Chemistry.com... Holy Cats

Some of you may remember my testing of eHarmony in Feb 2006 (I can't even be bothered to check the blog archives!). That was something other than else.

This time, I decided to try Chemistry.com. I'm not looking for Mr Right or a serious relationship, but I always hope that if these matching systems are as good as they say, I'll meet people who'd make great friends.

I just don't get this. I really don't. OK, maybe people aren't that serious, and maybe they're not that interested in me. I'm not that interested in them, though I'd like to make friends. But there are some really bizarre things going on here.

This week, a guy tried to tell me he wants a take-charge woman. When I told him I am that but don't want to be that in a relationship because I want an equal relationship, his reply was that he does want an equal relationship. The example he used for an equal relationship. Referring to himself, "I might help out in the kitchen."

Are you freaking kidding me? That implies that I'm cooking and sometimes you'll help out? And that's equal? If you want a take-charge woman, you are probably not looking for something really equal... or you would have said that in the first place. :)

I picked like 7 guys so far who I'd like to communicate with and see if they're out of their minds or not. Only one responded. Seemed like a nice guy who'd have some things in common with me. Said he wanted to go out. Sure, I'll go out. Gave me his number. I called and got voice mail. I left a message saying we should plan something. Never heard back... that was like 2 weeks ago. I hope he's OK! But barring an emergency, I'll say that this doesn't look very good for what I would want in a friend (forget about some sort of date).

The other guys? Didn't respond at all. Not sure if they are logging in. One guy tried to tell me eHarmony was better, but my experiences there were WORSE. I am not sure if they've changed this, but in 2006, eHarmony treated me not wanting kids as a preference that wasn't really important to me. So even though I flagged everything I could as "I don't have kids, I don't want kids, and this is 100% important to me," they sent me people who had kids and wanted kids. That's a major FAIL. I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than to have kids or have to deal with someone else's kids, even adult children.

So Chemistry.com, I paid for a month to check you out, and I will be cancelling in about a week so you don't charge me again. I didn't expect to find love. I wasn't looking for a husband. And maybe because of that, I have really high standards.But then again, I know CRAZY when I see it, and I know a dating website that nobody seems to be logging into when I see it.

Chemistry.com, you were better than eHarmony in that you didn't send me piles of people every day who had really BASIC things completely opposite to me. That was good. But that's about it. The rest of these guys don't seem to be logging in. They're not responding to me, they're not archiving me... it's just nothing. You are more expensive than eHarmony, and I don't need that!

I'm not bothering with Match.com (Chemistry.com's big sister). When I looked at it in 2006, the second question is asked was what is your best "part," and "brain" was not a choice. I don't want to be "analysed" for my body parts, thanks!

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Can The Palm Pre Do This?

Well, I bit the bullet yesterday and got the Palm Pre. I was holding out for an HTC Touch Pro 2, and honestly, may still get that when it comes out and return the Palm. There's a lot I like about the Palm, but there is something nice about staying with Windows Mobile and being able to use all my apps. There are very few Palm apps, which is surprising given how long they're been yapping about this phone and how many have sold.

But so far, I would say the Palm interface is very slick, fast and easy to use, I like the multitasking, the screen is lovely... there's a lot I like about it. The gestures (finger motions) make sense, and the keyboard is small, but surprisingly easy to use. The screen seems to like bulky finger presses while I'm used to precise stylus pointing (or fingernail pointing). So since most people HATED precise stylus pointing, you would be happy!

So after 12 hrs of playing with the Pre, here is what I wish it would do. If anybody knows how to do these, please comment in the blog here! Thanks.

• I wish email could delete from server. I'd like to pick up email, junk what is really junk, and when I get back to my computer, NOT see the 30 emails I deleted.
• It seems like many notifications are sound OR vibration. I like both at the same time just about always. Sometimes I'm in a quiet place and can hear the phone. Sometimes, I am singing loudly in my car, and don't hear the phone, but feel the vibration. So the idea or one OR the other is NOT what I'm used to, and I'm worried I will miss things.
• I leave my phone on all night for two reasons: 1) someone might need me and call or text, and 2) it's my alarm clock. So I can't put it into silent or airplane mode since that would kill one of those goals. However, I can't find where to make the Palm stop picking up things like from the internet all night (and making sounds and vibrations when it finds them). I don't know how to get it to STOP picking up my email and tweets, or to at least NOT alert me. The Palm has areas where you can turn on or off Bluetooth and WiFi, but doesn't have an area where you turn off polling the internet (Windows Mobile does).
• There is no really quick way to call my favourite people. I have to go into contacts, find them, call them... I had an app in WinMo that let me dial by pictures, and it was RIGHT on my "desktop." I'd like fewer clicks!
• More custom sounds. I can't change my "you have mail" sound or my "you have a tweet" sound. I'm used to customising all these things in Windows Mobile... down to what SMS tone does a friend get. It's handy... why even pull the phone out if it's THAT guy, which you'd know by sound. :)
• More calendar customisation. I'm used to Outlook (and WinMo) letting me categorise my appointments, and each category can have a colour. So at a quick glance, I know if my day is filled with phone calls, work, or fun personal stuff.
• I'd like to be able to customise my App Launcher. I can move things around, but can't seem to remove things I'll never use like Sprint's NASCAR app. I can't make icons smaller and place them how I want them. I'm used to doing this with WinMo.
• I'd like ALL the IM apps to be available, not just Google Talk and AIM. I am now using Yahoo Messenger a lot, plus I do a crazy amount of Skype typing, and those aren't on here.
• Google Maps should have Latitude. I'd like that back!
• I'd like it to handle DRM subscription music because I use and love Rhapsody with my MP3 player. With the Pre, I was only able to load on tracks I ripped through iTunes. It didn't see the ones I loaded with Rhapsody. Weird.
• The integrations are neat, but I had NO idea that when I put in my Facebook info that you'd make EVERY Facebook friend I have a contact in my phone book. That kinda makes no sense since many of my Facebook friends are eBay sellers who just want to hear what I have to say about eBay. They're not REALLY friends. And when I wanted to remove those people, I was told I can't remove a Facebook friend from my contacts. Well, I'd like to! And I'd like you to know on next sync to NOT add it back!

Many of the things I was doing in WinMo were thanks to outside apps... SPB Pocket Plus let me arrange my interface. SPB Diary made working with my calendar easier. Lonely Cat Games ProfiMail was a great email app that could delete off server. Lonely Cat also made Slick, a multi-IM app. PockeTwit is a better Twitter app, putting my multiple Twitter accounts into one timeline and giving me WAY more features than the Twitter app I found for Palm.

So I feel like 1996 again... I was a Mac user who was a professional website designer/builder. And every time I wanted to use an app, it would say available now for Win95, available next year for Mac. I finally dumped the Mac and got Windows so that I could stay ahead in my own industry. And I feel like that again where every app out there seems to be for iPhone, Blackberry, and/or Windows Mobile... some are even Symbian. And where are the Pre apps!

Will I stay with the Palm for its neato interface, features, and POTENTIAL, or will I just get the HTC Touch Pro 2 when it comes out since it might have many of the same features and interface, but will run all the apps I miss so much. The drawback to the HTC Touch Pro 2? It's not out yet and it's WinMo, which may mean crashing and instability... not good either!

It's really up to app developers. Everything I want has to do with apps, which means apps (and I'd pay for these apps) can do what I need. Better email and IM handling... faster dialing of my most common friends... a better Twitter app... I'm sure these can exist, and if I'd pay for them, maybe 3,000 other Pre users (1%) would. That could be a nice revenue stream for somebody!

Posted at 06:56 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Myths About Recent Sales and Best Match

Even though eBay's communication about how to get Recent Sales momentum in Best Match search results has been clear and consistent, it sounds like some waters have been muddied. People are confused, especially those who received an email from a software service, telling them that if you move to another listing service, you will lose your "Best Match priority placement." Let's dispel this now.

Firstly, why is this important? Part of how eBay calculates where to place you in Best Match has to do with your Recent Sales. Quite simply, if an item that is a Fixed Price 30-day or GTC has a multiple quantity offered, and makes a sale, eBay would bump it higher in search results. The idea is hey, this is the one people are choosing, this must be a good one from a good seller, let's give it more exposure. The better it gets, the better it gets. :)

So you want to do whatever you need to do to KEEP the momentum you can get by making sales from these items. The word from eBay has ALWAYS been that you can keep your Recent Sales by doing these four things when re-listing the item (as of when I'm typing this on 6 July 09):

• Don't change the category.
• Don't change the condition.
• Don't change the title.
• Don't raise the price.

You can lower the price, and you can even change the description. Most importantly, you CAN change listing services. Nowhere in there does it say that you lose Recent Sales ranking if your relist shows up from a different listing tool than before. So thing 1, myth busted!

But something IS going on. Some people who are changing services found that their items sunk in search results, and it appeared that they HAD lost their Recent Sales ranking. What happened?

It seemed that many services had set "relisting" to actually be putting an item freshly on eBay. Huh? Well, think back to auctions. If you ran an item, and it didn't sell, you relisted. If it then sold, you got those insertions fees back. If it didn't sell that 2nd time, you had to list it freshly, and NOT relist so that if it didn't sell again, that 4th listing might qualify for the "free relist." So with most tools having been built back in the day, the system saw a "relist" of a fixed price item as a totally fresh, new list... which was resetting the Recent Sales on that item.

Aha!

So check your listing system to see how they're doing it. I work with InkFrog, and to fix this, you can now choose 1 of 2 ways to relist. One is a regular relist (say you use auctions and are hoping for the old "free relist"). The other choice says something like "relist for best match." This will send your item to eBay as a relist, and if you meet the criteria for NOT breaking your Recent Sales momentum, then you will keep that momentum.

That's why it LOOKED like changing listing companies was hurting Recent Sales, but it turns out that it's more about how the software is submitting that relisted item to eBay. When eBay was seeing these as brand new items, it was resetting Recent Sales. When eBay saw it as a relist, and it met the criteria, you should be able to keep Recent Sales!

We saw clients moving in ALL directions losing Recent Sales... I had a client move from Kyozou to Infopia, and it looked like he lost his Recent Sales. I know of people who left Auctiva for inkFrog and others. So it's not just one service... it looks like this was how many software systems were set up, and hopefully third party providers are making changes!

Whew, I hope that clears that up!

Posted at 08:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

What Nobody Is Saying About Michael Jackson

I have been watching some of the MJ coverage from network TV to CNN to MSNBC, VH1, E!, etc... I wasn't really a fan, but having been sick in bed a lot of the last 9 days, I've seen a lot of TV. :)

I have seen a lot of people interviewed who were friends with Michael Jackson. Nearly all of them talk about how they were there for him... they were there when he got married... or won an award... or did something groud-breaking, had his kids, went to court, etc... So many people are talking about being there for him, with him, etc...

But there is one thing I have heard NOBODY say about Michael Jackson.

I have not seen a single interview (yet) where someone talks about how Michael Jackson was there for them as a good friend. Nobody has said, "When I was at a low point, I called Michael because he's always there for me." Nobody describes MJ as their go-to best pal.

If Deepak Chopra or his son were having a bad day, I bet that they didn't call MJ. MJ's family... do you think he was the emotional rock that everybody turned to when things were going wrong for them?

To me, this reminds me of people who are takers, and maybe it's just part of being an addict... taking a lot from people around you, surrounding you with people who support your world view and get you your fix, not being the go-to supportive friend people wish you were. If you died today (and please don't), what would your friends say about you? Would they be thinking about all the times they were there for you, and evidently none of the times you were there for them?

Maybe it's a wake-up call about how we can be there more for our friends. Friendships are about a give and take, and the main thing I'm noticing about MJ is that while he may have been generous with money and using his ranch and material things, he doesn't seem to really have been anybody's best friend. Makes me think about the nature of friendship.

Posted at 06:16 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Saving Money with Google Voice

Following my post last week about Google Voice, I was poking around the forums, and got a great idea from people there on saving lots of money with Google Voice.

I will probably take and make calls through Google Voice from my mobile phone. But I was worried about it burning up my allotted minutes. Well, the folks in the forum had a solution, and I'm going to try it.

Many carriers have some sort of "friends and family" plan or add-on where you can pick a few phone numbers that are outside of your carrier's network, and you will ALWAYS get free calls to and from those numbers. For example, if you call home a lot, you might want those to not count against your minutes.

Well, you add your Google Voice number as one of those! That way, when you call GV to access your voicemail or make outgoing calls, it won't count against your minutes.

What about receiving calls? GV has a feature where the call can show up as your GV number every time OR it can show up as the caller ID of the person calling. I'm setting it to show up as my GV number... and in that case, my carrier should see it as my "friend number" calling, and not dock my minutes.

Play your GV cards right, and you could barely pay for calls ever again!

The next thing that would save me heaps of money would be if GV let us have multiple numbers that we controlled from one account. Sure I can start separate accounts, but it's always easier to control things from one account. If I had multiple GV numbers, here is the problem that would solve.

Right now, I have 4 phone lines. One is my mobile and three are my businesses (As Was, We Are Your People, and inkFrog). When you call one, you expect me to pick that up and say the right company! :) But if you call through Google Voice, and I don't know who you are or why you're calling, then I might not say the right company.

If I had multiple numbers, then I could set GV to show that GV number as my caller ID. Ring the "As Was" number, and I know to answer with "As Was." Ring the "We Are Your People" number, and I know to answer that way. I could then have ONE phone line (instead of three) because I would know who you were trying to reach, and GV would always take voicemail... with a customised outgoing message for each number.

That would be GREAT.

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Crazy Woman in My Building

I woke up at 6:something thinking I heard someone knocking on doors or going around the hall. I figured it was the girls next door. They tend to party late and come home at weird hours.

But it was 6:something, so I got up, and got ready to take my dog for a walk. We were headed outside probably around 6:40am. Someone was running after me as I left the building. I tried to ignore her, but when I got outside, she called after me.

Crazy lady: "Where is everybody?"

Me: "Who is everybody?"

Crazy lady: "You know. They are all waiting for me!"

Me: "I don't know you. Who is they?"

Crazy lady: "You know, Seven."

Me: "Is Seven a person?"

Crazy lady: "Yes."

Me: "I don't know anybody named Seven."

Crazy lady: "Don't you know Leah?"

Me: "No."

Crazy lady: "Well, they're waiting for me."

I went to walk my dog. I took her on a crazy long walk hoping this woman would be gone. When I got back, this woman was sitting on the benches outside the main door of our building. I didn't say anything to her, and she did not try to follow me in. It was about 7am by then.

