I got my first electric guitar when I was 16 years old. Bought it at a merchant store in Cebu’s downtown area where you see a lot of mom and pop stores and old Chinese owned stores that look like they had been in business for decades; and from the dust and cobwebs that gather on a lot of their items on sale, you could not help but think that some of these items might be as old as the store. But I guess I exaggerate a bit, but with purpose. I bought it for P1,200 which was a fairly huge amount back in the 80s. It was a Gibson copy.
There is one thing I notice about some stores or retailers… they hardly ever do big sales with big price cuts in order to get rid of merchandise.
Let us fast forward to the present day. About a week or two ago, I had a chance to talk to a boutique owner in the Bay Area who wanted to move inventory fast.
Store owners may be able to relate to this, getting stuck with items that simply do not sell, and realize that they just got to get rid of their stocks fast to make room for newer stuff that would be higher in demand and easier to sell; and move the old stuff at cost or maybe even at a small loss, but make that up from the profits you make off the newer items that you sell… that you are able to buy in the first place when you recoup that money by selling off non moving inventory. That was a mouthful wasn’t it?
The question I was asked was would Ebay be a great way to quickly move inventory. My answer, no.. at least not if you want to just quickly dump merchandise that is not selling in your store.
Ebay is a great way to sell stuff, it is a high traffic site with people visiting it with one purpose, find and buy something specific. But here are some things to consider if you are in the situation I just described.
Fees. Yes Ebay has a few fees that you need to meet, placement fees, Payal fees and added fees that are optional if you wish to upgrade your placements on Ebay and give it better exposure. Plus if you opt to offer free shipping, that means you are paying for shipping out of your pocket. Shipping costs influence Ebay buyers.
System. Sellers have two selling options; sell by auction or by fixed rate/buy now.
When you sell by auction buyers compete amongst each other to get the item, and the problem arises when bidders do not reach the reserve price you set for the item being auctioned. Made worse if there are other sellers on Ebay who are also selling the same item you have in stock and sell at lower prices and might offer better value such as free shipping, longer money back or return policies, etc. Of course if your item is somehow unique and you have less competition on Ebay, this might be to your advantage.
Then there is the buy now option; again if you have competing sellers who have the same merchandise and are selling for less and offering additional value, they will likely get the sale and not you.
Yes Ebay is a good yet competitive platform to sell on.
One more thing about their system, it unfortunately favors sellers who have amassed a certain number of transactions and positive reviews, many of which have achieved PowerSeller status. These Powersellers are able to get more exposure of their items than the new Ebay seller, especially when Ebay’s internal search engine is used.
So what then is a better alternative to Ebay if you simply want to dispose of items quickly and without any additional costs? You have two options. First is through social networking on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Multiply and even YouTube, where you are able to push these items upon people on your network and are subscribed to your updates and get your messages. Second option is Craig’s List.
Both methods do not involve any fees and it is likely that people who are interested in the product might be local to your area and can simply drive over to where you are check out the product, pay in person and take it with them.
Again I am not saying Ebay does not work, it probably won’t work for someone who just wants to get rid of inventory quickly and recoup the money that went into it, so that you could buy newer inventory that sells better, even more critical if you are looking at very small margins or none at all.
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Ayala Center Cebu - Email Spammer
Yes Ayala Center Cebu is an email spammer! But wait, you are sitting there wondering, “what on earth is an email spammer?”
Email spam is in a nutshell email that you did not request to receive that contains advertising about products or services. I am sure everyone has one time or another, or maybe even very often received email about Viagra, penis enhancers, casinos and PORN! Email that you receive that have advertising that you did not voluntarily request to receive is SPAM!
So back to Ayala Center Cebu and their email spamming.
I have been getting email from them for so many months now, from this email address feedback@ayalamalls.com.ph; sending me all these ads about their sales, promotes etc.
I had already written back to that address asking them not to send me any updates primarily because they are not getting any money of out of me since I am in the US, plus… it really is kind of annoying to receive advertising that I did not ask to receive in the first place.
But, they of course did not reply to me. I sent a few more emails to them but still no reply, and today I still receive all their email updates.
So I am going to make this a lesson for business owners who think they know what they are doing when it comes to email marketing.
Email marketing is a great way to promote your business, product or service. Direct marketing that is also significantly cheaper than putting ads on the radio or newspaper. It is definitely an effective and cheap way to get your message across. But here is how most businesses get it wrong.
