We currently seem to be spoilt with beautiful weather (in the UK). The only problem is it is massively tempting to not do any work and sit in the garden/pub and relax. Being starved of great weather the urge is often incredibly strong!

Last year I did have the tendency to put business second and sunshine first, luckily we ended up getting more floods then sunshine! However this is not wise and your business will naturally suffer from it.

Think Of The Future

I try to think of future summers, imagine having a gorgeous convertible Jaguar XKR (imaged top left, click to enlarge) sitting out front ready to be driven down the country lanes and deep into the sticks for a pub lunch. That to me is a dream worth chasing!

Naturally it is going to be hard to focus and think like this when the sunshine is here, right now and the grass looks soft and a cool drink is waiting in the fridge. But get your work done and enjoy the rest of the evening. Long-term you may be glad you stuck at it.

Are Your Order Spreadsheets Filling Up?

Interesting Stats
Deloitte estimates online Christmas sales will increase by 10% this festive period. They put a total online spend for 2008 at £4.7bn, also a 10 percent rise year on year.

However the growth of web sales is beginning to slow. A ‘Capgemini IMRG e-Retail Sales Index Report’ showed that online sales grew by 54% in the last quarter of 2007, compared with just 15% in the corresponding 2008 quarter.

The slowing down of growth has got to be in some part due to the credit crunch. But now is still a great time to set-up an online ecommerce business!

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Stat Sources: zdnet

.....massive profits during December!!

I haven’t heard a great deal about what things will be like in early 2009 but I think it is going to be really tough. Even with the credit crunch Christmas 2008 is going to see everyone buying lots of presents and treating themselves with the usual Christmas products like trees, decorations, fake snow etc etc.

But in the new year everyone will have to tighten their belts even more so than people normally do in the new year. I think consumer spending will be really low in the new year. If like me you run your own business full-time I have little doubt you have at least some concerns as a result of the credit crunch – even if this recession only lasts a year or two there are still bills to pay!

To help beat the struggle through next year I think you have to take maximum advantage of the festive period. I am a big believer in pushing your business through a recession and it is vital you keep agressively developing the business if possible. This puts you in a great position when the economy recovers.

So make sure you have your plans ready for christmas and work your backside of to make every last single sale you can!

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Santa Is On His Way!

So, when should you start preparing for Christmas?

From experience I would say any time from now, and the sooner the better because you need to be prepared. One of the major supermarkets took delivery of all their advent calendars last week so they are gearing up already for Christmas.

Level Of Sales Will Be Up…..Again
For years now internet sales have been on the increase and they will continue to grow. The 2007 Christmas period saw a 54% increase in sales compared to 2006 Christmas, and they predict a 50% increase compared to 2007! So even if you have been running an ecommerce store for years you need to be more prepared than ever.

My First Christmas – Go On Beat Me!
I remember my first christmas dropshipping (2005). I can’t recall exactly how much profit I made but it was something like £160. It was an amazing feeling because the majority of sales came from eBay and a few from a crappy ecommerce store I had set up and linked to from the Nochex classifieds service (no longer exists). I only started selling a few days into december and my profit margins were not very good but I still made a bit of money off my own back with literally only a few pounds investment!

If this is your first year dropshipping have a go at beating my £160 profit! A few months down the line the dropshipper closed and so my business was ruined because no other dropshipper sold similar products – anyway thats another story…. This christmas could be your springboard for 2009!

Issues Of Christmas
The amount of online shopping people do at this time grows significantly, so mosts aspects of running your business require more time.

• If you are going to do more ebay listings you will spend more time making the listings
• If you run an ecommerce store you will spend more time managing products out of stock, offers, new product etc.
• More time answering customer questions
• More time filling out orders with dropshippers
• More time keeping your cashbook up-to-date
• Its all about more more more of everything!

Dropshippers will also be sending out info to you on products out of stock, when they will be sending out their last deliveries and other issues they may be having. So you have to really be on the ball to keep everything running smoothly.

Christmas is a great time for small dropshippers – how do you expect to do this year?

Want To Earn More Money? Now Is The Time To Invest!

So why is now an ideal time to start investing in your ecommerce website?

• Due to the economic situation there will be some webmasters who need to sell their business (or at least some of their websites) to raise finance for their private life. Webmasters in this situation are likely to want to sell quickly, in their haste less potential buyers will see the website for sale and you might be able to get an established website for a great price.
• There are also large companies struggling who may have to go into administration and sell off assets, you can pay to get lists of companies in administration, so contact the struggling companies directly to see what domains they have and you could strike gold!
• If you can survive in the hard times then in the good times your business will flourish. I read an article in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago about a new company which has set-up a ’Private Members Tea Club’. Despite the high set-up costs and the current economic situation the owner was confident he could survive and turn a profit even when financially the majority of Britain is struggling. Then when the good times roll his business will flourish. I think this notion rings true for online businesses just as much.
• At the moment the value of online property doesn’t seem to be going in cycles like the offline housing market. From my observations the value of premium domains seems to be steady. And a website making the same levels of profit for the last 12 months will be worth the same or more than it was 6 months ago. Basically online investments seem pretty solid, especially compared to the stock market and housing market! So even though you are putting money in during what could only be the beginning of the hard times your investment should be a sound one.

So if you want to build up your business and flourish over the long-term then now is as good time as any, if not better, to invest.

Further reading and sources which helped me write this post; Scott from Self Made Minds wrote about now is the time to go on the offensive, on Make Your Mark they reported figures from Microsoft’s research into start-ups. Marketing Charts reported on BtoB magazine’s “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” study figures about marketing budgets and online spending.

We are into the last few days for the online Christmas sales! Now is the time to answer customer emails extra politely and scream to your customers about how quick orders are posted, push through every last sale to increase your profits and have more money to invest in 2008!

Personally speaking I’ve seen the biggest increase in activity on Amazon, Im not currently dropshipping products from Amazon but I am an active affilliate and have seen visitors convert into sales at the brilliant rate of 9.4%! I hope we are all busy and watching those sales receipt emails rolling in.

Happy selling and a Merry Xmas