Three Key Benefits of Shopping Online

If you happen to be a newbie in making purchases through the internet, discover three key benefits of shopping online. Shopping online is rapidly becoming the main avenue in which most transactions occur. More and more visitors are finding out how fantastic and rewarding it is in acquiring products and services from merchants online. Seasoned online shoppers understand the values of online purchasing and ultimately have made it their way to receive goods. What are the three key benefits? Time, Convenience and Money

Time

Online shopping allows for more time in your life for other activities. Depending on your routine in getting ready to venture to the brick and mortar stores, it could possibly take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours. Considering travel time, depending on traffic, may use 30 minutes to 1 hour of your quality moments. Once arrived at the destination, it will take a certain amount of time to look for the item/s. Let us not forget how long it will take to get back to the home or office. You can easily see how 2 to 4 hours will whisk by.

Purchasing online takes only a few minutes. This can allow for more time with loved ones, your business, or for yourself. In today's busy society, it is more important than ever to find ways to save time. Be sure to choose online shopping.

Convenience

When it comes to convenience, nothing comes closer than online shopping. You have access to 24 hours, 7 days a week of acquiring products all at your fingertips. From the comfort of your home, bed, living room, the patio, or by the poolside, you are able to shop at your leisure. Imagine the convenience for a family with young children.

There is no need in getting yourself or the children dressed and ready to go, deal with traffic, and be confronted with pushy or inattentive clerks and hundreds of other shoppers. All of this and the amount of energy expended can have unfavorable consequences to one's temperament.

Money

Probably the most important key benefit that you will find to be quite rewarding is money saved. Many merchants will have great deals and savings sometimes up to 80% on selected items. Merchants may offer other generous savings through coupons, special offers and discounted items. Another wonderful incentive is shipping cost. Some will absorb the shipping cost for free after a certain amount of purchase (each merchant's guidelines will vary). Additionally, you will increase your savings by not using gas for transportation to the brick and mortar store.

It is not surprising that online sales are increasing each year. Shoppers desire all of the benefits that will help make their lives much easier.

Starting a Business - Trade Marks, Company Names, and Domains

Your business name can develop to become one of your most valuable assets, through marketing and the development of a relationship between the public and your brand. This is why it is important to protect your name from misappropriation. When you start a business you might naturally be aware of the need to clear the company name with companies house, and if you intend to develop an online presence you may also check the availability of domain names for your brand, but too often businesses are not aware of the importance of trade mark registration.

Differences between Company names, Domain names, and Trade Marks

Registration of your company name, and your domain name do not offer the level of protection necessary to prevent other businesses from using your brand names and logos in connection with competing products or services. Also if someone else has trade mark rights over the name, then your company or domain registrations can be cancelled. To properly protect your brand it is necessary to search the trade mark registers, and if the name is available to you to register, then apply to secure a trade mark.

Unregistered Trade Marks and Passing Off

Since 1994 unregistered trademarks are not afforded protection under the Trade Marks Act. So, if you want to stop someone using your unregistered brands, you can only do so through a different type of legal action called 'passing off'. This action arises out of the common law, and its success involves proof of damage to your reputation, and confusion by members of the public, among other things. This type of legal action can be extremely expensive, and is difficult to establish.

It is important therefore to register a trademark, and to do so before you begin to use a name for your business. As part of the process you will discover whether someone else has rights over a similar name, allowing you to make a change if necessary, rather than trading with a name that you cannot own, and that you may later be prevented from using. If the name is available, then it is advisable to register and thereby secure the necessary ownership rights straight away. If you instead delay registration, waiting to see if your venture succeeds, you may find yourself unable to secure. This could happen if someone else, in the meantime, registers a trademark which prevents your registration succeeding.

Protecting the Goodwill in your Brand

So, trade marks are an investment in the future success of your business. The more established and well known your brand becomes, the more likely others are to piggy back on your brand success. Goodwill in your business name is built up through substantial investment and marketing, and to avoid wasting this investment it is crucial that you check the availability of the trademark beforehand.

A proactive strategy for protecting your brand will save business funds in the long run, providing a powerful tool to dissuade imitators and counterfeiters, and to take action to enforce your rights when necessary.

Ideas For Starting Your Small Business Online

Starting a small business but don't know where to look? Want some great ideas for generating income online?

Here are two websites that I recommend for small business owners (or future owners).

BixBuySell has thousands of business for sale. To find the ecommerce businesses just use the Business Category list and select the B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business) entries listed under INTERNET BUSINESSES (they used all caps - not me!).

You can narrow your selection down to small businesses for sale by state but why would you want to? Search every site for sale in the US.

Listings can be sorted by Asking Price, Cash Flow or Location. Cash Flow is king so pay close attention to that number.

Sitepoint is an incredible small business and web development resource. The section of the site I visit regularly is the Marketplace. Once you've arrived at the marketplace check out the Established Sites for Sale and Premium Sites for Sale.

Bookmark these sites and visit them regularly. They should help you get a good idea of what types of sites people are building to generate revenue. On Sitepoint you can monitor the sites that sell to discover how websites are valued based on their content and revenue stream.

Even if you decide to start your business from scratch instead of buying a small business these websites can be valuable tools to learn more about starting a business online. Don't procrastinate about your success - visit these sites today.