When you do email marketing, you send out updates or messages to prospects on your mailing list. These prospects or “leads”, should be properly opted in or qualified. Otherwise, they will not convert into a customer. They have to declare to you clearly, that they want to receive your updates, otherwise you are just sending follow up messages to deaf ears who are not going to buy your product. It is easier and more profitable to promote something to people who are interested than to people who are not.
If you just blast out advertising messages to anybody and any email address you can find, your conversion rates are going to be ultra low because the leads or people you send out your message to are not properly qualified and neither did they properly opt in to your mailing list to get your updates, and you will be annoying a lot of people like the email spamming that Ayala Center Cebu has been doing.
A few days ago I spoke to someone who had bought something online which I believe to be utterly useless. What’s worse is he could not give it back and get his money back.
A lot of internet newbies get suckered into these make money online schemes and end up buying also sorts of stuff that is actually just garbage. There are a lot of scams out there purposely sold by dubious individuals, so here are some tips that can protect you before you buy anything. These same steps can also be used when you plan to buy physical products over the internet and not just digital products like ebooks, software, or services. Online business owners also get an idea about the right way to sell online.
Step 1 – Do the Research
When you find something you are interested in buying, don’t just believe everything that is told you on the sales page. A sales page is a page designed to promote a product and get you to buy it. On the internet, sales pages for a product are what a sales rep or sales person is in real life.. it basically tries to answer all your questions about the product and get you to buy it.
What you can do is go to Google and do a search for the product’s brand name, followed by other searches of the brand together with keyword modifiers like “review”, “rating”, “scam”. That way you are able to find out if people online are talking good or bad things about a product. Also do a search for the name of the seller of the product, and use the same keyword modifiers in order to learn more about the seller’s reputation.
Sometimes, sellers put reviews or testimonials about themselves or their product on their own websites to act as social proof to allay any of your apprehensions about buying from them, but they are of course on their website so, it would be best to get information from other places.
One last thing when you verify what other people are saying about the product. There are sellers who might be writing those reviews about themselves.. so verify who the authors of those reviews or comments are. If there is a name, verify the name by searching on Google to see if that person exists or is a real person at all. Check to see if that person has other posts about other topics, has other blogs and maybe has Facebook and Twitter. That way you know that person is real. Some sellers write reviews about themselves and then use fake names, you need to find out if the name is of a real person or fake by the doing the method of verifying suggested earlier.
Step 2 – Check the Website
There are some important things you need to do when you are on a website selling a product you are thinking of buying.
First, find the following pages.. About Us, Terms of Use or Privacy Policy. What is important is, you are able to establish that the owner of the website is indeed a legitimate business with a legitimate address and phone number. There might be sites that do not have a phone or address but have an contact form, try using the contact form and send them a message just to inquire and see what their response time is like. If they are prompt in replies and are happy to address your inquiries, this might be a good seller to buy from. If you do find a number, try calling it and make an inquiry about the product you wish to buy.
The point I want to make is, the more transparent a website is about who they are or their business, the safer for you.
A lot of websites allow you to make transactions online. Before whipping out your credit card to make a payment try to check if the site is secure. One way of checking is, when you start the payment process by going to a payment page, check the URL in the browser window and see if it says https:// at the start. A normal website URL starts only with http://. If they have some information about the type of payment system they use, the better. I have seen sites that actually inform their visitors about their payment system at start of the payment process.
Step 3 – Check for a Return Policy or a Money Back Guarantee
Almost always there is a Return Policy in place or a Money Back Guarantee. There are of course exceptions such as perishable items or food and beverages which obviously when used slightly cannot be returned. I believe music and DVDs also work the same. But for everything else, an iron clad Money Back Guarantee ensures that if for whatever reason you are unhappy with the product, you can return in it.
A seller offering this guarantee knows that they are confident in what they are selling and are then less likely to be scamming you with an inferior product.
Find out how long until the guarantee expires and how their system works for returns. Some sellers will specify on their website how you may return items, but if they simply say they offer that guarantee but do not get into details, contact them and ask them about it. Do also some checking on Google and type in the product name plus words like “refund”, “return policy”, “refund problem”, etc. This way you want to know if people online have been writing about refund problems they have had with the seller.
Believe me, there are sellers out there who offer you a money back guarantee, but when you ask for it, they will give you some sort of reason to delay giving your money back or make it sound like it’s your fault and that you are NOT using the product properly which is why it is not working well for you and that you should try using it the right way first.
