Online shopping: it's click or miss

Our tolerance for waiting in the supermarket checkout queue doesn't appear to extend to shopping on the internet.
According to a new report on consumer behaviour, four seconds is the longest that online shoppers are prepared to wait for a site to load before backing out of the transaction.
The report - commissioned by JupiterResearch and carried out by web services company Akamai - surveyed 1058 online shoppers on their buying habits.
It found that the average shopper will abandon an online store if forced to wait more than four seconds for pages to load.
In fact, website loading times were found to be second only to high product prices and shipping costs as the leading determinants of online shopper dissatisfaction.
"The critical takeaway from this research is that online shoppers not only demand quality site performance, they expect it," said Akamai's Brad Rinklin.
"Four seconds is the new benchmark by which a retail site will be judged, which leaves little room for errors for retailers to maintain a loyal online customer base."
The findings come as more and more Australians are shopping online, thanks to an increased take-up of broadband internet connections.
The Internet Activity Survey, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in June, found that 51 per cent of Australian households now have broadband.
Further, a report, released by market research company ACNielsen in September, found that 5.9 million Australians are now shopping online, up 13 per cent from a year before. Average spending by each shopper is also on the rise, up 19 per cent to $1900 a year, it said.
Airline tickets, accommodation and event tickets are the most popular items, while eBay is the No. 1 online retailer, the report found.

Source: smh.com.au

Fwd: The golden rules of investment

• Never invest in something you don't understand.
• Risk can be reduced by spreading investments across different asset classes - property, shares, and cash.
• Stop trying to predict the direction of the share, property or interest rate market; concentrate on buying an investment that makes long-term common sense.
• Buy things with a strong history of profitability.
• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.
• Do not take annual results too seriously; focus on five year average growth.
• Focus on return on equity employed; not on earnings per share or gross rental.
• Remember that high returns normally equate to higher risk.
• Always invest for the long term. Think 'Does this investment have a favourable long term prospect?'
• Stick with your plan if it still makes sense when market conditions change. Recognise that short term volatility happens and that change costs money.

How to motivate your employees

It takes a lot more than an annual barbeque and a bonus cheque at Christmas to motivate staff - anyone can tell you that. But what exactly is the "a lot more"?
It's too simplistic to say that motivation the result of a goody salary, perks and training opportunities. Inspiration takes time, effort and consistency. It's about creating a culture that inspires self-motivation as well as providing the security to develop and innovate. In fact, there is increasing evidence that creating a motivated workforce is less about monetary rewards and more about management styles.
So what can business owners and managers actually do to motivate employees? What really works?
The Harvard Business Review has just completed two major studies aimed at answering that question. In one, 385 employees of two global businesses were surveyed. In the other, employees from 300 Fortune 500 companies were surveyed.
The secret, HBR reports, is to focus on four basic emotional drives: the drive to acquire, bond, comprehend and defend. Each of these drives can be managed by business owners or managers with a particular lever. Here are the drives and levers explained:
1. The drive to acquire. The lever: rewards
Individuals are driven to acquire goods that boost our sense of well-being and wealth. Delight is experienced when this is fulfilled, discontent when it is thwarted.
It's also important to note that the drive to acquire tends to be relative and insatiable: we compare what we have with those around us. And regardless of how much we have, we want more.
Businesses can use this drive to their advantage by creating a reward system that discriminates between good and poor performers, ties rewards to performance, and gives the best people opportunities for advancement.
2. The drive to bond. The lever: Culture
The drive to bond is associated with strong positive emotions like love and caring. When these are missing, negative emotions like loneliness take hold. When employees feel proud of belonging to an organisation they are motivated; when businesses betray them they feel demoralised. This also explains why employees find it hard to move around businesses internally: people become attached to those around them.
So how do you boost morale? Create a culture that promotes teamwork, collaboration, openness, and friendship.
3. The drive to comprehend. The lever: job design
We want to make sense of the world around us, we are frustrated when things seem senseless, and we are invigorated by the challenge of working out answers. In the workplace the drive to comprehend accounts for the desire to make a meaningful contribution.
Employees are motivated by jobs that challenge them and help them grow and learn. They are demoralised by jobs that seem to be monotonous or lead to a dead end.
Design jobs that are meaningful, interesting and challenging - whether or not the task is stacking shelves or managing clients. Talented employees that feel trapped look for new challenges elsewhere.
4. The drive to defend. The lever: performance management
We all naturally defend ourselves, our property and accomplishments, our family and friends. Instinctively we want what is fair and just.
It's important to make sure the way you measure performance and calculate salaries and bonuses meet this employee's drive to defend. If employees feel they're being taken advantage of, or others are being unfairly advanced, they will go elsewhere.
Each of these drives is independent and there is no heirarchy.
This means that you can't pay your employees a lot and hope they'll feel enthusiastic about their work in an organization where bonding is not fostered, work seems meaningless, or people feel defenceless. Nor it enough to help people bond as a tight-knit team when they are underpaid or toiling away at deathly boring jobs.
Here's the evidence: If a business owner whose business ranked in the 50th percentile on employee motivation improved job design, the business would only move up to the 56th percentile. In comparison, an improvement on all four drives would catapult the business up to the 88th percentile. Does this research ring true? How do you get the most out of your employees, or reduce the risk of losing them, when a better job comes along?

