Archive for October, 2007
More Online Holiday Sales
October 30th, 2007
adminYes, I know it seems early, but the December holiday season is just around the corner. If you’re an online retailer, it’s time to start preparing your site and marketing for increased holiday sales. Here are ten tips to get you started.
Plan to add a touch of holiday spirit to your site. By this I mean one or two graphic elements - enough to remind shoppers that your site is a good place for gifts, but not so much that the graphics detract from usability.
If you use affiliate partners to sell your products, provide them with holiday themed banners and buttons. These can link directly to one of your special holiday promotions.
Do you offer gift certificates? If not, see if you can. Although they can be issued online, many people prefer to give a physical certificate presented in a special envelope.
Do you offer gift wishlists? Many people shop for themselves and give their loved ones suggestions.Make it easy for them to do it on your site.
Categorize your products to make shopping for gifts easier. Use titles like “For Her,” “For Him,” “Gifts under $50,” “Holiday Specials,” etc.
Communicate well with customers, both on your site, and through e-mail. Many will need reassurance that their gifts will arrive on time. Others are apprehensive about the entire online experience. Be especially clear about shipping times, fees, and return policies.
Consider investing in additional advertising and promotion. It’s easy to buy and manage Google Adwords.
Do you publish an e-mail newsletter? Get an issue out at least 5 weeks before the December holidays to encourage your existing customers to shop with you. This is a great tool for promoting special holiday gift offers as well.
Gift wrapping and gift receipts (that don’t show a price) are thoughtful features to add. This makes it easier for buyers to have gifts shipped directly to recipients - good for last minute shoppers.
Fine-tune and test your site.
Laws To Advertising
October 29th, 2007
adminSmall business advertising is a science and an art. Companies often miss the fundamentals of advertising. Regardless of the size of your business an understanding of the laws of advertising can reap huge rewards.
My understanding of these fundamental laws came years ago when I had the privilege of working for one of the all-time advertising success stories; NordicTrack. NordicTrack’s advertising was based on flawless execution of fundamentals.
According to Small Business Administration, 5% of an entrepreneur’s gross sales should be budgeted for advertising. A 5% small business advertising budget can only help if you understand the laws of advertising.
6 Laws of Small Business Advertising Success
1. Use One Message: A high response rate ad usually conveys a single message.NordicTrack’s message of the "World’s Best Aerobic Exerciser" was simple and compelling. Your small business advertising needs to quickly communicate its core message in 3 seconds or less. If you are fearful and overwhelmed by technology, which computer book do you buy? "DOS for Dummies" began a best-selling phenomena because its message was easily understood and to the point.
2. Add Credibility: It has become human nature to distrust advertising. Claims need to be real and credible. Roy H. Williams, best-selling author of the "Wizard of Ads" says, "Any claim made in your advertising which your customer does not perceive as the truth is a horrible waste of ad dollars."
NordicTrack added enormous credibility from a University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse research study, ranking the cross-country ski exerciser first in the areas of weight loss, body fat reduction, and cardiovascular fitness. Ivory soap’s advertising success was attributed to its credible statement that ivory soap is the 99-44/100% pure.
3. Test Everything: Large businesses have a greater margin to waste capital and resources without testing advertising. Small businesses do not have the luxury. Use coupons, codes, and specials to measure the headline, timing, and placement of your ad. Test only one item at a time and one medium. Testing can be as simple as asking every customer for several weeks how they heard of your business.
4. Be Easy to Contact: Every single brochure, box, email and all company literature should have full contact information including: website and email address, phone and fax numbers, and company address. It seems simple but is forgotten by most companies. At NordicTrack, every box a ski machine went into had full contact information and the "World’s Best Aerobic Exerciser" tagline. Be everywhere.
5. Match Ads to Target: Successful business advertising speaks to one target market only. At NordicTrack, the ads were tailored to each market. An ad in a medical publication preached the cardio-vascular benefits of cross-country skiing to heart patients. Ads in women’s magazines discussed the weight-loss and calorie burn from cross-country skiing. Focus the message to the target group.
6. Create Curiosity: Successful business advertising does not sell a product or service. NordicTrack’s ads sold the free video. Once a potential customer watched the video, they contacted the company for more information. The end result, millions of dollars of sales. Create ads that generate interest and make the customer want more information.
