| LED Digest 2147: FedEx Nightmares |
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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 26, 2006 Issue no. 2147 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== NEW ======================== --== Shared IPs and SEO ==-- ~ Paul Harris "Does having a 'non-shared' IP address assist with SEO?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== How Does BuyHitsCheap Work? ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "Didn't we already figure out many years ago that 'eyeballs' isn't what we need?" --== Dealing with Shipping Costs ==-- ~ Nancy Schettler "What we first did was to simply set up tiers of shipping charges..." ~ Mary Findley "I had nothing but nightmares dealing with FedEx." ~ R. Neilson "The key on any shipping program...is to keep it updated as shipping charges change." --== Hyphens in URLs? ==-- ~ Noah Masterson "...having the hyphen creates a minor inconvenience..." ~ Tom Anson "...the URL you choose probably doesn't make much difference [for] search engines." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Marketing a Website ==-- ~ Biana Babinsky ======== NEW ===================================== From: Paul Harris Subject: IP Addresses & Search Engine Positioning A simple question. Does having a "non shared" IP address for your web site assist with SEO? Paul Harris www.designaweb.biz ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Michael Linehan 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-under ads... - Brad Waller, LED 2146 You're right, Brad. That's exactly what it is - pop-under ads - as we can see with a little digging on their site. The pop-under delivers either an ad, or, yes, content from your site. The explanation isn't hidden. It's just a click or two away. I guess enough people react with "Oh Wow" and just buy without seeing that clarification - or if they do see it, they don't realize the implications. Didn't we already figure out many years ago that "eyeballs" isn't what we need? (Rhetorical question.) But I guess there are so many new people on the Web all the time that there's always a new market for the old stuff. Link farms are still going strong too, in certain quarters. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy http://www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Nancy Schettler Subject: Shipping charges > I am looking for some general suggestions as > to how other people are handing shipping charges. - Mark Roberts, LED 2146 Mark, We ship "light-and-fluffy" items (fabric, placemats etc.) and the occasional heavy item. What we first did was to simply set up tiers of shipping charges (relating to the total of the order): $5.25 for orders up to $25.00 $6.75 for orders totalling $25.01 - $45.00 $8.25 for orders totalling $45.01 - $82.50 10% for orders over $82.50 We adjust the tiers whenever the Post Office / UPS / FedEx raise their prices. This method works well except for those heavy items. For those, we added a $1 shipping surcharge on the heavy items. It would have been nicer to just add the $1 into the heavy item price... but we were competing with someone else's price. Most people understand the shipping surcharge, given that these heavy items weigh six pounds each. Even with the surcharge, we still are not getting enough for the heavy shipments. In the end, though, over the course of a year, we break even, because we come out a little ahead on the lighter shipments. Nancy Schettler A Well Dressed Kitchen www.awelldressedkitchen.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Mary Findley Subject: Shipping charges Hi Mark, I had nothing but nightmares dealing with FedEx. When I had my online account set up with them thru my Visa account, they billed me charges for shipments I didn't make. They also were billing me for pickup charges when I was taking my shipments to their store. It was a total nightmare. My online account did not show these additional pickup charges and when I received my monthly Visa statement it was past their 15 day refund policy so they refused to credit my account. I filed a refusal to pay with Visa and their fraud department called me and had me file fraud charges against them since they fraudulently charged my account. I had to close that account and open another. Visa did credit my account. I had numerous times when they stole items out of my boxes. One got so brazen that they took most of my supplies out of one box some out of another and what they didn't want put into one box and the other got "Lost." They would not credit my account for the "Lost" items and I had to once again file a claim with Visa. They opened other boxes of mine and removed items supposedly the box was damaged because I didn't package it correctly. Strange the box had no damage when it arrived at the destination. I switched to daily UPS and have them deduct direct out of my banking account once a month. I have had no broken boxes, no missed items no additional charges for shipments I did not make. I've been with them since last November and won't ship any other way. It's very easy to set up an account online. I have heard other people say they have experienced the same nightmares with FedEx. My suggestion is to go with UPS. They have done an excellent job for me. Mary Findley Mary Moppins http://www.goclean.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: R. Neilson Subject: Shipping charges Shipping charges should really be described on your website as Shipping & Handling as you have more than just the actual cost of shipping to compute into this total. Packaging in the form of boxes, tape, bubble wrap and labor can add up quickly if you aren't careful. First see what free boxes and labels are available from different shippers that your birdhouses will fit into. For example if shipping by USPS you can get some nice Priority Mail boxes Free in sizes like 12x12x8, 7X7X6 etc. that may work for your variable weight pieces. They even have some of the flat rate boxes that might work as well. With USPS you can print and pay for your postage online then just have your postal carrier pickup the packages with your daily mail. UPS has a similar feature on their website but I think pickup costs unless you have it set up as regular account. I do have a regular UPS account with daily pickup which is nice but you have to weigh the cost versus the number of packages you are shipping. I don't use FedEX anymore as I have an issue with their ground deliveries. Unlike UPS or USPS who offer daily pickup to rural areas, FedEx only picks up and delivers one day a week unless I have an account. While I am classified as rural I am only 7 miles from a FedEx terminal and 1 1/2 miles off a major highway. 