Posts Tagged ‘consumers’

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Monday, August 30th, 2010

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Attractive iPhone 4 Innovations Marred by Slow Networks

Friday, August 27th, 2010

If there were no so many ‘but’s, I would perhaps be very excited about new iPhone 4 announcements of its new features, particularly about the 720p video recording feature and the ability to video chat, called FaceTime by Apple, and even about the possibility to watch Netflix on the iPhone 4. But the shortage is in the fact that Apple’s innovations have unsurprisingly surpassed the network’s ability to handle support of all these new mobile features.

The reason for worry is not only AT&T and its much-blamed 3G network. As an example, at recent Steve Jobs WWDC keynote, those users attending via Wi-Fi have overloaded the network so that Jobs couldn’t even perform some of his demos. Several times during the keynote, Steve Jobs had to ask the livebloggers to close down their Wi-Fi connection so that he could go on with the demos. Can you believe that?

So it didn’t come as a big surprise when AT&T made an announcement about its new data plans, dropping the word “unlimited” from them. Seems like they’ve realized the bandwidth they’d have needed for all those new innovations coming. Really, the waves of users trying to use all new bandwidth-intensive features on the AT&T network can’t be imagined if all of them had unrestricted data access. Most likely, 3G infrastructure, and even that of Wi-Fi (providing you are in the same room with lots of other Wi-Fi users) won’t be able to support the most attractive features of new iPhone 4. What are we talking about here, if even while travelling somewhere in Vegas for an event you can find yourself unable to make an ordinary phone call because the network is overloaded? Now imagine what will happen when the consumers find themselves unable to also access e-mail and other services we can’t live without today – and the reason is the poor network! Is there any sense in owning a device if you can’t use it while all the others are also using them? There’s quite a list of the bandwidth-heavy iPhone 4 innovations.

Let’s start with the video camera allowing to shoot 720p video at 30 frames p/sec. It is located at the back of the device, but is easy accessible even if you have case for iPhone 4 put on your device. Estimating a 2-minute 720p video weight of about 50MB, it can be calculated that the its uploading via a really fast in-house network (with broadband width of 12.5Mbps) will take just 30 seconds. However, in most cases the users can consider to be lucky if they have access to 1 Mbps upload speed, increasing the uploading time up to 6 minutes. Another application, iMovie, allows you to send video in MMS and e-mails and upload it to YouTube over the network, but back in the real world, most consumers will wait till coming back home and synchronize the iPhone with their computers to upload the video over a better network. In addition to the speed, there’s also a factor of saving the bandwidth cap.

Talking about the FaceTime video chat application, it should be mentioned that it can only work over Wi-Fi, meaning that the application is just not good enough for 3G. Moreover, it can only work if you have other iPhone 4 owners at the far end, thus limiting your ability to have a video chat with anyone you like. Keeping in mind that it’s sometimes hard to get people even to sign up for Skype to video chat with them, it can be quite problem. Think of all this limitations: to get FaceTime working, both parties need to own iPhone 4, and find a Wi-Fi network that is not overly busy. That makes problem bigger, because Wi-Fi connections may be not good enough even for Skype running on the ordinary computer. Perhaps that’s too many conditions for two people to video chat with each other. One could wish the only condition would be just the identical iPhone 4 covers on the devices to be able to communicate and no network troubles. But we still live in the real world.

Move to the Netflix discussion. As you might have seen from the iPad, this application is very good in caching or buffering or doing whatever to optimize video streams to the device. Here the iPhone’s screen, which is smaller in size, can help. But only users grandfathered in on the AT&T unlimited broadband plan will benefit. You don’t really expect people facing bandwidth caps to use up the bulk of their bandwidth allowance to watch old episodes of some show, do you?

Frankly speaking, iPhone’s new features are just coming on top of the consumers’ long insatiable appetite for data-heavy applications for mobiles. This can be proved by some trends and statistics on today’s data usage over mobile networks: – Video accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic, transmitted over the networks that are not ready to manage this strain. – YouTube is responsible for 30-50% of actual traffic. – Data cap of 2GB is reached by the major part of users very quickly, into 2-3 weeks of their monthly subscription if being used regularly (just 2-3 videos a week). – Netflix now offers users full-length streaming features.

AT&T can’t be blamed for capping the bandwidth on data plans, as they couldn’t foresee the iPhone 4 announcement, and therefore didn’t consider their today’s network problems and the probability of more applications coming. If we see other carriers capping their bandwidth as well, the conclusion is clear – the current infrastructure just can’t handle the traffic.