Having a poor response is not the medium’s fault. Often the problem is the message. Small business advertising is not a quick fix solution to marketing your company. It takes planning, testing and constant exposure to have an impact on your small business. Done correctly, small business advertising can be a winning strategy
Temecula Fire Update
October 24th, 2007
adminFallbrook Fire
October 22nd, 2007
admin10-22-07 2:36 p.m. CAL FIRE reports The Rice Fire in Rice Canyon, North San Diego County has crossed I-15 and Hwy 395. Numerous structures have been destroyed in Fallbrook. Evacuations are in progress in Fallbrook. Mandatory evacuations in South Fallbrook. It is currently 300 acres and 0% contained. 40-mph winds hampering suppression efforts This fire started at 4:16 this morning and the cause is under investigation.
Satelite Photo of San Diego Fires
October 22nd, 2007
adminThis satelite picture shows the direction of the smoke and wind. Looks like we may have a chance of not catching on fire.
Fallbrook, San Diego Fires
October 22nd, 2007
adminWe have had a lot of traffic outside of our office in Temecula. This picture was taken today at 2:25. The southbound traffic on the 15 is moving extremely slow.
Below is more information we found. Will it hit Temecula or will we be passed by for once?
10-22-07 2:11 p.m. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for Scripps Ranch south of Scripps Parkway, north of MCAS Miramar, west of Hwy 67 and east of Interstate15.
10-22-07 2:03 p.m. Mandatory partial evacuation of Fallbrook. The EAS message advises “all residents of Fallbrook, north of Highway 76 and west of Interstate 15 to evacuate the community. Evacuees should leave through Pendleton Gate at Ammunition Road and go through Marine Corps Base-Camp Pendleton to Interstate 5 North to San Clemente State Park.”
A second EAS message has been issued to City of Chula Vista residents. The City of Chula Vista has requested residents who live in the following areas to voluntarily evacuate: Rolling Hills, San Miguel, East Lake Woods, Bella Lago. This is precautionary and is suggested due to unpredictable fire predictions.
10-22-07 1:20 p.m. The County Board of Education reports all San Diego County public schools will be closed Tuesday.
The University of California-San Diego campus will be closed Tuesday, October 23.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ regular meeting will be cancelled Tuesday, October 23. Agenda items will be carried over to the next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, October 24.
10-22-07 12:47 p.m. Mandatory evacuations in Fallbrook and Valley Center.
Evacuations are beginning on the eastern half of Fallbrook; from Insterstate 15 east to Live Oak Park Road, to Gird Road, and East Mission Road to the north and San Luis Rey River to the south.
Evacuations are beginning in a large area of Valley Center, near the Bear Valley area. Valley Center High School is the evacuation center. Residents in Valley Center should play close attention to news reports because of the serious fire threats.
10-22-07 12:21 p.m. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in Poway from Rattlesnake Creek to the south, Midland Road to the west, the San Diego Aqueduct to the east, and Lake Poway Road to the north.
Evacuation points are being established at Mount Carmel High School at 9550 Carmel Mountain Road and Poway Community Park at 13094 Civic Center Drive.
All residents who wish to volunteer their time are advised to call Volunteer San Diego at (858) 636-4131 or sign up to volunteer online at www.VolunteerSanDiego.org.
All residents who wish to donate emergency supplies and personal necessities are advised to call Goodwill Industries at (888) 446-6394 to find their local Goodwill drop-off site.
CAL FIRE reports: The Harris Fire is 20,000 acres and 5 percent contained. They are currently mapping the fire. Aircraft is periodically grounded due to high winds and visibility. The Southwest Powerline was shut off yesterday and to remain shut for unknown duration of time. San Diego County Sheriff and U. S. Border Patrol are handling immigrant issues including the rescuing, medical treatment, and identification of individuals. Otay Lakes Road is next fire decision making point for impact to San Diego City and Chula Vista. Multiple structures have been destroyed. There are 55 engines, 4 bulldozers, 9 fire crews, 6 helicopters, 5 airtankers (assigned), 6 water tenders (400 firefighters). The cause is still under investigation.
