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thepatricktreestump · 6 years ago

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I Love Her Anyway: Chapter 15

A/N: ok so i’ve been rereading some of these chapters and there’s a shit ton of typos, grammar mistakes, random letters and spaces throughout them- i think you should know that while i type my bearded dragon likes to jump on my keyboard and i don’t always catch the little mistakes he adds so if you catch those, blame him because i spend hours rereading and editing only for him to trample on my keyboard like the little shit he is sooo this has been a psa thanks for coming to my ted talk

the tag list that i apologize to for having experienced the pain of ch14: @cupcakesweetness @un-amoosed-padalecki @mtb04308 @dragonqueendany @kitykatnumber @svintsandghosts @greatheromuffinpalace @echoloki @geekybeauty8793 @jigglypuff1999 @timisnotmontydlc @galaxy-moon @lugialagia @pageoftheclouds @moveondontholdon @myaestheticsareshit @brendonuriehimself @yagirlcammmm @vessyvk @loverontheleft @rupphirerydenphan @uriellybrendon @converse-or-vans @amazingtyjo @pettyiestpersonyouknow

to the people who have asked to be tagged this past week: *politely whispering* um, sorry but no

Days at the bakery are slow and boring. Being at school feels like being imprisoned. Staying at home is even worse, hours of lying in bed crying, texting and calling and emailing only to find no response. It went on for weeks. Days upon days of depression, people asking if you were okay, your parents even thinking you were sick. You couldn’t even muster up a smile. Your brother even brought you home some ice cream one day, as much of a prick as he was. Everyone could sense something was wrong, but it was you who sensed it the most. It was like your life was falling apart without him there to be the glue to hold it all together. You needed him. So much.

The pain only got worse, more vomiting and headaches, and also being hungry. Like, really fucking hungry. You craved the blueberry muffins at the bakery and begged Ashley to bake you batches to take home, mowing them down one after another. You were kind of worried about developing an eating disorder, but you reassured yourself it was better than turning towards a worse form of self-harm, especially after the break up. You strayed away from kids at school, became particularly quiet, and spent your lunches in the library rather than the cafeteria. You wanted to be alone.

You were throwing up in the employee bathroom for the third time this week when Ashley knocked on the door. “Hey honey?” she called out. “Maybe just take off your shift, okay?”

“No, I’m fine,” you reassure, flushing the toilet and wiping your mouth with the back of your hand before opening up the door. “I’m alright.”

“You sure it’s just being sick? This has been going on for about a month or two now,” she frowns. There’s a pause. “Are you late?”

“What?” you raise an eyebrow. “No, I came five minutes early today.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Like, late. Period late.”

“Well…” you feel sick at the realization. “It’s been three months but I’m sure it’s just irregular or something.”

“Is there a chance?” she whispers. “You know? That you might be… pregnant?”

“What?” your eyes widen. “No, no, of course not.” You laugh nervously, but fuck, there so definitely is. Especially after all the shit you and Brendon were pulling, or I guess, not pulling, last month. He reassured you that you’d be fine, and you didn’t think much of it, but shit. You didn’t use condoms and you were usually so fucked up you didn’t even really pay attention. Fuck. There was no way. Was there? You felt even more sick.

“Oh, well maybe see a doctor?” she suggests. “Anyways, I want you to go home. Rest up. I’ll see you back here next week.”

“Okay,” you complied.

However, you didn’t just go home. Instead you drove to the nearest gas station, heart racing in your chest, fiddling thumbs and wobbly knees perusing the aisles until you landed on a pregnancy test in a tiny slender box. You had to find out somehow, right? You bit down on your lower lip as you approached the cashier, setting it on the counter silently. You hand over the cash and then he hands you the bag, you nodding in thanks before heading back to your car. When you get home, you race to your room and lock the door, heading to your bathroom and tearing the box open. You read the directions with hazy vision and do as told, then set it on the sink and wait. It’s the longest three minutes of your life. You’re almost hitting the mark when you hear your mom walk through the door and you scramble up out of your seat when she calls your name.

“Y/n! Help me carry these groceries!” she shouts.

You race down the stairs to help her, easily getting side tracked once she asks you to wash the dishes and then help cook dinner. You forget about the ordeal completely. You’re at dinner and your dad is rambling on about how some inspector is coming in to check the building tomorrow and your mom is talking about some new television show airing tomorrow night and your brother is blabbing about some football player who got injured and can’t play for the team anymore. Instead your mind is focused on the food, getting seconds and thirds, making your mom chuckle.

“Really enjoying the food, huh?” your dad laughs.

“Just hungry,” you shrug, piling more into your mouth.

