Brady's Blog

Promote Your Competition | Another eBay test

2010-01-20T00:58:00.000-08:00

I heard about the latest eBay test from www.tamebay.com, Sue Bailey has written about eBay's latest annouoncement. They're displaying "merchandising" within the layout of your listing; merchandising in this case may include "merchandise from other sellers on active view item"...

I know this seems like a a bit of a joke, but beleive me this is for real.

Cross promotion has been around for a while (My eBay | Marketing Tools | Promote Similar Items) on on ended or watched listings, but to have a direct link to another eBay merchant in the same industry sector is suicide surely?

As Sue points out cross promotion on ended items is bareable, especially as you could pick up some new custmers; but if you're a well placed seller in the searches, how will you feel knowing that all your hard work could be for nothing if a cheaper, similar item, from another seller appears as a link on your listings?

Okay, so they may go to said listing and the postage is high or they haven't got brilliant feedback, but in today's market will a lower price be enough to encourage buyers to take a risk?

Will we see a number of sellers that can't attain Top Rated Seller status, dropping their price on the basis that they may steal your business?

I spoke with a client about this yesterday and the opinion is that if eBay role this out they'll pull out of cross promotion, not wanting to loose any business to competitors.

Part of me does wonder whether this is what eBay wants. Is this another way of "encouraging" sellers to use Adcommerce?

Sellers worry that teir well place listings will help competitors
Sellers then cancel cross promotion
Seller worries that they may loose a certain amount of business
Seller invests in Adcommerce to secure the exposure they were previuosly getting for free

What do you think?

Twitter & Search Results

2010-01-09T01:56:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've found myself using the the "Show Options" drop down when filtering Google's search results.

On the whole I use this if I want to see results based on "news" reports, but I'm increasing using the "latest" option when searching. I do this so that I can find the most recent web standard, new techniques or when reserching for a new blog entry.

What's interesting is how quickly out Tweets are making it into the search results. Take this search for "avalanche in North Wales" for instance:

Notice that the 4th result is a Retweet of a post made by the Daily Post newspaper. The post links to a news report on current avalanche risk in North Wales.

Now, that post was made 47 minutes before I made my search. The average blog or website will never achieve page one in a set of Google results in less than an hour. So if you're not using Twitter, perhaps you should be and if you are using Twitter, are you using it to it's full potential.

I write about web design; commenting on the software available, hosting and page layout, but I also contribute to conversations on current goings on in the world. Many of my recent posts have been about the little bit of snow we've had an how it's effected me and the Nation.

Don't be afraid to move away from your comfort zone, give your opinion on Global matters and generate interest in yourself has a person as well as a business. If you can relate you business/service directly with something that's being reported on in the news then great, but that's not always necessary.

Starting your own Business

2010-01-06T05:03:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend's cousin quizzed me about freelancing yesterday and while I'm no expert I have been self employed for over 2 years now and thought that others may like to read what I have to say and more importantly add from your own experiences.

I'd never done any web design prior 2007, terms like html and css meant nothing. My parents own Denbigh Army Surplus.They add a brochure website that hadn't been touched in 3/4 years and wanted to update the site and convert to an ecommerce site, a site that takes orders.

I immersed myself in html, css and Actinic and before long realised I quite enjoyed it.

I guess having a job whilst setting up my own business gave me enough confidence and financial support to take the plunge. My first client was a local couple and a massively under charged them to secure the job, but wanted the experience of working for a client more than the money itself.

As I grew in confidence I accepted more work, both ecommerce and brochure sites, I even maintain a couple of eBay shops too.

I guess my advice is to start small and build from that. This allows you to do work on top of another job if necessary, which means you're not panicking about where the next pay check is coming from.

You will find that you no longer have a 9-5 day and that you are "aware" of your business almost 24 hours a day, but that doesn't really matter, because you should be doing something you truly love.

Your wages, initially, may not be great, but you can right an awful lot off against your business and you'll probably be paying less tax. Which is nice :-)

Have a think about what resources and equipment you will need and how much it will cost. I started my business without any loans or overdrafts, something that would not have been possible if I'd required business premises or expensive equipment early on.

My local tax office runs free courses for people starting out and www.direct.gov.uk has lots of info too.

Do your research, keep up to date with the latest trends and developments in your sector and give it ago.

I know that job security is a concern for a lot of people at the moment, but if you've spotted a gap in the market and it's something that you're passionate about, why not see how it goes.

What do you have to loose?

Chamonix and Me

2010-01-02T02:59:00.001-08:00

I've just set up another blog focussing on te Chamonix Valley in the French Alps, but it will appeal to Boarders, skiiers, mountaineers and anyone who likes a good story....