The Witch Fire is 10,000 acres, 0% contained. The fire is still spread westerly. Currently there is 28 engines, 1 dozer, 14 fire crews, 2 water tenders, 18 overhead (369 firefighters). Multiple structures have been destroyed. There have been no injuries to firefighters and one injury to a civilian. Communities threatened: Highland Valley, City of San Diego/Rancho Bernardo, City of Escondido, City of Lakeside, Barona Indian Reservation, City of Poway, Wild Animal Park, Mt. Woodson, Muth Valley. Wind driven fire with spotting up to 1/2 mile. Rapid fire spread burning down hill, down canyon. The fire is burning primarily in unburned fuel between the 2003 Paradise and Cedar Fires.
Googles Headache
October 21st, 2007
MatthewGoogle Under Fire Over a Controversial Site from the Wall Street Journal has an outstanding summary of all the controversy, politics, legalities and moral issues Google has run into due to their Brazilian favored social networking site, Orkut.
The article covers how Google had to pull the ads on Orkut back in August due to them showing up next to “pictures of naked children and abused animals.” From the article:
The head of Google’s Brazilian operation is facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to turn Orkut users’ data over to police. And next month there is a hearing in a case brought by a São Paulo prosecutor threatening daily fines of $100,000 or the shuttering of Google’s Brazil office. “We have won,” says Thiago Tavares Nunes de Oliveira, a 28-year-old Brazilian law professor who wrote the graphic report and has crisscrossed Brazil making the case that Google allowed Orkut to become a redoubt of criminal activity, including child pornography and racist speech.
iphone open for developers
October 18th, 2007
MatthewSAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - In an apparent about-face, Apple Inc. will allow third-party applications to work directly on the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a posting on the company’s Web site Wednesday.
Apple infuriated developers and some iPhone users when it issued a software update Sept. 27 that disabled unofficial programs installed on the handsets.
Until Wednesday, Apple had tried to control which applications consumers had on their iPhones.
Now, Jobs said the company intends to release a software development kit in February that will let coders create applications to work directly on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The Touch is the new iPod portable player that resembles the iPhone but lacks the function of a cell phone.
“We are excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” Jobs said in the posting.
It is easy to find many unofficial programs for the iPhone on the Internet; users just had to take the risk of installing them, knowing that any damage to the iPhone stemming from unofficial programs was not covered by Apple’s warranty.
“I’m thrilled,” said Erica Sadun, a Denver computer programmer. “I hope it is exactly as they say, full third-party development.”
A Mac enthusiast and blogger — and a critic of Apple’s decision to restrict the iPhone to carrier AT&T Inc. in the United States — Sadun predicted Apple’s change of heart will ultimately help the company sell more iPods and iPhones.
An unknown number of users have “unlocked” their handsets to work on other carrier networks. The Sept. 27 software update reportedly disabled those phones.
It was not clear from Jobs’ statement whether the move was a response to the growing discontent around Apple’s iron grip over its portable gadgets.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to say why Apple made the change, noting instead that Jobs said the process of opening the iPhone to third-party programs will take time.
Apple’s change does not affect the Cupertino-based company’s position on keeping the iPhone compatible only with AT&T’s network in the United States, Kerris said.
Two lawsuits were filed against Apple on Oct. 5, accusing the company of engaging in monopolistic behavior and unlawfully restricting consumer choice by preventing users from “unlocking” their iPhones.
The iPhone, which combines a cell phone with a multimedia and wireless Internet device, was released in late June amid a flurry of anticipation. More than 1 million iPhones have been sold.
Apple had allowed developers to build applications that run on the iPhone’s Safari Web browser but didn’t let programs work directly on the iPhone software platform, which could make them easier to create and make them work more smoothly.
Palm Inc. has always welcomed third-party developers to create applications for its handheld computers, or personal digital assistants. They have created hundreds of programs ranging from medical dictionaries to astrology predictions.
Even without Apple’s blessing, developers created workarounds to install applications onto the iPhone this summer. Some did it for sport, others in order to add capabilities to the device, such as to-do-lists or games.
Jobs said it will take until February to release the software kit because the company wants to give developers an open platform and also protect iPhone users from viruses, malware and privacy attacks.
