Britain’s top electrical retailer DSG International, the owner of high street chains Dixons, Currys and PC World, enhanced its online presence when it took a controlling stake in one of Europe’s leading internet retailers.

DSG agreed to pay €266m (£185m) for a 75% stake in Paris-based Fotovista that owns the Pixmania online retailer of digital photographic and other consumer electronic products.

From Guardian.co.uk:

The deal was the second big shake-up for DSG in a week after earlier announcing plans to ditch the Dixons brand on the high street and replace it with the name Currys.digital. Dixons will live on in cyberspace as one of DSG’s online brands.

DSG has already made a push into Europe and has stores in 14 countries including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Pixmania operates in 25 European countries, served from a central operation in Paris. Of those markets, DSG said Pixmania is the leading online electrical retailer in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. The business owns online digital photo services, a 250 store based photographic operation in France and specialist studio and portrait services in France and Belgium.

Fotovista had sales of €354m and profit of €6.2m in the relevant last year.

Tags: consumer electronic, customer satisfaction, DSG International, effective online presence, effective web presence, internet retailers, online business, online customers, online presence, potential customers, viable online presence, web presence

Your small business may boast of a website that is friendly to search engines and skillfully optimized for keywords. But, what if one does a keyword search and the website is nowhere on the radars of search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN? Your business may feel cheated, but it is not alone in the online world to feel cheated that way.

This is because search engines pick up what they pick up and there is more than one reason for them when they judge a website. There may be times when your website may be ranked 1 or 2 in the search engine results but vanish in a month’s time to appear at page 100 or 130. This may be possibly because the search engines might have changed their ranking formulas over a period of time and your business might have been left unaware.  This is the reason why more and more businesses are taking every possible effort to guarantee their positions in keyword searches these days by buying them.

Many search engines such as Google and FindWhat.com permit advertisers to place their bids for ad placement tied to possibly rewarding keywords. However, these bids are not restricted and accessible to an elite few.

Even a small business can open an account for almost less than $5-$40; the bids usually start at 5-10 cents per click. The credit card of an advertiser is charged only for that amount which reflects clicks on his listings. In short, the more an advertiser pays, the more ad viewers click through to his website. This is a short-term promotional strategy that can have immediate benefits.

In addition to that, it is best for an advertiser to identify and select popular and narrowly targeted keywords apart from writing compelling ad listings. Once that has been done, an advertiser (online business) must test these factors time and again.

Tags: keyword search, online business, search engines, website

An effective and distinctive online presence is required by each and every small business that strives to justify its existence in the business world of today.

In this article, we will be evaluating some advantages of online presence for a small business to get a complete insight.

Use of Time sensitive promotions: An online business can make use of time sensitive promotions in an effective manner. This is primarily because it is quick to change offers and promotions on the web. Emails can be sent out by the business to billions of customers with just a few clicks and in a matter of a few seconds.

Lifting the business profile: A small business can add several good numbers to its business profile by deciding for a professionally designed website. This is possible since a website does not bring out any budgetary limitations of an online business.

Respite for employees: The employees of an online business can heave a sigh of relief as a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section can address similar queries from different customers. The saved time, money and other resources can be put to critical business efforts.

Visibility before customers: Since more and more customers are going online and looking for products and services on the web itself, it is important for a business to stay “visible” before them. It helps it to reach the online as well as offline customers. An offline business does not have this liberty and is invisible for the online customers.

Niche markets abound: By going and staying online, a business gets access to opportunities that were previously too expensive to tap into or never existed before it.

To conclude, it can be easily said that the web does open up all sorts of rewarding opportunities for a small business when it decides to go and stay online.

Tags: advantages of online presence, business profile, online business, online presence, staying online, Time sensitive promotions

With more than 89 percent of world’s literate population going online, there is no reason for any business to neglect benefits of an effective online presence. Since the Internet is an affordable and ever-accessible marketing medium, people of all ages are using the web as a reliable and economical mode of communication and to make online purchases.

Gone are the days when a web presence was confined to a limited few. The Internet of today is economical and accessible for all without any limitations or geographical boundaries. This is the primary reason why customers and even businesses are making every possible effort to have an Internet profile and personality these days.

According to a recent research by the Stanford University, the numbers of Internet usage in the United States alone have grown from almost zero to sixty percent in the last few years. It was further observed that an average Internet user spends almost three hours on a daily basis to check emails and browse the web to find a product or service. In addition to that, many of these customers have a tendency to shy away from the traditional forms while many others prefer an online business over its offline counterpart as time and money are saved.

Furthermore, many are of the view that an offline business is “less professional” while an online business is professional and competent to serve their needs in the best possible manner. This is the reason why it is believed that a small business without a viable online presence is losing prospective customers even without realizing this fact. On the other hand, an online business gains offline customers apart from online customers. By having an effective online presence, a business can give respect to a fair consensus of its targeted audience. All in all, every business that expects to move the next ladder of success needs to work towards in an effort to have an Internet-based personality.

Tags: effective online presence, Internet profile, online business, online presence, online purchases, web presence

In today’s world, the role played by blogs cannot be ignored at all. The simple reason, more than 79 percent of prospective online customers look at these blogs to create an image in their mind. Not only this, the past experiences of existing business customers are before one and all, and this even encourage prospective customers to go or abstain from doing business with a particular company.

In this article, we would read about the benefits of blogs and web marketing.

Corporate Blogging helps a business create and maintain transparency before media, customers, and investors apart from other interested parties. By acting as a faceless but active voice to the company on the web, a corporate blog enhances credibility and findability among online customers who prefer staying online. Since content is regarded as food for the search engine spiders, the favorable response of spiders when fed with adequate and quality “food” results in more web traffic and eventually more business for a company.

An online business can share its ideas, beliefs, and thoughts before the world at large by maintaining an effective online presence. Moreover, it allows the business to get a claimed space on the web from where it can broadcast the official words on its progress, present and future projects, products, and services without spending much. Furthermore, a blog is considered to be an excellent option for responding to crisis, internal or external, having an impact on the company to maintain confidence of investors to a great extent. Blogs even help companies to timestamp their position when compared to other business promotion mediums such as press releases. Web Marketing, just like Blogs, helps businesses in thinking ahead of time to prove themselves as thought and proven leaders of the future.

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In short, any business that strives to gain a sizeable impetus to maintain its supremacy in today’s cutthroat competitive world needs to emphasize on web marketing and blogs. After all, it is better for an entrepreneur to plan, think, and act before any unexpected moment happens to the business.

Tags: blog, Blogs, corporate blog, Corporate Blogging, effective online presence, online business, online customers, press releases, Web Marketing