Any entrepreneur get to deal with many leads. However, not all the leads become clients. Part of that non-converting crowd are people who choose hosted shopping cart software. The reasons why we should like those people are numerous, but I am going to list just one of them.

Reason 1: If they didn’t accept our services they can still spread the word. People have very different needs. One person could be happy with hosted shopping cart. Another would need a full-featured web store front. Some will need clustered server farm. So even if we suggested some third-party off-the shelf e-commerce solution - we still on good terms with our lead.

Reason 2: With most of third-party solutions customer may need unique design. This one is too obvious to complain about. No matter how good the solution is - people will have natural urge to tweak it to their heart’s content. While a customer is able to upload inventory from Excel file and couple of images, tweaking style sheets and design may get too complicated. It is boring, too.

Reason 3: Any off-the-shelf or hosted e-commerce solution have its limitations. While being useful and user-friendly, it falls short when you really need to grow. When hosting lots of pictures, like sample or product images, or when electronically delivering your products, like eBooks or downloads, then server load and bandwidth will become issues with your hosted solution provider. You will fall back to people who can build a custom solution for your business. People who you already know.

Reason 4: There is a steep learning curve at the beginning of using any software. When you just starting everything seems unusual and complicated. Once you familiarize yourself with the software of your choice - you’re the king of the hill. When you come to someone to design and develop your custom-fit business solution you already know what you want! The design and development guys spend tremendous time determining what is it that client wants. People with experience are a great gift, like a second free customer. What could be better?

Overall, the idea of hosted shopping cart or online web page creation tool or whatever else is there is very productive for consumers, solution providers and web design guys. Consumers acquire knowledge and understanding of what they want. Solution providers acquire a stream of customers. Web design guys acquire educated customers. Everybody wins!

Original: http://www.idowriting.com/2008/01/23/hosted-e-commerce-solutions/  

Don’t be afraid of competition. Whatever you do (or decide to do) - there always will be a competition. Think of the ways you can do better then competition. Target market niches, provide more information then competitors, stand out. If you sell what everyone else sells (like knock-offs, replicas and such) - be one step ahead, write reviews, describe why people buy knock-offs, why yours are better then a shop next door. Build a social web around your store.

Don’t forget to follow-up. This way your customer will know that you are serious seller, even if you sell one dollar widgets. Sending e-mail is as inexpensive as it could be. Even follow-up e-mails can be automated (schedule sending of an e-mail in your e-commerce system to your customers, 7 days upon successful finalizing of the order).

Don’t force your customer to register in order to check-out. Always offer a no-registration check-out option. You still be able to collect all the information about a customer you need, but you will save them a minute or two during checkout process and (this is more important) save them a hassle of remembering their password next time they are at your virtual door. They will register once they realize they return often enough.

Don’t be afraid of Google, Yahoo and anyone else. It has been said numerous times - don’t think about search engines, think of your target audience. If you are in the business of selling widgets - write couple of good reviews on latest widgets, provide decent photos, build a reputation of a vendor who knows its widgets and not just sells stuff. Google likes good content as do your customers. One of major reasons why people prefer to shop at Amazon and NewEgg - is because they can read reviews (including those of customers) and see lots of pictures. Create web site that will be convenient to use and you will get ahead of your competition.

Don’t overwhelm your customers with all the current promotions and e-mails. Maintain a database of how many times you have e-mailed each customer. Try this trick: if you have sent out around seven promotions and a certain customer never visited any links from those e-mails - generate another e-mail that will ask the customer if he/she wants to unsubscribe from future e-mails. Unsubscribe automatically if no response is given. Chances are high that all your promotional correspondence ends up in Spam bin, so there is no reason to overload your servers or pay for e-mail delivery for this customer. On the other hand - it may alert customer and enact him/her to actually confirm subscription and look closer to your deals.

Original: http://www.idowriting.com/2008/01/23/five-major-donts-every-business-should-know/

When choosing a Content Management system or a shopping cart for your web site it is usually a good idea to ask yourself - what is the problem you are trying to solve?

