web analytics

Archive for June 2012

3 Year Tribute to Billy Mays Jr

June 28, 2012 Pitchmen No comments

As I arrived at work, I had a funny feeling inside. A feeling that was following me around as I walked around my office, the showroom, from one corner to another of my work building. I didn’t remember. I cannot believe I didn’t remember.

I’m normally already so busy by five minutes into work that I don’t really even have time to check Twitter or any other social network… but today, I checked Twitter and Sully tweeted about it being three years since our buddy Billy Mays Jr passed away.

Man. 

What an interesting and odd three years it has been.

This day in 2009? Dan and I were back in Kentucky tying up loose ends after our move to North Carolina.

This day today? We live in FLORIDA. The home of Pitchmen. The home of where our wonderful Florida family lives (even though we haven’t seen anyone but one or two members since last October, boo!)! Not to mention, Dan and I are working together with our boss and other co-workers building a company from bottom up. It’s amazing.

I am the marketing director (photographer, graphic designer, social media) and eBay sales person. I am a very, very, very busy lady all day every day that I’m working. Let me tell you something – TODAY – I hit $8,000 of eBay sales in 30 days and $18,000 in 120 days. Depending on where you come from, this may or may not be a big deal but for our company to have just really truly started up in March, yep. That’s a big deal to me.

My love for the business world is crazy. I think my dedication is partially for Billy and for Elaine (the teacher I always talked about that passed away) who taught business. I feel like I have to rise above the standards for them, to prove to the world that I can do it and do more than just the best that I can do.

Honoring Billy by watching Pitchmen tonight. I haven’t watched it in months.

One day, I truly hope that my dedication to my work and enthusiasm will bring me to be a part of the middle wo(man) in the DR industry or something close to it. I’m already thinking of my next steps of what’s going to happen after I’m done with my work here (which won’t be for a very long time I think).

Here’s to Billy – of which, along with millions of other people, I miss very, very much.

Another downer on Best Buy, the Father’s Day dilemma.

June 23, 2012 Retail No comments

I read this article about how this lady was out with her son on Father’s Day and noticed that all of the women were shopping every where but Best Buy, and why?

Read her article for more details. In the short of it all, once again, Best Buy makes worst for their customers and are not helpful to them at all.

According to the article, lack of context / connection / simplicity are basically the main factors that women don’t want to shop there, even for their husbands or fathers or that guy in their life.

Best Buy and their employees are good about announcing and stating the facts that people can read (specs) but they are not good about connecting with the customers to break down how pretty something looks or how smoothly something runs.

For a camera, instead of reading the specs that the customer already read to themselves, how about telling how nice the camera shoots photos up close or what special filter the lenses have. For computers, share what programs look wonderful on the screen – if it’s photo specific or a computer for writers or gamers. Those things…those things that help SELL the item.

As Dan and I were having a discussion at lunch over this, specs don’t matter any more, they want details…and that’s a huge reason why Apple wins over their customers because they have it.

Most Best Buy employees are like retail employees, most aren’t in it for the career and most are only in it for the money. So, they point to or make a point to mention what the customer already knows (ie: what they can read), instead of taking the extra step to find out specific things about the item to make a sale.

Two suggestions mentioned in the article, I don’t really agree with.

This may be sexist, but, I do not think that Best Buy needs to cater to just women or just men. It’s a man’s thing – that new ole technology – tvs, gaming, computers, etc. Yes, I am a woman and I like technology to a certain point that I want something cute that works, or something that works and is cute, y’know?

Sure, you want to add feminine to the menu at Best Buy? When the lady wants to buy a computer, add a pink USB drive and pink computer cover. Or, a pink phone case for her phone. Or, whatever color they want. But I think they already have a small selection – so it’s pretty moot talking about it.

But I do agree that they need to really clean it up with all of the return policies and prices and everything else wrong with Best Buy.

“Protecting themselves from customers” – it’s a dead giveaway that due to high loss prevention numbers, we allllll know that people steal and it’s a bad, bad, bad idea NOT to protect your company models/items. Why wouldn’t you want to try to save your stuff from being stolen?

This is anywhere, pretty much, that the employees DO focus too much on trying to catch people who are stealing (or who aren’t but everyone is apparent suspect) and not truly caring enough to help someone. I get annoyed so much every time walk around every single corner and get an employee asking ,’you finding everything okay??????’ It’s like, ‘yes, five of you have been here asking that same thing. Please let me shop. Help me when I actually need to be helped.’

But it all goes back to how Best Buy is failing and things won’t be fixed.

The Best and Worst of creating your own business and/or being an entrepreneur.

June 23, 2012 Entrepreneurship, General Business No comments

Earlier I was reading an article where this person listed out the best and worst parts of being an entrepreneur. It made me think, as I have been a part of a start up business, I have a few 10 key pointers of the best and worst.

The BEST parts:

  1. You have a say in what goes down (like, policies – rules – hours – etc).
  2. You DO NOT have to clean up someone else’s mess. (Like, if you were a manager going in and cleaning up previous manager’s wrong doings. That sort of thing.)
  3. It’s not a corporate office, so dress and how you act isn’t acted upon with walking on nails around either your customers or other employees.
  4. No one really knows if something doesn’t work (only you and who you hired to work with you). You make it, break it and fix it and then make it work even better.
  5. Working around people who have a passion and possibly what you like to do.
  6. Doing what you like to be doing.
  7. Working with people you like.
  8. Location, being comfortable in office.
  9. Seeing the accomplishments of the store AND personal goals exceeded.
  10. Seeing the result in the end…knowing that we made it and it is successful.

