PayPal is the undisputed leader in online payment service providers. Google has tried to build market share for its Google Checkout over the last two years but feedback from my customers and business partners is that Google Checkout is still not their preferred online payment mechanism.

Most other online payment service providers are limited in their appeal, and are used by specific niches of customers. For example, there are some payment providers for online pharmacy transactions and online betting transactions. These are large industries however as the legalities are not the same or favorable in all countries, therefore such payment providers are able to offer a solution that is needed by the companies in these industries.

Escrow.com deserves a mention. It is a very useful site for business transactions, and their fee is very nominal for the value of the service that enables totally unknown parties to conduct business transactions.

Overall, there is no serious competition to PayPal today. PayPal has built a large market share due to its easy payment sending and receiving options. On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of EBay. Over the last 7 years, EBay has acted as the perfect growth platform for PayPal creating about 10 million of PayPal users worldwide.

PayPal’s total payment volume, the total value of transactions, was US$ 60 billion in 2008, an increase of 27 percent over the previous year. This $60 billion of 2008 represented nearly 9 percent of global e-commerce and 15 percent of US e-commerce. In fact, at an analyst day on March 11, 2009, eBay CEO, John Donahoe announced that PayPal could be a larger driver of revenue than EBay marketplaces business. So clearly, there is a huge demand for safe and easy online payment systems like PayPal, which has become the market leader with a big lead over the competition.

The economics of owning a popular online payment system are very attractive.

Online payment sites don’t pay interest on money held in the user accounts. A majority of active user maintain some working capital for day to day transactions. While the numbers are not available in public domain, we can do some rough math. PayPal has about 10 million users, and assuming an average money balance of 100 USD per user, that’s a billion dollars of interest free capital or float that PayPal maybe enjoying at any given time. Good acquisition by Ebay!

It is surprising that over the years, Amazon has not taken any major step in this direction to grow or acquire a payment system like PayPal. So where can competition come from? From social networking sites.

One of the major changes in the Internet landscape since 2002 is the rise of giant social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Each of these sites has millions of regular users. And a site like Facebook can develop its own payment system and virtual currency, which makes it possible for a marketplace to grow. We already see hundreds of third party applications on Facebook, and many of them sell low cost items. A virtual currency can be a powerful solution. I believe Facebook is already working along these lines.

There is also value is trying to solve one specific problem of international trade – the problem of varying currency conversion rates. If a large payment site can create some form of protection against currency rate changes, by using its own virtual currency in the marketplace that could be a powerful innovation that can nurture and grow a wide variety of international trade. On this front, PayPal and EBay are best placed to make something possible. A virtual currency in a global marketplace is the next big milestone for online payments. It will take extensive collaboration with banks and financial institutions, and we will have to wait and see who will take up this big challenge.

About the Author:  Shankar AVSB is the Director of MyOrbit Online, a London based Internet business with over 100 websites in different industries. He closely follows Internet business and online payment systems for conducting international trade and has advised numerous companies in improving their online business. Shankar is also the CEO of 7Avenues Private Equity, which runs ventures in Retail, Supply Chain, Services and E-Business. He can be contacted from here.

For people exposed to infectious viruses like influenza (swine flu virus or avian flu virus) anywhere in the world,  the US CDC (Center of Disease Control) recommends an N95 face mask with a good tight fit around the edge where it contacts the face.

The N95 Face Mask offers the best respiratory protection, even though it can be difficult to wear for long periods because it makes breathing harder, but its does offer real protection. It is fluid resistant and at least 95% efficient against solid and liquid particles that are larger than .03 microns, excluding those containing oil. In fact, the “N” stands for “Not oil proof”.

Therefore, very clearly, the N-95 Face Mask is the best choice if you expect to be exposed to influenza  (swine flu or avian flu).  Ordinary masks can’t prevent the flu virus.

The fit of the face mask is important so that there are no leaks between the mask and face. The “Duck-Billed” shape variation of the N-95 face mask allows extra breathing room for the face and nose.