After dinner, you’re sitting on the sofa when you hear your mom call your name again. You don’t give it a second thought, switching the television off and going to go find her. That is, until you see her at the doorway of your room with your father, holding your pregnancy test in her hand. You turn pale and you think you just might pass out. This was not at all how you thought it would go. “What the fuck is this?” she holds it up for you to see. “Are you pregnant? Are you kidding me right now, y/n?”

“I- I, I, I don’t…” you stammer, dumbstruck.

“Talk. Now,” your father demands. “Is this real? Are you pregnant? Have you been having sex with boys? Is that where you’ve been those past few months, staying the nights at friend’s houses? You’re really out being a whore? Disgusting.”

“You need to realize that your actions have consequences,” your mom scolds. “I can’t believe you. We trusted you.”

“You need to tell me who this young man is right now,” your dad insists. “This instant.”

“He’s just my boyfriend,” you quickly lie, going along with what they had implied. “I was staying at his house when I told you I watched the movie and hung out with friends and went shopping and stuff. I met him at school, we’re not together anymore, I just-”

“Jesus Christ,” your parents shake their heads.

“Y/n, I can’t believe you,” your mom stares at you, devastated. “Really? Pregnant?”

“I didn’t-” you stop trying to save yourself at this point. It’s no use.

The rest of the night is full of yelling, screaming, explaining using fibs and lies, your brother eavesdropping from the other room. You break your phone on purpose before they can get it, smashing it on the bathroom tile before drowning it in the sink. If they ever saw your texts between you and Brendon, you’d be toast, and things would only get a thousand times worse. They get even angrier once they find out what you’ve done to your phone, but you don’t care. If you can save him at least, then it will be worth it. But you have to talk to him somehow.

Your parents strictly instruct you that you’re grounded. You’re only allowed to leave for school, work, then straight home and in your room. You don’t know how long it will last. They schedule appointments for getting you tested for sexual diseases, which you’re embarrassed about, as well as a gynecologist and a pregnancy doctor. It seems a little early to you, but your parents are relentless and aren’t in any mood to argue. You didn’t really care to be pregnant. It only made the reminder of him leaving you even more engrained in your mind, in your body, in your soul. It only made you miss him more. Plus, you felt miserable, shitty, crampy, sweaty, hot, hungry, and bloated. Night after night you would lay awake, missing him, worrying about the future, and holding your hand over your stomach, wondering how the hell this all happened in the first place anyways.

It’s in the middle of school, during your lunch in the library, when you’re on the computer and the notification pops up. It’s the last thing you would ever expect. Brendon. You have to blink to make sure you’re seeing it right. Your heart almost falls out of your chest when you click on the email he’s sent you and you begin to read. “Dear y/n, I’m sorry for the way things have turned out. I didn’t mean to have to leave you. In fact, it was never my choice. I would do anything to try and save you, but I know if I would make a move, it would only hurt you, and I would never want that. I am sorry I haven’t contacted you sooner, my workers have kept a close eye on me ever since our split, and I’m not even alone in the office anymore seeing as I’ve been hired a new secretary. She’s not nearly as beautiful as you are, and her humor is bland and boring. I miss you, so very much. Anyways, enough of the babble. Your father had spoken to me about the new discovery, and I can only imagine I’m the culprit of the situation. You’re pregnant, is what he tells me. And if I know you well enough, you haven’t been off fucking other guys so quickly after the split, because neither have I. It has to be from us, and I apologize about it. We need to see each other and we need to work this out. From what your father tells me is that you said it was a boyfriend at school, which is quick thinking and I like it, but we need to be real. We need to do this together. I plan on having a meeting with my workers tonight and updating them. Maybe they will change their minds. Nobody knows I’m sending this email to you, so please don’t respond. Instead look for me at the bakery during your shift this week. I’ll be there. I’m not giving up on us. I’m not giving up on you. With all the love I possess, Brendon.”

You don’t know what to think or say. Instead you just press your hand to your stomach and think that everything’s going to be alright. He’s still there for you, he’s still thinking of you, and he still loves you. That’s all you could ever ask for. The rest of the day you constantly find yourself checking the clock, waiting until you can get out and head to the bakery. You wonder what he’s going to do. Your mom’s already instructed Ashley to keep your working and to make sure you’re there on time and to text her when you leave. They’ve been running a tight ship ever since the night of chaos, and you’ve barely even had time to yourself unless you’re at school. Which by the way, you faked a name to your parents to pose as your fake boyfriend, which accidentally actually ended up being a boy at your school, and you kind of got him a restraining order by accident, but that was the least of your problems. You don’t even understand how it could’ve happened, seeing as he probably didn’t even know you and couldn’t attest to you guys ever having sex in the first place, but somehow, it happened. It was word of the school for a good two days and even some of your friends came up to you bugging you about it. Nobody knew you were pregnant though. Nobody but your parents and brother, and now Brendon of course. Everyone else just thought you were in deep shit, did something crazy, pissed your parents off, and now you were watched like a hawk. They weren’t wrong. That all did happen.