The WORST parts:

  1. When you plan and things don’t go as smoothly as possible.
  2. Throwing yourself fully into the job and having to choose between work more for work or sacrifice personal life.
  3. Not having the time to do everything.
  4. Seeing numbers go down instead of up.
  5. Limited funds (buying more then selling).
  6. When things just don’t work out and you have to take another route. Or, when others change what you’re doing.
  7. Staying focused majority of days and being alarmed when the focus goes off one day.
  8. Interruptions due to less help or something of that nature.
  9. When people return items or comp service. (This is just the whole thing of not satisfying someone in the first place.)
  10. When creativity is a big part of your job and the designs don’t come out as expected, so it takes twice as long to create. Or, when you’re not in the mood to do it but it needs to be done.

This list is straight off the top of my head and I could probably name a whole lot more in each subject, but what do you guys think? If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, what are your worst and best parts of the experience?

Do you think that RadioShack could make a come back?

June 22, 2012 Economy, General Business, Retail No comments

I was checking my normal program for reading the every day updated business/marketing/economy news and came across this blog post.

It’s basically saying that if Radio Shack turns its head away from what they’ve become to go back to the roots of their beginning – like selling parts and nothing but parts – then they could turn this whole game around.

I can’t remember the last time I went into a Radio Shack. But, I can tell you the last time I saw one and went back to that same place weeks later only to see they’ve closed up shop.

Radio Shack lost its vibe when it started selling computers and phones and other electronics that Best Buy and Comp USA and several other big box electronic retailers sold. Price was another thing. If I remember correctly, Radio Shack’s prices weren’t right with what it should’ve been or less than what it should’ve been.

The article says that Radio Shack really needs to focus on their main customers which are the hobbyists who need parts.

I don’t really think of parts when I hear Radio Shack, I just see a retailer that’s waaaay past its prime. Unfortunately.

There’s already a ‘good enough’ parts retailer and it’s online; Tiger Direct, New Egg, Amazon… and so on. You can also find cheap things on eBay. The only thing I can think of are the people who don’t believe in ordering stuff online and there’s local places around to find parts.

I don’t know. It’s just like anything else. Looking for the best price for clothes? Go somewhere cheap like the thrift store or store when they’re having sales. Best price for jewelry? Same. Best price for electronics? Look online, look at big box retailers or smaller businesses. Best price for parts or hard to finds? Thrift stores, eBay. Y’know.

It’s just too hard to turn an older ex-well-known company back around to be something in a really, really bad economy that’s trying to recover.

There’s too many places to buy things from, there’s too many places that are the same and not unique at all. It’s devastating to those who built the company but it’s just a factor in retail life.

What do you think?

The reason why analytics are so great for marketing endeavors.

June 10, 2012 General Business, Marketing, Selling No comments

Hello everyone!

This past week at work I was looking at our eBay auctions, trying to break down what all I have left to discover for the store format and… I came across Omniture analytics.

They. Are. Wonderful.

Not only are they REALLY wonderful, but now, I can figure out how I would like to steer the direction of eBay and marketing our products.

It was interesting pulling results from 90 days, 30 days and the previous day – not to mention – what we’ve done since the beginning of our year.

I’m really glad I found this analytics program because analytics are important. Not only do you see what the most popular pages are, but you also get to see the most popular searches, the referring domain and how many people looked at your items or eBay per day/week/month/year.

So, this got me to thinking… how can I use this information to help me market our products?

I had all week to study the paper, so looking closely enough at the top 50 searches and top 50 pages. This was interesting. If the item was sold, I’d mark ‘sold’ – if the item didn’t have a name but a number, I would mark it with a name. I did this for both the since the beginning of the year to the last 30 days.

What I found was that a good portion (probably 1/3) items being searched in the top 50 and top 50 pages were items that we sold. Some items we only had a few of, others were on-going popular items that we’ve sold tons of.

The other items that were searched for in the top 50 either came back disappointing results (like, a broken printer or damaged jewelry box we’re selling) or some expensive addition to the jetski….something that someone would need some time to think about considering the price.

Perhaps we can lower the prices on the printers, jewelry box and other items like that but we aren’t allowed to lower the jetski parts, as we are in with another company on that.

It’s so interesting looking at the analytics. Other than try to fix why everything in the top 50 wasn’t selling, I have tossed around so many other ideas that I could think of to figure out how to fix this and make more sales. It’s just going to take some time to incorporate this into the business marketing plan.

I also looked at days and time of days for our most-visited. Honestly, that couldn’t really be measured because it was all over the place for the last 30 days.

I also figured out that a lot of our unique items show up in Google search higher than a lot of people. This is good. All of this is good news for us. I just need to figure out how I can use this information for good measure.

With this knowledge, it’s time that I figure out where to go from here on analytics and properly marketing our eBay.

What do you guys think?

« Older Entries