New York SBDC Research Network

From the Internal Revenue Service: Employers face a January 31, 2018, due date for filing 2017 Forms W-2 and W-3 with the Social Security Administration. This date applies to both electronic and paper filers. Form 1099-MISC is due to the IRS and individuals by January 31 when reporting non-employee compensation payments in box 7. Penalties for failure to file correct information returns or furnish correct payee statements have increased and are now subject to inflationary adjustments. These increased penalties are effective for information returns required to be filed after December 31, 2015.

From eMarketing : Retailers are constantly looking to improve the shopping experience, but leveraging new technologies to do so can be costly. A spring 2017 study from Oracle and cloud-based marketing automation provider Bronto Software, which was released this past November, asked US retailers a hypothetical question: What ecommerce innovations they would focus on if money or time were not issues. A large share of respondents (44%) said they would focus on newer payment options, like one-click ordering, while a little over a third said they’d like to focus on social selling. Overall, many of the responses had a similar theme—enhancing the user experience.

From Business Week : Andrew Therrien had been caught up in a fraud known as phantom debt, where millions of Americans are hassled to pay back money they don’t owe. The concept is centuries old: Inmates of a New York debtors’ prison joked about it as early as 1800, in a newspaper they published called Forlorn Hope. But systematic schemes to collect on fake debts started only about five years ago. It begins when someone scoops up troves of personal information that are available cheaply online—old loan applications, long-expired obligations, data from hacked accounts—and reformats it to look like a list of debts. Then they make deals with unscrupulous collectors who will demand repayment of the fictitious bills. Their targets are often poor and likely to already be getting confusing calls about other loans. The harassment usually doesn’t work, but some marks are convinced that because the collectors know so much, the debt must be real. The problem is as simple as it is intractable.

From :  Institute for Veterans and Military Families SYRACUSE, N.Y., Nov. 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- If home ownership is one quintessential American dream, owning your own business is another. While a higher percentage of veterans are self-employed compared to non-veterans, the rate of veteran entrepreneurship has seen a significant decline. Forty-nine percent of veterans returning from service in World War II started businesses. Today the rate of post 9-11 veterans doing the same has fallen to 5.6 percent (from 12.3 percent in 1996). The question now becomes why are we losing a potential class of business owners who come out of the military well equipped with important skills and attributes for success as entrepreneurs? A new study of veteran business owners, conducted by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF) in collaboration with Bunker Labs, takes an in-depth look into factors that account for the motivation, success, failure

Each year the  New York Small Business Development Center  recognizes outstanding small businesses in a variety of ways.  This Success Story from the  Canton SBDC  appears in our  2016 Annual Report .  Jeff Beekhoo Mohawk Networks, LLC Canton SBDC The mission of Mohawk Networks, LLC is to provide reliable, affordable high-speed broadband Internet access to the residents of the North Country and beyond through existing fiber optics and new wireless infrastructure. Jeff Beekhoo consulted the SBDC for assistance in expanding internet services throughout the North Country. When he first met with Advisor Jennifer McCluskey at the Canton SBDC, Jeff was the general manager of the Broadband Department for the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.  At the time he was overseeing a $10.5 million USDA grant awarded to the tribe to provide internet access to the Tribal lands. Jeff and the Tribe wanted to create a new company, Mohawk Networks, LLC (MNLLC), to expand internet services outside triba

From MarketingProfs : Male holiday shoppers are more likely than female holiday shoppers to be drawn into brick-and-mortar stores by online ads and deals displayed in windows, according to recent research from Euclid. The report was based on data from a survey conducted in September 2017 among 1,500 US shoppers who own smartphones. Younger consumers are more likely than older consumers to say they would chose one retailer over another during the holidays because of the store experience.

From:  NameCheap You’ve heard it a million times: your website should have a blog. But why? You’re probably imagining a lot of work going into something no one will read anyway, right? While it’s true that a blog can represent a significant investment of time (or money, if you hire a writer), in this article we’re going to suggest that all businesses—from small one-person shops to major corporations—can benefit from having a blog on their website. Do you have enough customers or clients? Chances are, you’d like to bring in more business. A blog offers you a great opportunity to find—and keep—your customers.  First of all, blogs offer a great way for people to find your website. By writing about topics relevant to your business, your blog posts will start showing up in search engine results, bringing more people to your website. Solid content is also a signal that your site is relevant and reliable, which will boost your overall site ranking.