As soon as he walks into the bakery you can barely breathe. All you want is to run up to him and wrap him in your arms, hold him tight, kiss him on the lips, tell him how much you’ve missed him. But you can’t. Instead you stand there, limbs shaking, feet glued to the ground, staring at him like an idiot behind the counter. “Hey, I’d like a slice of apple pie. Boxed and for the road,” he simply orders. “And one brownie.”

“C-coming right up,” you stammer, calculating his order and fetching a box and a bag to put his goodies in. He hands you the cash and that’s when you notice a piece of paper folded up on top of the dollar bills, and so you take that and stick it in your pocket. He nods with approval, giving a smile.

“Thanks,” he says, taking his things and leaving.

It’s just that simple. Just that quick. And still not enough.

The piece of paper tucked inside your pocket feels as if it’s burning all throughout your shift. You’re itching you go open it up and read what’s inside. You even almost go to use the restroom just so you can read it, but realize that if you do that, it would only be eating you up even more. So you wait. You take on customers and fill out orders and count the money and then get off shift, driving home, thinking of him and only him. The way he walked in, still in his work clothes, dark eyes, wide smile, smooth gait, confident stature. You missed him. So much.

As soon as you go home to use the restroom, you lock the door and unfold the piece of paper, eyes darting around to make sense of the message. “I love you y/n. I’ve talked to the workers and I think they understand now. At least a little better than they once did. Although they don’t agree with what we’ve done, they agree with what we plan to do, and that’s getting through this together. Tomorrow when you get to school, I want you to ask to go to the nurse’s office at exactly eleven. That’s my lunch break and that’s when I’ll be there to pick you up. You’re coming with me. Don’t go to the nurse, simply leave your classroom with the hallway pass and head straight to the back door, the one by the band room. I’ll be there, I’ll be waiting. If something comes up and this isn’t possible, then expect to see me at the bakery your next shift. We need to talk and figure things out. Hang in there. And take care of the baby for me. Give them a kiss and all of my love. Missing you like hell, Brendon.” Your heart hurts just reading it. You take the note and carefully stick it behind the mirror hanging on your bathroom wall, then wash your hands and head down to dinner. As hard as the thought is to believe, you can’t wait to go to school tomorrow. You think you just might explode.

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psychokai1972 · 7 years ago

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Young

Pick a cutie and a song

Based off :“Follow You” - Bring Me The Horizon

Sebastian Stan x Fem!Reader

Word count: 855

Request: Sebastian Stan - Follow you by Bring me the Horizon or Say you won’t let go - James Arthur.. you can pick in how far it’s better for you to write ( could the reader be 19 pls, in Europe it’s legal tho)

Warnings: mentions of sex. Fluff.

A/N: English is not my native language, but I try to do my best when it comes to grammar. The spelling mistakes just happen because I tend to write too fast on the keyboard.

Sitting cross legged on his bed, her eyes were going through the words carefree. Sebastian left his phone on the nightstand and rested his body besides hers, his head laying on her lap while the tip of his fingers created invisible patterns on her bare thighs. Y/N smiled to herself, a gesture Sebastian could not see because the book was hiding her gorgeous face.

“Still haven’t finished that book?” He asked lifting one eyebrow.

The girl pulled the book down slightly to catch a glimpse of her boyfriend. “ Well, no. I've been busy with exams, you know that.”She muttered closing the book and leaving it on the bed close to her legs.

As soon as her hands were free, they flew immediately to his hair, getting lost in it. Sebastian closed his eyes and hummed in response loving the feeling of her fingers on his scalp. He turned to the side, wrapping his strong arms around her waist and snuggling his face on her shirt, the scent of oranges filling his nostrils.

Never had he thought that he would have started dating someone so much younger than him, much less fall in love with them. But then she came into the picture with a mind way more mature than any of the other women he had been with, with her eyes that reflected innocence and kindness, attracting him right away. God, she was not only beautiful but brilliant and clumsy, which he found adorable. He had found out about her clumsiness the day he had first met her; spilling her coffee not only on his shirt but on her too, saying that she was in a rush to catch the bus to arrive to college and apologizing to him for what felt like a thousand times. That day Sebastian had offered to take her to college, she had hesitated at first, but accepted his proposition because although she didn't know the man, she had heard about him, and didn't think he would be a serial killer. Thinking of the day they met, Sebastian wouldn't have had it any other way; he would not had traded her staining his shirt for anything in the world.

“Did you just take a picture of me?” The romanian asked opening one eye and looking up to her at the hearing of a click from her phone. He was met with a wide smile.

“You are too cute to resist, Seb.” She muttered leaning into him and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek.

