Hello all. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Crystal Silvas and I am the newest addition to the Top Ten Wholesale team. I’m Jason Prescott’s new executive assistant, to be more accurate, and this is my first official project. Like Cassie before me, I browsed through several older blogs to gauge an idea of what I should be discussing. Seeing as this is only my second day on the job I won’t claim to be an expert on any of these topics; I’d like to familiarize myself with the ins and outs of the industry before I write anything really in-depth. Jason has given me a few magazines to read through which I intend to look over this evening and early tomorrow morning. When I find a topic which strikes me as interesting, you’ll be hearing from me again.

That being said, let me begin my first official blog by telling you a little bit about myself. I am an avid surfer first and foremost, a lover of nature, a typical Aries (impulsive, passionate, and creative), a sister, a volunteer, and a loyal wife. I am a writer, a singer and a piano player. I love to sing karaoke and watch my husband’s rock band play allover San Diego county. I enjoy playing with my crazy dog Lucy and my tiny turtle Honu. I also enjoy dancing; I dance with a Polynesian Band & Dance Troupe called Taupou 2-3 times a week. We do Hawaiian hula, Tahitian dance, and some Samoan dance. I love the hula the most. I go to Baja as much as I can, and I love to teach people new things. My last job, which lasted just shy of a year, was managing a surf school. I fulfilled many roles there: head surf instructor, retail manager, accountant, etc. Of course, my favorite role was surf instructor as this meant plenty of time outdoors in my most treasured of environs.

So what brought me here? To make a very long story short, I discovered that my former employer was engaging in some not-so-legal business practices, including misclassifying me and my co-workers as independent contractors to avoid paying taxes. Additionally, she was deducting pay from our checks for breaks which we were forbidden to take. There’s a whole laundry list of laws which were broken, but this is neither the time nor the place. When I confronted my boss about it, citing the laws which I found directly from the California Labor Board, she tried to have me sign a document waiving my rights. When I refused, I was immediately terminated. And so my days of happy-go-lucky surf instructor girl came to an end, but not without a fight.

This was extremely unfortunate for me on so many levels, the biggest being that my husband and I were in the process of buying our very first home. This was the worst possible time to face unemployment; our financial situation wasn’t exactly kosher to begin with, and this certainly didn’t help. And so began the job hunt. I scoured the internet everyday for a month straight forgoing my usual ocean/hubby/dance/music time. I faxed and emailed my resume to every potential employer that I felt was worthy of my time and energy. I was consumed by it. But it was all to no avail. My husband accused me of setting my employment standards too high, but damn it, I was worth it! Or so I thought. After a month without success, I finally threw in the towel and lowered my standards. I walked into a hole-in-the wall Hawaiian restaurant and was hired on the spot. My husband was thrilled at the prospect of another paycheck, but I felt defeated; I’ve worked in the restaurant industry in the past and did not want to go groveling back now.

I was supposed to start my new job as cashier on Friday June 8th. I spent the Thursday morning before that moping around my apartment, dreading the following night when I would have to work in a restaurant again. How could I go from wearing bikinis and wetsuits and playing in the ocean to taking people’s orders in a hot restaurant for minimum wage? I just couldn’t, but I had to. I didn’t have much of a choice. That is, until JP Communications came to my rescue. I received a phone call from Krista Daniels informing me that her boss had reviewed my resume and was interested in an interview—that same day. I was ecstatic. When I asked where the office was located, I was thrilled to learn that it was in San Marcos, the very same city my husband and I are buying a home—and it’s literally minutes away. (We close escrow on July 1st. We currently reside in Oceanside.)