I was laying in bed watching some TV, when around 7:30am there was a knock on the door... which is a little weird as we all have doorbells that are lit up. This is an 11-floor apartment building with all inside doors. I looked out the peephole, and it was HER. I stood in silence a moment wondering what to say or do. She just stood there and didn't seem to give up.

I finally said, "Please go away." She said, "OK," and kept standing there. My dog let out a big bark, which startled the woman, and she walked away. That meant this woman has been walking around here at least for an hour with evidently nobody to meet... even though they're ALL WAITING FOR HER! So I called the police.

I saw out the window that the police came. Two cars were talking to each other. Nobody called me back. I hoped they found her and got rid of her.

11am, I decide to take the dog for another walk. Just before I go out the front door of my building, I notice the SAME WOMAN is sitting in the lobby on the couch. It's HOURS later. I am thinking she is NOT meeting anybody! If I were meeting someone and they were going to be 5 hours late, I would go find a Starbucks and not sit around the lobby of an apartment building... not to mention that this all started at 6:30am on a Saturday morning, the 4th of July.

I took the dog for an extra long walk, and called the non-emergency number for my local police. I told them the woman was still there, and what did the police who came out earlier find? The woman said she sees a record of the call and of the officers going out, but they never reported back. I said that I was really doubting this woman's story, and I have no idea why she's here. But I think she's scary and not making any sense, and I have no idea what's going on.

There is only one way in and out of the building, and I decided I didn't want to walk past her. I decided that the dog and I would wait for someone to open the gate to go into or out of the underground parking. Someone did just as I got there. We ran in, and got the elevator to our floor. But hey, if this woman is in the building, she can get in an elevator and have access to the underground parking.

You learn, growing up in suburban NYC, to not have a giant mountain of trust for strangers. :) But you also learn that if something looks weird and acts weird, you get away, and maybe you call the police.

For all I know, this could be the Mom of someone in the building, and they ARE expecting her. But then again, everything she said this morning makes NO sense, and if someone is "waiting for her," where are they? Why isn't she calling them? Why isn't she using our building's intercom system to get them to come down?

It's 11:30, and I don't see any cops outside. I know this is low priority, but then again, it's low priority until it's not. I'll just go in and out through the parking garage, and hope I don't run into her. I have no idea why she's here or why she was knocking on my apartment door hours ago. And while I'm on that point, when she was standing out there, she never asked for help or explained why she was there. She was just knocking, and when I said to go away, she was like, "OK."

Bizarre.

For those of you desiring a mental picture, this woman looks a bit like Penny Marshall (famous director and actress in Laverne and Shirley). She's wearing mostly black with some hot pink. She looks relatively normal, but her words and actions make no sense. And people making no sense scare me. :)

Update: The cops came. They had no way to get into the building. No key, no special code that opens the door. They were standing outside. The desk person called me and asked how they should get in. I told them to find my name in the directory and I'll buzz them in.

Well I HOPE I buzzed in cops. Who freaking knows without video. But I think the cops need a way into this building in an emergency. If someone were being attacked, and the cops were standing outside hoping someone lets them in... that would be REALLY bad.

Posted at 11:40 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Google Voice: Review

Well, it finally came... my Google Voice invitation. I decided to check it all out. The interface looks like Gmail, so it should be familiar to many people.

The first step was picking my phone number, and it posed an interesting question... what's more important? An area code you like or your phone number spelling something? I decided that since I tend to move a lot and am not in one area code for long, I would pick a phone number that spelled something nobody can forget. :) The upside? You will probably never forget my number. The down side? I show up on caller ID as calling from Canton, Ohio. OH well.

The next step I took was importing my Outlook contacts. It remembered my categories, and used those as Groups. You can make settings for groups. For example, a group can get a special voicemail outgoing message. And a group can be routed to some of your phone numbers. Or a group can go straight to voicemail. So this means I can have one outgoing message for friends, one for certain business associates, etc...

And my most important peeps can be sent to ring my office and cell phone AT THE SAME TIME... or regular peeps can just ring the office, and I don't have to take it on my cell phone. You can also set temporary numbers (like your mountain cabin, as the help file says) in case you want calls to find you there.

Not sure if you want to take a call from someone? When they call your number, Google Voice calls you, and announces who they are. You then have a pile of choices... take the call, send it to voicemail, send it to voicemail but listen in on the voicemail (and hit a button to interrupt and start talking to the person leaving a voicemail), or record the call.

Yes. Record the call. I think it said it will announce something saying it's recording. I haven't tried that.

Want your calls to look like they come from your number? Two ways to do that. One is to dial your own number (say from your mobile), and then instruct the system to call out. The other is to be on the Google Voice website, and initiate the call from there. You say who to call or what number, and what phone you want to use. It'll call you first, and once you connect, it calls your intended party with your Google Voice number showing up on caller ID.

If you initiate calls from Google Voice, you might get charged. Right now, calls from the US to the 48 continental states are free. Calls to landlines in other countries are pretty comparable to rates I've seen from other services... $0.02/min to the UK, $0.03/min to Australia, $0.01/min to Canada. Calls to mobile phones are always more. But hey, if I'm out on my mobile phone somewhere, it'll cost me less to call through Google Voice than to pay Sprint's fees to make international calls. Google Voice gives you 10 cents free to play around (well, I got 10 cents!).

Text messaging was very cool. Google Voice understands which of my phones is my mobile phone. If you text my Google Voice number, it comes to me as coming from Google Voice. If I reply, it goes through Google Voice back to you. That means that if I go to the SMS dashboard on the Google Voice website, I will see our texts as a threaded conversation. I can send SMS or reply to them right there. That was pretty neat. My cell phone number never showed up in any of it.

Some features I haven't tried out.

• If you have received a call on one phone, and you want to switch to another phone, you can evidently hit *. Your other phones will ring, and you can pick up the call where you want. Sounds neat!
• It evidently transcribes voicemails... didn't try that yet. They will be in your Google Voice inbox, and you can have them emailed to you. I love that from Vonage, so I'm sure I'd like that here.
• It's integrated with GOOG411 when you call into your own number.
• One of the types of phone numbers you can put in is Gizmo, which seems to be a Skype competitor. Sure, you can put in a Skype number, and just label that as work or home.

I've had it a few hours and have given nobody the number. :) So I'm not totally testing it. I'm afraid of giving out a phone number I'm not sure if I'll really keep and use. But I do like the idea of a business card with ONE phone number on it... call me, and I'll get it in the office, mobile, somewhere else, or on voicemail. And it could be my phone number for LIFE. That is attractive.

I'd love to keep testing this, but am afraid to give out my number! I'll have to give another review once I'm using this more. :)

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

A Consulting Call Shouldn't Be A Sales Pitch

Thanks to John aka ColderICE for his great radio show today. I had to listen to it when he said he was outing someone. And wouldn't you know, it was someone on my poop list, who I've pointed at before here in this blog.

This link will download an MP3 of the radio show, which was the 1 July 2009 "BS Walks" show John does on TalkShoe.com.

John gives a bad rating for Bonanzle late in the show, which I was very interested in. I disagree that Bonanzle is a good solution if you want an eCommerce presence. If you want one, get a buyitsellit.com or Vendio Store. Why bring traffic to a marketplace with competitors! Bring people to your own website.

But it was the middle of the show that tickled me.

John found out that Skip McGrath just started tweeting on Twitter, but is already trying to push an e-book about Twitter. You can evidently get his free e-book if you sign up and agree to have a 30-minute "consulting call." Ugh. Then it's not really free, is it. It takes your time and energy.

John's first point was basically why is a Twitter newbie trying to push/sell you an e-book about something that is new to him? I've been on Twitter since April 2008. I should write an e-book! John should write an e-book. Skip, this is not your specialty.

Not mentioned in John's show is something I noticed in Skip's tweets. He's looking for YOU to tweet him Twitter tips (for his book). So once again, he's barely writing his own book. I saw him do this for his last eBay book... he was in eBay discussion forums asking people for information.

John continued with a caller, Karen, who reported her experience signing up for Skip's e-book. She got the "consulting call." She said they asked questions about what she wanted to get out of this, how her credit was, and how her finances were. She said she didn't have credit cards, and lived on a fixed income. Karen reported that the "consulting call" contained no consulting or advice, even though she asked about product sourcing (supposedly Skip's specialty). The call lasted 8 minutes and 8 seconds, and the caller told her to buy Skip's system.

FAIL. Karen said on John's radio show that her impression of Skip was that everything he sends out is just full of affiliate links. She said that wasn't a consulting call, it was a sales pitch, and she thought the whole thing really felt like a "snake oil salesman." Her call wasn't with Skip, by the way. It was with one of his "coaches."

But this matches everything else I've seen from Skip, and why he's on my poop list. Time after time, I've seen him not have original information or advice. His informational products seem to be taken from other people's information or publicly available info. He is mining YOU and your tips for his books, but did you get paid for that? Did you get any credit?

I don't think his materials are right for anybody. I don't want newbies reading that stuff. I don't want veteran eBay sellers reading that stuff. I just think that this whole thing isn't much. And I'm still not happy with the time Skip admitted that he hadn't checked out a company he was promoting (to make affiliate money)... he had to admit that after his loyal followers paid that company and felt scammed.

Don't sell out your followers.

Twitter is about quality interactions with people who have something interesting to say. I'm not following Skip, but he's following me. :) Well, as of when I'm typing this, anyway.

Thanks to John and his caller, Karen, for coming out and publicly talking about this. It's easy to keep things quiet and not want to air this stuff. But people should know the truth. A free e-book is rarely truly free. A consulting call should not be a sales pitch. No "coach" representing a blogger/educator should be asking people about their credit and finances (and Karen should have refused to answer). I'm just not OK with any of this.

Posted at 08:37 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

My Personal Ad

In the spirit of humour, here is my personal ad.

Wanted: busy CEO, top level exec, or guy with at least one high-level job that keeps him insanely busy... for tweeting, Skype chats, text messaging, and short phone calls while I walk my dog.

I'm crazy busy and you're really busy. Every time you blink, I've started a company, or taken on more consulting. We both travel a lot, and rarely in the same direction, so I may not see you very often. But you can tell the difference between me being busy and me not caring (I do care!). When we get together, it's laugh-o-rama, and we don't get tired of each other's work stories.

You've got plenty of your own money, plenty of hotel frequent stay points, and plenty of fun ideas about how to spend short weekends away. You'll consider a week in Disney World, FL with me... if we ever take a break from working. OK, we'll bring our laptops to Disney. You don't want to take me bungee jumping, skydiving, or to an S&M club. Ever!

You don't struggle with addictions or the truth. You're incapable of lying, and you'll tell me when my ass looks fat in that. You genuinely like my cooking and my kids (dog and cat). You're low pressure because we're both high stress, and I don't need any distractions. You are attractive and confident, you have great self-awareness, and don't need me to validate you. Oh, and you neither have a criminal record nor a "law enforcement" past, ie: we'll never be in a power struggle. You have a good sense of privacy, and know what not to post to your Facebook profile. I'm a CEO, you know. :)

In your spare time, you like to debate mobile phone platforms and manufacturers, recite Monty Python's Flying Circus Sketches, and think about the future of eCommerce user interface design. I'm a musician, you're a musician. Maybe we don't express that sides of ourselves very often, but they're a big part of us. Let's get out there and be musicians.

You're roughly my age (I was born in 1972), you're male, you're straight, you are free of "social" diseases, and you don't have or want human children. You're not religious. You might be single, and you might be currently unhappily married. You're in no rush for any sort of serious commitment.

And that would be my personal ad.

Added: Yes, I'm looking for perfection. I'm sorry, but you need to match all of this. I shouldn't settle for anything less than the right person for me. :)

Added: You stalkers can just back off. The weirdo in upstate NY, any Brits still holding a grudge, and the psycho Aussie with the criminal record. You don't qualify. So sorry.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Credit Card Fraud in Vegas

Last time I was in Vegas, someone skimmed my card. Oh, I learned all about it... this is where someone swipes your card (with a device other than the device they needed to use for you to pay), and it records everything on your card. They can then use that (or sell that) and reprogram a credit card to be yours.

This a REALLY sneaky for two reasons.

1. Your card wasn't stolen, so you don't know it's compromised.
2. Since they reprogram a card with their name on it, anybody who asks them to produce ID will still pass the test... the name on the card matches the name on the license. But if the cashier looked closer, the 4 digits printed on the receipt wouldn't match the 4 digits on the face of the card.

Two days after I got back from Vegas, while I was buying lunch in Tucson, AZ, my card was being used in a rural Pennsylvania WalMart to buy $1200 of stuff. Somehow, my card issuer didn't think it was WEIRD that one card was being used across the country at the same time, and let the charge through. I spent the week fighting it.

So how do you protect against this?

I'm going to Vegas this week for the eBay Radio Party, so this is on my mind. I decided to go to Safeway and buy a Visa debit card. It was $5.95 for one with $100 loaded on it, and I can use it just about anywhere. I'll use it to eat in Vegas, and that way, when someone walks away with my card, they have NO reason to skim it. It can't have more than $100 on there.

I suggest the same. Get yourself a gift card, and use that. Sure, I spent $6 on it, but I would pay $6 to NOT go through what I went through last time... fighting the charge, canceling the card, waiting for a replacement, messing up some of my monthly charges that were being auto-billed to that card. It was a MESS.

I've heard other people talk about using something like this... where they have a bank account (with an ATM debit Visa or Mastercard), and they only put enough money in the account to cover what they think they'll purchase. They do nothing else with the card, and don't keep a lot of money in there. That way, if it's every compromised, they haven't lost much, and the hassle is much less.

Personally, I think that by it being a pre-paid gift card, it's probably completely not attractive. Why steal my card for what might have $50 on it?

Travelling, especially to a conference? Spend a few dollars and get yourself a Visa gift card. :)

Posted at 02:59 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

All Is Full Of Love

you'll be given love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you've poured yours into
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

twist your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you

you just ain't receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
 all is full of love

Thanks, Bjork. :)

Posted at 09:22 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

A Flight For $9?

A friend just called, and was thinking of coming up to see me for the weekend. This weekend. He lives in San Diego, and I'm now in San Jose.

We started looking around for flights, and he found Allegiant Air. They didn't have any flights up to me on Friday, but that had one up to me on Thursday (in 3 days). He can't make that since he doesn't want to take off of work.

But the price of the one-way flight to see me was $9. That's it. I assume they'll put tax on that, and charge for people checking bags. $9.

His return flight? $19. I mean this is just STUPID.

