What is Drop Shipping - The advantages and disadvantages

I been doing research on the ‘drop shipping’ recently, looking at the opportunity to sells online without having to stock or having huge warehouse to compete with all my big brothers around!! There are always advantage and disadvantage when come to Drop sipping business

What is Drop Shipping?
Drop shipping is a supply chain management in which the seller does not keep goods in stock; however the seller will transfers the customer orders with shipment details to the wholesaler and in some case to the manufacturer directly who will then ship to buyer (the customer). The profit make by the seller is that the different between the selling price and the purchase price (which payable to the wholesaler or manufacturer)




Advantages
You can start your Drop shipping business at a very minimal investment, by just having a basic functionality such as a website, a domain name, web hosting service and mechanism to process the payments (example credit card or paypal) if you serious about the business; without having to stock goods

For cheaper alternatively, you may list on Ebay or Amazon which already prebuilt with the required functionality, as well as huge customers base

Disadvantages
There are risks in business as well as Drop shipping business, many cases is that the items which sold ‘OUT OF STOCK’ and you need to backorder and delay the delivery to your customer. In this case, the chances of getting a ‘NEGATIVE’ comments on your store or website is potentially high which may ruin your business reputation

Time and effort to search for a reliable Drop ship partner, which able to deliver the items as per describe, products quality and others among the consideration

Asian markets diverged at the close

KUALA LUMPUR: Key Asian markets diverged at the end of Wednesday's trade, despite news flows from the world's second largest economy that lifted sentiment after a survey by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics indicated that manufacturing in China might contract at a slower pace this month. However, this came against a backdrop of weaker corporate results in the United States and concerns about further deterioration in the euro-zone economy. At 5pm today, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 dropped 0.67% to 8,954.30 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was higher by 0.31% to 21,763.78. The Shanghai Composite Index was 0.07% higher at 2,115.99 while South Korea's Kospi Index dropped 0.67% to 1,913.96. Singapore's Straits Times Index dropped 0.20% to 3,044.73 while the local bourse's benchmark index was up 0.19% to 1,667.99. At Bursa Malaysia, gainers outpaced losers by 411 to 271 while 338 other counters were traded unchanged. There were 1.13 billion shares done with a total turnover of RM1.466 billion. Among the gainers were UEMLAND which rose 22 sen to RM2.15, ASTRO which was up 17 sen to RM2.89 and SUNWAY which gained 19 sen to RM2.50. ASTRO was also the top most active stock today, with 64.64 million shares changing hands. UEMLAND was the fourth most active stock today, with 39 million shares changing hands. The losers includedAIRASIA which fell 5 sen to RM3.04, TAKAFUL which lost 9 sen to RM4.69 and MAYBANK which fell 5 sen to RM9.00. At 5pm today, Nymex crude oil in electronic trade was US$0.05 higher at US$86.72 per barrel while Brent crude rose US$0.38 to US$108.63. Spot gold rose US$1.77 to US$1,709.40 per ounce while spot silver rose 21 cents to US$31.90. Crude palm oil futures for January 2013 delivery rose RM24 to RM2,564 per tonne. The ringgit was quoted at RM3.06 to the US dollar and RM3.96 to the euro.

(Source: Thestar.com.my)

How to retire Rich - How much does it take?

Back in the day, $ 1 million was the symbol of wealth and this amount is sufficient for an individual to consider for retirement. The ‘back in the day’ is referring to 20 or probably 30 years ago and along with the inflations, what does it take now for a retirement?

So let’s start with a simple calculation with the same magic number of $ 1 million and is earning 3% of interest per year. Imagine using a withdrawal rate of 5% or $50K a year (I assume 50K is a standard living cost per year for an ordinary individual), then the whole piece of $1 million will be fully wiped out just in 12 to 13 years from your retirement.

Personally, I would not consider retiring at the age of 55 with the saving of jus t$1 million. Some of the factors you should consider before retirement as below.

