Pros and cons of daily deal sites for small businesses

Whether the site is going to stand on its promise or withdraw the offer depends on the minimum number of customers admitted for the same. One of the pioneer sites in the genre was Groupon, with sites like Eversave and Woot soon following lead. About 83 million customers subscribe to these sites each year. Experts say that the market of daily deal sites has huge potential, especially for small, start-up companies looking to make it big in the retail sector.

Potential benefits for small businesses

The potential market of the daily deal sites can be easily estimated, by the following statistic estimated by experts that the total revenue generated by the daily deal sites at the end of 2015 will be around $3.9 billion in United States itself. Almost all the sections of the society seem to be interested in saving money in the current global economy. This increases the scope and opportunities where the concept of daily deal sites can flourish. Small businesses can utilize the opportunity to drastically increase their client base and get free marketing with the help of these daily deal sites.

Excellent advertisement platform

The main feature that small industries should focus on is the free platform to advertise their products, hence the wave of daily deal aggregator sites like this. This mode of promotion is sure to attract maximum number of customers, as the deal comes with the added incentive of saving money. This mode of advertisement reaches a much larger and genuinely interested public, surpassing all the other conventional modes like posters, radio, or newspaper. Also, it is less expensive and guarantees the purchase of your products instantly which is not possible by the use of any other media of marketing.

A contract with daily deal sites will get your product right at the same pedestal, as a large multinational company’s products without having to pay anything for it. This huge marketing stunt is very useful in small cities where the sites reach each and every household catering to all the sections of the community.

Dos and don’ts of daily deals

With little knowledge about the market strategies on which these daily deal sites work, you can easily use one to benefit your small enterprise and not against your prime interests. There are few basic things that you should avoid in order to achieve your sales targets utilizing the marketing force of the daily deal sites. Some of these dos and don’ts are mentioned below.

The daily deal sites can escalate your sales many folds. But you should never keep very high expectations and always keep your sales margin minimum, taking into consideration the increasing traffic of other similar companies to their sites. Maintain honesty as you will not be able to maintain the initial traffic frequency if the customers are not satisfied with your deals. Keep a highly trained staff to handle the incoming customers after your deal has gone live and always stick to the promise made to the customers even if you have to incur initial losses.

About the author: Johnny is a deal expert and a savings fanatic, find out how he can stretch budget for travel, entertainment, dining, retail and much more via his various advice columns.

* Image license: Royalty and attribution free

How international trade policies affect you

By Richard Craft

Although many Americans do not realize this, international trade policies have a significant, although indirect, effect on individuals within the United States. While these policies are frequently negotiated behind closed doors and away from the public eye, they impact the economy in a number of ways. Trade policies can affect employment numbers as well as spending, as trade policies can encourage or decrease the exports of a number of goods. Americans should be aware of the impact that these trade policies have on their everyday activities and livelihoods.

International trade policies

Throughout the history of international trade policy within the United States, there have been a number of agreements that have significantly affected the economy of the nation. One of the most heavily impactful has been the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. As a method of policy, the trade agreement has allowed completely free trade between these three countries without the implementation of trade barriers or tariffs on certain goods and sectors.

The North American Free Trade Agreement had a significant impact on trade between the United States and Mexico, as both countries experienced significant shifts in economic capacity as a result of these policies. Within the United States, low-cost industries shifted to the Mexican border, where they could exploit the skilled yet cheap labor within the country while taking advantage of the infrastructure network in the United States.

The South Korean and U.S. Free Trade Agreement allowed free trade between the nations of South Korea and the United States. Although the nations have experienced deep political and economic ties in the past, significant trade barriers existed between the political allies. For the United States, the trade agreement had several benefits in which certain exports were prevented from reaching the U.S. market without affecting key exports of the United States. Through such maneuvering, the United States experiences several benefits. However, the trade agreement did not heavily feature services, which is a significant economic strength of the United States. Within the both countries, there were significant detractors from the trade agreement as well as organized political opposition to its implementation.

