There are Bad People out there, who sell USB flash drives designed to show fake capacity values.
Over the past year, I’ve purchased a few dozen USB flash drives, with capacities ranging from 8GB to 256GB. Some were genuine; most were fakes. Read more »
The goal of most businesses, I believe, should be to earn a profit from the sale of goods or services.
Over the past 20+ years, we’ve seen a succession of bizarre business models, in which little thought was given to “profit,” but instead to intermediate metrics (our web site needs visitors, eyeballs, clicks, engagement, etc.). Many dot-com companies succumbed to ‘perverse incentives.’” Read more »
&$*%*&@ Amazon.com #Amazon #PrimeDay
(Aug 26 & Sept. 7 updates below)
Back on Prime Day, the only worthwhile deal I found was a promised $40 promotional credit if I paid $9.99 per month for a one-year subscription for Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC + Lightroom).
Today, I learned that they’ve decided to change the terms of the deal, so I won’t be able to use the credit. Read more »
Sixteen years ago, I received a call from someone who worked for a large computer manufacturer, which was planning to add an online direct-sales program. The caller was creating a business plan for this new division of the company, and wanted to hire me to design an affiliate program.
My first question was, “What about channel conflict?”
Read more »
While reading Internet Retailer’s December 2012 profile of its chosen “Top 100” ecommerce web sites (http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/11/30/going-extra-mile), I was confused by its “Speed” ratings for the sites. Each web site was evaluated based on its page-load time, and 33 of the 100 sites were rated “unacceptable.”
The idea that many web sites succeed despite slow load times isn’t a surprise. What confused me was the scale used by Internet Retailer in assigning its speed ratings: Read more »
Online product reviews are a critical part of my buying process. But how useful, and how legitimate, are the product reviews we see on merchants’ web sites?
Read more »
A teacher asked about “Weird letter characters appearing when viewing [her] product description online.”
As expected, Amazon.com yesterday terminated its advertising relationship with 25,000 California web publishers, including me, after Gov. Brown signed an “Advertising-Nexus Tax Law,” which would use advertising relationships as a “hook” to try to force Amazon and other out-of-state retailers to collect California Sales Tax. I’ve posted separately about this on my separate blog for LessonIndex.com: http://blog.lessonindex.com/2011/06/california-forced-amazon-to-stop-advertising-here/
Read more »
Always test, test, test whenever you make any change to your web site. Read more »
A reader asked why I pointed out that certain directory sites lacked a privacy policy, in my “Affiliate Program Directories” page.
A privacy policy is one of the most basic requirements for any professional web site. If a web site doesn’t have a conspicuous link to a privacy policy, it simply isn’t very professional, and is less trustworthy. Read more »