By tapping into drop-shipping programs,

The declining economy has led to an increased trend toward drop-shipping transactions and has allowed e-tailers to remain competitive while brick-and-mortar stores hedge their bets as they see physical retail sales and profits slide precipitously.
By tapping into drop-shipping programs, e-tailers can effortlessly expand product lines to meet shoppers' demands without the overhead risk, inventory investment or storage requirements.
While many manufacturers and distributors in the past were reluctant to consider a drop-shipping partnership, economy-induced reductions in inventory orders have changed the retailing landscape completely. Retailers are now able to reach out to their suppliers and can begin establishing drop-shipping partnerships that benefit the retailer, the supplier and the customers.
In addition to expanding inventory options, drop shipping allows retailers to ship products to consumers in the most direct and economical way by eliminating the expense of double-shipping -- that is, shipping from manufacturer to retailer and from retailer to consumer.There are countless business growth opportunities for online retailers looking to establish a successful drop-shipping program, but it's important to understand the potential challenges that can arise and how to implement smart strategies to avoid and overcome them.
Establishing a drop-shipping program can change a site owner's job dramatically, as most didn't set out to be shipping and fulfillment experts.
Without the right systems in place, e-tailers' responsibilities can become complicated with archaic business practices: manually filling out shipping orders; monitoring multiple inventory stocks; and playing the middle man between the supplier and customer.
The key to having a well synchronized drop-shipping system that saves time and money lies in the effectiveness of one's e-commerce solution to automate, customize and organize back-end management and customer service operations. With the right e-commerce solution, online retailers can easily integrate drop shipping into their business plan for success.
Must-Have List
In order to establish a successful drop-shipping program, online retailers would be well-advised to seek certain key features in their e-commerce platforms:
Automatic Data Management: Look for an e-commerce solution that automatically sends order information to the retailer and the supplier from the moment a purchase is made to the moment it is delivered to the customer. This eliminates communication hassles between a drop-shipper and retailers, which saves retailers time, allows orders to be processed faster, and reduces chances for human error.
Item-Specific Fulfillment: If you use multiple suppliers, avoid platforms that simply track orders at the total order level. If a customer buys three items and they are delivered at different times because of their origin, having just one tracking order will lead the customer to believe the order is incomplete and may result in a complaint.
Utilizing a sophisticated drop-shipping solution that tracks each item within an order will provide customers and site managers with individual tracking numbers for each item purchased, even those shipped from different locations. This allows retailers to eliminate the manual step of recreating orders item by item, supplier by supplier, and also ensures increased customer satisfaction.
Multiple Resource Management: E-tailers can benefit from a feature-rich platform that can manage and ship from multiple inventory supplies, including fulfillment houses, drop-shippers and in-house stock. Having smart technology behind your chosen e-commerce solution allows business owners to maximize and synergize available resources, rather than struggling to consolidate and eliminate valuable resources to fit an inadequate system.
Comfortable Shipping: Clients can choose to integrate their preferred shipping application with a platform because of its automated tracking number generation and retrieval process. Some platforms let businesses that already have a preferred shipping application use that application, with all the data transferred automatically to the new platform's site manager.
The key to having a recession-proof business is being able to remain nimble to meet the demands of consumers. Drop shipping is an efficient and economical way for e-tailers to increase sales, expand product lines and improve their bottom lines at a time when it is needed most.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index,

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) rose for the sixth straight month [pdf] in September 2009. Combined with flat performance in the Conference Board Coincident Economic Index (CEI), this signals a possible bottoming out of the current U.S. economic recession.
The LEI, which measures economic activity for the next six months, increased 1%, from 102.5 to 103.5. This marked the LEI’s sixth straight month of growth following 20 straight months of decline. In addition, the CEI, which measures current economic activity, remained flat at 99.9, following fractional increases in July and August and eight straight months of decline that ended with a 0.4% decrease in June. A score of 100 marks the performance level of both the LEI and CEI in 2004.
Eight of the ten indicators that make up the LEI increased in September. The positive contributors – beginning with the largest positive contributor – were interest rate spread, index of consumer expectations, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), stock prices, real money supply, index of supplier deliveries (vendor performance), manufacturers’ new orders for non-defense capital goods and manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials. The negative contributors – beginning with the largest negative contributor – were average weekly manufacturing hours and building permits. In August, only five of 10 indicators increased and two remained flat.
In addition, three of the four indicators that make up the CEI increased in September. The positive contributors to the index, beginning with the largest positive contributor, were industrial production, personal income less transfer payments, and manufacturing and trade sales. The negative contributor was employees on non-agricultural payrolls. This performance was a repeat from August.
According to Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein, taken together, the performances of the LEI and CEI continue to indicate an economic recovery is developing. However, he cautioned that it is not yet clear how strong that recovery will be. “The intensity of that recovery will depend on how much, and how soon, demand picks up,” said Goldstein.
Two other consumer indices also paint a somewhat optimistic picture of the direction of the U.S. economy, although not all recent consumer and economic research suggests an end to the recession is near. The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index, which attempts to track consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending, rose 11.6% in September 2009.
Although the Consumer Reports Index, which tracks consumer financial and employment numbers to obtain an overall sense of consumer health, climbed from 38.1 in September to 40.3 in October, the index still stands well below 50, indicating continuing negative consumer sentiment regarding the economy.
In contrast, two other consumer indices have recently declined. Following an August 2009 increase driven by an optimistic consumer future outlook, the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell from 54.5 to 53.1 in September 2009. The most drastic decline came in the Present Situation Index, with the future-looking Expectations Index declining only half a percentage point.
And according to the September 2009 Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. retail and food service sales fell 1.5%, from $351.4 billion to $344.7 billion, in September. This is the second slip for U.S. retail and food service sales in the past five months, with a revised 0.2% dip in July.
However, a 10.4% drop in sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers significantly outpaced any individual increases, which were mostly below 1%. Last month, motor vehicle and parts dealers reported a 10.6% increase which was likely spurred by the federal government’s now discontinued “Cash for Clunkers” incentive program. The motor vehicle and parts sector bears careful monitoring in the coming months to see if the short-term spike in sales caused by Cash for Clunkers has any long-term positive economic effect.
One other consumer index, The American Express Spending and Saving Tracker, is giving mixed signals on the near-term direction of the economy. It indicates consumers will spend more on travel and dining out in the next 30 days, but less on groceries and personal grooming.

