Going to freelance sites like elance.com and expecting a good work is what is desired. Here's a list of how you can hire:

1. Know what you want to achieve in work. Put down points and make an estimate of how many hours the job can be done.

2.The posting shall consist of identifiable sub-works. Ask your freelance site how these sub-works can be posted-whether as a single project or multiple.

3.The best way to identify core competencies of providers is to draw circles and list the prospective providers. If the circles overlap, it's good for interactive co-ordination.

4.Start with a small job-$10, then $25, then $100 and so on. Sample an assignment and give a detailed description of what is the goal of the project and technically, what and what not is ti be done. Assigning $10 job to 3 prospective freelancers is not a bad choice-you can always catch up with the faster one.

5.Be clear in identifying deliverables. If you miss a deliverable and you presumably ask it for granted, the freelancer can sway you towards his range and press you for inflated amounts.

6.Use freelancing for services first and then for goods.

7.Keep records of messaging on website, enabling mediation. Emailing and chatting may not be a good choice. Unrecorded phone conversations aren't since it is very difficult to retrieve memory based commitments.

8.Walk through orientation videos on websites and chat in the forums for subject related queries.

9.Asking for a paid 10 minute demo ($5) to every provider is not a bad choice.

10.Go clear on the size and type of deliverable. e.g. a walk through with 240x480 pixel resolution 16 frames per second. Movie length 10 seconds. Number of revision sessions-3. Time required-1day. Budget $100.

11. Don't hesitate to ask for the time sheets in advance if you anticipate that the work would prolong.

Remember, ask full questions and answer to the provider's queries, than coaxing him to ask reactive ones "What is your qualification?","Where are you located","Hey hey", " R U there" or any question which is described on provider's profile. You might miss out a good, quick & economical provider.

Remember, a freelancer doing a good work truly requires $25 per (billable) hour to cover his expenses and save for his future. If it is a company or consortium it can be more than $200 per hour.

I wish you a happy posting and benefiting.

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You are at the workplace housekeeping a house or fixing its plumbing and when you come home at night you realize an open lead you wanted was taken already.   Has this happened to you?  Would you like to receive text-message alerts in your cellphone whenever new leads arrive to your Laborfair account and be able to act fast on them?  Or you are getting too many Open Leads in your alerts and would like to filter them to receive only those personal leads from prospect customers who chose you at Laborfair.com?   Now you can do all this!  

We are announcing new, flexible alert settings in your Laborfair account that will let you do all this.  Go to your account at Laborfair.net and click on Alerts within the Account tab to setup your alerts.  The new settings give you 2 options:

1. Mobile alerts for personal leads, and

2. Mobile alerts for open leads.

Once you have selected either one or both and have clicked the [UPDATE] button, Laborfair will present a page where you need to type a mobile code that we send to your phone.  The code looks like: se34ngs.  Enter the code on the webpage, click OK and you will be all set to receive your Laborfair lead alerts.

 The system is proven to work with ATT, Cingular, Verizon and Spring cellphones. Regretfully MetroPCS phones are currently not supported by Laborfair Alerts. We are interested in expanding the mobile features to all of you and will be coming up with more possibilities to include MetroPCS in the near term.

Please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions by adding a comment below.

Enjoy!

Jose and the Laborfair Team

Image: CreativeCommons mashup over picture of airgap at Flickr.com 

Il servizio GLOBAL PROMOTER permette alle Aziende Utenti di entrare SUBITO in diretto contatto con chi al momento ha uno specifico interesse ad acquistare o rappresentare proprio i Suoi prodotti.

• Aumento di margini e profitti (sia per i venditori che per gli acquirenti)
• Maggiore competitività e velocità (vendendo senza intermediari)
• Penetrazione in nuove nicchie di mercato e aree geografiche nuove (anche in Paesi molto lontani )
• Partecipazione diretta al processo di produzione (per chi opera conto terzi)

Per i suddetti motivi sono nati e prolificano su internet Mercati B2B (business-to-business), chiamati E-marketplaces, dove ogni giorno migliaia di Aziende ed Agenti commerciali si incontrano tra loro per chiudere affari in modo diretto.