“Millennials.” He muttered holding her tighter in his embrace.

“ Shut up, you are just old.”

Sebastian unwrapped his arms from her body and seated on the bed, his head resting on the headboard. “ You don’t complain when we have sex.” Sebastian said rising his eyebrows suggestively. Her cheeks took a light red color and her hands moved to the area, feeling her skin hot under her touch. “Aww, someone is flustered.” He said licking his lips and taking her hand in his larger one, pulling her towards him. She let herself be dragged by him, making her sit on his lap.

“By the way, how are you feeling?” The blue eyed man asked softly running his hands up and down her arms.

“Getting better now...” She muttered looking into his baby blues.

“That’s good, baby.” He caressed her cheek gently and kissed her lips briefly. Y/N had spent the past week inside his apartment barely getting out. Despite trying to keep their relationship as private as possible, the media always got a way to get onto them and this time they started releasing negative comments about her age. It had affected her stronger and worse than anytime before, making her spend most of the time crying and in bed. Luckily for her, she was not alone, Sebastian was there supporting her in everything she did and needed; and remanding her that what other people said did not matter, it just mattered how he felt for her, reassuring Y/N that he only felt for her love. But, it killed him that he could not do a thing to stop the negativity, he didn't want to see her so bad.

“What do you say...if we go to a vacation together when you are completely free?” He asked resting his hand on her hip and bringing her closer to his chest.

Her face lit up almost instantly, her beautiful smile which he adored had made it’s way into her features. That’s how he always wanted to see her, happy. “ Really? I’d love to Seb. Where?” She was excited for the get way.

“Wherever you want, you just tell me and I’ll make it possible.” His face getting closer to hers.

“Italy.” She said under her breath, brushing her lips against his. “ A tour through Italy would be perfect.”

“You got it.” The romanian mumbled closing the distance between their lips. Sebastian thought it would be a good way for them both to get away from it all, even if it was only for a couple of weeks or days; at least as he had her by his side and she was happy, he was happy.

MASTERLIST

Permanent taglist (open):

@kapolisradomthoughts@cuddlysteven@harryisbae101@coffeebooksandfandom�� @bearsbeetsbarnes

Sebastian Stan-Bucky Barnes taglist (open):

@mizz-kraziii @ria132love @sgfghemmo96

#sebastian stan #imagine #bucky barnes #imagines #x reader #one shot #fic #fanfic #masterlist #request #song insp #lance tucker #chris beck #tj hammond

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vestedbeauty · 4 years ago

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Fail Faster: Some of the Hardest Advice to Swallow

New Post has been published on https://vestedbeauty.com/fail-faster-some-of-the-hardest-advice-to-swallow/

Fail Faster: Some of the Hardest Advice to Swallow

I’ve started this piece a few times now. Twice on paper. Three or four times in my head. This is the third go on a keyboard. Fail, fail, fail. I even missed last week’s self-imposed publishing deadline.

It wasn’t really a matter of writer’s block. The words came easily enough. I might even be able to salvage some of them.

The opposite was the problem.

I’ve been wrestling so much with the concept and experience of failure that there are a million ways I could tell it. So, I’ll just spit it out. Then pretty it up. Maybe.

There’s no prettying up failure.

But there are ways I’m learning to look at it that don’t feel like death.

I’m not talking about the nice little failures. You know, like learning to walk or ride a bike.

Or possibly cute failures, like finding algebra too hard or biting it in the street when I tried riding a longboard at age 50.

And certainly not about the famous failures people parade in front of us to make failure seem noble. Edison’s 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb can suck it. Oprah got fired. Michael Jordan misses most shots. Blah, blah, blah.

No, I’m talking about the kind of failures that gut you. Ok, me.

These are the failures that haunt me. It’s like they’ve got dark tentacles that reach into the past to squeeze my heart. They reach into the future to squeeze my guts, too. They whisper quiet messages in my ears, warning of impending, repeated doom.

That kind.

That’s pretty abstract and maybe unduly tantalizing sounding. So I’ll be transparent about one particular failure I’ve been processing. In 2010, my ex and I filed bankruptcy. It wasn’t consumer debt, it was due to a real estate investment project I spearheaded.

Long story short, along with some partners, I invested in houses in Detroit to help people become first-time home buyers. One partner turned out to be a criminal. The other left me holding the bag. The banks, for some reason, didn’t want to wait several decades for me to pay off every penny, as I offered. We lost everything we owned.

To say it was horrible and humiliating was an understatement.

The financial recovery took several years. My credit score is back in the “excellent” range. The banks have probably recovered. I don’t know whether my kids have. That marriage did not recover (the bankruptcy certainly didn’t cause the divorce, but it didn’t help).

