B.S. Walks Show Notes for Wednesday 2/18/2008
Wow, what a crazy week and a crazy time! We have been diligently working for TODAY’s launch of the new LIVE radio show. The new show is called “B.S. Walks” and it airs today at 1:14 pm est.
I decided to post my show notes so you can see what I am seeing and researching for the show! We got this an MUCH MUCH MORE, but it is all about making us better entrepreneurs, and good stewards of our money.
Today more than ever you NEED good sound advise and I hope to bring some of the best advise money can’t buy 
Join me TODAY at Wednesday 1:14 for B.S. Walks, the best 30 minutes on Talkshoe!
Note #1
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y09/m02/i18/s02
According to Tuesday’s release about the ecommerce sector, With a small dip, Amazon (-2% to 86) remains the second highest scoring firm of all companies in this release. The situation for e-Bay is different. Its ACSI score slumps 4 percent to 78, an all-time low. Revenues fell 7 percent in the fourth quarter, marking eBay’s first ever negative year-on-year quarter, and its stock price lost almost 60% in 2008. Newegg leads the online retail category with a score of 88. The computer hardware and software retailer has done well offering consistently high quality service and quick response time.
While satisfaction with ecommerce declined 2 percent, customer satisfaction with the retail sector gained 1.3 percent to 75.2. The retail sector includes department and discount stores, specialty retail stores, supermarkets, gas stations, and health and personal care stores.
Note #2
http://www.copyblogger.com/grow-business-twitter/
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“Twitter is instant messaging made available to the public,” stated talk show host and author Hugh Hewitt.
It’s a constant stream of communication. The good news is you can turn it on or off as often as you like. Twitter also keeps a public record of all updates, which can be mined with Twitter Search.
Duct Tape Marketing founder John Jantsch identified three big advantages of Twitter, “(1) I get great insight when I ask questions, (2) let’s face it, I get traffic and (3) people on Twitter spread my thoughts to new places.”
Note #3
There are a few big deductions that can significantly reduce your tax bill if you qualify. New investments of up to $250,000 in equipment, vehicles, or software can be written off immediately, rather than depreciated over future years, under the Section 179 deduction. If you have a home office that you use exclusively as your primary place of business, you can deduct costs for the business use of your home. And if you use your car or truck for business, you can deduct work-related expenses for gas, maintenance, insurance, and other costs, either using the IRS’s standard mileage rate or by calculating the actual costs. The home office and vehicle deductions are two of the most overlooked write-offs, according to the National Association for the Self-Employed.
Note #4
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2007/sb20071031_532296.htm
Some additional tips:
• Hire a reputable tax preparer to prepare your return, rather than a nonprofessional who took a course in tax preparation. CPAs are licensed and are required to take continuing education courses. Large tax preparation services, such as H&R Block (HRB), have qualified personnel supporting their preparers. Preparers whose tax returns are audited frequently will be flagged as disreputable, opening up their entire client base to be audited, Hanley says.
• Make sure your reported income supports your living expenses and other deductions.
• Do not round off your deductions, which might make it appear that you are "guesstimating." Exact figures appear to be taken from actual records.
• If you’re worried about the impact of the Schedule C, you could investigate forming a corporation to reduce your possibility of audit. "That may sound attractive, but the cost of formation, together with the cost of annual tax return filings and possible payroll tax responsibilities, may outweigh the perceived benefits," Weiner says. Talk to an accountant about the pros and cons of incorporating your company (BusinessWeek, 10/3/07).
• Report all your income. "If the IRS matching program, which compares 1099s, W-2s, and other forms filed with the IRS to tax returns, reveals unreported income, you get a notice. Don’t invite unwanted attention," Rosenbaum says.
Tech Note #5
http://mashable.com/2009/02/17/tumblr-audio-posts/
The recently funded and sexy as hell Tumblr is expanding their offering to make it just a little bit better. If you weren’t already satisfied with the myriad of available tumblelog posting options, now you have one more bonus choice to throw into the mix. Starting today, you can use your phone to record an audio post that publishes to your tumblelog.
Check out MY Tumbler at http://colderice.tumblr.com/ it has EVERY post I have ever made on Twitter on it, going back to the beginning!
eCommerce Note #6
http://www.salehoo.com/blog/four-seriously-good-ecommerce-solutions/
eCrater gets a score of 6/10 from SaleHoo
As for traffic, the eCrater marketplace ranks as the 6,000th most visited site on the net according to Alexa. This means it gets a sizeable chunk of traffic (lots of whom will filter through to stores), although it’s still way behind the likes of eBay which ranks 20th. Plenty of sellers are making decent sales and many successfully run a number of stores in different niches.
BuyITSellIT gets a score of 9/10
BuyItSellIt (BISI) is part of the Ink Frog group. Like eCrater, BISI is free, but its offerings are much more sophisticated.
GoDaddy Quick Shopping Cart gets a 7/10
QSC has received decent marks from third party reviewers, such as TopTen Reviews and PC Mag, and with no transaction fees and a low monthly fee, it’s a good offer, but we didn’t feel it was as nice to use as some of the other options available.
Auctiva Commerce gets 8/10 on the promise, LOL
The cost starts at $9.95/mo + small commission on sales. Features include advanced customer management options, such as the ability to issue credits and partial credits, maintain a customer order history, build customer profiles and advanced cross-promotion.
Super Extra Extra Credit?!?
Episode I – Q408 in-depth analysis – available here with Q+A covered in an addendum (IA) (link)
Episode II – Introducing the ChannelAdvisor Ecommerce Framework (CEF) (link)
Episode III – eBay, Amazon and the CEF (you are here – I have split it into to parts A (ebay) and B (amazon) ) (link)
The 4 part episode from Scot Wing (CEO of ChannelAdvisor) is a “book” that is a must read! He is breaking it all down on eBay and Amazon and what is going on in eCommerce as it relates to what he sees from the inside and out.
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