E-commerce On The Rise

Although last year’s global recession hurt many sectors of the business world, e-commerce was an area that that ended really well. Buyers around the world spent more than $600 billion dollars last year. This figure was a huge 68 percent increase from the previous year (2000). [International Data Corp (IDC)].

US Online Retail Sales
Historically, the fourth quarter of every year has largest number of online sales. This is usually due to the holiday season. Although, the September 11th attack initially affected online sales, the fourth quarter of last year came back stronger than ever. Here is a breakdown of online sales as estimated by the Department of Commerce for the last two years:

Dot-US Is Available!

Most countries have top-level domain names which end with their countries’ designated suffix, such as .ca(Canada), .uk(United Kingdom), etc. Finally, after many years of prodding, the U.S. government will allow individuals to register their own .us domain name. On Monday March 4th, 2002, the U.S. government will allow companies to register their trademark name with a .us suffix. After April 9th, anyone can register their name. The 35 registrars who have signed-up to sell the .us TLDs can do so to anyone who has a business in the United States or does business here. The U.S. Commerce Department selected the Washington D.C. company, NeuStar, to operate the name last year. NeuStar also works with the Australian company NeuLevel to operate the .biz TLD. Neustar will charge the 35 registrars US $35 per name and the registrars will charge us somewhere between $15-$30. Although 100,000 names have already been issued, they are mostly owned by state and local government agencies. When .us was first released, it wasn’t very popular because the name looked like software.lex.ky.us. However, now Neustar says that they will allow people to register their names which look like software.us. What a change! Lastly, Neustar promises that they can register and have your domain name operational in less than 15 minutes.

Use the Internet and Your Web Site to Close Sales

The Internet is currently the most dominant force in marketing. Yet, most companies are struggling to implement strategies needed to make their web sites pay-off and increase their business. The first step is to bring visitors to your site. The best method to increase a site’s visibility is through old-fashioned sales and marketing; there is no quick fix. The sales professional makes use of their web site to increase sales and attract new customers. Here are a few tips on how to use the Internet to close sales.

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