But until about a month ago, that experience served as a noisy reminder that failure lurked in the shadows, waiting to destroy me and my work again… That I was prone to making mistakes that would devastate everyone close to me… That my eagerness to do good and to make a difference could blind me and leave me playing the fool… That coloring outside the lines is dangerous.

Nice. Thanks, brain.

In business, at least among entrepreneurs, everyone says, “Fail faster!” I got it, but not really. I sent out a newsletter with a typo, then felt mortified. Did that count?

In the personal development world, everyone says, “Look for the silver lining!” That’s my jam, and I found all kinds of blessings in disguise. Did that count?

No. None of that counted, really. The fear of failure became paralyzing.

Then I had a conversation with a friend about this. He suggested a thought experiment about the bankruptcy experience in particular.

“What if it was actually the very best thing that ever happened?” he asked.

So, I rolled out all the niceties and silver linings I’d come up with over the past decade.

Many billionaires have gone bankrupt.

Bankruptcy provisions in the law actually make it possible for people to take risks that can ultimately provide great benefit to society. (If you knew failure would be financially fatal, would you risk even a dime on a venture?)

At least four of our neighbors filed before we all lost our homes in 2010.

I’d been able to help others go through that rough road.

It taught me to be more aware of red flags.

I learned a whole new lesson in resilience, that I could recover from hard times.

It was a matter of pride to climb out of such a deep financial pit.

Nope. He wasn’t having it.

Those little bits of glass-half-fullness hadn’t really worked for me, either. Not for lack of reciting them over and over.

But suddenly, with the mention of one piece of punctuation, everything changed.

Within seconds, it became fully and clearly plausible: Going bankrupt was actually one of the best things that ever happened in my life.

What just happened?

The comma.

The comma changes everything.

A period means it’s over. A comma means there’s more to come. (OK, the grammar nerd in me threatens to have a stroke if I don’t mention the semicolon, which has even become a symbol of hope among those who’ve come back from the brink of suicide. I freaking love the semicolon in that regard, even though it’s widely misused.)

Failure is only failure if it’s over. If you’re not done, truly and thoroughly done, you haven’t failed.

It’s like in basketball. (Odd I’d pick a sports analogy, seeing as athletics has been a pretty dismal failure throughout my life!) There’s a buzzer at the end of the game, right? You can’t call the score until then. Same thing with life and all the “games” we play in it.

Ever seen this somewhat frou-frou inspirational quote from Robert Schuller?

Now it makes more sense.

There’s a choice to make.

Each day, we can look backward at our failures and let them shackle us to an anchor. There, we’ll feel safer because we aren’t just out there being all exuberant with wide-eyed optimism.

Or, we can turn that page and take the lessons with us for the next round. We can rob the failure boogeyman of his power. We can banish doom from lurking on our shoulders, menacing us with the memory of our mistakes.

Unshackled from the baggage of past failures, “fail faster” takes on a whole new connotation. Like, fail should have quotation marks around it. That’s not so scary.

My friend went on to suggest some possibly outrageous long-term scenarios that I’ve come to love. What if, generations from now, my grandchildren and greats hear the stories of my life and think of me as heroic, brave, and pioneering? What if everything in my life (wins and fails) comes together to result in helping hundreds or thousands or millions of people to break free, to find and fulfill their purpose, to change the world?

Hmm. How about that?

#Fail #Failure

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edkentmedia · 6 years ago

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Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store

Visitors to an eCommerce website or store are potential customers, but most of them don’t buy anything. The industry’s average conversion rate hovers between one and three percent. Conversion rate optimization aims to narrow the gap by making a store better at convincing visitors to become buyers. CRO is a continual process, shaping the shopping experience through small evidence-based changes. But before you get started with split testing and incremental improvement, the fundamentals must be in place. Here are six ways your eCommerce store may be frustrating your ability to turn visitors into customers.

Bad Copy

Product page copy comes in many varieties. Content ranges from utilitarian to flowery and from terse to expansive. Style is dictated by branding and the products themselves: a style that sells boatloads of luxury fashion is out of place on a page that sells office furniture. But, in spite of the diversity of effective product-page copy, there are rules that must be followed:

The copy must describe the product accurately and with enough detail to provide the shopper with a clear idea of what it is and why it is useful.

Grammar and punctuation should be impeccable. Shoppers don’t grade copy for grammatical correctness, but sloppy, badly-written copy makes them wonder what else the store is careless about.

If no one who works for you can write clear, concise, and correct copy, hire a writer who can do it for you.

Low-Quality Images

Images are perhaps even more important than copy. They give customers a clear conception of what they are buying and help them to picture the role it will play in their lives. When presented with dimly lit and badly framed images, shoppers assume that the products are similarly slapdash. Stores that decorate product pages with stamp-sized images “curated” from their suppliers are unlikely to flourish.