Choosing the right CMS (Content Management System) is very hard. Most people (as noticed on quite a few message boards) make same mistake - they try to figure out what software they need to make money online. “I want to create a community, what software do I need?”. First of all - what kind of community is it going to be? Writers? Photographers? Make-up artists? Everyone has different requirements, and different level of knowledge. Photographers are a little easier to please, as they are used to complicated and cumbersome camera controls, but try to cater same interface to a community of models and make-up artists (same industry, after all) and you will be hit with an outcry for mercy.

Choosing a shopping cart is just one notch easier. First - customers already knows that he wants a shopping cart solution. Second - he is aware that whatever choice he makes is going to affect him in the future. Uploading or entering inventory is a time consuming task and not many people have time to experiment with that. But the ultimate question remains the same - what kind of problem the customer has? What is he/she selling and in which quantities?

There are customers who’s only reasonable solution would be an eBay. Some people can use quick shopping cart options, like PayPal’s shopping cart or BuyNow buttons, or even CafePress. Some could benefit from ZenCart, osCommerce, VirtueMart or peers. Sometimes company grows out of bunch of Excel spreadsheet and starts using CRM, sales and inventory tracking systems, such as RegKeeper, some flavor of QuickBooks, Configure One’s electronic catalog software or other platforms. Certain clients order a custom web site with integrated CMS and shopping cart.

Using full-blown shopping system if you only need to sell two flavors of your widget is unwise. Using PayPal for web store with thousands of clients may cost you significant percentage of your business. Each tool has its own (limited) scope of use. Management 101: Before offering a service - think: what is the problem the service is going to solve? If you have the answer to this question - you will find tools in no time.

Original: http://www.idowriting.com/2008/01/23/right-tools-for-right-jobs/  

Прошло три месяца как стал активно посещать спортзал. Вдохновленный большим количеством прочитанного и еще бОльшим количеством съеденного решил посещать раз в четыре дня. Если реже - то проще вообще не ходить, бо забываешь. Если чаще - устаешь сильно и обратно перестаешь ходить. Вспоминается, кстати, история из жизни. Решил, было, занятся спортом. Стал посещать спортзал 5 дней в неделю. Поскольку спортзал общественный, то посещать приходилось с 9 до 11 вечера, ибо раньше попасть на нужные тренажеры было просто невозможно ввиду большого количества тусующихся на тренажерах людей.  

   Код Да Винчи (2006)
В ролях: Том Хэнкс (Tom Hanks), Одри Тату (Audrey Tautou), Жан Рено (Jean Reno), Ян Маккелен (Ian McKellen), Пол Беттани (Paul Bettany), Альфред Молина (Alfred Molina), Юрген Прохнов (Jurgen Prochnow).

Старый смотритель Лувра очень плохо бегает, но еще хуже справляется с пулей в животе. Правда, пуля в животе не мешает ему оббежать пол-Лувра и оставить с десяток загадок, решив которые Роберт Лэнгдон (Том Хэнкс) и Софи Неве (Одри Тоту) смогут получить коробочку, в которой будет еще пяток загадок... и так далее, до полного катарсиса. А все ради великой цели - поиск Святого Грааля. Ради него тайная компания церковников отдаст "чемоданчик с деньгами" (обязательный атрибут любого детектива) неизвестному, пообещавшему найти Грааль, ради него обсыпанный белой пудрой киллер с безумными глазами будет убивать беззащитных служителей церкви, а вредный хромой старик - плести свои коварные планы.

We ham and jam and spam alot. 

Разумеется фильм я смотрел, причем много раз - сначала давно, почти не понимая языка и юмора, потом понимая примерно половину (потому что субтитры неправильно переписались и выглядели размазанными зелеными пятнами), и только совсем недавно пересмотрев фильм раза три осознал большую часть шуток. Не все, многое ускользает, поскольку о 1975 я имею слабое представление. Тем не менее, фильм - это одно, а мюзикл на Бродвее - это совсем другое. Именно о нем - Monty Python Spamalot musical - и пойдет речь.

Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached,
then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe,
who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

В первую очередь признаю - если бы не смотрел фильм, наверное половины бы не понял. С другой стороны - весьма возможно, что понял бы, но по другому, хотя субтитры в фильме помогают разобрать и "terrible french accent" и многое другое. Впрочем, в зал я пришел полностью вооруженный - просмотрев фильм, прослушав soundtrack и прочитав, соответственно, все тексты песен. С них - песен - и начнем.