It doesn't fly in and out of San Jose. They fly in and out of Monterey, California, which is about 73 miles south of me. Yeah I'd go pick him up! But holy cats, I am definitely going to check their schedules next time I want to fly!

$9? $28 round trip? Huh?

Posted at 06:24 PM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Auctiva's Lawyers Want You To Know...

I've heard from Auctiva's lawyers. They'd like you to know that everything I've written or said about Auctiva ever is false. Including the stuff I can prove to you. It's all false according to them, so let's smile and nod. :)

I'd like you to know that although I have been working for inkFrog since mid-May, nothing I have said or will say about Auctiva has anything to do with inkFrog. They don't tell me what to say, I'm not saying these things for them, and it's just not about inkFrog. Ask inkFrog - they are not connected to what I choose to say, especially the things I chose to say before they hired me. And I've been saying negative things about Auctiva for years since I just don't like their system.

I have no hidden agenda. My agenda is always to get the truth out there. I'm just straightforward and face value, and I don't blast a company one day and then run a post the next day about how great they are and how they're doing nothing wrong. Anybody who wants to pretend that I'm only saying these things so that people will leave Auctiva and join inkFrog are applying agendas to me that I don't have. If you want to stay with Auctiva, you should! If you want to leave Auctiva, you should! If you want to sign on with Vendio, ChannelAdvisor, Infopia, inkFrog, Turbo Lister, Blackthorne, or anything else, you should. I support you. :) You should pick whichever system is right for you, and I have no attachment to who you pick. That means no agenda and no hidden agenda.

Bizarre things Auctiva does are completely about Auctiva, and if you read my blog, then you know I'm committed to pointing at all KINDS of companies doing bizarre things. I am my own person, and I stand behind what I say. These are my opinions, feelings, and advice... and if those can get you a letter from a lawyer, then every blogger, every tweeter, and every person posting to an online forum disliking Auctiva should be really careful.

Auctiva's lawyer is getting your Auctiva subscription money to tell me and maybe you to not say anything they will claim is false. Well, OK, you shouldn't say false things about companies. But you have a right to your opinion and experiences. I have had nothing but bad experiences with Auctiva, and Debbie Levitt is allowed to say that. I am allowed to stand in a crowded room and shout, "I don't like Auctiva!" That's still legal last I checked.

So my promise to everybody involved is that I will only post things that I can prove without a shadow of a doubt, and without revealing any information that may be considered confidential by eBay or any company with whom I have a relationship. I won't post about something I read in someone's forums since whoever posted that might be talking crap. I promise to label my blog posts and radio shows as the statements and opinions of Debbie Levitt as an individual, professional consultant, and not the opinion, statement, or stance of As Was, inkFrog, or any company that may be affiliated with either of us.

That doesn't mean I'll stop talking about Auctiva or any other company. It only means I'll be more careful about how I express my opinions to you guys. You guys still need to know the truth, and I may be the only one who is willing to tell it to you. While other people are backtracking, perhaps out of fear of lawyers, I'm not going to let threats and bullying stand in my way of giving you my opinions and the facts I can prove. Some people don't let the truth get in the way of a good blog post. I don't let lawyers threats get in the way of the truth.

The right to free speech stops at my ability to tell a lie. I do not want to tell or spread lies. I don't like when people do that to me, and I don't do it to other people or companies. So I'll just stick with my right to free speech, and only share what my opinion is, and the things I can completely and totally prove.

Auctiva, I suggest you do the same. My opinion is that you don't always take the high road. Do unto others. :)

I trust we're complete here. Thanks, everybody.

Posted at 02:40 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Why I Decided Against the Palm Pre

The Palm Pre came out this weekend. For weeks, I had the date in my calendar, reminding me to wake up early, and run to a Sprint Store.

Until I did some more digging.

I have the HTC Mogul (aka the 6800), and there is so much I like about it. If I could make it better, I'd have a bigger, sharper screen, and lots more memory. I'm at the point where apps crash because I'm trying to do too much at the same time. So the 64MB of memory that I think is in here just won't do. But it's intuitive, and I love the apps I can get for WinMo (Windows Mobile to the rest of ya).

I went to the Sprint Store and saw the HTC Touch, which is the newer version of my phone. Well, downgrade... they made it SMALLER, and it still had WinMo 6.1. So that seemed like a waste of money. I dug around the internet, and found that they're coming out with the HTC Touch Pro 2, aka the Rhodium, and that Sprint could have it as early as mid-June 2009. Well, I'm typing this on 7 June 2009, so I can wait!

Why not the Palm?

Well, I started remembering my days with Palm's first Treo. Man, that was the worst phone I ever had. So unreliable. It was something new for Palm, they hadn't really gotten it right, and I was a crash test dummy. Or just dummy.

While I hope the Pre is better, I started reading some reviews... both "official" and what people were writing in Twitter. I saw things like, "sluggish," and "doesn't play Flash," and started telling myself that I had it pretty good with Windows Mobile. And if the new WinMo phones have the upgraded OS and way more memory for multitasking, then isn't that really all I need?

And do I really want to re-buy all of my apps? I'm very happy with my apps. I live on TomTom, Photo Contacts Pro, PockeTwit, ProfiMail, Google Maps (with Latitude, in case anybody should care where I am), Skype, Slick, and a few more. Oh and let's not forget the great apps from the SPB people... SPB Pocket Plus, Diary, Weather, and Insight, though I haven't had time to run Insight in a while.

People don't know that WinMo phones can do a lot. We have the Opera browser too, ya know. My ProfiMail app checks 5 POP3 boxes and a gmail account once per minute, and alerts me to new emails. Text messages are in threaded conversations. My camera takes great pics. I can voice dial, and with Nuance's apps, I can even dictate text messages and short emails... great for trying to send a msg while driving for those of us who do NOT want to be typing while driving.   

I can do everything I love to do with WinMo. I just want to do it faster with a nicer screen, and it looks like the HTC Touch Pro 2 will be the best match for me.The Palm might be nice, but I don't want to be the crash test dummy anymore.

Posted at 02:30 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Left Auctiva? Using Their Templates? Beware!

You've been an Auctiva user, and you've put items on eBay with their "free" templates. You might have lots of items up, including Store items that you have had on "Good Til Cancelled" forever.

The big question has been when Auctiva switches to a model where you must pay for those "free" templates, what will happen to people who have left Auctiva, but still have items live on eBay that use those templates? A lot of people are asking me this, and some were banned from the Auctiva forums, so let me see if I can clear this up.

I have two pieces of information:

1) It looks like Auctiva is going to build something similar to Frooition, where your template is dynamically added to the listing thanks to some sort of scripting. This would allow Auctiva to remotely control your template, and if you stop paying, shut it off. Someone showed me something Auctiva wrote (I think in forums) saying that once they "make a future change to templates," anybody who isn't paying would have their templates changed to tiny invisible graphics so that the info would still be in the listing but not the template.

2) Someone else showed me an Auctiva forum posting that said that if Auctiva finds listings that are still up with "free" templates but the user is not paying for Auctiva templates, Auctiva might choose to contact eBay, use the VeRO programme, and file a claim of copyright infringement.

That's right, you would be reported to eBay as someone who breaches the intellectual property of others, which can not only get your items taken down, but can get you suspended. That goes on your permanent record. And Auctiva is willing to do that to you for the what, $5? So who cares if they promised you free templates... you can pay them $5 or you can be reported as a thief! [note: Auctiva is claiming they won't do this, but I saw people writing about this on their forums, so I leave it open a possibility that they may be considering... hey, who KNOWS what Auctiva is thinking at any given moment!]

Obviously, it's really important that people who don't intend to pay Auctiva get Auctiva templates out of their listings. This does NOT apply to people who have used Auctiva but with templates they bought from us or other designers. You can still use your template because you own it. This is about people using Auctiva templates but not paying Auctiva their new monthly fee for template usage.

So what can you do? Two things:

1) You can go into every listing in your new software, and change your "item description" so that it ONLY has the description of the item... no template, no border, no polices... nothing but the item description. Then, you can drop that into a free template from your new listing software, or build in a custom template.

2) Through my work with inkFrog, we're working on developing something that will strip templates out of items we are importing from other companies. So for example, if you move from Auctiva to inkFrog, and you import even THOUSANDS of listings that have Auctiva templates in them, we're working on a way to pull those Auctiva templates out, and reduce your "item description" to JUST the item's description. Then, you can use a free inkFrog template or get a custom one.

That's the story as I know it, and as of now. But the soap opera seems to change daily! All I know is that no matter what, if you are leaving Auctiva, it's important to remove every trace of their stuff in your stuff so that you don't get charged, and so that you're not reported as a copyright infringer.

Posted at 07:35 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

Pin the Tail on the eBay Listing Price

I'm just sitting here in disbelief...

First Auctiva goes from free to paid, and the prices seem a bit high. That's news.

Days later, they email their users trying to get them to not leave, asking them to prepay a year for $180. That's news.

Vendio announces that users leaving Auctiva can have Vendio free this year and cheap next year. OK, that's news, but what about all the rest of the Vendio users? I imagine there will be backlash from thousands of people who'd like to get Vendio for free this year and cheap next year. How will they handle that? Now those people might leave!

It also sets up the new users for another pricing change... and they would have just left Auctiva because of a pricing change. Their Vendio price will go up in 2010 and 2011. So this is weird.

inkFrog announces that they've been $9.95/month, and they promise to stay $9.95/month for at least another three years. Given that so many sellers are asking to NOT have prices switched on them, this is news. This should be tweeted and blogged and out there. People need to know this, but one person thinks this isn't news... so Vendio's announcement goes out, Auctiva's announcement goes out, and inkFrog's doesn't go out from this "source."

eBay sellers think this is news. They're thrilled that someone isn't going to play pricing games with them. It's so rare that a company in this industry is not messing with their customers that that IS news. Think about how many services have been sold (Andale, Marketworks) or just decided to terminate (Mpire, ChannelAdvisor Pro). How many have raised prices and not grandfathered people in.

Consistency should be news, and a company being fair to ALL of its customers, not just the new ones, should be news. Our industry should have more consistency and honesty!

Help spread the word. Tell people about inkFrog's price lock by tweeting and blogging about this announcement, found at http://community.inkfrog.com/showthread.php?p=199584

Thanks.

Posted at 10:01 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Truth Behind Auctiva and Price Changes

Auctiva, you did quite a job with marketing spin last week. The exact quote from Auctiva's CEO was, "eBay recently made changes to its affiliate program that greatly restricted, and ultimately eliminated, this critical revenue stream."

I care about the truth, and I'm not sure that's totally the truth. It does make people sympathetic to Auctiva, and look at eBay as the bad guy. But let's take a closer look.

The eBay Partner Network (ePN) is eBay's system for giving people and companies commissions from registrations and sales. The idea here is that if you can bring people who weren't on eBay TO eBay (say from your blog, website, etc...), you should get a commission for that.

Over the years, ePN has made a lot of changes. But one thing that was pretty consistent was that in order to make this commission money, you're supposed to bring traffic from outside of eBay. eBay doesn't want to pay a commission to someone who drops links INSIDE their eBay listings or Stores since that doesn't jive with the intentions.

Think of eBay's old "store referral credit." If you brought someone in from outside of eBay through that link, you might get a fee credit. If you dropped that into eBay listings, you can expect nothing. Same kind of thing.

Evidently, Auctiva had coded a number of things they were putting into listings (images, galleries, etc...) to have ePN codes. And when your shoppers clicked on those inside your listing, and then bought from you, Auctiva got paid commissions by eBay.

Evidently in 2009, eBay has decided to crack down on this harder. It looks like they are throwing people out of the programme if they are mis-using these links, by accident or on purpose. This particular case is no accident. :) Nor is it a secret. I've seen piles of people I don't know on message boards and discussion forums all talking about Auctiva's "use" of the ePN. There was a real outcry for eBay to either cut them off or let everybody make this kind of money.

I would rather have seen eBay allow this, honestly. I think that if you put something special into a listing that makes the sale, why not get a commission from it? There are plenty of things people put into listings that KILL their sales. If you can actually MAKE sales happen, do it and do more of it! eBay wants more sales. Sellers want more sales. Let people who can make more sales happen MAKE THEM HAPPEN and get rewarded for it. Where's the problem there!

When Auctiva makes it sound like eBay made a change that forced them to do this, I am not crying in my cereal. eBay's only change was to crack down on people who had been abusing the ePN, and Auctiva weren't the only ones. I would also have to say that a business that only survives as long as it makes money that it gets from breaking a rule is not really a strong model! That would be like a business deciding it's only profitable if it keeps sales tax money it collects rather than giving that money to the state! It's cheating.

So cry not for Auctiva. I think they made their own beds on this one. They could have been charging people $5 all along, come in cheaper than other companies, and had revenue to rely on. They never HAD to be free. They should have thought more long-term, especially if their major revenue stream was the kind of thing that could go POOF at any time!

Between eBay cracking down on non-compliant eBay Stores this year and now cracking down on misuse of the commission system, I think the best advice I can give is the same advice I've always given: be compliant. Follow the rules. You won't like it when eBay cracks down on the rules, and you haven't been following them!

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wedding Vows

Yesterday was the 44th wedding anniversary of some of my friends. I love them very dearly, and I'm glad they've held together.

They've had a lot of challenges in the 6 years I've known them. The husband has had gigantic health issues, one after another. He even had a heart transplant last year. They've spent like years worried nearly daily about whether or not he'll live. Scary stuff.

It's made me think about wedding vows... in richer and poorer, in sickness and health, for better or worse. I think some people vow that and really mean it. I think plenty of people promise that, and either don't mean it or change their mind. You're allowed to change your mind!

But it's amazing when people mean it. And it's amazing to see the previous generation stay together like this.

I think my parents should divorce. They're evidently married 42 years now. I think they should have divorced decades ago. I just think they bring out the worst in each other. Sure, they stayed through richer, poorer, and so on, but are they really making each other's lives better? From the outside, I think they don't make each other's lives better... just more convenient like roommates make things convenient in sharing a house.

Someone was telling me the other day that his life has been a mess for like 10 years, and he said it has definitely hurt his marriage. But they're together, and it didn't sound like they were in danger of not being together. I'm glad that they're staying together even when times are bad. Hey, we all have bad times, though hopefully he'll soon see a better life than the last 10 years!

My first marriage was abusive, and I stayed in there WAY too long thinking that you stay with this, and you keep hoping it gets better. Once he saw that I stayed through that treatment, it only got worse. So promising to stay in something really destructive is NOT a good idea, and I'm not for it!

