This has absolutely nothing to do with wholesale, marketing or even the internet, but I feel that it must be said: When you end up playing phone-tag with someone (namely, me) and you are merely returning a missed call, don’t leave a voicemail saying that you’re calling me back. I already know that you’re calling me back from the little message on my phone that says “1 missed call.” Not only is it ridiculous and redundant to leave such voicemails, it’s a waste of my anytime minutes, not to mention my precious time. I know I can’t possibly be alone on this one. It’s like walking into a public restroom and announcing your intention to tinkle. It’s asinine! Don’t do it! Thank you.

In one sense I suppose we should be proud, having some of the biggest names on the Internet begin tramping on our domain name may be a sign that our little company has arrived. About a week ago while performing a regular check of the Adwords PPC advertising that we pay a goodly amount for each month we discovered that both Amazon.com and McAfee.com were appearing as sponsored links on searches for www.toptenwholesale.com.

This is a violation of Google’s policy of on purchasing key word advertising on registered trade marks or domain names. Obviously these two big hitters have placed deposits on our trademark. The flattery of this gesture however doesn’t match up with the downside that comes with it; namely that we have to pay more to get the same result positions on our own domain names then we would if Amazon and McAfee were not bidding on it.

After Google’s recent legal dust up with Gieco you’d think they would be anxious to avoid these sort of problems. We followed the procedure to rectify this situation as outlined in Google’s term of use. We called them and found Google reasonably helpful. A friendly and seemingly dedicated customer service rep walked us through the grievance filing but then encouraged us to reach out to the violators ourself to get their assistance in fixing the problem.

Here things got a little trickier. All attempts to contact McAfee have met with an ear splitting silence. They responded to neither our emails or phone calls. Amazon at least answered their phone but beyond that were of no help what so ever. The customer service rep, know to us only as Representative #8, offered no assistance and refuse to allow us to speak with someone further up the ladder at the Internet giant.

We will continue to pursue this violation of our intellectual property rights and sincerely hope for a speedy resolution but at this point it is unclear what exactly can to be done. If Google insists that some kind of friendly talk with Amazon and McAfee will straighten everything out and the two companies continue to refuse to discuss the matter it leaves us in a untenable situation.

It just does not happen. There are so many websites I run into that say “make a million dollars by sitting at home.” Has anyone ever had any success using one of those programs? If so, please let me know because I would really like to make a million dollars over night.

What I have seen that works for the multi million dollar companies is having a strategic marketing plan. Most of these plans consist of running advertising campaigns over a long period of time. It appears that the most successful companies are those that find a market place that generates revenue and they stick to it. They are not there for a week and gone by tommorrow.

For those of you that think you can “bark like a big dog” for a week and all of a sudden you’re making millions of dollars, think again.

Jonathan

1. What it is doing to grammar and spelling. – While I fully understand the practicality of using abbreviations such as brb, WYSIWYG, and the like. Valuable seconds are saved, no doubt adding to the productivity of the nation and the quality of personal life. I also think turning the language into a series of sentence fragments and smiley faces can’t be good. I have heard people respond to a joke by saying “lol” instead of laughing out loud.

2. Web sites and online advertising that make noise. -When I am online the last thing I want is someone else’s music blasted at me. This applies to everyone, from the tiniest personal interest site misguidedly thinking we share tastes all the way to major search engine’s encouragements to watch “Lost”. I know I am not alone, studies have shown that nothing drives visitors from a web site like noise.

3. Frauds.- I mean frauds of all kinds. The anonymity of the Internet has made it extremely easy for people to pretend to be things they are not. This opportunity for deception is played out on all levels of the online community. Never mind the simple deceptions of the chat rooms. They are to a degree, when not criminal, expected and accepted. However, I hear from small business people all time decrying that they have been ripped off, in one fashion or another, by wholesalers and customers. Every time a retailer loses money on a fraudulent wholesale purchase they lose some faith in online wholesale generally. Also, the industry might lose their business literally if that retailer’s business depended on that order.

You might notice that contrary to traditional curmudgeonly takes on the Internet I have left spam off the list. At one time I would have included it but spam filters have changed that. Now spammers have to show a little creativity to reach my mail box. My favorites are the ones with little pieces of text meant to trip up the filters. Often this paragraph or so long bit of prose is taken from a classic novel. I enjoy trying to identify them, last week I spotted The Three Musketeers and War and Peace. I also get a kick out of the permeations of the Nigerian Banking or overseas lottery scam. I’ve been asked several times to dispense millions of dollars in charity, after taking a cut, for repentant scoundrels allegedly under going a death bed conversion. I would like to think the three marriage proposals from various princesses were for real.

It is. It really is. If my head only had the same rocket power! Watch out for this guy.

Jason-

Seven minutes and forty eight seconds. That’s the amount of time I’ve been placed on hold so far with a major Manufacturer / Distributor of networking products. I bought an Ethernet usb print server and for some reason my ibook, ( running 10.4.7 OSX ), is having a hard time configuring with this product. No music in the background, no way to leave a voice message for customer support, and no menu selection that would allow me to exit out of here.

All I know is that my problem better be solved by the time I end this, now, eighteen minute fiasco. Hold on. Someone is finally answering. Ok, 4 minute Q&A just took place. 26 minutes and counting. Oh my !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Disconnected.

Calm down. Ok, how do we avoid having to maneuver through that jungle again with out entering cardiac arrest?!!! Hmmmm…I know…Let’s try their website….Found it…..I’m emailing thier support right now :
“Unbelievable! I just wasted 27 minutes of my time with a c-support rep only to have her pretend like their was a bad connection as an excuse to disconnect the line. I’d like to receive a call in the next 5 minutes at 555-555-5555. I can only hope that your support at the email level rivals that of the experienced I just had.”

Five minutes is up. Look at how wonderful they claim to be. My product review of the D-Link DP-301-U and D-Link Corporation is…..TADAAA!!! All thumbs down. Worse customer service experience ever. Last, but not least…..I’ll probably never purchase from this company again. They say that the first impression is everything. They are right.What have you learned from this experience?

I know that advancements in technology and the advent of the computing age has supposedly brought a whole new era of increased productivity to the world’s work force. Communication accross the globe can be achieved using email, cell phones, instant messaging, and text messaging. A worker from their desk top computer can process thousands of transactions in a day when before it would have required the efforts of a dozen clerks working for a week. The list goes on and on.

However, how often has this happened to you. Your boss or co-worker tells you of some breathtakingly advanced program or new system will change your life forever, tasks that took you minutes before willnow take seconds. You’ll have more time, your work will get done sooner, there will be more money and time for everything. So you sit down to apply this new miracle of electronic advancement and quickly discover it isn’t quite as self-expalnatory or simple to use as advertised.

You fumble around for awhile and then move to the help section. Hmm… not much help there and you call the tech guy or girl. Who regards you as an idiot and repeats the same set of inadequate directions you got in the first place. If you are lucky enough to know where the manual is, assuming it exists, you tear into it.

In the final analsys, you have spent hours to save those precious moments. But, of course now you know how to use the new program and those hours of frustration are behind you and it will be smooth productive sailing from here on out, right?

It will be until version 2.0 comes out.

For all of its terrific benefits, the computer age has turned us all, regardless of whether we are automechanics, doctors, accountants, or plumbers, into computer technicians. While that might not be all bad, it certainly isn’t the golden age of freedom of information and the dewy eyed new capitalism promised by Alvin Toffler back in the day.

Thanks for listening, or reading. Now get back to that manual.