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In most cases your products are not what they are to you. At least not to your customers. As difficult as it may seem to imagine, your customers look at your product totally different than you do.
You sell paint, your customer buys a new look for his room. You sell car parts, your customer buys a repaired, improved perfomance or a better looking car. You sell jewelry, your customer buys a happy wife or girlfriend. Do you focus on the greatness of your product, or the needs of your customers? The easiest mistake to make is thinking that your product sells it self. Is your site a catalog or a real online store? How do you present your products? And most importantly, do you know what your customers are really buying? Investigating the needs of your customers and focusing on it can give you a sales boost beyond your dreams. Give your customers the feeling they´re understood and not only will they be more interested to buy from you, they may even be promoting your store to their friends. What do you do to understand the needs of your customers?
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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Interesting, I guess when you sell a product you think that it will sell itself.
An outsider view of my site / product would be really appreciated. www.rosesbydesign.co.uk Do you think we sell it as it should be? |
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Thanks Peter that is a timely reminder to review a site from someone else's perspective.
Testimonials are good but an image also says a lot. So I guess, in answer to Peter, the concept sounds good but the site looks a bit like a catalogue and a little impersonal ( as does mine! ). I guess that's where an image showing the desired end reult is approriate? e.g. happy mother, or wife etc. etc. receiving the gift - happy because someone has taken the time to personalise the gift.
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I've come a long way in the journey of life and most of the roads weren't paved. |
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Nope. Nothing wrong. And do you know how I know that? Because there are about twenty thousand sites doing the same thing.
Let's start taking this "outside perspective" thing seriously. A woman starts a giftbasket service. It does about what you would expect with twenty thousand direct and indirect competitors -- poorly. So this woman rethought the basic assumptions underlying the product. She redesigned her business and got free TV converage, newspaper coverage, and tremendous word of mouth. She sells anonymous giftbaskets for employees and relatives to send coworkers a message about breath problems, odor problems, and so on. So one might be mouth wash, floss and chewing gum. Another woman had gotten tired of throwing out the wilted product from her flower business. She repackaged them as "breakup bouquets," put in boxes of melted chocolates, and made a fortune. Another woman redesigns wedding bands for divorcees into pieces celebrating their new life. These are just a couple of ideas about people who actually stepped out of the mental straitjacket of their preconceptions about the products they were selling. Each of these have a "that just isn't done" factor. Make a list of all the "if you had been in this business as long as I have..." things. Find out all the "impossibles" which can't be done, but would absolutely crush the competition -- then do it. If you're working outside the competition's comfort zone, they aren't competitors. |
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Peter hits it right on, again..
In the jewelry business we do not sell gold, platinum, diamonds, or gemstones.. We sell emotion.. We sell that feeling that someone will have when they give, receive, or just look at some special piece of jewelry.. It's one of the few industries I've worked in that actually understands this and works that emotion for everything it's worth.. Anyone can sell price.. In any industry.. But it takes a targetted message to sell an emotion..
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Steve : Animal Charms Animal Jewelry | Fishing Blog I'm smelling a whole lot of if coming off of this plan. |
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D'Crux,
yes Peter already has a product that is 'out of the box'. Good on him! The point i was inarticulately trying to make, is that the moment I go to his front page, within seconds the novelty/uniquness wears off and it looks like any other flower catalogue site ( to me at least ). I began wondering if the service was available in tulips ( my favorite flowers ) etc. that is, he had lost his unique selling point message fairly quickly with me ( and my consumers eyes) and I started looking at it as if it was any florist's home page. Maybe I have a shorter attention span than the average shopper.
