Google just updated the page rank two days ago, so please check it out to see if you website are getting some Google love!

Don’t know how to check Google Page Rank?

Just download the google toolbar and you’ll see.

Don’t know what page rank is? Um… sorry this blog is not for you.

Technorati Tags: Google Page Rank, internet marketing, SEO, Google,

In my last post, I talked about how it is not the right time to get into ecommerce in China. And a lot of people asked me, “As an entrepreneur, aren’t you supposed to solve those problems?”

Yes, entrepreneurs are supposed to solve problems. But not if the cost is too big.

Here’s why you don’t want to be a market pioneer in the digital age:

1. Exponentially higher development cost - in the industrial age, where productions rely on machineries and physical infracstructures, the development cost of market followers are not that much lower than the pioneer. The reason is developing and producing a machinery requires component and parts which cost money. For example, if it costs $10M to produce the first automatic cleaning machine, it will still cost $3-4M to reproduce it.

However, in the digital age, when what businesses need are more information technology, online services, and software programs, there is an exponentially higher cost of development for the market pioneer. For example, while if it costs $10M to custom made a software, the cost to reproduct it? Almost zero.

2. Less customer loyalty - in the digital age, when one store to another just barely a click away, it is becoming harder to build up customer loyalty. That means even if you company’s market share is 30% this year, it may very well be much less than that next year. Because of this lack of customer loyalty, the benefit of being the first one to enter a marketplace has significantly reduced.

Combining higher initial risk and lower potential reward, I hope you see why you no longer want to be a market pioneer in the digital age.

Technorati Tags: China business opportunities, ecommerce, China, Internet Marketing Consultant,

When I was in Hong Kong this summer, a lot of people asked me if I will try to setup some sort of presence in China for my ecommerce company. And I will always tell them no.

Here’re the problems I see associated with doing ecommerce in China or Hong Kong at this moment (in order of importance):

1. Lack of supporting industries - the supporting industries of ecommerce is pretty well developed in North America and in Europe. E-commerce’s supporting industries include shopping cart system, fulfillment centers, payment processors, inventory management, marketing venues… Without these supporting industries, enterprises have to build these infrastructures or programs from ground up, and it is very costly to do. I’ll elaborate more on this point later.

2. Problem with financial infrastructure and logistics - do you know it is STILL a pain in the back to pay online using credit card or Paypal in China? It is even harder for them to take out money from Paypal, not to mention the exuberant fees. This alone can deter a lot of online shopping activites. Besides, the postal service and logistics are far behind in China than in North America. If you think USPS is bad? Think again. Some areas in China don’t even have roads or addresses.

3. Can they afford spending that much yet? - While there’re more and more high income families and a surge in the no. of middle income households, the spending ability in China is still relatively low compared with Europe, N. America, Australia, Japan, and Korea. The avg. income are about USD$500/month. Without the kind of profit margin we achieve elsewhere, it is hard to justify going into China.

4. New Rich Mentallity - Many people tries to bring up the point that, “But there’re more and more rich Chinese families”. That is true. But you have you understand that because they are new rich, they prefer going OUT to shop to show their wealth, NOT hiding at home and purchase things online.

5. Denser Population - The population of China is concentrated in the coastal area, in particular the higher income group. With denser population and denser cities, offline shopping is often preferred with more convenience and wide enough selection of choices.

6. Internet is about widening, not narrowing - another problem with setting up an ecommerce website in China is that you’re limiting yourself with Chinese reading population. When I setup a website in English, not only am I selling to all native English speakers but everyone else from other countries who are able to read English. O and the cost of setting up a web presence is the same everywhere.

Now I’m not saying that ecommerce is not going to be a huge business opportunity in China sometime down the road, but at least not now, and not for the next 3-4 years to come.

Another question I get a lot is - “So why can’t you be the first one to solve those problems? That’s what an entreprenuer does.” I’ll explain to you in my next post why I believe it is no longer beneficial to be the market pioneer in the digital age.