Recommended Specification for N95 Face Mask to be used as Swine Flu Masks:

*N95 NIOSH approved particulate respirators
*Lightweight construction includes an adjustable nose piece and foam seal to reduce the potential for eye wear fogging.
*Round masks fits over mouth and nose
*Two durable, latex-free head straps
*Compliant with 42 CFR Part 84
*Provides a minimum of 95% filter efficiency against certain solid and non-oil based particles for excellent worker protection.
*Can be used in labs, for painting, for doing household projects, and for general protection against respiratory viruses

You can consider smaller sizes for children, if they are available, otherwise a regular N95 mask is still the best alternative.

If you don’t have N95 Face Mask at your local pharmacy store, please contact us, and we will try to arrange it for you.

What we have seen in our experience of advising over 100 businesses is that almost 95% of them do not use their website an effective Sales & Marketing tool, and that’s why they are unknowingly leaving a lot of money on the table.

For example, today, many prospects come to our websites when they hear about our services or products, and our website has to be ready to engage any visitor, and also provide answers to all the common questions that any visitor/prospect would be expecting, to increase the interest in the products and services that you are offering.  Now this may look very logical, but the fact is that 95% of the websites that we have come across are not able to do this, and so chances are high that your own business website may be lagging in this aspect.

Some of the things that you should really consider to check if your website is really interesting and effective in Sales & Marketing are the following:

First and most important input for your website is the navigation – keep it simple and intuitive.  Navigation is one of the places where most websites falter.  The navigation seems to become very complex in most B2C and B2B services and visitors don’t have a clue how to trace back a particular URL or how to save a given URL because when you have complex navigation, people do not follow the path or are unable to retrace a given page.

So please make navigation very simple and my advice is that any business site should not have more than three levels of navigation.  So if you have the ‘Home’ page or ‘About us’ or ‘Contact us’ page as level 1, just think of one more level and another level, so maximum three levels.  Anything more than that means an ineffective website.

My personal preference is two levels only where you have an ‘About us’ page, a ‘Contact us’, an ‘FAQ’ page and ‘Services’ page as Level-1. If you are looking for investors, then that deserves a separate page of its own at Level-1.

‘Services’ or ‘About us’ page can go one level deeper, into Level-2, to share the specific products and services on their specific pages.  But that’s where it stops and not too many levels of pages.

The second input is that the top-level pages should not be too many in number; keep it between 5 and 10 – that’s something which most users can understand and navigate easily.  So keep the top-level pages, which could be like ‘Home’, ‘About us’, ‘Product/Services’, ‘FAQs’, ‘Blog’, ‘Contact’ etc.

Third input is that if you are offering any product or service, there must be an FAQ page – a separate page dedicated to answering various questions and answers that you have faced from partners, customers, prospects. So an FAQ page is a very important.

Fourth input is applicable if you are selling a product or service that can be bought or ordered online or by phone, then there must be a very visible ‘Order’ page at the top level.  We have found that the ‘Order’ page is often hidden at some second or third level and the website is losing sales. We have observed that by moving the Order page at the level-1 and making it prominently visible across the site, it has improved sales by anywhere from 25 to 100%.  So there’s a big benefit from a small improvement.

Fifth input is about Testimonials. if you are a business that has been live for some time, then you must surely have customer testimonials and that is another top-level page because it can really help in talking to your prospects about the benefits of your services and no other page does it better than a ‘Testimonials’ page.  So it’s a highly recommended top-level page that you must have.

That’s how some of the best performing websites are structured and what we have shared here is essentially the summary of website improvement and online business improvements that we do for our sites (we have 50+ of them), and for our business partners and clients, who are seeing results in terms of improved sales.

Now, there are many Internet consultants out there who will charge a fair amount for such inputs. So we thought we will save you some money by sharing these inputs, which are based on real-life successful websites under us.

