| LED Digest 2146: Dealing with Shipping Costs |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 25, 2006 Issue no. 2146 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== NEW ======================== --== Hyphens in URLs? ==-- ~ Kay Gleason "I'm about to buy two new URLs for my map business..." --== Dealing with Shipping Costs ==-- ~ Mark Roberts "I am looking for some general suggestions as to how others are handling shipping charges." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== How Does BuyHitsCheap Work? ==-- ~ Lee Roberts "Simply put they do deliver exactly what they advertise." ~ Brad Waller "Most likely through pop-up or -under ads that have your home page as the content." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Help with Backups ==-- ~ Tom Anson --== The LED Downhill Spiral ==-- ~ Kurt T. Francis ~ Will Bontrager ======== NEW ===================================== <Moderator Comment> You'll notice in today's issue that I've included some before unpublished posts on the "Downhill Spiral" thread from mid-March. Things are slow, and these posts deserve to be published. You can find them on the Billboard. Cheers, adam ------------------- From: Kay Gleason Subject: Hyphens or not in URLs? I'm about to buy two new URLs for my map business... do you think I should buy names like old-maps-of-ohio.com or is oldmapsofohio.com or even oldohiomaps.com preferable? Thanks, Kay Gleason http://www.oldmapsne.com/ -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark Roberts Subject: Shipping Charges I am looking for some general suggestions as to how other people are handling shipping charges. Here is my situation... I have had my own PC / Internet consulting business for about 25 years now. Obviously by primary product is service and I have never had to worry about shipping charges (other that shipping an occassional CD). I now have a hobby(?) of building bird houses. To make a long story short, I set up a little ecommerce site to sell them. Well, it has gotten out of hand and is quickly turning into a very profitable business. This month alone I am going to break the $2,000 sales mark. This may not seem like a lot, but for a little weekend hobby, it keeps me really busy. Shipping charges are driving me crazy. I started using osCommerce software, but I never was able to get the FedEx module to work properly. Some small items were computing out at enormously high shipping cost and some large items were ridiculiously low. Never could get it to work just right. I finally went to a fixed rate of $8.95 hoping to average out over time (that was before fuel surcharges kicked in). I order a lot of stuff over the internet and see most of the stuff with shipping charges of between $4 and $6 and know that that can't cover the actual shipping charge unless they have some unique agreement with either FedEx or UPS to get these rates (and maybe they do). I am trying to make contact with my FedEx account manager to see if there is an online shipping rate calculater that I can incorporate into my web site. I am sure there is. (I am developing my own shopping cart now and want to incorporate this into it). I am just curious as to how others who are shipping merchandise are dealing / calculating shipping cost. I recently spoke with someone who has raised all their merchandise prices to include shipping (then offering free shipping)... is this what most people do? Just wanting to get some ideas. Mark Roberts Roberts Computing Systems http://www.robertscomputing.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Lee Roberts Subject: Cheap hits > I recently stumbled across Buyhitscheap.com > which promises to deliver 10,000 "guaranteed > unique visitors" to a website for only $12.50... > How does their system or scheme work? - Binks Lopez, LED 2145 Simply put they do deliver exactly what they advertise. I would imagine that if they didn't the Federal Trade Commission would have issues with them. Just last week I had a client inform me that he had purchased from a company similar to this. Within an hour he had received over 600 unique visitors. Regrettably, none of these visitors were buyers. One would think that at least one of those 600 would have purchased something, but that didn't happen. It has often been the belief by some people that these visitors are a result of scumware or adware installed on an unwitting victim's computer. The scumware software visits the advertiser's website which is then logged as a unique visitors. Does this really happen? I'm not certain, but it sounds extremely plausible to me. But, I'm thinking your motivation is more about whether this would be a good advertising medium. Honestly, I would think you could do much better with banner ads. While many people have trained their vision to ignore banners, it is still a better option as more people come online who have not trained their vision to ignore banner ads. Do I sell banner ads? Nope. Are there other more lucrative advertising opportunities out there? Certainly. Sincerely, Lee Roberts http://www.merchantmetrix.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Brad Waller Subject: Cheap hits How can someone promise to deliver 10,000 "guaranteed unique visitors" to a website for only $12.50? Most likely through pop-up or -under ads that have your home page (or other designated page) as the content. They will technically be visitors to your site, but they will not be clicking on a link to go to your site, or even care about your site. This traffic is completely untargeted, and most will likely never even see your page. The rate they are charging is $1.25 CPM (cost per thousand), which is actually on the low side for a pop style ad. If they have an autosurf or other get paid to surf program, then they have lots of browsers who don't look at ads that will accept these pops and just close them off. You would be lucky to get a few out of these 10,000 to click on a link or take a real action you would care about. Brad Waller Manage and Sell your own site advertising http://adjungle.com waller, adjungle.