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I've come a long way in the journey of life and most of the roads weren't paved. |
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Go for what they really want right away, to surprise somebody, and then you can tell about the unique added value you give. But keep emphasizing the "making somebody happy" part. Keep letting this focus come back in all your product pages as well. If you´re not a great writer, ask for help. This is not difficult but you need the right touch in order to get this done right. Then you really need to create a whole bunch of pages that don't sell. The testimonials suggested before are a good way, but make sure they´re always accompanied with a picture of the person that received the rose. You can even give an insentive, like send us a photo and your next order is at half price. Maybe that costs you a bit of money, but the value of these photo testimonials is much greater than they cost. Do make sure that the photos are of the person with the rose,.. and not just the rose. You need happy people in there because that´s what your clients are buying,... happiness! Don't worry about being one of the "20.000+ sites doing the same thing" Your job is 2 fold: 1) Getting visitors 2) Selling online Getting visitors is irrelevant if you don't sell right. In the end a 5% conversion rate on 100 visitors is a lot better than a 0.5% conversion rate of 500 visitors. And what´s even better,... once you have the selling online done right, the number of visitors to your site will grow naturally, without you having to do anything complicated like link building. A successful website is promoted mostly by its visitors!
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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Sounds complicated, but the real problem is not writing for the search engines, but writing in general. Being able to write really well is a gift!
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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This was a subject which caught our eyes.
How do you get around it ? We are the owners of a Gothic Dungeon ... yes ... it's a business too ... if you are narrow minded ... best leave this post alone, and read the next Been in business for over 5 years with a local, national and international clientele. About a year ago, we opted for the 'puppy dog principle' . You know ... kid asks dad for a puppy .. shop owner says ... "Keep the puppy for the weekend ... and if you don't want it , bring it back !" Yes ... right ? On our website, we offered potential clients an insight into how we would match their interests to a private sesion with a Mistress or Master. No obligation... it is free , then a follow-up procedure. We were inundated with requests from all over the world .. most of whom lived more than a 1,000 miles from us. But we whetted their appetites for the real thing. Our ROI is about 25%, with a library of sessions, plus photos to match pretty well all interests. Moral of the story ... give the potential customer a taste of what they get ... free downloads, free solution to a pressing problem (especially about computers) ... in fact give them a taste of what they are going to get. Fond regards from sunny Spain Iron Damsel, Mistress Stiletto and Highlander Quote:
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As I understand it, what this thread is saying to a newbie like me is:
The most obvious subject for a beginners site is to cover someting s/he is already interested in. The problem being that most likely there already exist numerous websites already that cover the subject. The solution, according to this thread, is to find a unique perspective or new way of presentation. |
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Or - another old Marketing/Copywriting saying: (from a customer's perspective: "Don't tell me about your grass seed, tell me about my beautiful lawn"
I can't tell you how many of my clients have come to me with copy that pushes Features. Even in this day and age. Or with copy that is all "I We I We" instead of "You You You". Also - A great book for understanding how to uncover customer needs is Spin Selling, by Neil Rackham. It's sold by a company called Huthwaite (and also available on Amazon). I read it years ago, and still find it to be the best book on the subject: http://www.spinselling.com.au Richard |
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Although I know of some site which list business details for free, not a URL link though... if you want a URL link get out £300+ ,(UK Pounds), cash a year. One problem with this is that users can not get a true idea of how much Traffic they will get because no link is given for the free listing. |
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Is it only me or are there others that find too much text on a page off putting?.
I'm pretty new to all this but wanted a website that looked more 'visually appealing' and a lot more 'user friendly'. I want a site that will do as many things as you would expect if you were actually in our high street shop. But is this the right thing to do?, will I still receive traffic through to the site by doing it my way. This site is 70% complete, as there are other sections that are being completed. Please let me know your thoughts http://www.pomeroi.co.uk Andrew |
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Again similarity isn't a marketing strategy -- it's camouflage. Buyarock.com looked at what other sites were doing and then did something different. Horrible ...especially if you hate endorsements from Vogue magazine and free publicity driving people to the site. Quote:
And a lot of futile hope is going into those logos. A logo is not a business identity, nor is it a brand. Quote:
Most sites have no purpose and nothing worth saying. Simply "to have a site because everyone else does" and "wanting to learn to build a site" are not purposes -- they're excuses. Quote:
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I agree with the original post very much. I have recently re-designed my site to try to focus on what the buyer wants and feels with a color scheme and look to appeal to my visitor profile. My main navigation bar is all about the experience of ordering what is a very unique gift.
