The Woolworths brand has been relaunched as an online retailer after being bought by Daily Telegraph owners, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay.

The much-loved High Street chain went into administration (bankruptcy) in November and its more than 800 stores closed last January after struggling with debts of £385m.

The brands were bought by Shop Direct Group, owned by the Barclay twins, for an undisclosed sum.

They will sit alongside their other online retailers, including Great Universal and Marshall Ward.

The new outlet, accessible at Woolworths.co.uk, offers goods including toys, kidswear and Woolies’ famous Pic n’ Mix confectionary.

The new website was launched on June 25th, and an estimated 20,000 users are believed to have registered with the site shortly after it launched.

A blog has also been launched at WooliesHQ.co.uk. The blog introduces the Woolworths team to customers, and users are encouraged to register to become a member of the VIF club - that’s “Very Important Families”, a free membership scheme through which Woolies will offer exclusive perks.

The company’s chief executive Mark Newton-Jones said he was confident about Woolworths’ future.

“This is great news and we are confident that Woolworths, as an online brand, will once again prosper and quite rightly stay at the heart of British retailing.”

This is a classic tale of how a bricks and mortar business is using the power of the Internet to gain an advantage. In this case, the bricks and mortar business went bust (collapsed), and a pure online business has been born out of the ashes.

Over the past year, a lot of British retailers experienced serious financial turmoil bought on by the economic recession. Quite a few of them went under. The success of Woolworths.co.uk will be proof that the future of any business could depend on their ebusiness strategies.

Woolworths first opened its doors in the UK 100 years ago this year. The move would revive the brand for future generations. The old way of doing things gives way to the new.

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While some people are focused on selling just domain names, there are people that carefully select one domain name and develop it into a super brand.

This is where the money is, period. If you build the brand, you will make money while the brand is still popular, and if you sell it, well, you could even make much more.

This is what Simon Calver did. He has put his online DVD rental business LoveFilm.com up for sale for an estimated £200m ($327M).

Calver made his mark at Dell Computers before becoming the boss of DVD online rental firm Video Island, which merged with LoveFilm in 2006.

Calver has built LoveFilm.com into Europe’s largest online DVD rental company, with over 1.2 million subscribers. With a seven per cent stake in the business, he stands to make £14m ($23) from the sale if it goes for the estimated £200m.

The remainder of the business is owned by Amazon, Balderton, Index, DFJ Esprit, European Venture Partners and a number of business moguls.

The business has grown rapidly since its inception six years ago and has recently received a number of bid approaches. It has hired Jefferies, an investment bank, to advise on the bids and work on a possible sale.

Lovefilm, with 1.2m members, has become the market leader in mail-order film rental. It has bought out most of its rivals, including a deal last year to acquire the European rentals operations of Amazon, the internet retailer, for £63m ($103m).

Lovefilm’s latest accounts, due to be published shortly, are expected to show that the group generated turnover in 2008 of £73m ($119m). It is understood to be on course for more than £100m ($163m) this year.

Do you have £200m to spare? This is definitely one ebusiness I would seriously consider buying!

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If you understand the term “there is no smoke without fire”, then you will understand this blog post.

I believe more and more domainers are now realising that quality domain names are now the order of the new domain day. Domain parking is now showing some slight recovery, but still a very long way to go. However regardless of any recovery, I believe domainers now realise that end-users are only interested in premium domains.

Domainers owning premium domain names that are not performing well with domain parking will try and approach end-users in an effort to make a sale. This is a clever idea. But…

I offer consultancy services to quite few businesses. Some are non-profit organisations while some are startups by friends etc.. When I am approached to give my input or to come on board, as an accountant, I automatically become more interested in the business plan.

Without a concrete business plan, especially in these hard economic times, the idea is nothing more than a fantasy or even a joke.

Almost in every country, there is a very high failure rate amongst small businesses. There are quite a few reasons for this. Many blame this on the lack of capital or access to borrowings. However, in my opinion, it is mostly down to the lack of a well thought out and structured business plan.

Anyway, lets get back to websites. I am literally confused by the number of startups today that are still trying to do business the old-fashioned way. They just want to set up shop, and if there were any form of advertising to be done, it would be through traditional media.

I spent so much time in so many meetings preaching the gospel of Internet marketing. I try to let these people realise that if they establish a web presence, not only would they cut cost, but they would reach far more people, and have much less work to do.

It is 2009. Websites were important in 1999, and even more so now. If you are serious about business, then you have to be serious about ebusiness. You can’t leave a web presence out of your business plan.

Now, if end-users don’t get the importance of having a website, they surely won’t “get” domain names. You can’t have the smoke without the fire.

Educate end-users about the need for a website, get them hooked, and then you can start preaching the gospel of domain strategies. Because all you really have to do is let them know how the right domain name will enhance their web presence and earn them more credibility in their respective niche.

Everyday we have some sort of breaking news of some sort. Some are great while some are tragic and terrible. However, no matter what the news is, as long as it it is popular there will surely be a bunch of domain squatters and/or speculators hoping to cash in on the news of the day.

Whether it is some shooting in a high school, the outbreak of swine flu or even the overnight celebrity status of ordinary people such as Susan Boyle, there will always be a rush to secure domains that are related to the news.

Most of these domains registered by these squatters or speculators will most likely infringe on trademarks, while some are so clueless, the registrants should prosecuted for their stupidity.

