Wednesday the 4th of March, 2009 | Articles | Business | Tools |
I have recently been working with a team (who is a new team within an older corporation) to get their website and ecommerce system up to par. The blogging platform, ecommerce platform and proprietary login system are substandard at best but they’re the required platforms by IT. Two very small issues have become a severe nightmare.
1) The username field only allows for 15 characters
a) The page doesn’t notify the limitation to the user ahead of time and plenty of people are used to using their email address which can easily exceed 15 characters
b) When the user goes over 15 characters, they are greeted with a red error stating “System Error, please try again later.”
2) When a user does go under the required characters by chance, they get dropped off at their user profile page instead of continuing with their checkout.
These two seemingly small issues drive 80% of their customers to require multiple phone and/or email touches for assistance on checkout and countless abandoned carts. Two months since launch of their new ecommerce site, this issue is still not resolved.
Thursday the 25th of May, 2006 | Tools | Web Apps |
I’ve been using Google Calendar a lot lately and love it. I can log in and edit my schedule from any computer. I also receive email or text notifications at a preset time before a scheduled event. It works with the iCal standard, which means most local calendars on your computer can be updated automatically by subscribing to your Google Calendar feed.
Try it here
Friday the 31st of March, 2006 | Business | Marketing | Tools | Web Apps |
Ever thought about advertising on television but thought it was too expensive or too difficult? Allow me to introduce you to Spotrunner. This is an all-in-one service that does everything from producing your commercial to media buying and finally distribution of the ads. First, create a 30 second commercial from a professional template. Second, tell the site how much you’d like to spend, for how long the ad should run and what cities or towns the ad should run in. A few seconds later you have a full campaign running on multiple channels. Don’t like a few of the channels your ad will be running on? Simply take them out of the mix.
Friday the 3rd of March, 2006 | Business | Marketing | Tech | Tools |
Many search engines are now providing a telephone icon next to their search results. This new technology called “Pay-Per-Click” allows the search engine to connect both the advertiser and advertisee via a phone call. This market proves to be the 800lb gorilla in the online advertising arena. Why? Greg Sterling of the Kelsey Group says,
Consumers are accustomed to making phone calls to contact local businesses and local businesses are similarly used to closing leads over the phone. A performance-based online medium that delivers calls rather than clicks therefore makes sense for the local market.
In my opinion, this is the best kind of new technology. It melds the newest technology with a way of communicating that people are already comfortable with. Pay-Per-Call also seems to be a great way to prevent click fraud. If the two parties don’t connect over the phone, the advertiser doesn’t pay.
Thursday the 26th of January, 2006 | Business | Tech | Tools | Web Apps |
While choosing a restaurant for Valentine’s Day last night, I found a website called OpenTable.com. With a few clicks I had reservations at a very desirable establishment for Feb 14th. I was intrigued by the ease of the process and wasn’t sure it was real. After some investigating I found the website is an added benefit for purchasing the company’s reservation software.
OpenTable.com’s software automates all the steps involved in taking reservations (online or on the fly), seating patrons, figuring average turnover time of a table, and laying out which tables belong to which servers. Here’s a list of features from their site:
Reservation Management
Easily enter or modify reservations while viewing guest histories
Capture phone numbers, email and mailing addresses
Allow management blocking and VIP pre-assignments
Reduce no-shows with enhanced customer tracking
Take reservations from your website or OpenTable 24 hours a day
Table Management
Maximize seat utilization with walk-in and waitlist functionality
Instantly track covers for more efficient kitchen and server management
Increase table turns by tracking party status
Store multiple reservation sheets for holidays and special events
Hold and combine tables for large parties
Record and view shift notes for each day
Guest Management
Identify regulars and VIPs
Track customer preferences to meet and anticipate special requests
View customer reservation histories at-a-glance
Track special occasions such as guest birthdays and anniversaries
Marketing Management
Conduct powerful email marketing campaigns to increase repeat business
Print mailing labels to reach select target audiences
Track and reward concierge business
Increase control
Manage reservations from the back-office or any other location simultaneously
Control multiple restaurants from key centralized locations
Leverage the power of Microsoft’s reliable SQL Server 2000 software architecture
Share guest data across sister restaurants
If you’re a restaurant that relies heavily on reservations or has frequent wait-lists, I would definitely take a closer look into their offerings.
Wednesday the 4th of January, 2006 | Business | Ideas | Marketing | Resources | Tools | Web Apps |
I just recently sold two tickets to the Rose Bowl via Ebay. This was my first ebay experience and I must say I was pleased with my transaction. The site is a little hard to use at times, but the idea that you can sell unwanted items to the highest bidder sounds good to me.
I was intrigued to find how many office supplies were available on ebay. It seems to me that small businesses could utilize ebay to trade office equipment. Say you have an old office chair you need to get rid of, ebay it. What if you need a new desk, chair and cubicle for an incoming employee? Run a search on ebay.
Why stop there? The way the site is set up, you could promote your business services on ebay as well. So mosey on over to ebay and brainstorm a little on how you can utilize their tools to make some money or at least find some useful stuff for your small business.
Wednesday the 21st of December, 2005 | Tools | Web Apps |
Not many people stop to think about what they would do if their hard drive crashed and they lost all of their data. For many, it would be devastating. Personally, I’d curl up into a fetal position and sob for many many hours. There is a very easy way to prevent a disaster like this from happening to you.
Backup your data
Sounds easy enough, but who has the time? My recommendation is to invest in some remote data backup. For relatively inexpensive, you can hire a company that will “tap” into your computer at a specified time every day and backup your data onto one of their servers. Set the system up for 4 am every day and you can sleep soundly.
I’m including some companies I found through Google that provide this service below:
Monday the 12th of December, 2005 | Articles | Business | Personal | Posima | Tools | Web Apps |
After 13 months and 2 days of torture we are finally launching this application. “But Chad, I thought you were joking this whole time about actually having a website in production. You mean it wasn’t a cover and you’re still living with your parents at 24 for a reason?” I can understand your skepticism, I have been planning on launching next week for what seems like forever. I have to say that even though the past year has had its ups and downs, this process has taught me more than what I learned in all my years of schooling. Call it a Masters from the University of Hard Knocks. Anywho, I’d like to thank all my friends and family that helped me from point A to point B. I’d like to name names, but there are too many and you all know who you are.
Without further ado… Welcome to Posima. We are an all in one website management system. We provide the design, content management tools and if needed a free domain name while using the service. From what I understand, this is the first service of its kind. No one else has ever provided everything a user needs to go from nothing to a fully functional website in mere hours without having to know any code. Sure there are blogging tools out there, but people/businesses who want a website want it to look like a website...not a blog.
Bits and pieces of the posima.com site are still not quite finished. The application is done and fully functional, but the features and support sections of the site are still works in progress. The gallery page will come into its own once we obtain clients, so check back from time to time to see what people are creating. I’ve setup a demo account for everyone to play with and see how the site works. Comment and let me know what you think. Here are the login details:
username: demo
password: demouser
More goodness to come soon,
Chad