I am lucky in one sense in that what I offer, portraits carved in gemstone, is a very emotional gift. When someone sees a portrait of a loved one the response is immediate and very strong. If you have succeeded in capturing the spirit of the person they will love it and be deeply moved. However get it wrong and they will hate the portrait. There is no middle ground. You can see my site at www.portraitsinstone.com. One dilema in having a niche product is how to promote and get the right people to find you. I am struggling with this right now. Do i promote as a Jeweller or a portrait artist or a cameo carver ? I do not fit with what people using those searches are looking for. Most searches for cameos are for shell or antique victorian style, portrait searches are usually for paintings and so on. My strategy at present is to pack lots of resources and content on the main site and use my blog to write articles that cover all those interests and hope that over time links and site visits will increase.
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Portraits hand carved on gemstone for unique cameo jewelry from your photographs. Visit my Artists blog for up to date info. |
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It’s more the chicken or the egg quandary, or my favorite of all time baseball/father-son movies “Fields of Dreams.” “Build it and they will come!” Quickly to my point buckaroos…. Just because you have a well designed and written site, if no one knows its there, did the fallen tree really make a sound? Now there is some mixing of metaphors. People need to know you are there. How do they do that?... Search engines… how does Goizzile know you are there, you have to write your page for the “spider” etc etc etc. Chicken or the Egg? Build it and will they really come? Balancing the two is the trick and knowing how to work the system will make you rich. Hell I just want to be well-off! :) And yes, being able to write IS A gift. I was not given that gift. Anyone want to help me at www.nipple-charms.com? It’s more than appreciated. (Self-promotion is ok right?) Dcrux. Great points also. I enjoy your insights also. All my best, Michael
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Non Piercing Nipple Jewelry - All the pleasure and none of the pain! - Body Jewelry |
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Build it and they will come is one of the most misapplied terms in recent memory.
Build It and They Will Come - A Marketing Strategy? "Build It and They Will Come"... or Maybe Not! Promotion it usually not the step most people forget. Having something worth promoting is. |
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Thanks Dcrux! Michael
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Non Piercing Nipple Jewelry - All the pleasure and none of the pain! - Body Jewelry |
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There is a "chicken and the egg" issue of course. But once you got either a chicken or an egg, you´re in business. If you got the chicken, feed it and put it to work, if you got the egg, sit on it and keep it warm,. :) This thread is mostly focused on getting the visitors to do what you want them to do. We´re discussing what´s needed to get as many visitors to do what you want them to do. So we´re discussing sites that already have visitors, not new sites that are starting from scratch.
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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Thanks Peter. I have been back looking at my site and admit it sucks. It sells but it can sell better. Me thinks me has taken it as far as me can take it! Great thread. I thank you. Michael
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Non Piercing Nipple Jewelry - All the pleasure and none of the pain! - Body Jewelry |
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Although I believe that a significant amount of societal ills are rooted in advertising, I myself am a manipulator of emotions as a designer. I do draw the line at actual spin doctoring, or at least I think I do.
I mention this because writing copy and designing the customer experience(s) of a brand/product can involve ethical decisions that you must make with or for your client. Sometimes the customers are hip to Chris Ware and Onion type satire, other times it can be a danger. The first example that comes to mind is a letter to the editor of Reader's Digest, about the dire threat to Christianity from JK Rowling, and quoting an Onion article about little kids flocking to witchcraft while dressed as Harry Potter. The letter writer completely missed the joke, and fortunately the RD editor let him/her down nicely instead of jumping on the bandwagon. |
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Safety glass ad: double-pane stuffed with cash, left on the street
If it does what you say, it ain't braggin'. The idea of the old Domino's "30 minutes or it's free" has belief structure. Too many people heap one unbelievable claim upon another -- or think they have to. One company selling a commodity product (gravel) offers a pay-per-satisfaction guarantee. A restaurant offers tips based on performance, from 10% to 20% for exceptional service. There are as many ways to do this as there are business. The difference is you're offering a tangible performance level. A company I ordered a product from had a web site most designers here would smirk at. The shipping package I received has had drawn artwork on it and a personal note. Again, this little shop understands what the big shots don't -- the transaction isn't the end of the sale -- it where marketing starts. |
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I guess in this brave new world of Internet advertising the old training and truisms have been lost. The premise of this post is taught in Marketing 101 still as it was 30 years ago when I took the couse in college.
