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New service to help African small businesses establish online presence 1 min read

New service to help African small businesses establish online presence

iwano@_84 2 years ago

By Thembelihle Mkhonza 2h ago

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JOHANNESBURG – Website builder BaseKit will partner with Liquid Telecom to provide a website and e-commerce builder to customers of the African telecoms provider.

In a statement on Wednesday, Liquid Telecom said the service would be available in South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Liquid Telecom said its aim was to help thousands of businesses establish a presence online and to furnish its business customers with a “virtual workplace with tools designed to keep their business operating from anywhere”.

The group’s chief digital officer, David Beh, said: “Our business customers are incredibly important to us and we want to make their lives as easy as possible. Trading conditions are challenging in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. We hope that by helping businesses find other ways of trading, they stand a greater chance of success.”

Consulting

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No matter how long you’ve been at this, your small business is now a startup 1 min read

No matter how long you’ve been at this, your small business is now a startup

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Whether you’ve been operating 10 days, 10 months, or 10 years, it’s time for a “makeover” for your small business. If you’re going to survive and thrive in the COVID-19-dominated economy, it’s time to think of your small business as a startup.

3 ways to help small businesses during coronavirus pandemic

UP NEXT

Remember what it was like? You had an idea, a dream. You didn’t know how it was going to turn out but you seized any opportunities that came your way, continually changed as you learned more about your business, and worked long and hard. But you believed in yourself.

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It’s time to do that again, given that customers’ buying habits and needs have changed. It can be scary, but it can also be exciting. And most of all, it’s necessary.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your

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Small businesses see a small uptick with holiday sales 1 min read

Small businesses see a small uptick with holiday sales

iwano@_84 2 years ago

At least 100,000 small businesses have had to close permanently in the last nine months, according to data gathered by Yelp. Millions more have dealt with temporary closures and major losses in revenue.

Now, many remaining small businesses are reliant on a strong holiday shopping season, and there’s finally some good news for these business owners and their employees.

For example, at the Boston area small business called Boing Toy Shop, owner Kim Mitchell has been working overtime for the pasting nine months. She has had drastically change her business model.

“In certain ways, I feel like although I am in the same physical footprint, I am almost running a completely different business,” said Mitchell.

Since the start of the pandemic, Mitchell has had to shift more than half of her business online and added curbside pickup to keep her toy shop out of the red.

“In certain ways, I

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Holiday gift ideas from D.C. small businesses 1 min read

Holiday gift ideas from D.C. small businesses

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Saturday was “Small Business Saturday,” but small businesses should always be front-of-mind these days. Now more than ever, local shops and entrepreneurs deserve our support. But that’s pretty easy when what they’re making is this cool.

Compiled by Adele Chapin, Anying Guo, Fritz Hahn, Angela Haupt, Michael O’Sullivan and Stephanie Williams.

Appointed

Packages of stationery from Appointed arrive fastened with tape inscribed with the words “Beautiful Tools to Inspire Beautiful Work.” That’s graphic designer Suann Song’s mantra. After having a hard time finding “minimalist, super-functional, well-designed American-made paper products,” she decided to make them herself, launching Appointed in 2015. All the materials are purposefully selected (such as the U.S.-manufactured, water-resistant book cloth covers), and then almost everything is assembled in Appointed’s Ivy City warehouse. The signature product is Appointed’s monogrammable spiral-bound notebook ($24). But lately, Song’s having trouble keeping up with demand for planners, which went up more than fivefold

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Why Small Businesses Need to Make the Pivot to Online 1 min read

Why Small Businesses Need to Make the Pivot to Online

iwano@_84 2 years ago

As the U.S enters the busiest time of the year for retailers, Amazon (AMZN) is thriving, saying on Dec. 1 that 2020 “has been the largest holiday shopping season so far in the company’s history.” Walmart (WMT) is seeing big gains in its online sales as well. And Target (TGT) reported a 155% surge in online sales in the third quarter.

But for many small businesses, the story is much different.

Uncertainty among small business in November was at its highest point in four years, according to the National Federation of Small Businesses. That’s due in part to consumers’ rapid shift to online shopping.

In the annual “U.S. Retail Index Study,” IBM data shows the pandemic has accelerated the shift from brick and mortar stores to online shopping by roughly five years. And that’s leaving many small businesses that have relied principally on foot traffic behind.

