Schuetz

The development and expansion of the Internet has made business opportunities, once only available to the wealthy, available to nearly everyone. In the past, opening a business was a huge commitment in terms of finances and risk. Traditional business owners had to quit the their current jobs, obtain bank financing, and sign leases before they even made a penny. Its easy to see why 95% of them failed within five years. Today, business opportunities are available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort to learn about the world of e-commerce. Best of all, you can start an e-commerce business with minimal funds and very little risk. This guide will take you though the steps necessary to start your own e-commerce business.

Find Your Niche

The first step to creating your own e-commerce business is to find you niche. Examine your hobbies and interests for potential business ideas. If you love soccer, consider selling soccer supplies or team uniforms online. You may also consider opening a business that is similar to your current job. For example, as a nurse you may know a lot about medical supplies and how hospitals obtain them. You could start a medical supply business. Your contacts and industry knowledge could give you an advantage over a competitor who does not know the inner-workings of hospitals the way you do.

Research The Demand

Now that you have a few business ideas, its time to research the demand for your products or services. If you plan to sell to the general public, youll want to find out how many people are looking for your products or services. As a small business owner, you will not have the marketing funds to create a demand for a product. The products you sell, must already be in demand. A great way to determine product demand is to see how many people are searching for a specific product. Overture has a wonderful keyword tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) that displays the number of searches for specific keywords. It will give you a good idea of which products are popular and the specific keywords you should target when building your website.

Scope Out Your Soon-To-Be Competitors

Before settling on a business idea, scope out your would-be competitors. Visit their websites and compare the following:

Professional Look & Feel

Products and Services

Search Engine Ranking

Page Rank (Available on the Google Tool Bar)

Keywords

Back Links (how many sites link to them).

Youll need to know your competitors websites inside and out. Spend some time exploring each one. This will give you an idea of what youre up against. Keep in mind, that your website will need to be equally as professional or better than theirs. Dont worry if you dont think you have the technical skills necessary to create a professional website. The use of professional website templates will be explained later.

While youre researching your competitors, check to see if the products you intend to sell are sold at large department stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon.com. It is very difficult for a small business to compete with these large companies because the profit margins are extremely low. Youll need to sell products that are in demand, but arent sold by corporate giants.

Establish A Business Entity

In order to conduct business, you need to establish a business entity. Fortunately this can be as easy as filing a Doing Business As or Fictitious Name form with your local County Clerks office to become a sole proprietor. When you arrive at the County Clerks office, they will check their records to make sure your intended business name is not already in use. If its available, you will need to complete the appropriate forms and pay your filing fee. Each state has different requirements. Check with your state for requirements on becoming a sole proprietor.

You will also need a sales tax id. You will need to charge sales taxes in the state where your business resides. Contact your county office for details about sales tax IDs and any other requirements they may have.

Open A Business Bank Account

Now that you are a legitimate business owner, its time to open a business bank account. Take your court documents to the bank and open a business checking account. Most banks offer a variety of business accounts. Choose the one the best meets your needs. Its usually best to start with their least expensive account because it could be a while before you start earning revenue. You can always upgrade in the future.

Some banks require a business owner to wait specified amount of time, usually 90 days, after the court documents are filed before opening a business bank account. These rules are in place to help prevent fraud. Check with your bank to obtain waiting period information.

Choose A Domain Name

While you wait to open a bank account, you can start building your website. First, register a domain name. Names that end in .com are best. If possible your, domain name should include one or more of your target keywords. For example, if you are creating a yoga supply business, youll want to choose a name with the word yoga, such as yogacenter.com, yoga-supply.com, or yogastuff.com.

Create Your Website

One of the keys to successful e-commerce businesses is a professional website. Your website is the first and often the only impression your visitors will have of your business. A professional website can be the difference between your visitors viewing you as a home-based business operating out of your garage and a multi-million dollar business with hundreds of employees. Fortunately, you dont need to be a web programmer to create a professional website. There are companies that sell professional website templates. You can get website templates for free, but its much better to pay for a highly professional template. To find these templates, simply search for website templates. You should expect to pay $50 $150 for a good template with multiple pages and professional images.

Most website templates can be customized with common HTML editors and a simple graphics program. Templates can be edited without having to invest a lot of time and energy into learning how to code web pages.

Youll want your website content to target specific keywords. This can be achieved by creating articles, product reviews, product comparisons and detailed description of your products. Avoid repeating the keywords so often that the text becomes difficult to read. There is a fine line between good copy text and spam text. Spam text is designed to increase your sites listing in the search engines, but often backfires when penalties are issued and your website is dropped from the listing.