1) What, I’m going to do during after my retirement?
Free time isn’t free, so don’t assume you’ll be spending less money. Most of the time people will be going for vacations or working out their free time; which you needs money (example foods, transportation and so forth).

2) Do I have sufficient saving for my retirement?
Again we are talking about money (cost of living). We should consider with the amounts of saving, what are the lifestyle that the person can afford?

Now re-think again, the $1 million can just last for 12 to 13 years. Would you considering retiring at the age of 55? And how much do you need for retirement?

Credit Card Info

What is Credit Cards
Credit card is a card (usually plastic made) issued by financial intuitions to their customers or known as card holders. Credit card allows the holders to make purchases of goods and services on credit.

How Credit Cards Work
The issuer of the card will set a credit limit or line of credit to it holders, which determine how much the holders can borrow for payment to merchant or for Cash withdrawal via ATM in the form of cash advance

The issuer will bill the holders at the end on the billing cycle on monthly basis. The card holders must pay the bill in full or at least a minimum payment before the due date as agreed. There will be an interest charge to the card holders if the bill not paid in full amount, until the debt is settle. It’s not wise to ‘owe’ banks on the credit card bill, as the interest usually much higher than any form of loans - example personal loan. Folks, hence please spent wisely on what is really needed and within your limit. Based on the statistics, there are many bankruptcy young adults due to ‘bad debt’

Of course, credit card giving lots of conveniences to the holders without the need to carry huge sum of cash; example down payment for a car or any big purchase as long as the purchases did not exceeded the credit line or limit agreed with the issuer

a) Interest Charges
There will be interest charges to the Credit Card holders if the balance not paid in full each month on the outstanding balance

Let’s take an example based on John case study, if John had charged $500 on his account and repaid in full within the grace period (is a interest free period between statement date and due date), then there would not be any interest charge. However, if John only paid $400 or which mean $100 unpaid, interest would be calculated or charged until full payment or settlement. The interest charges and other details usually can be found in the cardholder agreement documents.

b) Balance Transfer
Balance transfer is another powerful tool or mechanism which good to both the issuer and card holders. Usually, Balance transfer allows the card holders to transfer the outstanding amount from existing issuer to other issuers; Example from Bank ‘ABC’ to ‘DEF’

Banks is using Balance Transfer program to attract new customers by allowing the card holders to transfer the balance from one to the other. Most of the time, the cards holders will enjoy lower interest rates for the transfer and also can be converted into monthly repayment (tenure). This is beneficial for card holders who has a huge outstanding amount.

c) Credit Card Security
Credit Card security is the main threat to both the issuers and card holders. In view of the technology advances, the Credit Card security has been changed since the early day of magnetic stripe which tend to clone to the advance chip with many built in security features.

Based on the expert, below are some of the tips on cards security
- Do not leave your card unattended
- Do not reveal the card information to unknown person
- Do not write your pin on the card or anywhere visible. Remember it
- Enroll the card security verification such as 3D security code

Get a car insurance quote online

Car insurance renewal is the normal routine for all car owners, however in the past this could be a nightmare to arrange for a car insurance quote especially when comparing against multiple insurance company.

With the advances of technology, the car owners can now get a car insurance online from home or office. Usually, to get the a car insurance quote online; we need to have at least the following information ready before attempting the online car insurance quote search. Of course a working desktop/laptop with Internet access as the prerequisite

a) Zip Code
b) Amount of coverage or comprehensive plan
c) Vehicle types
d) Age and owner details

Finding the car insurance quote online
There are many insurance companies out there on net providing online car insurance quote. Some of these companies may lower their premium price to win the customer, which mean that the cheapest quote doesn’t mean the best when come to buy a car insurance online.

It’s recommended for you to obtain at least 3 insurance quotes online from different company and do your own comparison in term of price versus the coverage, also importance to check the policy exclusions document. Back to the basic, do a very details comparison before sign up your car insurance online.

