Those are the stats according to NRF’s 2009 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch.

Based on survey results, almost 42 million people, 19.1%, hadn’t even started their shopping yet as of late last week.

A mere 8.6% had completely finished their holiday shopping.

Of that minority group, people aged 65 and older had completed the most shopping, 50%, and those aged 45-54 have completed the least at 44.1%.

The survey found that only 11.9% of shoppers plan to complete their gift buying on Christmas Eve. The majority are planning to wrap up their Christmas shopping by December 19th.

During these lean times of a national recession, consumers are looking for bargains. So, discount stores can expect to see a fresh wave of shoppers this coming weekend.

Ditto for grocery stores because more people are buying food such as candy or fruit as gifts this year than last year, and buying groceries to cook meals at home during the holidays rather than eating out.

44.7% of shoppers say they are buying clothing as gifts this year. Almost 40% of shoppers are buying DVDs, books, CDs, videos and video games.

Toys account for 34.6% of sales this holiday season.  Gift cards make up 27.5%. Consumer electronic sales are about 22%.

More people are paying with checks, cash or debit cards than credit cards.

Now, about those procrastinators:

“Retailers know the final lap counts the most and are planning to emphasize promotions and discounts to bring in last-minute shoppers,” said Tracy Mullin, President and CEO, NRF. “As Christmas Day creeps closer, retailers will be ready for an influx of procrastinators, from those who are checking the final names off their list to millions who haven’t even started shopping.”

Based on survey findings, 38% of these last minute shoppers will be shopping online.

This means that if you have an online store, you need to be sure that all is in readiness for the last final surge of Christmas shoppers.

If at all possible, offer expedited shipping because time is running out on buying online and getting delivery by Santa’s big day. Also, if you aren’t already offering online gift cards and e-gift certificates, you should give this some serious consideration.

As we enter the countdown and it’s right down to the wire, having online gift certificates available or not might well make the difference between making a sale or losing it.

So, heads up, ecommerce entrepreneurs! Make routine checks to ascertain that your website is optimized and maximized to the nth degree for that horde of last minute shoppers!

eCommerce: Last Minute U.S. Christmas Shoppers On the Rise is a post from: Dropship Resource

The latest grumble on the ‘net’, concerns paypals latest move, to penalise sellers yet again!

It seems that without any prior warning, that Paypal have decide to penalise their clients, the online sellers, in respect of the funds that they take per month.

Do a quick google search on ‘Paypal Account Reserve’  and you will see countless results for yourself. What are Paypal thinking?

Quick scam to increase the funds held by paypal to appease government legislation?

Guess what! Paypal falls outside the legislation that’s applied to our high street banks.

So quick scam it is then, any move they can think of to suck client money in to earn interest?

Your comments are welcome .

Paypal Account Reserves – What do you Think ? is a post from: Dropship Resource

dropship checklist for beginners

Although dropshipping is not a new business activity, it is a method of order fulfilment that your average retail customer is totally oblivious to. Many online sellers who only actively sell on auction sites such as eBay often stumble accross the term ‘dropship’ and only then realise the merits and potential of reselling on this basis. For many, the realisation of the vast range of goods available to resell on a dropship basis is instrumental in their progression from selling unwanted household items and clothing to smartening up their image and advertiseing shiny new factory sealed branded goods, with many opening online retail stores instead, or as well as advertising in their usual way.

For many who progress along this route, the reselling activity with their dropship supplier will be a long lasting, fruitful and profitable one, without any major issues arising to sour their business relationship but for many others the whole experience of starting out using a dropship supplier will be an absolute nightmare one that could ruin their online business, their reputation and cost them a fortune financially.

The horror stories are plentiful, with so many companies now advertising top range branded goods at unbelievably low prices for dropshipping resellers, if you hook up with the wrong one, you may find that once they have taken your orders and your money they then fail to deliver the goods, or commonly what they do send is not a the real mccoy which means that you are left to appease your irate buyer, refunding their purchase money along with their postage costs. This then means you are the one who is out of pocket along with that dreaded tarnished reputation. Think about it, if you have made a handful of orders with your new supplier and each one is not fulfilled, in a short space of time you will need to refund your buyers and that could be alot of cash.

There is a very simple checklist that anyone new to dropshipping should use to verify their suppliers. Its not bulletproof but by following a few simple steps, the risk of costly disasters can be reduced.

1. Sourcing Dropship Suppliers The best dropshippers to use are the ones that are recommended, there are many advertising on the web and they all promise the best deals but its the benefit of other peoples experiences that gets you the right one. There are many ‘directory sites’ listed on the internet offering free or paid for lists of dropshipping companies, some may be good and offer accurate information but then there are many that are owned and compiled by the suppliers themselves listing only their companies details, so best to avoid to be safe.

2. Contact Details Once you have found a supplier that sells the range of items that you are looking to stock, check out the contact details on their site. Any legitimate business encourages contact with customers, after all that’s how to get more business done. The suppliers site should clearly display a contact phone number, physical location address and e-mail details. If they do, try them out, see if the phone gets answered, test the response time to your e-mail because in future if you encounter problems with any orders you may place, you need assurance they are on hand to deal with them. Avoid any supplier site with incorrect or no contact information.