Let me know what you think,

Rich

in reference to: Chamonix and Me (view on Google Sidewiki)

Optimising Images

2009-12-28T05:30:00.000-08:00

Using images on a web page is a great way to create interest. A good photograph or graphic can give the visitor a lot of information about your product, service or brand.

Being able to take a good photograph is not where image optimisation ends however.

The invention of the digital camera has meant it's very easy for us to build up a portfolio of hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs and I'm still surprise at the number of my family, friends and clients that still use the default file name, DSC00....jpg.

How on Earth these people ever find a particular image amazes me, especially if they're all lumped together in their "My Pictures" folder.

So from purely a housekeeping point of view changing the file name to something relevant is a good idea.

Programs, like Adobe Photo Downloader, give you the option to create separate folders and rename files very simply. They can even be set up to open up automatically when a camera, flash drive or mobile phone are connected to your computer.

As well as making your life easier, renaming file name also makes it easy for search engines to find and display images in their search results. The introduction of a specific image search, from Google, allows users to specifically search the internet for relevant images, makes anything called DSC00321.jpg pretty useless.

It doesn't end there though; using an "alt" tag is another way of getting information of an image into text form on your web page.

img src="/product-title.jpg"

becomes

img src="/product-title.jpg" alt="Product Title"

Don't just take it from me, have a look at what Mike Cutts has to say on the subject:

Another trick, when using images or graphics as links to other areas on your site is to include a text link above or beneath.

The image is being used as a "call to action"; catching the eye of visitors to your "Special Offers" or "Delivery Information", but the text link beneath can be seen by both the human visitor (if the user have their images turned off in their browser for instance) and the spiders crawling your site for relevant content.

Inaudible Memory

2009-12-19T04:36:00.001-08:00

What a great idea. A friend of mine has created a blog and is asking friends to email him with images that mean something to them.

A great oppertunity to relive some memories and get the travel juices flowing.

Thank you Chris

in reference to: Inaudible Memory (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sidewiki "Edit" Bug

2009-11-27T14:56:00.001-08:00

Has anyone noticed that when you go back and "edit" an entry it keeps prompting you to populate the "name" fields? Depsite them being filled in?

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)

webD on Actinic V10's "Big 3"

2009-10-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

So the conference is over and the long awaited announcement of V10 features... So the "Big 3" that Benjamin Dyer, from Actinic, announced yesterday were:

Real Time Stock Control

Something that actinic end users and developers have been calling for some time and something that every ecommerce website must have.

EDIT: It seems I miss understood how this worked, but Ben has now written a post detailing how it works. You can read it here.

Streamlined Checkout

This has always been a source of much debate on the Actinic Community.

The existing 4 pages has been condensed to 2 checkout pages and a confirmation page. All address fields are now complete on a single page; V10 will use JavaScript to show/no show the separate delivery address fields should the customer check the box.

I'm glad Actinic have done this; reducing the amount of clicks/pages between a customer and the "buy" button is what we're all striving for...

However, unless these checkout pages can be monitored independently and the number of drop outs measured page by page I will feel they haven't gone far enough.

Feefo Partnering

It's well documented that Google and the like are going to be focussing on a company's brand and how it's viewed by the general public. Customer feedback and ratings are going to be used when compiling search results so it's no surprised to hear that Actinic are joining forces with Feefo to complete the V10 package.

Actinic users have been able to include reviews on their site for sometime. "Google Friend Connect" can provide you with code that lets other Google users rate your product or page. Codepath's plug-in is a favourite amongst forum regulars, so what will Feefo offer that the other's don't?

Well I installed Google’s offering on a client’s site and found there to be a bug that affected the browsers back button and Codepath's plug in is an upfront cost of 150 quid, but it does cover all versions from V7.

Early investigation of Feefo's price plan suggest that there entry level package is £50 and I believe that covers 50 feedbacks, but the description is unclear:

"The most you will pay in any calendar month is £50 (even if you receive 500 Feebs in a single month!) but if you receive fewer than 50 Feebs, you still only pay £1.00 for each piece of valuable customer feedback you receive."

£1.00 a feedback is small fry for someone selling flat screen TVs or motor cycles, especially if it increases sales, but for all those people selling low value widgets it's a bit steep. Hopefully Actinic will be able to negotiate a much lower rate and I know that a well integrated, easy to use system will be popular with new users, but I can't help thinking Codepath's plug-in is a much better option.

