Business blog

posted by moshenarte on Aug 18

Since the advent of the Internet we have experienced a scale of global trade unlike any before. You can find a supplier these days for almost every product imaginable and whilst this seemingly unlimited choice has often resulted in a win-win situation for all participants in the trade, this ease of trade has also opened a Pandora’s Box of corruption and dishonesty of sorts. This may sound daunting, but the trick is to prepare as much as reasonably possible before jumping into the world that is Global Wholesale Product Sourcing and E-Commerce.

For this issue, we will provide you tips and sources to help you verify Australian Wholesalers, Dropshippers, Suppliers and other Business Traders from Australia. Keep in mind that the following suggestions are by no means a definitive way to ensure success in business between you and any given Australian Company, rather, should be viewed as more of a reference to add to your already diligent pre-dealing research with a potentially new business partner.

Whether you have obtained the business details of your potential business partner through a Wholesale Directory, a professional verification service, or simply via a search engine results page you are usually only given basic information such as the business name, website, and sometimes email and/or telephone number. Where possible, search the Company’s website and gather as much information on the business as possible, including the actual business name – as many companies trade with other names on the Internet. Be wary if the only email address available is one from a free email site like Hotmail, Google or Yahoo. It’s not to say you are certainly dealing with a scammer, but it should raise questions if the legitimate business with the legitimate domain name and E-commerce website doesn’t have an email address of the same domain.

The first and most obvious point of reference when performing background research on an Australian or any Internet Business is to run various Internet searches of the business name and the domain name. E-commerce businesses operating for any amount of time will invariably leave an impression on its customers. There are thousands of review sites at which customers can write of their dealings with Companies, particularly if they feel they didn’t get value for money. Be sure to read everything available and reserve your judgments; a single bad review left by an impatient customer or a jealous competitor shouldn’t be enough to get in the way of a good deal.

Specifically for Australians, there are several business reference sites and agencies that may prove useful in your search to verify your Australian Business:

ABR Website – The Australian Business Registry is an Australian Government Initiative website that allows you to search for business information of a company using their Australian Business Number, Australian Company Number, or the Company Name. Their online services also include a Government & Business Associations Directory if the Company you’re planning to deal with claims to have direct links with the Government.

ASIC Website – The Australian Securities & Investments Commission, an independent Commonwealth Government body, is Australia’s corporate, markets and financial services regulator. You can search the ASIC registers for the company name (or number if available) for free.

Australian Gov Website – The Australian Government website is your link to hundreds of related sites. In the services section there is a list of handy business related sites to further help in your research.

WhoIs AusRegistry Website – Here you can search for the details of the Australian Website so long as it has a .com.au extension. Discrepancies with the information you obtain here may raise questions or give you more confidence – depending on the results.

With the information you have obtained about your potential future business partner you should be more confident to proceed with your initial transaction. Remember that with business, whatever the context, there is always a degree of risk. Be sure to always proceed with caution and do as much research as possible before committing to an exchange of currency.

Article Resource: http://www.moshenarte.com/business_articles/global_wholesale_product_sourcing_verifying_australian_suppliers/

MoshenARTE are the Global Product Sourcing Experts! Specializing in wholesale and drop shipping trade. For more information, visit http://www.moshenarte.com

posted by moshenarte on Jul 21

Global Product Sourcing Is For You

After much thought and evaluation, you’ve decided to take the step closer towards Global Product Sourcing and Wholesale. The idea of being able to operate your own business in your own time, being responsible for all of its respective successes and (hopefully not) failures is exactly what you want from a job. But where do you start? You have chosen an industry to target (e.g. brand named consumer electronics) and have obtained a list of verified suppliers from a reputable source and now the mass of information has become actually quite overwhelming!

Comparing Supplier Prices with Current Market Prices

The seemingly overwhelming task can be easily made simple by breaking up the enormous mass of information and your ultimate goal into smaller, easier-to-tackle modules. Assuming that each of your suppliers is reputable and honest your first task will then be the compare the prices of your suppliers to find how they rate against the current market value. The goal here is to find the products that will generate an acceptable level of profit to add to your portfolio of products for sale. Regardless of the method of e-commerce you choose to sell your items through, building your portfolio of revenue generating items and selling them at the same time will increase your chances of sale due to the natural synergy of your portfolio (assuming that all of the items are different enough from each other to be competitors within their own markets).