3. Terms and Conditions All dropship suppliers should clearly state their terms of business and it is strongly advisable to familiarise yourself with them. You need to know where you stand when issues arise such as undelivered items or faulty goods received, if you have doubts or questions then e-mail a request for clarification. Remember, this falls into Business to Business contract legislation and in most countries it will vary greatly from the laws that cover Business to Public, in other words, as a reseller you will have different responsibilities to your customer than your supplier has to you.

4. Registration and Subscription Fees It is common practice for dropshipping companies to charge their resellers registration fees and possibly ongoing subscription charges to access their catalogue and it is widely acceptable. In most cases, if you contact these suppliers before registering they will normally allow you access to the prices for a limited time or maybe e-mail you a sample price list. Always tread carefully with any site that charges ongoing subscription fees, dip your toe in the water first with the shortest time possible and double check the paperwork to ensure that you don’t inadvertantly sign up for any lengthy minimum period that will incur costs for unwanted membership.

5. Stock Levels and Dispatch Times When communicating with any potential dropship company, always enquire about the amount of stock they carry. Alot of suppliers will show stock levels on their sites but many advertise themselves as wholesale / dropshippers when in fact they are purely middlemen or agents and only place orders with their supplier when enough orders are placed by resellers that meet minimum order quantity restrictions they have. If you end up with a middleman it could mean lengthy and unacceptable delays for your customers to receive their goods, which potentially means you having to refund.

6. Accepted Payment Methods There are numerous online payment methods available and all of them incur costs that need to factored into the selling prices, Paypal, Nochex, Google Checkout to name a few. When choosing your dropshipping supplier always confirm how they expect to receive payment, ideally you want them to accept payments the same way that you do from your customers as that is where the funds will be held and you will save time and charges if this is the case. Many overseas suppliers will expect payment by Wire Transfer or Western Union and this is high risk without any customer protection that you have with the processors like Paypal. Initially, it is advisable to steer clear from this method unless you have built a solid and trusting relationship with your supplier.

7. Branded Goods One quick internet search will find countless sites offering designer clothing and the latest top brand electrical goods at a fraction of their retail price available for dropship. In short – Steer Clear. Unless you are ordering the goods from a known and trusted supplier that has sourced some close out, refurbished or Grade A returns you can almost guarantee that branded or designer goods that are priced too good to be true will be fake and reselling these could mean that you as the retailer face the consequences of dealing in counterfiet goods.

8. Web Search Reviews Once you have found a potential dropship supplier or compiled a shortlist, then take the time to do a quick internet search of the company names. It should throw up some interesting listings and normally amongst them will be reviews or comments made in Forums or Blog pages from prior or existing fellow dropship resellers. The chances are that you will find more bad comments than good as any happy resellers are less likely to post about their fantastic dropshipping supplier and tip off the whole world of their money making arrangement but the bad posts should speak for themselves and will assist you in your judgement.

By following this simple checklist you are not guaranteed overnight riches and success when dropship selling as it just covers some of the fundemental basics for anyone starting out. The hope is, that it portrays the need for diligence when in business and will avert some from making costly mistakes by jumping in feet first with the first dropship company that they find.

Good Luck!

Avoid Dropshipping Disasters – Our Checklist For Beginners is a post from: Dropship Resource

Christmas online sales

Halloween is nearly upon us and sales of costumes and accessories have been going quite well, but is it just me or are there Christmas decorations and other seasonal items on full display in all of the high street shops already?

That to me is a sign, that tells me to start getting ready for the upcoming Christmas selling season and to prepare a checklist of some important aspects to look at and address before it’s too late. You should expect to be busy in the forthcoming weeks as literally millions of pounds are spent daily in the build up to Christmas on gifts and other seasonal items.With this in mind, it may well be beneficial to you to take time out and follow a few of the following points.

Given the current economic climate, it’s a tough market out there for any retail business so make sure that you are prepared and have your online store ready to grab your share of the seasonal spending.

Is Your Online Store Ready for Christmas is a post from: Dropship Resource

product description writing

Anyone that says selling dropship products online is going to be easy must be ignored. Sure you can pay your supplier for a ready made ‘cookie cutter’ online store that is pre loaded with their available inventory. You can design and create your own e-commerce store and have the inventory from your dropship supplier populate your site by way of a feed. Great!! That saves loads of time and effort and gets you up and running selling online in no time at all.

In reality, by setting up your e-commerce store in this way, you have probably made the biggest mistake of all, one that will set you back for a long time until you take steps to put your store back on track to achieve success.

Too many online entrepreneurs who are just starting out underestimate the value of good and unique product descriptions and the lesson learned is from lack of customers and therefore sales.

Think about it, online shoppers can not touch or hold the goods that they are looking to buy, so apart from good images of the product and more than one is advisable, your product description should be written in such a way that the photo’s aren’t even needed. The product descriptions that are provided by your dropship supplier are usually just a few ‘key word’ ones that are the same on countless other e-commerce stores where the lazy web store owners haven’t made any effort to create their own. So why should a visitor buy from your store if what they see is no different to many other stores that they may have visited.