Technorati Tags: China business opportunities, ecommerce, China, Internet Business,

There’s a recent launch (or re-launch) in the information marketing industry called the Dominiche. The guy behind it is Ed Dale, who’s a veteran information marketer, and one of the faculty member of Stompernet.

What Dominiche teaches you is essentially how to profit from buying and selling websites (or building & selling, flipping…). Now before we get into what I think about Dominiche, let me talk about whether I think Website Equity is a good business model.

In short, YES.

Here’s why: How much would you have to pay for a investment real estate property in order for it to pay you $1000/month in rent? Its going to be about $100,000. How much do you have to pay to buy a website which pays you $1000/month in profit? Um.. about $15,000.

So in terms of cashflow, this is GREAT.

How about in terms of increase in property value?

Well, let’s see, if you buy a house, no matter WHAT you do to it, renovating it, market it better… it will be almost impossible for you to flip it for more than 100% within 6 months. However, for websites, you can easily promote or monetize a site better and achieve a 100% increase in income - therefore increasing the website’s value by 100%.

Why? Because as of this moment, the value of websites are almost only based on its income.

There’s only one problem. With real estate, you can leverage. You can borrow money to purchase a property you can not otherwise afford, and thus you will gain much more in terms of increase in property value (that is if it increase).

As of now, there aren’t very many mortgages available for buying websites.

The potential I see here is not just with flipping websites itself, but the secondary industries that are going to be generated because of that. How if you become a mortgage company that specializes in provide mortgages for website acquisitions? How if you become a major broker in the area? How about an appraisal firm for website equity?

Does that excite you?

Now I’m not a member of Dominiche or Stompernet, and do not intend to join. But from what I’ve heard, those guys know what they’re doing. And for just $2000 something, its worth a shot at it and I look forward to hearing from your success.

Technorati Tags: Dominiche, flip website, Stompernet, Website Investment,

As promised last week, we’re launching a new ecommerce site again today, www.BabyGiftsUnique.com, which will focus on selling baby gifts and maternity related products.

This is our company’s 5th ecommerce site and we’re going to launch at least two more at Febuary 2008. We’re really pumped and excited to see how this new site will do because the pet site we launched last week is already doing great.

So if you are a parent with a baby or soon to have a baby or if you are attending a baby shower soon, go check it out and give me your thoughts; and if you’re not, that’s ok too, just tell your friends about it. If you can even blog about it or link to it from your website, that would be fantastic. Again - anything is welcomed!

Technorati Tags: Baby Gifts, Unique Baby Products, Baby Shower,

I’m glad to announce that we’re launching a new ecommerce site today, www.PetPetSupplies.com, which will focus on selling pet supplies and related products.

This is our company’s 4th ecommerce site and we’re going to launch another one next week and at least two more at Febuary 2008. Needless to say, we’re really pumped and excited to see how well these new sites will do.

So if you are a pet lover, go check it out and give me your thoughts; and if you’re not, that’s ok too, just tell your pet loving friends about it, or you can even blog about it or link to it from your website. Anything is welcomed!

Technorati Tags: Pet Supplies, Online Pet Store, discount pet products,

Google Checkout has launched for over a year and if you look at the marketplace right now, even though they had made a huge effort in promoting it (free processing, gift certificates…), the adoption of Google checkout is still not as prevalent as they (or I) want it to be.

How do I know it is not doing too hot? Just do some random searches on Google and you’ll see that not many advertisers have the Google Checkout badge next to their ad.

Here’re couple suggestions as to what Google checkout needs to do in order to give Paypal a run for their money:

1. Get on eBay

eBay being the biggest auction marketplace website in the world. It is a huge disadvantage to not be able to be used on eBay. Now, this is easier said than done of course, because eBay owns Paypal, which is Checkout’s biggest competitor. But is it possible to assert some pressure on eBay with the Adwords thing?

