Kidsontalks
This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
Taking the biscuit…because the EU says so….
013 days
by Liz
in Web Mastering
Yeah, I now have the ‘least’ annoying cookie wotsit for my site. Feel free to tell me how much you hate it. But remember if you comment…the COOKIES WILL GET YOU!
Word…and privacy policy
Let me know if I have missed out any jammy dodgers and I am not down with ALL the biscuit types.
Which E-commerce Avenger are you?
614 days
This is a bit of fun 
Which E-commerce Avenger are you?
1. Captain America.
A good sort of chap, more weathered in experience and still loves to reminisce of the days before the scourge of facebook. I mean, you have only just warmed up to e-commerce and the hyper web….now you are being told you have to sell through social media? You just don’t get it. In fact, you don’t want to get it.
2. Hulk.
SMASH! Lets put ALL of our 20000000000 product catalogue on eBay and totally smash our way into being the best. We don’t need strategy because we are STRONGER and MADDER than YOU! RWOAAARRRRR!
3. Iron Man.
If your website is not optimised for the 2017 apple smartwatch that is currently in development you are not interested. The future is NOW, even the distant future.
4. Black Widow.
You know your strengths and weaknesses and play them to the full when it comes to your competition. Always flexible and always ahead of the game. You know how to get the best discounts, from the best suppliers and know the best avenue for online sales. You look fabulous while you are doing it as well.
5. Hawkeye.
A bit impressionable but good at what you do. Sometimes you get talked into changing your e-business mostly to your detriment. Fortunately the e-world works fast and you can quickly recover and learn from your mistakes. Shame about that adwords bill though…no absolution there!
6. Fury.
You know what you are doing and you are damn well going to speak about it at the next Internet Retailer and tell these FOOLs whats what. But first you need to gather your team as this is going to be BIG!
7. Thor.
You are in total control of every aspect of your business and online marketplaces. In fact you are a GOD in your category and you fight every day gladly to maintain your place. Fight on comrades!
but of course no good set of super hero’s is ANYTHING without a super villan…
8. Loki.
You can manipulate your trading environment to suit YOUR needs. You drive for influence at the highest level, speak to all the key players at eBay and know how to play third party providers off one another to get the best deal on your eBay design. You play a high risk game but you love it. You might make a loss on that 99p auction but you will slaughter a weakling competitor in your category by doing so. Glorious.
When you fail though, you fail big time. And we laugh at you.
Please note I have not based these on anyone I know I have based them on…ya know…The Avengers (Film)…
Feel free to own up to your Avengers personality, suggest different traits or another Avenger from the comics
Facebook community commerce…
14 days
A lot of my friends and even myself are not sold on the prospect of facebook e-commerce. Opens up too many privacy issues and I don’t need to ‘buy’ on facebook as we have eBay, Amazon and retail sites.
However recently I and a few others have sold items to our close knit kimono community THROUGH facebook. There is a lot of recycling going on!
We even have a group now which brings the wider kimono community together to trade by branching out from the self imposed limits of a friends list. We have in essence, created our own free eBay style trading platform.
Paypal and now Ping It are being used for payment.
It feels as though through facebook we are going back to clearing out the loft and trading personally with fellow enthusiasts like in the days of old and well…gumtree.
This method is not for the large retailer of course, and this community is about individual unique pieces which have historical/antique value.
However, a friend is organising to sell a very special item through facebook to the tune of $3000 at a near 90% profit. Nice huh?
When my band of shopoholic friends start using facebook e-commerce stores I will report that, but for now..nothing.
On how you can use facebook for other business activities give this a read:
Four practical ways to use Social Media to sell
Opinion cleansing and fake reviews…..Is there an ‘e-commerce club’ in the UK?
018 days
This seems to be a real problem in my industry. You can only review a company if it is positive and you can’t be critical or negative in anyway to protect those in your community be it eBay, multichannel solutions or websites.
The companies I trust and value are never 100% glowing, as all companies have their problems and not all solutions work for all business models.
A few people have mentioned the ‘e-commerce boys club’ (even though no sexism was meant in this reference) of companies partnering with each other, covering each others faults and basically not giving real information to clients. Practises include cleansing out bad or even just critical reviews, convincing clients wrongly that they NEED said solution just so they can get their chunk of referral.
I hate paid referrals. It makes finding the best solution for your client about your own pocket. I avoid them where I can and only team up with partners who I like and always think of my customer first.
Happy customers who are successful make me happy. Unhappy customers constantly trying to fit a square business into a round hole makes me sad. I had enough of this torture in my previous life with another company. I hated it but then I was also being forced into an odd shape that didn’t fit.
I hope that this ‘notion’ that small businesses have about the ‘e-commerce club’ doesn’t hurt great companies and great designers who are in this industry because they love it.
I mean, e-commerce is a child only a parent can love at the best of times! It’s my addiction, my passion and my clients are continually the best in the business.
As a small (or large) business, does the effect of ‘paid referrals’ or even worse ‘paid reviews/blog posts’ worry you? Are you being hoodwinked into spending your money? Are you concerned you will face legal action if you complain about a company publicly?
Do you FEAR your competitors…?
019 days
by Liz
in Web Mastering
If you do, WHY fear your competitors?
Fear makes you do silly things like trying legal action against competitor employees on a personal level, spreading malware and blacklisting emails all of which can be traced.
Fear even makes you childish and prank call competitors you can’t touch overseas (oh yes, this HAS been done)
Bad eBay sellers even buy products off their competitors to leave a positive feedback and really low DSR’s. eBay can see this, remove this and penalise sellers.
I don’t fear competitors in any respect. I try to think out of the box and be ahead of the game instead of trying to snap at the heels of other companies in my field. I wouldn’t have the time.
In business you need to be better than your competition and not fear them. It makes you stupid and vulnerable.
Adapt, learn and grow.
Have any of your competitors done weird and wacky things instead of just improving their business? Keep the names out but please tell.
On the blog design….it’s a project for this weekend. I liked the really plain look I had before so will strip out most of the design.