It is possible to take excellent product shots with the camera on any modern phone. You do not need to invest in an expensive DSLR. Lighting, in contrast, can make a massive difference to the quality of an image. If you take your own product images, invest in a set of studio lights. If you have reached the limit of your photographic ability, there are many inexpensive professional product photographers who have the ability and equipment to take excellent product shots.

Accessibility Issues

There are 57 million disabled people in the US. Approximately 35 million have disabilities that impact their use of the web. They spend over $200 billion each year. But some online retailers make little effort to avoid design decisions that make shopping next-to-impossible for customers with mobility or vision issues. Common problems include:

Low-contrast copy on pages. Your CTAs will pop if the rest of the page is filled with grey text on a slightly lighter grey background, but millions of people will be excluded because they can’t read your copy.

The impossibility of navigating pages and carts with the keyboard. Many shoppers don’t use a mouse, and they can’t buy anything if a store’s forms and navigation elements cannot be navigated with a keyboard.

Product listings that aren’t compatible with screen readers. Many product pages sound like inscrutable gibberish to people who use the web via a screen reader.

Alison Walden wrote an excellent article about why accessibility should matter to eCommerce retailers, and what retailers can do to make their stores more accessible.

Letting Abandoned Carts Go Without A Fight

Of all the people who put items in their carts, three-quarters don’t buy anything. Many of these people will not have planned to buy. They were window shopping. However, some of them intended to buy an item, but for some reason didn’t: they were distracted, the tab with their store session was forgotten and then closed, their phone ran out of power on the commute home. Whatever the reason, some of these abandoned carts can be recovered. How? By sending an email to the shopper to remind them and perhaps to offer a promotion.

All major eCommerce platforms have abandoned cart recovery features, often as an extension. WooCommerce has Yith Woocommerce Recover Abandoned Cart and Magento has Abandoned Cart, among others. Most abandoned carts can’t be recovered, but the few that can make the attempt worthwhile.

Off-Putting Returns Policies

Online shoppers take a risk when they hit the “Buy Now” button. They can’t touch, smell, taste, or otherwise interact with the product. All they have to go on is sales copy, a few pictures, and perhaps a video — that’s not enough to be sure that a product is right for them. So, they need to be reassured that if they find a product is not to their taste, they can return it easily. If they can’t, they may conclude that it isn’t worth the risk.

The most common return-policy mistakes that I see are:

No return policy.

A hidden return policy.

A return policy that puts too much of a burden on the shopper.

Retailers don’t like returns: who wants to lose a sale that has already been made? But a store with a bad return policy will make fewer sales. It’s a balancing act.

A Slow Server

Last month I was on the train returning from a family gathering. I decided to do a little shopping. My partner’s birthday was coming up. She likes clothes from a particular small fashion retailer, so, figuring that was the easy option, I tried to browse their products on my phone. I had a decent 4G connection — YouTube worked fine — but loading pages on the store was like waiting for cold honey to run off a knife. Each page took at least ten seconds to load. I have little patience for clothes shopping anyway, so my partner ended up with flowers. Slow stores lose sales.

There are two main causes of slow stores. Bad hosting and an unoptimized front-end. High-quality web hosting is the foundation on which a store’s performance is built. Lot’s of things can go wrong with hosting to make it slow: the server hardware, poorly optimized software, insufficient resources, inadequate network routing. A good eCommerce hosting provider will take care of all that for you. If yours doesn’t, perhaps it’s time to make a move — migration isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Front-end optimization is a bit more complicated. It’s largely down to the retailer and their ability to make good technical choices. Services like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix can analyze an eCommerce store’s pages and make optimization suggestions.

We’ve covered six of the most common conversion killers. There are more — great sales copy won’t make up for shoddy customer service — but these are a great place to start. Once you have the basics sorted, you can begin the real work of incremental conversion rate optimization with split testing.

Author Bio:

About Graeme Caldwell – Graeme is a writer and content marketer at Nexcess, a global provider of hosting services, who has a knack for making tech-heavy topics interesting and engaging to all readers. His articles have been featured on top publications across the net, TechCrunch to TemplateMonster. For more content, visit the Nexcess blog and give them a follow at @nexcess.

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fanfictionreviews-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Fan Fiction Review - Dan Howell x Reader ~ It Doesn’t Have A Title What A Great Way To Start This Off ~

Before I start this off I’d like to issue a disclaimer:

If you wrote this fanfiction, or you know who did or whatever, I don’t hate you, and this isn’t made to bully people who write fanfiction, I’m just having some fun, you know? Don’t get butt hurt, essentially. Also, I’m no grammar-Stephan Hawking, so don’t be surprised if I make a few mistakes myself, I am human after all, but as I say - this is just for fun.

This fanfiction can be found here.