Auction Sites versus Regular E-Commerce Websites

Keep in mind when you’re comparing your supplier prices, or performing your market research that you distinguish between market prices obtained through auction sites such as eBay and those gathered from non-auction e-commerce shopping cart sites. Whilst they may appear to sell the same product (for example Apple iPod Touch with identical packages) on both sites, prices are generally lower on auction sites because of the inconsistent warranties available, product conditions, new/used status, and general accountability of sellers trading on auction sites as compared to operators selling from there own purchased domain named website with site related guarantees. It is not to say that you cannot make a decent profit from auction sites and not grab an absolute bargain from non-auction e-commerce shopping cart sites. The point is to distinguish between the two markets because there are some marked differences in the behavior of both buyers and sellers of each.

Tracking Your Research

To keep track of your market research you should make use of available software specific to the monitoring of prices and market trends. If this is not readily available you can easily develop a spreadsheet suitable for your needs. When developing your own spreadsheet you may find it useful to list your column headings from left to right in the following order:

- Supplier
- Product
- Price
- Market Price #1
- Market Price #2
- Market Price #3
- Market Price #4
- Market Price #5
- Average Price (avg prices 1-5)
- Average Profit (Average Price – Price)
- Average Return On Investment % (Average Profit / Price)*100

Whilst simple, this spreadsheet will allow you to view all of the prices at the same time and give you the opportunity to sort the higher performing items from the lower performing ones. From here you should set a baseline Return On Investment level and choose to sell only items achieving equal to or greater than that goal (e.g. only Apple iPod Touch units achieving an ROI equal to or greater than 15%.
A note should be made that because of the price movements of any given market as well as the rate at which new products are released and developed – consequently making current items not-so-current items – your market research is only valid for a limited amount of time only. This means that once you have decided on your suitable product no time should be wasted from that point to the time of sale.

For Your Benefit

It will be extremely beneficial in your early days as an Internet Wholesale Trader if you can train your mind to think along the lines of Return on Investment whenever you think of adding new products to your portfolio. In the end, it doesn’t matter where you want to sell your products, implementing a process that systematically evaluates the ability of a product to generate a profit will mean that you can measure the feasibility of almost ANY product or service out there. This will ensure possibly limitless product options within the general scope of your business and your current product knowledge because you will be thinking more on how beneficial selling that product will be for you instead of simply how much you’d like the product for yourself, or how cool it is.

Like many professions, your success in Global Product sourcing and Wholesale Trade will depend on your ability to put into practice the good lessons you learned and learn from your mistakes. Whether or not the information you have just read will help you directly in your current business practices, it should at the very least, get you thinking in the right direction towards wholesale sourcing success.

Article Resource: http://www.moshenarte.com/business_articles/global_wholesale_product_sourcing_and_price_market_research/

MoshenARTE are the Global Product Sourcing Experts! Specializing in wholesale and drop shipping trade. For more information, visit http://www.moshenarte.com

posted by moshenarte on Jul 12

To express it generally, Internet Fraud is any fraud scheme that uses the one or more components of the Internet. Websites, chat rooms, emails, message boards and even instant messaging facilities are some of the many components of the Internet used to conduct Internet fraud these days. Unfortunately, due to the speed at which the internet and all of its increasing capabilities are expanding it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the Internet scams out there.

According to the FBI, “Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 44.9% of referred complaints. Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment accounted for 19.0% of complaints. Check fraud made up 4.9% of complaints. Credit/debit card fraud, computer fraud, confidence fraud, and financial institutions fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement during the year.”

Effectively, this means that almost ½ of the fraud complaints out there originate from Internet transactions. Of the Internet fraud present out there, some of the main types include the following:

Credit Card Schemes - Involves the use of fraudulent or illegally obtained credit card numbers to purchase services or goods on the internet.

Investment Schemes - Involves the use of the internet, spam emails and fraudulent company information to inflate or deflate the stock price of a public company in order to profit without the Buyer or Seller being aware.

Identity Theft - Involves using the personal details of someone other than you without the knowledge of said person to obtain funds whether they are through credit card applications, bank loans or other.