E’ importantissimo quindi ESSERCI ED ESSERE TROVATI per avere la possibilità di conoscere e trattare direttamente con chi in questo momento cerca prodotti rientranti nel vostro settore.

Attraverso i E-marketplaces è possibile avere, oggi, un così grande flusso di richieste commerciali dirette (provenienti anche da Paesi estremamente lontani e costosi da raggiungere) che è di sicuro impensabile procurarsi neanche frequentando tutte le maggiori Fiere internazionali di settore.

Vantaggi di utilizzo

• Flusso continuo di richieste commerciali DIRETTE da parte di chi nel mondo sta espressamente cercando fornitori del Suo prodotto
• Aumento della visibilità e del "branding" della Sua Azienda e dei suoi marchi
• Incremento del traffico di visitatori professionali ed interessati al sito WEB della Sua Azienda
• Promozione della Sua Azienda e dei propri prodotti
  1. 365 giorni all’anno, 24 ore al giorno, 7 giorni su 7
  2. eliminazione delle barriere geografiche e dei fusi orari

I venditori trovano:

• Un ambiente attivo e globale dove possono promuoversi a basso costo
• Nuovi clienti e/o agenti che richiedono i propri prodotti
• Nuove nicchie di mercato dove operare

Gli acquirenti e/o agenti commerciali trovano:

• Produttori in grado di offrire subito le merci che stanno cercando

Saremo lieti di poterla mettere in diretto contatto con chi al momento ha uno specifico interesse ad acquistare o rappresentare proprio i Suoi prodotti nel mondo.

Per cogliere questa opportunità ci chiami al

Desiderate conquistare nuovi mercati e acquisire nuovi clienti? 
State cercando altri o nuovi fornitori?
Vi manca solo il partner giusto, un produttore conveniente o il canale di vendita ottimale a livello nazionale e internazionale?

Noi vi forniamo tutto il supporto e i servizi necessari per la vostra ricerca!

Saremo lieti di metterla in diretto contatto con chi al momento ha uno specifico interesse ad acquistare o a rappresentare proprio i suoi prodotti nel mondo.

Per cogliere queste opportunità, ci chiami al numero verde 800910203

S. Ponticelli - Director

With consumers continuing to spend briskly online, and social websites aggregating ever-larger numbers of participants, the twain - online shopping and social networking - may finally be meeting, according to a nationwide survey from Guidance and Synovate.

In the new survey, more than 60% of respondents report being drawn to online retailers that employ Web 2.0 tools and techniques.

The Guidance/Synovate eNation study of some 1,000 online consumers, conducted in March, asked: “When thinking about shopping online, what is most likely to make you return to a given shopping website?”

Among the findings:

• 35% of respondents say they’re most likely to return to a shopping website if it makes recommendations on products or services for sale.
• 26% say they want “a unique experience each time” they shop.
• 18% say they’re more likely to return “if the site solicits their feedback” on its products and services.
• 16% say “a welcome when they arrive” at the site is the factor most likely to make them return
• 6% say  they’re most likely to return “if the site makes them feel part of a community” with other shoppers/site visitors.

Drilling Down: Social Shopping Online

Other key findings:

• Fully 41% of those age 18-24, the prime demographic for the social web, say they’re most likely to return to a site that makes recommendations. Only 29% of those 55-64 say so.
• Women are far more likely to be influenced by a welcome greeting - with 20% saying it’s the feature most likely to get them to return, compared with 12% of men.
• The older you are, the more you want to give feedback: The upper three age groups were more likely than the bottom three to say that a site that solicits their feedback is most likely to make them return.
• A few groups went against the overall trend by not selecting “recommendations” as their No. 1 choice: non-whites (they chose both “unique experience” and “feedback” ahead of recommendations), those with post-grad education (”unique experience” was slightly higher), and those with incomes under $25K (first choice was the “welcome”).
• There’s a wide gap between the lowest-income bracket and all others:
  • Only 26% of those who earn less than $25,000 per year chose “recommendations,” 10 percentage points below all other income categories.
  • Respondents in the lowest income bracket were far more likely to prefer a “welcome” - 27% said it was the feature most likely to make them return, at least 13 percentage points higher than the other income categories (14% of those earning $25K-$50K and those earning $75K+, and 12% of those earning $50K-$75K agreed). 