(Source: smh blogs)

Shop til you drop (over the keyboard)

It seems that Australians and Kiwis share the rare distinction of being the nationalities most likely around the globe to make online purchases. Who would have believed that?
A survey conducted by Coremetrics, a digital marketing company revealed that Australian and New Zealand consumers are twice as likely to buy products online, when compared to their UK counterparts. With a conversion rate of 4.4 orders per 100 online sessions for Australians and 4 for New Zealanders, the ANZ region sits above the average global conversion rate of 2.96 orders per 100 sessions.
The analysis is based on a six-month benchmarking study undertaken in the US. The study looked at buyer activity across 72 million e-commerce retail web sessions, with a specific focus on analysing the habits of nearly one million Australian and New Zealand visitors.
Kevin Mackin, general manager for the local operations of Coremetrics commented that “The US and UK are thought to be the most tech-savvy, but the conversion rates suggest otherwise when it comes to e-commerce. US consumers tend to place 3.3 orders every 100 sessions, while the UK only place an average of 1.7.
Interestingly, the participating businesses that enjoy the lengthiest visits from consumers are the ones engaging consumers with relevant content, including third party references and recommendations. These sites were also experiencing a higher number of page views, demonstrating a strong ability to hold people’s attention by capitalising on the more engaging Web 2.0 technologies.

(Source: MyBusiness eNews)

商人语录（一）

严介和

企业的“好”“差”：
市场化很低的企业是好企业，高的是差企业。

讨债：
能不采取法律措施就尽量不采取。
常作被告是无赖，常作原告是无能。
对待无赖就用无赖的方法，如有背景的就找他的上级部门；对有头有脸的则用媒体的方式。

企业相对优势和绝对优势：
相对优势——turnover
绝对优势——profit

用人的标准和留人的方法：
用人——
高管看心胸；
中层看道德；
基层看才华。
留人——
高管用事业；
中层用情感；
基层用钞票。

（source: extract from CBN programme)

Extract: Awaken the Giant Within (2)

Different actions produce different results:
Any action is a cause set in motion, and its effects builds an past effects to move us in a definite direction. Every direction leads to an ultimate destination: our destiny.

The power of decision:
It's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.
If you truly decide to, you can do almost anything.

The Ultimate Success Formula:

1. Decide what you want
2. Take action
3. Notice what's working or not
4. Change approach until you achieve what you want

The three decision that control your destiny are:

1. Your decision about what to focus on.
2. Your decision about what things mean to you.
3. Your decision about what to do to create the results you desire.

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