Guide to Foreign Currency Trading

While foreign currency trading offers its rewards, especially when you are able to trade in major currencies like the US dollars and Euro, caution against advertisements and brokers that offer instant riches must be observed.

There is move to regulate foreign currency traders. Unfortunately, not all in the industry are registered. Not entirely illegal, many unregistered brokers populate the financial markets. Extra precaution is suggested for individuals and companies when they deal with Forex brokers.

The United States has passed a federal law, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that gives authority to the commission to investigate suspicions of frauds in the transactions.

Frauds in Forex trading have telltale signs and you must be aware of these. Be wary of schemes that offer quick riches. An experienced Forex brokers will tell you currency trading is not a risk free business and only those with real analytic methods can succeed in the field. And, even when projections seem sound, there is no way of telling exactly how strong a currency will hold out against many factors. So watch out for those who promise large profits no matter the economic condition is.

Most brokers ask for margin investments. If you are not fully aware of how this works, do not venture into it. You may be losing s more than you earn in the long run. Beware also of the “interbank market” service that brokers may offer. In reality, only large banks, corporations and investment institutions have access to this loose network of currency traders.

To be sure about the credibility of the brokers you are getting, study their profiles and company background seriously and extensively. Stick with a shortlist of firms that are registered with the regulatory commission on commodity futures.

End of the road - Bankruptcy

In today community, we are seeing more and more young people walk into the bankruptcy.  If possible, majority of people would not prefer to meet a bankruptcy judge. If have, just too bad and too late for you to set the thing right when deep in debt.

People are walking into a very wrong path, especially for young people and many of them are professional!! Some of the people who being call for bankruptcy, with debt of more than their annual income by hundred of percent!!

Imagine the number of debt is not controlled by all in a country; a potential economy crisis is waiting

Some of these cases may be explainable (safe to say ‘unavoidable’), such as job loss, medical condition (without insurance coverage) and so on.  The other majorities of bankruptcy case are avoidable with high percentage due to Credit Card debt, and should take note of

a) Always set a spending budget and allocate a percentage for saving / investment.

b) Spend within your limit!

c) Do not own too many credit or charge cards, as usually comes with fees and changes. Imagine a card with $100 service charge p.a., and you holding 5 compared to 2?

d) Finish off your credit card bills every month to avoid interest charges

e) Find a certified financial planner to help you with the planning if needed

f) Contact your banks to discuss on the re-payment schedule and readjust the interest charges, if you having problem in paying your bills. These to avoid a very bad credit scores

Lastly, responsible person is coming from home; parents’ too educate their child about Financial planning.  What your view?

Reasons Why You Should Consider Paying For Your Traffic

There are numerous success stories you will hear about businesses making it good on the internet . The troubling thing is, there are maybe a tenfold or even a hundredfold of stories inconsistent to theirs. Many have unsuccessfully launched a business venture that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed.

Is this because of luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the persistence to learn and the willingness to put in a lot of hard work and some money.

However, before shelling out your hard-earned money on advertising, here are three (3) smart reasons why you should consider paying for your traffic including common-sense methods of showing you how to prepare your website.

1. The quickest method for getting customers to your website is to pay for your traffic.

Like Neo, traffic is 'The One' . Without traffic, all your efforts would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn't have anyone to sell your products to. In the Internet world traffic is the walk in customer. The more traffic you possess the more people you'd be able to sell your products to.

But similar to any business that's in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy. But for those who do come in to browse your merchandise, most of them will buy your products. It is a clear and known fact.

 But, how do you get traffic, traffic great enough that could make a small portion of resulting buyers enough to make a fair profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buys, but that small percentage is enough to supply them with adequate business.

Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes that's right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people who know that your site exists the more people would of course go to your site, that's common sense.

While there are numerous ways to get free advertising for your business, free advertising doesn't generate the same high volume of traffic as paid traffic does. Paid advertisements include such advertising schemes as those offered by Google and Yahoo.

