Marketing and e Commerce on Latin America and the World

 To make money online many people jump right in before they are properly prepared. You know that to be a rocket scientist, a doctor, a brick layer, a construction worker, an office worker, a teacher there are prerequisites, things you must learn, before you can be successful, you don’t just jump right in unprepared.

The same applies to the Internet marketing industry even though there are unsavory people out there who’d have you believe it’s a “Walk in the Park” and requires no more than the belief that you can just do it.

And I’ll have to admit, it is a walk in the park compared to what you have to put up with in the working world punching a clock being a subordinate to someone who does not have your interests in mind, but there are still rules you have to follow and pitfalls you must avoid to actually make Internet marketing work for you.

Most people will not make a dime online and yet there are others who will make more in one month than most people make in a whole year. Why is that? Read the rest of this entry »

Start Effective Social Networking in Latin America!

On the ecommerce business, we deal with all sorts of people. and if your business is B2C you know it is true. With all the social communication going around, you need to deliver your information in different ways depending who you are directing your product or service too. Marketing is different and better if its done DEMOGRAPHICALY-SOCIAL. I just made up that word. But is true.
 
Every culture is different, they have different kinds of thoughts, expressions, and most relevant the ways to digest information. As a quick example, is perfectly fine to kiss another guy (in the cheek) in Italy, it will be as shaking hands or just to say “hi!”. Do that somewhere else and you will be in serious trouble.

Latin American Internet users are not much into putting their card online and buy stuff. As a matter of fact in Panama there are several companies in which you will pay them cash and they will buy your product over the Internet. This will change in a couple of years because young people like me are going to take over the market (not as a company but as a consumer). At the moment we need to deal with this and more Characteristics that make it difficult to sell here. 

A big part of the market in Latin America is not used to use the card online because the don’t trust the web! You need to gain trust!
Gaining Readers/Customers on Latin American Internet Users
I am sorry to say that twitter, wont help you here. Niether StumleUpon, Digg, Mixx and others.Why? Because regular users don’t use that kind of social sites. Some do, but you want to throw the net and catch as many fish as you want right?

1. Make Friends with people In your industry that are doing business in America. They are able to refer you too the correct forums, blog etc, to comment and get new readers or potential customer by promoting your site.

2. Have a Facebook page specifically design for this market. Facebook (besides Orkut in Brazil) has an exceptional penetration on Latin America. Invite friends, Make contact with them build trust once they have it you will have it on your side.

3.If you know Spanish, create account on this social networks:

• Badoo.com
• Sonico.com
• Tagged.com
• Orkut (Brazil)
• and Hi5.com

This social networks are not that different than others. But the Latin American Market got used to it.

4. If you don’t have a Spanish Speaker Internet Marketer and you want to penetrate the market as a whole, try to learn Spanish, If you don’t have time, hire an Internet Maketer (Spanish speaking one) who will be able to help you promote your blog and products among this social networks.
 
5. NEVER, ever Give up. The Market is Rissing fast, check in Latin American Internet Stats HERE. There is a lot of money you are leaving behind if you don’t try.

I found this article today in Sribd.com, there was no source,  after some minutes of reseaching I found who the reall author was. To check the original article link click the link bellow.

When you’ve made the decision to get your products online via eBay and/or your own eCommerce website, what is the next step?

First Question: Build it in-house or hire a professional?

Yes, you can build your companies eBay store and website with talent already existing within your organization.

Read the rest of this entry »

Internet has been like a big highway for all of us. And this highway besides getting us faster to the roads we need to go, will give you shortcuts so you can get even faster. I still remember when my grandmother said that it took 3 weeks so she can get regular mail. Let me tell you something, If I would have to go back in time live that, believe me I’ll be a dead man!
But now besides being able to recieve tons of information in a single click, we could do things we would never think of.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are hearing the term Web 2.0 since 2004, to refer to the second generation of the history of the Web, based on user interactions with other users, and a large scale of special services, like social networking, blogs, wikis and others that make possiblethe exchange of information be the most remarkable characteristic of it.

All this happened in 2004, primarily on the US and Europe. But, at that moment, some Latin American people where still getting used to use Internet on a daily basis, and make it a part of their lives. Now almost every one, who lives in a mayor cities in Latin America, can’t live without checking his or hers’ facebook account. Read the rest of this entry »

The Process takes only a few minutes, reducing wait time, requirements and costs. Sounds cliche right? That’s what we always hear when we talk about the comparison of the processes that we used to do  with the implementation of Internet over them.

More than 20,000 new businesses started in Panama from January to November to 2008, according to the PanamaEmprende system of the Panamanian Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The New Businesses have generated  over 90 thousand jobs and have payed 1.66 million in Taxes Of the total numbers of the companies registered, over half are in the province of Panama (Panama has nine provinces).

Read the rest of this entry »

In a matter of three years, Costa Rica has become an attractive site for international companies dedicated to marketing and advertising on the Internet.

The creativity of local graphic designers, easy to use technology, as well as the English language have been crucial to attract the firms like Schematic, avVenta, with its subsidiary, Critical Mass Interactive and The Hangar digitalArbor. The latter two were established this year.

In the four companies among 550 people working graphic designers, web, and Flash animation as well as architects, engineers and software developers. Cinde (Coalition for Development Initiatives) predicts that in two years the four firms will create 1100 jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

How It came up?

  A month ago the Latin American presidents came together for a follow up meeting on the world financial crisis, and a few points came across the table. They agreed on a 41 point plan, and many of those points where to stabilize and stimulate the economy on the respective countries.

Main Discussion Points

There where three things that caught my attention when going over the 41 point  plan. The first one is a commun  Passport that will allow free traffic, making easier for tourism for the neighbor countries.  Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua are already signed in. A Credit Fund and stimulus packages for various sectors to counter the possibility of slowing foreign investment and slowing remittance flows. But most notably, and perhaps more eye catching, is the Common currency.

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Where does the Commerce and eCommerce meet? I mean, in every single aspect they are almost the same, with the only difference that you might not actually see the person or company you are buying the product from or to. From that point EVERYTHING is exactly the same!

Some people create websites and hope to make a lot of money out of it, but it just won’t work if the don’t follow the procedures  properly as the were  doing an offline company. That happened to me, on the  this blog actually. I had an Idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to write about Latin America’s Commerce and eCommerce, but the idea was not clear. I started talking about Building sites, then jumped to financial crisis, then to ecommerce for Latin America and so on. Last night I sat down and analyzed the situation for my blog and thought of making some questions to myself and think what actually am I doing online. You should do this  before even purchasing the domain name. This will save you a lot of time.

Defining the type of business

Strengths and Weaknesses: Duh!, Its a blog, you would say. You are correct but the question goes farther than that four letter word. If we analyze the Strengths of my blog, you can say that, there are Read the rest of this entry »

Argentine stocks closed with light gains on Tuesday, but ended the year down almost 50 percent- the viggest annual loss since 1992. Due the finnancial crisis of last year not only the US companies are having big loses. As you maye continue reading Argentinas companies had a hard time too. The MerVal index ended 0.3 percent higher at 1,079.66 points, trimming its loss since January to 49.82 percent. In May, it reached a record 2,239.38 points.

Point of View

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