Remember that there are a lot of products and sellers out there. If upon evaluating a potential product and seller, they fall short of any of the criteria above; do not worry. There are a lot of sellers out there. Find one that meets the standards, and makes you feel at ease knowing that your purchase is secure and that the product you are buying lives up to what it promises.
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For so many years radio was the most popular means of entertainment. It was first of all free; then later it became portable, then becoming interactive thus making it easy for listeners to ask for what they wanted to hear.
Radio stations did not charge listeners for the entertainment, normal radio stations still don’t; and for so long the radio station business was pretty much the same simple model.. providing entertaining programming to its listeners, selling advertising spots enough to cover operating costs and make a profit.
Advancements in technology over the past few decades however have shrunk it’s popularity, rendering it less relevant to a majority of its once loyal audience, consequently limiting the amount of revenue to be made through advertising spots. The dawn of the digital and portable age of music was the also the start of the demise of the traditional radio business model.
Portable music players, music on demand, user generated programming, internet radio.. these are but a few among many reasons why radio stations are now having a hard time keep audiences. Smaller audiences mean less people listening to advertiser messages, the very reason less money is now spent on radio spot placements. Today’s advertisers pursue their markets through non traditional media and non traditional advertising channels.
What radio stations may not realize is that the very same technologies that have shrunk its audience also offer radio stations new opportunities at generating revenue and delivering both programs and advertising. Now radio stations need to change the way they make their money and overhaul the way they do business or will likely go out of business.
In the mid 90s I was selling advertising for a radio station that was the only one of its kind to be 100% digital. The problem during the time was, advertisers did not want to simply advertise on radio, they want to save money by hitting two birds with one stone. Companies had a radio budget for their usual institutional ads, and then they had an events budget which they used to sponsor and participate in events which also gave them some amount of exposure. These guys realizing that they had been spending too much, smartened up and now wanted to spend one amount of money and get both exposure in events and get premium advertising spots for their own products. Events marketing became the buzz, and radio stations who could draw huge crowds were now becoming event organizers giving product spots for free over and above spots about the event. Other radio stations were tying up with event organizers and not charging them for excessive even airtime promotion but taking a cut off gate / ticket sales from the events.
Those were days when radio stations lost focus about their identities, and succumbed to pressure from advertisers in an effort to survive the crisis at the time.
Today, I hear about radio stations struggling, diving on rates, selling spots and closing contracts at amounts that were half of what I sold those contracts for over ten years ago. All prices have increased over the last ten years.. cost of living has increased, products and commodities have increased but why have radio advertising spots taken a dive or still remained the same.
What radio stations must do now is to focus on how to get their programming and advertiser messages across to their audiences and not simply relying on the radio to do that. Advertisers are interested in two important things, getting their message out to the audience and seeing conversions from that ad placement. Radio stations would need to deliver these outside of just their on air broadcast by way of a website, social networking, mailing list marketing, delivery of pre recorded programming or content, partnerships with organizations or businesses that allow content distribution and content syndication.
Website
Many people know what it is, a lot of people have one, but a vast majority do not know how to use websites to achieve specific goals. With a website a radio station can offer added value to its advertisers by posting ad messages on its site, or testing ad messages or offers from clients to see what works. Websites can be equipped with powerful tracking tools that gather data that help test and improve advertising messages.
Social Networking
Of all the many benefits that Web 2.0 has afforded website owners, the most important is the ability to get your message across to other people through social networking sites and even have them voluntarily advertise you without you telling them to do so. This is the reason why companies today spend a lot of time managing their online brand reputation, because it is so easy for other people to simply talk about your brand on blogs, forums and micro blogging platforms like Twitter.
Social Networking works when you constantly grow your network. Again a large network means a large audience that you can market directly to outside of the regular broadcast.
Mailing List Marketing
Huge Fortune 500 companies spend millions of dollars in a year to get people to receive updates and information directly through email. A mailing list is a list of people who are already open to what you have to offer because they have given you that permission to market to them by signing up to be on your mailing list.
If you have a list of 1000 people on your mailing list who subscribe to receive party updates where the radio station is involved, those are 1000 people who will instantly get news about events you are holding. You can run a regular newsletter and send these out weekly for instance, and one section of the newsletter has a sponsor section, and your client’s advertising messages. The great thing about mailing list marketing is you are able to test different messages or offers to see which one gets more attention and more clicks from newsletter recipients. Knowing what kind of copy works, gives you and your client ideas for the right copy to use on radio ads, and other forms of advertising because you have test data to support it.