When I came in for the interview, I came in with the attitude that the job was already mine; Jason just didn’t know it yet. That probably sounds incredibly arrogant, but that’s how badly I wanted this job. I spent the drive over reciting positive affirmations out loud, psyching myself up, believing that my desired outcome was the one and only possible outcome (if that makes any sense), and apparently it worked because I am now sitting here today, happy as hell that I’m not taking orders for teriyaki chicken and lomilomi salmon. What I lack in executive experience I make up for in intelligence and the genuine desire to succeed. Thank you Jason Prescott for giving this surfer girl a chance. I assure you that you will not be disappointed.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Net Neutrality issue and how AT&T was fighting this legislation tooth and nail but then made a concession not to pursue two-tiered pricing on the Internet in return for getting FCC approval for it’s lucrative ATT-BellSouth merger.
However, this concession by ATT does not mean that the legislation is going to be passed. Republicans have historically opposed it while Democrats are in favor. Recently, two senators, one a Democrat (Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND) and the other a Republican (Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME) have introduced a bill to guarantee that Internet service providers do not discriminate against content providers with two-tiered pricing policies. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), head of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, plans to hold hearings on a newly introduced Net Neutrality bill later this year.
Both House and Senate refused to pass Net Neutrality legislation last year, and it could also be an uphill battle this year. The very nature of the Internet is threatened if Net Neutrality does not pass. It will no longer be a level playing field for all comers if two-tiered pricing is allowed to prevail, abandoning both free speech and commerce.
We at JP Communications support this legislation. Net Neutrality will guarantee that all companies and individuals, large and small, will have the same access to consumers on the Internet. This democratic principle lies at the foundation of the Internet and should remain intact as we go forward.

Those who advocate charging more for rich media delivery content are the big telcos (AT&T and Verizon) and the cable companies (Comcast). They propose a two-tiered pricing model that would allow companies who can afford it to pay more for getting their rich media pages loaded faster. Convenient for them, but not for everyone else.
Note that these opponents claim regulation of the Internet is unnecessary and will stifle investment, innovation and creativity. However, Net Neutrality is not about regulating the Internet. It is about regulating the carriers.
We need to keep the barriers to entry low on the Internet. This position is held by Net Neutrality advocates such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay, to name a few. Many of today’s Internet giants did not even exist in the early ‘90s. It was only because of the Internet’s low-entry barriers and ability to connect consumer with marketers that these Internet companies are worth billions of dollars today. This will never happen again if Net Neutrality legislation is not passed. If you work in any Internet marketing channel, I urge you to support Net Neutrality. I urge you to support Net Neutrality by contacting your Congressional Representative and Senators to let them know how you feel.

Jason Prescott

If your company uses Yahoo Search Marketing pay per click advertising you probably are already aware there has recently been some changes, upgrades they like to call them, to the program. As a whole I am not particularly impressed but some advertisers I have spoken with seem very pleased.

Here’s what’s going to different.

Remember when you were setting up your old account? You had to generate separate ads for each key word or phrase. Now, titles, descriptions, and URLS can be applied to multiple keywords. This will cut down the time needed to create ads and will make it possible for quicker adjustments to your campaign.

If you have always wanted to test different version of an ad to see which is most effective the new manner of grouping keyword should make that easier. A single ad group will now be able to contain up to 1,000 keywords and 20 ads. This feature brings Yahoo Search Marketing more into line with Google Adwords.

If you already have an existing account you should have received an email telling you how you can see a preview of the upgrade of your account. This notice should come approximately one week before your upgrade is available. Once your preview is ready you can take a look at read-only version and get an idea of what’s up and how to navigate through the impressive collection of reports and ad building tools.

Whenever you are ready you can select to put the upgrade in place for your account. Now this process will take about eight hours and during that time you will not have access to your account so you will most likely want to choose a time during the night or other off period.

If you don’t want to fool with doing the upgrade yourself simply do nothing and Yahoo will do the upgrade themselves. Yahoo will send you an email telling you on what date they will make the changes. You will continue to use your old username and password but will need to go to the new login page. The emails from Yahoo will contain this link or there is a link to use on the old login page. If you have an account and haven’t heard from Yahoo you should probably get ahold of them to be sure there have been no mistakes.

While the new system isn’t an Earth shattering change it does make Search Marketing function more like Adwords. To my mind this is a pretty good thing as I have always found Adwords a good deal easier to work with than Search Marketing. Not bad, Yahoo.

