Ravi’s Rants

When I read about Amazon’s all you can eat, free 2-day shipping plan, the first thing was I added up all charges I’d paid towards shipping in the past year (and I bought about 30-40 items - books, toys, etc).

2004 total in shipping fees: $0.00

Compare that to the $79 I would pay for a year worth of free shipping, it is still a increase of 7900% over last year (figuratively speaking, as you really can’t multiply zero with anything). So, at first glance, it seemed like a no-brainer: Prime wasn’t for me.

So, can people like me, who buy 10-20 casual gift items a year for friends and family through Amazon, be tempted into signing up for Prime? Chances are slim to none.

Will it push people who paid anywhere from $0.00 to $50.00 into signing up? Not necessarily, it seems.

However, the plan did tempt me into thinking about buying all gifts that I buy during a year, through Amazon.com. Hey, I get free shipping after all, so why not make full use of it? I would never have to stand in line at KB Toys or ToysRus ever again! Hooray!

But my joy was to be shortlived. Before I could roll over and hand them my $79, I happened to buy a Sony Walman/Recorder at Amazon for my father-in-law.

It was then that I noticed that in order to be eligible for Prime, you had to buy it directly from Amazon (and not its merchant partners) - that is, the walkman that Amazon sells itself directly, and not one that OfficeDepot sells through Amazon.com.

Now, Amazon’s version was selling it for $79.99.

However, if you purchased it through OfficeDepot (still through Amazon.com, the web site), you paid only $63.95. Even after $7.54 in shipping charges, the total through OfficeDepot would still be only $71.49 (plus tax, of course).

No points for guessing who I bought it from. After paying shipping charges to Office Depot rather than the free shipping I would’ve gotten had I signed up for Prime, I was still up by $8.50 (compared to the $79.99 + free shipping deal I would’ve gotten had I purchased through Amazon.com).

However, I was still not sure if I might have been eligible for Prime even if I had purchased through OfficeDepot. So, I wrote to Amazon.com asking if my purchase through OfficeDepot would’ve been eligible for Prime free shipping. And here’s the very personal email I got back from them.

< snip >

Hello from Amazon.com.

Products sold by third parties, or through third-party areas such as
Marketplace, Auctions and/or zShops,OfficeDepot and ToysRus are NOT
eligible.

Products eligible for Amazon Prime will be designated on the product
page, in the order pipeline, or at check-out. The program is limited
to products sold by Amazon.com.

< / snip >

Amazon’s free shipping offer comes with a lot of ifs and buts. So, read that fine print - turn up the font size in your browser if you can’t - before you pull out that credit card.

Amazon is a company that was always well ahead of it’s time. While everyone said that having a book store online, that too lowest cost pricing, along with free shipping even, was a sure recipe for disaster. Well, they’ve proven all the “pundits” wrong - and while most of those other “surefire winners” are long gone, they are still here, and even churning out a profit!

Forget me, forget the pundits, forget the critics.

Let’s just wait for the people’s verdict - I hear it is never wrong.

Amazingly, this happens just one day after I posted this.

• Google fires blogger: Actual post that got him fired / Story
• Queen of Sky gets fired: Pictures / Story
• Microsoft fires intern over pictures of Mac G5’s - Pictures / Story

So, what’s the moral of the story?

A> Don’t post pictures taken at work on your blog?
B> Don’t blog about work?
C> Don’t work (for someone else)? or
D> Don’t blog at all?

I would pick “A” and “B”. At least until I can pick “C”.

Some day, some day… < sigh! >

One definition of “Blogging” is “publishing at the speed of thought”.

Ok, maybe that works for a personal blog where you are writing about your vasectomy. Maybe you get the idea about what to blog in an instant; maybe you log in to your blog and start writing the next instant; but you don’t have to publish it that third instant.

No, I’m not saying only those who are capable of getting nominated for an award should blog. But if you are blogging for business, you want to get read and make your blog a respectable extension of yourself and your primary business, respect your readers’ intelligence.

Anyone who has written anything will know that great copy rarely, if ever, gets written at the speed of thought. So, go ahead and discover the “Save Draft” button.

Your blog is about what you know - what’s inside that 3-pound mass of neurons at the top. It is about your thoughts.

So take your time and publish the more meaningful ones - your audience is eagerly waiting to judge you.

Link: Three types of Brands - Part I

“Product Brands” are hard to leverage even in a new industry. Heck, they are hard to leverage even within the same niche. Apple, the computer company, sells more iPods than Sony, which invented the Walkman, can sell its MP3 player. How many of us would care for BMW car audio products, Dunkin Donuts pizza, or Nike designer wear?

However, product brands are the easiest to create - relatively speaking, of course.

Create one superlative product - something new, or repackage something old - do it brilliantly regardless. Think of something no one else has thought of, a way to make something faster, look cooler, sound better; sell it yourself, or sell it all to someone else and walk away. One Purple Cow is all you need.

And you milk it for all its worth.

“Corporate Brands”, on the other hand, are a lot harder to create - and sustain. Everything - or almost everything - you create should be a purple cow, constantly churn out raving fans. Deliver “good” instead of “awesome” even half the time, and you risk ending up like Robert de Niro. It is a lot easier to be Los Del Rio than to be U2; lot easier to be Pat Cash than Pete Sampras; lot easier to be Broadcast.com than be Yahoo!

Product brands are easier to spin off - and to takeover too, which could be good or bad depending on whether you built it strategically with the idea of selling it off. However, established corporate brands are relatively tough to takeover too. They are too big, too well established, too “branded”.

“Individual brands” are the hardest to create - even harder to sustain. You can’t hire a team of really talented people on whose back you can ride, unlike the CEO of a large corporation. It is all about you, most of the time.

You create yourself. And destroy yourself too - Iron Mike, Michael Jackson, (rest in peace) Manigault (”The Goat”). You can’t change your name and move to Alabama. Firestone could eventually make a come back, but probably not Winona Ryder. (Ok, maybe Kobe Bryant will succeed, but basketball is an abherration, IMHO).

“Individual brands” are destroyed as fast as they can be created. And they’re virtually impossible to sell and walk away into retirement. Your legacy stops when you quit - unless you are a royalty earner.

Isiah Thomas stopped making money when he stopped playing - till he started coaching again; he stopped making money as a coach - till the Knicks hired him. Eventually, he will stop getting those paychecks too. Then what? His talents as a player, coach or GM won’t be worth anything in retirement.

But the legend of Elvis earns him $100 million, 26 years after he died.

But then, not everyone is born to be the king.

To be continued…