“There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network,” he wrote.
Jobs noted that rival Nokia Corp. also does not allow third-party applications to be loaded onto some of its new phones unless the applications have a digital signature that can be traced to a known developer.
“While this makes such a phone less than ‘totally open,’ we believe it is a step in the right direction,” Jobs wrote of Nokia’s stance.
Check your font
October 13th, 2007
MatthewI came across a few cool tools for working with fonts and css.
Typetester is an alternative to
fiddling around with CSS in order to test out font settings.
I also found Designer Plaything,
which, while a little rough around the edges, provides a useful alternative
to Typetester in that you can try out different headline / body copy combinations.
With some more font options and some further development — more customization
options, user-defined text, the addition of sub-headings — this could
turn into quite a useful tool.
Designer Plaything also provides a brightness and contrast check of your color
settings, which is a nice touch.
Aother is Font Tester
It’s very customizable and, like Typetester, allows you to compare fonts against
each other.
However, it doesn’t include the option to compare headings alongside body copy.
It also seems a little bug-prone which precludes me from recommending it wholeheartedly.
For example, in Firefox changing the number of columns via the ‘View’ option
causes the example text to disappear.
Social Shopping Engines
October 8th, 2007
MatthewMicrosoft announced the purchase of comparative shopping Web site Jellyfish.com yesterday. No information was provided in the official blog post about how Microsoft would eventually use Jellyfish, but it could augment its existing ecommerce and search offerings nicely, important as a more universal approach to content goes mainstream for the search engine media giants like Google and Yahoo. Jellyfish however is not the only comparison (or comparative) shopping service on the Web. There are in fact many (fifteen below including Jellyfish) that, if you are an online retailer, you should look into as a sales and marketing vehicle. Comparison and social shopping services are excellent ways to generate excellent feedback, build brand by establishing community and of course move product.
Below is a list of fifteen comparison shopping engines that at one point or another have crossed my radar. I’ve also included Web rankings from Quantcast.com, Ranking.com and Alexa.com which should provide at least some modest guidance on how much traffic these sites are receiving on the whole. If you know of another comparison/social shopping engine that I missed please do comment below.
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Quantcast Rank: 71,705 Ranking.com Rank: 54,913 Alexa Rank: 35,780 |
Jellyfish: Comparative shopping search engine which shares revenue with shoppers. Think of it as "eBay in reverse." Instead of showing advertising to Jellyfish end users, the company allows stores to use their advertising dollars to lower the cost.
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Quantcast Rank: 221,996 Ranking.com Rank: 1,066,099 Alexa Rank: 97,758 |
Crowdstorm: (Beta) Crowdstorm is a social shopping engine which will bring in content aggregated from a vast range of professional sites and blogs, allow end-users to "ask the crowd" for personalized answers, receive price comparisons from multiple sites (amazon, ebay, shopping.com). Crowdstorm relies on an algorithm to measure user knowledge and trust between people.
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Quantcast Rank: 5682 Ranking.com Rank: 3,798 Alexa Rank: 2,223 |
Etsy.com: A very popular site for the buying and selling of handmade items. What makes Etsy social are the features: handpicked lists by members (dubbed Treasury), geo-locators (find and browse by location), a "time machine" which shows recently added items, suggestions (generated list of product recommendations from a random sampling of users favorites) and of course, let’s not forget "Alchemy" - a feature which allows users to request made-to-order items from Etsy sellers.
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Quantcast Rank: 16641 Ranking.com Rank: 9,249 Alexa Rank: 12,593 |
Zebo.com: A little known but (by the looks of it) highly active social shopping engine. Zebo dubs itself as the world’s largest repository of things people own. Create personalized profiles about what you own, want, and love to shop for and see what other people are doing on the site. Very social features such as ZEBuzz (realtime conversation board - very active), ZeboStrip and Graffiti (post and share photos), and Zebo groups to stay in touch with your shopping buddies make the service one to consider adding to your marketing mix.