On Tuesday January 10th Apple made its much anticipated move into the mobile phone business, unveiling a new device that’s controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh OS operating system. To stress the company’s move into consumer electronics Steve Jobs then renamed the company to “Apple Inc.” Dropping the word computer from their title. Kind of sad really, like the end of an era.

The new phone is called, not surprisingly, the iPhone, and will have a starting retail price of $499. The phone will “reinvent” the telecommunications sector and “leapfrog” past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones, Jobs said. Although I must say that I never heard anyone complain about the difficulty of using their phone and reinvent is a term we hear all too frequently. But given the amazing success of many of Apples projects, iTunes and the iPod spring to mind, it is quite possible that electronics retailing might never be the same.

Unlike other smartphones, the iPhone will have no keyboard but will have a touch-sensitive screen from which users will be able to type messages, launch applications, dial phone numbers, and perform similar tasks.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. “It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. … Apple’s been very fortunate in that it’s introduced a few of these.” The iPhone will be available in June in the U.S. but won’t be available in Europe and Asia until 2008.

Jobs set forth the rather modest goal of selling 10 million phones before the overseas release date. Assuming they meet this goal it will represent only 1% of the total cell phones sold in the United States this year.

Jobs also unveiled a TV set-top box that allows people to send video from their computers to their televisions. With the rise of online video downloads and similar media this device is likely to be a boost for the company. He announced a Feb. 1 ship date for the TV box.

Investor were certainly excited by the new venture, Apple shares climbed more than 6 percent on the announcement.

Business and professional users searching for work-related information on the web are not finding needed data through general search engines like Google and Yahoo. A 2006 study by Outsell reported a search failure rate of 31.9 percent among business users when searching from major search engines. With one-third of the B2B and professional business queries producing unsatisfactory results on Google, this presents an opportunity for vertical search engines (VSEs).
Another study by Convera conducted in December 2006, shows that professionals in virtually every industry cannot find important work-related information on the major search engines. Convera surveyed 1,112 professionals in publishing, advertising, marketing, healthcare, finance, government and other industries. Results show that B2B professionals using general search engines do not find queried information quickly or easily.
One of the problems is that Internet search engines were not designed to be used as business tools. Another reason is that most industry professionals are not trained in research practices. As a result, only 4 out of 10 professionals are very satisfied with search results on general search engines.
· Only 11 percent always find what they are looking for on the first attempt.
· Only 43 percent always find what they are looking for after several attempts.
· Only 21 percent feel their query is always understood.
General Search Engines Work Well for Consumers
General search engines rely strongly on the popularity theory that rewards sites with authoritative inbound links. Website popularity and keyword relevancy (among other variables) help determine rankings. The relevancy model works well for consumer search, and consumers usually find what they are looking for on page one of search results. For instance, a search for Toyota Camry brings up 2,630,000 results on Google and 6,740,000 on Yahoo (at time of writing). So there is no scarcity of information on Google and Yahoo when consumers are looking for product information.
Professionals, on the other hand, get a mixed bag. They are used to instant success with their consumer searches, but when it comes to looking up business information, it’s a different story. Here’s what generally happens with many business searches.
When several business searches fail, 93 percent of professionals will enter a similar term into the same search engine hoping for better results. (This is the same result found in other studies on search behavior.) Some of them (53%) will try a different general search engine. When these searches lead nowhere, 52 percent will turn to a vertical or topic-specific search engine. A third may give up altogether; however, 41 percent will make 6 to 10 search attempts before quitting, and another 47 percent will try up to 5 times.
Sounds like work, right? So it’s no wonder that many of these professionals report getting lost or distracted. Here’s what professionals do when they don’t find what they need, and they don’t give up easy.
· 17 percent quit before 5 minutes
· 42 percent continue up to 15 minutes
· 24 percent continue up to 30 minutes
· 17 percent continue more than 30 minutes
So it’s no surprise that 70 percent of the professionals surveyed reported that they get sidetracked during the search process. Of that group, 68 percent end up on sites they did not expect to visit and are not relevant to their work.
When the search process fails, 52 percent believe the data they seek exists but they just can’t find it. Only 23 percent are very confident they’ve covered all the bases. About one-third admit to making decisions without all the needed information.
More Relevant Search for B2B