Effects on everyday Americans

One of the main ways a trade agreement affects the United States is through the loss or gain of jobs. Although trade agreements are designed to be mutually beneficial, oftentimes they lead to the destruction of industries within countries due to an inability to compete. Within the United States, manufacturing suffered significantly, as it could not compete with the low cost production and low labor costs within Mexico. This led to a mass exodus of labor-intensive industries such as automotive parts manufacturing and assembly, and a loss of jobs for unionized American workers.

The job losses continue to plague the American economy, as these trade agreements have forced American manufacturing to focus on automation and heavy industrial goods instead of light consumer manufacturing. Communities that were dependent on these manufacturing jobs were heavily affected, as frequently these communities were dominated by a single manufacturing plant or industry. Textiles and manufacturing were severely affected by the implementation of NAFTA, and the U.S.-South Korean Trade Agreement is expected to negatively affect the automotive and services sectors of the economy.

About the author: This article was written by Richard Craft, an MBA student who loves sharing his knowledge so you can understand the international business environment better and modify your financial planning accordingly. He looks forward to further helping you make better financial decisions for the present and for the future.

* Image license: Author owned or licensed

Free advertising with the DIY approach

By Bob Emerald

In this struggling economy it is more important now than it ever has been to stand out from the crowd. This is true in any capacity or in any market, be it personal or professional, in business or in entertainment and whilst bespoke printing companies and online advertising agencies might be able to facilitate successful and extensive ad campaigns for your company, event, band, service or charity, neither will come particularly cheap.

As long as your business is a smaller operation and your proposed market is relatively local and self-contained, there is no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an extensive campaign to help your product or service stand out from the pack; in fact if anything, going with a traditional 'professional' approach will only make your ads blend in more with everything else. 

A 'DIY' approach might require a little more effort on your part, but it will prove significantly more affordable, will reveal a lot more of your personality and should make potential clients, fans and employees feel less like they're being approached by a 'faceless corporate entity' and more like they're being approached by an old friend.

Business

Let's say you are setting up a small home business or event and you need to get the word out. Why spend hundreds on expensive, glossy and soulless leaflets when all you need to stand out from the crowd is a little artistic know how, some coloured A4 paper and a set of decent quality writing utensils? The hand-drawn option might indeed take a great deal of time (and effort) but the 'homespun' look of your advertisements will let your potential customers know you're a local, hard working individual with bucket-loads of personality and flair. Whilst these are personality traits that might not technically be required, a consumer is far more likely to trust you if they see you as an actual human being and not just a cog in a machine. 

For more ambitious businesses meanwhile, there are of course more ambitious routes that could be taken. For example if your computers printer is up to the task, there is the option of using both plain and coloured bespoke A4 printer paper to print off more detailed, professional looking designs with the kind of glossy finish you'd expect from a professional print studio. This might negate the whole 'DIY aesthetic' but for numbers of anything more than one-hundred, hand-drawn ads just wouldn't prove realistic (unless you have an incredible amount of free time on your hands) and more ambitious businesses will most likely prefer to be represented by more standardised and professional looking paraphernalia.

Hobbies

For this example we're going to pretend we're promoting our local rock bands debut performance at a local bar. The potential market could potentially be county (or even country) wide but as this is a debut performance it is more than likely to only attract a local audience. In this case you might want to get a little more creative with your promotional material. 

As well as the traditional A4 posters (again a hand-drawn or printed approach is up to you), why not print off some coloured, CD sized flyers onto printer paper and ask the local paper if they would consider using them as inserts in their next weekly delivery? 

Also it's more than possible to create your own band merchandise. Tie-Dyeing might have been written off as a worthless 'hippie' pastime until recently but it has really come back in style in fringe cultures of late and could possibly be a great way of attracting fans who might be more into fashion than they are music. Local radio would also definitely be worth courting as well as any local record stores or places where potential fans are likely to 'hang-out'.