“The economy is fragile and the competition for the consumer dollar is fierce, but as these findings make abundantly clear, online commerce is now a two-way street - and retailers need to embrace that reality, ” said Jason Meugniot, Guidance president and CEO.

“Online consumers and merchants are in dialogue as never before, and consumers are counting on each other for insights in making purchase decisions. Recommendations have become the new currency of online commerce, along with their corollary, the opportunity to give feedback to the e-Commerce site.”

"We spend a lot of time at ChannelAdvisor following the various datapoints and thoughts around e-commerce and today Forrester research (Sucharita Mulpuru is the analyst) came out with a joint report/survey with the great folks at Shop.org (I/we are an active member FYI).

The headlines of the report are good news for internet retailers:

• Forrester sees e-commerce growing at 17% y/y in the US (This is good because comscore is starting to talk about 14% and maybe lower).  I'm an optimist and think that in early 09 the pundits will update the data to be more like 20%
• This puts e-commerce at $208B for 2008, up from $174 in 07
• e-commerce represents 7% of retail.
• search engine marketing (what I call paid-search) drove 35% of sales and is still the top channel for retailers
• 65% of retailers are experimenting with social networks
• Forrester is predicting that growth will be driven by the computer, CE, auto and apparel categories.
• Retailers spend $.50/click on average for paid-search and see $8.47 in incremental revenue (that's a weird metric)

I downloaded the report and what's neat is that shop.org/Forrester are finally seeing and reporting on the multi e-commerce channel trends we've been talking about for years.  For example, they have this figure from the survey section that covers the top channels for retailers (note these would be larger retailers, primarily with brick-and-mortar operations as well I would assume):

Another interesting datapoint they have from the survey is they asked retailers for a variety of e-commerce channels what the cost per order for the channel is and the average selling price.  I've found that most retailers like to look at channel costs either as a ROAS (return on ad spend) or an 'Effective Take Rate' (ETR), which is more of a cost of sales kind of model which helps for margin-planning/forecasting.  So I took the Forrester data and splatted it into a spreadsheet to calculate the ETR.  I also added eBay and Amazon as marketplaces with their ETR's and ordered the channels from lowest ETR to highest and this is the result: (Amazon/eBay are highlighted to indicate I added them)

The only datapoint on here that looks unusual to me is the CSE data, usually we would see this more in-line with paid-search so I'm going to go look at our data and see if there's anything noteworthy there. ( editor's note: while that percent does seem high to me, I would expect it to be in the 20-22% range)  Not to toot our own horn here, but my guess is the retailers surveyed aren't watching their CSE programs very closely or using ShoppingAdvisor to optimize their CSE channel.

If you'd like to learn more, there are several news items out today covering the report:

• InfoWeek
• AP
• CNBC video "

Online spending is expected to rise a robust 17 percent this year, despite a sluggish economy that has bruised many brick-based retailers, according to an annual survey to be released Tuesday.

Retail sales online, excluding travel purchases, are set to grow to $204 billion in 2008 from $174.5 billion last year, fueled by sales of apparel, computers and autos, according to a survey conducted by Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation trade group. That projection is below the 21 percent increase seen in the prior year, but industry officials attribute it to the maturing of the business, not the sluggish economy.

E-commerce "is clearly the bright spot in retailing," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.

The upbeat report contrasts with the outlook for many traditional retailers, which have been paring down store growth and closing shops as they struggle with consumers who don't feel like spending amid higher gas and food costs, a housing slump and a weaker job market. The exceptions are discounters and wholesale clubs, as shoppers turn to less expensive stores.

On Thursday, the nation's retailers are expected to report at best flat sales growth in March, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Same-stores sales are sales at stores opened at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.

Online retailers are not immune to the same economic challenges, but what has spearheaded e-commerce growth is a "tale of two shoppers that visit the Web for different reasons," according to Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst and lead author of the report.

There are the price-sensitive shoppers who appear to be buying more items online as they look for better prices. And then there are the more affluent customers, who have been increasing their online spending because of the convenience and vast offerings.

But those shoppers looking for a bevy of free online shipping deals may not find them as plentiful as they did last year. The study, which surveyed 125 online retailers in February and March, showed that merchants are less interested in using such promotions this year. While 85 percent of online retailers said they used some shipping incentive in the past year, just 35 percent said they would focus more on these types of deals in 2008.