Partnerships
Establishing partnerships is always a great way to create more business opportunities, especially if your partners will distribute your announcements or networks on their own network or captive audience. If you tie up with a company that has 1000 employees and maybe get their HR department to send out announcements in your behalf with information about your events or sponsors messages, this will significantly increase the number of people you are able to reach outside of the broadcast.
Pre Recorded Programming Content
Podcasts are so very popular for one reason, it offers convenience. People can download shows they like and listen to them at their preferred time. Creating entertaining program content that listeners can download and listen to is also a good medium to reach a percentage of your audience who might not have the time to listen at length to your broadcast or tune in at a certain time to listen to a show. Of course, it goes without saying, these shows will also carry sponsors’ messages.
Content Syndication
We know that Web 2.0 is alive and well, people blog, people post on forums, people have websites, now you should let these people syndicate your content on their sites. By syndicate, I mean give them the means to put your broadcast on their website. This works pretty much like a YouTube video, where you can publish a video you like on your website by simply pasting a little bit of html code that YouTube gives you.
Create that code, make it available to visitors, who can then paste that code on their websites, and they can listen to your live broadcast or live stream on their website, plus their own visitors can listen to your broadcast as well. They hear the music and the ads, and if they click a link that is included with that feature, they are brought to the your radio station’s website.
Radio is still relevant, people will avail of your programming, you just need to look for more means to deliver it.
Radio first started out as a means of recreation, people tuning in to find entertainment. Due to its popularity, it became an effective tool to reach out to a mass audience and deliver advertising messages. Today radio needs to adapt to the times and leverage on the tools available to us, the internet and other communication mediums can and must be leveraged to assist in the distribution of a radio station’s content and reach out to new audiences on new platforms or face closure and go extinct together with the now dead radio station revenue model… falling victim to rapidly changing times and the inability to adapt.
A series of events that involve a few people I know have lead me to some thought; a measure of introspection; in the hope of understanding people’s actions, and in the end I realize people simply cannot be understood entirely but to a certain extent, merely tolerated. There are no published set of rules that document how man acts, thinks and feels. They are just to be simply, accepted as they are, and blamed on man’s simply being human and that these come as part of his innate nature, and akin to his imperfection.
It tires me too much to try to understand something that maybe requires no understanding, to find answers to questions that simply don’t have any answers.
There is no more complicated creature in existence than man, and man’s greatest adversary is his own self.
Unlike other creatures that act and operate on instinct, man has been given an awareness of his own existence, yet he does not get enlightened.
Man has been given choice and discernment, but he squanders that privilege by choosing what’s wrong.
Man has been given the opportunity to feel emotions and the ability to express them, but can change these for convenience and rationalize to excuse him for doing so.
Man has been given the gift of rationalization and thought, and he abuses that to absolve him of his actions or transgressions.
Inevitably, man’s fate shall be his own doing.watch away from her online Necessary Evil move Moon trailer
Today I spent some time at the wake of an Aunt, she was my mother’s cousin. She recently succumbed to cancer, a fight that sees more loser’s than winners.
As I sat there, recalling memories of her from my life, and going as far back as childhood, a chill crept through me as I thought in resigned certainty, “there is nothing as inevitable and inescapable in life, as death”. And then I realized, to be primarily focused on our eventual end would be an even greater tragedy; simply reflecting on man’s inarguable fate, death; causes us to overlook the other single most important thing we possess and ought to be thankful for, which is life!
Death indeed is a reminder that all.. come to an end; but instead of living in the fear of what we know will one day come, I guess we should look at the other side of things, and celebrate life as often and as gratefully as we can, in our own individual ways.love is the drug online download saw v online1492 conquest of paradise movie download suspiria online
In barely two weeks, Cebu celebrates a very important event, the Sinulog 2008 download star trek first contact .
It is the commemoration of the finding of the infant statue, the Sto. Niño, in one of the burnt down dwellings in a village that was pillaged by the conquistador Legaspi. Legaspi came back basically to take over where Magellan left off some 50 or more years earlier, as you may know Magellan was dispatched into the afterlife by local hero Lapulapu.
So, I am sure you know the rest of the story, so I am going to refrain from further giving you a history lesson; you know the stories, you know the background.
