Since PayPal began this practice, they have had a lot of questions about it from sellers, and hoping to clear up some confusion, Bill Clark, an analyst with PayPal’s risk team offered the following explanation on the PayPal Blog:

To determine when to place a reserve, we look at a number of factors that may increase the risk of chargebacks or reversals – things like industry categories that have higher-than-average chargebacks, or sellers who are new to PayPal (where we’ve historically seen a higher instance of chargebacks or reversals). We reassess risk factors periodically, and if we determine that the risk has gone down in certain seller segments, we will release the reserve.

Here’s an example to put it in perspective. If a merchant sells $2,500 per month, and has a 5%, 30-day rolling reserve, then about $125 per month will be held in reserve. This equals about $4 per day being held and released 30 days later. If the seller is enrolled in the PayPal Money Market Fund, then this money will continue to earn interest while it’s in reserve.

PayPal does this to help make sure that money is always available in sellers’ accounts to cover payment reversals/chargebacks that may occur. Otherwise, the seller may not have enough to cover them in their balances. If that were to happen, PayPal would be liable for reimbursing a buyer’s money.

Clearly, this could add up quickly. The reserves are there basically as an insurance policy protecting PayPal’s bottlom line. What are your thoughts on PayPal’s policy? Are you one of the less-than-1-percent? Comment here.

Big areas of growth in online job demand were the utilities industry (which registered the largest monthly increase), education, training, and library occupations, and healthcare. The biggest gains on a yearly scale, however, come with the public administration and agricultural industries. Farming, fishing and forestry had the sharpest decline for the month, while information, professional, scientific, and technical services saw the sharpest year-to-year decline.

"On the upside, the Index’s overall annual growth rate remained steady, suggesting no major change in underlying nationwide demand for labor compared to July," stated Jesse Harriott, Vice President of Research at Monster Worldwide.

The Index over the past year

While online job demand in all nine U.S. Census Bureau regions was down for the year, seven out of those nine saw growth over the month. The biggest growth came from the West North Central region. This is attributed to the aftermath of flooding. Online job demand increased in 40 states and the District of Columbia. At the city level, the Index monitors 28 U.S. metro areas. Eight of those saw an increase in online recruitment activity. Boston showed the biggest increase, and San Diego saw a nice one as well.

The Index has a ways to go before it reaches where it was a year ago, but this might be the beginning of an upward trend.

Then there are the human-edited ones that tend to be more useful, but are aimed more at the submitter promoting their business than they really are towards the user who is there to find information. Often times these directories offer paid links, further proving that they are really there for promotional purposes.

Why can’t a directory be there to be simply that – a directory? A directory of useful information to the common person who wants to find helpful resources.

"Who needs one of those when we have Google, Yahoo, and so many other search engines," you might ask. Quite frankly, no matter how much emphasis search engines put on relevancy, let’s face it. If you want to find a collection of useful resources on a particular topic, you will be left wading through pages and pages to come up with them.

Since you are obviously a WebProNews reader, there’s no question that you’re interested in eBusiness, and that is why we are introducing the eBusiness Directory, a directory that is dedicated to indexing only useful links to sites within the niche of eBusiness. This directory is a single place to find all of the resources you need to successfully run any aspect of an online business, from marketing to programming.

Like all directories, it is a work in progress. We are open to submissions, but only sites that we feel will be truly beneficial to you – the user, will make the cut. We aren’t selling any links. The eBusiness Directory will not sell out. We are dedicated to keeping this thing as useful as possible, and not cluttered with a bunch of junk.

It will be very strictly human-edited. Do not expect your link to appear in the directory unless it is truly top-notch. There are boxes throughout the directory containing hand-picked links to sites we feel will be valuable to the user, but even these are not paid. Submission is 100% free.

Due to the fact that the directory indexes only sites under the eBusiness niche, and because we are focusing on quality, the amount of listings will be limited. We see that as a good thing.  Some directories, like the old Yahoo! Directory for example, are often useful at first, but become less useful as they are bombarded with submissions, but that is the beauty of keeping this one related to a niche.

Don’t think it will be too limited, though. There are many sub-categories within the niche of eBusiness, and we intend for this directory to cater to all of them, and like all directories it is a work in progress and will continue to expand.

To aid the expansion of the directory, please feel free to leave us feedback. I will personally read it, and suggestions will be considered by myself and the WebProNews team of designers and developers.

If you feel that your site is truly of use and a cut above the rest, please submit it.  If you want to find good information on eBusiness, go to the eBusiness Directory at directory.webpronews.com, bookmark it, check back often for updates, and most of all, USE IT!

Not that this information comes as much of a surprise, but it is probably a tactic that many businesses still are not using.

The Research Shows…

A study conducted by the Magazine Publishers of America shares this info along with statistics that show that readers of magazines in the Travel, Home and Women’s categories tend to drive more readers from the magazine to the web.

Think About the Actual URL

For a print ad to inspire web traffic, the URL itself can play a tremendous role in whether or not it even gets visited.

Helen Leggatt at BizReport suggests using fresh, unique URLS "perhaps per campaign or even per publication" to generate interest. As an example, she mentions a recent Burger king campaign utilizing the haveityourway.com domain.

I would suggest at the very least using a memorable, easily spelled domain name like I talked about in this SmallBusinessNewz article.

Don’t Overlook the Strategy

The concept of inclusion of a web address in offline marketing is also something I’ve stressed before for encouraging more customers to turn to the web, particularly for brick and mortar business looking to expand their online identities. It’s a no-brainer for those businesses who exist strictly online that are already seeking print advertising.

Think about print ads that have inspired you to find a company’s website. What was it about the ad that made you want to learn more by way of the Internet? Odds are it was probably the URL there pointing the way.

That is according to IAB, who published PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Internet Advertising Report earlier this month. That is also 26% higher than the previous year.

Why such a  huge jump? IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg attributes it to "the continued vitality of interactive".

"Explosive innovation in the industry is providing marketers with new and unique ways to reach consumers – it’s a very exciting time," he says.

I won’t disagree with that, and certainly the momentum that online video has been gaining plays a role, but let’s not totally discount the online advertising methods that have been here for years (not that the report didn’t include them), and don’t look to be going away anytime soon.

Banner advertising for example. Yeah, I said it. Love banner ads or hate them, they still can prove quite effective if executed well. Just ask Google or Microsoft or Facebook or countless other big names.

How about email advertising? The same principles apply.

When consumers are spending more of their time online than ever (even to the point of addiction in some cases), more people have high speed Internet access than ever, and people begin to do more of their shopping online if for no other reason than to save on the insane price of gas, it only stands to reason that Internet advertising will continue to flourish.

Of course there is the whole DVR/Tivo (which I believe is becoming more popular as well) advertising concern, so as it gets harder to get through to consumers through television programs, other options start to appear more viable.

I will not be surprised this time next year to see that online ad revenue has jumped even further. Besides with old Internet advertising trends still prevalent and newer ones in the mix, there is still room for more to show up over the next year.

What kinds of ad trends to you expect to see over the next year and what kind of impact do you expect them to have on revenue?