Marketing - Businessweek

Your Small Business Questions, Answered

Send us your questions on challenges you face in your business. Journalist Karen E. Klein will interview experts and distill their insights into answers.

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Advice

Fashioning a Textile Business From Scratch
First determine what your product line will be and which companies make similar items
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Profiles

Local Farmers Go Online to Sell Direct to Chefs
Rather than rely on a food distributor or farmers' market, chefs seeking local ingredients can now buy them directly from farmers online
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Profiles

For 'Eco Flippers,' There's Green in Foreclosed Homes
Renovators profit from energy retrofits of foreclosed houses
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Advice

Don't Let 'Showrooming' Sabotage Your Shop
Here are ways to discourage those customers who try out products in the store and then purchase them online
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Advice

Trying to Maintain Your Online Reputation
It's nearly impossible to squelch negative online material. A good-faith, public effort to deal with the problem may turn detractors into advocates
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Profiles

An Italian Oven Maker Expands Amid the Euro Crisis
Italy's Bertazzoni, a 130-year-old manufacturer, has thrived by selling luxury kitchen appliances in its new U.S. market. Now it's betting on the BRICs—and Europe
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Advice

Making the Web's Subscription Economy Hum
As online ventures embrace subscriptions to sell products that range from condoms to clothing, they're outsourcing billing and other chores
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Advice

How Social Media Is Changing CRM
New customer relationship management tools are letting companies communicate with customers rather than just thrust messages at them
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Profiles

Can a Margarita in a Pouch Weather Bud's Margarita in a Can?
The New Orleans maker of Cordina Mar-GO-rita enjoyed a startup fairy tale. Then Anheuser-Busch launched Bud Light Lime Lime-A-Rita
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Profiles

The Gas Station of the Future Just Opened
Propel Fuels is using more than $20 million in grants and $19 million in venture capital to build 100 alternative-fuel filling stations across California
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Advice

The Latest Domain-Name Gold Rush
A initiative to introduce new top-level domains has spurred thousands of businesses and individuals to apply to control a piece of digital turf
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Profiles

A 'Solopreneur' Makes Sleep Pay
Outsource, instead of hiring employees. Don't monkey with a proven product. Work from home. The founder of a $3 million monitoring-device business describes his strategies
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Policy

Small U.S. Oyster Farms Are on the Rise
On the Atlantic seaboard, a revival in small-scale oyster farming
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Profiles

Walking Shoes That Spy on Grandma
Two small U.S. companies recently launched a line of footwear that uses a GPS device embedded in the heel to track seniors
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Profiles

Monetizing Which Way the Wind Blows
Weather Underground recently released a tool to help businesses find patterns in their sales
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