According to The Daily Record,

According to The Daily Record, GGP is authorized to pay out $11.6 million in bonuses to its top 12 executives, $6 million in bonuses to 35 senior executives, and $30 million in bonuses to 706 regional shopping mall managers and 2,122 additional employees during the next two years. Bonuses will be entirely cash-based as the bankrupt company’s stock is currently worth less than $2 a share. Bonus values are estimated as they are tied to 2009 salary figures, which have not been made public.
In addition, if GGP exits bankruptcy by June 30, 2010, the company will be allowed to distribute an extra $10 million bonus pool to employees. GGP will receive an extra $5 million bonus pool if its exits bankruptcy between July 1 and September 30, 2010, and no extra bonus pool money after that date.
The Daily Record quotes a GGP spokesperson as saying the company’s creditor committee supports the bonus plan. This may result from a favorable bankruptcy court ruling on August 11, 2009 that holds the potential to make it harder for creditors to obtain repayment.
According to Retail Traffic, Judge Gropper is allowing GGP to hold special purpose entities (SPEs) that are traditionally considered outside the realm of corporate bankruptcy in its bankruptcy filing. Furthermore, the SPEs in question are not considered to be in financial distress. In June, creditors including ING Capital Loan Services LLC, Helios AMC, LLC, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and KBC Bank, N.V. had asked the bankruptcy court to disallow the SPEs from GGP’s filing. If the ruling stands, funds from the SPEs will go toward corporate restructuring rather than repaying creditors. Thus creditors may be more willing to accept the bonus plan as a means of getting GGP out of bankruptcy as quickly as possible, even though it uses money that potentially could help pay GGP’s debts.
In another recent legal development, Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan, an heiress to what was once the GGP fortune, is suing attorneys Marshall Eisenberg and Earl Melamed and their law firm, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, along with trustee General Trust Co., for alleged improprieties relating to the handling of GGP-related stock and trusts. According to the Chicago Tribune, Scanlan said she has lost $1.7 billion since the collapse of GGP, and she blames the defendants in her suit for $300 million of those losses.
In June, GGP proposed a seven-year plan to fully repay all creditors. The company has been trying to restructure and refinance its debt for months.
According to Commercial Real Estate Examiner, GGP’s plan involves a seven-year extension of its secured and unsecured loans at their current interest rates. GGP says this would allow it to create a cash flow large enough to pay off all debts. In a presentation [pdf] at a recent investment research conference, GGP made arguments in favor of the plan such as the mall industry is more stable than retail in general due to its reliance on long-term leases, 82% of its debt is fixed-rate, and its malls have a 90.9% occupancy rate. The bankruptcy court is still determining a restructuring and repayment plan for GGP.
GGP’s proposal follows recent motions by a number of lenders to its malls requesting the properties be removed from GGP’s bankruptcy filing. According to Reuters, lenders are saying the loans in question are not in default danger and that GGP is using Chapter 11 bankruptcy to obtain leverage in debt negotiations. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for June 17, 2009.In December last year GGP hired AlixPartners to help it turn around. Its team is lead by Managing Director James A. Mesterharm, whose declaration in support of first day motions can be found here (pdf). Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP have been retained as counsel and co-counsel to the debtors. The case has been jointly filed under number 09-11977 with the United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York. The court, headed by judge Stuart M. Bernstein for the last nine years, has had many high profile “mega cases” under its jurisdiction since the current recession began, including BearingPoint, Star Tribune and Lehman Brothers.This filing lists many entities but excludes some third-party businesses and joint ventures. Along with retail locations, 11 office properties, one master planned community and six properties still under development are part of the filing properties, while many operating properties are not involved in the filings. More details, including contact information for the attorneys representing GGP, are available from a website maintained by noticing agent Kurtzman Carson Consultants.
With roughly 200 million square feet of retail space and 24,000+ stores across 44 states, GGP is the second-largest mall owner in the US behind Simon Property Group. It employs approximately 3,700 people directly and many more indirectly.

Research data on e-commerce and online purchases,

The current serious economic recession has not frozen investments in e-commerce. Smilehouse, a company focusing on e-business solutions and expert services, achieved an organic, profitable turnover growth of more than 50% in 2008.
The Internet is gaining more and more ground both in consumer and business-to-business trade. Fundamental changes are to be expected in consumers’ purchase behaviour and b2b trade, based on research data on e-commerce and online purchases, as well as the rapid growth of the value of online trade and increasing investments in e-commerce.
- Our estimates indicate that the recession will boost the purchase behaviour change that is already in progress. In bare markets, consumers and companies strive towards increasingly sensible purchases, and the Internet and online stores offer particularly efficient ways to support more thoughtful purchasing, both in terms of cost savings and the ability to offer more extensive background information, says Tapio Talvisalo, CEO of Smilehouse.
In the field of product and service sales, e-commerce is not only a necessary channel for making customer contacts but also an investment that will bring significant yield once fully up and running. It enables companies to boost sales and also gain notable cost savings through automated functions.
- Companies that can see the big picture keep up their investments in e-business regardless of the recession in order to ensure success when the economy turns up again, Talvisalo says, crystallising the point.

Smilehouse showed the industry’s highest organic growth
As the only e-business expert company, Smilehouse made it to the Deloitte Fast 50 list ranking the fastest growing technology companies in Finland. This was Smilehouse’s third time on the list that requires strong, long-term growth.
- We are extremely pleased with the strong growth and particularly the fact that last year, for example, we were able to achieve growth that was organic and profitable, unlike many other industry players. This means that our top position is the outcome of competence and expertise, not external capital injections of corporate acquisitions, Talvisalo points out.
In 2008, Smilehouse achieved the planned growth of over 50% and increased its turnover to EUR 5.5 million. Smilehouse’s e-business solution expertise was utilised by such customers as Konebox, Sanoma Magazines, Anglo-Nordic and Kalevala Koru.
Smilehouse’s strong growth can be, above all, attributed to the increased investments in e-commerce made by major corporations as well as small and medium-sized companies. Smilehouse gains competitive edge from such features as its actively developed solution software package, a decade’s experience in e-commerce and the ability to serve as a one-stop shop for all e-business solutions and services.
Smilehouse even seeks growth in recession
Despite the economic recession, Smilehouse is targeting nearly 40% growth for the current year. The turnover target is set at EUR 7.5 million. Achieving this goal will require major new customer accounts but also an increase in personnel.
It is difficult to estimate how the macro economy will effect the company growth but as the market leader Smilehouse is in a good position when companies select their partners for successful e-business.
- The growth target is a major challenge in the current economical situation, even for us. No company is independent of the general market trends. However, we believe that there will be demand for expertise and competence even during difficult times, says Talvisalo in conclusion.Smilehouse has been showing strong growth for a long time, as evidenced by it being included for the second time in two years on the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA list, which lists the fastest growing technology companies.“Our strong growth shows that e-commerce is increasingly often an integral part of companies’ strategies, and that it can help achieve tangible sales growth and efficiency improvement. Our decision to focus on providing complete and specialised solutions for e-commerce has received strong acceptance from the markets,” says Tapio Talvisalo, CEO of Smilehouse Oy.Key accounts and the SME sector the growth driversSmilehouse’s growth in 2007 was largely based on significant key accounts in the corporate customer segment, and powerful growth in the SME sector. Last year, Smilehouse won several major accounts, such as Lumene, Orion, Suunto, the Hedengren Group and Anglo-Nordic.Over 8 000 merchants uses free e-commerce service Wosbee Smilehouse released a free e-commerce service for entrepreneurs and small businesses on May at CeBIT 2007. Now anyone can open a free webshop at www.wosbee.com and build successful e-business solution, with secure hosting included.Compared to other e-commerce services, Wosbee is offered free of charge. It includes a lively community for services and support. Today Wosbee has a community of over 8 000 merchants.Smilehouse invests in strategic partnership“In 2008 we intend to enhance our solutions range, particularly in the strategy-level value added services for e-business. We partner with our customers to help them make the most of the opportunities provided by e-commerce. The development work on the Workspace product line is moving on to the second generation version, offering companies even more extensive opportunities for exploiting e-commerce in their business. We feel very confident about the future,” Talvisalo continues.Now listed on the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA list, Smilehouse is the only Finnish growth company focusing on e-commerce. The aggregate turnover growth percentage for the past five years is 318. In 2007, Smilehouse recorded turnover in excess of EUR 3.5 million, showing an increase of 46% on the previous year. At the same time, the number of company personnel rose to 70 e-commerce specialists. Strong growth is expected to continue, and the budgeted turnover for 2008 is EUR 5.5 million.