Right then, let’s get started. *Purposely avoids making a Keemstar joke.*

~Analysis:

I walk around he cold streets of London. I am wearing my leather jacket a llama shirt and skinny jeans. I walk down the streets listening to alphabet boy.

So we’re four words in and we can already see that this author evidently doesn’t proof-read their work. Also, just in case you didn’t pick it up, they’re walking down the streets, alright?

I mumble the song. “My alphabet boy..Alphabet boy..” I then walk into a anime store where I see a tall man looking at the death note things.

Aside from the speech, every sentence has started with ‘I’. How captivating. We can also see that the author doesn’t like to capitalize names, apart from one occasion, but that was almost definitely due to the two full-stops placed directly before the letter A. That’s another thing. An ellipsis has three full stops in it, like this:

...

No more, no less. Three. So when you use two, it just looks like you had a second long stroke when you were pressing the period key and only managed two full stops before passing out.

~~~~ This means I skipped a paragraph or two by the way.

I saw him on a book. The Amazing book is not on fire. I looked at one page of the book. (And only one.) His name is Daniel. He likes the color black and also llamas are his animal of choice.

Back at it again with the lack of capitalization! Is that a stale meme yet? Anyway, on this occasion, we got the first word of the sentence AND the next word capitalized in ‘The Amazing book is not on fire’. This is, truly, random capitalization. Author, do you know what sentence variation is? Please use it, because, correct me if I'm wrong but, I haven’t seen one comma so far.

~~~~

“Yeah me and my best friend are sorta like the people who made ‘PROTIP’ and ‘don’t cry.. Craft’ I’m the comments on every YouTube video..” He laughed.

So they’re ‘sorta like’ the people who made ‘PROTIP’ and ‘don’t cry... Craft.’ Some say that Pyrocynical is ‘sorta like’ leafyishere. See what I mean?

It seems to be a reoccurring theme in Dan Howell fanfictions to often refer to Phil as his ‘best friend’ and not just Phil and vice versa... Why? And I’m pretty sure Dan isn’t the comments on every YouTube video, as he probably would have killed himself by now.

“So that’s why ok pewdiepies beard video people commented PROTIP.. Thank god you told me! I was worried a tip was taking over the world!” (Woah you’re so funny.) I say in a sarcastic voice. “to be honest it sorta has” he puts down something he picked up.

Guys, today we don’t even get capital letters at the beginning of a sentence.

Thanks for more evidence to support the fact that you don’t proof-read your work.

You know, the rule ‘new speaker, new line’ is a very useful one, as it allows the reader to distinguish which character is talking without having to read the passage seventeen times, but it is also a rule that many fanfiction writers don’t use. Shame.

“Want to go get some coffee or something?” He asked. “If not I can give-” I cut him off. “Sure we can get some coffee. Do you want to buy anything first?” I asked him. He nodded and grabbed a L plush. I went with him when he got it and we walked out together.

I don’t know Dan aside from watching a few of his videos, but I’m pretty sure if he just met a fan, he wouldn’t ask them on a date straight away. Have you ever seen Evan Edinger’s video on dating a YouTuber with Ash Hardell? Watch it.

Grammar lesson time! When addressing an object that begins with a vowel, (in this case, the name ‘L’.) you would USUALLY use ‘an’ instead of ‘a’, if you don’t it just kind of sounds bad.

As we walked down the side walk we talked about movies, songs, bands.. At coffee we honestly most likely won’t have anything to talk about.

I had to include this because, guys, WE GOT OUR FIRST FUCKING COMMA. Hell yeah, it’s not like we’re halfway through the narrative or anything! They don’t even use the commas in a correct way to form a list, like you’re meant to have ‘and’ before the last item in the list.

Who refers to a coffee shop/cafe as just ‘coffee’? Actually, that whole sentence sounds like a seven-year-old wrote it - I think it’s descriptive enough to use one adverb. Look:

‘we honestly most likely won’t have anything to talk about.’

‘we honestly won’t have anything to talk about.’

Which sounds better? I think the only time you would use more than one adverb in this particular context would be to add emphasis, but there is no evidence in this passage to suggest that that’s what the author was trying to do.

We walk into scooter (no Starbucks) and get our drinks. (Damn you’re so original and unique, yeah, Starbucks is for trashy white girls and basic bitches.) Once we sit down Dan puts his phone on the table. “Wanna like.. Swap numbers?” He asked in a shy tone. “Yeah! Sure.” I handed him my phone and he handed me his. I went to the contacts and added a new one. I put my number and the name as ‘weird anime girl’ (weeaboo) and handed it back in him.

What, you just put his phone in his mouth or something? At least I hope that’s what you meant by ‘in him’. God, I’ve got no one to blame but myself for that one.

