VENTRINO TRAFFIC EXCHANGE SCRIPTS
TURNING WEB VISITORS INTO BUYERS FOR OUR CUSTOMERS SINCE 1994
Audible UK charges 172% more for downloadable products
Published July 6, 2009 | 
When are online businesses going to learn they cannot get away with theft? Ask audible.co.uk and I am sure they will tell you they have plenty of customers “thank you very much” but how many are they losing because we refuse to be taken for suckers?
I knew someone called Brian Greer involved in the gray import business back in the 1980′s. At the time US companies nicknamed Great Britain “treasure island”. I have not lived in the UK for many years but I am a regular visitor. I love visiting but it is the “rip-off Britain” scenario I thank my lucky stars I don’t live here anymore.
Of course the MP’s have entertained Brits over the last few months with their amazing fall from grace but they just add up to another bunch of thieves. Bankers are worse, they can spend whatever they like and know that if they run out they can sucker-punch British tax payers for another £860 Billion. To pay their exhorbitant expenses the British people and British business have to pay an ever upward increase on their taxes.
The meeting occurred on a blistering hot day so Brian had all the windows shut, air con off, and put the heated air vent on.
Perhaps a 172% price hike on products can be justified in light of the enormous tax bill Audible UK must have to pay, but I fear it is just greed. They may make excuses but there is no reason or justification other than “we do because we can”. They look after themselves and we sit back and let them.
I would not have believed British business was so tainted until I worked for Brian Greer, a wealthy technology investor with businesses across Europe, Egypt, USA and Russia (quite an achievement in the 80′s). He married a British lady and decided to stay. Horrified that Microsoft sold software in the UK for £300 and just $100 in the USA he began a gray import operation (which despite claims to the contrary is not illegal, in fact the opposite is true, what government would encourage foreign companies to rip off it’s people?).
My complaint to Audbile UK: I was ordering “Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time” by Joel Comm for $7.49 and now it asks for £7.99 which is 172% more than the price quoted. I don’t mind paying VAT but what explanation could you possibly have for making an electronic item cost so much more?
Brian was the first person in the UK to receive a visit from the Microsoft Police. It was a time when they didn’t dominate the market with anything other than DOS (and perhaps Windows but these were early versions, possibly pre 3.1). As Brian was a senior shareholder in a well known PC brand in the US he thought they were going to persuade him to stop by offering the UK price parity. His business partner in the US found out ahead of the meeting, they were actually sending lawyers to threaten him.
Brian wore a T shirt he was given by Oracle and shorts that were just a little too short for a man in his 50′s.
So Brian had his boardroom chairs removed and replaced with point-of-display boxes extolling the virtues of Microsofts competitors. An entertaining meeting it must have been. Unfortunately I wasn’t there but I know Brian, he would not have bothered employing his own lawyers to defend his position. The man was always right and always supremely confident.
The meeting occurred on a blistering hot day so Brian had all the windows shut, air con off, and put the heated air vent on. The Microsoft lawyers were shown in and had little choice but to sit on their competitors point of sale boxes. Brian was in his comfortable executive chair at the head of the table of course. He was dressed in stark contrast to the lawyers who were all suited and booted and looking like a million dollars. Brian wore a T shirt he was given by Oracle and shorts that were just a little too short for a man in his 50′s. They began to explain what they thought would happen if he didn’t stop gray imports. At this point the meeting was interrupted by one of Brian’s 19 year old receptionists dressed even less than Brian. She brought in an ice water bucket and one can of coke for Brian. She did not ask if the lawyers would like a drink.
The lawyers were smart enough to realise their flight from Redmond had been a waste of time so tried to leave. But every time they tried Brian would throw them an olive branch so they would stay and try talk him round. He managed to keep them sweating for 4 hours.
After the meeting Brian stepped up his operation and began a massive gray import campaign of OEM licenses marked “Only for use on machines sold in the USA” and practically everyone one in the UK that owned a PC and wished to upgrade owned a copy.
So Audible UK, will history to repeat itself?