Please remember that you can constantly reduce your cost of customer acquisition by having an effective website that converts your prospects by engaging them well and showing them the key benefits.  Please also remember that a detailed one page website, if done properly, can beat a 25 page website that plays hide-and-seek with the visitors.

If you have already followed the above suggestions, and still your website is not proving to be effective in your sales & marketing work, something else is creating a problem. If you want our help in diagnosis, please leave a comment in this post (it will not be published) and we will get back to you.

Thanks for visiting,
Shankar on behalf of MyOrbit Team

Its a real problem once your email id goes this way, because the hackers get access to your email id and change the password, and use your address book to send lots of spam mail from your id, and you will be forced to spend lot of time in damage control.

So to protect your email ids, please change your password ASAP if you have not changed it in the last 2-3 weeks, and keep it cryptic. This is the best protection.

And to protect against any key-logging script that may have come on your computer from somewhere, please regularly delete all cookies and Internet temp files, and run anti-virus once every week. Let us know if you want any help.

We have helped a few local businesses to use Google in this way, and its a very simple process. So if you have a physical business, you must take this step asap.

It’s a long video… if you are in a rush, here’s our summary of the various Q&A:

Q1. What do you look for in the people you like to work with?
WB: I like to work with people I like. I don’t look at their CVs or Grades to decide who can do what. In fact, I don’t even look if they have a degree. If you are working with people you don’t enjoy, please do yourself a favour, and leave the job and work with people you like. You’ll do better.

Q2. What kind of businesses do you like to invest in?
WB: I want to invest in businesses that are stable and where I can visualize it 10 years from now. Companies like Coke (soft drinks), Gillette (mens shaving blades) are examples of my investment choices. There are many others like GEICO (automotive insurance), Nebraska Furniture Mart (maximum sales from a single store location in the US), Iscar Metalworking Company (an industry leader in metal-cutting tools from Israel). I don’t have the understanding of technology-intensive business like software etc, and I stay away from them.

Q3. How do you do business valuation? How detailed is it?
WB: I like to invest in businesses where I have great comfort with the business owner. A paragraph is often sufficient to know the business value. The example being Nebraska Furniture Mart owned by Mrs. Rose Blumpkin, who recently turned 101 years, who has no formal education but has great common sense.

Q4. Tell us some of your bad decisions and what you learned from them?
WB: I invested in US Air though it was a difficult sector. Call it Temporary Insanity. I have learned that my bad decisions have happened when I had more cash than necessary. The airline industry is one step forward for mankind, a giant step backward for capitalism! And then there are other mistakes that conventional accounting does not capture, like the selling of 5% stake in Walt Disney (at $6m) within a year of buying it (at $4mn) in the 1960s. Today that stake is worth over a billion dollars.

Q5. Why not split the Berkshire Hathaway share to make it more affordable to investors?
WB: I think of my investors as a club or an audience in my presentation and we want long-term investors not traders. I don’t want high trading volumes for our shares. In fact, I will be happy with no trading at all. Our share price ($25k per share in recent times) has helped us maintain that seriousness and attract long-term investors.

Thanks for coming by!
MyOrbit Team

And with such experience (or taste), some people are finally able to make a decision to start working on their own from their home office.

Most home based businesses can outsource 100% of non-key business functions. It’s a definite trend if you see the increase in project volume of sites like Elance.

We are seeing every possible work – from easy digital products to high-end investment banking work — being done from a home based business. Starting your home business is easier today than ever before, but most people don’t realize it, or don’t want to act on it!

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Here’s a thoughtful article written by Lazz Laszlo.

Has the idea of starting a home based business of your own been rolling around in your head for days, weeks, months, or sadly… even years?

You almost started a couple of times, but for some reason something came up that resulted in you deciding to delay the very first step.

The first step is truly the hardest, but there’s no denying that the first step is STARTING.

A man by the name of James Cash Penney who died at the age of 96 in the year of 1971 said something that perhaps will help you to understand that you are not the only one to have been timid about beginning a new business, in particular, your new home based business.

James Cash Penney said, “It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.”