Instead, retailers said they plan to invest more in advertising on social networking sites like myspace.com and facebook.com, according to the survey.

That may not be the best strategy, according to Mulpuru.

"It's great for brand-building and for buzz, but it's still unproven how social networking drives direct revenue" for retailers, said Mulpuru.

Apparel and accessories led all product categories in number of online purchases in February, and eBay led the category with a market share of 47%, followed by Victoria’s Secret with 9%, Nielsen Online reports. Apparel and accessories led all product categories in number of online purchases in February, with 9.87 million, or 16% of all online purchases, Nielsen Online reports in its MegaView Online Retail report. It adds that eBay led all retail web sites in number of online purchases in the apparel and accessories category, with 4.6 million, 47% of the market , followed by Victoria’s Secret, with 870,000 purchases and a 9% of the market.

Following are the top five product categories in February, with number of purchases in millions, market share and average spend per buyer:

• Apparel & accessories, 9.87, 16%, $95.85
• Toys, games & hobbies, 8.45, 13%, $65.20
• Home & garden, 7.07, 11%, $143.48
• Books, 6.75, 11%, $32.80
• DVD/video, 4.61; 7%, $42.01

Following are the top five online retailers by purchase volume in the apparel and accessories category, with number of purchases in thousands, category market share, average spend per buyer, and average number of purchases per buyer:

• eBay, 4,610, 47%, $42.81, 2.72
• Victoria’s Secret, 870, 9%, $310.28, 2.73
• J.C. Penney, 343; 3%, $79.41, 1.13
• QVC, 322, 3%, $138.87, 2.13
• Lands’ End, 287, 35, $114.44, 1.15

If you've ever wanted to pick the brain (and play golf at Pinehurst) of some of the smartest and most connected people in the industry like:

 Chris Shimojima, Vice President, Global Electronic Commerce of Nike

Stephanie Tilenius, General Manager, eBay North America

Mary Anne Gillespie, Vice President of Sales of PayPal

John Mracek, Vice President and General Manager, Distributed Commerce of Shopping.com 

Vince Monical, Director of Commerce and Analytics of Google  

Sebastian Gunningham, Senior Vice President, Merchant Services of  Amazon.com      

Ben Ling, Director of Platform of Facebook

If the health and direction of e-comm is your thing, then stop by to network and get the opinions of Deutsche Bank, Bears Sterns, Goldman Sachs and Stifel Nicholaus.

Then I'd encourage you to attend ChannelAdvisor's  Catalyst conference in Pinehurst, April 1-3. It's only $349 and that includes the conference itself as well as golf, transpo to and from the airport, drinks and meals, parties, etc..  And unlike other company sponsored events....ChannelAdvisor doesn't pitch its own products...no really! I wouldn't lie to you.

If you email me and let me know you are coming, I'll even take you out for an additional round of golf!

It seems that what is happening is that the extended, revealing and potentially powerful 'conversations' the Internet has allowed people to have are becoming less 'virtual' and more real.  If that is true, it impacts the marketplace from all sides. Not only do businesses have the responsibility (and opportunity) to be more transparent, but we regular people have the same. A true marketplace is much more than a sterile environment where information, money and goods change hands. It is a place where people meet to be people.

I remember once I was in the crowded open-air market in Zagreb in Croatia. I really did not want to buy any souvenirs or carved plates (beautiful as they are there) that morning. But a very persistent woman kept putting them in my hands, lowering the price, adding more value - by putting more there - and still lowering the prices. I was not haggling, I just had not planned to buy. But she wanted to sell them to me - actually - at the price she got down to - she was practically giving them to me.

I ended up buying - it was a whale of a deal and she wanted to deal so badly. I tried to pay her more than the final price and she would not accept it. I said to her "you cannot have made any profit at that price."  She answered that it was not profit she was after. She wanted to make business - and I helped her do that. She was happy. I was ecstatic - had all my holiday shopping done in one armload. I walked away feeling good, lucky, and very warmly human. The marketplace in Zagreb taught me that.

I have often thought of that when shopping in the US. I often feel our marketplaces  lack the humanity of that one in Croatia that cool morning.