Seems like it’s not easy to find solution to this problem. Consumers can yell at the service providers to build faster networks, but that would make no sense – everyone knows they won’t appear out of a clear sky. That’s actually what the carriers are doing anyway with WiMax and LTE. However, it’s not clear if Verizon could have any more luck with its EV-DO than AT&T has had with 3G. The developers of these devices can’t be blames for creating cameras allowing to create 720p videos and faster processors, as well. Nor Netflix can be blamed for coming up with offering to stream videos over the mobile network. There’s nobody left to blame so far. May be producers of iPhone 4 cases, just in case?

The only solution coming to the mind is Apple simply buying or developing their own network to provide quality services for Apple’s apps. That’s what users can get really excited about.

iPod Touch 4: What To Expect and Thoughts

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

In this video, I discuss what you should expect from the iPod Touch 4 in terms of features, design, etc. as we move closer to the release of the device this fall. There has been a lot of speculation recently about this device, as the iPhone 4 has just been released with many new features, and consumers are wondering which of these features are to be included in the next generation iPod Touch 4. I have made a list of the top 8 features to be talked about at the Apple iPod Conference in September, which I review in the video. If this helped you out in anyway, subscribe and rate thumbs up so you don’t miss the next update! Thanks for watching, and all links from the video are below. You guys are the best! Thanks again. All information in the video is from my own brain, I was reading my word document on the information, which is why I say “it says…blah blah blah”. Follow Me on Twitter: twitter.com Visit My Website!: www.themacintoshreview.com

The Career Professor’s Job Search Clinic

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

The Job Search Clinic, based on the program Career Management 101, that consumers paid $1500 & had a 100% Success Rate! Every single person landed at least 1 job offer! Even in 2009 – 2010, during the “Great Recession” This is the same program digitized! The Career Professor’s Job Search Clinic

Discount Garmin GPS, Quality At A Great Price

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Of the many various GPS manufactures, Garmin has become the most popular. Not only do they make a high-quality product, but they offer a wide variety of GPS units for average consumers, mariners and pilots. However, quality can come at a price, as some Garmin GPS units can range in price up to thousands of dollars. This is why it is important to try to find a source for discount Garmin GPS products if at all possible.

The first way one can try to find as source of discount Garmin GPS products is from the Garmin website itself, Garmin.com. The company website does not sell discount Garmin GPS directly; rather they provide a list of stores that do sell their equipment. They also provide access to refurbished GPS units that sell at greatly reduced prices. Refurbished units from authorized sellers come with a short warranty. Most refurbished Garmin GPS products are very reliable. Another option to finding a discount Garmin GPS unit is to check out the special offers on their website. Discount coupons are frequently available to many Garmin GPS products. To find Garmin retail stores, one has to make two selections: what country they are in and what type of GPS system they are looking for. The resulting hits will show information about the store including: address, telephone number, email address and a link if it is online. The potential buyer will have to search through the list to see which store offers the best discount Garmin GPS.

The second way one can locate a source of low priced Garmin GPS is from auction sites such as Ebay or Ubid. These sites work through a bidding system. Sellers post their items which contain a starting bid. The buyer places their bid and if they bid the highest after a number of days they have purchased the item. Auction sites also allow sellers to utilize the “buy it now” feature. Of course, “buy it now” tends to be more expensive in comparison to bidding, but it gives the seller an option to buy the item immediately. When the buyer is ready to pay, they can use their credit card or bank account through a payment system known as Paypal. Often using online auctions will provide the best prices for discount Garmin GPS products.

Another way you can buy a Garmin GPS at a reduce price is through shopping comparison sites, such as Froogle.com, Bizrate and Pricegrabber. Why would one even consider other methods of buying discount Garmin GPS if these options are available? It is because though these sites are very helpful, they do not always provide the match one might be looking for. Sometimes the results may not even be related to what one was looking for. Other times what they would consider a discount Garmin GPS would not necessarily be what the person searching would consider a ‘discount Garmin GPS’, since the prices could actually be those of regular retail Garmin GPS. This is a major downside when using shopping comparison sites, which is why one should be aware of the different sources of discount Garmin GPS units.

There are several methods for finding discount Garmin GPS products: through the Garmin website itself, auction sites or shopping comparison sites. Through these resources one can save hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on their next Garmin GPS unit. Purchasing a Garmin GPS at any price is a good investment. However, there should be no excuse why anyone should have to settle for a lesser quality GPS brand when you have access to discount Garmin GPS products.

James Kesel, MS is the Publisher of GPS Auto Tracker providing information on Garmin and the latest GPS Tracking and Navigation systems.

Retailers must Offer Price and Durability

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

For decades, retailers have advertised low priced goods with the plan to up sell the customer when they came into their store.  Car dealers are legendary for this tactic and consumers with extra disposable income or a line of credit are receptive to paying more than they planned when they are presented with a better product with all the options.

