ETD: 687 Ideas; Get the word out; Microsoft sets sites on
Google; Is Internet Sales Taxes DOA (or DBA)?; Retail Shoppers
Returning to Normal
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post@gapent.com
Tue, 20 May 2003 06:33:28 -0400
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0687 May 20, 2003
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem@gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Ideas
[3] Get the word out
----- ---- --- -- -> Important Offer <- -- --- ---- ---- --
[4] Microsoft sets sites on Google
[5] Is Internet Sales Taxes DOA (or DBA)?
[6] Retail Shoppers Returning to Normal
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
One of our list members was kind enough to point out my invalid use of
"it's" whereby I should have used its. Of course he was 100%
correct. Grammar has always been my weak point, which is why I'm glad to
have editors. Unfortunately, ETD does not have an editor.
However, that doesn't stop me from writing. I believe the intent of the
writing is far more important than the grammar. We can always find
grammarians (editors), but it's not as easy to find creative writers. So,
don't let anything stop you from writing. Get the word out. Check out the
success story of one of our list members in 3 below.
What are you doing to promote yourself or your business? If you search on
your business name, what do you find? Is that important to you?
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
Dr. George Matyjewicz
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem@gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Ideas
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I was in VA this past weekend and in the Sunday newspaper there was an
article about an 11-year-old fifth-grade honors student sketched an idea
for a "Security One Card," which he says could eliminate the need for
multiple cards. Here's an example of how Scott's idea would work: You have
a grocery store club card, a frequent-buyer card and a video-store card,
plus a credit card. Instead of carrying four separate cards, you could have
just one by having magnetic strips added to your credit card with the
permission of the issuing merchants.
The magnetic strips could be added to any plastic card, even a blank one.
Companies could input the data at their establishments if they obtained one
of the devices used to affix magnetic strips. For instance, you could ask a
video store to add a strip onto your Visa card to allow rentals if the
store agreed and you had permission from Visa.
Scott, who has many hobbies, including designing Web sites, got the idea at
age 9. "I was in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, and we were
checking into the Four Seasons Hotel," said Scott. "My Dad got the room key
card, and I wondered, why not combine it? I think the hotels are wasting
money with the key cards."
The way Scott sees it, instead of using a hotel-issued key card, guests
could simply insert their credit cards as a way to gain room entry if a
magnetic strip was added to the credit card at the hotel. At checkout, the
strip would be removed.
What I found interesting about this, is the fresh idea from an
11-year-old. How many times have you heard the "I shoulda, coulda,
woulda?" Folks who don't do something because of every excuse
possible. What we all need is the exuberance and naivete of youth when
developing new ideas.
What have you done lately?
George
PS Check out his patent:
http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-bz.patent07may07.story
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[3] Get the word out
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It was interesting about the Due Diligence a prospective customer did. Is
this a good way to sell your self or your company. You bet it is. I think
each company or person who is active on the Internet should just enter the
name of their company and or their own name. You can really find some
interesting results.
If I am looking for someone, or trying to find something specific I always
use the search abilities of one of the search engines. You are surprise
what and who you find out. I have done it on some lost friends, and some
lost friends have found me, all because of the Internet Search Capabilities.
How do I use this feature. I am in the process of selling one of my
entities, and what I told the prospective buyer to do, was search all over
the Internet, trying to find my competitors so he could get a better
evaluation of what the company did, I told him go check on my name and the
name of my company. Well I think it paid off, the prospective buyer is
coming to spend two days for a final evaluation, before making an offer by
next week.
Yours truly
Jules Kaplan
ChekFaxx Development Co. INC.- E-commerce Payment Solution Provider
admin@chekfaxx.com - 480-991-7025 OR 800-220-0468 - FAX 310-362-8746
Accept Check by FAX - PHONE - E-MAIL - INTERNET http://chekfaxx.com
Now on Line For EFT Processing www.ezpaymentservices.com
E-Commerce Solutions that you have to SEE to BELIEVE
www.eft-ach.com www.electronicfunds.com
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
Marvelous! Great news Jules. Congratulations.
