A recent snippet published in the Isle of Man Examiner - about how Amazon has profited from festive sales highlights; when it comes to converting visitors into purchasers, a simple format will serve you well. Unlike many retailers, Amazon was not been hit by the cutback in consumer spending. Profit at online retailer Amazon rose 9% in the final three months of last year, as the company enjoyed a robust holiday shopping season. I stongly suspect this has as much to do with the simplicity with which you can complete a purchase as the price/choice and selection offered. Comparing this to a recent shopping experience with eBay, where I found I had used my credit card at some earlier point and then - silly me, had forgotten my password, only highlights why simplicity is often a BIG factor in success.
Charles Douthwaite writes a weekly column called Web Snippets, published every Tuesday in The Isle of Man Examiner.
Charles Web Snippets Amazon, eBay
Nintendo DS: No Good for Brain Training
A recent snippet that we published reminded me of my own encounter with the ‘brain trainer’ apparently I am rated as an 80 year old. Which makes me smile, as people often comment on how quickly I am able to navigate their computer systems, write SQL queries and generally fix problems. Which got me asking, what are these devices actually training the brain to do, and should we be remotely interested?
As you get older you do become rather cynical of these ‘new fangled’ gizmo’s, which after all is said and done are simply re-hashed puzzles. If it is brown and square and has ‘I am a box’ stamped all over it, then it is probably a box. I wonder why there appears to be this obsession to re-label everything, after all - doesn’t it only make life more confusing. A bit like software actually, keep it as simple as practical and it will serve you well, start re-engineering it simply to be ‘more interesting’ and you are on a slippery slope to nowhere.
Charles Douthwaite publishes Web Snippets in the Manx Examiner, published every Tuesday on The Isle of Man.
Charles Web Snippets