Conclusion

It's really good to see Actinic reacting to customer comments and the way search engines are changing. I did feel Ben's announcement lacked a punch. Maybe as a regular forum user I had seen discussions on these 3 topics over the last 6 months, maybe as a designer I want more form the software than a "typical" shop owner?

Jan Strassen from Mole End works closely with Actinic as a developer and she assures me that there are lots of little extras in V10, so I'm excited. Really opening to be invlolved in the alpha/beta...

How secure is your home/office network?

2009-09-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

I was at a clients recently and we started talking about iphones. I'm fairly new to the iphone scene, but my client has ahd one for some time.

We started talking about available apps and the time it takes to download them and load up web pages using the phone.

I said that as long as I was at home or near a wi-fi connection then times were pretty quick. My client said that she didn't think she was connected to her home wireless network and asked my to take a look.

Now, I must stress, that although I've set up a wireless network at home and at my office I'm now expert. However, not one from backing down from a challange I delved into the phones settings and has a swithced the wi-fi settings on was surprised to see that they had no password protection on their network.

I had thought that most internet users these dayts would be well aware of the dangers of hacking, yet here was a family that had absolutly no protection. Furthermore it was a very popular wireless router that had been installed; so, I took a chance at using the default IP and login details and viola I was in control of their network settings.

Now at the very least their neighbours could have been getting free broardband, which could have led to excess bandwidth charges, but worst case some dubious sort could have been sat in their car on the road and have full access to their computers. A network that they ran their business from...

So I chose WPA password security and changed the default logon and username that was currently being used. Another trick I have learnt is that the SSID is using the router's manufacturer name. Leaving it in place tells any potentional hacker the sort of system they are dealing with and most IP adresses and log in details can be found online, so I always change this to "RESTRICTED". Keep the little buggers guessing.

Luckily for them it was I that had spotted it, will you be as fortunate? Check your network setting now!

Is "Free Postage" really saving anyone any money?

2009-08-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

eBay's latest announcement on the new Top Seller qualification and a clients reaction too it has got me thinking.

Is there any such thing as "Free Postage"?

I maintain product listings for an eBay seller. They've been selling on eBay since 2003, they are Silver Powersellers and have over 8000 separate positive feedbacks.

They're good guys. Honest and do all that they can for their customers.

They recently received their quarterly seller report documenting the new Top-rated seller status and were intrigued to see how they faired.

Once logged into their Seller Dashboard on eBay, they were happy to see green ticks across the board except for one, lone, red flag.

Customers deem they're postage costs too high. Now, I'm a firm believer that if customers truly thought that was the case then why by the item in the first place, but that's another discussion.

Admittedly, they are a little more expensive then their competition, but they do send every single item 1st Class Recorded or tracked with Parcelforce, UK and abroad and that costs more. They also combine postage on multiple items and shipping this way means that very few items go astray.

The question is, do people look at the shipping service or do they just see a price. I sell a little on eBay just to keep up to date with any changes. All my items are post free, but I send them standard 2nd class. I'm constantly emailed from customers saying that it hasn't arrived yet...

In reaction to eBay's DSR score system and in light of the new Top-rated seller status (It is going to effect sellers listing performance and discounts by the way), my client has now started to change the eBay items to free postage.

Great I hear you say, undercuts his competition, the customers are happy, eBay is happy, everyones happy...

Well, not really. Prices will be adjusted to absorb the shipping cost. Well you can't blame him, there's no point in them loosing money, it wouldn't be much of a business then.

Oh, well okay but it's not costing the customer any more, they see free postage, may be it will swing things in his favour.

However, if you are a customer that buys several items from the same seller you will pay the absorbed shipping cost on every single item. The seller will no longer be able to combine the shipping costs for you and give you some discount because eBay does not allow sellers to discount any more than the postage costs.

So in order to bend to eBay's new scoring system and getting customers to give better postage scores; sellers, in some cases, will be charging customers more than they would have previously.

But I thought eBay wanted to improve the buyers experience? Why would it do this, why does it encourage sellers to ship for "free"?

eBay does this because it knows sellers will have to absorb the postage costs in their item price and eBay charge sellers a % of the FVF (Final Value Fee), so the more they charge, the MORE MONEY EBAY MAKE!

Why do you sell what you sell?

2009-08-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

The obvious and often the quickest answer you get is "To make money", which lets face it is why most of us work.

My question to you is, "Is that enough?". Will you put 100% effort into just selling a product/service, or does it have to be something that you're passionate about or, at the very least, vaguely interested in.

The reason for asking this question is simple, or "simples" as the TV meerecat would say. I visited a client of mine who sells on eBay and via an actinic ecommerce website that I built for them.