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Anson Subject: Backups > Assuming that you have legal copies of all your software, > it can always be reinstalled so the only thing that really > needs to be backed up is your data. The result of all this > is that I can do a complete backup of my data in under > an hour. - Tom Aman, LED 2144 That's what I used to think -- until I had my hard drive go down once. Actually, if I had been brighter, I would have thought of it several instances earlier. While it is true that most applications come on CDs, even if you have these legal copies, it can still be an awful lot of work restoring a hard drive. Some applications require an access key (that changes for every installation). And I have a lot of applications that I've downloaded. Finding the access keys and setup files (with their funky names) for installation of these can be quite a trick, as well. And, of course, many applications have personalized settings that can take a long time to re-set. While restoring data files can be a very easy process, and installing many applications again is not too much of a bother, I've found that I can lose a week or more of productive time every time I have to restore my hard drive. (I've had to do that more times than I care to think about in the last six years.) And then, there is another month of tweaking to make things work as they had before. Worst-case scenario for me was when my computer tech, in trying to solve a small annoyance for me, changed a setting that caused my computer to turn off while booting. He had to take the whole thing into the shop, kept it for 10 days -- and I still had another two weeks of work to get everything installed and tweaked as I wanted it. For Sherry and anyone else who isn't doing it, I'd personally -- strongly -- recommend backing up the whole system. I use an external HD (mine is a Maxtor, although I've heard that they have a high failure rate, so I'm looking into something else) and Ghost, and so far, have had no trouble with it at all. I'm planning to get a second HD so I can swap them out daily (or at least weekly) and keep one is a fire-proof safe. (I'm still old-fashioned enough to feel really wierd about using an online backup service. I realize that their servers are probably more secure than my computer, but at least I can turn mine off.) But this isn't a place for a therapy session . . . Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Kurt T. Francis Subject: LED There have been a number of good replies to this topic. That said, I would like to gently emphasize what has already been mentioned about the suitability of a particular newsletter and whether or not it serves the needs and interests of members. I am a retired university instructor of English, mostly as a second or foreign language, mostly in Asia. But the fact I no longer teach doesn't mean I have lost all interest. I subscribe to an excellent newsletter similar to Adam's that deals with topics of interest to ESL/EFL teachers at all levels. I have no interest in learning about techniques of teaching English in this context to pre-university students -- but a lot of readers do, since they're doing exactly that. And that area of teaching is a constant thread, as are other areas. Further, things change. SEO may be boring to someone who is expert, but for me, it seems almost black magic, and I'm grateful for the discussions. That's not to say I want to read ONLY posts about SEO -- but I do appreciate a lot of those that roll in. Besides, there are new folks coming to the Internet everyday who need to understand who are starting at the Web equivalent of Kindergarten. I don't think LED is in any danger of entering a downward spiral, not in the foreseeable future. The moderating is, IMHO, superb. One poster suggested each of us who may be finding the current threads of discussion becoming a bit stale jump into the fray and bring up a new potential thread -- an excellent suggestion. I've done that myself (though not in LED's case -- never have needed to do so -- when after a few weeks things seemed, from just one reade r's point of view (mine) to be becoming rather stationary. And in a few cases, I've received private e-mails from publishers / editors / moderators thanking me for doing so, explaining they were pretty well stuck with no new fresh ideas coming over the "Internet transom," so to speak. Yes, I reckon I'll continue to look forward to LED. Unless I finally come to know everything about everything! ;-) With warm regards, Kurt T. Francis, Web Master http://bangkokatoz.com Bangkok's Voice On The Web -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Will Bontrager Subject: Caught in a loop! > I would hate to see the Digest go down the tubes... - Paul Morris, LED 2118 It is not going down the tubes, Mr. Morris. But thank you for opening the subject. It gives all of us who care a reminder to consult with ourselves and determine what we can contribute to its continued well-being. The recent somewhat rather intense disagreements about SEO, more or less centered on reciprocal links, may give the impression that the quality is going down. Like in any group, there will be opposing points of view from time to time. A competent moderator does not stifle expression that does not cross a line the moderator keeps in mind. Thus, we have been privileged with some awesome content about SEO. Detractors can stimulate considered responses from those who care and know their subject. One can focus primarily on the distraction. Or one can focus on the contribution of professionals in their field. As examples, in LED 2118 and 2117, Dirk Johnson and Steve Pronger, respectively, have provided that which has become usual for them, succinct recommendations and how-to information, including ideas that no doubt could be the basis of expensive instructional manuals -- all for free in the LED. What are their agendas? I don't know, and it really doesn't matter so long as they are are benign. What matters is the information, whether or not it is good and can be used for benefit. I've learned that everyone has a personal agenda. I've also learned that it doesn't really matter so long as there is no intentional deception or deliberate withholding of vital information. Even with all the good information that seems to have been a result I, too, am getting a little tired of the deliberate distractions in some of the issue numbers. It's like having to dig through muck to get to the gold. But then, maybe it's a symptom of being lazy and wanting gold left on the table in front of me, clean and shiny, in chunks easy to handle, without any work on my part. Will Bontrager Blog for Site Owners http://willmaster.com/blog/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. "Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens." - William Blake |
