Online spending enjoys continued growth

Online spending increases in times of economic down-turn

A recent article in www.perthnow.com.au by Grahame Armstrong explores the phenomenon of online spending not showing a downward trend, where offline spend has.

From his sources, it is apparent that online spending this Christmas is on the up and up, and that many online retail sites are predicting further growth of 40 - 100%. Many online retailers are able to offer their products at cheaper prices due to the lack of overheads required to run their businesses, and this leads to more competitively priced items which are definately more attractive to customers with a finite budget. The need for showroom stock is also not required, which means that the retailer does not need to reduce the price on display goods, and in turn can keep his profit margin healthy. A number of retailers who have both online and offline outlets have noticed that their online divisions are continuing to experience growth whilst sales in their traditional stores have been rather flat of late.

Online shop building can be tricky

A word of warning must be made here. Whilst the incentives to create an online store are ever increasing, like any business venture, the proprietor must do their homework. It is not enough to "build it and they will come" anymore. A good hosting provider, a well designed, secure website and good marketing must all go hand in hand in order to get qualified customers to the front page of the shopping site. If any one of the three legs breaks, so will the venture.

Online marketing (SEM) is crucial

As far as the marketing aspect of online shopping is concerned, as well as traditional methods of advertising, Google Adwords™ advertising is an absolute must. Beware though, as there are a number of unqualified "experts" out there who are only too willing to take your hard earned cash without beeing too worried about the results that you get. Always look for Google's sign of approval for any company that you wish to engage to do your online advertising for you. The most important of these is the Google Authorised Adwords Reseller logo, as the handful of companies that Google have selected to wear this badge with pride have the knowledge, knowledge and customer service required to make your advertising account work for you.

Searchsmart is one such company and would love to talk to you about bolstering your market position in order that you can benefit from the online revolution.

Critical Internet Explorer Security Warning

15/12/2008 Article posted by Paul Falla, Searchsmart Research & Development Manager

We have just had notification that there are a number of severe security flaws in the latest versions of the Internet Explorer web browser. Can you please ensure as a matter of urgency that you use either Mozilla firefox or Google Chrome as your internet browsers for the foreseeable future. The Safari browser should also be fine to use

I will advise further once more information from Microsoft becomes available. The full story is below:

Attackers have recently begun exploiting a previously unknown and presently unpatched flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) web browser. In the field of computer security, this is referred to a “zero-day” vulnerability.

Exploitation of this flaw leads to complete compromise of the targeted computer. This vulnerability is triggered when IE7 views a specially crafted web site.

Some of you may be aware of public reports regarding this vulnerability, particularly a story on the popular computer news site, http://slashdot.org. Please take note – the story not completely correct. It references a different unpatched flaw in Wordpad that only affects Windows XP SP2. The IE7 vulnerability affects every Microsoft Operating system, including Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1.

There is presently no patch available. ITS will endeavour to block sites that are known to be hosting malicious code using Murdoch’s proxy server.

IT Security recommends users increase their vigilance when browsing the internet using IE7. Users may wish to consider using an alternate browser, such as Mozilla Firefox. Alternate browser should only be used if they are up-to-date and fully patched. The current version of Firefox is 3.0.4. Firefox’s version can be checked by opening the “Help” menu, and choosing the “About” option.

This morning, Microsoft released its December 2008 security bulletin disclosing six vulnerabilities of "critical" severity that permit "Remote Code Execution”. This means the vulnerability can be exploited remotely. A severity rating of "critical" means "a vulnerability whose exploitation could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without user action."

In addition, Microsoft announced two vulnerabilities of “important” severity. A severity rating of important means “a vulnerability whose exploitation could result in the confidentiality, integrity or availability of users’ data”.

All versions of Microsoft desktop and server operating systems (including Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008) are vulnerable, and should be patched ASAP.

All versions of Microsoft Office are also vulnerable to exploitation of the critical nature and should be patched immediately.

All systems with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Studio .NET 2002 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed are also vulnerable to remote exploitation. All installations of these programs should be patched immediately.

All of these vulnerabilities are applicable to the Murdoch environment, and can lead to total system compromise.

More information is available here - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-dec.mspx