“The ones who

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Revamped Small Business Development Center opens to serve Richmond-area businesses | Business News 1 min read

Revamped Small Business Development Center opens to serve Richmond-area businesses | Business News

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Lofchie added that the service is available for “any client that wants some help, whether they have a small business idea they want to launch, or whether they are currently an entrepreneur and want some help.

“We have business experts that will be available to talk with any of our clients on a confidential, one-on-one basis,” she said. “We also will be providing training and access to other content resources.”  

Most businesses have had some resiliency planning in place during the COVID-19 crisis, Lofchie said.

“I think this has lasted longer than any of us ever expected,” she said. “They [small businesses] are at the point where it is getting really hard, and there is a need for someone to come alongside them and coach them. There is also a need on the technical side, matching entrepreneurs with resources that are out there for them.”

The goal is to provide

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7 year-end moves to help small business owners cut their tax bills 1 min read

7 year-end moves to help small business owners cut their tax bills

iwano@_84 2 years ago

You still have time to significantly reduce this year’s business income tax bill. Here are seven yearend moves to consider. But you’ll need to act fast. 

Thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), 100% first-year bonus depreciation is available for qualified new and used property that is acquired and placed in service (put into business use) in calendar year 2020. That means your business might be able to write off the entire cost of some or all of your 2020 asset additions on this year’s federal income tax return and maybe on the state return too.

So, consider making additional acquisitions between now and December 31. Contact your tax pro for details on the 100% bonus depreciation break and exactly what types of assets qualify. Hurry! 

2. Claim 100% first-year bonus depreciation for late-breaking real estate qualified improvement property (QIP) expenditures 

The 100% first-year bonus depreciation break is

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Four Tips To Bring Your Small Business Online 1 min read

Four Tips To Bring Your Small Business Online

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Max Yarchevsky is the CEO and Founder at Boxmode, an award-winning website builder operating across over 190 countries.

The question “Do I really need to go online?” can make many entrepreneurs lose their appetite and even sleep. Urged by the media and competitors, some businesses simply can’t say definitively yes to the idea, nor can they drop it entirely. For them, going online is an extremely hard and time-consuming venture with no clear benefits in the foreseeable future. So, it seems easier to drift toward more urgent and familiar things that they know how to approach right now. 

Yet, going online is a must for entrepreneurs wanting to grow their businesses. As much as 59% of the global population are active internet users and this number is growing. The U.S. has witnessed 10 years of e-commerce growth in less than three months in 2020. As many as 17.2

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How Small Business Leaders Can Leverage Digital Marketing To Drive Growth 1 min read

How Small Business Leaders Can Leverage Digital Marketing To Drive Growth

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Zohaib Hassan is the CEO/Founder of SnapWeb Services, an ROI driven, data-obsessed full-services digital marketing agency.

Covid-19 hit the world by surprise and left more than 14 million Americans unemployed with 31% of small and medium-sized businesses having to shut down their doors. Consumer confidence drives the U.S. economy and with uncertainty still on the horizon, business owners should consider the value of their advertising expenditures.

The Current State Of Affairs

According to Facebook’s State of Small Business Report, the hospitality and service industry took the hardest hit across all sectors (43%) and wellness, fitness, and other professional services followed close behind (41%). Surprisingly the retail industry wasn’t nearly as affected with 23% of businesses not operating.

When asked about their cash flows within the past 30 days it was clearly evident that cash outflow is greater than their inflow. This has led many business owners to turn

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What happens when a small business owner dies 1 min read

What happens when a small business owner dies

iwano@_84 2 years ago

Can the company continue without its owner? What is the standard next step when something like this happens? It’s weighing on our consciences, and we know the owner would never have wanted to leave these customers high and dry.

Karla: If starting a business is about making a name for yourself, succession planning is often about whom you trust to carry on that name. But more than that, succession planning is “a continuing responsibility that you owe to employees and customers,” says Declan Leonard, attorney and partner at business law firm Berenzweig Leonard. As you’re seeing, even owners of small businesses “can really impact a lot of lives by not taking this responsibility seriously.”

The good news, Leonard says, is that even if your late boss’s family has no interest in running the business, “everyone’s interests are aligned” in dispensing with it quickly and properly: “Employees want to get paid;

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