When you maintain a business online, you should never run out of ideas of how to get people to continuously visit your site for updates on new products or for repeat business.

Many people are still having second thoughts about buying from online stores for fear of being scammed. This is why that new customer who just bought his first one from your eBay store is very important.

If you could keep this newbie within reach every time, you get a good chance of getting a sale from him again – or better yet, he can refer you to his network of friends and associates, which is a better deal for you.

So, how would you make this newbie not forget about you and his shopping experience with you? Enter the power of freebies. This is such a powerful tool for marketing any kind of product or service because everyone loves getting free items – tangible or not.

As long as they feel they have received something extra with the purchase they made, these buyers will feel special and they will remember.

Little tokens can be inserted in any packages you send to buyers and these will go a long way. This may eat up some of your cash but you can think of it as an investment. You can always use this cost to reduce your tax bill anyway.

The return on this minimal investment will be huge eventually as you continue to build your base of happy, loyal buyers.

You can send them small items or samplers of your products and just put some stickers there to remind them about your website. Simple tokens will do – the premium promotional items like pens, pencils, or magnets will have to wait until your business is big enough to accommodate them.

Aside from items, you can send them ebooks and articles they can appreciate - those, which will be interesting and compelling and will have a link to your site of course.

With the frustrating scenario at the stock market and with the current crisis really making a huge impact on the wholesale and distribution industry, could there be a way around to make things a bit easier?

Industry experts say that competition should be set aside these days and every one in the supply chain should start cooking up ways to build value-add services for the buyers together. The operative word here is together.

These companies, from the manufacturer, to the wholesalers, to the distributors, and to the retailers, should all work together in making sure that all of them stay afloat no matter what.

In collaborative efforts, the companies will learn how to deal with the increasing crunch and how this constricts the cash flow in their businesses.

There is hope in making value-add service for each other that they can pass along to the buyers, who will get to appreciate it at the end of the chain.

Wholesalers and distributors should work together in keeping their inventory levels at its optimum. Much of the funds or business capital are shackled to the existing inventories.

They should be able to assist each other in keeping things moving along the entire supply chain until the products reach their final destinations at the customer endpoint.

Steps can be taken to provide multiply solutions for the end-user, which cannot be done solely by the retailer. The retailer would need the help and support of the distributors and of course, the manufacturers will have to be the ultimate source of support.

Once the whole system collaborates, the crisis will not be so tragic at all, because there could be new opportunities waiting for everyone in terms of minimal returns or profits and valuable business experience.

In 2007, about 71% of online retailers delivered their merchandises to their buyers for free if they reach a minimum quantity or amount.

About 37% of these ecommerce sites have delivered goods for free unconditionally. Since buyers got spoiled that way, they expect the same offers come Christmas season on 2008, when they are expected to do their online shopping again.

But, online sellers cannot accommodate the same amenities anymore because of the market slowdown and the lingering economic crisis. So what can they do now? Be more creative – that’s one. Here are some other things they can do too:

• Maintain the minimum purchased amount required for the free shipping, or increase it. The regular buyers will still welcome the discounts but they will get a little disappointed that there was a better deal for them last year.

• Work on other marketing promotions instead of the free shipping if it is not really viable. Transportation costs continue to be high for freight services so that could really kill one’s margins if they insist on offering free shipping.

• Lower the price-spread or give small discounts to those who opt for 2-day shipping or express overnight freight.

• Do some creative and unique product bundling, which could help buyers minimize their shopping routines. This will encourage the buyers to buy more, therefore subtly pushing them to the minimum amount for free shipping. This helps the retailer retain a good margin while still satisfying the whims of the buyers.

• Create loyalty programs to build a group of active and regular buyers from whom you can get regular business with. This will encourage repeat business or repeat sales, which is good for the retailer.

During her 12/17/08 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Scarlett Johansson blamed her cold on The Spirit co-star Samuel L. Jackson, saying she caught it from him.

She believed that for this reason her cold had some “value.” During her appearance on The Tonight Show, she blew her nose into a tissue provided by Jay Leno.

All proceeds of this sale will benefit USA Harvest, the charity of Scarlett Johansson’s choice.

This Scarlett Johansson image from DailyNews

Click here to view actual Ebay auction here for Scarlett Johansson’s Used Tissue.

An MRI brain scan of a 42-year-old woman shows an image of Virgin Mary.

This woman without insurance and mounting medical bills plans to sell this MRI scan of her brain in which the image of the Virgin Mary seems to appear.

Pamela Latrimore has been sick for years with cancer, arthritis and a series of serious ailments she blames on a childhood in Jacksonville, Ark., a place that has been investigated by the U.S. government for possible dioxin exposure. Dioxin is a toxic chemical linked to a variety illnesses including cancer and liver problems.

In 2002, Latrimore had an MRI of her brain done and the results were stashed in her thick pile of medical records. Her sister-in-law looked at the sheet recently and pointed out what appeared to be the image of the Virgin Mary.

Having seen where other supposed images of Mary or other religious icons were sold for thousands of dollars, Latrimore plans to post the MRI scan on eBay, the online auction site.

Latrimore’s scan, viewed 21,977 times on eBay, was won by an anonymous California bidder Tuesday night.

The $730 is to be used to start a non-profit organization to aid other people sickened in her hometown, said Latrimore, noting her own medical bills now exceed more than $100,000.

Source: TCPalm and UPI

(Now I wanna go dig all my MRI brain scans and see if I can recognise any Virgin Mary there…)