I guess I tend to compare things, especially watching how other couples interact with each other. I've seen some pretty dysfunctional things. I've seen abuse. I've heard about abusive things going on. Sometimes, that can wake you up to what you have... whether you have that same abuse, or hey, you don't have it so bad.

I guess I like the romantic idea of still completely loving someone and accepting someone even when finances are tough... even when finances are a disaster :)... even when someone is sick and can't totally contribute or isn't an equal partner... even when things seem or are bad... even when things are out of balance. I like the romantic idea of someone loving and accepting me, even when I'm fat, pimply, poor, and depressed... though I recognise that that may be a hard person to love. :)

Ah, romantic ideals. I do like the idea of two people being fully committed to being as equal a team as they can be.

June is often wedding month... so make sure you are marrying someone you truly love and accept unconditionally. If you're waiting for him to change, or you're hoping she stops doing those 10 things you really hate, cancel the wedding. My first husband eventually admitted to me that when he married me, he was already feeling distant and disconnected from me. That is someone who should have cancelled the wedding. I certainly wish he had.

Don't be afraid to cancel a wedding. Better to lose some money and possibly be embarrassed than to make this your life or make that person the parent of your child. Wedding vows. Take them seriously, or don't make them. :)

Posted at 11:39 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Unjust Price Changes, Part 2

Oh remember my recent blog post on an apartment complex that changes its price every day, and won't honour the previous day's price?

They just called me to see if I'm still interested. The apartment? Oh, it's now $1875/month.

2 weeks ago, it was $1670/mo. A few days later, it was $1765/mo. A few days after that, $1830/mo. They told me that the price changes on demand... but if this apartment is still open weeks later, evidently there isn't that much demand for it!

Nobody has rented this apartment. Yet it gets more and more expensive. That's a LOT of extra money to pay for something that evidently nobody wants. :) Can you imagine if I did that with my services? Let's see... an eBay listing template is $2000, and if nobody signs up for one today, maybe tomorrow it can be $2100! Oh, you heard that yesterday it was $2000? Well, the market changes, and I hope you understand. I could never do that. It's just insane.

That was how they treated me. And they really doled out the info on how I could have locked in the cheap rate much earlier. Once the rate was at $1830, they told me how I could have locked in the $1670 rate. Really! And today, the guy told me that they WILL honour their own prices for 24 hrs. Really! That's not what the manager told me last week. She told me they can't honour any price they've previously quoted because that would be against the California Fair Housing Laws. Drip drip drip is the sound of information. These people always gave me "oh we WOULD have done that if you had said these magic words" days late. FAIL.

So thanks anyway, Avalon on The Alameda in San Jose, CA. The apartment I've picked (from a distance) put their unit and price on Craigslist. And even though the ad was days old, they were willing to honour their own price.

Imagine that. They were willing to quote a price, and stand by it. That made me trust them more, and if I'm going to live under their management, I need to trust them. So I sent them a deposit to lock it in.

Brings back memories of when another Avalon was holding an apartment for me, and then decided to rent it to someone else. Avalon, I think we're done here. My apartment looks much nicer than yours, is in a better area, and closer to public transport. It's brand new and never lived in. And they want $1733/mo.

Speak with your dollar, people. If enough of us do that, it'll work. :)

Posted at 10:47 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Injustice: Daily Price Changes

I'm trying to get an apartment. Using only the internet (since I'm not even in the same time zone as this apartment building), I fell in love with a community. I called them up, sent in my application, but found out that they don't run the application until they get a security deposit.

Well, I'm not ready to put that down until I know they have the right place for the right price. What is your price on the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit I'm considering? $1670/month. OK, I'll think about that, thank you.

I call back a few days later. I think I might want it. Oh, the price went up? The SAME apartment you were going to give me a couple of days ago is now $1765/month? Um OK. That chips away at trust, but OK. I'll think about it.

OK I'm ready. I have my security deposit ready. The moving company is just about hired. Now, I'm in the right spot to put that deposit down, and hold that apartment! What's that you say? The price went up again? Today is Wednesday. On Monday, you said it was $1765/month, but today's it's $1830/month? WHY?

They explained to me that when demand is up and they're signing lots of leases, they raise prices because they think they can. They evidently have NO policy about sticking to a quote they gave me before. When I complain that I could NEVER get away with that in my business, they tell me that the California Fair Housing Laws won't let them offer me a different price than someone else would get today.

That's bull.

You are offering me the price that you ALREADY OFFERED ME. If someone calls today, they can get a fresh price quote. But if you already quoted me a price, at least give me a few days to make sure I am ready to put money down on this place. Stick to your own price for a few days. If someone else takes that place before me, give them the higher price... they won't know any better! But if I'm taking it, give me the price you quoted me earlier.

I could never get away with this in my business. Where I grew up, this was called Israeli Negotiating (whether or not that's flattery :) ). The idea was that you make someone an offer. If they turn it down (because they think they're going to bargain you down), you RAISE the price. You are basically teaching them that you will NOT negotiate down, and you start basically bullying them. They quickly learn that if they don't take it now, the price will just keep going up, so they'd better take it now.

That's the same thing this apartment complex is trying to do. It's bullying. They won't even honour a price they KNOW they quoted me. I can't think of any other business that gets away with this. This is not "catch of the day" where maybe the fish was harder to catch today because of the weather. This is an empty apartment standing there.

Meanwhile, the price on their website is wrong. The price on the website is WAY lower, so you also have bait and switch. I have bait and switch now, and they get around it by warning me that oh, you'd better lock this in now... the price may go up tomorrow.

I told them I will roll the dice, and wait for their price to drop. I will not pay an extra $2000 per year in rent because I am ready to sign the lease today instead of 3 days ago. That's an insult, and a waste. I will not be bullied, and I will not be baited and switched.

I've left a voice mail for the Santa Clara County team that mediates disputes between landlords and tenants. I'd like them to explain to me which part of the California Fair Housing Law allows them to do this to me, and why CA law would allow such bullying and deception.

Posted at 03:08 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Call Your Favourite Moving Company

I am working on another move, and I called United Van Lines. Why? In Sept 2007, they moved my Grandmother's antique dining room set from NY to AZ. They did a WONDERFUL job. So I think of them when I am moving.

Today, I contacted my local United mover here in the Boston area. We had no idea what my Grandmother's furniture weighed, and he suggested calling the company that moved it last time.

So I called Liberty in Suffolk County, NY, and got the comptroller. This super nice guy took time out of his day to go back nearly two years and look up what the weight was. It wasn't in his computer, and he had to pull out old paper faxes of the weight of the truck. He said the fax was very hard to read, so the weight was either 460 or 660 pounds.

This was HUGELY helpful.

He then asked if I had anybody for my next move. I told him I was talking to my local United guy. He then told me that I could have started with him. They could have arranged the move, and then connected me with the local guy. I assume the make money on that, and hey, maybe he should. He was really nice, and gave me great service when he didn't have to.

So now we all know. If you were happy with a moving company, even if you are not moving from or to that area, you can call them and start with them. They probably make money from arranging it, and what better way to thank a company you like than to give them more business. :)

Thank you libertymoving.com!

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

I Could Live at Disney World

I've done the math. Disney Extra Value Resorts at Walt Disney World, Florida used to run around $80/night with tax. 30 nights of that would be $2400/month. That's not far from the rent I pay now! I know people paying more than that in rent.

And they'll clean my room every day!

Disney's dining plan... 2 full meals and one snack each day for $40/day. That's $1200/month. OK, that's more than I spend now on food, but hey, I can eat anything in any Disney restaurant any time. That's neato. :)

And for a few hundred, I can have an unlimited park pass as a FL resident. :)

I can save even more money by moving into the local Comfort Inn. I can have my room cleaned every day! And the room seems to run around $40/night after tax. Hey, that's $1200/mo, which is like half the rent I'm paying now.

I could live at Disney World. What the hell. :)

Posted at 05:50 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Companies In The Same Industry Aren't Always Competitors

If you read my blog, you know I can be a bit of a whistle-blower. I have called out plenty of companies, large and small, in the eBay industry and well outside of it. I've called out plenty of companies, but when I call out a certain one, people want to dismiss what I have to say, claiming I'm just badmouthing a competitor.

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors.

• ChannelAdvisor probably does not feel they compete with Auctiva. Auctiva is probably not working on how to get customers away from ChannelAdvisor's Premium product. :)
• If you asked Toyota what cars the Yaris competes against, they probably wouldn't name some the BMW 7 series. Ask BMW who they compete with, and I think you would NOT see the Toyota Yaris on that list.
• Wal-Mart may not feel that they compete with Nordstroms or Saks Fifth Avenue.
• A $59 tent at Target doesn't compete with a $200,000 Fleetwood RV, though one person may consider both and then choose one over another.
• Just because Brand New Online Marketplace Number 13,098 wants you to think they're a new and better eBay doesn't meant that they're on eBay's radar AT ALL. eBay may not perceive them as competition... when eBay is transacting billions of dollars a year, a marketplace that won't publicly say how much is being transacted may just not be seen as scary competition.
• I do not worry about losing business to people downloading free eBay templates as they weren't my target audience.

I don't compete with these other guys. (Frooition) When I call them out for the truly bizarre things they do, it's not because we are competitors. It's because they are the same fair game as everybody else I've blogged about.

I don't compete with people and companies in the eBay Stores Design Directory. You can't get what we do from them, and you can't get what they do from us. We are a full-service marketing, design, and strategy company. We know all the eBay rules, and we followed them before eBay had to crack down on broken rules. We do designs based on marketing, psychology, shopper behaviour, and principles of online user experience. We don't use cookie-cutter designs, or sell the same things to multiple people. We think that custom work goes beyond making that stock template "that blue" or that background "that pattern."

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors. If I say something about another company, and especially if their customers are all over the web saying the same thing (or more harsh things), consider that I might just be factual and not "badmouthing." Badmouthing isn't my style, but trying to get truth out there is.

Posted at 03:12 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Nominate As Was for an eBay Award!

eBay will be giving out its Developer Awards soon, and there is still time to nominate companies you think deserve awards.

http://ebaydeveloper.typepad.com/dev/2009/04/send-us-your-nominations-for-the-ebay-star-developer-awards.html

That's the page that tells you how to do it. For the nominee's name and contact info, you can use:

As Was
PO Box 68085
Tucson, AZ 85737

eBay knows us, so I think that'll be enough for them to figure out who you mean!

I feel that we should win the awards for the following categories for the following reasons:

• DSR Rockstar (improving customer service & buyer experience) - Our templates and eBay Stores as well as our strategy help and advice improve sellers' customer service, and definitely improve the shopping and buying experience. Our clients typically see their DSRs raise or stay high after working with us. Just using a piece of software for shipping or answering questions doesn't guarantee that anybody's DSRs will go up, but stick with us, and we'll get you there. :)
• Most Innovative - That's definitely us! Have you seen anything like our templates? If so, it's because they are copying the original. We are definitely the company to think of when you want a design that is custom, unique, innovative, and will really connect with your target audience. Considering our first eBay client was in early 2001, we wrote the book on eBay design and eBay consulting!
• Rapid Evolution (boosting seller efficiency in a dynamic marketplace) - Yes, that's us again! Even in a changing marketplace and down economy, many of our clients are still seeing increases in sales and improvements in their businesses. As we finish many projects within 2 months of someone hiring us, we are quickly able to create dramatic changes in eBay businesses. And considering that many clients report sales going up while pre-sales questions and fees go down, we are definitely improving seller efficiency.
• Early Adopter - Well, this could be us, but I think this category is really designed for the software company that best keeps up with eBay changes. So nominate your favourite eBay software tool for this one!

So please take a moment to email eBay (as per their blog post) and nominate us for one or more categories! Tell them why we deserve to get awards for helping eBay sellers.

Thanks!

Posted at 07:31 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Customer Support For $292/hr

This blog is the Marketing Hall of Fame, and if we had awards, this would win the award for biggest balls, if you don't mind me saying that.

Customer support. It's a sticky subject! Looking around the eBay industry, some companies have email-only support.. but you should get help, and it's free. Some companies have phone support. Some is free, and some is paid. Some companies pick up their phones while others leave you in an endless voice mail universe.

Today, I saw this blog post about Frooition charging for customer support. Before you get your undies in a bunch and say I'm just saying bad things about my competition, they're not my competition. You can't get what we do from them, I refuse to let my company do work that looks like that, and I certainly don't treat my customers like this. I compete with them about as much as a BMW 7 series car competes with that really tiny Kia that doesn't have power windows. :)

So Froo have decided that just as their clients are having a lot of problems with all their broken eBay Stores, eBay listing templates with amazing elements that can work against your sales, and Froo server downtime, now's a great time to start charging people to solve their problems.

The most amazing move is that evidently NO customer service is now free. If you want to email and not pay, you may never get a response, as the Froo site describes it. So free email support is now gone. If you need help, you're opening your wallet.

£199/hr is what you'll pay if you want your problem turned around in one day. With the British Pound around $1.47 right now, that's $292.53 an hour for customer support.

If you have a non-urgent problem (?), you can pay £99 per hour for a 5-day turnaround time. That's $145.53 to us Americans.

If you've ever been to the Froo site, then you may have seen their "we have open jobs page," where they were hiring a "junior designer" for £12/hour. So some guy works for £12/hr, and you get to pay £199/hr for that. Froo certainly know how to mark stuff up to make some profit!

We bill at $100/hr, but then again, we don't charge people to fix things we broke. Froo happily sold you a non-compliant eBay Store that they knew broke rules, they sold it to you up to the moment eBay announced they were cracking down on those Stores, they are charging to "fix" these Stores (they call it an upgrade), and now you can pay for customer support time.

I think that if Froo are doing this, not only must they be in financial trouble and under pressure to bring in revenue and profit, but they are also just not very good at this whole marketing thing. They should still have free support, especially when their servers are going down, and especially when eBay is cracking down on rules that make Froo eBay Stores break. And they should mark up their rates just slightly. For example, if you're paying staff £12/hr, and a good eBay consultant might charge £30/hr, charge £40/hr. You're still making a huge profit, and you're still taking a rate people might pay to get help.

But to jump straight to £99 and £199/hr says, "Don't get in touch with us. We don't want to give you support, so we're pricing it so high that very few people will ever take advantage of it. Just don't call us... we don't want to hear from you." It also says, "We don't care if you stay with us or leave to hire another company. Between charging you to fix your eBay Store and charging you for support, we'd rather just not deal with you."