Microsoft’s recent launch of new search engine,

Microsoft’s recent launch of new search engine Bing could be set to shake up the world of internet browsing and certainly gives marketers using online advertising something to think about.
In her blog for Forrester, Shar VanBoskirk suggested that the new tool, which replaced live.com last week, could change the face of search, having a massive impact for marketing professionals.
She predicted that Microsoft’s current eight per cent share of searches will grow, meaning that marketers will need to buy search advertising through Bing as well as Google and Yahoo.
Ms VanBoskirk also forecasted a change in the approach to search engine optimisation (SEO).
“Instead of Bing showing all sites that match the search engine’s algorithm, it will show just three results for a given ’subcategory’ related to a search,” she explained.
“This means SEO strategies will adjust in order to optimise web content for select subcategories, rather than select keywords only.”
Given that a recent survey by Forbes revealed SEO to be one of the most important and effective tools for marketers when aiming to secure conversions, the launch of Bing could be particularly important.
Researchers questioned senior marketing executives during February and March of this year and found that when it comes to digital media spending for the coming months, 40 per cent of respondents planned to devote more of their budget to SEO.
The findings of this report echo earlier results from Econsultancy and search agency Guava, which found that SEO is the area where companies are most likely to be investing more money in 2009, with 55 per cent of respondents to the online survey saying they expect their budgets for this to increase.
Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, recently highlighted the importance of getting SEO right.
“A non-trivial percentage of Internet traffic to sites is driven by search engines, and good SEO techniques can help increase site traffic even further,” he wrote in his blog.
“Likewise, small mistakes can significantly impact the search relevance of your site’s content and cause you to miss out on the traffic that you should be receiving,” Mr Guthrie explained.
He said that common errors, such as broken links from a page, poorly chosen titles, descriptions and keywords, large amounts of viewstate and multiple URLs leading to the same content, are usually easily fixable.
To that end, Microsoft have launched the first beta of the Internet Information Services Search Engine Optimization Toolkit, which allows firms to analyse SEO on a website and identify and fix any issues.
Looking ahead, marketers are going to have to increasingly look at incorporating video into their websites, as this is set to be hugely influential for SEO.
With broadband increasing in availability and lowering in price, video has seen huge growth in recent years and Google is ranking pages higher in its news section based on the presence of the media on a website.The search engine giants have teamed up with Adobe Systems, creator of the widely-used Flash Player technology, in a bid to improve what content users can search for on the internet.
In the past marketers and search engine optimisation experts have had to rely on text content alone to drive up search engine rankings for results, with a focus primarily on keywords.
Google has already integrated the new technology into its system, while Yahoo will do so at a later date, according to reports.
However, some remain sceptical that the new Flash search will really make that much of a difference to overall search marketing.
Vanessa Fox, editor of the Search Engine Land journal, told Info World: “It could be a large impact or it also could be really small.
“I do think developers who are implementing Flash on their site probably still need to pay attention to search engine optimisation.”

Net neutrality Postmortem,

Given the extraordinarily noisy run-up to yesterday's meeting at the Federal Communications Commission, it's hardly surprising that reactions came fast and furious from lawmakers, businesses and advocacy groups that had staked out a position in the Net neutrality debate.
As a matter of procedure, the action the FCC took yesterday was to initiate a rule-making process that would enshrine its 2005 Internet policy statement as formal rules, and add to it stipulations mandating non-discriminatory network management and disclosure of ISPs' traffic-shaping policies.
The commission is calling for public comments through March, with the formal rules to be drafted and considered by the commission later next year.
But some are hoping it never gets that far. The morning of the FCC's vote, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009," which would bar the commission from writing Net neutrality rules.
In an op-ed penned for the Washington Times, McCain professed to be worried about a "government takeover of the Internet."
Kay Bailey Hutchison, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, has also warned against overreaching FCC regulations. Earlier this week, one of her aides told InternetNews.com that she had backed off of an amendment to an appropriations bill to withhold funding from the FCC and prevent it from enacting new regulations, but that the option was still on the table.
This morning, Hutchison issued a statement reiterating her concerns and saying that she would be "closely reviewing" the FCC's notice and the comment process. After reviewing the commission's decision, I will evaluate whether legislative efforts, including those recently introduced, are an appropriate course of action," she said.
A rush to praise the FCC
Meantime, on the other side of the aisle, several Democratic lawmakers rushed to praise the FCC's action.
Sen. John Rockefeller and Rep. Henry Waxman, who chair the commerce committees in their respective chambers, wrote a brief letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski praising his efforts and urging him to stick to his promise that the rule-making process would be transparent and data-driven.
A rare showing of bipartisan solidarity came from Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who have teamed together in the past to sponsor Net neutrality legislation.
In a joint statement, Dorgan and Snowe praised the FCC for initiating the rule-making process. "Network neutrality protects the fundamental rights of Americans in using the Internet and accessing content, applications, and services of their choice," they said in a joint statement.
Dorgan and Snowe said they would watch the FCC's proceeding closely, holding out the possibility that they might reintroduce legislation to support Net neutrality.
A pro-Net neutrality bill, backed by seven Democrats, has already emerged in the House. The legislation, dubbed the "Internet Freedom and Preservation Act," bears an uncanny titular resemblance to the bill McCain introduced yesterday, though they are obviously working at cross purposes.

The Gx family features a new three-issue 64-bit core,

This new family, the TILE-Gx, consists of four new processors from Tilera, all aimed at different markets based on their scalability. They come with 16, 36, 64 and 100 cores, all operating in parallel and can be configured so all cores run on one task or core groups can be partitioned and assigned to different applications. The chips aren't slated for release until next year.
The TILE-Gx family uses 40 nanometer chips, fabricated by Taiwan's TSMC. They run up to 1.50 GHz while consuming between 10 and 55 watts. They have a similar RISC (define) design like the other Tilera processors, but also have a few advancements.
The Gx family features a new three-issue 64-bit core, meaning it executes three instructions per cycle. It has a total of 32MB of cache: 32KB L1 cache and 256KB L2 cache per core. It makes all of the individual L2 caches appear as a single L3 cache, so every core knows the contents of every other core. The Gx family also has integrated high-performance DDR3 memory controllers that can access up to 1TB of ECC memory. The chips have their own encryption engine, called MiCA (Multistream iMesh Crypto Accelerator) that delivers up to 40Gbps encryption and 20Gbps full duplex compression processing.
It also has a packet processing accelerator called mPIPE (multicore Programmable Intelligent Packet Engine) to provide wire-speed packet classification, load balancing and buffer management.
A solution for cloud computing
Tilera is targeting cloud computing systems with the new TILE-Gx line, promising four times the performance of Intel's high-end Nehalem-EX and ten times the performance per watt.
It's an easy claim to make since neither chip is on the market yet, but Tilera is not interested in being a niche player. "We will make the statement we are a broad-based processor. We will not be placed into a niche," Bob Doud, director of marketing for Tilera told InternetNews.com. Within the cloud computing market is a decent segment where you just don't care what the underlying hardware is, you just want performance and performance per watt," he added.
The software is there
CPU history is littered with the corpses of failed start-ups, mostly because they didn't provide the software base. Doud said Tilera has that covered with a strong software ecosystem to support the hardware, starting with the fact that existing code will be portable to the TILE-Gx.
"People won't have to write new code. Porting is usually as easy as recompile and run," he said.
"We've all seen a lot of guys with a good idea and specialized processor chip come and go. Often times they carried baggage along with them requiring people to use special programming languages or funny libraries to use their chip. TILE-Gx runs Linux and runs C/C++. It's not binary compatible with an x86 processor, but the cloud is such a huge market that areas that don't require binary compatibility are a huge play for Tilera," he added.
One area where Tilera has experimented is Memcached, an open source caching middleware software package often used by Web 2.0 sites to serve up code and data that is frequently requested.
Tilera was able to port Memcached to its currently-shipping TilePro64 chip in a day, using Linux and open source tools, spent a few weeks optimizing it, and got seven times the performance-per-watt on a single 64-core chip as a dual socket quad-core Nehalem server.
"We've invested a huge amount into software, about equal to what we put in the hardware. We realized software was it or we'd have a boat anchor. We've got the debugger, profiler, and optimizer tools," said Doud.
So far, Tilera has 75 customers using its development kits, but will not identify those customers until they ship products. The TILE-Gx family begins shipping next year, with the 100-core processor coming last.
Will Strauss, principal analyst with Forward Concepts, said Tilera isn't a threat to Intel yet, but sure could be one. "The hardware works, there's no question in my mind. They can run the benchamarks and it looks very good. They are further along than any other massively parallel processor vendor," he told InternetNews.com.
"What they don't have is Windows on it. But it is programmable in C and they do have a Linux running on it. So it does have a capability. The real secret to success is how easy is it to program and what kinds of tools do they have to program? People aren't used to programming a large array of processors," he added.