The fact that you felt the need to clarify that you’re not going to Starbucks made me laugh and cringe at the same time. Thanks.

This would be the perfect moment for a crazy-stalker-fangirl to steal Dan’s phone and make a run for it, so I think the chances of this happening in real life is slim to none. Sorry guys.

~~~~

A bunch of basic white girls look at us like we are crazy. (Most likely cause we are) and we but out lip trying not to laugh.

I’m full on fucking cringing now.

Damn, those pesky basic white girls we so much better than them because we’re crazy!

I guess the basic white girls found your even-more-hipster coffee shop, better go to the strange man in the dark alleyway who sells ‘human poop’ coffee beans, I’m sure they won’t find you there.

What the hell does ‘but out lip’ mean? I honestly don’t know what they were trying to say either. I have no fucking idea.

~~~~ Dan invites Reader to go to Dan’s flat. Reader accepts the invite.

I looked at Dan again. (Why did we just switch tenses?) His eyes where (ugh) on phils computer. Looking at what Phil was scrolling though. I bit my lip. Not on purpose I just.. Did it.

I was thinking about what I could compliment about this fanfiction, and I thought that I should mention the author’s ability to stay in the same tense. But no, you blew it. Sorry.

This is where Reader gets really dreamy about Dan, by the way.

Dans perfect his hair.. (Makes perfect sense.) His eyes. His eyes are not even blue they are just so beautiful. His everything. Then his personality. It’s perfect. It’s a mix of so many wonderful things. He is just so..

Great.

Perfect.

I can relate to him too.

I feel in love at first site.

Oh, fuck, just that last line with the janky English and the wrong use of ‘site.’ That’s it, this can’t get any worse from now on.

No, it can. It definitely can.

When I read this, all I can hear is James Veitch reading it to me, like he does with the scam emails and the broken English. If you have no idea what I am talking about, click here.

There’s a three years time skip into the future from now on by the way.

Mentally prepare yourself for this next part.

I think. That’s how I met my boyfriend. “You know.. I feel in love with you at first sight.” I turned over to him. “I did too. And that’s why” he got down on a knee and took something out.

“Will you merry me?” He asked opening the box up to showed a wonderful ring. “Y-yes!” I managed to say and he stood up and kissed me. I kissed him back.

I can’t believe it.

WILL YOU MERRY ME? FUCK. The ‘a’ key isn’t really near the ‘e’ key on a keyboard so I have no idea how you fucked that one up.

The sentence ‘I feel in love with you at first sight.’ makes you sound like English isn’t your mother tongue. And to be honest, it’s fucking hilarious.

That’s the end of it by the way.

~Conclusion:

That was painful.

I'll give credit when it’s due, at least this isn’t the Hat Fic. Who the fuck actually wrote that anyway?

Right.

I suppose it wasn’t the worst, but it was also nowhere near the best. Author, you still need to make some improvements. I give this one shot three Casey Neistat Okay-Hand-Signals out of ten.

On a serious note, I think it’s definitely worth proof-reading, as when you make grammar mistakes it just makes your work look half-arsed.

Try not to use scenarios that wouldn’t happen in real life, otherwise, you might just become the early Review Movie World of fanfiction. (Can you tell I watch Pyro?) I suppose this includes writing about dating and sex if you’ve never dated or had sex before because that can definitely lead to some inaccurate scenes. Not all sex is like porn, horny fourteen-year-olds.

Thanks for reading guys, do feel free to leave me some constructive criticism. (That’s not gonna fucking happen, is it?)

One like = One kid who identifies as an attack helicopter, sent straight to your door.

And yeah, I’ll see you in the next review!

-Pluto

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edkentmedia · 6 years ago

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Six Simple Ways You’re Killing Conversions On Your eCommerce Store

Bad Copy

The copy must describe the product accurately and with enough detail to provide the shopper with a clear idea of what it is and why it is useful.

Grammar and punctuation should be impeccable. Shoppers don’t grade copy for grammatical correctness, but sloppy, badly-written copy makes them wonder what else the store is careless about.

If no one who works for you can write clear, concise, and correct copy, hire a writer who can do it for you.

Low-Quality Images

Accessibility Issues

Product listings that aren’t compatible with screen readers. Many product pages sound like inscrutable gibberish to people who use the web via a screen reader.

Alison Walden wrote an excellent article about why accessibility should matter to eCommerce retailers, and what retailers can do to make their stores more accessible.

Letting Abandoned Carts Go Without A Fight

Off-Putting Returns Policies

The most common return-policy mistakes that I see are:

No return policy.

A hidden return policy.

A return policy that puts too much of a burden on the shopper.

Retailers don’t like returns: who wants to lose a sale that has already been made? But a store with a bad return policy will make fewer sales. It’s a balancing act.

A Slow Server

Author Bio:

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