That's what it says to me, and that's bad marketing. It tells me that they don't want to hear from people asking about the servers going down or asking about their Store breaking. You can pay to ask those questions, or just not ask them to save money.

To Froo customers, I say speak with your British Pound, and go somewhere else. There are plenty of companies out there who would love to have your business. My company welcomes you as well. :) We give $500 discounts to anybody dropping a Froo template to have us work our magic. We're always compliant, and our contract says that we fix broken things that are our fault for free. Imagine a company standing behind its work. :)

Posted at 06:58 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

Expert Consultant, At Your Door

Last week, a client called me. He seemed nervous about his business. He was ready to grow and to be more efficient, but wasn't too sure about the big picture or all the little pictures that make up the big picture. He said that if there were an eBay Live event, he'd want to meet with me. But without that event, he wasn't sure how we'd get together.

Long story short, he invited me to fly to where he is. He covered my expenses, and I gave him a well-discounted rate for my personal time. Who am I? Well, if you don't know me, here's my website about me as a public speaker and consultant. Your might also know me as Debbie Levitt, CEO of As Was. :)

So on Thursday 16 April, I bought tickets to fly to him on Saturday 18 April. I stayed through the evening of Monday 20 April. We got an incredible amount done, from planning the big picture, working on changing how his listings would look, fixing a few things in the eBay listing template we had made for him, and training his wife on some HTML and Photoshop so she can help him out.

It was fantastically productive, and it was great to connect with such nice people with a good business model. My client is a bit quirky, so when I asked him to summarise the adventure for my blog, here is what he sent:

With the giant-headed intellect of an alien the smiling, caring, helpful Debbie Levitt, As Was Founder and CEO, came in for a landing at my humble abode, and my eCommerce business and family were enriched spiritually and financially. Debbie is an extraordinary talent and wonderful human being to boot. An on-site visit at my home over a work/fun-filled weekend will be paying big dividends going forward. I highly recommend this type of interaction for any of Debbie’s clients or soon to be clients. It was positively awesome.

I wanted to let people know that I'm available to travel to you, wherever you are, and stay as many days as we need to get you the help you need. You don't have to be an As Was client for me to come and consult on-site for you. And I'm not an alien. :)

If you'd like to get a quote on me travelling to you, please turn the following into an email address, and email me.

deb AAAAAAAAAAT debbie levitt DOOOOOOOOOOOT commmmmmmmm. Trying to avoid spam. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Rumour of eBay Certified Seller

I have been hearing some rumours about an eBay Certified Seller programme. First, let me say that I have heard NOTHING about this. I know nothing. I don't even know if it exists. But I've been reading the posts and speculation, and wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

For the first time in my life, I actually agreed with something someone posted in response to this on AuctionBytes. He or she basically said that Certified Seller sounded like another thing to add on a giant pile of ratings, titles, and categorisations eBay already has for sellers.

• Feedback
• DSR
• PowerSeller logo and levels
• Feedback stars
• Percentages and tiers
• Being sorted into Best Match

I think I'd agree. I think we have enough ways to certify or qualify sellers. I have bought from plenty of eBay sellers, and I think we know everything we need to know to organise sellers by quality or reliability.

If eBay would re-tweak Best Match so that DSRs and other "seller standing" parameters were the MOST important factor, then eBay would be serving me (statistically) the best sellers. Period. The best people!

But right now, "Recent Sales" has been tweaked as more important, as far as I can tell. This means you are more likely to get a seller who has a large inventory over a seller with really high ratings. I think this is wrong. I don't care how many the guy has... I just want to have a really good shopping and buying experience.

For those of you who are fans of my mockups of eBay pages (how I think the pages should look), you might remember that I started taking OFF things like feedback stars. In reality, so few of these things mean something to shoppers. Does a shopper care if you have a purple star? Does the shopper care if you recently changed your ID? Does the shopper look at these and even know what they mean? If they don't know what they mean, then they might be confusing or misleading.

Which is why I want to get rid of anything on eBay pages that is meaningless to the shopper. If this doesn't enhance the sale, why is it there? It might be just another thing the shopper has to read or think about, and that can slow down or derail shopping. Adding that a seller is "certified" may not mean anything more to shoppers than PowerSeller or anything else we throw at them.

I compare this to the time I tried to get to know Bonanzle. The site told me that some items were "in a bonanza." I had no idea what that meant, and there was no obvious explanation. So I gave up and left. I felt like there was a lingo that I wasn't hip to, so I was just an outsider. I think eBay should stay away from too many titles and lingo that isn't totally obvious and totally helpful to shoppers.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Pay-For-Tweet

There has been a lot of discussion lately about "truth in advertising," especially relating to blogging. I'll be writing articles about that too. But today, I stumbled on TwittAd.com.

You are basically "selling" TwittAd's advertisers the right to post things to your Twitter account. You get paid for the ads. You're selling out your contacts. Here's how it works, copied and pasted from their website:

The other option they offer is instead of putting your account up for "rent" (as I'll call it), you can search their campaigns, and see if any advertiser matches something you'd like to get paid to tweet.

Oh wait, there's more. I just found this in the FAQ:

Yeah, you read that right. You're renting your Twitter background as ad space.

Well, good luck to the people who give this a try.

Posted at 08:28 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

People in Boston are Strict

I've lived in Boston a few months now, and the one thing I've noticed is that people are strict. People are often humourless, and lacking flexibility. Deadlines are really hard. I'm used to Arizona, and I'm also used to NOT treating people like that. I'm used to BEING flexible, so I often expect others to be flexible.

I belong to meetup.com groups. Last week, I realised I could make an event the day before the event. It was a new group, and I was only one of 4 people attending, including the organiser. I decided to change my RSVP to NO so I could see my husband's band play. I got a message the next day that due to unforeseen circumstances, the organiser of the group had cancelled the event and completely closed the group. The end. No first meeting. No group. ?!?!?

Another group I'm in charges $10 for each person to go to the event. I had RSVP'ed yes, but forgot to pay. The organiser sent out an email last week saying that if you didn't pay $10 immediately, she would go in and manually change you to a NO RSVP. I emailed her to please not change me, and I would pay some time the next day.

9:40am the next day, I get an email that my RSVP was changed to NO. She had set it so that nobody could change that to YES. You could keep it at NO, or you could change to "waiting list," neither of which prompted you to pay her stinking $10. So now I'm trying to figure out how to pay this and be considered a YES.

Jeez, strict.

Last week, I was driving down a street that was 2-lanes in my direction. I was trying to follow my GPS, and was not familiar with where I was. I was in the left lane. All of a sudden, the left lane I was driving in had a left turn arrow. I was surprised, and didn't feel like I had time to make a decision. There was a cab right next to me, so I'd have to hit my brakes, signal, and move to the right lane. I noticed that both lanes continued after the intersection, which was weird. So thinking I had no time to do anything else, I just continued through the intersection.

Lights started flashing. I was pulled over by the police. They told me it was against the law to be in a turning lane and NOT make a turn or NOT get out of the lane. I broke a law. Talk about strict. I explained to the officer that I was trying to follow my GPS, I was driving along in the left lane, and suddenly, it had a left turn arrow. I couldn't merge onto the cab, and I just continued through the intersection.

She let me off with a warning, but it was a sad experience that made me think this town is just really strict. No room for mistakes. No room for someone following a GPS to have her lane turn into a turning lane and not get out of that lane.

This town is really strict. I hope I find the fun and flexibility at some point.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

eBay Consultants Who Kill Sales

We've been doing eBay consulting a looooong time. Our first eBay client was in 2001. I like to say I invented eBay consulting. :)

Phone calls and emails I get remind me that not every company out there is good at this. It actually IS possible to hire eBay advisors, trainers, consultants, or designers, and see your business decline directly because of them.

Here are some of the things I've heard about other companies, without naming names:

• "They said they were eBay experts. They gave me advice, and did some design. My sales went down, and now they won't answer my emails."
• "I paid a lot for an eBay Store design, and when I checked my traffic report after it was installed, my bounces were way up." Bounces are when someone hits your home page and then leaves without visiting any other pages or clicking anything.
• "I hired them because they won design awards, but then they made my Store look like all the others ones they do. I wanted to really stand out."

I have a lot to say on this topic, and I'm sure there will be more blog posts about this. But today, I wanted to share with you something someone showed me yesterday. She saw Google Adwords ads for a company claiming to be an eBay consulting firm in the UK. These people had a page on their site about how they will provide extensive training. Their website also says they offer SEO, yet as you move around their website, you notice that their URLs are all http://theirdomainname.co.uk/?page_id=120 or other numbered pages. I think you can do better than that for SEO!

The most interesting part of their site was a screen shot they included of an eBay seller's dashboard to show you how much money they want to help you make. There is no "before" to compare this to, but it's presented like a success story for after they helped someone.

Click to enlarge... this is straight off their website including their redactions.

Look closely...

• Search standing: standard. They couldn't help them get any better search placement?
• No PowerSeller discount yet the PowerSeller logo is there, and the status says Silver
• Policy compliance is FAILING. As in this account probably got in trouble for breaking eBay rules. Hey, that doesn't look so good for your "success story" screen shot!
• Buyer satisfaction "needs work." Ugh, this means crappy DSRs. Come on!

Ugh ugh ugh. This is the success story? This is the "after" you helped someone? And you didn't think about ONLY doing a screen shot of the sales and leaving out the dashboard summary? Ugh.

His About Us page on his website? Empty. His Our Team page tells you how he recruits consultants for what your business needs. Um, you could do that too, and possibly even without him. :) His Web Design page is blank, and his website design is a nearly-unmodified Wordpress theme. A heap of other pages that look like they're going to be about how he helps start-ups and writes your business plan... all blank pages with titles.

Ugh. Another case of a dentist having awful, rotten, missing teeth.

People, please research people carefully. Make sure they have a strong track record. A lot of factors go into success on eBay. Promises are often alluring. Google ads are designed to reel you in. Don't get reeled in. Be smart, and research. Look for results. Don't just shop by price. The cheapest guy may not be the best, and if you take your online buiness seriously, go for quality.

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Auctiva Commerce: Review

More than ever, our clients are asking us to design eCommerce websites or customize a skin for their shopping cart system. Yeah, we do that. :) We're doing our best to keep up with all the new ones, and lean them as fast as possible.

Today, I went to look at Auctiva Commerce. One of my clients gave me his Auctiva login. Right away, I found two pages. One had me choose from Auctiva's pre-made design templates/themes. The other was a place to drop my logo and whatever text I wanted at the top of every page of my store.

That was it. I've been poking around a lot of eCommerce systems right now, most recently epages.com and BuyItSellIt.com (while one of my staff perfects our Vendio Stores offering), and I am used to a clearly-marked area where I can put in our templates, style sheets, or at least move some modules around (drag and drop) to lay pages out how you want them. I think epages did that, and so does Amazon Stores (yeah, we can do those too).

I couldn't see anywhere a company like ours would be able to do the more extensive customisation or the innovations we like to get out there. So I went to www.auctivacommerce.com to poke around and see what I can learn.

Not much. I even watched their demo video. The website and video promise that AuctivaCommerce is "the most powerful and innovative eCommerce system available today." I completely disagree. Have you seen etailcomplete.com? That was probably one of the most powerful and innovative I've seen yet, but it's also the most expensive one I've seen since Intershop in the late 1990s. :)

Back to Auctiva. Here are some other things I noticed while poking around...

• Their website says NOTHING about SEO. So this is clearly not a priority OR selling point!
• OK, I just found that under "features" and then I had to click on "marketing," which was in the secondary navigation but not in the left-side navigation. That's a bit buried for something I think SHOULD BE a major factor when people are choosing which eCommerce software system to use. They claim that they send out product feeds and will create a sitemap.
• I went to "features" and then "design." They say that choosing one of their themes will instantly add appeal. I'm sorry, but I saw some of their themes, and I stopped shopping on sites that look like that years ago. I think shoppers are savvy, and have raised their standards. You're going to have to do better if you want to claim to be the most powerful and innovative eCommere platform out there.
• Their website links to NO active stores so you can see them in action. If there are links there, I can't find them. I really expected them on the home page, or somewhere dominant so I fall in love right away. :)
• OK, I just found them on the "shop" page. Three stores were featured and linked. Two had identical backgrounds in different colours. All three had their logo on the top, and then the cookie-cutter layouts. 
• I want to link you to some of these stores to show you how I feel they are below the standards many shoppers will have for where they do online shopping, but I don't have the heart to point these people out and complain about their eCommerce sites. Just know that in 2009, I think that we can do MUCH better when it comes to eCommerce design and usability.
• The pricing page says they will take a percentage of your sales while saying, and I quote, "We don't subscribe to the "the more you make, the more we take" mentality. And, we never will." GUESS WHAT. If you take a percentage of sales, then the more the seller makes, the more you make. It's just simple math. Even if your percentage is tiered and gets lower as the seller sells more, you will still make more off a $10,000 month of sales than a $1,000 month of sales.

Verdict: This is some of the biggest marketing spin I've seen outside of Apple and their iWhatevers. :) The promises and superlatives here are mighty, but based on the HEAPS of eCommerce systems I've been checking out lately, I'm whatever-is-the-complete-opposite-of-unimpressed.

I hope Auctiva will tone down the marketing hype and tone up the features and offerings. After all, marketing hype doesn't help people make sales. The eCommerce system has to really be something that goes into search engines well AND is so easy and obvious to use that it HELPS make sales and helps there be fewer abandoned shopping carts.

If our clients want us to design for these stores, we'll certainly do everything we can to design and customise them! We'll support these Stores, if our clients want them.

My faves so far... in no particular order, Vendio Stores (nice drag-and-drop Add To Cart, among other things), BuyItSellIt.com, epages.com, and if you have the budget, etailcomplete.com.

Posted at 06:26 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Making eBay's View Item Page More Useful

Some of you know my current hobby is trying to improve eBay usability. I want to see View Item pages that make shoppers trust buyers, leave shoppers with no doubts or questions, show them the info they need to know without them having to hunt for it, and make the sale!

I previously toyed with putting more details at the top rather than hiding them at the bottom or behind tabs. This time, I decided to do something really innovative to try to make shopping on eBay easier.

My idea this time is to have a bar at the bottom that carries the most important info so that:

1. People don't miss it.
2. Bidding/Buying It Now is never too far away. People hate scrolling. :)

Click this for a real page you can scroll around and experience:

The "bar" at the bottom stays there the whole time, even as people scroll. I can link things in there to different parts of the page. I linked the seller's name to her feedback and DSR record from her feedback page. It'll pop up right on that screen so you don't have to leave the shopping experience to check her out. :)

You might disagree with what info I've put, what colours I used, or how I laid it out... but that's why this is a mockup, a wireframe, an idea. In theory, I'd have a team of people at eBay who'd bounce the idea around, and we'd make it much better. Then we'd test it on focus groups, and test it more, and test it against other things. Then, we might let it run on the site a bit to see if it's more likely to make this item sell, how quickly, and for an auction, for a higher price.

