Kerrie Richards says quality and specifications aren’t up to scratch FACING a strong dollar and the prospect of increased input costs from the federal government’s proposed carbon tax, the big concern for many local manufacturers is the threat of low-cost competition from China. But as Queensland manufacturer Merino Country has found, China has as many disadvantages as advantages for many Australian manufacturers of clothing. Kerrie Richards, managing director and owner of the merino clothing manufacturer, says the company is pinning […]
Tag: The Australian
Mobile payments taking off
WITH the arrival of the iPhone and smartphones in Australia in mid-2008, 2009 was the year mobile internet browsing took off. Now PayPal reports that this year mobile payments took off in Australia, opening the battlelines between payment systems, some that use SMS and others smartphone apps. PayPal’s figures indicate a twelvefold increase in mobile payments from $2.7 million last year to $35m this year. And the mobile commerce market is estimated to reach $26.9bn in value by 2013 according […]
Marketing online: keep it open source
FOR Sabino Matera the goal was to have the Quoco website up and running for the Taste of Sydney event last March where he had paid to have a stand to display food products imported from Puglia in Italy. But despite having a background in writing code in the information technology industry, Matera found he was tripped up at every step in getting his website up and running for the launch, with the designers eventually missing his all important deadlines. […]
Firms must be all ears using social media: online reviews
SOME companies understand social media and how to deal with negative comments about their businesses. But most small and medium-sized firms prefer to ignore the comments rather than deal with the problem head-on, as Mocks founder Lara Solomon has. Last year Solomon decided to swap PR for social media as the main marketing method for her business, which sells sock-like mobile phone covers in Australia, Britain and the US. She focused on a Facebook page but didn’t anticipate the full […]
Offline the key to online sales: Digital Camera Warehouse
AUSTRALIAN online retailers are learning that the key to online sales success is to expand their brands offline into bricks and mortar. Insightful statistics gained online make the decision a no-brainer. “Australia is a backwater when it comes to online shopping,” dStore chief executive and local pioneer in online shopping Andrew Cooper says. He says the main reasons are that high-street merchants have not gone online and because global online retailers put the relatively small Australian market at the end […]
Boss has his head in the cloud: data back-up
CUSTOMER databases, accounts and records are critical to business and if this information is lost a company will grind to a halt. The problem for many companies is that backing up information is often too complicated and expensive to do properly. But Ruslan Kogan, founder of the online stores Kogan and Milan Direct has made it easy by storing everything the company does on servers on the internet, the so-called cloud. He says while many IT managers see the cloud […]
Relative merits of family businesses
THERE are many big issues facing family businesses. For a start, the family members are not only the shareholders and the board of directors, but the management of the company too. But of everything they face, the most thorny issue is how to deal with the kids when they either want to join the business or cash out. According to Terry Rowney, chairman of Family Business Australia, one of the worst things a family business can do is expect the […]
Beans means big business: coffee
IT’S too busy,” complains Mark Dundon the co-owner of Seven Seeds, a Melbourne-based specialty coffee roaster and cafe, which opened earlier this year. Customers are queuing and sitting around waiting for specialty espressos, and lattes and other newfangled brews. He’s not the only specialty coffee operator facing a boom in trade and a shortage of good baristas. People are replacing eating out in restaurants with coffee, and starting to look at the origins and treatments of coffee beans. That’s what […]
Good ideas beat all comers, but keep flexibility
IN a rapidly changing market, success isn’t just about bringing the right product to market at the right time but charting the correct course through the shifting media environment. For Geoff Hunt, who spent four years working on the launch of online print-on-demand photo book service Momento, his advantage in 2004 was that he was among the first in Australia. As such he was able to capitalise on the novelty of the service in promoting it to the media. At […]