Both channels produce sales, but they are in a very competitive market and are selling items that have a small profit margin so the key to success is volume.

A crossroads, they not making as much money as they would like, one of them still has to work. Do they put more money into the business, advertising, AdWords or various other marketing strategies or do they cut their losses?

I personally don't think there heart is in it. We've discussed ways of increasing site traffic, but they are reluctant to do so as an increase in sales would mean more time packing and that's not what they want to spend their time doing...

I couldn't believe my ears. They want to make more money, but don't want to improve sales because that will mean they have to spend more time working.

If that sounds like you, then you are in the wrong job. Working for yourself is hard work, especially early on. Long hours, little money and then maybe if you get it right you can reap the rewards (flexible working hours, your own boss, the odd day off) the last thing you want is to wake up everyday in an industry you don't like or care about...

I'm really interested to hear about what you are selling, why your passionate about it and how you got into it.

Many thanks,

Rich

Is your 404 page loosing you business?

2009-06-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

I attended Dave Collins' second webinar earlier today and it highlighted something that I, as a web designer, do without question. But it would seem that there are 1000s of sites out there that have not customised their 404 page.

If a potential visitor as been given or has written down your URL incorrectly, then they will often be greeted with "404 Error: File Not Found" or "Ooopppps, how did you get here", with no immediate means of getting to your site. Worse still, people have linked to your site, but made a typo.

Remember, people surfing the internet are very fickle. If they can't find what they want quickly and easily, they'll move on to your competitors site.

Remember that many hosts use their own customised page as your 404, advertising their products and services. These pages will distract browsers completely from the task in hand and it may be several minutes later, having browsed the hosts' site that they remember why they were online. By that time it could be too late!

Take the time to create a custom 404 page. Use the same layout as the rest of your site, with good clear site navigation.
Have the "Ooopppps, how did you get here" message, but then promote your service or have links to your most popular section or product.

Make it easy for visitors to look around your site. If you don't, they'll leave unlikely ever to return.

Twitter versus Facebook

2009-05-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

There are over 200 million of us currently using Facebook for one reason or another. We could be sharing photos, keeping in touch with friends, poking one another or seeing how good you are at being a zombie!

Some of you may even be fans of TV and radio shows or perhaps a member of your local club’s Facebook group, but there are a number of Facebook users that are businesses. Companies that are trying to soften the boundaries between them and their customers.

Twitter, is relatively new on the scene in comparison, but with its users trebling every month in 2009, is it fast becoming the new Facebook?

I use both of these social networking sites. I have a personal Facebook account through which I manage a client’s fan page and my rugby team’s group page. My twitter account is primarily to promote my web design business, but a number of personal “tweets” do, intentionally, slip trough the net. Giving your company a human side will give you a better chance to connect with new customers.

So, which is best for your business?

My personal opinion is that you should be using both, but in different ways.

In my experience Facebook fans are a lot more forgiving than Twitter followers. A Facebook fan site can remain updated for sometime and retain its users, yet Twitter followers will think nothing of purging their account of quiet users.

However, Twitter users who are boring or solely use their account to promote the latest product or service will also turn followers off.

This, in my opinion, is the fundamental difference between to two sites. Twitter users want interesting, up to date and varied information and they want it frequently. Whereas, Facebook fan pages are more communal, a family, if you will, of past and present customers.

Initially use your Twitter account to follow. Choose from a selection of people; friends, businesses from the same sector, news broadcasters and listen. Read their posts, the replies they get and occasionally answer with an informed opinion, a question or witty retort. Engage in topical conversation. I recently had a discussion through twitter on smoking with a child in the car. A recent news article initiated the conversation. Within 30 mins of the conversation I received 3 new followers, all seem to be anti or quit smoking “tweeps”, but followers that I probably would have never had obtained had I not engaged in the conversation.

Use your Facebook account as an extension of your website. Giving visitors the opportunity to comment or upload related images and videos. Promote events that not only you’re holding yourself, but industry related events that you may be attending. Encourage customers to come along, give them a chance to meet with you face to face, an opportunity that rarely occurs through online connections.

Keeping both of theses accounts up to date can start to eat into your working, and non working day, so unless you spend all day at a computer or have access to the net from your mobile I’d suggest having a re-think.

So to conclude, it's not so much Twitter versus Facebook, but more Twitter & Facebook. Remember once you start down this road, it does begin to infiltrate your personal life. Many of my updates are made outside of the "typical" office hours, but this is often the time where conversation and debate happens. You have to be prepared to put the time in. YOU cannot think of it as just part of your job. You need to embrace these tools and incorporate them into everyday life.