I welcome the marketplace filled with conversations. I am glad the Internet, or whatever, has brought back all the talk that many cultures never lost.

It may be between amateurs. Good.

It may be 'virtual' or real, or a strange mixture of both.  It may be scary because we have to reveal more of our own humanity than we often do in our semi-autonomous-shopping-cattle-chutes here.

But it is good.

Ebay listings seem to be down 3%  but an Ebay spokesman says that the boycott isn't having an impact.

My question to you is, ' Did you know there was a boycott?' 'Do you care?'

ZOOMICI apporte une solution très efficace et toute simple : Vous indiquez à ZOOMICI les produits que vous voulez vendre et ZOOMICI les traduit et les commercialise en se chargeant de tout, vous n'avez qu'à préparer les paquets ! Tout ça pour juste une commission sur la vente de l'ordre de 10% suivant si vous voulez vendre plus ou moins et selon vos propres marges.

C'est simple et facile désormais de vendre en ligne ses produits dans le monde entier !

Attention pour vendre il faut être professionnel (les particuliers ne peuvent pas vendre).

Pour s'inscrire, c'est très simple, allez sur http://www.monsiteinternet.net et inscrivez vous, c'est donc gratuit.

Vos produits seront ensuite diffusés sur http://www.zoomici.com et sur pleins d'autres sites partenaires à ZOOMICI.

"DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN STEAL THIS LAPTOP OFF ME:

PAYPAL: Paypal is currently ebays preferred method of stealing high value electrical items off sellers. There are a number of various ways you can use to steal this laptop using paypal.
1: A Fake “Item Not Received” (I.N.R) Claim – All you simply have to do here is purchase my item using an unverified paypal account. Then when you receive the laptop, simply claim that you didn’t receive it at your registered (credit card) and paypal will give you all your money back !
2: A Fake “Item Significantly Not As Described” (S.N.A.D) This is a great way to steal items off sellers. Simply start a dispute after you get the laptop making up some lie about the item being damaged etc – You could use Photoshop to make up fake pictures of damage. Paypal will ask you to send the item back to me, but don’t bother – they never enforce that on buyers and after a short wait you will get all your money back and you will still have the laptop.
3: A fake “Unauthorised Use” Claim – This is a super way of stealing items on ebay and is widely used. Simply claim that someone hijacked your account (paypal & ebay) and that you didn’t order the laptop. Then in conjunction with a fake I.N.R claim you can simply steal the laptop and of course, get your money back.
4: A Stolen Credit card – Of course, ebay make no real attempt to vet any of its buyers, so hey, just register a new ebay account using fake ID information and link it to a paypal account set up with a stolen credit card – and hey presto – A free laptop.

WESTERN UNION
Although officially banned on ebay, fake western union payments are the preferred way for Nigerian Scammers to steal high value electrical items. Simply email me (using pigeon English) telling me that you would like to buy this item using Western Union – Tell me that you would be happy to pay over the odds for the laptop and that it is a present for your mother in law. Then send me a fake western union payment notification and I send you the laptop – Perfect. This method of stealing items off sellers is very widely used on ebay and of course, as ebay do not properly verify buyers its easy to do. Make sure you use Pigeon English as I am really really stupid and it’s bound to fool me.

MUGGING
If you are a traditionalist like me you may prefer a good old mugging. Simply offer to meet me on some dodgy housing estate somewhere and have a load of you mates hiding behind a hedge with a few iron bars. Again, offer to pay me over the odds as there is nothing better than using a sellers greed to bait them into a scam. I would be grateful if you could avoid killing me as this will cause bad publicity for ebay which would be terrible.

GENUINE BUYERS
In the unlikely event that you are actually a genuine buyer then you really should be shopping in a real shop and not this scammers paradise. However this laptop does really exist and is really for sale. You can email me or skype me with suggestions on how we may actually transact this item to both our satisfaction – with both our safety in mind. Don’t even think of buying it using paypal. I’ve only listed it as accepted because ebay run a protection racket that means I have to accept it. If you do pay by paypal I will simply refund your payment and give you a nice new shiny NEG.