So if eBay does something like this, I'll be taking credit for it since I haven't seen any wireframes or mockups offering this type of concept before mine. I also have piles of ideas for how a technique like this could be used around different eBay pages. Imagine if something like this reminded people to pay for something they won when 2 days have gone by, and they didn't pay yet. Imagine what we can PUSH to people as they move around the site to make using the site easier, faster, more obvious, and better for buyers and sellers.

What do you think of an idea like this? Do you think it would help shoppers and drive sales? How can it be improved? Thanks. :)

Posted at 06:15 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Software for Corrupted Outlook PST Files

My laptop has a habit of, once in a while, really crashing. Not just freezing. Really doing it big time. Anything that's open becomes corrupted after I have to force a shutdown or reboot. I have no idea what causes it. But typically, I have Outlook open because I'm always working on emails.

The first time this happened, it corrupted a small PST I had recently started. SCANPST.exe couldn't fix the file, and I mostly gave up. But this past Saturday night, a crash corrupted my main Outlook PST file. SCANPST couldn't fix it.

I ended up on the web looking for software that promised to recover most or all of the file. I paid $129 for Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair Tool. I saw similar tools for similar prices, so I wonder if this is out there under other names.

Short version: Don't buy it. Don't waste your time.

Longer version: This tool is hands-down the most poorly-designed program I've ever experienced in my life. Why? Because the tool starts by recovering your Deleted Items folder... probably the emails you care about the least, and in theory, may not care if they get recovered AT ALL.

The tool spent 24 recovering my Deleted Items folder, and then moved on, and then basically crapped out. It recovered around 800MB of my nearly 1.4GB file. Neither my calendar nor contacts were recovered, despite the website's promises about the software.

I emailed support. This is where it gets worse. They asked me if the DEMO version of their software had shown all of my emails. I said that I didn't run the DEMO for too long. Once it was clear that it was finding SOMETHING in my file, I bought the full version and let that run. They tried to make it sound like maybe I should have let the demo run for 36 hrs to see what it WOULD have recovered, and then run the full version for another 36 hrs to actually recover it. Huh?

They then tried to tell me that all my email is there! Just go into my recovered PST file, and do control-shift-F to find my files. Are you kidding me? Your software recovered HALF of my files, the recovered PST has NONE of the email folders I created, but I should expect to see every email if I just hit control-shift-F?

They are now refunding my money, and if they don't, this is a charge I will surely fight. If you have a corrupted PST, there may not be anything that can help. I'm convinced of that at this point. So I will archive more often, and backup more often, and maybe I'll reformat my computer and reinstall things. It's all I can do.

Posted at 04:08 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Surround Yourself With Strong People

I blogged about this some weeks ago, and it's just dropped into my mailbox again as a reminder. So I'm reminding you. :)

I get the "thought of the day" email from Abraham-Hicks.com. You may or may not believe in that stuff or "The Secret," but I think some good ideas come out of it. Power of positive thinking!

Here is a thought of the day I got recently, which reminded me of that blog post:

A bunch of weak people, even in numbers, aren't strong. Get a whole bunch of confused people together and see how much clarity comes out of it. In other words, you just can't add one more confused person to the pot, and expect to get any more clarity… One—standing outside of the confused group—who is clear, is more powerful than a million who are confused.

Excerpted from the workshop in Albuquerque, NM on Wednesday, September 1st, 2004

I think that says plenty, but just to give you my take on it... a group of businesses coming together to try to grow their business are probably thinking about business not being that great. Someone whose business is really on fire probably doesn't have time for that meeting, and may even think it's a room full of not-like-minded people.

There is wanting something and there is doing and being something. Do it and be it! Doing it and being it would be the fastest ways to have what you want. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Twitter Etiquette

Now that I'm on Twitter over a year, I've noticed some patterns. I wanted to make some suggestions to people on how to get and keep your followers. After all, like anything else, if you're not retaining people, what do you have? :)

The short version is "be sensitive." The medium version is, "this is social networking, which means think about how you would behave in an in-person social setting with strangers." The longer version is...

1. Unless your Twitter account is devoted to certain topics, like you're Rachel Maddow, consider minimum tweeting on politics. Around 50% of your audience may not agree with you. Say something liberal, and you may alienate half the people reading. Say something Republican, and you may alienate half your readers. I recently unfollowed some people for making repeated politically charged tweets that didn't match my beliefs. I followed her because she seemed like an interesting online seller, and I had no idea what her politics were. Ask yourself: Would I say anti-President things to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
2. Same for religion. Like politics, religion is often something that people take very personally. Like politics, this is an area where debating people may be meaningless. People have their beliefs, and they're likely to stick with them. They aren't on Twitter for you to convert them, nor are they reading you so you can put their beliefs down. These often aren't intellectual debates... these get personal, and when you're getting personal, it could get ugly. Ask yourself: Would I talk about my religious beliefs to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
3. Fighting with people. Remember that anything that's not a Twitter direct message is public. Anybody can see it. If I'm following you, I'll get at least your half of the fight. Some Twitter fights have already become legend, and have been blogged about. While your fight may not rise to legend status, it's still important to think about the communication you're putting out there. How will your followers see you? Will they want these tweets pushed to them? Might they unfollow? Ask yourself: Would I fight with a stranger at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party, or would I walk away or never start the fight?
4. Negaive statements on popular people or current events. For example, tweeting that you're glad Natasha Richardson is dead because you didn't like her movies or Rihanna deserved to be beaten... that could be left out of Twitter. I don't agree with either of these... they are just examples of some of the bizarre things "anonymous" people tweet because they think it might be cool or funny to talk crap. Ask yourself: Would I say this to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
5. Topics that might break people's hearts or come off as insensitive... cancer, alcoholism, child molestation. You're going to have to REALLY tread lightly here if you want to post about this. Remember that everybody following you either will have experienced "this" or will have people close to them who has. People will naturally be sensitive about these topics. I can't really think of a tweet about molested children that I'd feel good about reading, so if you're going to tweet about one of these very personal issues, please consider people's feelings. The people sitting in front of their computers DO have feelings. Ask yourself: Would I discuss molested children with strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party? If someone else brought that up, would I engage in debate, would I change the subject, or would I walk away?
   
6. Pet causes. Some people have experienced awful things, or those they love have been in horrible situations. I validate that, and I feel for people. But some of them now feel that it's their job to push their agendas on their Tweeple. I've read tweets bitching people out about getting girls vaccinated for cervical cancer. I've read tweets bitching people out for using their cell phones while driving. One thing I've learned from many years of amateur psychology is that you often can't change people. Bitching me out may not make me use my cell phone less when I drive. And for every one thing you want to change in me (a stranger who you may not have ever met), there may be two things I could ask you to change. But your purpose on this earth is not to talk me out of what I believe, nor is it to conform to what I believe. I just want to respect what you choose and believe without being given an earful about my choices and beliefs. Ask yourself: Would I tell strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party how they need to change to fit in more with my beliefs?
7. Insensitivity piled on top of insensitivity. I recently unfollowed something who tweeted something so insensitive about (some) children who are sexually molested that I could physically feel my heart breaking for everybody I know who had that happen to them. She then bitched me out for not really reading the whole fight (why would I want to do that... she made her point clear, and it was plenty sickening). She repeated what she said again @ me (I guess the first time didn't have enough painful effect on me), and basically told me I was overreacting and being oversensitive. She wasn't sorry, and she wouldn't stop, so I just unfollowed and blocked her, but I'd already lost a few followers who saw the unpleasant topic go by their screens. Ask yourself: If strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party seemed to disagree with something I said, would I "sheesh" at them, get sarcastic, and tell them they're just overreacting and being oversensitive?
8. That celebrity you're following may not be your new best friend. :) It's great that celebs are Tweeting and letting us into their worlds more. And it's really fun when they respond or retweet something we said. That's what social media is about. But they may not follow our tweets. They may not respond to us. They may not read what we're posting. And that's OK. They're celebrities. You don't have their email or phone number. They probably don't post to their own fan message board websites. You may never see them on commercial flights. :) They have to have some sort of wall up and boundaries, and that's OK. Don't bitch celebs out for not connecting with you more.
   

You don't have to be sensitive. I've read plenty of insensitive tweeters, including a few who looked like they were shooting for being purposefully insensitive or looking to incite people. The trick is to not take the bait.

Take the tests. Think about how you would react in a space where you might want to be liked and respected. Twitter is a social network, which means it's about connecting with people. You don't have to have everything in common with them, but you may want to behave more like this is a business luncheon than this is a noisy bar. :)

Posted at 05:47 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Try Our Mango Juice!

I recently tried a local Mexican food place. I'm darn picky about my Mexican food, after living for years in Tucson, AZ, and let me say I was VERY happy with the food. I will definitely go back.

The waiter was probably the owner. He was happy to see us, and wanted to know which neighbourhood we came from to eat at his place. He told us how good his steaks are, and that he gets them from the same people who supply the fancy downtown places. He was charming, and between him, the place, and the food, we were won over.

At one point, he came over with a glass of juice. He asked if we'd try his "home-made" mango juice. Well, yeah, that sounded great. It was delicious. It was the most refreshing drink I have ever tasted in my life. We live around a mile away, and I could imagine jumping on the moped in the summer, and scooting over just to get some juice.

The bill came, and guess what. He charged us for it. Not only that, but the menu said "juices" were $1.75. We were charged $2.75 I think. I didn't say anything. The food was so good and cheap that I let it go, and still over-tipped him.

But my tip to you is that the freebie can go a long way. Coming over to tell us about the quality of your steak can have an impact. We were interested! Coming over with the most delicious glass of juice I've had in my life was awesome. But then charging me for it was a BIT weird. I thought this was the freebie that completely the reeling me in.

I think some people might have been really pissed off to be charged for something they didn't order. I suggest that the freebie really be a freebie.

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Cost Savings on Driving

I'm thinking about getting a 50cc moped, scooter, baby motorcycle in training, whatever you want to call it. I do a lot of local driving, and my car is a 2007 Toyota 4Runner. In this city, this car is gigantic, and it getting shamefully low gas mileage. Back home in Tucson, I was getting nearly 24mpg driving around town. Here, I seem to be lucky if my 4Runner gets 14mpg. :( Plus, here in Boston, you have tiny one-way streets that are really tight for the 4Runner. I can't even get up and down my own driveway because it's too narrow.

I'm wondering what I can save on parking, gas, and car maintenance if I did my "easy" local driving on a 50cc moped. Clearly, my husband can't take it to band rehearsal since where would he put his guitar. And we can't take it out for a giant Costco shopping or any of our famous road trips. It won't be allowed on the freeway, so it'll be for mostly local driving. But we can get a lot of use out of it 8 or 9 months out of the year, I'd think.

The math!

My car gets 14mpg, and the Piaggio Fly 50 I'm considering gets 110mpg. My car can take regular gas, but I think premium gas is suggested for the moped. So let's do the math with those assumptions. The Fly 50 can take 400 pounds of rider weight, so my husband and I can ride together. It's a 4-stroke, so it doesn't sound like a lawnmower. It's relatively quiet.

100 miles in the car will take 7.14 gallons. At $1.90/gal, that's $13.57. The Fly would need 0.91 gallons. At a 91 octane price of say $2.26/gal, that would be $2.06. So I'm saving $11.51 at current gas prices for every 100 miles I can take the scooter. I don't go 100 miles a day... so maybe I'm saving $40/month.

Parking STINKS in the big city. I am plunking quarters into meters like mad, and a few times, we've been stuck parking in a garage for like $20 because we couldn't find street parking where we were. So let's say I'm saving $40 per month on parking.

Oh we also save on public transport. Waiting for the bus where we live SUCKS. If I'm only trying to go 2 miles, it can take what feels like an hour between walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, sitting through every stop, and finally getting to where I wanted to go. Or let's say we wanted to go for lunch to Faneuil Hall /  Quincy Market. We have to wait for the bus. Take it to the orange T line. Change lines to the green T. Get off at Government Center, and walk a few blocks. It's 3 miles from my front door, and it can take over an hour each way.

So I might just jump on the scooter rather than all that waiting and changing buses and trains. Every round trip bus ride costs me $3.40. So maybe between me and my husband, we take the bus 10 fewer times a month. That saves $34/month, though I'd love to calculate the savings of my time based on what I bill in an hour! Each round trip might put 1.5 hrs back into my life.

Wear, tear, maintenance? Well, the Boston roads will do a number on any car. But if I'm driving the scooter more, then my scheduled car maintenance every 5,000 miles will come less frequently. With a $250 service looming for my car, spreading these out more does sound nice. But it's not necessarily savings as the cost didn't go away... it'll just be delayed.

You also have the enjoyment of riding a scooter. It just might be fun. We might go out more. I do dread going out sometimes since I'm sure we won't be able to park cheaply or find a spot. You can evidently park a 50cc moped anywhere on the sidewalk where it's out of people's way. Enjoyment and getting out more mean something but are hard to measure when doing financial calculations.

Also hard to calculate is the environmental impact. The scooter does take petrol, but probably pollutes way less than a V6 4Runner.

So we'll stick to straight math. Let's say that using our scooter would save $114/month on gas, public transport, and parking. The scooter might cost around $3000 when all is said and done. We'd have to use it for 27 months for it to pay for itself. If we can use it 8 months a year, that's about 3 years of scooting.

The math on this may be like doing the math on a hybrid car. The hybrids currently cost so much more, and the gas savings will depend on how you drive it. When I was in Chicago last month, a cabbie was driving a Prius. I asked what kind of gas mileage he saw with it, and he said around 37. That's NOT that great... but you will spend $10K more on the Prius (than a Yaris). If you got 10 mpg more with the Prius, that may take months or years to "pay for itself."

Back to the scooter. From what I'm hearing, this is a great price on this moped. With gas prices not at $4/gallon, the scooter prices have dropped since demand has dropped. Prices may also go up when it gets warmer, and people are thinking about scooters. So I think this is probably a good idea at a good time.

How can you save money on driving, and save your time too without killing the environment?

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Best Designed Twitter Backgrounds

There are plenty of Twitter users, websites, and blogs who are showcasing or awarding people who they think have the best Twitter designs. I look at a lot of these, and there is one thing I notice over and over.