2. Get on Yahoo Store

Yahoo store is probably the biggest ecommerce platform online. If Checkout can do a join venture with Yahoo store just like what Paypal did, a lot more Yahoo merchants are going to adopt it. I know for a fact that many Yahoo store merchants want to take Google Checkout but don’t know where to get it integrated. (btw, it can be done) The main problem Yahoo store has with Google checkout is the TOS of Google checkout requires the checkout button to occur BEFORE the cart, which then violates the TOS of Yahoo store. Seems like for this to happen, some compromise has to be reached.

3. More benefits for Adwords Advertiser

Instead of giving free processing for the amount merchants advertise on Adwords, how about giving free adwords for the amount merchants process through Google Checkout? If Google checkout does that, I can see merchants pushing Google Checkout REALLY hard.

4. Buy Bill Me Later

Bill Me Later is one of the most widely adopted and fastest growing alternative payment method on the market. Google, you guys have so much money and have invested so much on Checkout already. Why not buy Bill Me Later? If you can buy it and somehow integrate the 2. The potential is unlimited.

I’m really tired of seeing Paypal dominating the online payment processing game, and I do believe Checkout is a superior product to Paypal. So guys at Checkout, please see if these suggestions are feasible for you.

Technorati Tags: Google checkout, Paypal, ecommerce,

One of our site WholesaleCollegeTextbooks.com just got a new look! It lays out the foundation of the changes we are going to implement on it in the next couple months - changing it from a regular ecommerce site to a shopping comparison engine specifically for college students.

So please go check it out and let me know what you think about the design!

Technorati Tags: textbooks, WholesaleCollegeTextbooks.com, comparison shopping engine, ecommerce consultant,

Yahoo Search Engine has just launched a series of new changes to its search function. The most notable change to it is the addition of Yahoo! Search Assist.

Quoting from Yahoo:

Most of you have already seen the real-time query suggestions we launched on Yahoo.com in July. Yahoo! Search Assist kicks it up a notch, bringing those suggestions to the search results page, along with related concepts that give users a point-and-click query refinement capability that enables them to explore a subject area they may be unfamiliar with.

One thing you’ll find when you use our new search experience is that Search Assist “automagically” drops down from the search box on the results page when it senses that you’re having difficulty formulating a query. But it only shows up when you need it or ask for it. It then offers real-time suggestions and concepts to explore, just like on Yahoo.com. We did this to avoid a common complaint about assistance technologies offered by other search engines — the “persistent assistance” that puts suggestions on the page regardless of whether a user wants or needs them.

Yahoo have been testing Search Assist over the past few months and they have seen significant improvements in user satisfaction from those tests. One metric we found was a 61% increase in successful task completion when users had Search Assist as part of their search experience.

I see these changes as positive for Yahoo and definitely closes the gap in terms of its usability with Google. It seems to me that Yahoo is taking a different route from Google by launching this search assist. What Google is trying to do is to understand searching behavior and come up with the suggestions themselves, where here Yahoo is trying to rely on the user to further refine the search results. This is certainly interesting to see how it pans out as to which model do searchers prefer and see if Google really has the ability to UNDERSTAND completely searching behavior and provide accurate suggestions.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Google, search engine, yahoo search, SEO,

Two of my Paypal accounts recently get limited due to some disputes on the charges. After trying to resolve the problems and restore the account status, I received an email from Paypal which says:

Title: Limited Account Access Appeal Denied

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

Now mind you that I did have a substantial amount of money in the Paypal account, so I was worrying that it would take 180 days to get my money back. And also, some part of my business relies heavily on using Paypal to receive payments.

Instead of panicking too much, I called Paypal and politely asked what the reason was (because it wasn’t said in the email), and they told me that it is because of some recent disputes and chargebacks. They then told me if I want to get my account restored, I should email appeal@paypal.com and resolution@paypal.com and tell them why I should have my account restored and how I would change to eliminate previous problems.

I did exactly that and in about 1 week, I got another email saying that my Paypal account is restored.

The moral of this story is, before you give up, try contact the people in charge, ask them what happened and try to resolve the problems. Hope this will help.

Technorati Tags: eBay, Paypal, ecommerce, payment processing, internet marketing,