1/2 mile of east of my store and farther out of town is not considered rural by FedEx. This is a problem that I found with a number of my customers when I shipped with FedEx. They are great in major metropolitan areas but anything outside of that and delivery times get scary. I don't know if you are using a shopping cart program or not but Miva Merchant has options for charging shipping based on dollar sales or weight. With the weight option you just have the weight of each item shipped (crucial to know with standard packaging) and it will calculate shipping costs with the shipper of your choice or customers. Options with Miva include UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. which takes the guess work out of shipping. Only offer the shipping services you feel comfortable with. I offer UPS and USPS and customers get standard ground or Priority Mail unless they ask fore expedited service. Most programs also allow you to add a dollar amount you want to compute in for packaging materials or you can just figure that into your cost when selling the item. I sell a lot of merchandise on Ebay and off my website. Because of the variety of items I sell I use several methods. On Ebay I usually have shipping calculated by weight, but some items I will have a flat rate listed or even say shipping is free on very light items that I have computed a low shipping cost. I usually figure 1-2 dollars for handling unless it is something very large that needs a lot of special packaging. On my website I have it based on dollar value of sale. The key on any shipping program based on a dollar value is to keep it updated as shipping charges change. With a weight based program as long as it is set up to update shipping rates regularly you will find the updates transition usually go flawlessly. Miva has those options for weight based shipping which I am considering switching to on my website, however I don't have weights computed for everything I sell and will have to go back over all my inventory to do that. Hope this helps you with calculating shipping and handling. R. Neilson H. L. Supply www.hansons.net -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Noah Masterson Subject: URL hyphens > I'm about to buy two new URLs for my map > business... do you think I should buy names > [that are hyphenated or not]...? - Kay Gleason, LED 2146 When we launched our site, dc-baby.com, we at first considered it without the hyphen: dcbaby.com. But this domain is taken and its owner wanted a lot of money for it. So we went with the hyphen. I don't think it's had any impact on web traffic one way or the other; once the search engines find you and others link to you, it doesn't really matter what your domain is. I will say, however, that having the hyphen creates a minor inconvenience when you need to speak your domain aloud - over the phone, for example. I always have to say "DC-dash-baby-dot-com" and often follow that up with, "be sure to include the hyphen." Not a huge deal, but if you're going to be telling people your website address (and why wouldn't you?), you may want to avoid saying, old-dash-maps-dash-of-dash-ohio-dot-com. So I say, if given the choice, skip the hyphens. Especially if there will be more than one in the URL. Noah Masterson Publisher, dc-baby.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Anson Subject: URL hyphens Hi Kay, Speaking as one who has had a long domain name (www.ansonaromaticessentials.com) and someone with a hyphenated domain name, the URL you choose probably doesn't make much difference in terms of the search engines. (That is, of course, a continuing area of debate.) Your primary concern, in my opinion, is communicating to potential customers. For that, I'd say that shorter is better (as long as the shorter version makes sense to another person's "ear"). I've also found that hyphenated domain names, like mine ( www.essential-vitamins.com and www.therapeutic-grade.com ), seem to confuse people a lot. I can't figure that; but if I was to choose a new domain name today, I'd avoid the hyphens. Of course, if you can buy the domain name in un-hyphenated AND hyphenated forms, that might be best. Use the hyphenated form for your literature (what people read off-line -- where the words are separated for readability) and have the other, unhyphenated, form for people who don't understand hyphens. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Biana Babinsky Subject: Marketing a Web Site > We are a small American Ceramic design and craft production > company. We have not been doing any marketing of our website... > I want to develop a plan to increase our internet business. - Mackenzie Andersen, LED 2141 I just glanced over your web site and here is what I recommend: - Define Your Target Market. Who are the people that are most likely to purchase your products? Knowing who they are helps you create a web site that speaks to them, and, as a result, gets more sales. - Re-design your web site and add a shopping cart. It will make the web site much more user-friendly and make it much easier for your web site visitors to place an order. - Start marketing the web site online and increase targeted traffic coming to the web site. Optimize every page of your web site using search engine optimization, look into article marketing, blogging, etc. More targeted traffic means more sales, so create an online marketing plan for getting more targeted traffic to your web site. Biana Babinsky Effective Online Marketing http://www.avocadoconsulting.com ------------------------------------------------------- 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. "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." - Joseph Chilton Pearce |