In fact, more than three quarters of consumers who entered a store looking for the economy model of a lawnmower, car, sofa or whatever,  have been effectively up sold during more prosperous times. Consumers see the benefits of the better items and associate the higher price with quality and durability. They may pay 50% more for this item than the advertised economy model, but envision keeping it for a much longer period.

Today, consumers will fall into two camps, those able to afford the up sell and those that simply cannot. In the past, customers who could spend more for more durable goods may have made up 80% of the population. Today, it’s around a 50 – 50 split.

This means that many consumers in our New Economy will need to focus on price only, and forego the consideration of paying more for durability. In the past many retailers would keep one unit of the advertised economy model just to comply with advertising laws and usually took their time selling it. Today, if your organization wants to do business with both consumer types, it’s critical that you offer models of economy as well as durability .

Recently, a well known store advertised a gas barbecue for $89. This was quite an impressive price for such an item! As expected, this shop sold barbecues from $89 up to $1,000 in many shapes and sizes. Upon examination of the $89 barbecue, one can see why it sold for $89. The frame was shaky, it had one little burner and looked like two seasons might be its maximum life expectancy. In earlier times, you’d expect them to have one of these units on display, and up sell the consumer to a barbecue of better quality perhaps for twice the price or even more. It certainly makes sense if you can get ten years or more out of the $350 barbecue. It can actually work out less per year that way too.

However, this store had done their homework and had piles of the cheap barbecue. The company understood that no matter what, consumers in the new price camp will not be up sold out of their tight budget. Their mentality is to buy the cheapest “until things get better”. This store knew that it was important to offer products that offer both price, and units that offer durability so that they can do business and retain both genres of consumer. If your store does business the old way and just stocks one unit of the economy model and it sells out, the price driven consumer will need to shop elsewhere and may never come back, even when times get better.

Recognize the two different consumers and appreciate that in these challenging times, those driven by price are an expanding group. In fact, it remains to be seen whether a portion of these consumers stay in the Price camp forever regardless of how the economy rebounds in the future. As witnessed during the depression of the 1930′s, many consumers never left this price camp of fear that history would repeat itself.

 

Take Action Today:

1) Review the price and durability consumer mentalities with your sales team. Train staff to demonstrate and sell items to these two consumers that have very different needs and priorities.

2) Review inventory and make sure that you offer both product types, in larger quantities.

3) Fine tune the balance in your store between price driven and more expensive durability driven products based on your specific customer demographics.

Ron Pawlowski is a Managing
Partner at The Retail Institute.
He has a Bachelor’s Degree is Science as well as an MBA.

The Retail Institute is dedicated to the support of the small to medium retailer through timely informative articles as well as affordable retail seminars, manuals and systems.

http:// www.retailinstitute.ca

425 Ways to Stretch Your

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Earn 75% commission. Free Marketing tools – marketing letter to send to consumers. See affiliate web page http://www.howtocutyourexpenses.com/affiliate.html 425 Ways to Stretch Your

Ebooks About Small Biz, Fundraising, Frugality And More

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Small biz, entrepreneural, frugal consumers, education, self help, creativity, personal finance, fundraising and other ebook titles can be found on this site. Ebooks About Small Biz, Fundraising, Frugality And More

Finding the Magazine You Want

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Most magazine subscription sellers carry between 600 and 1600 different magazine titles for sale. The ever increasing number of magazines gives customers a list of endless possibilities from which to choose when looking for just the right subscription. The vast amount of choices can be a rather daunting task when trying to narrow down the choices from 50 magazines to maybe one or two. Some of the popular magazine categories may feature even more subscriptions to choose, but there are some tricks to choosing just the right magazine subscription for you.

Read Customer Reviews

Though publishers provide a description of the content and editorial focus of the magazine, it is in their best interest to make the magazine sound as interesting and appealing as possible. When available, customer reviews can provide a view of the magazine that is unbiased. Customer Reviews on magazines can give potential subscribers and readers information on everything from the quality of the content, the number of ad pages featured in a magazine (an ongoing complaint with many readers, and even delivery issues or problems.

Reading more than one customer review is also very important. It allows for a general consensus, and after a while a pattern of opinions should start to emerge. If the general consensus is that magazine quality has suffered or if the editorial focus has changed (for either better or worse) the information is readily available.

Online customers have a decided advantage. There are a number of consumer and shopping sites with this information available. Online Magazine subscription sellers also encourage their customers to write reviews for magazines. When a potential customer clicks on a a magazine title everything you need to know should be readily available. Sellers understand that consumers often want more information about magazine titles as it helps them to make a more informed decision.