UK unemployment figures are almost at two million,

At a time when UK unemployment figures are almost at two million, online retailers are bucking the downward trend with some claiming they are excelling in the current climate, according to the findings of a survey.
A study in the Bearing Partnership's Digital Industry Confidence Report said e-commerce managers are confident that their teams will either grow or maintain this year and may even receive pay increases.
Aryn Hurst-Clark, director of search and selection at recruitment specialists Bearing Partnership, said: "Brands will need to service the growing demand for e-commerce from consumers and, in an area currently suffering from a skills shortage, making the right staffing decisions will be critical to the company's overall business success."
She added that companies that invest wisely in e-commerce employees will reap the benefits when the economy picks up.
The report also showed that 77 per cent of e-commerce managers reached their targets during last 12 months and almost half of managers said they were confident of a pay rise in the next year.
Bearing Partnership's report follows the news that online sales were up by 14 per cent in April compared to the same time in 2008, according to an Imrg.com survey.Online retailers have reason to celebrate as sales were up 14 per cent in April compared to the same time last year, according to an online retail website.
Figures released by IMRG/Capgemini, the e-commerce specialist, from their e-Retail Sales Index revealed that although there was a growth compared to last year, monthly sales figures actually dropped two per cent compared to March this year.
Mike Petevinos, head of consulting for retail at Capgemini UK, said: "The e-retail industry continues to perform well during the recession with year on year growth at around 15 per cent being achieved consistently over the last ten months. We are also seeing growth in the average basket value with UK shoppers spending £10 more online per visit compared to a year ago."
He continued to say that as the market matures and stabilises the 50 per cent year-on-year growths are now a thing of the past and seasonal peaks and troughs are now visible.
The report said that the average online basket size has grown from £121.69 in April 2008 to £131.76 last month.
An e-commerce study by Gartner has recently suggested that perpetual shopping carts are the most effective way of increasing visitor conversion rates for online retailers.

Online retailers in Europe,

Online retailers in Europe are being held back by legislation which is not up to the task, according to one expert.
Even though online retailers in the EU have recently reported annual transactions in excess of €100 billion (£87 million), Petra Papinniemi of ZDNetAsia.com claims the laws that govern e-commerce in Europe are no longer good enough.
She said: "Changes to the legal and regulatory framework are now a priority if cross-border e-commerce is to reach its full potential."
Ms Papinniemi highlighted the legislation that governs cross-border selling as the biggest hindrance to European e-commerce, saying data protection issues which stop companies exchanging information are most in need of reform.
The Office of Fair Trade (OFT) has responded tentatively to a proposal which came after the European Commission's report and would mean all EU countries having the same level of consumer protection.
Ms Papinniemi said this could water down much tougher, existing consumer protection in the UK and the OFT has expressed a preference for the standard to remain flexible to allow member states the choice to keep stringent rules in place.
UK online retail managers who took part in a recent survey by Bearing Partnership said they were confident that their teams will either grow or maintain this year and may even receive pay increases.The new software comes from Interprise Software Solutions, an e-commerce specialist that says its program, named Interprise On-Demand, can appeal to businesses looking to develop without spending thousands of pounds.
Gary Harrison, president of Interprise Solutions, said: "In a tough economy, customers need options. Interprise On-Demand gives companies the freedom to choose between the simplicity and immediate return-on-investment of the software as a service subscription option or the flexibility that the licensed option provides."
He added that the company is looking forward to getting the service on the open market and hopes businesses will see the possible benefits that Interprise On-Demand could bring to their productivity and revenue streams.
In a recent survey by Bearing Partnership, the recruitment specialist, most e-commerce managers reported that they expected their teams to grow and salaries to increase by the end of the year.

News from China B2B research center,

News from China B2B research center, 2009 China (Guangdong) international e-commerce conference
will hold on September 12, 2009 in Baiyun International Conference Center ceremoniously in Guangzhou. Organized by the Guangdong Provincial Information Industry Department, the Guangzhou People's Municipal Government and China Electronic Commerce Association, the conference set "to promote innovation, boost transformation, and strive for creating the International Electronic Commerce Center" as the theme and hold around the target of how to achieve "further establish the Pearl River Delta Region International E-Commerce center ". Except some major officials from relevant departments will attend the meeting, the meeting also invited many seniors of leading enterprises on e-commerce home and abroad, such as China Mobile, China Union Pay, Alibaba, Tencent, IBM, Cisco, Google, Amazon, eBay, and the European Union Resident Representative in China, Hong Kong and Macao delegates and local service providers.The meeting will give a platform to present e-commerce application, supporting system and safeguard measures, exchange experience, share new ideas, analyze application cases, inspire the participants thinking, and open the sight of practitioners. E-commerce is a new industry representative and the core of the modern industrial system with a flexible response capabilities and broad space for development. It is not only a technology tool for businesses to recruit more business, but also basing on the level of industry resources allocation through the effective integration of procurement, manufacturing, sales, channels, payment, information, logistics and other activities to establish a new marketing and growth mode. E-commerce can help SMEs break through the regional restrictions and trade monopolies in the international competition. Spreading and deepening e-commerce applications, could also contribute to the innovation and development of traditional industries, which plays a pivotal role in assisting upgrading the regional economy. The conference is the largest e-commerce activities of the southern area so far, which provides participants a perfect opportunity for comprehensive revealing the nature of e-commerce and in-depth understanding panorama of the international e-commerce center. As a winner of domestic e-commerce, epathchina.com (www.epathchina.com) certainly will concentrate on the great issue. This is a good chance for epathchina.com to learn advanced marketing features from other excellent e-commerce enterprises and conclude work experience to make up for its own deficiencies.Epathchina.com also makes an effort of keeping pace with Ebay.com, Amazon.com, Alibaba.com dhgate.com etc. and shortening the distance. Epathchina.com strives for standing as a winner of international e-commerce in the end.

Electronic commerce(e-commerce),

Electronic commerce or e-commerce covers all business conducted by means of computer networks. Progress in telecommunications and computer technologies in recent years have made computer networks a vital part of the economic infrastructure. More and more companies are aiding transactions over web. Although business-to-business transactions play an important part in e-commerce market, a share of e-commerce revenues in developed countries is generated from business to consumer transactions. E-commerce provides numerous benefits to the consumers in form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and saves time. People can purchase goods with a click of mouse button without moving out of their house or office.For developing countries like India, e-commerce offers considerable opportunity. E-commerce in India is still in budding stage, but It is believed that low cost of personal computers, a growing installed base for Internet use, and an increasingly competitive Internet Service Provider (ISP) market will help fuel e-commerce growth in India.Many sites are now selling a diverse range of products and services from flowers, greeting cards, and movie tickets to groceries, electronic gadgets, shoes and computers etc.However The speed post and courier system has also improved tremendously in recent years. Modern computer technology like secured socket layer (SSL) helps to protect against payment fraud etc. Many companies also provides “cash on Delivery” service where people can access goods through e-commerce without owning a credit card. In India, scores of organizations have ventured into e-commerce such as Bigshoebazaar.com which offers huge range of branded and non branded shoes under one site thus changing the way India shops. Now you can buy your favourite shoe with the click of the mouse. You can chose among over thousands of designs without sweating in the sun running from one shop to another. It also helps the compare the shoes so that you can end up purchasing the best one for you or your loved ones. What that means is that when a customer wants more variety that a physical store can hold, they will get access to an unlimited virtual variety. He/She will simply go to www.bigshoebazaar.com where a whole new world of footwear opens to him, giving him dozens of brands and thousands of shoes to choose from.Bigshoebazaar brings together 60 brands and 10000 designs on one platform. Brands like Woodland, Adidas, Puma, Reebok, Nike, LeeCooper, Red Tape, iD, Adda, the list just goes on and on. Other important companies in India are e-bay, indiatimes.com.homeshop18.So, Shop the way the whole world is shopping and get your favourite stuff with a click of a button of the mouse.

