Discount shopping is where it's at. We live in a material capitalist society. So much so, that people brag about the deals they get. If they save money, it's the topic of their next cocktail party small talk. Look at the bargain I got! I saved 50% on this item. You will not believe the deal I got...

How odd is that? You would think that in our materialistic, consumer-based society, people would be motivated to conceal the fact that they saved so much money. Isn't the idea to show how much money and buying power you actually have? If that's true, why would you need a deal? You wouldn't unless money is an issue. And we want people to believe that money is not an issue for us because we have so much. So the entire deal psychology just makes no sense. Somehow, you want people to think you have tons of money, but also think you are smart for the amazing bargain you just scored on your HDTV. Yes, it's a shoppers contradiction. One of many, I'm sure. Like, why do people buy things (on sale or not) when they can't afford to pay the credit card bill for the things they bought last week?

No time to go into that one now. Keep on discount shopping until you drop (or your credit card cancels you)...

Tags: comparison shopping., discount shopping, online shopping, shopping

Have you seen the new discount shopping sites that do API calls to several different shopping engines at once for you? I think they are extremely cool and allow you to save valuable time and money. They are better than the traditional price comparison shopping site because the transcend any one merchant network. They actually call several different networks at once and show you the results, all while you stay on the original web site you were on. This just really rocks!!! The major product databases have been opened up so that they can reach a broader audience. Once again, I think this creates an advantage for the consumer because you have access to better information and can make more informed purchase decisions. I'm not really sure how the merchant wins with this new approach, but it you're a deal hunter, that's not your concern now is it :-)

Tags: comparison shopping, discount shopping, online shopping, price comparison shopping

Seems like everyone wants discount shopping. I wonder if the idea of non-discount shopping is even alive anymore. I feel like when I was a kid, people paid the regular price. Sure, there were sales on items, but there wasn't the insane discount world we live in today. Perhaps it's because we are really making items so much cheaper now. For example, when I was small there was no way that it made sense to make items in far away countries and ship them here. I guess the fuel was too expensive for shipping or the time it took was simply too long. Many of the products people bought were made in the same country they lived in. There was a huge manufacturing industry in the US. And people bought those products in stores right on their main streets.

Now, it seems like nothing is made in the US (where I live). Everything is made over seas and much more is made in China then every before. Their stuff is just really cheap. I think this has something to do with the dollar exchange rates or something. I've also read that Chinese monetary policy is wacky. They seem to be manipulating their currency in a way that is favoring this type of industrial expansion. I don't claim to be an economist, so I really can't clarify this any more.

Walmart and Target have certainly benefited from this movement. It seems their entire business model was built on the the Chinese cheap product revolution. I've also read that the American middle class, which has generally been losing purchasing power due to shrinking wages, has actually seen a bump in standard of living because of these cheap product... How odd.

I wonder if the discount shopping craze will remain like this for ever? I wonder if we'll just go deeper and deeper into the marketing of just how much money you are saving when you spend money ;-) Or, will things swing back and an era of honesty and straight-talk take over where we just say "here is the honest price I can give you, no funny business." Wouldn't that be nice?

Tags: comparison shopping, discount shopping, online shopping, price comparison shopping

Internet shopping is great for the consumer. They get the advantage of world-wide competition on prices. Particularly for items that are commodities, the consumer really wins. Having perfect pricing information is a big plus for the consumer. However, how does the merchant fare in all of this? Not well. I think the same forces that make the Internet such a win for consumers is really a problem for merchants. There is just tremendous price pressure pushing down profit margins.

There is another dynamic working against merchants in the Internet shopping era. That is the accessibility to the marketplace for small players. Before Internet shopping, if someone wanted to become a retailer, there was a barrier to entry. You needed to have a physical presence of some type. If you wanted to be virtual, it meant you were a catalog merchant. That had capital requirements also. You needed to do research, set up your suppliers and incur printing costs. Today, just about anyone can decide they want to be an Internet merchant from their house. There are ample tools to assist the average guy who wants in. And technical skills are not at all required. There is easy-to-use software available to help with that also. Finally, there are all sorts of services to supply products. So you don't even need to be well-connected in the manufacturing world.

Are all of these would-by merchants successful, not by a mile. In fact, I think many of them fail out-right. However, in the process of failing, they probably do a number on the more established merchants because they drive prices down. Again, the consumer wins.

Tags: internet shopping, price comparison shopping, shop
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So now I have a site, or maybe two, and I'm watching the googleanalytic reports daily and only see visits from robots and spiders. How do I increase the human traffic to my site? A thought crosses your mind: "Perhaps there could be some sort of communal link sharing site that would allow people just like me to share their sites with each other to increase visibility?" Of course, this idea has already been explored.

A quick search comes up with several: monsterlinkswap.com, www.linkmarket.net and www.linkpartners.com . These are just a few, I'm sure there are more. But is this a reasonable approach? It seems like you might be walking into the jungle of free-for-all links pages, banner or link farms, or other junk sites. This is exactly what I'm trying to get away from. I'd like to differentiate myself as a legitimate site that offers a quality service to end-users. Is it possible all of these other sites are doing the same thing?

A quick review of some of the sites that are in these various link exchange forums indicates a mixed bag. As with most of the topics I've explored in eCommerce, there seems to be a balance here somewhere.

I could take the high-road and say "I'm only going to link the old-fashioned way." At the beginnging of the Internet, you simply had your web master put a link on your site. Perhaps you talked to someone on the phone and came to an agreement that each party would link to each other. Those days are long gone. The volume is now so high and the availability and ease of web site construction means that there is now a mile of junk sites to wade through to get to the real ones. Back on point, how do you utilize the tools that many of these junk sites use without becoming one of them?

I'd be interested in people's experiences using link exchange sites a their view concerning effectiveness for true eCommerce ventures.

This was also posted at bigblogmonkey.com/blogs

I thought it might be a good idea to post a few products I'm trying to sell through my ecommerce site on Craigslist to try to gain some attention for my e-shop. I knew there was potential here for criticism as this is not exactly what Craigslist is intended for. However, I thought that since I am posting the items manually (without the help of a spider or automated program) it would be okay. I even started reading the legal filled usage policy on the craigslist site. However, it is extremely long and filled with jargon.

Allow me to save you some time if you've considered this approach and were wondering if it was acceptable. It is not. If you go through the very finest of fine print in the Craigslist policy you will find a small section that says you are not permitted to put any links in Craigslist.org that lead to commercial sites. Additionally, they seem to have a strong social network of people scouting for this type of usage. We got a friendly email stating that we should check the policy more closely, which we've done.

Stepping back, it seems fairly obvious now. If the site were to permit us to do what we wanted to do, what would stop it from turning into one big advertisement. It would quickly be overrun with the kind of trashy sites people who come to Craigslist are trying to avoid. Although entirely different in terms of the business model (selling used stuff vs auctions), I feel like Craigslist.org is where eBay was 6 years ago. It's still a grass-roots, hip thing. I think it will be interesting to see where it is in a few years. My guess is that it will be acquired for a huge sum of money.

In retrospect, we feel a little foolish for thinking our posting strategy might be reasonable. But sometimes your mind just has a vector it's on and it doesn't release no matter what the data might really suggest.

I've been to many blog registration sites and put in my RSS feed with the hopes of increasing traffic. So far, I can't really tell if this activity is doing anything. Blogskinny.com was different because I could actually watch the robot spider hitting my site from their real-time page. I'm assuming this will boost traffic to your site and ratings.

Link to blogskinny.com to boost your traffic and ratings.