online sales

7 Ways to Boost Your Finances While You Sleep

Tim Lemke — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 14:00:07 +0000

So you work from 9-to-5, but your income just isn't cutting it. You need to earn more money, but there are only so many hours in the day. Your problem could be solved with passive income, or money you can earn without needing to be physically present — even in your sleep. (See also: 12 Side Jobs for Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads)

Check out these strategies for increasing and diversifying your income without having to take on another "real" job.

1. Sell Products Online

It's easy to setup an ecommerce store for selling products online, or you can partner with a big company like Amazon to do the selling for you. Selling items on auction sites like eBay is also easy. Even monetizing your hobbies via sites like Etsy can pay off big time. There is no need for you to be present — or even awake — to receive orders or payments.

2. Create Awesome Online Content

It's definitely possible to make money while blogging or producing YouTube videos, especially if you're consistently producing awesome stuff. Of course, scientists have yet to discover a way to blog while sleeping. So, the work itself has to happen with your eyes wide open. But the money-making part of the operation can happen while you're sound asleep.

People can read your content at any hour and click on your site's advertisements. You can also make money through affiliate marketing, in which users click on a link to a product or service, and you get a cut from any sale. It's possible to schedule social media updates to direct people to your site at any hour. Waking up to see a robust new traffic and revenue report can be a truly exhilarating experience.

3. Rent a Property

Being a landlord can often be more difficult than people expect, but it can be a great passive income stream if you have a low-maintenance property and great tenants. Ideally, the amount of rent you collect will exceed whatever payments you have to make on the property, making it a profitable venture that you can manage on the side.

4. Peer-to-Peer Lending

Websites such as Lending Club allow you to earn some passive income by lending to people who need cash and earning interest on those loans. Once you select who you want to lend to, the income will come on its own as long as the borrower can pay you back.

5. Invest in International Stocks

Imagine waking up to find that your investments made money overnight. That's what can happen if you place money in investments from around the globe. Some international investments — especially those in Europe — have performed sluggishly in recent years, but others offer strong growth potential.

If you are intimidated by the idea of investing internationally, don't worry: There are some very solid mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that mirror international markets, meaning you avoid the need to research individual stocks. The iShares Core MSCI Total International ETF is well regarded and has low fees. Funds from the Lazard Fund Family have also performed well.

6. Trade Currencies

The foreign exchange market (or forex for short), is open round the clock, six days a week, and it's possible to schedule trades to take place while you're asleep. Before jumping into the Forex, it helps to know the difference between the Euro and Yen, of course. And trading currencies isn't for everyone — it's volatile, and often requires strong knowledge of global markets. Check out reputable forex courses, such as those offered by TD Ameritrade, first.

7. Just… Sleep

There is some evidence that sleep, by itself, can at least indirectly help you financially. There's no question that getting adequate sleep can make you more alert and productive. But the benefits of sleep may go much deeper. Sleep deprivation has been linked to a variety of ailments ranging from obesity to cancer, so getting enough sleep could be a way to avoid costly medical bills.

Some new research suggests there's a link between inadequate sleep and Alzheimer's disease. Thus, getting enough sleep will help you remain mentally sharp as you age, possibly extending the length of time you can work and earn money.

How do you make productive use of your time sleeping? Perk up and and tell us about it in comments!

This article is from Tim Lemke of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

3 Killer E-commerce Website Features

Julie Rains — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:18:14 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/3-killer-e-commerce-website-features

Suggestions are nice but real-life solutions are better. Likewise, simple “what to-buy” recommendations on ecommerce websites are useful. But the presentation of relevant, in-stock, and available-to-purchase options, easy to find via intuitive navigation, and prominently displayed are especially valuable.

Recently, I encountered several ecommerce website features that clearly and unashamedly present options that allow customers to make quick, yet well-informed decisions. All shared some key features:

Simplify the decision-making process. “Live chat” is useful in answering specific questions, but an even more helpful feature illuminates what these questions should be and presents solutions with a clear path to selection and purchase.
Give choices that fulfill needs without overwhelming the customer. Basically, employ simple yet clever ways of narrowing choices for customers.
Reassure the customer that all relevant information is available.
Improve the customer experience while driving sales. Expert guidance helps shoppers locate and purchase desired products without pushing irrelevant items.

That’s well and good. But how about some examples?

1. Product Selection and Presentation Based on Individual Needs and Anticipated Use

Scenario: Your customer wants to buy a pair of running shoes but is unsure which brand and style to purchase. He knows that the right type of shoe may help him run swiftly, stay comfortable while training, and prevent injury. Your business offers a deep selection of shoes but finding the right one is time-consuming and difficult.

Solution: Recommend running shoes that meet the needs and demands of your customer. Present a limited number of styles, which can be evaluated and purchased directly from this list. Keep the customer engaged from inquiry through selection to purchase. Avoid making him memorize or write down his choice, and then search for product availability and finalize his purchase elsewhere on the site.