Recourse from International Financial,

Recourse from International Financial, although the August data show poor performance of exports, but most research institutions are still very confident to future export prospects of China. When many traditional international trade enterprises got serious effect from the financial crisis, however, the e-commerce industry is not only unbeaten by the financial crisis, but also many enterprises are still able to grow in adversity. Judging from the recent Alibaba.com, Dhgate.com nets and other domestic e-commerce leaders’ performance in the medium-term can be seen that trend. Alibaba.com daily news shows, the total operating income reached 1.715 billion Yuan. Nevertheless, as a representative of lesser foreign trade platform Dhgate.com, achieves nearly 10 billion Yuan in the first half of2009 in online transactions. Though the whole e-commerce industry avoided "the storm's eye" of the financial crisis, changing trends in international trade is a test for the every major e-commerce service provider. Insiders express, the general trend in international trade is trade flow steadily shortened, the bulk of foreign trade gradually decline, and lesser line rise rapidlyGlobal Sources’ latest financial report show that the typical large B2B trade platform, got revenues of 54.2 million U.S. dollars in the second quarter 2009, down 14.89%; net profits of 5.1 million U.S. dollars, down 39.29%. The lesser typical export platform Dhgate.com network’s data showed that from 2006 to 2008 these three years, Dhgate.com reach a rapid speed growth to the annual growth rate of 2561%, in which nearly 14 billion Yuan from transaction volume in 2008, and in 2009, will likely exceed 2.5 billion. It is understood that, Dhgate.com is the first B2B e-commerce site making integrated online trading and supply chain services, mainly to help overseas buyers find the small supply in China. In addition, Dhgate.com profit model is not to charge membership fees from domestic sellers, but to allow buyers and sellers use the site for free registration, and charge overseas buyers after completing transaction. Lesser foreign trade trend seems to have been accepted by the industry; recently, Alibaba.com has also launched a small wholesale and retail trade platform. For this platform, epathchina.com (www.epathchina.com) thinks services of Ali-express has no essential difference from EBay.com andDhgate.com; only in the seller access and charging method have subtle differences in transaction process, it essentially can be considered as foreign version of Taobao.com. The platform will become a new profit growth point of Alibaba.com, and compete with Dhgate.com and EBay, etc.As a lesser foreign trader, epathchina.com (www.epathchina.com) considers the trend a perfect commercial opportunity for its self-progressing. Based on its own featured marketing mode, utilizing other excellent major traders, epathchina.com hope to get a high stable development .

Certainly e-commerce is back in vogue,

Today, UrbanBaby.com.au is an e-commerce success by anyone's standards, doubling its revenues each year and supporting 10 employees. Managing director Linda Hattersley says the company has about half a dozen serious competitors, plus lots of little ones that come and go.
"We probably receive five e-mails a day from new mums wanting advice about starting an online business and asking where we source our products," Hattersley said from the company's Sydney warehouse.
She and business partner Christine Thompson were new mums themselves when they started the company. They met at a mothers group and discovered they shared a passion for stylish, practical and innovative baby products. Both wanted to return to work, but felt constrained by a traditional bricks and mortar approach. An online business allowed them to develop a successful retail operation while retaining a more flexible lifestyle.
"There are lots of people out there with no experience who want to make a living online, and plenty of people making money out of their lack of knowledge," said Hattersley. She said many Web site developers charge big dollars to deliver another company's templated product, something that most people could easily put together themselves if they knew where to look.
Certainly e-commerce is back in vogue. A significant number of medium to large companies have some level of Web presence and many SMEs are either online or exploring their Internet options. The companies that perform well in the e-commerce space have a clear vision for their online sales strategy. Business people are making the decisions about how the site should look and typically they're outsourcing the technical side of things to a company with expertise in e-commerce."
Debrincat warned that businesses that run their Web service in their own back office often lack the infrastructure to ensure a reliable and secure e-commerce environment, which puts them and their customers at risk.
"We're heading into a period of massive e-commerce growth driven by user demand, but many Australian businesses are going to be caught unprepared," Debrincat said. "We're seeing strong and growing demand from SMEs for hosted e-commerce solutions to enable them to get online quickly and securely, but most are still focused on driving customers to their storefront premises."
Major drivers of e-commerce Affordability of broadband has been a key enabler of e-commerce, with online sales growing in line with domestic broadband take-up. The percentage of Australian homes with broadband Internet connections has risen from four per cent in 2003 to 31 per cent in 2006, while two out of three individuals now have home Internet access.
At the same time, the major banks have been actively encouraging their customers to do their banking online in a bid to streamline their processes and reduce costs. Online banking has played a major role in developing confidence in e-commerce since consumers who have had a positive experience with internet banking are more like to make online purchases.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of people who shopped online grew from just seven per cent in 2000 to 31 per cent in 2005. Interestingly, the proportion of people making online purchases jumps sharply when age and income are taking into account.
While 23 per cent of those earning $40,000 per annum made purchases in 2004-05, this rose to 73 per cent of those earning $120,000 per annum or more.
Cornering the youth market One of the challenges for e-commerce retailers is overcoming the obstacles to making an online sale. Not only are some consumers still reluctant to provide credit card details online, but 45 per cent of adults don't even have a credit card (Reserve Bank 2006).
That number is obviously even higher amongst the youth market, most of whom are very comfortable with the Internet and more likely to shop online, but lack the means. These consumers might have a debit card and are likely to use Internet banking, which is why Melbourne company Centricom has teamed up with Unisys to develop a system that allows consumers to transfer funds directly from their bank account to a retailer's account.
Known as POLi (Pay Online), the solution is already supported by the major banks including ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac, Suncorp, Bankwest and Bank of Queensland, with Adelaide Bank and St George soon to come on board.
POLi works by taking the consumer from a retailer's shopping cart to their online banking portal where they log in as usual within the bank's secure environment to authorise the transfer of funds. POLi populates the transaction with details of the merchant and purchase amount, recording the Internet banking receipt number as proof of purchase for the merchant and sending a receipt back to the customer.
With advantages such as higher security, real-time authentication, instant receipting, automated reconciliation, integrated reporting, minimised dishonours and reduced customer repudiation, POLi is expected to prove popular with both merchants and consumers.
Centricom's chief executive, Simon Warner, said online debit systems have received strong endorsement from the Reserve Bank for being much more secure than credit cards and far cheaper for merchants.
"POLi is completely secure because the transaction actually occurs within the bank's own environment. It operates in real time and allows the consumer only to spend available funds. This is particularly good for teenage shoppers, some of whom have previously run up substantial credit bills by purchasing items via SMS," he said.
Empowering SME e-commerce Another way in which financial institutions are playing a major role in encouraging e-commerce is through their provision of services to customers. Some Australian banks are exploring the possibilities around offering packaged e-commerce Web sites to business customers to ease their transition online.
Not only would this allow these institutions to create an online community of their business customers, but playing such a role would help to cement the relationship and reduce customer churn.
This is already happening overseas with companies like British Telecom, which has reduced turnover on its broadband plans by over 80 per cent after offering low-cost e-commerce facilities to its business customers.
Online communities such as that created by BT have the potential to evolve into digital shopping malls, providing consumers with a portal to a broader range of products and services than they could access from a single retailer.
Integrated shopping malls A good example of this is the way Telecom New Zealand has brought together leading retailers from around New Zealand to create an online shopping mall that caters for everything from books to perfume and bikinis to mountain climbing gear.
Ferrit.co.nz was launched in November 2005 by Telecom NZ as a natural extension of its Xtra broadband and Yellow Pages businesses. General manager Ralph Brayham says it was an easy step to move from being a directory service to a shopping mall, providing an online presence for over 120 retailers with no up-front capital cost for the merchant.
"We offer an investment base and development base that retailers can leverage to get their products online. Since they only pay us when they sell something, it's a no-brainer for the retailers," he explained.
"New Zealand is very underdeveloped in relation to online retailing, particularly when compared to the UK and the US. We have just 1.1 million households and 4 million people, but the same breadth and depth of product choices as any English-speaking country. Given our small population, it's difficult for retailers to think about making the capital outlay required for an e-commerce Web site."
Even though much larger than NZ, Australia is in a similar position when compared with other developed nations, so ferrit.co.nz offers a model that might well be exploited there.
Until very recently, ferrit.co.nz didn't have a shopping cart, so if a customer wanted to buy an iPod, socks and a CD, they had to click through to the individual retailer Web sites and make separate purchases. However, the company introduced an integrated shopping cart in November which can bundle multiple purchases from different merchants into a single transaction.
"We can now place all three products into one shopping cart and make one charge to the purchaser's credit card. But it shows up on their statement as three individual items from three merchants to help them track their spending," he said.
Very few companies offer this level of multi-retailer service anywhere in the world, US-based Shop.com being a notable exception, but Brayham believes that other malls will quickly follow their lead.
"This model is very challenging technically, but it offers a great experience for the shopper and the retailer. Established merchants like Amazon will struggle to adapt their technology to this approach, but we had the advantage of starting from scratch."
Brayham says their biggest challenge is in the area of market development, with less than 0.5 per cent of NZ retailers online. "In other countries, the level of online representation is typically 6 to-10 per cent or higher, so we have a lot of ground to make up. We are investing heavily in education to grow the market and encourage other players to offer a level of competition."
eBay offers low cost entry Of course, the biggest e-commerce phenomenon around the world is eBay, which boasts 193 million members worldwide, including around 3.5 million Australians.
According to AC Neilsen, 52,700 Australians use eBay as a source of income, including 17,567 businesses that rely on eBay as their primary or only sales channel and 35,133 that use the online marketplace as a secondary source of income or channel for their business.
eBay offers the benefits of low overheads and an established customer base, with the potential to reach a global market.
However, recent moves by the Web site to increase the cost of selling goods on eBay could encourage more established retailers to start developing their own Web sites and building a stronger online presence for their business.
Giving power back to consumers eBay's latest venture to win widespread applause has been the introduction of Shopping.com, a global price matching Web site that detects each visitor's country of origin and automatically directs them to a local site.
Shoppers can search for products in a wide range of categories, comparing features and prices before clicking through to the Web site of their chosen retailer to conduct the transaction. The site also provides useful links to manufacturer sites, eBay listings for similar products and even links to Choice evaluations relevant to the product search.
Price comparison engines such as Shopping.com or GetPrice.com.au allow shoppers to compare offerings from a selection of merchants before making a buying decision.
They focus on the three criteria of most interest to consumers - price, availability and delivery - putting more power into the hands of consumers. The cost of these comparison engines to the retailer is surprisingly low, and they have proven to be enormously effective in driving traffic.
In Germany, where eBay has only been in operation for just over three years, 18 per cent of all Deutsche Post packages are now sourced from eBay. While this kind of data is not tracked in Australia, eBay's obvious success here makes it reasonable to assume that a similar proportion of packages have an association with the site.
Emerging technologies The emergence of more feature-rich technology will also drive new capabilities and functionality on e-commerce Web sites. The next release of Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer 7.0 will offer far more multimedia capabilities, as will the Web V2 as it comes online over the next 12 to 18 months.
Already some progressive sites offer early indications of what these emerging technologies will offer, such as 3D views and live demonstrations via streaming video to highlight the features of high-value products like cars and real estate.
Of course, these kinds of facilities are more bandwidth intensive and will need to be supported by increasingly higher data speeds. For example, some cities in Germany are being wired with 50MBps links in preparation for these more demanding types of applications and Australia must inevitably follow suit if we want to stay in touch with leading edge trends.
Combining clicks and mortar While some retailers have embraced the Internet with open arms, bricks and mortar malls have been fearful of e-commerce because they believe it allows consumers to shop from home and avoid going to the store.
However, eCorner's Debrincat believes there is enormous potential for traditional shopping malls to leverage the power of e-commerce to their advantage.
"People like the Internet because they can access information about the features, pricing and availability products. But in a lot of cases they still want to see the product and hold in it their hands before they buy it.
"Companies like Westfield or independent malls like Macquarie can use the Internet to extend their range and quality of services to streamline and improve the shopping experience."
Debrincat pointed to the severe traffic congestion that gridlocked major shopping malls like Macquarie Centre and Roselands in Sydney in the days leading up to Christmas last year.
"Instead of putting people through the unpleasant experience of fighting traffic jams and driving around for an hour looking for a parking space, these companies could use the Internet to allow shoppers to research their purchases online, place orders from the shops they want to visit, and then book valet parking for the length of time they wish to stay.
"If mall owners create the right kind of e-commerce solutions, rather than discouraging people from shopping at their centre, they can attract people by offering a better quality shopping experience."
As UrbanBaby.com.au's Hattersley will attest, it's the quality of shopping experience that brings customers back.
"We focus on driving traffic to the Web site and then backing it up with fast delivery and quality service. Our customers love our Web site and the products, so we have a very high conversion rate. And as we continue to grow, we know it's critical that we maintain our service levels and still ship products within 24 hours.
"Other sites often make customers wait weeks for delivery so we need to keep that point of difference."