FEEDBACK BLACKMAIL
Of course you will no doubt be aware that from May onwards you will be able to blackmail sellers into giving you free P&P / discounts etc. You will be able to give them neg feedback and they will not be able to give you any.. I regret to advise you that because this rule does not come in until May this option of scamming me is not open to you yet.

AUCTION WRECKING
I would grateful if some sad failed traffic warden could report this auction for two reasons
1: Ebay will see this listing and will hopefully close my account, saving me a 180 days wait to do it myself.
2: You will save me listing fees, making this a free advert."

 Hat Tip To Andy Beal

In a clear case of hyperbole and spin,  Bezos said, "The Kindle, in terms of demand, is outpacing our expectations...It is also, on the manufacturing side, causing us to scramble. We’re working very hard to increase the number of units that we can build and supply per week, so that we can get back—our goal is to get into a situation as quickly as we can where when you order a Kindle, we ship it immediately... We are super-excited by the very strong demand."

---Umm BS.  Do you know anyone who has one or wants one?

---Jeff Buechler

From Ad Freak:

Planning to go on Fox News and bash a video game you’ve never even seen? Then prepare to have your book torpedoed on Amazon.com. Psychologist Cooper Lawrence was a guest on a recent Fox News segment that denounced the “full digital nudity and sex” featured in Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. One problem: There isn’t any full digital nudity and sex in the game. Sure, there’s a bit of mildly salacious alien love (which, as you can see on YouTube, is about as hot as watching two mannequins being moved around a store window). Game publisher Electronic Arts has asked Fox News to “set the record straight,” but the more interesting reaction has been from the gamers themselves. Lawrence, who chuckled dismissively when asked on the program if she’d ever played the game, soon saw her book’s Amazon listing bombarded with more than 500 one-star reviews (which Amazon has since taken down) and several uploaded “customer images” (ditto). I’d be tempted to join in, but I’ll be tied up for a while watching all the other clips I found through my YouTube search for “graphic sex with an alien.” UPDATE: In a New York Times piece, Lawrence apologizes for misrepresenting the game: “I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes, it’s kind of a joke.”

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/

Meg Whitman will soon step down as chief executive of eBay Inc., the online auction company that went from wobbly startup to multibillion-dollar household name in her 10-year tenure.

Whitman, 51, will be succeeded by John Donahoe, 47, who has been heading eBay's core auction and e-commerce businesses. The transition will happen March 31, the company said Wednesday.

Whitman said she will remain on eBay's board of directors.

"With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives. We're all enormously grateful that Meg dedicated herself to stewarding eBay through its 10 most formative years," said Pierre Omidyar, eBay's founder and chairman.

Donahoe came to eBay in 2005 from Bain & Co., where he had previously worked with Whitman.

"Boston, MA, January 18, 2008—Yankee Group today announced that the US online advertising market will reach $50.3 billion in revenue by 2011, more than doubling 2007’s revenue. The internet accounts for approximately 20% of overall media consumption in the US, but advertisers currently invest only 7.5% of their budget online. There is tremendous potential for marketplace growth as advertisers bridge this gap. By 2011, nearly 25% of all media consumption will be online, drawing 15% of the advertising dollars."

http://www.yankeegroup.com/pressReleaseDetail.do?actionType=getDetailPressRelease&ID=1805

by Jeff Buechler

That scenario is the founding premise of TableXchange, a marketplace to buy and sell restaurant reservations. The NYC-based startup is the brainchild of bankers turned Web entrepreneurs Gabriel Erbst and William Geronimo. The two teamed up with developer Dwight Lee and launched the site late last summer. The initial site covered New York City and The Hamptons; San Francisco was added just this month.

The TableXchange marketplace lets individuals post the restaurant reservations they can't use, selling them to people who need last-minute reservations at hard-to-get-into dining establishments. Individuals register with the service; they must have a PayPal account, which is used to process payment. Restaurant reservations can be priced from $10 - $40, and as you'd expect TableXchange takes a piece of the transaction. And since an individual willing to pay upwards of 40 bucks to get a table at a top restaurant is likely an attractive consumer demographic, the company expects that they will have advertising revenue as their membership grows.The founders have taken great care to mitigate fraud. Buyers are directed to call the restaurant to confirm the reservation and payment is not processed until the first business day after the reservation, giving the buyer time to dispute the transaction if need be.