The past year has seen a number of new VSEs targeted at professionals. These resources offer options that allow professionals to tailor searches according to their own requirements. The most significant trend is that of trade publications developing their own online vertical search destinations for their professional communities. These customized search engines will provide a more relevant search experience for B2B users. When asked about their expectations for these new vertical search resources, nearly 90 percent of professionals indicated they believed such search engines would offer more relevant contact.
· 86 percent said VSEs would locate content more quickly.
· 85 percent believe VSEs would offer access to content not indexed by popular search engines.
Vertical Search in Wholesale Merchandising
Because the current general search options do not meet the needs of B2B and professional users, vertical search is becoming more important than ever before. Both vertical search engines and customized search engines are making it easier for professionals to find the data they need.
If you are in the wholesale general merchandising industry, the following VSEs put buyers and sellers of wholesale merchandise together:
TopTenWholesale is a B2B wholesale merchandise search engine offering pay-per-click, banner and promotional marketing to wholesale companies.
Wholezilla is a B2B wholesale product comparison search engine and the only wholesale search engine on the web that lets retailers compare pricing and product information from wholesalers. Wholesalers can submit their data feeds at no charge.
OffpriceNetwork is the only wholesale directory for the Off Price Apparel industry. Wholesalers can add their websites to the directory (6 sites for a $249 listing fee). OffpriceNetwork caters to the wholesale apparel and fashion accessory industry, offering over 80 categories, blogs, classifieds and forums.
WholesaleU is the most mature directory of wholesalers on the web, offering access to wholesale companies at no fee. Wholesalers can add their websites to the directory (6 sites for a $249 listing fee). Catering to the general merchandise, closeout, and dropship community, WholesaleU offers over 80 categories, blogs, classifieds and forums.
Vertical Search Meets the Needs of B2B
Today, it appears that general search engines do not adequately serve professionals, leaving them with unmet needs. The advantages of vertical search will go a long way toward providing professionals with relevant business results.

Last week I wrote on this blog regarding a situation were Amazon.com and McAfee.com were both bidding on Top Ten Wholesale’s domain name and trademarks. We were appalled both by the fact that huge companies, such as those two, can drive up the costs of doing business for a smaller company, such as, well us and how little in the way of cooperation we received from them in correcting this violation of Google Adwords terms of service.

As I said before we contacted Google and got seeming encouraging activity from them but were also told to attempt to fix the problem with McAfee and Amazon ourself. Not surprisingly, they were of little help. They returned neither phone calls or emails.

However, in all fairness, we wish to report that Google has taken action and made tremendous steps towards rectifying the situation. We received an email from them saying that they agreed that McAfee’s “ad text was unclear” and that McAfee’s ad would no longer contain our trademarks and domain name. We greatly appreciate their speedy action.

Although Google didn’t mention it in their email we they seem to have removed Amazon’s ad from our trademark as well. They also promised that we would here from their trademark department as well once they had fully reviewed the situation.

We inquired if there were further punishments other than simply removing the offending ad and they said that “I can assure you that repeat violators are suspended from our advertising program. We do not tolerate repeat malicious violations of our policies.”

We do not expect much to come from this but I must say I fail to understand how a trademark violation can be anything but malicious. It simply isn’t possible for this to have been a mistake. Putting a bid on some ones domain name is a conscious act and requires planning and forethought. It doesn’t happen by accident, it happens because a company wants to crowd a competitor and harm their business.

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.

“Cyber Monday” sales jumped over 25% from 2005. coM Score networks estimates that close to $680 million dollars were spent shopping on sites like Amazon and Ebay. What does this tell us ( aside from the fact that our employees love to use internet connections on company time) ? Well, we know a few things from this:
1) Shoppers hate lines.
2) Shoppers hate waiting.
3) Shoppers LOVE choice.
4) Shoppers love a clean, robust UI.
5) THE INTERNET IS REAL.