Nearly every "best" Twitter background uses a gigantic canvas. Many of them are 1600x1200 or larger. Many have a LOT going on in the first 3-5 inches of the left side.

I first designed mine like that, and then put it out for my friends to check out. Many reported back that their screen resolutions were only at 1024, 1200, or 1280 wide. Some said they had bigger screens, but had "zoomed in" or used CONTROL + to bump up the font size. This also seems to bump up the background. Also remember that screens are getting larger, but laptops are getting smaller.

That meant they couldn't see the first 5 inches of the left side of my design. I did some math, and decided that the lowest common denominator was that just about everybody should be able to see the first 137 pixels of the left, which will be just under 2" for some people. If your resolution is higher and your screen is bigger, you'll see more. But especially if you're writing words, it'll be important to think about compatibility for more people.

Looking at the Google Analytics for our aswas.com website, 56.2% are at 1024x768. 2% are at 1152x864. 23.4% were at 1280xsomething (4 diff resolutions that all had 1280 as the width). 6.7% are at 1440x990. That's 88.3% of users who can't see your 1600x1200 design, even on a really good day. 5.5% of my visitors were at 1680x1050 (which is my external monitor), and 2.2% of my users were at 1920x1200.

So if you are designing for a 1600-wide canvas, most screens and laptops won't see the whole thing. With Twitter centering the main content on whatever you CAN see of the background, that means that elements you deemed as important to the design could be covered.

Let's take a look at some screen shots to illustrate what I mean...

This is how I hope my twitter background might look for many people. You get my whole left side, and you even get my right side.

I have a large screen on my desktop, but I'm using left side room for my Windows taskbar, and right side room so that I can always see my Vista gadgets.

This is how the same screen looks on my laptop (same computer, I just unplugged the external monitor).

The taskbar is still on the left, so I'm just missing my right-side ASWAS.COM part of the design. Anybody who keeps the taskbar at the bottom would see that.

How about when someone zooms in? I hate reading tiny text. I use glasses for the computer, and don't want to lean forward. :)

You can see that as I zoom in more, the design just disappears on a smaller laptop screen. The same is true for zooming in on a bigger monitor. This time, let's show an example that I found on one of these "best backgrounds" websites.

This is the design on my large monitor. This is clearly how it was meant to be seen.

Again, these words are just tiny to me. So in Firefox, I zoom in. Here is how the design then looks on my large monitor...

And on my laptop, first "normal" and then 3 levels of zooming in...

The interesting thing is that if designers were using my 137-pixel guide, and putting most of the left side content inside there, designs would mostly stay in tact across many different screens and resolutions.

Which leads me to this point. Anybody can design anything really eye-catching and amazing when given 1600x1200 to work with, and assuming that people can see inches of design on either side of the Twitter content.

My question is what can you do when many people will only see the left 137 pixels? Is it still great Twitter background design when a large percentage of users can't see the design the way you intended it? Is it still one of the greatest Twitter designs ever when possibly 88% of viewers can't see your message?

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Upcoming eCommerce Conferences

Well holy cats, the month of June is getting quite complicated! There are so many events coming up. I figured I'd try to help people sift through them. :)

April 28-29, 2009 is ChannelAdvisor's Catalyst event. We sponsored last year, and it seemed like a good event. Most of the attendees told me that their favourite parts were the networking meals and other networking aspects. Many didn't think the seminars were that business-changing, but they loved who was there and who they could meet. I think CA had

This year, CA has dramatically changed their event. It looks like most of the networking aspects were taken out. I didn't think the seminars looked that business-changing. And I think they are capping the event at 200 attendees. They have not sold out yet, so you can still arrange to go. I have not registered yet, but plan to attend if all works out right... I have a (personal) event to attend a few days before in Tucson, AZ. I'll have to route a tour!

Yes, I know April is not in June, but I'm hearing from some people that they're not attending CA because they can only budget for one event each year, and they're choosing one of the ones in June. I just wanted people to know it was an option!

June 3-4, 2009 will be the PESA and ECMTA event in Atlanta, GA. I am currently not a PESA member, and the last time I was at one of their events was 2004. However, that was a nice event! :) I'm sure that this upcoming event will be a good one. I'm not sure I can budget for it because...

June 15-18, 2009 is the Internet Retailer show in Boston, MA. They seem to have sold out their giant trade show floor, and have 4 days of seminars and workshops. It's not cheap to attend, but it looks like a major eCommerce event. I'm going to try it for a day or two, just to see if it's something I want to throw more money at next year. So I'll be attending the first day or two. Then, I'll be flying to...

June 16-18, 2009 is the eBay and PayPal Developer Conference being held in the eBay North Campus in San Jose, CA. Yes, cross-country events the same week. I always love the Dev Con. It sounds like this year's will be smaller given the competition from other events.I think many "top level" people from companies will be at Internet Retailer, so I expect DevCon to attract more programmers than CEOs. I'll be speaking (for my third year in a row), so I'll be there for at least the last day or two.

June 24-25, 2009 is the eBay Radio Party (working title) in Las Vegas, NV. For those who miss eBay Live, the current plan is to do an small event in Vegas focused on live internet radio broadcasting with Griff and Lee. There will be some seminars (yes, I'm speaking there too!), and hopefully a fun party given the name of the event.

So those are some options for how to spend your month of June (and April) with the events that are most relevant to eBay and online sellers. I hope you will look for my As Was shirt (if you don't know my face), and come say hi!

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Would eBay Listen to This?

This is NOT an April Fools post. I'm serious about this!

I suggest things to eBay all the time, sometimes in my blog and sometimes privately, behind the scenes. We know from Scot Wingo's blog and statements that he's probably doing the same thing. I would imagine other Certified Providers are trying to give eBay suggestions. Yet most of us know different people at eBay, which means we might be telling the same ideas to 10 different eBay staffers, who never compare notes, and might write off an idea as just one person's idea.

I also thought about how many times I've been right. Not to toot my horn, but things I've put in my blog or told eBay staffers behind the scenes would or would not work have nearly always turned out to be true. I'd imagine other high-up people at the eBay Certified Provider third party companies are thinking the same thing... they're thinking, "Hey. An idea I gave eBay (or put in my blog) that they didn't listen to turned out to be right!"

2008 and 2009 have been great for one thing: eBay is talking more to the top third party providers. They want to know what we think of some of their moves and ideas. They want to know how they affect our users and clients. We're getting more advanced notice. These are all GREAT, and I'm very glad that eBay is connecting more with the Certified Providers and a few other top developers.

Here is what I'm wondering today. Chances are, most of the third party CEOs will soon find themselves at the same event. Maybe we'll all be at Internet Retailer. Maybe we'll all be at eBay's Developer Conference. With DevCon attracting more programmers, it's more likely to be Internet Retailer in Boston in mid-June.

What if all the CEOs and any other really relevant top people at the Certified Providers got together in a closed-room discussion. What if we put our heads together about what eBay should be focusing on and changing based on what we see going on with eCommerce and sellers. Many of us are talking to the media, analysts, and investors. People are listening to us, and want to know what we think.

What if we presented a proper paper to eBay, not to bully them, but to say HEY... this is what companies representing hundreds of thousands of sellers and billions of dollars of eBay transactions think should be changing... this is what is broken, this is how we'd fix it, and here are some negative things that rippled out of things eBay did (when they may not have realised what would ripple out).

When it comes from just me, you can pass it off as what Debbie wants for As Was or As Was clients. But if the paper were co-authored and signed by the CEOs or top people from ChannelAdvisor, Infopia, Kyozou, Vendio, Inkfrog, Auctiva, As Was, What Do I Sell, ShipRush, Mercent, JDT Technologies, Channel Velocity, Monsoon, ShipWorks, Terapeak, and the like, would eBay take that more seriously?

If eBay is listening to PESA as a representation of PowerSellers, and eBay is listening to Voices as a representation of buyers and sellers, I'd think eBay might want to listen to a unified (or nearly-unified :) ) bunch of suggestions from the third party companies. We just might have some good ideas.

We're the companies out there dealing directly with sellers' triumphs and struggles. When eBay sellers are failing, that ripples out to our companies, and that ripples back to eBay. We see the causes and effects in short periods and over long arcs. Think about how many eBay Certified Providers have had the same CEO or management for the last 3 yrs, 5 yrs, maybe even 10 years. We have been in these trenches a LONG time... longer than some eBay staff are in their jobs or assigned to a certain project. We have a really unique point of view on things.

We're all invested in eBay sellers doing better... being stronger, being more viable, being more profitable, keeping their businesses open, selling more, shipping more. Anything we can come up with as a team can only be win-win-win-win-win

I invite all the top people to get together when we're all in Boston for Internet Retailer. Let's make time for this. Not April Fools. Totally serious. We should put together formal suggestions that most or all of us agree on. Maybe that would be taken more seriously. eBay sellers, send this blog post to the high-ups at the third party companies you use. Let's have an eBay Certified Provider Summit, and let's really put our heads together.

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Use of Color in Logos and Design

The meaning of colour is debated all the time. Some articles or blogs that say that colours do have strong meanings and ties.

Does the colour black mean power and authority? White is purity and safety? Purple is wealth and prosperity? Green means money, and darker green is masculine money? Orange is fun and flamboyant?

I could go on. But I want to say that I don't really subscribe to that. Maybe I'm special, but I've never looked at something with a black background, and felt that it meant power and authority. Sure, bleached white socks say purity and cleanliness, but I'm not sure they say safety! I'm drinking out of a purple mug, but I don't feel like it represents wealth.

So I just don't go for that. But colours are important. My approach is that colours are more about mood, and how you use colours together can really help project your company, product, or service personality and image.

Black and pink. Does that mean "whatever black means" plus "whatever pink means"? Not to me. Black and pink looks like modern punky. A bit left of centre. The contrast between something dark and something light. The fishing pole company is unlikely to go with black and pink. :)

Blue and green. They're sometimes equally dark or light shades of blue and green, so this may not be about contrast. These are colours used for nature a lot... eco, water, sky, grass.

People may say that red means passion, but I think it depends what you put it with. Put it with blue, and I'd say you have gone USA patriotic in your theme or mood! I don't look at red and blue, and say WOW... the passion of the red and the confidence of the blue. The colours in combination now have their own meaning to me.

Put red with pink, and I'd say you have something that's probably just feminine. I wouldn't say oh, it's red for passion and danger and pink for whatever pink means. I'd say we're selling to women. :) Also, the pink being a shade of red will give the logo or design a certain mood. Shades can do that!

Orange is flamboyant? Um, I don't think so. Put it with brown, and I'm going to say that 1972 wants its fridge and wood panelling back! Orange and yellow I'd say are bright and sunshine-y. Orange and blue are, well, the NY Mets I guess. :)

So do think about your colours when designing a logo, website, or anything else. I personally don't subscribe to the idea that a single colour will make people all feel the same thing... like we all think of riches and royalty when we see purple. It's also cultural. Wikipedia points out that purple is a colour of mourning in Thailand. So not every person will have the same reaction or connection to a colour.

What about the As Was logo? Did we pick those colours so that you'd imagine the spirituality of the colour violet with the flamboyance of orange? Nooooooo. I chose those colours and looking the way they do in our logo to look like the sunset in the New Mexico (I had been living in Santa Fe just before I had the logo designed). The sunset looks like this in Tucson, AZ (where I was just living for years) as well. The sky gets a really bold and warm violet, just above the horizon is a burning orange-red-orange, and in between, it's a gradient. An old version of our logo used to have the gradient. We now just use the two colours... easier for embroidery. :)

But do think about boldness, warmth, contrast, neutrality, and other "effects" of colour combinations when you're having something designed. It's all about projecting the message of your business!

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

TwitPay Helps Amazon Battle PayPal

This morning, from a tweet (Twitter message, for you uninitiated :) ), I found out about TwitPay, which is TwitPay.ME and not .com. It's interesting, but I think it needs a few tweaks before it'll really take off...

It's really easy. If my company just did a change to your eBay listing template, and that was a $50 change, you can tweet, "@aswas twitpay $50 for template change." TwitPay will then use Amazon Payments to make that payment. You use the TwitPay to "settle up," which I assume means connecting your Amazon Payments account to TwitPay, or maybe you have to approve each transaction. I'm honestly not sure about that detail yet.

Amazon Payments takes their cut, which is a bizarre matrix of fees. For every payment 99 cents or greater, TwitPay takes a nickel for their role in the process.

I think it's interesting that the people building this new services chose Amazon and not PayPal. They could have integrated both, and asked which one you want to use. And they could have picked PayPal. But they didn't.

I was never able to get anybody into the idea of sending me money with PayPal through their mobile phone. Both Amazon and PayPal allow you to register your mobile phone, and then send payment to somebody if you know their mobile number or email. Nobody ever did that. Every client I had went to the PayPal website even though it WOULD be shorter to text, "send 50 to [my PayPal email address]" to 729725. Yet nobody seems to do it!

I wonder if tweeting money to people will pick up. My theory? It will once it's done through DM'ing the TwitPay service. Using "@" means that the payment is public, and you've just typed in someone's email address in a place in a public place that can be scraped for spam lists. So I don't like that. Anybody following me or reading my public timeline would see how much I paid and to whom.

So to TwitPay, the only problem I see so far is that one nice thing about people and companies paying each other is that it's a private transaction. You're making it public. Make it through the Twitter direct message system, and I think you have a shot. The convenience could be worth the nickel.

Posted at 05:09 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How To Approach Your New Logo

One thing that every seller needs is a good logo. I've always said there are two main approaches to logos: the symbol and the text treatment.

The symbol is something that can stand for the company, product, or service even when no words are there. I hope the As Was logo is that for you! You see our design and colours, and you know it's us even if "As Was" aren't there. Or think of the Nike swoosh. It doesn't have to say "Nike" for you to know. That's a symbol, to me anyway.

The text treatment is when you are really just writing the name out. Maybe you write it plainly like Coach or Prada, or maybe you write it with more pizazz like Yahoo or eBay. But ultimately, this is mostly about font and colour, and not about symbols.

This article in the Positive Space Blog goes further than my breakdown, and identifies 5 types of logos. As this may help you think about what kind of logo you want, I'll quickly run through them here.

What I call the text treatment, Positive Space calls the "wordmark." You're using text and font and colour for your logo.

Their 2nd type is "letterform marks." This is where the logo revolves around the use of individual letters that are designed or styled. I guess I'd think of Qwest or ADP as letterform logos.

