Commission Explosion

Beginning this month many business owners will be surprised when they start receiving new tax forms issued by their credit-card and online-payment processors which are intended to keep businesses from hiding income.

Of course, the amount on your statements likely don’t account for the actual amounts received, less fees, credits and chargebacks. It’s going to be a confusing nightmare no-matter how you look at it but the law it is so we will adapt.

Going forward be aware of this new challenge and adapt accordingly. A wonderful reference article from Business Week about the new tax form that I found insightful can be found by clicking here.

Your small business accounting just got easier and less expensive with the Free Wave Accounting module for Google Apps users here.

If your business is in need of an accounting system and you can’t or don’t want to spend a fortune and the time getting up to speed simply to bill your clients (read=Quicken). Wave Accounting offers intuitive features that any small businesses will appreciate and it couldn’t be easier to use.

At the time of writing this review Wave Accounting is free and works seamlessly for Google Apps users. Let us know if you like this recommendation.

There are your competitors and then, there are your customers. What happens when your customers are also part competitor?

The retail department store model of the 60′s- 70′s was slanted to empower the retailer. Offer the best and newest products in mass presentation, actively demonstrate those products and their can’t live without features and they were often sold at markups that would make today’s retailers drool.

With discounters and do-it-yourself and bulk warehouses rise in popularity through the 80′s and 90′s the shift for pricing control moved in-favor of the consumer being firmly in-control of actual sales price.

Amazon recently introduced an App (smart-phone program) designed to get customers into your store, but the app strongly encourages them to not buy by dangling a discount above offering or locating a better price if they order via Amazon after leaving a brick-and-mortar business.

In addition to recruiting a customer, the Amazon App utilizes crowd-sourcing to collect pricing and product data from smaller retailers. This alone is a powerful tool and one surely to be explored by other retailers looking to capitalize on the wealth of data that can be generated in this fashion.

So upset about the Amazon App is one small business advocate that she took to the website Change.org to launch a petition denouncing the App and asking Amazon to remove it and apologize to America’s Small Business owners. See Jasmine Johnson’s petition here.

Though smacking of unfair competition tactics like this are sure to become commonplace as technologies advance, just look at the mass number of tools and similar apps currently available to consumers everywhere.

What is your opinion on this new Amazon App, does it hint of unfair competition? Is this a win-win for the consumer? What about the idea of using crowd-sourcing for data collection?

+Nick J. West

Managing affiliate programs as a publisher is no easy task. Unlike the common mis-perception we do not simply push a few buttons and make buckets of money. Okay… sometimes that’s exactly what we do but I digress.

As an affiliate publisher you need up to date information from your advertisers and ad networks, well-funded campaigns so that you’re not pulling them before they have a chance to reach your audience and timely payments from your advertisers and ad networks.

The industry is so fragmented that developing any concise policies and systems are far from a reality but if we were too ask the industry for one thing what would it be?

Quicker payments?, more individualized or custom branded offers?, less competitive restrictions on promotion?

There are hundreds more and coming to agreement on one or even two would be a great step forward. Us personally, we would like to see more advertiser transparency and better payment security.

What’s your thoughts? What would you like to see the industry do or improve?

Outside of traditional credit card processors, PayPal has the largest share of the existing merchant payment processing market. Over the past few years a few others have tried to capture a comparable share of the market without much success, Google Checkout for one.

I am not a fan of PayPal or, frankly of Google Checkout. Their arbitrary policies are not favorable to small to mid-sized merchants and have even caused the demise of some businesses through seemingly random policy enforcements. A simple Google search will lead you to hundreds, if not thousands of horror stories about closed PayPal and Google Checkout accounts.

Another option is now available for merchants who may have also experienced similar issues with the above companies, namely xCoin.com.

Now I don’t have a track record to provide, but thus far I have been pleased by the forthcoming and clearly spelled out policies from xCoin.

Anyone out there have experience with xCoin.com that they would like to share with our readers, please leave us a comment below.

Shopping Aggregators like Shopzilla, BizRate, Shopping.com and others are considered by many retailers large and small as an evil necessity. CPC (cost per click) campaigns through Google and Yahoo aren’t enough to capture enough of the retailers’ audience, especially when their competition is using shopping aggregators as well.

Over half of online buyers (54%) started their shopping at a shopping search engine or shopping aggregator website while just 46% started at a merchant website through direct navigation.

Most shopping aggregators work on a CPC (cost per click) basis, some like SHOP.com use a CPA (cost per sale) method, acting more as an affiliate. Either type of these programs are considerably expensive to enter so smaller retailers may not be able to budget using more than one or two services concurrently. The added exposure these shopping aggregators provide however is visibly measurable, and it can add to the bottom line of any retailer.

Another consideration when using a shopping aggregator is that they will be competing directly with you in the CPC (cost-per-click) arena for your own market, especially during the busy fourth quarter. Be careful to not inadvertently engage yourself in a bidding war with your own affiliates.

Whatever your decision, to use or not use these services, don’t rush into using a shopping aggregator without fully vesting yourself in understanding their operation, how they drive traffic to your website and how the additional costs will affect your bottom line. Also be wary of companies that maintain ownership or control ownership of the customer data. After all, your investment in acquiring the customer and maintaining that relationship is one of the more important benefits of customer acquisition for any business. You must be able to continue that relationship including future contact unhindered.

Lastly, be wary of a one-size fits all contract, your business may be able to negotiate a reduced percentage or price, declare active/in-active periods during your slower times of the year, or receive a trial period of their service without as many long-term contractual commitments.

Correction: We wrote in an earlier publication of this article that HayNeedle.com was a shopping aggregator, though in our opinion they are, in that they aggregate product results to deliver thousands of products, they are a privately held shopping aggregator or shopping portal that owns its 240 plus themed stores and is not open to outside retailers for product inclusion. Our sincerest apology to HayNeedle.com.