$680 million dollars in 1 day of shopping. That is absolutely amazing. Consumers are under the impression that they can get a better deal online. They know that by visiting the small e-tail outlets, significant advantages can be realized when purchasing from a small wholesaler or dropshipper selling merchandise to the average “joe” in little quantities. As I scour our customer base on Toptenwholesale , Offpricenetwork , WholesaleU and Wholezilla.com , I can easily see that most wholesalers, manufacturers, importers and distributors have adjusted thier minimum orders so low to the point that the average consumer can afford to now buy direct. Where has the supply chain gone? I’ll save the answer to that question in time to come, but all of Wholesalers out there still requiring large minimum orders and believing that volume discounts only exist with quantity….You’d better think again.

Jason Prescott

In the past month, the most common objection I am hearing from wholesale prospects is “this is my busiest part of the year, I don’t need to advertise.” Because it is your busiest part of the year is the exact reasons why you should be advertising.

Most companies report their highest margins during the holiday season. This is the time that you do have the little bit of extra income it takes to bring in new customers. Retail stores, boutiques, flea marketers, and more, are always looking for new items to help increase their revenues during this time. If you have a product that is hot during the holidays, don’t you want the opportunity to show this fast selling item to more retail outlets?

Since this is your busiest part of the year, you already know that this is the time for you to increase your customer base. Companies like JP Communications can help bring you those new customers. Once we bring you that new customer, it’s your job to keep them. With that little bit of information in mind, let JP Communications help bring you the new customers so that you can have a happy holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Jonathan

The Off-Price New York Market, held October 8 – 10, 2006 at New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania. The regional Off-Price Markets was designed as a no-frills, cost-effective order-writing event where retail buyers could find quality apparel at prices well below established wholesale averages.

“We were extremely pleased with the turnout and buying activity at our October event,” says Show Director David Lapidos. “The Markets are great complements to our national Off-Price Specialist Shows held three times a year in Las Vegas. These are order-writing events where retailers can get immediate delivery on goods to fill in gaps in their inventory, which is always critical around the holiday season.”

Another similar event will be held in January. The New York Off-Price Market will return to the Hotel Pennsylvania on January 7 – 9, 2007. Held during New York’s first market week of the year, Off-Price management is expecting a good turnout and for a fast paced feel of old school buying you just can’t beat New York wholesale apparel events.

The Hotel Pennsylvania won’t be the only hotel crawling with purchasers. “A lot of buyers will be in town for Market Week,” says Lapidos. “In addition, four apparel shows will be running at the Javit’s Center on the exact same dates, which makes it a great week to be in New York for retailers.” Retailers hoping to attend better start looking for hotel rooms soon.

The Javit’s Center apparel shows include the Fame Show, Children’s Club, Accessories the Show, and MODA Manhattan. For more information about the Off-Price Markets, visit their website.

February 2007 Off-Price in Las Vegas Changes Venue

Fate has taken a hand to move The Off-Price Specialist Show from its usual digs at the Sands Expo. Due to one-time scheduling conflicts with the Sands Expo, the February Show will be held in the luxurious Grand Ballrooms of the Venetian Hotel and Casino. A curious press release on the move touts the new convention site’s carpeting and “elegant restroom facilities’. All important qualities for an event fueled by coffee and commerce but I’m sure the hotel has other appealing qualities as well.

“We’re very excited about the February Show,” says Dell Holden, executive vice president of sales and marketing. “Shopping a trade show is tough work. The days can be long and exhausting, so anything we can do to make our buyers and exhibitors’ jobs easier benefits everyone. The Grand Ballrooms are truly elegant. We’ve got all the pieces in place to make the February Show a memorable one.”

The four-day February Show, which will open on Sunday, February 11 and close on Wednesday, February 14, will showcase new and expanded product offerings, including the newly co-located Home & Gift Show, an expanded jewelry pavilion, and access to the new Off-Price Absolute Auctions.