Expository_Essay_Com_150

CheckPoint: Introductions and Conclusions Clint Menzies COM/150 March 13, 2010 Zandree Stidham CheckPoint: Introductions and Conclusions “Is there a way to prevent the loss of our most valuable assets, the ones we have painstakingly cultivated our entire lives'” This question has undoubtedly been contemplated by many in today’s economic struggle. The possibility of losing one’s job with no notice seems to occur to those who have been confident that their position was vital to their employer. Is there a solution' Is it even possible to increase one’s financial assets and secure a prosperous retirement in these dire times' There is if you have resources available. Owning a storefront may generate income, but it can be expensive to undertake; nevertheless, the potential for achieving financial independence is a lure to many. Times are rough. The economy is down, unemployment is high. In times like these, it is difficult to maintain financial freedom. What can anyone do to protect his or her assets' Financial advisors recommend individuals to have multiple streams of income. How can one create additional sources of income' If currently employed, there is not enough time in the day to seek another job. One viable solution can be found on the Internet: an E-Commerce Storefront. This option has the capacity to generate thousands of dollars a month. Although actual numbers are not freely published, there are sites that have yearly revenues of more than one million dollars. One may consider this industry to be past the infancy stage and well into the toddler stage but not yet fully mature. This means if the expenses are justifiable, now is the time to act. Advantages to owning a storefront are numerous. Foremost, there is no commute, so no more stressful traffic escapades. Second, the Internet is always online; people shop day and night, this means one can be asleep and still make money. No other market has this luxury at the time of this printing. What will this endeavor cost' Many expenses are involved, the first being registering a domain name. This is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or address potential customers will type into their web browser. It should reflect the flagship product line of the online store. This will cost 10 dollars and up for each year registered. Domain name registrars are the body that governs, or administrates the list of domains. Next on the expense list will be the hosting provider, this is the physical location where the online store resides. Subscription choices range from monthly to yearly plans. Expect to spend $30 per month at the low end, to $250+ a month for the comprehensive packages. Discounts are usually applied for long-term contracts. One cost usually overlooked by the majority is the merchant account. The merchant account is how the store will process customer transactions. When a customer places an order he or she enters a credit card number and the payment processor debits his or her credit card, takes .5% to 1.5% of the transaction amount and forwards the rest to either the merchant account holder or the drop shipper. Since the term ‘drop shipper’ may be unfamiliar, here are the details. Once the products that will be marketed or sold on the storefront are chosen, the next step is to decide where, or from whom these products will be supplied. Instead of purchasing a warehouse, processing bulk orders, maintaining inventory and handling the shipping of the products independently, why not let a third-party process all that hassle. Drop shippers are these third parties. They require a membership fee and publish catalogs of their products. They include the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) and the cost to the member. A few drop shippers also provide an average market price at the time of publication. These numbers will allow the account holder to determine whether certain products will be profitable, and which are not. In most cases the published price includes any shipping costs affiliated with the product, whereas in other cases there is a separate item fee for each product or transaction. The aforementioned costs are the minimum requisites for setting up operations. Other costs that deserve consideration but are elective include advertising, store layout and design, search engine optimization, interlinking with affiliate sites, and a toll free telephone number for customer support. Once all has been decided upon, it is time to create the virtual store. A site needs to look visually appealing, be easy to navigate, give descriptive details on the products available, and instill confidence in the customer. Categorizing products is important, so customers can quickly find what they are looking for. No one wants to spend an hour on a site and not find what they need; most will attempt another site if it takes more than five clicks to find the category or products they need. This is why eBay is so successful; they have a search box on the home page, and also a drop-down box containing their seller categories. Searches may be limited to certain categories or the entire site may be searched with keywords. This introduces another topic: search engine optimization (SEO). The theory behind this is simple, when people use search engines to find products, they enter one to five words, usually, and the search engine delivers a list of sites that have those keywords as a majority of the text and also contained in the Hyper-Text Markup Language® (HTML) meta tags, which is the part of the web page that is not visible to web surfers. For instance, as Google crawls the web with its spiders, it adds certain information about the site to its index. When a site is crawled, it counts the number of times each word appears in the body of the web page, and determines the proportion, or percentage, of the most common words in relation to the number of all words. If a search query consists of USB flash drives, Google references its famous index, and returns sites that consist of 90% or more of the keywords USB, flash, and drive(s). After applying this knowledge, one must ensure that the home page has all three of these words plus a few additional slang words, like thumb (drive), USB dongle, portable drive, etc. Search engine optimization scripts attempt to replicate this algorithm with very good results, for a price. When looking for ways to ensure an enjoyable retirement, an online storefront may be a wise investment; however one solution should not be relied upon. Proactive planning coupled with multiple streams of income can provide assurance and protection for any disaster yet to come. The time to act is now, while it is still possible to forge the outcome of the future. Do not let this opportunity become ‘the one that got away.’