Of course with both of these examples, the methods are transferrable to any market. As with anything advertisement related, a good creative business mind always helps and the validity and a quality product or service is always going to be easier to sell then something you don't really believe in. But whether you're the 'Don Draper' of local business or not, hopefully with this article we've managed to at least prove that good ideas will always trump overzealous spending.

About the author: Bob Emerald is a writer who has a keen interest in business and believes that you don’t need to spend loads to advertise you business properly. He suggests simply using coloured A4 paper, a felt tip pen and some good old fashioned perseverance to promote your business in a more humanistic manner.

* Image license: Royalty and attribution free

Financial news: 05/24/2013

• CNN: MBS regulation protects consumers not the system
• AP: Trump wins condo court case against 87 yr-old woman
• CNBC: R.E. recovery to be subdued by financing & supply
• NYT: U.S. retailers object to safe factories overseas
• MW: Federal student loan rates to ↑ 3.4% to 6.8% in July
• Markit: U.S. Flash PMI ↓ to 51.9 in May from 52.1
• Reuters: U.S. muni.  bonds net inflows 05/16-22, $63.46 mln
• Fox: Dollar Tree Q1 profit above forecasts, price/share ↑
• BI: S&P 500 05/22 movement parallels major price tops
• ZH: Japan's economy at risk from Asia slowdown
• BBC: Ford to stop manufacturing in Australia after 85 yrs

Is Wikipedia a stock market prediction machine?

By Martin Shipley

Wikipedia has a considerable amount of uses, but “stock market trend predictor” is often not considered one of them. Even so, a new study might show just how effective Wikipedia can be at predicting movement in the stock market. By studying page views, researchers at the Warwick Business School (including Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Suzy Moat) discovered a clear link between viewing frequency and stock market movement.

What they found

Interestingly, an increase in Wikipedia page views related to financial or stock market information frequently precipitated a stock market fall. Moat and her fellow researchers suggested that the link might not be as tenuous as one might expect. Indeed, it provides some insight into how investors research companies and financial topics before deciding on further action. The data for this particularly statistic comes from historical search information provided by Wikipedia.

If one were to use this information to their advantage, then they might be able to turn as much as a 141% profit according to Dr. Moat. The reasons for this are twofold:

• More people are selling stocks when looking up information
• As a result, stocks start to lose value

The analysis also took into account the trends of several companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (e.g. Procter & Gamble and The Walt Disney Company). Even information from very general searches on Wikipedia (like Macroeconomics) tended to produce dips on Dow Jones.

The study also looked into the correlation between the edits of financially-themed pages and any movement in the stock market. The researchers found virtually no link in that regard. Obviously, page edits don’t tend to be made by people looking for information on the stock market and, thus, they don’t have as much significance in this regard. The research team had already studied the effect of financially-related Google searches and movement in the stock market and found a distinct correlation there.

The importance of Wikipedia

While this information doesn’t might not be relevant to anyone who’s not a stockholder, it does reveal something about the nature of Wikipedia. The world’s favorite online encyclopedia provides historical search data freely and openly in the same way that they allow anyone to edit the content. Studying search patterns on Wikipedia could be a good way of indicating shifts in any market. It also reveals that more and more people are looking to Wikipedia to get their information. Even though a Google search might provide you with more links, most people are still going to click on the Wikipedia page.

This also shows the value of having an expert Wikipedia writer on your side. If more people are gravitating to Wikipedia at vital, decision-making moments, then it makes sense to keep your entry or the entry of your business at an ideal level. No one wants to go to a Wikipedia page to find limited, vandalized, or universally negative content.

A writer who knows the ins and outs of Wikipedia will be able to produce content that might spur people on to make a purchase or think of your personal brand as favorable. In any event, if the roller coaster ride of the Dow Jones Industrial Average can be predicted with Wikipedia, then there’s no denying its importance for a wide variety of individuals.

About the author: Martin Shipley is a long time financial analyst and regular contributor to numerous investment blogs and website.

* Image license: Martin1009; CC BY-SA 3.0