2. In order to take full advantage of the search engines, make sure that your site is properly optimized to rank high before paying for your traffic.

Search engines are the fastest and easiest way for finding what you need on the internet . Search engines are extremely popular because they provide an indispensable service to many people. They are free and easy to use. Because of their popularity, search engines receive many visitors as well as click throughs . With these benefits in mind, it is easy to see why so many companies would pay to advertise with search engines.

Search engines provide information to the millions of users they receive each day. They provide relevant links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your site's link pops up as one of the top ranked sites on the search results page, you stand a great chance that the user will click your link and go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be on the top ranks.

When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for guaranteed traffic to your site. This may not seem like a good idea at first, but the benefits of doing so far outweigh the cost in the long run. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed a consistent flow of traffic to your site. You will at no time go without making a sale on any given day.

3. Find and use tools that will aid you in researching relevant keywords for your chosen niche so that you don't waste money on advertising.

Normally, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ad is clicked, this is known as pay per click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools on the Internet which can aid you in using the right keywords at the right moment in time.

All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for nothing. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result in a great boost in your sales figures.

Wealth management

We often hear about wealth management for high net worth or other word ‘Rich!!’ individuals. The experts suggested that wealth management is not only for the rich, people from middle and lower income should also have their wealth management to achieve the financial goals. I’m not a rich, thus the article below is based on my personal thinking and this how I manage my small peanut.

What is wealth management?
Wealth management is all about managing your wealth or extra funds to achieve a financial goal. Example to ensure capital invested whether in stocks or mutual funds to remain intact with ‘awesome’ returns at the end of the day. Risk management of investment is part of wealth management.

How do I start?
You should think and decide on how your money should be managed. Create a financial situation and goal before go further. You need to consider the following too

- Understand your personal financial goals and constraints
- Analyze your financial position using net worth and cash flow
- Assess your risk (e.g. Do you need insurance to protect your asset in the event of accident / sickness  / fire  
  or disaster)
- Plan your Tax
- Estate planning
- Plan your retirement

Once you got all the above answered, then you should think on where and how to invest. Look out for something as below

- Investment type that familiar with
- Better overall return
- Easy to pull out (in case you need money)

Have a good wealth planning you walk you through a better future!! What you think?

5 mistakes made by people without a financial plan

Without a financial plan, there is no way to gauge your financial status. You would not know how far from financial freedom, also when to retire and again when and what next.

In life, it is just too easy to make mistakes and waste your opportunity to create wealth. Some common mistakes that people make as below:

a) Buy to too big house
Majority of house buyer would consider the affordability, such as down payment, monthly expense and installment. All these consideration are ‘current’ decision, have you think how the purchase affect your future ability to achieve your goal?

Without the financial planning, you would not able to identify the real cost. Example, you may need to adjust your children College fees to continue serving the mortgage installments

b) Planning and response too late
Without starting your financial planning early, you would not able to determine or make decision on your expenses versus investment. Normally, we take it easy and until too late to response or do corrective measures.

c) Under save
Without a financial planning, you would not able to estimate how much to ‘save’. Likely, the actual saving may be lesser than actual. Trouble is just around the corner!!

d) Retirement timing
One of the importance factors to consider during the financial planning is to have good retirement timing. Without a proper assessment on your financial status, you may end up retire to early and finished all savings. Worst case, back to job market at the older age!!

e) Invest in unsuitable products
Without carefully assess your financial goals, you won’t be able to identify ‘what the best’ out of the many investment products. Example, what the ROI and risk?

Finally, the lesson here is that to list down your financial need with a proper assessment without delay. Financial freedom is on the way!! what your thought ?

How to Dropship online business

The intention of this article is to introduce the home business online with minimal start up capital and time.

Everybody dreams to own their own online or physical business and in which usually difficult to be materialized, due to either lack of capital or time. Thanks to the Internet, now everyone can start their online home business and work anywhere anytime they want.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing to you the dropship online business! Wait a minute, what the heck is the dropship business? See answers below

What is drop shipping?