It is well worth the time and effort that you will have to apply to create your own product descriptions, use your imagination and use words that compliment the product, create a feel of desire, a sense of urgency that the customer should buy before you are sold out. You may have heard the phrase ‘power words’ well if you haven’t then look it up because this is where you will need them. To give an example, if you are selling a high value item, then make sure that the words used in your description emphasise the perception that it is, words like ‘quality’, ‘luxurious’, ‘recommended’, ‘desirable’ to name a few.

Power words aren’t just used for high value or luxury items, they should be used for any item but ensure that you use words relevent to the product in question as you wouldn’t want to over do it.

Another reason to create your own product descriptions is because of the way that the search engines, Google and Yahoo for example will know if your descriptions are the same as other sites and will penalise your store in the page rankings for copied content.

Original content is the way forward, no doubt about it. So take the time to look at your e-commerce store product listings and make those important changes if you want to achieve more sales and higher placement in the search engine listings.

Never Underestimate your Product Descriptions is a post from: Dropship Resource

The doom and gloom is all around us, on the T.V. news, the newspapers and it seems like everyone is talking about recession.

In times like these, every online retailer, should be looking for ways to guard themselves against the effect of the current economic downturn. It is virtually impossible to come away totally unaffected, but there are some measures that you can use to avoid the worst of the impact during these uncertain times to your internet business. It’s in these gloomy economic times that dropshipping makes more sense than outlaying your hard earned cash on stock that may not sell.

In these hard times every online retailer should be making twice the effort to keep the sales coming in and the best tactics to employ do not necessarily cost much money, if any at all, just a bit of time.

The first recommendation we have for you is to spend more time to brush up on your search engine optimization. This means that you should keep up to date with any news about how search engines work. Basically, what happens in between the entering of search terms and the return of search results? Why are some pages placed earlier in the results list than others? Fundamentally, the results have to do with having words on your site content (especially in page, section, or picture titles) that match the searcher’s keywords, spaced fairly close together. You can perform many of the basic techniques yourself while designing your site, or if you haven’t got the time to learn for yourself, then you can hire an SEO consultant to help you raise your result rankings. Obviously this will incur a fee but may well be money well spent.

There is a certain element of unpredictability, since you cannot foresee the search terms input by absolutely every potential customer but there are plenty of free online tools that you can use and alot of hosting companies offer software that can give you the search terms used by your existing visitors.

Frequently-used search terms related to a certain topic may also change over time so regular checks to update your keyword list is a must. However, you can do research and find the latest statistical data from popular search engines, and revise your site accordingly.

Besides trying to design your site in accordance with the functioning of search engines, you can also try to ensure that customers find your site easy, or better yet, fun, to use. Try to go through your site as if you were a customer. Do you see any unnecessary distractions or difficult to navigate areas of your site on the way to the most important aspects of the shopping experience (i.e. finding, viewing and understanding products, and then making a purchase easily)? If so, give your site a good pruning, and then watch your profits blossom.

If you would like a deeper, more thorough overhaul, you might try hiring an analyst, again at some cost. A specialist will make a holistic examination of how your site appears and functions in a way that you may not see. Is it safe? Is it user-friendly? How might the overall site design be improved for better simplicity, attractiveness and accessibility? It is true that many online store owners can do some of the more basic aspects of this analysis themselves but in many instances site owners who hire analysts end up doubling their profits. In other words, expert advice can be a great investment.

Investing in help from search engine or general consultancy experts can provide a huge boost for your business, and in these time give you that cushion you from the recession. Making your site more user-friendly is also great measure at any time, so you can draw in those customers, even in these hard times.

Is Dropshipping the Answer in These Hard Times is a post from: Dropship Resource

Gossip or Controversy: There’s something appealing about a bit of celebrity gossip or a contraversial story that can stir the interest of a lot of people. If done correctly without being libelous, the results could be quite beneficial to your site.

Surveys or Polls: Offer one of these options on the right subject and the results could be amazing, it’s crucial that you set it up in a way that others can post it on their sites.

Freebies: Just about everybody loves something for free, you can never go wrong with a good freebie. It’s almost guaranteed that people will share and pass along to others the information of a decent freebie that they have found on the internet.

Lists: People like lists. Bulleted lists, numbered lists, any kind of list. Research has proven that posts or articles posted on the internet that have a number in the title will attract more readers.

A community: Consider setting up a ’shout box’ or even a forum on your site to deveop and promote a community feel. It’s a well known fact that people like a sense of belonging and being part of a community. Think of it as a pyramid scheme, get some initial contributors and they will then encourage others to join in and then those new one will also bring along some new contibutors and so on. Before you know it you have your community.

So if you aren’t already, give it some thought and try link baiting and see your e-commerce business grow.

Done Any Link Baiting Lately? is a post from: Dropship Resource

Here is one of the articles that we came across http://www.marketersboard.com/google-sidewiki-controversy/ 

Google’s New Sidewiki Good or Bad? is a post from: Dropship Resource