Find Your Niche

Many customers choose a magazine subscription based on the popularity of the magazine or name recognition. Just because a magazine has experienced popularity does not mean that it will fit the need of every customer. Increased competition among publishers has led most publishers to cater to a specific niche within a particular category. Every category will have at least one general interest magazine that seems to cover a wide breadth of information. However, customers tend to be happier with subscriptions that cater directly to them and are geared towards their interests specifically.

For example, Bon Appetit is one of the more popular magazines in the cooking category. The magazine includes recipes, entertainment information, restaurants reviews etc. However, the novice cook would likely be better served purchasing a different subscription. Many of the recipes in Bon Appetit have been categorized as difficult for a beginner with many of the ingredients being difficult to locate. While a great magazine, Bon Appetit is more of a generalist, and is not a good fit for a beginner or someone who is looking for a large number of recipes.

Another example would be the baseball fan that doesn’t particularly care for other sports. A magazine subscription to Baseball Digest would likely be a better fit than a more popular magazine such as Sporting News. Though Sporting News would provide baseball coverage, it would likely lack the in-depth coverage of the aforementioned magazine because of the other sports it needs to cover, and because of space limitations. The Baseball Digest subscriber would also be able to receive Baseball information during the off season when baseball news in other generalist magazines is likely to be limited.

Price Does In Fact Matter

In some instances customers will face having to decide between magazines with the same quality and editorial focus. For example, Sports Illustrated has long been a leader in the sports magazine category. ESPN, known for their television and radio sports broadcasting has experienced phenomenal growth of the ESPN Magazine. Many of ESPN’s issues sell out at the newsstands. Much of the growth has been attributed to the low price of the magazine.

Though customers are interested in quality, cost is important and many customers and publishers are benefiting. People Magazine and National Geographic have definitely felt the competition from magazines like US Weekly, and Discover. These magazines are very similar but are far less costly.

If still in doubt about what magazine subscriptions to purchase after narrowing down the list, buying one or two copies at the newsstand is a great way to find out if a long term commitment is ideal.

Want to find out about bat pictures and umbrella bird? Get tips from the Knowledge Bin website.

Mineral Water Benefits – are They Real?

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Whether mineral water has any benefits is the subject of this article.  Also I will touch on mineral revitalization  and water purification systems and their value, real or not?

Minerals are nothing new.  They are naturally occurring substances.  They are in the ground, the very earth, itself, so they are also present in anything that grows from or passes through the soil.  They are also found in anything that eats plant foods and anything that lives in the water.

When it comes to human health, there are recommended daily allowances for all of the essential trace minerals.  Some companies suggest that the mineral water benefits are similar to what you would get from taking a vitamin supplement; the prevention of nutritional deficiencies. 

It is true that studies have shown that drinking distilled, which is de-mineralized, water on a regular basis leads to digestive problems and eventually can cause mineral deficiencies, if no other source of the nutrients are available.  That is why companies have introduced mineral revitalization water purification systems for home use.  That is also why so many people believe that there are a large number of mineral water benefits.

The problem; the studies were conducted to advise consumers and health care professionals about what is the healthiest liquid to consume.  Researchers did not compare mineral water benefits to those of regular tap water or water from any other source.  They only compared people who drank distilled, as opposed to naturally occurring. 

The introduction of the mineral revitalization water purification systems was supposed to counter the disadvantages of reverse osmosis, distillation and other purification methods that remove naturally occurring minerals.  It is basically, a waste of money, so is buying bottled mineral water.

There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that there are mineral water benefits that are not found in the purified, mineral balanced option.  The better filtration systems for home use provide the latter. 

There are some anecdotal studies that seem to suggest that there are some mineral water benefits.  In areas where it is naturally occurring, it is said that people live longer and are healthier.  While it is true that de-mineralized water is unnatural and probably not good for you.  There is no indication that taking out what is naturally present and then “revitalizing” the H2O by adding them back is a good option.

That’s why we say that mineral revitalization water purification systems are a waste of money.  They simply take out what was already there and then add it back in.  The balance may be different, but you can do the same thing with the newer systems that use ion exchange and for a small percentage of the cost.

We have to admit that there is a school of thought that says mineral water benefits are numerous.  So, the subject is debatable.  But, mineral revitalization water purification systems only have an advantage over the old reverse osmosis units.  We think that it would be difficult for anyone to debate that fact. For more information see my website.  -Larry L. Taylor 

Larry L. Taylor is a dedicated advocate of living a healthy lifestyle and diligent researcher of water purification systems. Visit his site at: http://www.CleanWaterPure.com to discover which water filtration systems Larry recommends after extensive comparisons. This article may be reprinted on a blog or website if this resource box is included.