Host Your Website

Now that your website has been created, its time to find a company to host your website on their servers. You should be able to find a good hosting company for around $10 per month. This fee should include technical support and email accounts with your domain name. Domain name-specific email accounts are important for a professional image.

Your website files can be uploaded with a simple FTP program. The hosting companys technical support personnel can walk you through the steps to upload your files and launch your website.

Implement A Shopping Cart

No e-commerce website is complete without a secure shopping cart. There are many shopping cart options. Many e-commerce business owners make the mistake of using Pay Pal to accept payments, which immediately tells visitors that their company is very small and not professional.

A good alternative to Pay Pal is a remotely hosted shopping cart. Remote shopping carts take the burden of maintaining security and credit card numbers off your shoulder and places the responsibility on another company. Remote shopping carts can usually be configured to look similar to your website. In fact, your customers may not realize that they have left your website to place an order. The remote shopping cart provider will give you the HTML to add to your website. When your potential customer clicks on the Buy Now button, he or she is taken to the remote shopping cart to enter the personal information and payment details.

Depending on your choice of a shopping cart, you may or may not need a merchant account to process transactions. Some shopping cart services allow you to use their merchant accounts for a slightly higher fee.

Stock Your Inventory

Now that your website has been created, its time to stock your inventory. The first step is to find the manufacturers of the products you wish to sell. You can find this information by reviewing your competitors websites. Some of them may list the manufacturer with the product name or description. Once you have the name, you can search for the manufacturer online.

Contact the manufacturer and tell them that you are interested in becoming a distributor. Ask for a wholesale price list and an application. The price list will help you determine if the profit margins are high enough to justify selling their product.

Youll want to ask the manufacturer the following questions:

What is the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) for the item?

Am I required to sell the item at MSRP?

What is your minimum order quantity/amount?

Some manufacturers will not sell to e-commerce businesses that do not have a brick and mortar retail location. If this is the case, youll simply have to find a company that manufactures a similar product and is willing to sell to an e-commerce business.

Promote Your Business

Now that your website is live and youre open for business, its time to promote your website. If no one knows that it exists, you will not receive any sales. Most website visitors originate from search engines. Before search engines can list your website, they have to know that it exists. Youll need to submit your website to search engines and directories such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Excite, and others. Search engine submission programs and services are available, but they not effective. Most good search engines require websites to be manually submitted. They enforce this by displaying an image with a series of letters or numbers that automated programs cannot read. The code embedded in the image is required to submit your website.

Search engine algorithms are extremely complex. The ranking of a website in their search results depends on a number of factors, including keywords, density, back links, page rank, and other factors. After submitting your website to the major directories and search engines, the next step is to establish back links. When search engines crawl the web and find a link to your site, they count the link as a vote for your site. The more votes you have, the higher your site will rank (assuming other criteria has also been met). You can acquire back links by sending emails to other website owners and offering to exchange links. Its very difficult for new websites to acquire back links. Most people prefer to exchange links with established websites. In a way, its a catch-22, but it can be done and the results are worth it.

Starting your own e-commerce business is a lot of work. Making it successful is even more work, but the pay-offs can be rewarding. Thanks to the explosion of the Internet age, e-commerce business opportunities are now available to anyone with a computer, a few hundred dollars for start-up costs, some spare time and the desire to create a business.

Copyright 2004 ZIP Baby. All Rights Reserved.

In the best sexual positions series we have discussed the best sexual positions for most situations that can arise.

One special situation is for spontaneous sex, and this is something that is totally unpredictable, and thus, knowing the best sexual position in advance can make the magic of a spontaneous sexual encounter last in your memory forever.

Spontaneous Sexual Encounters

Often portrayed in films and written about in books, the spontaneous sexual encounter is more or less another name for the Americanized word, quickie.

This will be sex in the office, or out of doors, in an elevator, or even an airplane.

The quickie will give you from 1 to 5 minutes maximum, and often there will be a space problem. The other problem is clothing, and for the spontaneous encounter, you will need to keep as much of your clothing on as possible, as in spontaneous sexual encounters, there is always the risk of being caught in the act.

The Best Sexual Position for Spontaneous Sexual Encounters

The very best is called the standing spoons. Assuming the encounter begins by kissing, once the couple have passed the moment of decision (to or not to), then the man must turn the woman around so she has to back to the man.