This is the first time in New Zealand,

Today shoppers can place products from almost half of the 95 retailers currently operating on Ferrit into their shopping cart. And more retailers will be added and more will switch to the Ferrit shopping cart from today. Goods from all retailers, including those who do not yet have a shopping cart, are available through the retailers’ websites or in stores.
“Our vision from the outset has been to build the best possible online mall where Kiwis can go to find, choose and buy new products in New Zealand,” says Ferrit General Manager, Ralph Brayham. “We’re aiming to be the first place people visit when they have a shopping need, the Google of online shopping in New Zealand.”
“This is the first time in New Zealand that such a large range of products is available to buy from at one site,” says Brayham. “No one else has taken this approach of bringing a large number of leading retailers together in a single mall, providing a single shopping cart and paying with a single credit card entry to simplify purchasing and delivery for customers.”
As well as a single shopping cart, Ferrit 2.0 features a number of other enhancements which make searching and comparing faster, easier and more flexible and improve the overall online shopping experience. Tools like Wish Lists and Gift Grabber have been expanded, streamlined and made more responsive to shoppers’ preferences.
With 1.5 million products from more than 90 retailers in 2,500 product categories, people can use Ferrit to buy everything from robomowers to MP3 players, barbecues to buoyancy compensators, intercom kitsets to tartan ties. After researching the things they want on Ferrit, shoppers can choose how they purchase the goods: at the retailer’s store; through the retailer’s website; or online at Ferrit.
While consumers will see a new shopping cart and the enhanced Wish Lists, Gift Grabber and search and compare tools, the technology behind the scenes is also enhanced – increasing the speed with which Ferrit can add new retailers and the flexibility it has to work with them.
“Like any new large-scale retail development Ferrit is rolling out in stages,” says Brayham. “We started one year ago with a simple idea – making high quality online shopping available in New Zealand. Our first stage was simply about getting a web site up and running and attracting a critical mass of retailers.
“The next step was to build a sustainable business. That requires the support and active participation of New Zealand’s leading retailers; a world class e-commerce web site; the backing of a credible, committed organisation; and consumers ready to buy new products online.
“With Ferrit 2.0, we’re about to move to a whole new level. Last week we had a website. Today we have a business.”
And with over 1,000 retailers expressing interest in being on the site, Ferrit is poised to rapidly grow the number of retailers represented.Ferrit is already hard at work on additional features and enhancements to the site, continuing the drive to make it quick and convenient for New Zealanders to shop online for new goods.
Ferrit recorded 168,202 unique browsers in October 2006 and 176,929 in September 2006.Security
To protect its customers Ferrit 2.0 supports secure credit transactions based on the international PCIDSS standard (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). It uses Secure Socket Layer transactions, which mean that exchanges between customers and the server are secure, and any data transferred during the payments process cannot be interfered with or read by unauthorised third parties.

