect functional ideas to encourage your children to role play. The unit uses a durable plastic PVC fabric with top surface images lacquered for long life. It is easy to install, move, replace and store. This unit is available at thewholehaboodle.com.

29 1/2 "H Red Rainbow AccentsTM Corner Storage by Jonti-CrafTM:

Expand your usable space, maximize your corner space or separate a room using this laminated-back unit. This caster mounted unit comes with edgebanding in options of blue, berry, red, purple, yellow or teal. It measures 29.5 inches high by 30 inches wide by 15 inches depth. This unit is for sale with item number 8WWX6392JC8 at disocuntschoolsupply.com for $ 229.62, 8 percent or $ 20.88 off from the original price of $ 250.50.

Totem Stacking Bookcase Set of Three:

This set of modern stackable unit is perfect for creating a room divider or geometric walls or expanding your space. This black melamine bookcase is available in distinctive configuration, stabilizing brackets and faux wood finish. The overall sizes are 44 inches wide by 14.5 inches deep by 43 inches high. Buy this divider at cratenadbarrel.com for $ 299.85.

Exotic Retreat Bookcase / Room Divider:

The modern and elegant design of this dark chocolate bookcase / divider is a beautiful change to your traditional home or office furniture. Use this unit for effective organization and sensational décor. It features wood composite frame. Transform your space into an organized and elegant area by installing this bookcase / divider. The overall dimensions are 67 inches high by 32 inches long by 12 inches wide. This divider retails for only $ 349.99 at target.com.

Space Plus Room Dividers:

This room divider designed for both residential and commercial use. It is an alternative to traditional room partitions and screen. It features 7-millimeter thick laminated glass and 5-millimeter thick tempered glass. Glass options are milky, smoked, laminated, frosted, linen, clear and designer. Standard widths are 24 inches, 30 inches, 36 inches and 40 inches and heights of 80 inches and 96 inches.

Glasswall:

This unit is a blend of classic and timeless beauty of glass and the flexibility of portable wall. It features rimless single glazed glass panel and top track which you can fit into curves and angles. You can use this unit in residential and commercial settings such as bank lobbies, cafes, government buildings, shopping malls cafes and restaurants. Place your order for this product at moveable-wall-partition.co.uk.

There still more semi permanent room dividers to choose from. Many retailers or stores are also offering wholesale or discounted prices.