Bartering- Expand your Small business by Spending very little Cash

Small business owners often find it difficult to expand beyond a certain point because of the lack of capital funding that is required for driving growth. Some small business owners fail to look at innovative ways to grow their business. They always wait till they get the required funding to get in to expansion mode.

Bartering system

Many small business owners (even the ones that are in the marketing business) have completely ignored the bartering system and the huge business benefits provided by it. There was time in 1998, when only 45% of the media business was purchased by making outright cash payments. The Remaining 55% of the media was bought through bartering system. By getting into bartering, small business owners can get goods and services from other small business owners at a fraction of the actual cost, as they would be exchanging their own products and services for the products and services bought.

Online channels for doing bartering

Now, if you were a small business owner, the next immediate question in your mind would be regarding the availability of a channel through which the bartering can be accomplished. It is best to either contact the company by mail or by phone and see if they are interested. It is a great tool if you are a marketing company selling branded gazebo stands . If you contact the company before a trade fair, you will definitely get what you want. It is essential that you look for sellers who are interested in buying your products at the right time.

Other requirements for engaging in bartering

In order to be successful in bartering, you need to dedicate sufficient amount of time and come with creative solutions that would help you to make handsome profits. You need to look at the idle resources that are lying unused, which could be in the form of

1. Hidden talent or expertise
2. Excess or unsold stock
3. Utilizing your secondary skills
4. Utilizing the skills of people working under you

By constantly looking at different avenues and finding out the availability of a latent or a hidden resource you could save a lot of money.

With over ten years in writing, Maya Johnson specializes in business journalism. Her writing covers various areas in finance, marketing, money markets and investment. Her texts are helpful to everyone who runs a business, from the small-scale businessperson to the established business owners.

She draws her insights from having practiced business herself at management level in Australian outdoor marketing company Star Outdoor. When not writing about business, Maya spends her free time away from it catching up with the latest fashion trends.

How to Fight Fraud on Your Ecommerce Site

Making money online is pretty easy, and getting conned is equally as easy too. If you own an ecommerce site, you need to be extra cautious in dealing with customers. The following are some helpful suggestions on how you can fight fraud on your ecommerce site:

> Be sure to put up fraud notices on your website.

Clearly state that necessary action will be taken against all violators. By doing so, you will be sending out an open message to scammers to keep off. Most importantly, this will tell scammers that you can track them through their email and IP addresses. The thought of this will be enough to keep them off.

> Analyze all your orders carefully.

Instincts always work best in business. Always trust your instincts whenever you come across suspicious orders. Check them out thoroughly to put your doubts to rest. Look out for signs like:

* Orders that don?t seem to be keen on the features of the specific product in question.

* If several orders are being placed for the same expensive item.

* Large orders that are requesting urgent overnight shipping or delivery.

These are some red flags you should always keep in mind. Most importantly, make sure that the customers fill out all the compulsory fields on the order information forms.

> Perform AVS (Address Verification Services) on every transaction.

This will help you make sure that the information provided by the customer matches that of the information on the file of the card or payment issuing bank. However, this service doesn?t work for countries outside the US. This means that you cannot exclude all orders that have different addresses, unless you?re running a business locally within the US.

> Get the card verification numbers and expiry dates.

Credit cards, master cards and visa cards generally have 3-digit security numbers at their back sides, and expiry dates at their front sides. Make sure you verify these codes and dates before authenticating any delivery. Make sure that each and every digit matches. If customers are providing account numbers to make payments, make sure that the account number is correct.

> Be extremely cautious when handling orders from abroad.

Most fraudulent cases originate from overseas countries. The most fraudulent activities are usually reported to originate from African and Asian countries. Always be extra cautious about accepting orders from such countries.

> Be sure to use software that help prevent fraud.

There are several fraud prevention software out there in the market, which help track any fraudulent activities automatically. Make sure you get authentic software. Master card and visa card also provide free tools that help in fraud detection. You can also use those as alternatives.

Over the last 3 years, Richard has been working on the Magento Enterprise platform developing large ecommerce sites. Aside from work, Richard is a regular blog contributor for several sites.

Be Well Equipped for your Catering Business

Food and cookery has never been more popular, with the ubiquity of cookery programs and celebrity chefs. As a result, in relation to food, our standards have rose considerably, and now people know more about food, what constitutes great cuisine and the importance of quality ingredients.

With the above in mind, there has never been a better time to establish a catering business. In these tougher economic times, catering is one sector that is thriving, and represents a great business model for anyone with a passion for food.

As the people that you serve will have more knowledge of food, it is key that your catering business cuts the cake but doesn't cut corners. A key aspect of this is ensuring that your business has the right catering equipment, and thankfully you can look on-line for anything that you need, such as catering cutlery sets.

Catering is an extremely equipment heavy business, and often you will be required to serve hundreds of customers. This necessarily requires not only manpower, but equipment power: so you will need larger refrigerators, disposable items and uniforms for your employees.

Scrimping on this kind of gear is not a good idea, and if you do you could end up flouting legislation, pertaining to food safety. As a result, when establishing a food-based business like a catering business a key aspect is ensuring that you source the right catering supplies.

Bio: This guest blog post is written by Webmaster of 3663cateringequipment.co.uk, offering catering equipment and cheap catering equipment services!

Foster your business with E-commerce fulfilment services

All business transactions which are performed online require the involvement of e-commerce fulfilment process. E-commerce fulfilment helps the online transactions to function smoothly and to get back high return. Globalization has made it possible for you to buy anything and everything on internet. The tremendous development of e-commerce has already taken 2/3 rd of the world under its control and is expanding its arm to drape rest of the world. Online trade can operate successfully only when your customers count on you. Goodwill of the company in case of online trading holds utmost importance. In order to store important data pertaining to the fact as to how many customers have carried out transaction with the concerned company, e-commerce fulfilment is very useful.

The different services performed by e-commerce fulfilment

• Warehousing – e-commerce fulfilment monitors the quantity, status, location of the items offered on sale. This process is observed so as to avoid any errors or loose ends. Emergencies require the proper utilization of the locator system. Warehousing cater to this need. The knowledge of the service provider as to which part of the warehouse he has sent every item is very necessary so as to locate the item in time of need.

• Reporting – The services offered by an e-commerce fulfilment firm ranges from developing prices, shipping and delivery of the items, processing payment to return reports. And this can be efficiently performed by making use of advanced software.

• Order processing – The shopping cart systems has been technologically enriched to facilitate the process where orders can be exported in digital format. Products should be stocked in a proper manner so that they can be delivered to the customer in good condition and within the stipulated time.

• Customer service – In e-commerce fulfilment, customer service is very important as they directly affect the online transaction. According to the need of the customers, solutions provided by the e-commerce fulfilment company are highly customized.

E-commerce fulfilment system is very expensive. But subscription of only those components which are required is also possible thus reducing the cost to a considerable extent.

The author, Aalina Jones here provides smart suggestions on e-commerce fulfilment. This article will certainly help people gather plenty of information regarding fulfilment.