Get a college marketing textbook and find out what else you can learn by reading a book. |
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One funny thing I remember from talking to one of my business partners is the following. I have a technical background and if there is one thing I can complain about it is that the things I learned in school were always about how to do things, but later in life I had to learn why it is that I do those things. My business partner has a commercial background and he complains that he was always tought why he has to do things, but never was told how to do it. He is learning in life how to do the things he was tought to do. My focus is always on how to do things. In a technical world you need to know how to do things otherwise you accomplish nothing. In a marketing world it often is enough to say what to do and leave it to the listeners to implement it. In marketing every situation requires a slightly different method. In a technical world all solutions are done with the same tools. For example, a chinese html coder uses the exact same code as a german html coder, but a chinese marketer wouldn't be able to work in germany because he doesn't know the language or culture. In this thread I am hoping to get into some how to's of selling online. I know it is easy to say that you need to sell your products the way your clients look at them, but how is this done? I believe I have a pretty good feel for this,.. actually a really big difficulty is getting clients to follow my directions. People have this tremendous need to bragg about their products... they really have a hard time taking out words like best, greatest, etc.
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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When I first begin talking with a client about a service or product, I review the following:
1. What it is 2. Why it is 3. What (the public) will gain if they use this product 4. How is it better The core questions of any essay are Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How, just like in Writing 101. When creating a web site, I think the most basic reason is to answer whatever questions the site visitor will have. Not just under FAQs, either! The more theoretical questions you answer on your site, you will reduce the annoyance calls/emails and increase the qualified calls/emails. The web is a medium where you can be as verbose as you want without too much cost. An earlier post in this forum was concerned about too much text, but you can have a brief overview paragraph on the main web page, with a link further information or whatever you want to ramble on about, available on demand. Most important, you can link to the dictionary. Why settle for a nickle word when a ten dollar one is accurate? Once you get the basic information down, you can start brainstorming the possibilities of the sales pitch. I really like that idea of anonymus gift baskets... The brainstorming itself is a skill that not everyone has, so don't beat yourself up over it. Sometimes sleeping on it is the best way to tackle it, and there is research to back this up. |
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You don't have to half as brilliantly creative (output) if you can listen to users and customers (input) just a little better. Too much of technology is about your output, not properly getting feedback that tells you something important. And asking them doesn't help. Quote:
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We have some basic idea how to spam google. It's high time people redirect their time to create compelling content that interests users. |
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Theory can be hard to implement. I really value examples and find when I see/read something that does work, the penny finally drops.
Could we continue the thread with a contribution of one "good" example from everyone ? As you see I have trouble with using ten dollar words and sometimes even ten cent words. I was brought up in a very non verabal household ( lots of grunts or meaningful looks ), being verbose, especially in a convincing way does not come naturally. The hardest part of writing copy is getting the tone right.
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I've come a long way in the journey of life and most of the roads weren't paved. |
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Give me a free sample of your money and I'll see whether it spends well. I find money "in theory" hard to implement. Not having the ability, money or intention to implement is a leading cause of theory not translating into action. Having paid some real money concentrates the mind wonderfully. Necessity being the mother of invention, you'll practically amaze yourself at how motivated you become when you're invested in a particular course of action. I've seen people who swore they couldn't brainstorm their way out of a paper bag turn into a MacGuyver of innovative implementation nearly instantly when their money was on the line. It also instills in the mind the idea transactions make customers ...an idea which apparently needs to be underscored. |
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Is it really that difficult to understand what a client is really buying? Just ask your self what the product is used for. The answer is exactly what the client is really buying. Give some examples and I'll try to help you.