And yes, PR does work. Get the word out now.
George
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[4] Microsoft sets sites on Google
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With luck and brains, the search service has won the hearts and minds of
millions and built a booming business. Watch out: Microsoft wants in.
Just when high tech had nothing left to believe in, along came Google.
As a skeleton key for the Internet, Google in five years has grown from an
academic exercise in search of better ways of finding stuff on the Web into
a thriving, prodigious advertising business beloved by users, sought by a
hundred thousand advertisers, coveted by Wall Street and envied--or
reviled--by a swarm of rivals.
But Google has become much more than merely a search service. It is a daily
tool and main entry point for millions of users, stealing the spotlight
from the browser (Explorer or whatever) and Internet portals like Yahoo. It
is a labor of love for programmers, who have built applications off of
Google and posted them like trophies on the Web. One does a "smackdown,"
comparing the Internet ubiquity of two words ("love" beats "money," but not
by much); another creates poems.
For Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Google is the great bright hope for an
initial public offering that might revive moribund tech stocks. And Google
has become its own meme, the stuff of New Yorker cartoons and a brand, like
Kleenex and Band-Aid, that is in danger of becoming a part of the English
language. You don't search for something on the Web anymore. You Google it.
Google now can be queried in 36 languages, with more to come. At the posh
Hotel Bel Air, in Los Angeles, manager Lisa Hagen makes a point of Googling
all guests before arrival, searching out better ways to spoil them. "If we
find out they like to jog early in the day, we make sure they get a room
with morning sun," she says. In Boston, Mark Kini manages a small limousine
service that spends 80% of its ad budget on Google and other search sites.
Says he: "It's how we survive the recession." In Westport, Conn. consultant
Elena Amboyan's kids use Google daily; even when they research something at
the library, they say they're Googling it.
It is all much more than Brin and Page ever had in mind when they started.
"Sure, I'm surprised by the success," says Brin, unassuming, rumpled and
wiry, his sneakers scuffing the upholstery of a conference-room chair.
Users love Google, he says, because they find things there when they are
desperate to know an answer. Keep offering better results and you hold
their loyalty forever--and sell them stuff. Page adds that Google has
become "like a person to them, helping them and giving them intelligence
any hour of the day."
The passion and success igniting Google, and its emergence as a new
interface for the Internet, have made it a rich, fat target for rivals.
Yahoo is taking aim. So is the biggest search outfit, Overture, a
little-known billion-dollar vendor that provides unbranded search services
for other Web sites and has sued Google, alleging patent infringement. A
gaggle of some 200 Web sites in China is reportedly going after Google, too.
And now Google faces the most lethal threat of all: Microsoft, aroused, is
taking aim at the popular site. This bears an eerie resemblance to the
rise--and calamitous fall--of Netscape, the first commercially successful
Web browser.
Will Google be the next victim of a Windows that swallows everything? To
help ensure a future, Brin and Page brought in a grown-up as chief
executive, Valley veteran Eric Schmidt, 48. Fittingly, Schmidt had abundant
experience struggling against Microsoft in his two previous jobs: He was
chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, then chief executive of
Novell, two companies that thought, wrongly, they had Microsoft licked.
Google's founders credit Schmidt with successfully managing their company's
most intense period of growth.
Details at...
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0526/100.html
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[5] Is Internet Sales Taxes DOA (or DBA)?
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Our moderator wrote...
>However, when the ten states (as a start) agree to the uniform sales
> tax, there will be taxation on the Internet.
The 10 states have nothing to do with a vote in Congress. Ten states
passing an Internet sales tax only permits the Congress to then vote on the
issue. Congress then votes it down!
Check out the legal-political situation for yourself. You will see that
Congress must vote on the issue and pass a law. If 10 (or 50) state
legislatures endorse an Internet sales tax, that doesn't matter. Only what
Congress does counts. And it has to be veto-proof, since the President is
against the Internet sales tax.
CMA
+++ [Next Post] +++
Our moderator wrote...