On the other hand though, sometimes things work the other way around. There will be a breaking news or some famous person such as a politician or celebrity will say something on TV that will become an instant catch phrase. This phrase could end up sending a wave of unexpected traffic to your domain name or ebusiness website if it is related to what was said.

Do you remember the “Joe The Plumber” tag line in the 2008 US Presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain? The mention of “Joe The Plumber” sent the website traffic through the roof for JoeThePlumber.com.

The funny thing is, JoeThePlumber.com was not a fantastic website in my opinion. If I remember correctly, it was just a small business website offering plumbing service, and was perhaps just a sole trader operation.

This would mean that with all the traffic that the website got overnight, they were not prepared to best utilise it. How many plumbing jobs can one person do within a day, week or month?

The website may have got the exposure, but they were not structured to fully utilise this priceless resource. Now imagine if they were an affiliate website selling plumbing materials, ebooks or other any other form of digital product?

Suppose they were selling something that almost every average Joe would want to buy? Suppose their website was properly designed, looked professional and ready to process orders on the fly?

Joe The Plumber, the website owner that is, would be a millionaire by now.

Now lets look at Susan Boyle. If you are connected to the Internet or have access to big satellite or cable networks then you most likely would have heard the name Susan Boyle by now. You can Google the name if you don’t know who she is.

SusanBoyle.com has become the new centre of attention for many. The website is being used to showcase art/paintings by another woman with the same name. The owner is not infringing on anyone’s rights as she is using her very own name.

No one could wrestle the domain name from her. So, all she would have to focus on is reaping the profits.

I am not a crazy art lover, but I do appreciate art. I spent a few thousand pounds in recent years to acquire a few paintings for my home. However, with that been said, I don’t think I would be interested in the artwork being showcased at SusanBoyle.com. Not for me.

Art, like domain names have their huge following and their very own big spenders. As a matter of fact, there are much bigger spenders in the art market. Do I think the website was prepared for this exposure? No.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have read recently that Susan Boyle has not as yet sold any paintings since the spotlight was turned on to her website. This is unconfirmed, so please don’t quote me here.

Again, this is not a niche that would appeal to the masses. In my opinion, all the traffic and publicity is most likely going to be wasted.

Susan Boyle, the painter is now offering up SusanBoyle.com for sale at a $25,000 price tag, and is now in the process of changing her business website to SBoyleArt.com.

Not a good move in my opinion, and anyone buying this domain name will be making a mistake unless their name is also Susan Boyle.

No matter what you are selling online, you can easily prepare your website to benefit from this kind of overnight worldwide exposure. You can add Google Adsense ads, banner ads, affiliate ads and/or cross sell other products and services that would appeal to the wider public.

A simple banner ad to a hot affiliate product that pays high commission would be enough.

eBusiness success starts with a quality domain name and you are more likely to succeed much faster with a premium domain name. Check out our domain marketplace today for some great domains to brand your ebusiness with.

Is your ebusiness build on a solid rock or is it build on sinking sand? Do you have a concrete plan or, are you just doing random things with the hope that one day you will strike it lucky?

A lot of people say that they want to succeed, but deep down they are lying to themselves. In high school, our motto was “Success is the result of hard work“.

You cannot cheat success, you really have to put in the hours and work hard. Some may say, well, you can work smart, instead of hard. There is no problem with that. However, in my experience, when one works smart, it may only bring short-term success, rather than long term gain.

I was reading the sales page for an ebook some years ago. In his sales pitch the author said that the Internet is a real gold mine. This is true. This really a fact.

However, have you seen any of those movies with plots centered around gold and precious stone mines, such as Blood Diamond? Sometimes the people mining the gems are not the ones who get rich. The ones actually doing the mining often end up getting burnt!

In your ebusiness efforts, you want to ensure that you are the one that makes money, and that all of your hard work will be rewarded.

There are a lot of “business opportunities” flying about out there on the Internet. Some of them are just mere ponzi/pyramid schemes. The only persons profiting are those that got in early or created the schemes in the first place.

Don’t get caught in those MLM and/or business-on-autopilot traps. The majority of them do not work. People are sick and tired of them, and quite frankly the competition for new recruits is extremely high.

Any business opportunity that relies heavily on gaining recruits in order to reap success will normally end up in failure.

Focus on product/service driven ebusinesses. You may hate selling, but you have a much less chance of been burnt.

I have read so many times, “if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is”. Don’t fall for these fly-by-night get-rich-quick schemes. You can make a ton of cash on the Internet, legally and ethically.

However, you will have to work hard. Really hard. If you are not prepared to work hard, then you should consider keeping your day job and kissing your boss’s ass so that you have a good chance at that promotion.

There is no shortcut to success. You may employ some smart moves that make things a little easier, but you will need to show dedication and be committed to your business.

Now there are quite a few ways to make money on the Internet. What will be easy for you will be extremely hard for someone else. We all have different talents, aptitudes and things that we enjoy doing.

In the next coming weeks, I will be writing a series of blog posts aimed at showing some simple ways in which you can make money online with your website. Stay tuned.

Remember, eBusiness success starts with a quality domain name. We have thousands of high quality premiums domains for sale on the eBusinessDomains.com marketplace. You may also want to subscribe to our domain newsletter, where we occasionally send out exclusive domain deals.