He knew, and I’m sure you know, he’s the man behind the retailer J.C. Penney. You have to just love his middle name as it relates to his last name and capsulizes his life so to speak. He’s got a great story to tell if you take the time to find it and read it. Just to imagine that he lived through two world wars is amazing in itself.

There are lots of excuses used by people as to why they haven’t started their new home based business. Some of them include, but not limited to; just don’t have the time; just not ready yet; not sure which type of home based business to start; no money; looking for a partner; haven’t found the right product; or have to learn more.

If you’re in this zone of not being able to start, investigating the lives of others may just be the catalyst to kick you in the behind, knock you off the fence, and get you started. Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The money you spend on a new pair of shoes is gone forever once it is spent and after weeks, months, and even perhaps years, those shoes will be discarded. The knowledge you gain from the article you read, the book you buy, the course you take, or the mentor you befriend will be with you for a lifetime.

You are not the first to have the desire to start a business. You certainly won’t be the last, but if you don’t start, you’ll be among the thousands who wished they had. It’s your choice to either get started or just forget it.

Some of my favorite people to read about have been, but certainly not limited to just these people;

Jeno Paulucci, the creator of Chung King Foods brought Chinese food to the kitchen tables of America. One of my favorite parts of his story was when he made a split-second decision and ate a grasshopper rather than… well, you’ll have to read his story.

Walt Disney began his dream, essentially in a garage. There are a lot of companies that begin in a garage, apparently because the kitchen table wasn’t available. Bill Hewlett and David Packard began the company that bares their name in a garage and as a footnote, they wound up burning down the garage. Oops! Apple Computer is another garage beginning business.

William Wrigley Jr., essentially stumbled on his fortune with chewing gum when this item he used as an incentive became more popular than the item he was selling.

Reading one or two of what I like to call, “How’d they do it” stories can shed a lot of light on what it really takes to get a business off the ground. It would be smart to make this an ongoing practice of reading about how others built their businesses, but don’t use the excuse of having to read just one more, and another, and another, and another… delaying your own start indefinitely.

The message here is that you have to focus and disregard what the naysayers think and say, this includes that little naysayer voice in your own head. Do you really want to do what other people want you to do, or do you want to put your efforts, energy, and brain power into doing what you really would like to do?

If you’re embarrassed as to what people will think of you while you are climbing and stumbling on the ladder of success, you might as well quit now. Success is a bumpy road with lots of hazards and stress, which is another couple of reasons why people seek the safety of a job rather than beginning a home based business in their off hours.

Dean Martin, the entertainer said, “Successful people make mistakes.” Some people make more mistakes than others, but I have never met anyone who has only made one mistake in their life. I was taught that there is a lesson in every mistake, but more to the point, you can learn from the mistakes made by others. Read a biography or two of people behind some of the greatest achievements in history and you’ll see that it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

If you are not just a little bit daring and willing to spit in the face of pessimism, than you’re not living.

Malcolm Forbes said, “Venture nothing, and life is less than it should be.”

It’s time to start your journey into business. You don’t have to go at break-neck speed, but you do have to begin. It’s been said that the best part of the trip is not the destination, but the journey itself. Begin your journey today.

Yes, it sometimes hurts to be entrepreneurial and a visionary. It is full of embarrassment and behind-your-back ridicule, neither of which is lethal. Try something and if it doesn’t work, try something else. The adversities in your life will fertilize the genius within you. I’ll leave you with this Welsh proverb; adversity and loss make a man wise.

About the Author: Lazz Laszlo is a former Investment Executive and Radio & Television Financial Reporter with many entrepreneurial endeavors to his credit. He spends his time as an emcee, public speaker, enjoying life and writing about business, travel, retirement, strategy, and pleasure. To learn more, please visit Lazz’s website; http://www.925-wage-slave-alternatives.com

Q1. How can I increase my sales through online channels?