Is a new supply chain management approach in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but these retailers will transfer the customer order details to the wholesaler or manufacturer for stock shipment back to their customers. They reap the profit on the difference between the retail and wholesale price.

The advantage of drop shipping as below

World wide brand products, no storing or inventory handing, as you no need to buy and keep the goods upfront. Simple choose the products that you wish to sell from the wholesaler inventory, publish and wait for buyer. If someone, make a purchase from you; then just direct the order details to the wholesaler for shipment to your customer.

No shipping and packing, as your sales will be take care by the wholesaler (of course you need to clear the payment and submit the order details). It’s the wholesaler duty to pack and ship the items to your customers. Best thing is that, usually the sender details is “your company name”; making the whole process almost transparent. Sound how great?

Flexibility to choose many products and select the best, where you have the power to choose and compare the finest products from categories for you to sell online. You can also choose many difference products from many wholesalers from the comfort of home. No more travel!!

Capital (not a problem). Basically, you can start with almost “Zero” or minimum capital by advertise on Ebay or Amazon. There are free listings on Ebay (however, you only can publish small number of items at a time).

Minimal risk as you have nothing to lose compared to people own a physical shop and goods. I think an individual only risk the time or work done if the dropship business fails.

After all the long explanation on the dropshipping, this new generation business sound really great to myself in general. Start your online business today at minimal risks by registering to dropship manufacturers online.

How to safe guard your credit cards?

In today modern society, everyone is having at least a credit card that brings aa world of convenience to the card holders. There is no need to bring think wads of money around either for shopping to meals. However, using credit cards also have risks such as stolen or fraud if you not careful. To safeguard your credit card against fraud, you can take note of the tips below to safeguards your credit card

a)     Sign the card on the spot once your receive it

b)    Immediately report the lost or stolen card to the Credit Card Center

c)     Do not reveal your credit card details to any unknown party

d)    Do not lend your card to anybody

e)     Treat your credit card like a cash

f)     Do not bring or carry your Personal Identification Pin (PIN) together with your credit cards

g)    Keep the issue bank contact number in case your need to make a report

h)     Cut your expired credit cards when you receive your new one from the bank

i)      Always check your credit card transactions and details / slip before signing the slip

j)      Destroy all transaction slips or records before dispose

Adsense application rejected

I applied to Google Adsense immediately after published my first blog posst. After waited for an approximately three hours, Google Adsense team responded to my application via email with subject line 'Google AdSense Account Status'. I was so excited and thought that my application approved until I opened the mail, which really turning my feeling from exited to frustrated. The email contents as below

"Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. After reviewing your application, our program specialists have found that it does not comply with our policies. Therefore, we’re unable to accept you into Google AdSense at this time. We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below. If you are able to resolve these issues, please feel free to reply to this email for reconsideration when you have made the changes."

Why the Google Adsense application was rejected?
There can be many reasons for having a rejected application. Usually the common problem could be due to insufficient contents, invalid web URL or email address or incorrect personal when filling up the online Adsense application form.

How to Get Google Adsense Approval Fast?
a) Publish at least 10 articles or hubs before resubmit your Google Adsense application. One of my failure was not having sufficient contents. Instead focus on building more quality contents and traffics.

b) Recheck your application form to make sure that all details in provided in the Adsense application form are accurate.

Alternative to Adsense
Many publishers having their Google Adsense application rejected due to their stringent policies. Some of the these publishers just not able to get their Adsense application approved after trying for long time.

I had the same problem before and my application was not accepted by Google Adsense. In fact there are many players out there other than Google Adsense that worth to try. However not doubt that Adsense is still the best in online advertising industry. Here are some of the online advertising network that similar to Google Adsense

a) Infolinks
b) Adbrite
c) Yahoo! Publisher Network
d) AdBrite
e) Chitika
f) Kontera
g) Clicks