Follow me, @web_D, on Twitter
Become a fan on Facebook

Attention Seeking

2009-05-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

As a web designer I'm often looking for original and creative ways of attracting a visitor’s attention to important links on any given web page.

There is a certain convention when building a web page. Left hand navigation, a top banner that links back to the home page and under lined links for instance. There's always a delicate balance between trying something new to grab peoples attention and giving visitors what they expect, so the site is easy to navigate.

You'll often see a home page with a large, bright, banner telling you of the newest product or most recent update. Images are used, especially on ecommerce website to attract the eye and encourage visitors to visit pages the webmaster wants them to visit.

eBay are very good at this, their home page especially is image rich. Quickly drawing peoples attention to a particular group of products. Adverts are becoming more common place, but this week there was something new.

The “Deal of the Week” was something that eBay had been using to thrust sellers into the public eye. I big clear image a little text and a link direct to the seller’s product listing. In fact, I bought a new digital camera from Argos because of what I was presented with when logging on once.

The new and improved “Daily Deal” is more subtle, but equally effective. A small orange coloured gif can now be found underneath the search bar.

Fantastic location, almost center, above the fold and adjacent to several established links that frequent users of eBay will use almost every time they’re online; right in the eye line of nearly every shopper.

It gets better than that and this is what prompted this blog entry. It not only targets buyers, its right in the faces of sellers too. I was on a “My eBay” page when I first noticed the link and I have to admit I fell for it hook line and sinker.

“Wow, this is new” I thought as I moved the mouse towards the little button. Before I knew it I was staring at another clear image of a digital camera with 54% of the RRP.

According to tamebay.com 45 mins after the promotion went live 40 had been sold and when I checked around 3 o’clock this afternoon the sold out banner was visible. 500 digital cameras in one day, I think all of us could do with lines that sell like that.

It just goes to show that you don’t need to sacrifice a lot of page space, or to invest time in aesthetically pleasing flash. A well place 160 x 22 gif may be all you need.

Why should every child that leaves school go to Uni?

2009-05-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

This, my first ever blog post, was prompted by a tweet made by @tametheweb: “Jan I find the younger ones are the ones that expect everything for little in return. They gap fill for me these days.”

While I’m sure this is not true for every single young employee, I have to say I’m of a similar opinion, but not sure it’s entirely their fault.

Every summer we're inundated with news reports applauding the latest batch of school leavers on the "best results ever", schools pat themselves on the back for increasing the pass rate on the previous year and the government promise to send even more people to University. Why?

Why should every child that leaves school go to Uni?

“It’s their right”, some would argue. I disagree; a university place should be earned. An opportunity for the brightest to push themselves, and the boundaries of their subject matter. Letting every Tom, Dick and Harriet do a degree as simply leveled the playing field again, having a degree no longer sets you above the masses.

This causes at least 2 problems as far as I can see:

1) We have thousands of people starting their working life in massive debt

2) We have nobody who is prepared to start at the bottom and work their way up

I didn’t go to university; I dropped out after the 1st year of my A-Levels because I was falling way behind in Math and Physics. My year tutor said "Why don't you stay on and do Welsh?”. Welsh! FGS I was interested in Architecture/Engineering and he thought doing Welsh was going to put me in good stead.

All he cared about was how much money the school was going to loose by me leaving, absolutely nothing to do with what was best for me or my future. This is the problem, so long as the education system is rewarded, financially, for retaining students. The student will never be given impartial advice.

I left and did an NVQ in Foundation Engineering. The tutor told me I was over qualified, but I was keen to get my hands dirty while I worked out what would be the next step. At the end of the years course you had to do 2 weeks work experience, off the back of which I was offered a Modern Apprenticeship with a local Electo-Optics factory.

A Modern Apprenticeship, what the hell is one of those? No one in school had ever mentioned this as an option. I get to have one day a week off to go to college and I get paid. Where's the catch?

For me there was no catch. I got on the job training, a wage (which increased every year), I got paid holidays and a chance to study as much I wanted. By the time I finished I had a very well respected Mechanical Engineering Degree, a 4 year background in Optical Manufacture, specialising in Infra-Red Optics and £20,000 salary.

One of the most important things I learnt whilst I was there, was how to communicate and build rapports with different people. My main strength is being able to communicate with people of varying ages from different backgrounds, a skill I learnt whilst on the shop floor and it’s one skill I can transfer to any industry.

Thanks for getting to the end of it LOL. I'm still unsure if it's a little lengthy, but would really appreciate your feedback.

Rich