If you sell on eBay, you could soon be in for a better experience thanks to a new partnership with Sellbrite. And that’s not the only announcement from the past week that could positively impact small businesses. Freshbooks also unveiled a new user interface that should make the platform easier to use.
There are even more small business headlines from the past week included below in this week’s Small Business Trends news and information roundup.
Small Business Operations
eBay and Sellbrite Partner to Offer Sellers Better Online Selling Experience
eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) recently announced a new partnership this time with Sellbrite, a multi-channel ecommerce inventory and order management solution provider, to offer eBay sellers another free service and better online selling experience across multiple channels.
Freshbooks New User Interface Makes Small Business Accounting ‘Ridiculously Easy,’ Company Says
FreshBooks, the cloud accounting software designed for service-based small businesses and solo entrepreneurs, today announced the launch of an entirely rebuilt user interface (UI) designed to make managing invoices, clients and expenses faster and easier. The platform is also expanding its ecosystem of integrations and adding companies such as Google, GoDaddy and Apple.
Tesla Hackers Prove the Importance of Product Testing (Watch)
With great technology comes great responsibility. That’s what Tesla and other high-tech car companies are learning now that they’re working on creating autonomous vehicles and other technologically advanced driving features. A group of hackers recently tested whether or not they could access into Tesla vehicles from miles away — and they were successful.
Riot Launches Introducing Open Source Encrypted Collaboration for Business
The ability to securely communicate in real-time is a key feature of today’s collaborative work environment. Riot, a secure messaging solution designed to bring online collaborations into a single space, has just launched promising to make this as simple and effortless as possible.
Help desk software provider Groove just announced a partnership with Olark to offer a live chat app to its small business customers. Now, instead of switching between two apps to deliver customer service, the integration creates an all-in-one help desk and live chat solution. This is not the first time Groove has included live chat as part of its product lineup.
Chipotle is still trying to bounce back after those norovirus and E. coli outbreaks that hurt the company’s sales over the past year. So far, the company has given away free burritos, started a rewards program and even offered free drinks to students after classes. But none of those efforts have been able to get the food chain’s sales back to where they were.
Employment
These Jobs at Small Businesses Are the Least In Demand
Data recently surfaced about which jobs and positions at small businesses across the U.S. are in high demand. Small businesses have added tremendous amounts of help in the transportation and material moving categories in the last few years. But it seems automation of a lot of small business operations have led to a decline in the demand for the people that used to fill those jobs.
More Small Businesses to Offer Retirement Plans Thanks to Obamacare, says Nationwide
For years, businesses have offered healthcare benefits to recruit and retain talent. But the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has lessened the appeal of such benefits. As a result, small businesses are now focusing on retirement benefits, a new study has found.
Finance
BizEquity Partners with Equifax in a Bid to Democratize Business Valuations
What is your business worth? Do you have any idea? BizEquity, an online provider of business valuation big data, recently announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Equifax (NYSE: EFX), an information solutions and global insights provider, to help answer this very question.
Is the IRS Targeting Small Businesses? Yep, Says One Expert
The “random” audits of small businesses and their owners’ tax returns by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to find unreported income has left the small business taxpaying community feeling like they are being picked on and unduly forced to go “through the wringer.”
Retail Trends
H&M Ignores Underserved Market by Pulling Plus Size Clothing from Stores (Watch)
Popular retail chain H&M has reportedly removed all plus size clothing from its stores in New York City. A representative for the company explained that the stores simply don’t have enough room for those clothing options anymore since they’ve added new product lines like home goods and beauty supplies.
Closet organization isn’t most people’s idea of a fun activity. But that’s why so many consumers need assistance in that area. Shoppers in Michigan and online can find some of the essential products they might need to organize their closets and other spaces in their homes at Organize-It.
Social Media
Watch Out! YouTube Calls On Users to Help Enforce Community Guidelines
YouTube is encouraging and “empowering” its users to “flag” content that does not meet the site’s community guidelines, while also offering more transparency on how its flagging feature works.
20 Things You Should Know About New 140 Second Video on Vine And Twitter
While companies better known for online video have been duking it out for supremacy in the field, Twitter and Vine have been quietly innovating. Earlier this summer, Twitter announced extended lengths of Vine and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) video uploads to 140 seconds. Here are a few things you should know about the increased video length.
Startup
SCORE and Sam’s Club Announce 2016 American Small Business Championship $25K Grand Prize Winner
SCORE, a nonprofit organization that provides mentorship and education to small business owners, and Sam’s Club, the nationwide wholesaler club which also serves many small businesses, recently announced the winners, or Champions, as they call them, of the 2016 American Small Business Championship.
How Startup Investors Can Take Advantage of the International Entrepreneur Rule
The Obama Administration has proposed amending the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations (PDF) to allow select foreign entrepreneurs to stay in the United States for a period of two years to build their companies here.
Image capturing technology has evolved so much, near professional grade solutions are readily available on smartphones. But no matter how good the technology is on a mobile device, standalone cameras are still the way to go if you really want full professional grade features.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has announced plans to shut down Skype’s London offices. Up to 400 staff members could be made redundant as part of the move, which will see Skype abandon its three-floor building in Holborn in line with a wider restructuring exercise that will also impact freemium enterprise network Yammer.
Weebly 4 Brings Websites, eCommerce, Email Marketing Together to Focus on Business Growth
DIY website builder Weebly today announced a new version of its platform, Weebly 4, that expands the focus beyond websites and ecommerce and adds a marketing element: email. Weebly 4 builds on the previous version, Carbon, by pairing the ecommerce engine with email marketing that creates campaigns on the fly based on customer actions.
10 Features of Apple’s iOS 10 Small Businesses Need to Know About
The new iOS 10 by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been described by the company as its biggest release yet, and as an operating system with more personal, powerful and playful features. The good thing for small business owners is that the new features would seem to drastically enhance the way you can run your business on your iPhone or iPad.
Is the Mobile App Already Dead? comScore Says We’re Nearing “Peak App” (INFOGRAPHIC)
Barring Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and other hugely successful names, many apps are actually rarely used or even downloaded by mobile device owners. Yet many businesses spend considerable time and resources creating apps to engage customers.
What is AMP and Does Your Small Business Site Need It?
The number of mobile only Internet users in the US exceeded desktop in 2014, and the gap is getting wider. This particular trend hasn’t escaped the notice of Google and Twitter, leading the companies to create the Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP project to make mobile pages much faster.
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