Leading ebusiness solutions company,

Since introducing Cloudmark Authority for its premium email subscribers in January this year, Melbourne IT has seen a significant reduction in the amount of e-mail borne threats, including spam, phishing and viruses, making their way to customer inboxes.
This enhanced performance has also reduced Melbourne IT’s infrastructure requirements by around 80 per cent, delivering significant cost savings in hardware, power consumption and space requirements which is especially critical for hosting companies and consistent with Melbourne IT’s sustainability strategy.
Melbourne IT went looking for a new email filtering service after experiencing some major service interruptions in mid-2007. The sheer volume of spam has soared in Australia, including wide-spread phishing scams purporting to come from leading Australian banks. In the face of a growing stream of malicious traffic, Melbourne IT found that its existing filtering solution couldn’t process this unwanted volume effectively and efficiently.
Leading ebusiness solutions company, eCorner, recommended Melbourne IT purchase Cloudmark Authority and helped the hosting company to implement an in-house pilot program to test offerings from Cloudmark and a large Internet Security software company last September.
As exclusive distributor of the Cloudmark solutions within Australia and New Zealand, eCorner provided its own technical expertise as well as bringing out a senior solutions architect from Cloudmark in the US to help design and establish the pilot. In order to guarantee an impartial result, Melbourne IT personnel performed the actual testing.
Cloudmark Authority is a carrier-grade solution that delivers the industry's most effective and highest performing anti-spam, anti-phishing and anti-virus protection, consistently blocking over 98 per cent of inbound and outbound messaging attacks in real time with near zero false positives.
eCorner’s Managing Director, John Debrincat said the Melbourne IT pilot compared Cloudmark Authority head-to-head with the competitor, with conclusive results.
“Both Cloudmark Authority and the competitor filtered the same 10 per cent of the total production message stream through Melbourne IT over seven full days in September 2007, scanning around 1.5 million messages.
“Cloudmark proved much more effective than the other company, stopping 45 per cent of all messages compared to their 26 per cent,” said Mr Debrincat. “The Cloudmark solution reduced traffic to Melbourne IT’s internal MTA and mail store by 19 per cent, had lower False Positives and was able to process the same number of messages in less than half the time required by the competitor.”
“In Australia, there is growing public pressure on both government and service providers to clean up e-mail and stop the onslaught of unwanted and potentially dangerous messages flooding inboxes,” said Michael West, Messaging Product Manager of WebCentral “We are committed to protecting our customers by using the best technology available and found that the high level of accuracy of Cloudmark Authority best met our needs and simultaneously helped us to optimise our infrastructure utilisation. With Cloudmark, we help to ensure that our customers are shielded from e-mail threats and receive the messages they want in a timely fashion. We are proud to be the first provider in Australia to offer this level of service and security.”
Mr Debrincat said Cloudmark’s unique approach to spam and email filtering sets it apart from the competition. “Cloudmark works on a collaborative global network of more than 260 million mailboxes, all of which receive messages in real time and provide instant feedback to the system whenever a new spam message is identified.
“Cloudmark’s Advanced Message Fingerprinting algorithms and real-time corroborated feedback mechanisms create an in-memory cache of verified fingerprints that is automatically updated and distributed to customers every 45 seconds. This ensures that all email servers are immediately protected, instead of having to wait for a programmer to write a new rule and send it out via an update, as with other companies. As a result, Cloudmark Authority is able to stop email borne threats with over 98 per cent accuracy and near zero false positives,” he said.
“Like every country with high Internet penetration, Australia is facing the problems associated with the global increase in spam, phishing and virus attacks,” said David Somerville, VP of regional sales, Asia Pacific, at Cloudmark. “Unfortunately, while many messaging security providers deliver threat coverage for the U.S. and Europe, coverage in Australia, especially against threats originating in Australia and Asia, has been erratic and unreliable. Cloudmark is the first leading messaging security provider to provide real-time threat data to Australian service providers from reporters in Australia. Melbourne IT is setting the standard for protecting consumers against the proliferation of e-mail threats and we look forward to working closing with them.”
About CloudmarkCloudmark, Inc. is a global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, delivering the industry’s fastest, most comprehensive and most accurate real-time spam, virus and phishing protection for fixed and mobile networks. Cloudmark solutions combine highly sophisticated Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ technology based on innovative, high-performance algorithms and a Global Threat Network consisting of trusted reporters in 163 countries to provide security intelligence and filtering at all points in the messaging infrastructure.
Cloudmark solutions currently protect more than 260 million mailboxes and the company works with more than 90 of the world’s largest service provider and mobile operator networks (including seven of the top 10 in North America), such as EarthLink, Comcast, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, NTT Communications, SprintNextel, Virgin Mobile and Swisscom, as well as hosted messaging providers, including domainFACTORY. Cloudmark is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit http://www.cloudmark.com.
About eCorner Pty LtdeCorner™ is a leading provider of eBusiness solutions and messaging security technology. eCorner will help you build and deploy an electronic commerce capability or protect your email infrastructure from malicious spam and phishing. We are the Australia & New Zealand master distributor for ePages software and a strategic distribution partner of anti-messaging abuse provider Cloudmark.

Leading ecommerce solutions provider,

Predictions of a gloomy Christmas for retailers are falling on deaf ears in the world of ecommerce, where online businesses are reporting strong and growing activity as the festive season draws closer.
Leading ecommerce solutions provider, eCorner, which hosts over 170 Web stores in its Australian SME cluster, has experienced a 90 per cent increase in traffic volume for November year on year. eCorner, which has been providing and supporting local businesses with ePages eCommerce software since 2003, also supports large retailers like Dick Smith Electronics and Weight Watchers Australia and New Zealand.
eCorner Managing Director, John Debrincat, said online sales by its customers have risen by 70 per cent in the past 12 months with significant growth in the past few months.
“We’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in unique visitors in the past quarter alone and 17 per cent during November,” said Mr Debrincat, who believes that consumers are increasingly looking for alternatives to traditional shopping methods.
“Most of us know there are bargains to be had but you have to look for them. As more consumers are financially challenged or just more fearful about the future, they are turning to the internet as an attractive and lower cost alternative to bricks and mortar companies with their high overheads.”
He said visitors to eCorner-hosted stores during December are on track to exceed last year’s figures by more than 20 per cent and beat November by around 25 per cent.
“The average order value for our customers is almost 30 per cent higher than last Christmas and conversion rates have increased by over 50 per cent in the same period. Of course, our customers sell a wide variety of products, from home theatre systems to glass beads, but the overall trend is extremely positive,” Mr Debrincat said.
Wilfried Beeck who is the CEO of ePages GmbH based in Hamburg, Germany gave an international perspective. “We have seen similar trends throughout Europe over the last few months. We have now over 50,000 companies selling online using ePages and that number is increasing rapidly.”
Transaction Volumes Increase Other key players in the digital economy are reporting similar strong growth. eWay, which is the major payment gateway in Australia for online retailers, recorded a 69 per cent increase in transaction volumes in November compared to a year ago, as more companies shift online.
“Our actual customer numbers are up 47 per cent from November 2007 as retailers move to take advantage of greater consumer confidence in ecommerce,” said eWay CEO, Matt Bullock.
“The biggest growth has happened in the past few months, with a 16 per cent increase in merchant numbers from October to November as retailers seek to take advantage of the Christmas trade.”
Mr Bullock said while many new merchants were online-only businesses, a significant proportion were retailers keen to complement their established brick and mortar premises with a Web-based presence.
“We’ve seen high profile firms like Oroton, The Shaver Shop and Wheel & Barrow set up trading accounts with us in recent weeks to handle transactions from their online stores. We’re also seeing greater interest from not-for-profits like The McGrath Foundation and The Lions Club which are recognising that people are making more spending decisions online,” he said.
PayPal Australia’s Director of Merchant Services, Brad Paterson, said they have noticed increased activity this Christmas, particularly amongst SME retailers.
“We believe this can be partially attributed to our recent promotion which helped SMEs to begin online trading in time for the holiday season. We have noticed significant increases in areas such as books, gifts and lingerie, while other popular areas such as homewares, electronics and cosmetics are slightly down,” he said.
Online Research Informs Buying Decisions The rise of comparison shopping sites like GetPrice.com.au makes it easier for consumers to make informed decisions about where to make their purchases.
GetPrice CEO, Chris Hitchen, said traffic to the site has almost tripled in the past 12 months from 700,000 visits in November 2007 to 1.96 million visits last month.
“We’ve seen a massive increase in traffic as people use the internet to do their research and make buying decisions. During this uncertain economic climate, people are getting savvier about how they spend their money and of course the internet affords them transparency, immediacy and convenience, as well as the opportunity to compare products and prices to get the best deal relevant to their personal criteria.”
Mr Hitchen said many consumers will click through to an internet store to make their purchase while others will simply do their research online and then go to an offline store to complete the transaction.
“While price-conscious consumers simply want the cheapest product, we’re seeing higher click-through rates for known brands – multi-channel retailers who sell online but also offer in-store returns to maximise convenience for shoppers. We’re currently redesigning the site to provide more information about warranties and support levels to help our visitors have a more complete picture of the merchant’s offering to inform their buying decision,” he said.
A Successful Formula eCorner’s John Debrincat said success online is a formula that can be replicated. “It’s all about a professional approach, safe and reliable technology like ePages, and quality of goods and services. You must have the right channels to market and professional partners for technology, payments and marketing.” he said.
When asked about comments from some of the large main street retail chains that online shopping does not work and costs too much Mr Debrincat surprised, “There are some retail business leaders who still have their heads in the sand over online shopping. Primarily it is because they have chosen the wrong technologies or partners; or just spent too much without a real strategy. Unfortunately you can’t save the dinosaurs; they will either evolve or become extinct. You just cannot ignore the overwhelming worldwide and local success stories.”