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Quantcast Rank: 4,233 Ranking.com Rank: 35,768 Alexa Rank: 11,380 |
ThisNext.com: Calling itself a "shopcasting" network, ThisNext allows users to discover, recommend and share their favorite products. All items featured on ThisNext are picked by the community. Users can organize their picks into lists called shopcasts. The social nature of ThisNext is strengthened with interactive badges (lists and tags) for your blog, website or social profiles on networks like MySpace.
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Quantcast Rank: 896 Ranking.com Rank: 29,645 Alexa Rank: 7,085 |
Kaboodle.com: One of the more popular social shopping engines and social networks in general, Hearst recently acquired social shopping engine Kaboodle back in August of 2007. Kaboodle is an active and engaging community where members create and join groups, share advice, feedback and product suggestions and personalize their profiles with polls and other widgets. Hearst is expected to build pages on Kaboodle featuring products from many of its 19 U.S. magazine titles, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping.
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Quantcast Rank: 53018 Ranking.com Rank: 57,319 Alexa Rank: 28,166 |
Wists.com: Short for Wishlists, Wists are shareable image bookmarks for any page on the Web. Users install the Wists browser button and automatically create picture bookmarks for any page without having to actually uploading anything. This could make publishing or sharing lists of recommendations and wishlists easier for time-strapped social shoppers.
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Quantcast Rank: 44775 Ranking.com Rank: 71,929 Alexa Rank: 66,003 |
ShopWiki.com: The only shopping search engine that combines advanced Web-crawling technology with consumer-written wikis. This enables more products to be listed than a traditional social shopping engine could ever provide (more than 222 million products).
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Quantcast Rank: 3849 Ranking.com Rank: 2,548 Alexa Rank: 1,629 |
Woot.com: One of the more lively social shopping sites available, Woot has made a name for itself by selling just one item per day - starting at midnight. Unconventional to say the least, Woot started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor that has taken on a life of its own. The community is dedicated, active and purchase oriented.
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Quantcast Rank: n/a Ranking.com Rank: n/a Alexa Rank: n/a |
Buzzilions.com: A very interesting twist on social shopping. Buzzillions collects reviews from buyers that are verified by the retailers that sold it. The service helps end-users find products by narrowing down via the "Consumers Speak" navigation bar using words from customer reviews, provides SnapShots to help shoppers get the consensus of customer opinions, and then enables consumers to drill down to more detailed customer reviews.
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Quantcast Rank: 24794 Ranking.com Rank: 38,152 Alexa Rank: 14,887 |
Stylehive.com: Just like its tagline says, it’s what’s hot, right now. Stylehive focuses on the world of retail, design and fashion and are becoming a significant influencer in the shopping world. The community is active thanks to a good feature set; create tagged collections to share, interact with other hive members, build and share wishlists.
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Quantcast Rank: 293,790 Ranking.com Rank: 867,181 Alexa Rank: 132,019 |
Glimpse.com: One of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites for 2007, Glimpse.com is now part of TheFind.com. Another fashion-focused social shopping engine, users can browser, refine searches and see popular trends. TheFind.com will now power the shopping search engine allowing it to cover more online boutiques, brand stores and specialty fashion retailers.
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Quantcast Rank: 38650 Ranking.com Rank: 78,348 Alexa Rank: 46,165 |
Stylefeeder.com: Another interesting social shopping engine which lest users find, share, and keep track of their own personal shopping items online, using visual bookmarks. Users can drill down to find products with well-labeled keyword tags, add products they find, create watch lists, establish groups and more - like add Stylefeed to your own web page.
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Quantcast Rank: 14875 Ranking.com Rank: 76,823 Alexa Rank: 50,144 |
Shopstyle.com: A great way for fashionistas to get involved with social shopping, ShopStyle users have the ability to act as editors by assembling outfits into a stylebook, share them with friends to shop from directly. Users can even add pictures and commentary to their own stylebook and even push the content to their own external blogs.
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Quantcast Rank: n/a Ranking.com Rank: n/a Alexa Rank: 279,775 |
OSOYou.com: (Oh, So You) OSoYou.com is another shopping and sharing website for women with a passion for fashion and beauty. Users create their own Stylefile, a resource that enables shoppers to add what they like to their wardrobe wishlist in a drag and drop fashion from the site or elsewhere on the Web into their own personal page.