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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Writing copy or code has the similar problem. Quote:
When you ask the company what the customer wants to buy the answer comes back "Whatever we're selling." This happens over and over. It isn't easy understanding what the customer wants to buy. Ask GM. |
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I have been watching this topic with interest since it began, because the concept of selling "hope" is a very interesting topic.
The “Augmented Product Concept” has been around for some time in the Marketing World. Theodore Levitt opens up his 1969 book; “The Marketing Mode” with that very concept: Quote:
Open minded business tycoons of the past had the same insight (from the same source): Quote:
A good competitive analysis is absolutely essential in finding the right foothold in successful marketing, especially when touting mundane or competitive products. Ken |
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[quote="Peter (IMC)"]
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Ok, first paragraph down and I am lost. I guess the month I was an English major did not pay off. I told Dad the math major would only take me so far… who would have known the internet back then! Anyone else want to give it a go? I am a willing subject. We have lots of pages where the copy just plain, dare I say it, SUCKS! Thanks all. Ken, as always, great insight. Michael
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Non Piercing Nipple Jewelry - All the pleasure and none of the pain! - Body Jewelry |
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[quote="nipplecharms1"]
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You write in your signature: "All the pleasure and none of the pain!" Is the pain really that important that not feeling it to get it makes it a selling point? I am sure it hurts a lot, but seems to me that those that are into that lifestyle don't really care about it. They probably would be considered softies going with non-pearcing body jewelry. So they may not be your most likely customers. Perhaps those with an interst, the newbies so to say, may be more likely to be your customers. (I´m just guessing here. You´re the one that needs to really figure out who your customers are and why they buy your products.) In your home page you do try to focus on the advantages of your product, but it gets killed by your product pages which have very cold copy which constantly talk about "our product". Ah and another thing, why are you trying to sell to just women? Seems to me that men that want their wife or girlfriend to try out body jewelry make a hit if it is non pearcing. Quote:
Of course it does seem kind of stupid to go to a client after he bought something from you and ask him why he bought the product. That's probably not liked by most customers. So you wouldn't want to ask it directly. But what about these: * Add a poll to your site with questions like: "What do you use 'product' for most?" Give 3 standard options and add an option where they can fill in their own answer. (depending on the product you would make it a different question, and you can change the question every week or so. Also make sure that people can see the results after they gave their answer.) * Create a research email explaining you´re doing a customer satisfaction research and send it to your customers with questions like: "What did you like most about 'product'" and "What was the response from others that you showed 'product' to?" etc. (questions depend on your product of course and should be well thought about so the answers are likely to give you the information you´re really looking for.)
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FREE SEO ! Really? YES! All you have to do is implement it! Follow me on Twitter PeterIMC |
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This is just way too an important topic to drop this short!
Here we go again (same Source): Quote:
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And that's exactly how online polls get built (built not designed). Scripting excludes psychology. Self-reported data is notoriously unreliable. Online polls should be used like those personal horoscopes: for entertainment only. I could produce a list five screens long... Doubts cast over value of web polls Surviving Death Wish Research Quote:
Internet surveys: new ways to go wrong Quote:
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And web design people use surveys for roughly the same reasons programmers think they 'know' interaction design -- without having read a single book on the subject or having conducted a single user test. Web design people build surveys for the same reason they think a post in the review forum is about as good as interaction design testing. Just because FrontPage or GeoCities makes it easy to dump a hit counter on the page doesn't make it good design. Just because your CMS or Forum Software allows you to dump a survey on the page doesn't mean you should. Just having opinions about marketing doesn't mean you're a marketer. |
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Changing Suppliers. Bank, for example, offer low interest... And the bank you’re using now has a poor service.. but you don't change because of all the work involved in doing so. Change on-line accounts; tell people who pay in, employers, shopping carts, and many more. We like what we are use to... Roll on Windows Vista see how quick users change over, a lot will be quick but... Some users are still on Win 98, even now without support... There are use to it and know their other software will work without paying out more cash for updates for that as well. People use the same root to work every day, because that what they know. ( at least until road works) Quote:
Pick a,b or c when they want D |
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