Over the past three years,

Over the past three years, MySpace has taken aggressive steps to protect its users and combat spam, phishing and viruses that threaten the MySpace user community. The CloudFilter™ solution enables MySpace to provide users with a premium mail service backed by industry-leading messaging security accuracy. CloudFilter™, a managed email security solution, delivers zero-hour protection using carrier-grade sender reputation data, advanced content filtering and proven messaging policies. With the launch of MySpace Mail, the company is ensuring Mail users would have optimal protection from day one.
"MySpace has always taken an aggressive approach to privacy and we are committed to ensuring MySpace Mail has the same level of security for our users that we have employed throughout our site," said Rajit Marwah, director of product management for MySpace Mail. "Cloudmark's proven technology is a vital part in our approach to providing users with a trusted and secure Mail experience."
The new MySpace Mail blends the best of social networking and traditional mail. MySpace is supplying users with @myspace.com mail addresses, enabling them to securely send and receive messages to and from friends both inside and outside the MySpace network.
"We applaud MySpace's holistic and proactive approach to ensuring the protection of their vast user community," said Hugh McCartney, chief executive officer at Cloudmark. "Making security a top priority and ensuring the best user experience will certainly enhance the adoption of MySpace Mail. By leveraging Cloudmark's proven technology and expertise in deploying and managing large-scale security infrastructures for carrier networks across the globe, MySpace IT staff can rest assured they are taking every measure possible to protect their network's integrity."
About Cloudmark
Cloudmark, Inc. is a global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, delivering the industry's fastest, most comprehensive and most accurate real-time spam, virus and phishing protection for fixed and mobile networks. Cloudmark solutions combine highly sophisticated Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ technology based on innovative, high-performance algorithms and a Global Threat Network™ system consisting of more than 850 million trusted reporters in every country across the globe to provide security intelligence and filtering at all points in the messaging infrastructure. Cloudmark solutions currently protect more than 850 million subscribers and the company works with more than 120 of the world's largest service providers and mobile operator networks (including the top 12 in North America), such as Comcast, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, Earthlink, NTT OCN and Swisscom, hosted messaging providers, including Synacor, domainFACTORY and NuVox, and social networks, including MySpace. Cloudmark is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit http://www.cloudmark.com. eCorner are the Cloudmark distributor for Australia and New Zealand -Dry July is an online social community where an individual or group can sign up to the challenge of a month long sponsored abstinence from alcohol.
The funds raised from sponsorship of these brave 'dry' efforts directly benefit the lives of adults living with cancer right across Australia. See our beneficiaries for 2009Dry July is an online social community where an individual or group can sign up to the challenge of a month long sponsored abstinence from alcohol.
The funds raised from sponsorship of these brave 'dry' efforts directly benefit the lives of adults living with cancer right across Australia. See our beneficiaries for 2009
Sponsorship is raised online via participant or group profile pages. You can find your choosen participant or group by searching for them via the "Make a donation to" search box on the homepage.
Dry July is about clearing your head and making a difference. Get healthy, challenge yourself, encourage positive change and a healthy attitude to alcohol consumption.
We hope you embrace the concept, take on the challenge and ensure Dry July has a positive effect on your well-being as well as the well-being of others.
2008 was Dry July's inaugural year with over 1000 participants and raised a combined total of $257,283 for the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation, Dreams2Live Charity based in Sydney, New South Wales. Due to the overwhelming interest and support across Australia in 2008, in 2009 Dry July has become a national fundraising event.

It's a strong September quarter,

Amazon.com has posted quarterly profits that handily beat Wall Street estimates.
It added that holiday sales could come in far above expectations, sending its shares up 15 percent to their highest level in nearly a decade.
The world's largest online retailer also said its Kindle electronic reader was its top item in both unit sales and dollars across all of its product categories.
"It's a strong September quarter," said Colin Gillis of Brigantine Advisors. "They beat on the top and they beat on the bottom ... investors are going to be heartened that consumers are still spending."
Amazon's net profit in its third quarter was USD 199 million, or 45 cents per share, far above the average analyst estimate of 33 cents per share.
Year-ago profit was USD 118 million, or 27 cents per share.
Revenue rose 28 percent to USD 5.45 billion, the Seattle-based company said, compared to the Wall Street average estimate of USD 5.03 billion. Citibank's Mark Mahaney said Amazon must be taking market share based on its results.
"Amazon should be extremely well prepared for Q4 -- facing shrinking/destocking offline retail competitors, with THE must-have eReader, and a significantly strengthening presence," wrote Mahaney in a note.
Wall Street expectations for Amazon have been high, and expected it to outpace the market during the crucial holiday season. But a growing price war with Wal-Mart means that margins could be at risk in coming months.
For the key holiday fourth quarter, Amazon said it sees revenue to range between USD 8.125 billion and USD 9.125 billion, compared with analysts' expectations for USD 8.13 billion.
"The problem with the guidance is, it is so wide you could drive a truck through it," said Gillis, adding Amazon had a history of providing a wide-ranging forecast.
To maintain its dominance in e-readers, Amazon has cut the price of its Kindle to USD 259 from USD 299 and introduced a global version.Online retailer Amazon.com has reported a 69 percent surge in third quarter earnings as sales surged across all product lines and its Kindle electronic book reader was a hit with customers.The Seattle-based pioneer of web-retailing Thursday said it earned $199 million in the third quarter compared to $118 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 28 percent to $5.45 billion.'Kindle has become the No. 1 best-selling item by both unit sales and dollars - not just in our electronics store but across all product categories on Amazon.com,' Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in the statement.For the fourth quarter, which includes the key holiday season, Amazon expects revenue of $8 to $9 billion compared to analysts forecasts of $8.13 billion.The company said North American sales were up 23 percent from the same quarter last year, to $2.84 billion. International sales were $2.61 billion, an increase of 23 percent from 2008.Sales of book, movies and other media grew by 17 percent to $2.93 billion, while electronics sales jumped 44 percent to $2.36 billion.

Richest source in china,

China has become the "richest source" of new, loyal travellers for Starwood Hotels and Resorts.
According to an analysis on the enrollment and travel trends of Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) members, Chinese enrollment in SPG jumped 50 percent in 2009 compared to last year, and SPG members now make up roughly half the occupancy of Starwood hotels in China.
The company also shared that the rapid growth has resulted in China’s rise to become the SPG programme’s fourth largest base of active members, behind only the US, Canada and the UK.
At Elite levels, SPG members in China are 94 percent active in the programme – the highest rate globally for the group.
Also, the SPG programme’s most significant growth area in China is in the category of guests who stay more than 10 times a year, which has grown more than 40 percent year over year.
"The growth in this segment is unprecedented compared to global averages and supports the strong engagement of our most loyal guests in China with Starwood and SPG," stated the company.
The analysis also revealed Chinese SPG members are most likely to redeem their points for domestic travel at Starwood hotels in Hong Kong, Sanya, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hangzhou. International travel was largely confined to Asia with most popular redemption properties located in Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Bali, Indonesia; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The most favoured Starwood brands for redemption are the St. Regis, Le Meridien, Westin and Four Points by Sheraton.Cruise travel company NCL has launched a partnership with regional flight specialist Jet2.com allowing agents to fly their customers from local departure points to join a selection of Mediterranean sailings from Venice and Barcelona.From 16 October, direct Manchester to Barcelona flights will be available for passengers to join Norwegian Jade’s new seven-night Mediterranean Treasures itinerary on its peak season sailings from May to September 2010.
According to the airline, agents can now book flights from either Manchester or Edinburgh direct to Venice from where Norwegian Gem’s new seven-night alternating and combinable ‘Venice and the Greek Isles’ and ‘Venice and the Aegean Sea’ sailings depart from April 2010. The company added that customers will not incur any additional regional supplements for the direct departures whilst agents will receive support from NCL’s in-house teams to ensure smooth booking processes.
The reservations team will provide all flight information at point of sale or within 24 hours for those booking through external systems, whilst the flight desk team can offer assistance with post-booking queries. Both are on hand six days a week year-round rising to seven in January and February.
NCL says its affiliation with Jet2.com means travel partners can capitalise on the combined strength of regional flights and popular sailings.