Answer: This really is a big question with no one answer – otherwise everyone would have done it! What we have found from our experience of running multiple businesses is that there is a need for a structured approach to attract targeted visitors (prospects) and ensure that the entire chain of events is planned – till the time an order is placed.

Many services companies will say “oh, this may work for product companies, but not for us”. This is just a lame excuse by someone who fears change. We have seen successful examples of services companies generating almost 80% revenues from their website + other online channels. The need is to create an online platform (say, a part of your website/blog) which shares valuable information with prospects, and a system which can do all of what a physical sales person can do. With Audio and Video possible on web-pages, a good website can generate more sales than a team of salespeople, at a fraction of the cost. The only expenses you have to make are for online marketing, for which you can see other posts on this site.

Q2. We have built a great website…now how do we promote it?

Answer: Do you know which places your clients and prospects visit often? That’s the place you need to advertise in some way. Consider buying text links, we have found them best on performance/price. Some sites also offer paid articles referring your site – those are good too. For example, our clients often visit sites like: www.cio.com, www.cfo.com, www.ft.com, and many smaller sites – all of them are good options to advertise. Small sites and blogs can give a great return on online ad spend. So invest some effort in that. Over the last 6 months, we have developed a way to identify such small sites relevant to each business, and you can contact us for more info.

Q3. What are the options to increase my online sales?

Answer: There are numerous options, and each product/service should plan a suitable mix of them: Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, Text Link or Banner Advertising on High Traffic Sites, Sponsored Articles on Sites or Blogs, Email Marketing, Mobile SMS Marketing (this is a very exciting area, and will evolve rapidly in 2-3 years – if you are a consumer products/services company – you just can’t afford to ignore this).

Q4. How much should I spend on online marketing?

Answer: Just like in a physical, brick & mortar business – your online marketing budget would have two components: (1) Brand Building (2) Product/Service Marketing. Now, if you already have a known brand, then skip (1), and spend effort and money only on (2), which is more focused towards earning dollars by selling your Product and Services. Plan to spend up to 10% of the sales volume, and spend in phases to ensure results are coming. So if you have a product/service of $500 value, and you want to sell to 200 customers, then your desired sales volume = $100,000. So you should plan to spend up to $10,000 in online marketing. This does not include your fixed costs, like staff salary and business operating expenses.

Now, it’s important to note that the amount you spend will depend on the gross margin you have on the product/service. So you can choose to spend just 4-5% as well. But 10% is on the upper side, and will perform very competitively to physical sales people. If you are spending more, you are probably not executing well and there is room for improvement.

Q5. What kind of team and skills do I need to increase my sales online?

Answer: The team can be very lean, but must understand your business and products/services well, and also understand how information is shared in the Internet space. Many Small and Medium businesses are able to do it (with some initial guidance) with just 1-2 full-time staff because they can easily coordinate with the sales and production teams. But its a different problem in large companies: the marketing departments often don’t have the skills and support to generate online sales, and the sales teams don’t have access to any part of the website – so it’s a difficult situation.

Our recommendation is to give the responsibility of online sales also to the Sales/Product Teams, and give them the tools and training to make it happen. Regardless of your company size, new media tools can be (and should be!) used successfully. If you are not sure about your team’s understanding/skill of operate your blog (write and discuss with audience), you can contact us for inputs as we have done it for a few companies in 2007. At its core, your website is an extension of your key business people and presentations – and is best suited to generate business leads.

We hope you found these answers useful. You are welcome to ask your questions on how to increase online sales.

Wishing you a great 2008!
Shankar AVSB
CEO, MyOrbit

Often, there is so much rework at the last stages of proposal development just because some team members involved in the proposal were not aware of the full picture and customer business needs. If you are the manager, you have probably been giving your tips to the team every time you have a proposal.


In fact most companies, and that includes some very large companies, don’t have a clear business proposal checklist. It’s very much left for the sales manager to train his team — again and again. If you have been there, you will know exactly how it is like.

So make a note of this page and use it the next time you are submitting any business proposal. And more importantly — share it with all your team members who are involved in making your business proposal.