Business Opportunity - Involves the promoting of a business opportunity scheme (typically “Work from Home” scheme to exact monies from unknowing victims for business materials or information to enable the Work from Home experience but fail to deliver said information in the end.

Auction / Wholesale - Auction and Wholesale purchase scams are some of the most prevalent scams operating currently. Typically these schemes offer seemingly unbelievable prices for quality genuine goods but often either fail to deliver or deliver counterfeit goods instead, if at all.

Whilst it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid internet fraud, particularly if you are firm on getting the best deal ever, there are a few measures that you can take when approaching your transaction online.

Reducing Internet Auction Fraud

- Read and understand entirely the details of the auction, how payments work and all costs involved. All facets of the transaction should be understood before you make your first bid.
- Learn about the buyer protection offered by both the site and the Seller. If you are unsure about any of the procedures then email the respective party involved and keep the correspondence as your proof incase problems arise and they need to be provided.
- Gather as much information as possible about the Seller. eBay and similar auction websites often provide the facility to obtain Seller information once you have won the auction, but it is often better (if possible) to obtain this information before you place your first bid. Check with country relevant authorities for business registration information.
- If possible, use a payment method that offers you levels of security including chargebacks and refunds. Major credit cards and similar payment facilities such as 2CheckOut and PayPal offer facilities to dispute purchases and assist in payment recovery.
- Escrow services can provide incredible peace of mind when dealing with larger transactions due to payments being held until the satisfaction of the Buyer ultimately releases the funds.

Reducing Business Fraud

- Typically regarded as Wholesale fraud, this business to business fraud occurs when a smaller business attempts to purchase significantly reduced-priced stock from a larger Company with infinitely greater “buying power”.
- Research the company you are intending to trade with. Be sure to read through as much information as possible about the company obtained through your search engine results. Be careful to discriminate between useful information and those posted by merciless competition as you may be missing on a genuine good deal. Overall, if you find yourself presented with several instances of “business fraud”, chances are you might be next if you proceed further.
- Be weary of businesses operating with free email addresses. This is not to say that they aren’t legitimate, just proceed with caution. Most successful businesses with developed websites will often have their own domain in their email address, and not and hotmail or yahoo extension.
- Once you find contact information of a business, try to communicate with them along these channels to be sure that they are active and not simply random numbers or email addresses included in an attempt to alleviate your anxiety before you purchase.

Reducing Investment Fraud

- Do your research before investing in a company. Check with the relevant authorities as to the legitimacy of the enterprise, the Website alone is not enough.
- Be wary of unscrupulous emails claiming to provide any kind of opportunity to make money. Scammers well versed in the art of conning you out of money will often request only a small amount at first.
- If you are thinking of investing your hard earned money into the cause, be sure you acquainted with all of the terms and conditions of the investment. The investment may turn out to be real but you may ultimately receive much less than expected due to the clauses in the terms and conditions.

Reducing Credit Card Fraud

- Do a background check on the site you are purchasing from before you enter in your details.
- Check to see if the site is secure on the page you are entering your credit card details on – usually indicated by a padlock in the right-hand corner of your web browser.
- Verify the business information provided by the company in their contacts page. Check to see whether they have an actual physical address, phone numbers and valid email address.
- If possible, use a payment method that offers you levels of security including charge backs and refunds. Major credit cards and similar payment facilities such as 2CheckOut and PayPal offer facilities to dispute purchases and assist in payment recovery.
- If any part of the transaction appears questionable you should contact your card provider immediately so they can monitor the transaction.

In the unfortunate instance that you are adversely affected by a fraudulent internet based scam, you can file a complaint online directly with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (http://www.ifccfbi.gov) – a joint initiative by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

As frightening as I may have made it appear to trade on the internet, there are definitely bargains to be found. With effectively billions (if not trillions) of dollars traded as a result of internet transactions daily, there are certainly profits to be made out there. Remember, if a transaction looks too good to be true, it usually is. Always proceed with caution.

Article Resource: http://www.moshenarte.com/business_articles/internet_fraud_explained/

MoshenARTE are the Global Product Sourcing Experts! Specializing in wholesale and drop shipping trade. For more information, visit http://www.moshenarte.com