Finding product cheaper elsewhere is not against UK law and now that American companies can charge VAT there is no earthly reason why UK customers should put up with your unrealistic pricing. I will wait until I return home to complete my order, which I can do so on the US website and pay US prices. Why would anyone knowingly pay 172% more for a product, an identical product, a product delivered from exactly the same place at exactly the same time in exactly the same state? And exactly how is it that cannot be described as theft or fraud?
I don’t need followers, I need sales!
Published June 27, 2009 | 
You are probably familiar with the terms “Online Promotion” and SEO. For many years it has been assumed these two terms are the gateway to riches in a modern era gold rush, and it is true for many of those working in the industry, it has indeed been very profitable. To the person with something to sell these are costs and if they improve the profit on a balance sheet are worthwhile.
Successful online promotion can only be achieved through constant change. 15 years ago the Internet was hailed as a revolution and paradise for adverters. Instant feedback to marketing campaigns fuelled the spread of banners and it wasn’t long before every site apart from the BBC looked more like the Exchange and Mart.
We became “banner blind” and these ads lost their effectiveness fast. A few years later Google arrived with its “Do no evil” policy yet sure enough, as soon as we were all hooked, they too became banner bandits. Every webmaster who couldn’t figure a way to make money dropped Google code on the site which ironically encouraged people to leave the moment they arrived.
Internet users have grown immune to this kind of advertising. How many times this week have you bought something after clicking their banner? Can you remember the product for any banner you clicked this week. It’s known as “push”. Traditional media likes to brand us like cattle, with their mark burned into memory forever.
We are less likely to allow old media to influence us. Instead we are interested in opinion. When you buy a book from Amazon do you prefer the Synopsis by the author or the comments by his readers? Do you read the negative first or the good or do you juxtapose them both? Do you trust a book with one five star rating or another a hundred reviews and a four star rating?
The benefit of the wisdom of the crowd over traditional advertising is compelling. “As seen on TV” is now considered a warning against paying too much. Today we buy from experience rather than advertising hype. Not just our own experience but the experience of thousands of other consumers too.
Ask any salesmen their preferred lead and it is likely to be “Word of Mouth” which is an elementary way to describe social media. The difference with word of mouth is it is limited to a few friends and social media has access to billions of potential customers. Members share all kind of information with specialist groups covering any subject the mind can imagine. Each member of the group looks over the shoulder of fellow members to see what they are doing and ask advice.
The advertising interloper will always be excommunicated from these groups. Old media, advertisers and opinionated individuals are quickly identified and removed from the sphere of influence for good.
What does this mean for the person with something to sell?
It means mediocre and poor quality are unlikely to benefit from the new social phenomenon. If that’s all you have then stick with old media as it suffers from the last death throws push advertising has to offer.
Worthwhile products enjoy a boom without leaving a hole in the balance sheet. Introducing your product to targeted groups and attract positive reviews from esteemed and influential social media experts in your field will generate buzz. Place your product in the correct sales medium so it can be found and purchased easily from a trustworthy resource.
Unlike TV, Radio, Press, Banner Ads, Google Adsense or any other form of traditional advertising push media is finite, whereas a social media marketing campaign will produce infinite buzz always online and ready for review.
Too many cooks…
It’s easy to be trapped into the belief you need friends in facebook or followers on twitter to achieve your goals. As a relative newcomer to these services I speak from the experience of the lack of experience, a rare qualification! With confidence I can say sales come from something else. It is too simplistic to say “the more followers I have the better chance of sales” I can think of many arguments against this but perhaps the most obvious is that if everyone is hunting the highest number of followers it’s likely he or she is attracting the same kind of people, and how often do you read messages from the hundreds of thousands of messages that spend the odd micro second on your timeline?
My advice is to only follow those people who you think can help you in your pursuits. And don’t worry about offending people by not following or even removing them as a friend. Instead congratulate yourself on taking the right steps to protect what you want. People will respect you for it, especially those you choose to follow because you think they are worthy of your attention.