> The Internet has done more for business than any other venue. Which
> also means that never before has so many governments lost so much
> in tax revenue. So, something will have to be done.
I'm sorry, George, I can't let this go, but I have a real problem with the
idea that any government has 'lost' tax revenue. Have revenues actually
declined? Or, are you counting (unfairly IMHO) taxes that 'would have'
been collected had the Internet sale been in their local jurisdiction? Tax
revenues are not down, only the PROJECTED tax revenues. The Internet has
created a whole new economy, baked a new pie, if you will. No one is
taking away from anyone else's existing piece of their old pie. I feel
it's the same concept when the USPS was talking about revenue 'lost' to
e-mail.
Freda
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
First, I need to make it perfectly clear that I am not in favor of Internet
sales tax.
There are actual losses, and yes, they do state the losses as "projected"
losses due to lost opportunities. But that's still lost
revenue. According to the Institute for State Studies, new figures show
that state and local governments will lose $13.3 billion in revenue this
year - 41 percent higher than previously estimated - because taxes are not
paid on remote online purchases as they are on "Main Street" purchases.
Projected annual revenue losses jump to $45.2 billion in 2006 and a
staggering $54.8 billion by 2011 as a result of skyrocketing
business-to-business e-commerce activity.
http://www.statestudies.org/news1.html
Yes, I am well aware of the fact that Congress has to vote on sales taxes
across borders. As we all know, when there is a shortage in government
revenue, they need to find another alternative to raise funds. No
politician would ever dare say cut spending. That's too easy. Somewhere
they need to bring in more revenue. So, if they don't get money from
Internet taxes, then it will be from property taxes, or income taxes or
some other form of tax.
I'm not suggesting an argument for how to tax.
FWIW
George
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[6] Retail Shoppers Returning to Normal
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In April after months of turmoil and uncertainty, the nation's shoppers are
returning to normal, as retail and food service sales through April 2003
reached $1,163.7 billion, up 4.5% over the first four months of 2002. As
the price of gasoline fell sharply in April, consumers' adjusted their
budgets to spend more on luxuries and non-essentials, according to the
latest statistics release by the Department of Commerce.
With a late Easter this year, clothing and accessories stores benefited
from more consumer spending, as sales rose 2.1% in April over March 2003
results. Consumers also indulged in more spending on jewelry this year,
with jewelry store sales up 2.3% during the first quarter of 2003, as
compared with 2002.
Increased spending on the garden gave a boost to the nation's building
materials, garden equipment and suppliers dealers. These retailers saw
sales jump 22.3% over March levels, as consumers turned their attention to
enhancing the outdoor living areas of their homes.
Fueled by a passion to reconnect with the external world, 'butterfly'
consumers spent more dining out this year, with sales at food service and
drinking places up 4.3% for the first four months of 2003.
With consumers returning to normal, the signs are positive through the rest
of the year for the nation's motor vehicles and parts dealers, food and
beverage stores, health and personal care stores, general and mass
merchandisers, nonstore retailers, especially the Internet e-commerce
sites, and food services and drinking places.
But some categories show weakness through the first four months of 2003.
Furniture and home furnishings stores are struggling with only a .8% sales
increase over the first four months of 2002. Electronics and appliance
stores are down .3%, while sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores
declined 1.5%.
Traditional department stores are continuing to have a bad year, as retail
sales are off by 5.8% compared to last year. The nation's miscellaneous
retailers, including many independent 'mom & pop' type stores, are down .6%
from last year.
For pdf copy of the latest Dept. of Commerce figures, email me a request at
pam@unitymarketingonline.com
Note: This analysis is based on the Dept of Commerce's UNADJUSTED numbers.
These were chosen because they do not mask seasonal variations and normal
business ups-and-downs and so more accurately reflect the economic reality
of individual businesses and retailers.
Contact: VISIBILITY
www.visibilitypr.com
914 712 2610
Lens@visibilitypr.com
Pam Danziger, President, Unity Marketing,
author of Why People Buy Things They Don't Need
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