In the first years of the celebration, I remember the Sinulog first started out as a small gathering within the Sto. Niño church compound, and today many years later, it is a full blown internationally promoted tourism event, mardigras tourism is what would best describe it. We know mardigras tourism sells.
But what is the Sinulog really?
Religious Celebration?
The faithful attend novenas on the run up towards the feast day and the feast day itself is a day of obligation. Who is the Sto. Niño?
When I was a child, I remember on countless occasions during Sinulog Sunday mass, Priests insinuating that going out into the streets and reveling was pagan in nature, and that we should not forget the true essence of the celebration.
Pagan Ritual?
So is it pagan or heathen to don costumes, party in the streets; many overtly intoxicated and others visibly inebriated with all the alcohol consumed openly in the streets?
Paganism is often referred to as folk religion and is of a Christian bias, it was at one time used to refer to all other religions that were not part of the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and included but not limited to the worship of nature, deities and terrestrial or universal bodies.
Many Christian denominations frown upon the worshiping of status, idols and other material representations of God or a God. So by that contention, can the worship of the Sto. Niño then be paganism? More so affirmed by the acts of revelers on the parade route.
Commercial Opportunity?
Every establishment big or small has some sort of party, promotion or special event going on? Why? Is this classic “supply and demand”?
With the influx of visitors, tourists, devotees and all, there are a huge number of people who are in town. Regardless of the true purpose they come to Cebu during Sinulog weekend, one thing is for sure, they got money to spend, and establishments compete for what these guys have.
They say, that the Christmas celebration in Cebu is not over until the Sinulog is over, and true enough it is only when the parade is concluded that most tourists and balikbayans, start to go back to their realities, their jobs, their lives abroad.
Much like Christmas, Sinulog is a time when commercialism and marketing is at its speak, when advertisements abound, trying to get people to spend their money on something. I would know, I have been in advertising for 15 years, and without fail, I do get my share of opportunities in the form of radio commercials clients ask me to make for them.
So before I get misunderstood; I am neither complaining, condemning, nor condoning.
I only ask the simple question… What really is the Sinulog to you?
Is it something profound and spiritual? Or just another landmark event that happens ever year, that you get extra religious for… extra drunk on the streets for, or earn extra income from.
4 Health Behaviors Can Add 14 Extra Years Of Life is a title of a post I read on this page, http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/4-health-behaviors-can-add-14-extra-years-of-life/
which I believe is a blog about healthy living.
It states that “people who adopt four healthy behaviours – not smoking; taking exercise; moderate alcohol intake; and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables a day – live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviours, according to a study published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.”
I do agree with the claim, however it is something that does not apply to everyone as there is one important factor that prevents people living this way… POVERTY.
If you are poor you can not be choosy of what to eat, you eat what you can either FIND, what is AVAILABLE or can AFFORD.
Exercise? Yes… that is possible, if people have any extra time for it, if they can squeeze it into their day, aside from maybe holding 2 to 3 odd jobs just to survive.
In most impoverished countries, people take to vices such as smoking and drinking as their reprieve on the realities of their existence, these are the simple pleasures that they can afford (and in many cases they actually cannot afford it but indulge in it still) In 3rd world countries cigarette and liquor companies know this and capitalize on it by churning out very cheap cigarettes and very cheap booze that gets you buzzed quickly. In some cultures, social drinking actually means a group of people, pitching in to afford cheap liquor, pass around one glass with equal amounts of alcohol (in the spirit of camaraderie and fair sharing?), and each taking a shot when their turn comes.
So, yes I agree these would work, given that you are a person who can afford it… and unaffected by societal and cultural influences, that prevail in the area, city, country where a person lives.
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Watch this Sarah Palin Movie Trailer… funny as hell, regardless which side your on. What everyone needs is a little humor, especially these days when there seems to be hardly any good news..and the Vice Presidential debate coming up later.
Here’s what other people are blogging about Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election. Yesterday, someone close to Palin made a whole bunch of edits to her Wikipedia entry making it a little more palatable for the centrists. Read More.
Chuck Norris, the Man himself, has deigned to give an approving fist pump to us as chroniclers of the Little Known Facts about Sarah Palin. He cites his personal favorites as follows. Read More.
The video of Sarah Palin (then: Sarah Heath) in the swimsuit competition of the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant is making the rounds. Read More download The Human Sexes .
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