FATTEN YOUR ONLINE PROFITS WITH DROP SHIPPING...Written by Thom Reece
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The products actual source is invisible to consumer. The seller (you) is able to build a database of customers that he/she owns and controls (by agreement with manufacturer) and has all direct marketing advantages that accompany that arrangement... while eliminating need for maintaining expensive inventory. This arrangement offers maximum flexibility and cost savings for seller. If a product does not sell well online you can pull advertising (web page or mini-site) instantly with very little cost to you outside of actual time it took to build and test web marketing effort. Or, since this type of page/mini-site is so inexpensive to maintain and host... you can simply leave pages online and take whatever orders trickle through... while you move on to testing and promotion of new drop ship products. The manufacturer benefits from this relationship by gaining a legion of active marketers promoting their products... at little or no cost (other than those small costs involved with supporting marketer with online marketing materials like product images, sales materials, etc). As a marketer you are looking for several key components in developing drop-ship relationship with a source factory or distributor:> - High Quality Products
- Blanket Product Liability Insurance (if applicable)
- A clear guarantee and return policy
- High Quality Marketing Materials ... product images (gifs, jpegs, etc.), selling copy, other suitable web graphics, etc.
- A Customer Service Department that will work with you to develop best selling situation for you.
If you are a manufacturer seeking to expand distribution (or an inventor with a new product ) you will find willingness to drop ship in single units will give you a strong competitive edge while you carve out increased market share at little cost. If you are an online marketer interested in offering high profit products to your niche market (your website visitors) without incurring high front-end development or inventory costs... then drop shipping is for you. Internet marketers are uniquely positioned to take profitable advantage of drop ship arrangement and should give this system a serious look. Thom Reece Drop Ship Source Directory
Thom Reece is the CEO and Senior Consultant for On-Line Marketing Group... His website... On-Line Marketing Resource Center ...( www.e-comprofits.com ) is visited by thousands of internet marketers daily. Thom can be reached at: 808-929-7377, Fax: 808-929-8711, or by email at: thom@e-comprofits.com
| | Sarbanes-Oxley: Old Dog, New TeethWritten by Gerald Czarnecki
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Fast forward to current rash of business scandals and latest crises. This time fear in Congress was so great that mandate was restated; and this time, sanctions for non-compliance were included in legislation. Now 25 years of neglect and sloppiness have caught up with public and private sectors. The threat that corporate officers might actually be held accountable for failure and accordingly charged with civil and criminal penalties, in combination with a comprehensive regulatory system (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) imposed on accounting firms and a strengthened accountability by SEC have now brought internal controls to forefront. The plain fact is, there is nothing new with SOX 404. Quality policy, practice and procedure documentation systems have always been basis of sound internal controls and systems audits. The corollary fact is that corporations have generally given superficial attention to these programs, calling them unduly bureaucratic and unreasonably expensive. Over last 25 years, we have not only ignored law, we have also ignored sound management practice. All of this in guise of being “cost-effective.” Sarbanes Oxley has obviously cost corporations huge amounts of money during this first year, but that is to be expected after 25 years of disregard for a well documented system of controls. In subsequent years costs will be less, but there will still be a permanent increase in systems costs. Controls cost money and it is our own neglect that has created need for corporate boards and managements to execute a major catch-up program. The irony is that COSO standard may not have been best standard to impose on audit process, but it was there and well documented when Audit community needed to move quickly. With all “push back” coming from corporate community, there may well be some modifications that will make audit process less onerous, but COSO does provide a basis for very much same kinds of documentation that are imbedded in standards of documentation found in best practices systems throughout world. Corporate America simply needs to make best of this mandate and use it as a launch point for continuous improvement of these controls so that they become both compliant and useful to effective management processes. Just as with individual behavior, way to get results in business is to either reward results you seek, or to punish results you want to eliminate. In government, more often than not, sanction is more effective than reward, or at least it is easier to deploy. We now have sanctions that threaten all participants in process of establishing and evaluating 25-year-old mandate for a system of internal controls. Those sanctions have commanded attention of managements and boards alike; and SOX has been granted serious focus in every public company board room in America. Indeed, these standards are also spreading to non-public corporations, and even becoming a de facto standard for nonprofits as well. There is little doubt that as time passes, effectiveness and efficiency will improve and thus limit costs, but they will never go away…that is, not as long as enforcement teeth are still sharp. The sad commentary is that in face of softer enforcement we disregarded a mandate for 25 years, and for this we are now paying price. For more information: www.deltennium.com/articles.php
Gerald Czarnecki, Chairman & CEO of the Deltennium Group, is a consultant, author and public speaker. A leading authority on corporate governance, Mr. Czarnecki conducts seminars and private boardroom sessions on Sarbanes-Oxley and the issues of governance that face boards of directors today. He also serves on the boards of directors of several large American corporations. For more information visit http://www.deltennium.com
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