If I were to sell something online what site would I choose???

It all depends on what I am selling. If I was selling the handmade necklaces that we talked about in class then I would definitely go with Etsy. Etsy seems more suitable for handmade items. You could sell handmade goods, vintage items, or other supplies. The necklace would also be easier to find on Etsy than on other sites such as Ebay and Amazon. If I was selling something that was more popular and in high demand  like electronics, then I would probably use Ebay or Amazon. The pricing information is easier to find on Amazon and Etsy websites then Ebay. This will have an impact on my choice as well. Going back to the discussion we had in class, I think the lady should sell her items on Etsy. It looks like it would be a good fit.

True Online Business Blog

The online business that I decided to blog about would be chegg. Chegg is a wonderful website that college students will love. It allows you to rent or buy textbooks. The textbooks are priced at reasonable prices. I personally get my books from chegg instead of buying them from the bookstore. I have saved money this way. They also buy textbooks as well. This is a good way to get money for your books. They also provide study help which will answer any questions pertaining to any information in the book. They provide other services as well. This is the ultimate website for academics.


http://www.chegg.com/

Credit Card Payments with Smartphones

I think that the square card reader is a really cool device. I do not think it would be a good situation for the bobcat box.  Square up chargers 2.75 per swipe. It would not be practical for the bobcat box to use it right now seeing how they are a discount store and majority of their items are $5 or less. The Intuit GoPayment is very similar to square up. One big advantage is that they sync with quickbooks. The price is also a little cheaper being 2.70 per swipe.

Chapter 7 is about  accepting payments online. The main focus of this chapter is anticipating your online customer's purchasing needs, applying for credit card merchant status, finding shortcuts to processing credit card data, providing shoppers with electronic purchasing systems, and delivering your products and services.

Host Recommendation

The current host that the Banner Elk Presbyterian Church is using is HostGator. They offer unlimited web hosting. It starts at $3.96 per month. They have alot of good deals. If they do not wish to continue using this host, another hosting site that I would recommend would be justhost.com. It is a little cheaper with $3.75 per month. It offers pretty much the same features that HostGator offers, but what caught my attention was the website transfer feature. The website transfer feature allows you to easily switch web hosts. They offer free domain transfer and free domain name registration. It the church does decide to switch web hosts and they go to justhost.com, it will allow them to transfer their website without much difficulty at all.

Banner Elk Presbyterian Church Pictures

Weekly Assignment Blog 4

I thought long and hard about a name that you can use on facebook. I see that you already came up with one, but the names that I thought of were sundrop, Tinkerbell, pixie, and sky. I also attended the study abroad fair that we had to attend last week. It was very informative. I never really considered going abroad. I talked with some representatives from different organizations. One organization ISA (International Studies Abroad) has graduate school options. This one interested me the most. Here are some pictures I took from the fair.

Digital Signatures

http://www.arx.com/digital-signatures-faq

A digital signature takes the concept of traditional paper-based signing and turns it into an electronic fingerprint or stamp. This coded message, is unique to both the document and the signer and binds both of them together. Digital signatures help organizations sustain signer authenticity, accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of electronic documents and forms. Many people want to know how safe are digital signatures. This website suggests that digital signatures are more safer than handwritten signatures because any changes made to an electronically signed document are clearly indicated and will immediately invalidate the signature, thereby protecting against forgery. Personally, I would be very hesitant by using digital signatures. Technology is so advanced today it would be hard for me to believe that digital signatures cannot be copy and pasted and used with other documents. Digital signatures are very popular with many companies but I personally would be very cautious when using them.

Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter 2 gives you steps to opening your own online business. Before you create your business, it is important to understand your market and see how you can meet their needs. You have to have information about your competitors, customers, culture, and context. The products that you sell have to be cheap, customized, convenient, and compelling. It is important to make your site unique so people will want to go to it. Another step that is important is determining what you have to offer. You have to have a cyberbusiness plan. A business plan is essential to any business that is trying to start out. After you have your business plan, it is time to find a host for your website. The web host makes your site available 24 hours a day by maintaining it on a web server. Once you have a web host you have to chose a business software. These different software's make it easier for you to format your website. You may have to consult and work with people to help get your website established. When creating a website, the main things to remember is to keep your site content-rich, establish a graphic identity, list your website with search engines, and make sure to always keep your data updated.

Analysis of Church Websites

After taking a look at Banner Elk Presbyterian Church website and comparing it to my church Friendship Missionary Baptist Church website, I came up with some comparisons.

Banner Elk Presbyterian Church- http://bepresbyterian.org/
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church- http://www.friendshipcharlotte.org/

The strengths of my church's website is that it it very colorful and the information is well organized. Everything that you would want to know about the church can be easily accessed. There are also links where you can make online payments or pledges and sign up to receive text alerts from the church. The text alerts will keep the younger members more involved of the activities that will be going on. I really did not see many weaknesses to the website. One suggestion that I do have is that there should be a link that allows you to watch services from previous weeks. That will definitely be an improvement to the website.

One strength of the Banner Elk Presbyterian Church website is that the information is organized. You can easily see how the church operates. Some weaknesses that I noticed is that the website is not very colorful and inviting. It is also hard to find some of the links. It is not very appealing. The website probably does contain all the information that they need, it just needs to be presented in a more creative way. There are many improvements that can be made to the website like the color scheme, layout, and adding more pictures. These improvements will make the website much more inviting.