Killer Feature: “Shoe Dog” on Roadrunnersports.com, a running shoe shop, retrieves or “fetches” shoe recommendations based on the customer’s responses to a series of prompts. These questions relate to running terrain, weekly mileages, and injury concerns as well as foot mechanics, body frame, and gender. Results can be narrowed by brand and size.

Using this feature, the customer does not need to know what attributes to consider when purchasing a running shoe; these are established by the ecommerce site owner and the customer simply responds to questions. Having a depth of inventory is essential so that recommendations are available for purchase.

2. Fashion Advice Combined with Outfit Design and Presentation

Scenario: Your customer needs help assembling an outfit. She wants to dress fashionably but is unsure about which styles, colors, and accessories go together. Plus, she’d like to be able to find what she wants quickly rather than spending hours on your website.

Solution: Create fashionable outfits for your customer. Design a mechanism that allows her to select and buy the items.

Killer Feature: “Outfit Ideas” on Athleta.com, a Gap Inc. brand and seller of athletic-inspired lifestyle apparel and accessories for women, takes shoppers to a gallery of images portraying specially-designed outfits. From this page, shoppers can choose an outfit and be transported to a page featuring these items, ready to be selected and placed in the shopping cart.

This feature reflects a brick-and-mortar experience by mimicking window and in-store displays and offering fashion advice that might be dispensed during face-to-face visits.

3. Visibility of Options for Delivery Dates with Associated Shipping Costs

Scenario: Your customer wants to know the total cost to purchase and deliver a gift to a business associate, family member, or friend. She has an arrival date in mind but hopes to avoid spending too much on shipping (despite her procrastination in ordering). However, she may consider paying the extra cost to make sure the package arrives on time.

Solution: Delivery dates and prices are presented in a way that the customer can see her options at a glance.

Killer Feature: A calendar on Gourmet Gift Baskets displays delivery dates along with associated shipping fees in the delivery and messaging section. After selecting a gift basket and providing details such as the recipient’s zip code and type of location (e.g., home, business), options are displayed.

Rather than having to play with shipping calculators in the check-out space, the customer is able to make a quick decision based on available shipping alternatives. The cost of making a last-minute order is visible and understandable.

Adding Killer Features to Your Website

To infuse exciting and useful functionality into your website, start by considering a common scenario and typical area of customer frustration, then follow these steps to design your own solution:

Determine and dissect your offline solution, which should involve using your expertise to educate customers, guide them in making a decision, and close the sale;
Design and build a feature that automates this process and requires minimal effort on the part of the customer;
Finally, make sure that products and services presented to the customer are available for purchase immediately.

This article is from Julie Rains of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

4 Free Tools To Increase Your Website Conversions

Rae Hoffman-Dolan — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:30:48 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/4-free-tools-to-increase-your-website-conversi...

Small business owners work hard these days to drive traffic to their websites. Whether via search engine optimization, traditional offline advertising methods or buying pay per click advertising on networks like Google AdWords and Bing AdCenter, the traffic you're getting to your website is costing you time and effort. But are you converting as many visitors into buyers or leads as you could be?

Increasing your website conversions may seem like a daunting task, but there are many tools available to help you do just that. Today I'd like to introduce you to four of them that you can use for free to help you increase sales and leads from the traffic you already have coming into your website.

Google Analytics

No matter how big or small your website is, analytics will give you intel you can't do without when looking to improve your conversions. It used to be that detailed analytics were expensive and out of reach for many small business owners. But Google Analytics changed that years ago when they released their analytics tracking for a price any small business owner could afford—free.

Utilizing their "goals" and "funnels" features will give you an in-depth look at which pages of your website are creating conversions and drawing visitors further into the site—and which pages aren't. You can even create goals for specific links within a page to see which calls to action are converting and which need improvement.

Google even offers tons of free training videos to help you use their service. If you're completely new to using Google Analytics, start with the "Beginning Analytics: Interpreting and Acting on Your Data" video.

Clickdensity

Clickdensity helps you track how site visitors are interacting with your website. Which links on your site are getting clicked the most? Which links are being ignored? Are your users clicking on items that they expect to be linked but aren't? Through the use of Heat Maps, Click Maps and Hover Stats, Clickdensity can help give you insight into all of the above and more.

For example, let's say you're featuring two products on your homepage. Through the use of the click tracking, you might identify that the second item is being clicked on more, even though it is below the first item and not as visible. Moving that more popular item above the less popular item could result in more clicks for that item—and more sales. Replacing the less popular item with another item entirely might also give your conversions a boost.

The service requires you to add a few lines of code to whatever page on your website you wish to track and then shows you the results via an online dashboard. It has several paid pricing plans but does allow you to test one page on your site, up to 5,000 clicks, for free, under their trial plan.