Their 3rd type is "marks," which are like what I call symbols. Though in this case, they seem to categorise "marks" more as characters. Think the Trix Rabbit or Linux Penguin. Positive Space says these types of logos relate to the company or a brand attribute. I guess I'd put the Apple "apple" here, though I'd say the "iPhone" and "iPod" logos are really just text treatments.

Their 4th type is "abstract marks and symbols." These look at symbols that aren't any particular character. I think I'd put the Windows logo (the 4 coloured blocks that seem to be flying) here. Positive Space says these logos are about the brand message.

Their 5th type is the "emblem," which Positive Space describes as a combination of words and pictures that relate to the company, product, or service, and how they're positioning it. As an emblem, the slogan might even be part of the logo. I couldn't think of any off-hand. UPS maybe?

Remember that logo design is a really important aspect of your branding and identity. This may not be an area to cheap out. When we've seen cheapy logos, they look like someone stuck together one or two clip art images, and then threw in the name. Well, that's worth what you paid for it, especially since the same company might put together something quite similar for someone else. 

The logo should be memorable, which is why symbols often have more impact than just a text treatment. Think about what will be best for your business!

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

In-Person Conference on Virtual Events... Huh?

I just got an email inviting me to the Virtual Edge Summit. In theory, I'd like to attend that, but I'm not sure I can budget for more conferences and travel. I already have what feels like 100 events coming up in the next 3 months.

The Virtual Edge Summit should cancel itself out. It is an in-person conference about virtual events and online communities. Huh? Why not prove the point of virtual events BY HOLDING A VIRTUAL EVENT?

Like don't have me fly to Santa Clara, CA (or assume I'm already in that area)... have a virtual event to show how awesome virtual events are! Jeez.

Posted at 08:37 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ticketmaster Convenience Charge

Ticketmaster Convenience Charge. I barely know enough four-letter words for you. Ticketmaster is the only company I can think of that surcharges ME for experiencing convenience, and allowing them to use fewer resources and workers. If my clients took work off my plate, I would DISCOUNT our prices because now, we have less work to do on the project!

Ticketmaster Convenience Charge, you are SO convenient that you add often 15% to the ticket price. All of this for the glory of using nearly none of your resources since I'm buying tickets online. I didn't have to talk to a phone rep. I didn't make you rent more office space. You didn't have to hire for my purchase!

And then $2.50 for the TicketFast service or TicketsNow or whatever they call emailing you a PDF so you can print your own tickets. So if you print my tickets and mail them to me, which takes paper, postage, and resources, that's free. But if you use no paper, no postage, and no resources, that's $2.50... AND it comes with a full page of ads. My last one came with a coupon for FedEx Office and the Mexican chain place next to the venue. I bet those people paid to be there. Ticketmaster made money emailing me a PDF of my tickets, first from advertisers, and then from me. I am literally being charged to view paid ads.

The ticket business is down. Ticketmaster, in many cases, is the only place you can get these tickets. I have to get them from you, not go to the show, stand outside the theatre box office, or get them from a scalper, broker, or reseller. And remember that the tickets aren't your only expense. You will pay for gas to drive to the event, and you'll pay for parking. Or you'll pay for mass transit, and sit on busses and subways. You'll probably go out and eat. You might buy a drink at the venue. You might be a souvenir CD, DVD, shirt, pin, etc... There are plenty of expenses tucked into an evening at an event.

$8.50 Ticketmaster Convenience Charge on a $60 ticket (14.2%). $5.95 on a $37 ticket (16.1%). Add $2.50 for the PDF service to a $37 ticket, and you've added 6.8% to the price. Ticketmaster would have collected $8.45 on a $37 ticket (22.8%).

People complain about eBay fees being 10% or 12%, and they should complain. That's HIGH. Ticketmaster is charging more and giving people way less. eBay fees expose your item to millions of shoppers every day. Ticketmaster Convenience Charge does nothing but keep me from buying more event tickets.

If your show didn't sell out in my town, you can thank Ticketmaster for making it 23% less appealing to buy those tickets.

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

I Want To See Higher Standards

People can't afford to waste time and money with sub-standard companies, products, or services. In this economy, that is magnified. Nobody should be sending ANYBODY to any company, product, or service that they don't really, deeply believe is the best choice.

I still see blogs and websites with lots of ads and affiliate links, and they take people to all sorts of things like "systems" for selling on eBay. These systems are pretty much always endorsed by some sort of "expert" or "big PowerSeller" to win your trust. They will take your money, and many of them don't work... especially if they are based in having you get most of all of your inventory from traditional "drop shippers."

I'm reminded of the controversy that swelled around an eBay "expert" who often recommended products and systems to his readers and fans. People started complaining that one of the companies he recommended was a scam. The "expert" finally admitted that he was just recommending them for the cut he got, and he had never actually checked them out. His readers were pretty angry, and I think they rightly felt like they had just been used for the "expert" to make money off of. Some people thought this was not totally ethical.

Similarly, a company recently told me that they don't really look into their partners. They push business to whomever comes in as the bigger sponsor of their events... but don't really check them out. It sounded like they had no standards other than who paid them. I think this company's clients should get recommendations based on quality companies who are good matches to their needs, not who paid the most in sponsorship money.

And I think that's sometimes true for websites and blogs that have ads and affiliate links. These are sometimes chosen for where money can be made, and not necessarily by who that website thinks you should be doing business with.

Who do you want recommended to you... by someone you trust?

So I am calling for higher standards. I'm calling for an end to "enabling" scammers and low-quality companies, software, and services. Sure, they may offer you a cut. But remember that that cut comes from your fans and readers paying that company money. If nobody hires them, you get nothing. Which means you might be pushing your fans and readers to spend money with someone who may not be good.

If that company, product, or service ends up "disgraced" like my previous example with that "expert," you could end up with "guilt by association." Your fans may want to know why you plugged a scammy service or rip-off e-book. Your readers may want to know how much money you made off of something that was trouble for them. Your readers may want to know why you pushed so hard for them to use a certain online marketplace if there are very few sales happening there. Your fans may have good questions, and those questions are really questions of your credibility.

I'm at the point where when I see ads on a website or blog, I just assume someone paid to be there, and the website probably didn't run any kind of quality check. I don't think they Googled the business to see if there are complaints. I don't think they checked BBB complaints. I assume these are paid ads, and as paid ads, they had NO standards to live up to. The advertised company, product, or service could be great, or could be a waste of time and money, it could be ineffective, or it could even be unethical.

We don't accept ads on our website, in our blog, or on our radio show. The companies who sponsored our events and the people I chose to speak at our events last year were chosen by my trust for them. Anybody who did anything to break that trust wasn't invited back. Companies I don't like, who offered me a lot of money to sponsor those events, were turned down. I didn't want to sell my attendees/fans/readers on something I couldn't totally stand behind.

Those are my standards. They're not everybody's standards. But I think now is a good time to take a look at having higher standards. Relationships are important. Your fans and readers trust you. Every suggestion you make to these people can make or break that trust. So I think websites and "experts" should be more careful about who they recommend. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

As Was is Hiring (Spread the Word!)

Hey there! We've been redefining some of the jobs at As Was, and we now have some open slots.

Our open jobs page has all the information. You can then follow that to our Account Manager and Integrations Manager jobs.

We expect you to have the skills and talent to match what we want. We'll teach you how to do things the As Was way. :)

Thanks, and pass it on!

Posted at 09:42 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

eBay Partner Network Income

OK I think I've tried just about everything, and I just can't make the eBay Partner Network (ePN) into any sort of decent revenue-generating thing. I'm sure if I "sold out" more, maybe it would work, but I can't bring myself to do that. I already hate how much I pushed some of these links, and for what?

Experiment 1: Dropping eBay items into an existing Twitter account with a following

I have a twitter account called yourppl, which mostly covers the music business, focusing on concerts and touring. I had a small following, and I thought I'd see what happens if I had a feed drop a few tickets from eBay sellers every hour. I figured people who wanted to know concert news might be interested in concert tickets.

In a month, I had 6,000 clicks on those concert tickets, and ZERO purchases. So if this was to see if anybody cared, it looks like some people were interested. But from the world of making money, I made none. Nobody bought a single concert ticket. I just pissed people off, evidently.

The outcome is that I lost some really nice followers. They hated the ticket listings, even though they were not the main "content" in the account. People called me "scalper scum," and HATED me for listing tickets for sale. I mean venomous hate. It was really bizarre. Someone even suggested that I should be shot. None of these listings were mine anyway, so it was really interesting to be so hated for something I wasn't even selling.

So after a month or so of that, I have removed that feed. I'd rather not plug tickets to people who will hate me for it. I don't want to sacrifice what I'm building up with my @yourppl account just for the experiment of who will click on tickets, and would it make me any money. I have shut the feed off, and promise people who follow that account: no more eBay ticket listings.

Experiment 2: Creating a blog and twitter feed just for stuff from eBay

On the assumption that stuff in blogs and twitter would get attention in search, I ran a separate twitter account just to dump stuff from eBay in there. An expert suggested that I dump higher priced things that are very in demand so that if I do make ePN money, it'll be decent money. So I dropped in high-priced things based on what I thought was in demand... concert tickets, Coach bags, iPhones, Wii systems, a real hodge podge of stuff, all higher-priced.

I got some clicks, and I think a couple of purchases. I think I got around $20 last month from people clicking on these. Barely worth the web hosting I set up for the domain name. So I consider this a failure.

Could I work harder at this? I guess. But that would be work. :) And for what I bill for an hour of my time, I'm not sure this is how my time is best spent. I don't think I've ever received a payment of more than $40 in a month from ePN. Barely worth the time.

Experiment 3: The blog and twitter thing tried by someone else

Someone I know decided to try a similar experiment. She set up a blog and and twitter feed, but rather than go for the higher-priced thing, her idea was to do focused items for a narrower audience. She aimed at items around $50 that were housewares and craft-related things like for knitting.

It sounds like she got some action and some purchases, but not enough to call this any kind of part-time living. Maybe it'll pay for one dinner out each month.

What is your experience?

Have you been able to make serious revenue from the ePN without "selling out your friends" and getting your life threatened like my experience? :) I have only found one person claiming to make more than $50/month, and I wasn't able to reproduce that person's results, even though he gave me clear directions on things to try. I tried a BUNCH of things (not all listed here), and couldn't get more than $70 in a month.

I think that until ePN allows more links to be commissionable, it's not that viable as a real revenue source. I believe that more links SHOULD be allowed to be commissionable, but that'll be a blog post for another day. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Web Design Has Evolved Past Columns

For 14 years now, my company has been on the cutting edge of website design. We did some things that were considered out there... until everybody was doing them. The very warm and visual style people are doing now with backgrounds, lots of mood, etc... is what we've been doing for years.

I'm always looking at where website design is going next, and one amazing thing I noticed was that some time in the 2nd half of 2008, major websites removed their columns. Best Buy, Target, and Office Max are some main ones I tend to watch. I assume they pay for research and focus groups. :) And all three removed their mult-column website format. What do they look like now? Click for larger versions.

Columns are gone. Left side columns full of categories are gone. You can still search sites. And some do categories by having a "categories" button. When you run your mouse over that, categories pop up. Or they have categories along the top, and when you run your mouse over those, sub-choices pop up.

Have you seen the new View Item page eBay is testing? I believe that you will not be able to drop your eBay Store categories down the left. We had said for years to get those out. We thought they were more distracting than helpful, plus who wants to read a gigantic list of words. But now, I think that the new View Item page isn't even letting you put those there.

Left side categories are dead. Long live web design that is more visual, bold, vibrant, and focused on making shoppers feel engaged. Anybody who wants to give you lots of columns is probably not up on where website design has been going for years.

Once you click into a site, it makes sense for a left side column to be used to help you narrow down your search. But this is functional, and enhances your experience. If it makes shopping easier, then it makes sense. But to have those old-style home pages that dump EVERYTHING on there no longer really make sense. Shoppers' attention spans are WAY down. They're not reading. They want something catchy and obvious.

Here is someone who hasn't caught up with the times. :) Very texty. Lots of lists. Lots of messages... join site-to-store, top navigation, see all departments, left navigation, search box, backyard fun, nintendo, find gas prices, prescriptions... I think that's just too much for someone to digest. Too many messages. I look at this, feel overwhelmed, and just want to know where the search box is. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Advanced eBay Store Design is Dead

I saw that a conference a week or so ago had a seminar about Advanced eBay Store Design. I'm surprised to see that someone is out there talking about this or trying to sell you on this. Advanced eBay Shop Design is dead.

In January 2009, eBay dropped the axe on "advanced" eBay Store design. This seems to have been the practice of using coding that broke an eBay rule in existence since 2004 to give the eBay Store a very different look and layout. All through 2008, I was waiting to see if eBay would embrace this style of design, or if they would kill it. I believed eBay would kill it, so my company chose to NOT offer this non-compliant style of design.

eBay chose to kill that style of design. Among other things, they felt that changing the Store's look and layout that much was confusing to eBay users, who get accustomed to how an eBay Store looks and works. This meant that hundreds of people paid a lot of money to get an eBay Store that not only broke eBay's rules, but was possibly less effective than a more "simple" eBay Store design.

What's left of "Advanced Store Design" seems to be an overdesigned eBay Store home page. Once you click past that, you get an eBay Store with minimal design (as it probably should be). My question now is: why sell the overdesigned home page when time after time, we hear that these are less effective?

Let me put it this way. I used to call someone on the eBay Stores team every year, and ask the same question. I'd say, "Tell me that your data shows that custom eBay Store home pages work. Tell me you have proof that they are more effective... they make shopping easier... they make shoppers stick around longer. Tell me ANYTHING, even if you don't give me the data, tell me you HAVE data that shows that custom Store pages lead to more sales. I will make sure every client I have gets a custom Store home page if you tell me this." And year after year, there was silence on the other end of the phone. They could not tell me that a custom Store home page, especially one with a lot going on, would be better for a seller.

And then they drop the axe on "advanced" Stores. I get the message. I believe that these designs are often not effective, and have the potential to distract and confuse shoppers. eBay would know if custom Store home pages lead to more sales, and they would be comfy telling me that they do, even if they give me none of their internal and confidential data. So we still recommend that sellers NOT use eBay Store home pages at this time.

What's left of Advanced eBay Store design is evidently just a custom Store home page, which in my opinion are often overdone.

Advanced eBay Store design is dead. Long live simple eBay Store design that brands the seller, makes shopping easy and obvious, and excludes distractions, microscopic text, and the "let's throw everything on the home page" idea that most online retailers abandoned in 2008. I'll explain that one tomorrow. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)