"The benefit of the doubt always goes to the buyer," Erbst says, noting that the company's "zero tolerence policy" for fake reservations will ban fraudsters (identified by their PayPal account information) from the site. Further measures -- no one can sell more than three reservations at any time, no restaurant can be listed more than three times per service - are designed to prevent anyone from going into the reservation brokerage business, using TableXchange as a platform.

It's early days for TableXchange.com. They've attracted about 1,000 registered users, mostly in the New York area, with very little promotion. The San Francisco listings are very sparse. But then, if you want a table for two at the Slanted Door this Saturday night, TableXchange is likely your best -- and only -- bet.

Erbst was cautious when talking about the business success of the site to date. Of the inventory of listings, he claims that "almost all of it" sells. With fewer than 50 listings on the site currently, that's not a big business, at least not yet. Erbsts says the company plans to "grow organically," but could seek funding in order to roll out to more cities.

Unlike OpenTable or BookingAngel, which count on a consumer that plans ahead, TableXchange is for the last-minute diner, the busy person who's schedule is in a constant state of flux. The concept is a strong one that should appeal to the foodies in major markets beyond the initial targets. With a very little bit of marketing help, TableXchange could find some traction.

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=24585

Un pequeño resumen del documento explica que amazon está a años luz del resto y del resto los amercianos los mejores, nada nuevo bajo el sól. El siguiente mapa muestra el posicionamiento de todas las tiendas analizadas en función de factores indispensables para evitar la frustración del usuario y el abandono de la tienda (factores higiénicos) y factores que motivan o empujan la compra (factores motivadores). Aunque existen una alta correlación, donde hay mayor camino por recorrer es en los factores motivadores.

Factores Motivadores

• Posicionamiento, propuesta de valor y diferenciación
• Presentación del producto.
• Presión en la venta.

Factores Higiénicos

• Experiencia de compra
• Credibilidad y confianza
• Consistencia de marca
• Atención al cliente
• Posicionamiento, propuesta de valor y diferenciación.
• Presentación del producto.

Listado de las webs españolas analizadas:

• Elcorteinglés
• Casadellibro
• Fnac
• Eroski
• PC City
• Carrefour
• Caprabo
• Venca
• Optize
• Fotoprix

Listado de las webs americanas analizadas:

• Amazon
• Overstock
• Buy
• Jc Penney
• Target
• Sears
• Walmart
• Bestbuy
• Gap
• Office Max

Listado de las webs chilenas analizadas:

• Paris
• Falabella
• Sodimac
• Jumbo
• Bazuca
• Ripley
• Abc
• La Polar
• Lider
• Feria del disco

Podeis descargaros el informe haciendo click aquí. (Cuidado! Pesa 17 Mb, son más de 140 páginas)

 While consumers say their holiday shopping budgets are going to be the same as last years, 35% of them  plan on  shifting that budget and will be spending  it online according to a BizRate Research survey for online retailer trade group Shop.org and comparison shopping site Shopzilla. BizRate surveyed 2,695 online consumers and 116 retailers for its 2007 eHoliday Study.

Online retailers plan on aggressively growing their budget and to offer promotions. One of their favorites? Free shipping.

 Other takeaways:

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=24180

Market design suggests that very granular and specific forces are at work for anything from the market logic of a job portal to that of the slot allocations in airport runways. These stem from 2 sources

Game theory, or let's call it "the study of the rules of the game", which by the late 1990s was developed enough to provide practical guidance to market design

Experimental economics, which in turn provided an environment to test the reliability of game theory predictions

Both combine to look for answers to market failures. There are 3 must-haves without which a market would breakdown inevitably

They need to provide thickness - that is, to bring together a large enough proportion of potential buyers and sellers to produce satisfactory outcomes for both sides of a transaction

They need to make it safe for those who have been brought together to reveal or act on confidential information they may hold. When a good market outcome depends on such disclosure, as it often does, the market must offer participants incentives to reveal some of what they know

They need to overcome the congestion that thickness can bring, by giving market participants enough time - or the means to conduct transactions fast enough - to make satisfactory choices when faced with a variety of alternatives

Source: www.hbr.org

   The old way: demand exceeding supply in public transportation

More from Professor Alvin E. Roth, the world's leading voice on the topic