Google Website Optimizer

Now that you have an idea of which pages are converting and which links people are clicking, it's time to start testing changes in hopes of getting better results. But how do you know for sure which changes have a positive effect and which produce a negative result? That's where A/B testing comes in. A/B testing allows you to serve up different versions of your page to your inbound visitors to see which one converts the best. For example, you may create two different versions of a page, each with one difference. One utilizes a red "Request More Information" button, while the other utilizes an orange one.

By A/B testing (also called split testing) the page, you can make an educated decision on which color causes more requests with "all other things being equal" in regards to time of day, day of the week, etc. Google Website Optimizer allows you to do detailed A/B testing on your site for free.

As with the Google Analytics tool, Google Website Optimizer offers video tutorials to help you get the most out of their split testing tool, including entire seminars—for free—such as "What Should I Test" to give you tons of ideas about things you can split test on your own website.

Userfly

There is perhaps no better way to test what is working on your website and what isn't than by watching people as they actually use it. Watching the movements of real users can give you insight that more "mechanical" tools may not. Do many users take a long time to fill out a specific section of your form? Maybe the verbiage is confusing them. Is there a specific point in your shopping cart where people are abandoning? User testing can let you pinpoint the exact point where visitors bail and help you identify what needs to be changed to fix the problem.

Userfly allows you to be a virtual "fly on the wall" as real visitors you don't know use your website. The service performs a screen-cast of what your users are doing while they're on the page—tracking where they move their mouse, where they click, what they type (except for passwords), and more. Their free plan allows you to record up to ten user sessions per month and stores the results of those sessions for 30 days. You can try out their free demo here.

Taking it one step further

In addition to utilizing the free tools above, I'd recommend that anyone interested in increasing their website conversions read what many consider to be "the" book on website usability—Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. It's simple and common sense approach can help you avoid big mistakes and home in on how to make simple improvements that can lead to big increases in conversions.

This article is from Rae Hoffman-Dolan of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Decoding The New Tax Rules For Merchants

Barbara Weltman — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:37:24 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/decoding-the-new-tax-rules-for-merchants

Banks and other payment settlement companies processing credit cards, debit cards, and electronic payments online now have to report annually to the IRS the gross amount of merchant (seller) transactions. If your business accepts payment in any of these ways, expect to receive your first information return by January 31, 2012, reporting your 2011 transactions. Needless to say, this is going to complicate your tax reporting.

1. The Information Return is Month-by-Month

There is a new Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments that will be used to report these transactions. The form provides an annual total, but also breaks down the transactions month-by-month. You’ll need to check your transactions against the amounts reported on the form to make sure you don’t have to report more income than you actually received. For example, your processor may report that you had $10,000 in transactions in March 2011, when in fact you only had $1,000.

If you note any problem with the form, contact the issuer immediately to straighten things out and have an amended 1099-K issued to you. The contact information for the issuer is on the form.

2. Gross Amounts are Reported

The gross amount of merchant card payments reported on this form do not take into account any adjustments for credits, cash equivalents, discount amounts, fees, chargebacks, refunded amounts, or any other amounts. For example, someone pays you for a $30 item and asks that you process the transaction for $50, so you give the customer $20 in cash. The 1099-K will show this as a $50 transaction, even though the sale was only $30.

You will have to enter on your return the full amounts reported to you; the IRS computer is looking for the amount from the 1099-K. The reporting, of course, does not prevent you from making subtractions from the amounts reported to reflect chargebacks or other differences in what is actually taxable to you. Work closely with your CPA or other tax advisor to make sure you don’t overreport income and fail to take offsets, such as chargebacks and refunds, into account.

3. Tax Returns Have Changed

If your business is incorporated or you file a partnership return, there is a new line to enter the transactions reported to you on the 1099-K. The 2011 Forms 1065, 1120, and 1120S have a new look and must be completed in a new way.

For sole proprietors and one-owner limited liability companies who report their business income and expenses on Schedule C of Form 1040, nothing has changed. Still, you’ll need to include the amount of the transactions on the schedule as reported to you on the 1099-K.

4. Small Sellers Are not Necessarily Exempt

Sellers with annual gross sales on their merchant accounts of no more than $20,000 or 200 or fewer transactions are exempt from this reporting; only those with annual gross amounts exceeding $20,000 and more than 200 transactions will have their transactions reported to the IRS. However, this “small seller” exemption does not apply to payment card transactions, such as credit and debit cards; it only applies to third-party settlement companies, such as online payment processors.

Store-value cards and gift cards may or may not be treated as reportable payment card transactions. Check with your tax advisor on what to do about this issue.