The clothes on the upper part of the body are not required to be removed (regardless of how it is done in films), and concentrate on getting the lower clothes to the knees at least or better the ankles. The man then embraces the woman with one arm, and uses the other to position himself.

The woman does the same. One arm is used to hold the man, usually around his neck, but holding her arm back over her own head, and the other is used to facilitate penetration.

Both the man and woman bend their knees slightly, and come together very closely, like two spoons resting together. As penetration is made the couple move in unison with push and recoil.

This is the action, and as entry was made from the rear, both the g-spot and the clitoris are stimulated.

It is very much like a dance, and indeed the movements from new club dancing should be used if the couple understands how to do it.

The very term spontaneous often means that there is not enough time to prepare for all eventualities.

That means, that use of a condom may not be possible.

Therefore, while enjoying the spontaneity of the event, the man and woman must think where the man is going to finish. If inside the woman, then there is no problem, if outside (a term known as coitus interruptus ) the man should terminate in his own free hand, as not to cause a mess.

Remember time is of the essence here, and a quick dressing after the session will not be possible if the man is careless about where he deposits his sperm.

Finishing Up

There are other sexual positions possible for spontaneous sexual encounters, but the standing spoons is by far the best from the standpoint of mutual satisfaction, speed to penetrate, react and completion, and should it be interrupted or discovered, it is the fastest position to recover ones equipoise.

Scotland has throughout its history been playing Soccer. Historically Scottish soccer players werent limited to 11 players per team, whole villages of Scottish soccer devotees used to challenge other villages to a game.

The rules of soccer at that point werent very uniform and there was little if any provisions against violence, because of this attempts were made to outlaw the game, with King James I even saying in Parliament, "That na man play at the Fute-ball" (No man shall play football/soccer). Despite the attempts of clerics, sheriffs, mayors and even a King the game was kept alive by Scottish soccer players.

As times changed Soccer became a widely accepted sport again, firstly being played at school and universities. At these institutions the rules for soccer were formalized to something closely resembling todays game. The games popularity then spread beyond the school campuses, and local soccer clubs were formed, soccer became a popular spectator sport with blue-collar workers.

With the wide acceptance and popularity of soccer, the World's first international game was set up, between Scotland and England. The game took place on 30 November 1872. The Scottish side was one of Scotlands oldest and most established Soccer club, Queens Park. Two thousand people came to the game and saw the last and possibly biggest revolution in the playing of the game. The Scottish team introduced a whole new aspect to the game that day, a team based approach utilizing, passing. Up till then the way the game was played was to muscle the ball up the field in Rugby like fashion, after that game the English began adopting a playing style to match the Scottish soccer team, and Soccer in its current form was born.

The Scottish soccer team did not exist that day in the form that we now understand; soccer was played by Universities or Clubs, with no central organization to elect a national team. There was no Scottish team picked from the best players around, but a club to represent the whole country. To cope and control the rising popularity of the game Scotland formed a Football Association three month after the first match between England and Scotland. Wales then followed and formed a FA in 1875, and then Ireland in 1880. England on the other hand had formed their Football Association in 1863. With the formation of a Football Association, Scotland was able to establish leagues, tournament and even a national team.

With forty two different professional teams over two different leagues, it is understandable that Scotland has some of the most dedicated Soccer fans in the world; this also applies to the female fans. Scotland has also always had a strong legion of female soccer lovers and players. Seeming to always be pioneers in the game Scotland and England were also the first two countries to have an international womans match. Fifty three thousand people came to watch this event, in which unfortunately the Scottish soccer team lost 22-0.

Soccer is in the hearts of the Scotts, it always was, and always will be part of their heritage. Visit us at Scottish Heirloom Jewelry, to see how we can help you celebrate your heritage and love of soccer.

Scottish Soccer - league winners

1892 Dunbarton
1893 Celtic Glasgow
1894 Celtic Glasgow
1895 Heart of Midlothian
1896 Celtic Glasgow
1897 Heart of Midlothian
1898 Celtic Glasgow
1899 Glasgow Rangers
1900 Glasgow Rangers
1901 Glasgow Rangers
1902 Glasgow Rangers
1903 Hibernian
1904 Third Lanark
1905 Celtic Glasgow
1906 Celtic Glasgow
1907 Celtic Glasgow
1908 Celtic Glasgow
1909 Celtic Glasgow
1910 Celtic Glasgow
1911 Glasgow Rangers
1912 Glasgow Rangers
1913 Celtic Glasgow
1914 Celtic Glasgow
1915 Celtic Glasgow
1916 Celtic Glasgow
1917 Celtic Glasgow
1918 Glasgow Rangers
1919 Celtic Glasgow
1920 Glasgow Rangers
1921 Glasgow Rangers
1922 Celtic Glasgow
1923 Glasgow Rangers
1924 Glasgow Rangers
1925 Glasgow Rangers
1926 Celtic Glasgow
1927 Glasgow Rangers
1928 Glasgow Rangers
1929 Glasgow Rangers
1930 Glasgow Rangers
1931 Glasgow Rangers
1932 Motherwell
1933 Glasgow Rangers
1934 Glasgow Rangers
1935 Glasgow Rangers
1936 Celtic Glasgow
1937 Glasgow Rangers
1938 Celtic Glasgow
1939 Glasgow Rangers

1947 Glasgow Rangers
1948 Hibernian
1949 Glasgow Rangers
1950 Glasgow Rangers
1951 Hibernian Glasgow
1952 Hibernian Glasgow
1953 Glasgow Rangers
1954 Celtic Glasgow
1955 Aberdeen Celtic
1956 Glasgow Rangers
1957 Glasgow Rangers
1958 Heart Of Midlothian
1959 Glasgow Rangers
1960 Heart Of Midlothian
1961 Glasgow Rangers
1962 Dundee
1963 Glasgow Rangers
1964 Glasgow Rangers
1965 Kilmarnock
1966 Celtic Glasgow
1967 Celtic Glasgow
1968 Celtic Glasgow
1969 Celtic Glasgowv
1970 Celtic Glasgow
1971 Celtic Glasgow
1972 Celtic Glasgow
1973 Celtic Glasgow
1974 Celtic Glasgow
1975 Glasgow Rangers
1976 Glasgow Rangers
1977 Celtic Glasgow
1978 Glasgow Rangers
1979 Celtic Glasgow
1980 Aberdeen Celtic
1981 Celtic Glasgow
1982 Celtic Glasgow
1983 Dundee United
1984 Aberdeen Celtic
1985 Aberdeen
1986 Celtic Glasgow
1987 Glasgow Rangers
1988 Celtic Glasgow
1989 Glasgow Rangers
1990 Glasgow Rangers
1991 Glasgow Rangers
1992 Glasgow Rangers
1993 Glasgow Rangers
1994 Glasgow Rangers
1995 Glasgow Rangers
1996 Glasgow Rangers
1997 Glasgow Rangers
1998 Celtic Glasgow
1999 Glasgow Rangers
2000 Glasgow Rangers
2001 Celtic Glasgow
2002 Celtic Glasgow
2003 Glasgow Rangers

There are three significant milestones in every established and committed relationship. The first being traveling together, the second is meeting the parents and the last one is the ever nerve wracking move in. Sharing your space with the one you love can be both blissful and abysmal, with some luck and by following these easy guidelines, you and yours are sure to settle comfortably into your humble abode.

Start with communication, it's crucial that personal needs are discussed, whether it's in regards to how the bills will be paid or how to decorate the bathroom. Usually one love bird will move in with the other, rather then finding a separate place of residence. If this is the case then set boundaries, talk about what stays and what goes. Out of common courtesy, any memento's of past relationships should be packed away. As to paying the bills, pay according to percentages. If your plumber boyfriend makes 20k a year and your lawyer's net salary is 70k, divide the lower salary by the higher salary to get the ratio of what you both should be paying towards your bills. If you don't want to be nit picky about who pays for what, allocate certain bills (he pays hydro, you pay cable). The number one topic that couple's fight over is money, communication can put frugal partners at ease and make the move financially fair for all.

On the moving day, have all of your close friends around to help unpack, or paint. Their reward can either be alcohol or a barbecue once all the work is done. This is a great way to save money and is a great way for friends to meet. When it comes to decorating, compromise is crucial. If you find yourselves fighting between different dcor styles, then let him have his zen living room while you enjoy your country kitchen. One fun way to decorate together is by creating a bedroom centered around your love for one another. Include comfort items such as big soft pillows, a comfortable bed and lots of pictures of the two of you. Always remember to keep your sense of privacy, you don't have to share everything together. Go ahead and keep your naughty drawer, hide away those oh so comfy undies you've had forever, or the retainer you wore in high school. Living together is a way to share intimacy but that doesn't meet you need to lose all mystery and allure.

When the moving van heads out the driveway, share in the knowledge that your new nest is the best place to establish a new bond together, replete with communication and compromise.