New York SBDC Research Network

Following on from efforts in 2020 to highlight Black-owned companies already doing business on Amazon.com, Amazon has launched the Black Business Accelerator Program . They are partnering with organizations like the Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency and US Black Chambers, Inc. to reach Black business owners. According to the Amazon website, the benefits are: Financial Assistance A $500 credit for businesses getting started on Amazon.com $400 in advertising credits to raise your profile Free imaging services for products A $10,000 grant "for selected sellers in partnership with Hello Alice , an organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. Applications for these grants will open on July 1, 2021." Othe r benefit s includ e busines s educatio n and mentorshi p as wel l a s marketin g an d promotiona l support . Th e offe r i s fo r a yea r o f advisor y service s an d opportunitie s ...

From eMarketer The 26-year-old law that exempted online retailers from collecting sales tax in states where they have no physical presence has been overturned, per a US Supreme Court ruling Thursday. This practice was a holdover from a 1992 case, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, when ecommerce looked very different from today. States looking to make up lost revenues have been pushing for reform for years. This case was brought by the state of South Dakota, but it has greater implications for the 45 states that rely on sales tax, as well as online retailers like Wayfair, Overstock.com and Newegg.com (all were involved in this case) that have argued that tax collection would be a logistical challenge and an unfair burden, particularly on smaller merchants.

From eMarketer : Brick-and-mortar retailers may be able to wow shoppers with wonderful touch-and-feel experiences and in-person customer service, but they are still at a big disadvantage when it comes to price—a key purchase factor for many consumers. From apparel and furniture to televisions and sporting goods, prices of goods are declining. But online prices are dropping at a much faster rate than in-store price tags, according to Adobe’s Digital Price Index study, which compares the prices of baskets of comparable goods online against those in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measured by the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. The study, which looks at a total of 18 product and service categories, suggests that price deflation can be seen in most categories, whether online or in physical stores, but the declines are more distinct online... For instance, online apparel prices in June fell 4.1% from a year earlier, compared with a 0.6% decline in-store during the...

From eMarketer : The promise of online sales and traffic has got retailers across the board focused on investing more money online, but many retailers are still falling short in some of the basics of digital. According to a study by Retail Systems Research (RSR), retail websites take an average of 9.5 seconds to load on mobile devices, and 16.6 seconds for desktop. The study of 80 major retail sites was conducted in April and May and was commissioned by Yottaa, which helps retailers speed up loading of their pages. Among the reasons for slow page loads were digital bells and whistles: live chat, product recommendations, and personalized offers, to name just a few. Retailers in the study used an average of 70 third-party e-commerce applications, and waiting on them takes up as much as three-quarters of the time required to load a page, the study found. Another speed block is images. The RSR study found that 55% of site content is images, many of which simply wouldn’t load.

If you operate a “local business” (meaning one that gets most of its customers from your local area), don’t overlook the Internet as an important way to attract new customers and stay top of mind with existing customers or past customers. According to  Google research , having good online information gets more people to shop in brick-and-mortar stores and businesses. For local businesses, there are some specific steps to take to make sure that your business can be found by searchers in your geographical area.  Because after all, you want local shoppers.  So being found by local searchers is the name of the game for you -- not just Web visibility in general. HERE   a checklist of important steps to take for local SEO:

Your website is your virtual place of business.  Just like your regular place of business, you want it to be neat, clean, attractive, inviting and professional looking. Here are 7 low cost ways to improve a homepage to meet today's standards -- and they may be easier than you think. 1. Freshen the Content Regularly 2. Make Sure It Has a Call to Action 3. Add Contact Information Prominently 4. Add Images and/or Video 5. Update Your Design to Current Standards 6. Improve Page Speed 7. Make it Mobile Responsive Learn more at:  SBA

On September 19th, 2014, Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business sales service via web portals, broke records when at the end of the day of their Initial Public Offering, Alibaba's market value was measured at US $25 billion. For a long time now, Westerners have viewed China as an inferior country when it comes to business.  But things have changed, and now China is making it's mark on the international business market, especially when it comes to technology.  China has four Silicon Valleys compared to one in the United States.  Read more about how "China Triumphs as Silicon Valley Primps"  here . Text from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group ) used  under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Who doesn’t love a good deal when online shopping? Pretty much everyone. But not all offers are created equal, and in July 2014 polling by Retention Science, percentage discounts led the pack as the most effective customer incentive. Among US online retailers, 30.9% said a percentage discount was the most effective customer incentive, the No. 1 response. Meanwhile, 21.8% cited shipping incentives—free or discounted—as offers that worked best for their customers. Though percentage discounts were the favorite, amount discounts weren't very popular... However, a Q2 2014 study by Flagship Research for BlueHornet found age played a big role in whether US internet users preferred a percentage discount vs. free shipping. Consumers ages 18 to 45 favored discounts, while 46- to 75-year-olds preferred free shipping — indeed, shipping costs are a top digital shopping pet peeve for older generations. See more at eMarketer .

The Internet Retailer bills itself as the portal to e-commerce intelligence, and it is. The site contains articles, a vendor directory, many free resources, and a helpful blog.

From the Sales Tax Institute . You collect the tax for the state where the property is delivered to your customer. If the item is shipped to the customer, then tax applies for the delivery state. You should collect the tax only if you are registered to collect tax in that state. If the customer picks up the item at your location, tax should be collected for your state. If you are selling goods over the Internet and your company has a presence in the state of delivery, your company has established nexus and will be required to register to collect sales tax on all taxable items regardless of method of order placement. Whether the order is placed over the Internet or through traditional means, if a company has nexus with the state in which the product is being shipped, sales tax should be billed and collected. For example, if a New York company ships to New York, there is nexus, and tax is collected. If the New York company ships out of New York, whether they collect sales tax or not...

LooseTooth This is great site for a prolific jewelry (among other things) artist. She uses her blog to describe her artwork and her process. The site is clean but contains a lot of stuff, lots of images and a friendly, casual style. The goods are sold through CafePress.com I think she's found a great work-around the commercial web-site by combining products and not limiting herself by product type. For our artist-clients this ought to be inspirational. It is not a short-cut in the sense that obviously an enormous amount of attention went into this but in terms of using existing tools for good, it's a great example. For artists who may be daunted by the idea of getting started advertising themselves online, getting started as a blog may be a way to go.