5. Backup Withholding

If you fail to provide a correct taxpayer identification number, such as an employer identification number (EIN) or Social Security number (SSN), you may become subject to backup withholding. This means that 28% of every payment you process will be withhold as federal income taxes. This can severely impact your cash flow.

Again, backup withholding applies to payment card transactions, but not to small seller third-party settlement company transactions.

Backup withholding was supposed to start after December 31, 2011. Fortunately, the IRS has postponed backup withholding to payments made after December 31, 2012.

Final Word

Many sellers, particularly those selling online, who previously assumed that their sales would go unnoticed by the IRS will no longer be able to avoid reporting income. All sellers should work now with their tax advisor to get ready for 2011 reporting.

This article is from Barbara Weltman of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

5 Reasons Your Customers Aren't Using Your Website

Julie Rains — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:14:22 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/5-reasons-your-customers-arent-using-your-webs...

You’ve invested in your website and it’s looking good. The design is attractive, the navigation is intuitive, the site is well organized, the content is rich, and site visitors can easily request help if needed.

Why, then, don’t your customers use your website as much as you thought they would?

One of the best and simplest ways to find out what’s wrong is to listen to your customers. If they are not telling you explicitly through phone calls, emails, and survey responses, then arrange to observe customers interact with your website. Here are a few of the problems that you may uncover:

1. Customers Cannot Complete Transactions

Customers expect an end-to-end experience on your website. They want to initiate and complete an entire transaction from initial thought (e.g., “hey, I need to … pay a bill, make a reservation, schedule an appointment, place an order”) through final confirmation (“Success! You have… paid a bill, completed an order…”).

Unconvinced of the business case for such functionality and concerned about site security, you may be hesitant to spend money on site features that seem unnecessary. You might rationalize that certain needs could prompt customers to make phone calls or visit your office, resulting in meaningful interactions. Then, these warm connections will help you and your staff members to nurture relationships, uncover additional needs, and generate even more sales, online and offline.

In reality, customers abandon the website, grudgingly complete transactions offline (or not at all), and look for more user-friendly companies and websites.

Solution: Discover what transactions are standard in your industry and reasonably expected by customers. Listen to your sales team and customer service representatives who may have called your attention to functionalities necessary to compete for your customer’s attention. Allocate resources to upgrading and expanding the experience on your website.

2. Your Site Search Function Does Not Routinely Return Relevant Results

If your website is content-rich and contains diverse elements (products, e-books, whitepapers, case studies, blog posts, etc.), then your customers may have difficulty finding what they need through a simple query. That is, a product search might generate results for case studies, whitepapers, and products all mixed together.

Even e-commerce sites that deliver product results only don’t always give customers what they want, especially if features desired by customers are not tagged properly.

Solution: Don’t expect customers to be experts in Boolean search methods. Create user-friendly search pages that make advanced searches easy and intuitive. These typically provide a combination of fill-in-the-blank spaces, drop-down boxes, and check-boxes using terms that customers understand. (See examples at Paperback Swap, Allrecipes, and Flickr.)

Evaluate search queries and adapt your site’s methods to customer preferences. Place identifying tags on products, articles, etc. so that results displayed will be relevant to customer needs.

3. Specialized Skills are Required to Create Custom Products

Customers are eager to create customized items, such as photo books of special events, t-shirts for recreational sports team, and party invitations. But they become frustrated with myriad choices and complex design processes. You may have pushed too many design decisions to the customer, whereas the customer is expecting design expertise from your business.

Sure, your website is super-functional and allows customers to make intricate designs with out-the-ordinary specifications for colors, placement, etc. But the plethora of possibilities for uniqueness is not as highly valued as speed and simplicity.

Solution: Create a design process that allows quick uploading of artwork along with simple selection of templates for a custom look. Give options for customizing the final product but make choices obvious. Keep selections to a minimum. List the number of design steps and show customers where they are in the process to encourage completion rather than abandonment in the middle of a project or close to its finish.

4. Your Username and Password Conventions are Complicated

If your username and password requirements are stringent (e.g., “must contain at least one capital letter, one symbol, one lowercase letter, and one number”), then customers can’t use their default names (the ones they use for most websites) and tend to forget their login information. And if they can’t recall these details without effort and a lengthy password-recovery process, then they won’t be able to use your website. And if they can’t get the information they need, then they will most likely move along to another, easier-to-access source very quickly.

Solution: Unless your business deals with highly confidential information (such as financial or healthcare data), forgo quirky requirements that are more likely to block customers than encourage exploration. Match the strengths of username and password barriers to the sensitivity of stored information and the premium nature of content.

5. You are not Listening…Enough

As always, offline and online, pay attention to your customers. No matter how much upfront effort you have dedicated to the design of your website, understand that you may need to make adjustments after its launch. Listen, observe, and notice patterns. Pinpoint obstacles to successful interaction. Fix what doesn’t work for customers

This article is from Julie Rains of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: