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dailyeconomicsnet · 4 years ago

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AI technology driven e-commerce platforms – boon or bane for consumers?

AI Technology:

Remember a time when salespeople used to go door to door selling products? From then on, technology has grown leaps and bounds only to make buying products convenient, affordable, and cost-saving for consumers. No doubt, all 3 play a crucial role in making our busy lives more comfortable. While on the one hand, we should thank technology but on the other, are we aware of how this is impacting us? Are consumers exploiting the technology, or is technology influencing the consumers? Is AI technology – a boon or a bane? Read on to see if you can arrive at a decision.

In the first series of the article, we understood what AI technology is and saw a quick glimpse of how retailers leverage AI technology using consumer buying patterns. In this article, let us explore the consumer side of the story. How are the e-commerce platforms impacting consumers like you and me?

Research by the World Retail Congress organization (www.worldretailcongress.com) says 35% of google product searches by consumers turn into a transaction in 5 days. India is expected to see the highest online growth rate between 2018-22. Out of the top five countries with the highest online shoppers, four are in Asia. The E-commerce industry is a hotbed for building wealth in the upcoming years.

Did our Jeff make fair use of it? What happened to his online store? Did Seema move to the online platform to buy milk? If you don’t follow anything I just said, read the first part of the series Artificial Intelligence powering the golden era for Retailers – Part – 1 real quick!

Trust me. You will enjoy this article much better!

For those who have read part 1 of AI technology, you would remember how Jeff leveraged the AI technology and built his pricing strategy. Let’s see what happened to Jeff, Seema, and Dinesh in 5 simple scenes like the first part!

Part 1 Conclusion: What happened Jeff after he launched his online store?

We ended part 1 with Jeff launching his promotion campaign for his new online store.

Seema grabbed the opportunity and took up a 1-year subscription. Within a month Jeff’s promotion went viral in the neighborhood. Although Jeff sold milk at a lesser price than the price, he sold at his store. His customer base grew to an average of 3,000 active subscriptions. At the end of the year, his sales shot through the roof, and he ended the year earning nearly five times more. At the same time, Dinesh, who was not inclined to move ahead with technology, lost his customer to Jeff, and his sales nosedived to the bottom.

Scene 1: Sunday – Fast forward three years since Jeff opened his online store for selling milk

On a fine Sunday morning, Seema opened the newspaper while going through the technology news section. She was amazed to see “Amaze Online Platform” valued at 100 million dollars, and there it was Jeff in a crisp suit beaming with pride about his flourishing business. Seema took some time to come to terms with what she had just read. The person who sold milk in a small convenience store is now on a newspaper headline with the title “Upcoming Businessman.”

Seema had moved to a different city a year after Jeff opened his online store. After that, she had not followed Jeff’s story until she saw him on the newspaper cover. After reading the newspaper, she got very curious about how Jeff made this happen. She opened her laptop and searched for “Amaze Store Online.” She discovered that the Amaze store now not only sells essential commodities, but the categories had expanded to electronics, apparel, daily household, and the list went on.

Scene 2: Sunday- Seema curious to explore other categories to buy online

Seema remembered the convivence of buying milk online. She was eager to check out what “Amaze Online Store” had to offer now. She quickly browsed through some categories, and some dresses caught her attention. She was impressed with the collection and variety “Amaze Online Store” had. She promptly created her login through Facebook ID and added few to Wishlist, hoping to buy them.

After the initial excitement subsided, she pondered over the quality and fit of the dress. No matter how good they looked in the picture, she was not entirely confident about moving the dresses from Wishlist to the cart. She was tired fighting this thought, and finally, she decided to close the browser and get on with her day.

Scene 3: Monday – Introduction to Nudge theory and Seema typical working day

“A ‘nudge’ is a term used to describe any change in the environment which steers an individual’s behavior predictably while preserving their freedom of choice. It is not a push, nor a shove, but a gentle nudge.”

The following day Seema went back to her work. She had completely forgotten about the dress she wanted to buy. She opened her g-mail to check her emails, and there she finds an email from the “Amaze Online Store,” asking if she would like to finish her shopping, and in bold, there was a callout saying a 15% discount on the first purchase. There was also an underlying message on her Wishlist products, “Selling Fast.”

Seema was “Nudged” twice if you noticed.

15% Discount to lure her back to the site

“Selling fast” message to create a sense of scarcity (Remember, we always value scarce things).

These nudges were enough for Seema to open the site again and move a product from “Wishlist” to the cart. Just when she was about to check out and pay for the dress, she was surprised to see additional add-on costs such as “shipping,” “tax”. These costs were equivalent to discounts provided. Seema was just not convinced about buying the dress. Despite an additional nudge of “10 People looking at the dress” flashing. Seema just abandoned the cart.

Scene 4: Tuesday – Seema can’t get the dress out of her head

As compared to the casual browsing on Sunday, Seema had invested a lot of time on Monday thinking she would buy the dress. Unable to completely let go of the thought, Seema opened Instagram casually and was scrolling through the updates. Just when she thought she had forgotten about dress; she sees an ad for the same three dresses with the message “flash sale” Buy 2 to get 30% off! This is a classic “Nudge” tactic to create a sense of “Limited Time Offer.”

Finally, 4th nudge did seem to work. Seema again launches the website to purchase the dresses and be done with it! But there was another message called out on the website shop for “Rs 4,999 and get an Rs 899” worth of dress free + avail free shipping!

Seema was now just Rs. 1,779 away from getting another Rs. 899 worth of free products. She had one more dress in her Wishlist that was “Rs. 1,800”. Precisely the difference amount she needed to get an additional Rs. 899 worth of products.

While Seema was processing all this information, there was “Nudge 6”, Amaze store now was showing all “Affordable Fashion Products from Celebrities” that were available to be shopped within Rs. 1,700/-.

Scene 5: Wednesday – Seema choice validation by peers, influencers, and celebrities

Seema was still feeling overwhelmed by the information and promotion. She decided to put shopping off for a while as she had a birthday party to attend. To Seema’s surprise, her favorite dress that she was thinking of buying, one of the guests was wearing the same dress. She noticed that everyone in the room was talking about her.

The following day, she opens Instagram to see all the photos from the party uploaded to Instagram. Guess what, the girl wearing the dress Seema had liked, received the maximum likes. The comments section was overflowing with compliments.

Seema could not decide if the dress made the girl look beautiful or the complete set of accessories, matching shoes, make up that she was wearing! Social validation is also a kind of “Nudge”. Some other types of these “Nudges” are reviews by influencers, likes, and comments by friends, celebrity endorsements.

Today e-commerce platforms are paying tons of money to Celebrities, to people with the highest numbers of followers, influencers to flaunt their products, and repeatedly keep tagging the brand and posting images of the products on social media.

So, does Seema finally gives in and shops for the whole look, or does she wake up and realize before she spends more money than she has? If a brand or e-commerce platform can pay Rs. 2.18 crore for a single post. You can only imagine how many people on Instagram, seeing the post by celebrities, are ending up buying the product.

In Summary, the e-commerce industry is thoroughly using consumer behavior data coupled with AI technology to ensure every ad, every nudge message, every promotion on the site gets customers one step closer to sale. And it is working, the reason I say that is because today Amazon has valued 1 trillion dollars, Flipkart at 24 billion dollars, and Jio Retail at 55 billion dollars. The list can go on.

But what about us as consumers, is our earnings growing exponentially? Are we spending more than we are earning due to the e-commerce industry? Are we shopping more than we did a decade ago? The answer to all and more in the final part of the series! Stay tuned to know how AI technology is driving your purchasing patterns.

References:

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/the-flipkart-story-a-timeline-of-funding-from-2007-to-2017/595740/#:~:text=2010%2D11%3A%20Flipkart%20raised%20%2420,company%20then%20was%20%241%20billion.

https://www.gqindia.com/get-smart/content/how-much-priyanka-chopra-jonas-makes-per-post-on-instagram#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20list%2C%20Priyanka,2.18%20crore%20approximately)%20per%20post

https://blog.edesk.com/resources/ecommerce-marketing/

https://www.convertize.com/how-nudging-boosts-sales/

https://www.worldretailcongress.com/__media/Global_ecommerce_Market_Ranking_2019_001.pdf

https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-ecommerce-2019

https://www.walkersands.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Walker-Sands_2018-Future-of-Retail-Report.pdf

https://www.merkleinc.com/thought-leadership/digital-marketing-report[2]

https://blog.edesk.com/resources/ecommerce-marketing/

https://www.convertize.com/how-nudging-boosts-sales/

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/03/17/shopping-cart-abandonment

#artificialintelligence #aitechnology #amazeonlineplatform #buyingbehaviour #consumeracquisition #ecommerceplatform #worldretailcongressorganization #dailyeconomics

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ladybugseatppl · 7 years ago

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Transmasc stuff for sale

Trying to save up for top surgery and have some stuff I don’t use for whatever reasons including 4 binders, 1 “joey” pouch for a packer, and 1 reelmagik basic 4.5 inch packer in a medium skintone. Shipping is 6 dollars for shipping with USPS, will ship to out of the USA if you pay for the extra shipping. Payment through Paypal. All prices are negotiable.

I’m also selling Pride knitted beanies under my commissions tag, since Winter is coming up! :)

Pictures and descriptions + prices for the items I’m selling under the cut.

First is my reelmagik packer in m12 skin tone, it’s too heavy for me and too dark. Plus a mouse took a bite out of it. It’s still a good packer, looks GREAT packing with it, but I found an stp I liked so I don’t need it. It costed me 70 bucks with shipping but because of the mouse bite and it’s well loved status, I’ll go $40 (if you want it for less, just message me, I will take best offer). Will boil it before it’s sent out.

Next: Joey pouch from “get your joey” in “under the sea(m of your pants)” ballsy pattern. It didn’t work with me because it didn’t fit my reelmagik packer, so I wore it twice and threw it in my sock drawer. Will wash it first. I paid 30 with shipping, hardly worn, so I’d be happy to get 17 dollars from it or best offer. Really I just want it gone.

Now some binders I’m trying to sell. I tore out all the tags in these binders. ALL WILL BE WASHED BEFORE SENDING.

A black tank top gc2b binder I cut the bottom off so it would become a half tank. It’s a Large. I’m asking 15 bucks. I would still wear it but I like my nude #5 binder from them better due to color. SOLD

Underworks full length binder in light skin color, some deodorant stains but will wash out. I wore it three times, twice to try it on, once to go swimming and I hated it. Same reason I cut the black one in half, tank top binders hurt my stomach. It’s also a Large. Great condition just needs washed (which I’ll do before I send anyway). Asking for 20 dollars. SOLD

Now this Underworks binder is really well loved, and shrank a bit. It’s weirdly stiff, I think from over washing and putting it in the dryer unknowingly. It was my first binder and it ended up being a little too small for me and almost broke my rib. It’s an old boy so I’m looking for 6 dollars. Or best offer. I don’t really care. It just takes up space. Underworks White (though it’s a little on the grey side from washing) and it was originally a L but because it shrank, I think it’s more suitable for a Medium.

Last binder I’m trying to get rid of I’m just asking you pay for shipping because it’s not actually a safe binder to wear. But I got it and learned better and never wore it. I had plans to use it in a cosplay or something, but never did anything, so maybe someone else has good use for it. Black (I THINK Lesboat is the brand) and L. So this is free, I just don’t know what to do with it and I don’t want to keep it or just throw it out.

All the prices are able to be negotiated if you really need the binder, I’m just trying to save up money for surgery so any money helps. All payments over PayPal and you’ll get a tracking number.

#packer for sale #ftm #binder sale #binder #reelmagik #binder for sale #ftm binder #top surgery #rhys speaks

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evanvanness · 5 years ago

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Annotated edition, Week in Ethereum News, March 15 issue

The number of EthCC attendees (for the record, most people I talk to now think the afterparty was the main spreading event) testing positive since I published the newsletter, even while many can’t get tested. So no caffeine or beer for me just in case I’m affected (though I left the afterparty very early), and that lack of caffeine is pulling me down just a little. This might be a low-energy, “please clap” Jeb annotated issue.

Eth1

Overlay method for hex to binary tree conversion

A summary of the post-EthCC Stateless Eth meetings. Renewed focus on sync, particularly getNodeData

A writeup post-stateless ETH summit after ethCC as well as a summary. Quiet times usually follow productive meetings, hence only 2 bullet points this week.

Eth2

Latest Eth2 call. Notes from Ben and Mamy. Phase 1 prototyping coming soon

Latest phase0 spec v0.11, the target for stable multi-client testnet

Ben Edgington’s notes from networking call

Nimbus client update – interop this month, discussion around constraints of running eth2 client on mobile devices

Two phase2 ethresearch posts: Appraisal of Non-sequential Receipt Cross-shard Transactions and Atomic Cross Shard Function Calls using System Events, Live Parameter Checking, & Contract Locking

Vitalik’s Using polynomial commitments to replace state roots, though this is not likely to hit the current roadmap. More context from listening to Justin Drake and Vitalik Buterin on Zero Knowledge

So my current estimate (completely my own) is that we’re likely looking at late q2 for phase0 launch. But who knows, maybe getting locked down will provide a small speedup? <wry grin>

I continue to think that by far the most important thing after shipping phase 0 is turning off proof of work. Stop wasting electricity! Cut issuance!

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.6.4

A storage layout for proxy contracts taking advantage of Solidity v0.6.4

EthGlobal’s survey of Eth developers

10x smaller Javascript signer/verifier

Interacting with Ethereum using a shell through Incubed ultra-light client

Groth16 bellman proof verifier

Templates with pre-filled contract ABIs, addresses and subgraphs for Aave, Compound, Sablier, Uniswap

Prysmatic’s service registry pattern in Go

Implementing Merkle Trees and Patricia Tries in Node.js

Pipline onchain interpreted language vid

Austin Griffith vid on wallet module for eth.build

OpenZeppelin points out that a malicious deployer can backdoor your Gnosis Safe

SmartBugs: framework for executing Solidity automated analysis tools, with an academic paper comparing tool performance

I probably should’ve added that your Gnosis Safe is always safe if you used the official front end of the mobile app.

Crypto carnage, Maker liquidations

Thursday’s global selloff of risk assets led to the most negative price action day of crypto’s short history. The selloff inflated gas prices (~200 gwei) which caused trouble for Maker. The Maker oracles stopped working for an hour or two.

Maker liquidation auctions went off for nearly 0 DAI as bots bidding on those auctions got caught in high gas prices and ran out of DAI, leading several different bot maintainers to make ~8m USD in ETH by bidding just above zero in a few disparate time periods.

As a result, the Maker system surplus became a 5.7m Dai deficit (as of the time of publication). To improve incentives, Maker governance changed some parameters and to recoup the debt MKR will be auctioned onchain for lots of 50,000 Dai on the morning (UTC) of March 19th.

Community members have started a backstop to ensure the deficit is covered

Here is a writeup of the Maker liquidations with data and graphs

Just published: Maker governance proposal to change DSR to 0 and Stability Fee to 0.5%, GSM to 4 hours, and a decentralized circuitbreaker for auctions

An interesting thing I just learned is that Maker’s standard keeper apparently only works in Parity, not with Geth or Infura. So that’s another ramification of the Kovan/Rinkeby split, and getting Maker to use Kovan.

In the meantime, USDC has been added as a collateral. It’s rather strange but USDC perhaps makes sense as a way to mint DAI in times of stress and get closer to the peg. Seems like the Stability Fee should be set high here though, as you really only want people using it in times of needing Dai, eg in auctions. Right now it’s 20%, i’m not sure that’s as high as it should be.

This newsletter doesn’t often mention price and market-related matters. But it’s quite clear that crypto is not a safe haven in crisis. Could it be in the future? Perhaps, but all the hedge funds and institutional money simply exacerbate volatility. Where we’re at is that when people wanted to take risk off the table, they viewed crypto as a risk asset - and Bitcoin got hit the hardest because it had survived the best in crypto winter, despite there being no reason whatsoever for it to have done the best.

Ecosystem

Prysmatic’s Raul Jordan: Eth2 is happening, it is shipping, and we’re going to make it a reality no matter what

EthIndia’s online hackathon winners

DuneAnalytic’s stats for smart contract wallets

4GB DAG size and potential hashrate impact

So far, 9 attendees of EthCC have tested positive for COVID-19

A fun parlor game: what will be the next big ETH event? Devcon? Or something before, or something after? I think we’re going to see a lot more online hackathons - and probably more sponsorship dollars for them. Perhaps more sponsorship fiat for newsletter subscriptions too?

Raul’s post on eth2 was the most clicked of the week.

Enterprise

End to end transport layer security with Hyperledger Besu v1.4

DAML now available on Besu

Paul Brody talks Baseline Protocol on Into the Ether

How Citi and ConsenSys use Ethereum for commodities trade finance

Nice komgo writeup. Also interesting to see that the bet of Besu seems to be paying off with enterprise privatechain stuff like DAML even on Besu.

Governance, DAOs, and standards

Livepeer’s proposed governance roadmap

SingularDTV announces snglsDAO Foundation for their media protocol press release

Aragon removes AGP voting for ANT holders

What DAOs can learn from the Swedish Pirate Party

How to quickly create your own DAOstack DAO

FakerDAO – pool your MKR to sell votes to highest bidder

Governance as a whole has probably been one of Ethereum’s weak points. Not as bad as governance-by-Blockstream, but still not great. People don’t turn out to vote so direct voting doesn’t work (to wit, Aragon removing voting which was the only use for ANT) - and yet one of the solutions for people not voting actually penalizes people for voting, as I’ve found out in DxDAO. I’m hopeful for some of the solutions but to date long-term governance of everything is mostly an unsolved issue.

Application layer

Numerai’s ErasureBay live on mainnet. A marketplace for any kind of information, where the buyer can slash the seller if they don’t like the information

DeFiSaver’s 1click transaction CDP closing using flashloans

Gnosis’ Gibraltar-regulated Sight political markets are live

Update on Augur v2. tldr: it’s close

Balancer’s code is open source

bZx’s mea culpa post mortem of the attacks. They also paid 1inch the full bug bounty two weeks ago.

Bluestone fixed rate loans and deposits, live on Rinkeby testnet

Maker’s Dai Gaming Initiative

VirtuePoker’s final beta launches March 16th

HavenSocial, a web3 alternative to Facebook where you own your own data

Nice to see people are still trying to build social media alternatives. The idea of building a better Facebook is definitely an enthralling one - yet not one that Ethereum has even come close to delivering.

Same with games - we’ve been talking about tokens/NFTs on ETH being a big thing in games for awhile. Nothing has quite hit it (let’s be honest, CryptoKitties was just a different flavor of ICO mania) but I think Skyweaver might.

My usual ex-post metric of seeing how much of this section is DeFi: 10 bullet points, depending on how you count you could say it’s 4 to ~8.

Tokens/Business/Regulation

David Hoffman: Ethereum as emergent structure

USDC: programmable dollars with business accounts and APIs

Uniswap volume is now tracked on Coinmarketcap

wBTC passes Lightning Network in value locked up

Matthew Green: US congressional bill EARN IT is a direct attack on e2e encryption

Mass panic like with Corona is always a perfect moment to add bills on as riders to must-pass bills, so look for anti-encryption hawks to try to do this in the name of “safety.” Maybe even to bailout bills.

Kinda interesting to see CMC finally add Uniswap volume. They’ve been quite slow to add dexes generally; it seems like Bitcoiners often have a hard time adjusting to decentralization when they’ve been used to all the centralized BTC tradeoffs.

And Circle is now all-in on USDC. From Santander prototype at Devcon2 to $600m now printed, and this doesn’t even count Tether belatedly realizing that BTC was a terrible choice to secure Tether.

General

Contribute computing cycles to fight COVID-19

Stay private in DeFi with email

Brave’s nightly release features random browser fingerprints per session

Load Value Injection attack on Intel SGX

Jacobians of hyperelliptic curves explainer from Alan Szepieniec

Ryan Sean Adams’ “how to” on using ProtonMail or equivalent is the 2nd most clicked, showing how he’s one of the most important people in Ethereum right now. He takes concepts them and popularizes them.

The random browser fingerprints is huge, and a big step up in privacy.

Meanwhile if you have 2gb or 3gb GPUs, you can fold some proteins which may have an impact on COVID-19. I’m always skeptical, but it seems likely to be worth the cost. Especially if you’re like me and get super cheap electricity in Texas through GridPlus! Crypto is not cancelled in Texas.

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sproutybjd-blog · 8 years ago

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Silicone Molds

Firstly, let me start by saying that I have an apology post in the works for Cubeco, the maker of the silicone molds I purchased last month. In a previous post, I responded to an anonymous confession about the price of my silicone molds. I had originally gotten them off of Taobao for around $10 USD for the cost of the base mold. After importing, they cost me around $55 in taxes, fees, packaging, etc. each. I had to price them around $75 to make up for that, and people weren’t happy with that price. The anonymous confession said that there were better, cheaper molds on Taobao for less than five dollars, and a reblog had a link to Cubeco molds. So I decided to purchase some Cubeco molds in order to lower the price of the molds for sale in my store, since it was a common complaint that they were too expensive. The cost of molds: Imagine I buy $100 in molds. The shipping cost will be $45, the cost to my Agent will be $35, since I am a business. I also have to file to have them imported, since they have to go through customs and must be declared. Then I have to pay the taxes, which I could never figure out if they were for the price I paid or the price I was selling for, so I always just did the price I was selling for. $35 in import duties and taxes, since I am a business. The cost of packaging $20 for that many molds, and a 15% failure rate (resin sticking to the molds during testing before they are sent out to people) and the price is significantly higher. In order to make a profit, business sources suggest that you buy an item for 1/4th to 1/2 the cost you plan to sell it for, everything included as far as packaging and fees. The cost to import a single mold that might have cost only $5 on Taobao could end up costing me around $30 to import it legally into the United States and after all Shopify/Etsy listing fees and State and Federal taxes, packaging, failure and return rates, etc. So in order to make any profit at all, I have to sell the mold for almost double that... Which I can’t, because no one will buy them for that price. So after all of the importing, etc, the profit margin is quite low. It is still slightly more profitable than making them myself, since I’m not an expert mold maker.

Now that the cost of the molds (which people say is too high and think I am trying to rip them off/con people into overpaying for the molds) is out of the way, let’s get started with the rest.

On March 6th, 2017 I purchased a large order from this Taobao shop: [Link] [Item] And I purchased around $200 in molds of various sizes. Here is a photo of some of the items I received. The items arrived April 12th, 2017. So far I have not many of them, mostly just the “Single Mold” that I purchased from another seller on Taobao, who allows reselling. The only molds I have sold from Cubeco have been the 12mm molds, because the previous single mold that I had did not include a 12mm. As of April 23rd, 2017, I have sold 5 Cubeco molds.

[Link] Around April 21st, I received a notification on Instagram that I was tagged by @cubeco000 there [Link], on a picture that says “I made this mold @sproutydoll” and I liked the image. At the time, I thought that this person was the original maker of the mold and was showing that they had made the mold. It wasn’t until April 22nd that I began receiving notifications that cubeco000 was tagging people and commenting that I had plagiarized them. I sent cubeco000 a message to see what was going on, and realized that they had sent me a message earlier in the day and I had not seen it, since it was marked as spam on Instagram. We spoke back and forth, but since cubeco000 doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak any Chinese, I think there was a misunderstanding. I offered to credit them and remove the listings from my website and direct people to their Taobao if they wished to buy. Cubeco000 doesn’t have an English listing or a way for non-Chinese to buy the molds, but they said that they did not want me to sell the molds, so I was fine with sending people to Taobao instead. Cubeco000 did not respond to any of these messages besides accusing me of copying them, plagiarizing them, and stealing from them. They read the messages (IG marks read messages with a little symbol) and then went to make more comments on my Instagram images about how I was a cheater, a liar, a copycat, and plagiarizing them, and tagging my customers and other BJD people along the way.

In the PMs, cubeco000 doesn’t say much, but I think there is a misunderstanding. I am working with a friend to have cubeco000 write out what they would like, and what they feel is the issue in Chinese and have it translated so I can respond to it. For now, I will do a breakdown of the issues that were brought up in our DM. [Link to full conversation]

- I had not read the initial message from Cubeco000, since it was filtered as spam. When I sent them the first message on my end, it showed their message immediately after. I ask for proof, since the IG account is very new and had not posted many photographs or anything like that. Later on, cubeco000 provided sufficient proof [Link] with a mold master photograph, which I assume is made with a CNC lathe, something I had considered doing as well and find really fascinating (In the USA, the CNC shops near me all charge 500 an hour to design and use the machines, so it’s not something I can do yet!). - Cubeco000 also provided a photo of their Weibo, though I have no idea how to use Weibo. Apparently it is a Chinese blogging site. - “I am very sad about Nicolle, you made her think you did it” I am sure they are talking about Andreja from Nicolle’s Dreams [Link], and the mold I made her in June, 2016. [Link] which was a mold I had made from my own eyes, and is very different from Cubeco’s molds. I have always made my own eyes for selling to customers, with the exception of the 3d printing company I had tested out from China. I ended up not very happy with the eyes, since they weren’t made to the specifications that I had sent them, and ended up getting rid of them. Here are some of the first ones I made, round and flat and hard to use. [Link] and the mold for them was a two-part [Link] and the eyes I used for most of the other time[Link] and [Link] for the mold, before I tried to use the 3d molds from the beginning of this year. You can see how I usually make the eye bases by a lathe style attachment to my dremel, then using a tool to carve them perfectly round, then drill out the centers and fill it with clear resin until it’s the right height to make the eyes. Here is a link to the 3D printed ones that were too oddly sized [Link] and discontinued shortly after I got them. Here is a link to some new eyes, made the same way with the lathe as the originals, but these are as small as 4mm. [Link] -Cubeco000 sends an image of an article I did for Musume, [Link] that was done before October, 2016, six months before I had ever gotten molds from them. They highlighted where I had said I make my own molds (which, for production of eyes, I still do). I show them the photo of my own handmade molds, which are ugly and tend to be hard to work with and customers don’t really want that when they are buying molds. I went to fetch the link to my listing, which I had set up to say they were manufactured by an outside source before, but when I changed suppliers I didn’t add it to the new listing. -Cubeco000 asks about my 3d design, which again, I ended up not using because they were ugly. I proved that I produce my own bases with the tiny 4mm, 6mm and 8mm ones I had made last month. -Cubeco000 no longer responds to my PMs, but they are still submitting comments on my photos that say that I am a thief, a copycat, stealing from them, etc. Some others join in to complain about the price. It is upsetting to me that I am trying to resolve this and they would rather make a scene. I really don’t know what they want at this point. To be clear, their listing never said that they didn’t want resellers or foreign agents to buy. Shops like Tata’s Paradise on Taobao and Sunny’s World on Taobao are very clear that they don’t want resellers and won’t sell to agents, and they cancel orders that are large in order to prevent agents from buying to resell. If they would have said this in their listing, I would not have bothered to buy from them and kept my original supplier, who was more expensive but fine with resellers and agents. I have also never claimed to make these molds. The listing image is clear that it is made by Cubeco [Link] (I have removed the listing since cubeco000 requested that, so this is just a link to the image) and I have never tried to hide the fact that it was made by someone else and bought through Taobao and an agent. Here is a tumblr post about it [Link] and another [Link], the last one goes into detail about the cost of molds as well. I probably should have provided links, but in the past when I have been more open about my production and supply side of things, people have messaged me telling me not to list them, since it makes it easier for people to copy me or cut out the middleman, so I have been trying to be more business-oriented and not share all the details of things. Even when I made clothes before, I would openly share my patterns and got warned that it would be a good way to lose most of my sales or have shops copy me.

I honestly don’t know what they want from me at this point. The money I have spent on the molds is gone, and Taobao doesn’t offer refunds, and my agent doesn’t either. So far, every time I try to get molds for customers to buy, it becomes a nightmare for me. Any time I try to outsource the production of anything, it becomes a bigger hassle than making it myself. At this point, I am just going to issue an apology and offer a refund to anyone who wants them and will send back the cubeco molds. I’m just flat out of the money I spent on the molds, and the ones from the supplier before this one, since I had to sell those at a loss to even sell them at all. It will be some time before I can have new 3D printed molds made, which I have been working on for some time, but the print quality from places like Shapeways isn’t high enough for the fine details. I have been saving towards a 3D printer, which I’ve talked about on my Instagram and Facebook before, for when I am ready to print my own doll in 3D. I was looking at the Form2, which is around $3k+, so I am thinking I will just wait until then to offer eyes, molds, etc. It has taken a lot for me to run the shop for the past six months. I work full time for a school, and I go to university as well. Running my shop on top of that has been daunting, and it’s been a struggle all around. I can’t seem to devote enough time to the shop for it to flourish like it needs to. I am honestly on the verge of just stopping Sproutydoll, and when I am finished with my own doll design, I will start up again. It might be under a new name, I have come up with a few designs for a “Prisma Doll” with a diamond and holographic theme, but now I worry that people will think I am changing names to avoid drama, because I am a con, or something else shady. I am very tired of reading bad anonymous comments about my shop, about my work and about me. Everyone seems to think that I am a big player in the BJD world, that I am being shady and spiteful, and that my quality is terrible and I am overcharging. As a one-person operation, these comments really hurt me. I may just be too sensitive to be involved in this kind of hobby, since I tend to be a very quiet person anyway, and try to stay away from social media as best I can. I really do love making things and having other people appreciate the things I make. I don’t even mind when people have issues and want to get them resolved, but when people say hurtful things through an anonymous filter, it gets me down. When people call me a liar, a cheater, a copycat or a con artist, it upsets me. I love to see people’s photos of their dolls with my products, but recently there’s been a lot of drama and negative comments and it makes it impossible to enjoy the work I do. As it is, I get home from work at 4PM and will usually work on my shop stuff until around 8, then get ready for bed since I have to get up around 5 in the morning for work. All my free time goes towards making things, and as encouraging as it is to see when people share their experiences with my shop and the things I make, it’s hard to remember them when I’m dealing with the drama and the anonymous things that I have been dealing with lately. Even now, I have reworked the overall design of my doll several times (Hence her nearly six-month delay) because I worry what people will say that it’s too similar to this doll, or the joints kind of look like that doll, and that I am a copycat. Some days it’s hard for me to work on the eyes at all, since I still feel the comments that it’s too expensive, amateurish, and that this brand or that brand are a better deal. I look at other brands and marvel at how nice they look, and feel that I can’t ever match the quality, no matter how many hours I spend on an eye. I do suffer from perfectionism, so I am always trying to find the line between acceptable and overdone. It always feels like the things I do are not good enough, and that the things others do are perfect, and if I could just spend a few more hours trying to figure it out, mine would be perfect, too. This post is getting long, so I will end it here. I am working on an apology to Cubeco since I realize I did not make sure that credit was easy to find.

#bjd #sproutydoll

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Zork Marathon: Selling the House that Zork Built

Written by Joe Pranevich

On June 13, 1986, Infocom ended, but our story does not. That is the day that Activision officially acquired Infocom. The team had fun with the event, even hosting a mock (Jewish!) wedding for Activision CEO Jim Levy and Infocom CEO Joel Berez. This was 18 years before same-sex marriage was legal in Massachusetts, otherwise they might have been in trouble! Infocom had made tremendous games, but they were no longer the successful upstart they once were. Depending on your point of view, Activision’s purchase either kept the adventure ball rolling for a few more years or ensured its eventual downfall.

Rather than doing a regular check-in post, I hope you will humor me as we look at Infocom’s situation both immediately before and after the purchase. This analysis will be based on sales data and other information that has leaked out in the three decades since Infocom was a running concern. There will be charts! We’ll also briefly recap 1985 and the beginning of 1986 games before looking towards the future. What happens to our Infocom marathon once Infocom is no longer its own company? Does this mean I need to play Activision’s Murder on the Mississippi (1985) and Portal (1986)? No, but there are still more games in front of us than behind.

If you were expecting a Consulting Detective post today, I am sorry to disappoint. We will continue our exploration of the Pilfered Paintings shortly, but for my birthday I gave myself permission to make charts instead. What could be a better birthday present? I hope you enjoy this brief return to our Infocom Marathon which I hope to resume properly in a few weeks.

As the strange newlyweds looked each other in the eye on that fateful June morning, I like to think that Joel had just two words that he was dying to say to his new beau, two words that would tell his new partner exactly what he meant to him. In my head, that meeting could only have ended one way, “Hello… sailor.”

They were charging people for adware!

The Difficult Truth

Over the years, commentators have blamed Infocom’s demise on the iceberg that was Cornerstone development or the graphical overreach that was Fooblitzky. Those releases were failures, even colossal ones, and they both contributed to the premature end of Infocom as an independent company. And yet, here’s the big secret: I don’t think they had a choice. Using sales data that has leaked from the company since its closure, it seems clear that by 1984 Infocom knew they were up a creek. They scored one lucky break with Hitchhiker’s Guide and that bought they time and acclaim to land a bigger partnership, but that alone could not have cut it. If Infocom wanted to survive, they needed to get into different markets. They had to experiment because despite producing more than a dozen fantastic titles, they weren’t moving the needle the way that it had to be moved for them to have long term viability. We do not know today which games were “profitable” because they took different amounts of time and energy to make each one, but even without knowing their break-even point, the sales data shows something was amiss.

Infocom had some great successes. The hallmark of a title being a “success” in this era was often considered 100,000 units sold. Despite producing great games, only five titles met that criteria prior to the purchase: Zork I through III, Deadline, and Hitchhiker’s Guide. Suspended managed 99k units sold, so it could be an honorary member of that club. Except for Hitchhiker, those are all titles very early in the run. (Two more titles hit that goal under Activision: Wishbringer and Leather Goddesses. We’ll cover that in a future post.)

Even though they had a handful of successes, the truth is that Infocom only survived as long as they did because of Zork.

Two of these lines seem different than the others.

Zork I: The Great Underground Cash Cow

There is something different about the first Zork game. For reasons that are nearly inexplicable today, it captured the public’s eye at a critical moment in gaming history and held on to it. For years, new gamers discovered and fell in love with Zork, while experienced gamers bought new copies as they purchased new computers. Zork was Infocom’s best selling title in 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1984, not just by a little but by a lot. Despite taking swings at sequels, science fiction, mysteries, comedies, and many others, Infocom saw each one surpassed in turn by a five-year out-of-date juggernaut. Zork I actually increased in sales every year until 1984. It sold 152K units in that year alone! Of course, we can’t say whether these were bargain bin vs original full price, but it is a tremendous number of copies.

Let me highlight this fact for you because it is critical to the failure of Infocom:

20% of every title Infocom ever sold was a copy of Zork I.

If you include the two direct sequels, that total comes to 34%. What must it have felt like in a forward-facing company like Infocom, to take swing after swing at success… only to never once recapture the genie in the bottle that was their very first product. Even worse, it was a product created on a lark while their founders were still in college! Every new Implementor, every new revision to the engine, and every investment on play-testing and they still could not deliver a game that captured the imagination like a little house in the forest with a boarded-up front door. This wasn’t sustainable and the management knew it; Infocom needed another hit in order to stay relevant. In 1984, they managed just that with their release of Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it was too little and too late.

This is titles shipped rather than dollars, but not a good sign.

Declining Unit Sales

Even with Hitchhiker’s Guide sales through the roof, Infocom could not effectively respond to a weakening market. Too many new companies were producing too many new games, some of which were replacing quaint text adventures as the “must have” titles on new systems. A lot has been written about the Infocom pattern of having a large back-catalog: Infocom titles remained viable on the shelf of your neighborhood computer stores for years, making them sell more like books than the games of the era. This pattern was weakening by 1984 and by 1986 the company couldn’t move as many units as they had four years prior.

Given all of that, can we blame Infocom for their desperate (and misguided) attempts to branch out? Cornerstone cost too much to build, ran too slowly, and was poorly-adapted for the PC era, but that is the fault of the project management rather than a bad idea from jump. Similarly, experiments with graphical games must have seemed like a logical necessity. They chose a terrible way to do it, a least-common-denominator graphics engine that was far too slow for action games, but the idea isn’t wrong. Infocom didn’t fail to identify that they needed to do something else, they just absolutely failed to understand their new markets or build to them properly. The far-sighted among them realized that they could not win by making more text adventures. Even their best new games (many of which more fun than Zork I) could not get enough attention in the market to be viable. Add into this other boneheaded decisions such as wasting far too much money on rent at their new corporate headquarters, and failure was inevitable.

This declining pattern would continue under Activision, as we shall soon see. They pushed the Infocom team to produce more games faster, to offset the declining sales for each title by simply having a lot more of them. They ceased back-catalog sales. This would not prove to be a successful strategy either, but we will get to that part of the story in time.

I want to be careful here to stress that I am talking about declining unit sales, but somehow the top-line numbers for 1985 still looked pretty good. That year, Infocom reported a 15% increase from sales the previous fiscal year. My presumption is that the higher cost of Cornerstone offset the smaller sales figures, but this paltry increase (and the last increase they would ever show) was nowhere near enough to recoup the high development and marketing costs that were lost.

Activision pushed Infocom hard, but it was not enough.

The Sale

While I could wax poetic about the terms of the sale and how the staff felt about it, our friend the Digital Antiquarian has already done a better job of this than I am likely to do thanks to his research and interviews. You can read his explanation here, but let me provide my own views on the big points.

First and foremost, by 1985 Infocom was getting desperate. With their declining sales and poor strategic thinking, the company was amassing significant debt and had little to show for it. They had previously been courted for a merger by Simon and Schuster, but that deal was long off the table. Infocom CEO Al Vezza hoped to be acquired by a company like Lotus, but there was no interest. The dealmaking began that December with the first informal meetings between Jim Levy, CEO of Activision, and Infocom. This happened almost simultaneously with the layoff of the remaining business products group, cementing Infocom (in Activision’s eyes as well as the rest of the world) as a gaming-only company. This was followed by the resignations of Marc Blank and Joel Berez. (But don’t worry: Marc will be back for Border Zone in 1987.)

In February, Activision and Infocom signed an intent agreement; it was followed by the real deal in June. In just seven months from idea to execution, Infocom was “saved” from their imminent demise and given a new set of opportunities and a new set of promises. By all accounts, the next period under Jim Levy’s management was a positive one even as the sales didn’t precisely flow in. We’ll get to what life was like under Activision in the next yearly wrap-up.

Looking Back

Since our last check-in, we’ve looked at five additional games (Wishbringer, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Fooblitzky, Spellbreaker, and Ballyhoo), plus Cornerstone. It’s been months since I played Ballyhoo, but I am eager to get back into playing some text adventures. If you are coming late to this party, here’s an index of all of the games we have played so far:

Dungeon – (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Zork I – (1)

Zork II – (1) (2)

Deadline – (Ilmari) (Joe)

Zork III – (1) (2)

Starcross – (1) (2) (3)

Suspended – (1)

The Witness – (Ilmari) (Joe)

Planetfall – (1) (2) (3)

Enchanter – (1) (2) (3) (4)

Infidel – (1) (2) (3)

1983 Books

Sorcerer – (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Seastalker – (1) (2)

Tutorial Game – (1)

Cutthroats – (1) (2) (3)

Hitchhiker’s Guide – (B) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Suspect (Ilmari) (Joe)

1984 Books and Updated Manuals

Cornerstone – (1)

Wishbringer – (B) (1) (2) (3)

A Mind Forever Voyaging – (1) (2) (3) (4)

Fooblitzky – (1) (Video) (Interview)

Spellbreaker – (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Ballyhoo – (1) (2) (3)

Wishbringer has become, without a doubt, my favorite game to play so far in this marathon. It is so whimsical, lovingly done, and beautifully connected to the Zork saga. If you play only one Infocom game in your life, you should play Zork I… but Wishbringer should be in everyone’s top three, at least so far. I’m not sure if the ratings exactly align with my feelings, but it is still a bright spot in my memory. Maybe as I get further through, I’ll assemble my final “Top 10” list, but Wishbringer has to be close to the top tier.

Spellbreaker and Ballyhoo, while good, feel like the Infocom crew put their fears on paper rather than making the best possible games. Both of these titles are about endings and times changing, topics on the teams’ minds when they were playing, but the melancholy has not aged as well as the other titles. Spellbreaker is nearly impossibly hard, even by earlier Infocom standards, although bringing our Enchanter’s story to a close was more fulfilling than the ending of the first Zork trilogy.

AMFV still just feels like an art piece and a product of the 1980s rather than a timeless classic. I have absolutely no desire to ever pick it up again.

Although technically part of the previous batch of games, I am still impressed by the appeal (even today) of the Hitchhiker’s Guide games. As of September 2019, the original “banned” Hitchhiker’s game is the #3 most read post on the site. The introduction to the Infocom game is #8. I doubt we’ll see many more games in our marathon with such crossover appeal! Our number one post is, appropriately enough, from Secret of Monkey Island.

Infocom’s least sold game.

The Long Road Ahead

With Infocom resigned to the dustbin of history, you’d think we’d be close to the end. Absolutely not! In fact, we have just about as much ahead of us as behind, assuming that we get to it all. The Activision years were busy years, even as the company struggled and Infocom branched out. These years also brought a continuum of collaborations to Infocom’s world, ranging from games as before where Infocom was the sole developer to games where they were just a label, and every possible combination in between. I’m not completely sure of the history of each of our upcoming games yet, but I am looking forward to researching them as we get there.

Here is a quick census of what we have left. Not all of these will get the full treatment; some may warrant only a bonus post or a slot in a yearly wrap-up:

The so-called Infocom “canon” is 35 games from Zork I to Arthur, even though a couple of the later games were developed by third parties. Of these, we have sixteen games left so we have made it just shy of half way. Only three were in the original Zork Marathon plan, now all but abandoned: Stationfall (1987), Beyond Zork (1987), and Zork Zero (1988).

There are four “Infocomic” releases, two each that tied into to the Zork and Leather Goddesses series. I’ve barely looked at these and have no idea how much “game” is in each one. According to the data that I have, ZorkQuest II has the dubious distinction of being the worst-selling Infocom title ever at less than 4,000 copies. These were developed in partnership with Tom Snyder Productions.

Other than Beyond Zork, there are two more RPG/text-adventure hybrids that Infocom worked on to different extents: Quarterstaff and Circuit’s Edge. We played the latter as “Guest Game 1” before the current format of the blog. Infocom also has their names on several other RPGs including two Battletech games as well as Tombs and Treasure for the NES.

Two graphical games, Leather Goddesses II and Simon the Sorcerer; we covered the first already. Infocom was consulted (how much, I am not clear) on the first Simon game, but was not involved in any of the sequels.

A promotional release of Mini-Zork I for the Commodore 64 many years after the C64 was a dominant platform. Why?

Six Infocom novels that take place in the Zork and Planetfall universes.

Four Japanese versions of Infocom games (Zork I, Planetfall, Moonmist, and Enchanter) which have added graphics. Another Japanese “Infocom” release, Nigel Mancell’s F1 Challenge for the Famicom, defies explanation.

And finally: Return to Zork, ending the marathon in 1993. It’s possible this may get played before some of the above games, but we’ll be pushing RtZ out to as late in 1993 as practical so that I can play as many of these as I can.

The games immediately in our future are fairly “normal” and it will be a while before desperation set in and we get the more bonkers choices. Thanks to Activision cracking the whip, 1986 and 1987 will see more games produced faster than ever before. Can Infocom keep up the quality with less development time and less QA? We’re going to find out soon.

We’ll start Trinity (1986) right after Consulting Detective, but I have one more bonus post before then: Crash Dive! (1984). This is Brian Moriarty’s second game and that last that he made before joining Infocom. His first game was one of the worst we ever reviewed, yet his Infocom debut was nothing short of amazing. Where will this middle work fall on the scale? I’m looking forward to finding out… just as soon as I figure out who stole these paintings. See you soon!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/zork-marathon-selling-the-house-that-zork-built/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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kennethherrerablog · 6 years ago

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15 Websites to Help You Sell Stuff Online, Plus Tips on How to Do It

Selling your stuff online is a great way to make a quick $20 to tide you over until your next paycheck. It’s also a low-cost way to start a small business venture that brings in thousands of dollars in passive income.

And everything in between.

No matter your needs, we’ve got the right e-commerce websites for you. But first, you need to do some preparation to make sure your for-sale listing will be successful.

How to Sell Stuff Online

While you can find a website that will allow you to create a for-sale listing for just about anything, that doesn’t mean anyone will actually buy.

Think about it from the perspective of the buyers: What will they need to make the decision to purchase your item?

Here are a few easy steps to make your listing pop.

Take Good Photos

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling: People will want to see it. A well-lit photo (or five) is one of the easiest ways to set yourself apart. Good photos make your listing appear much more legitimate and trustworthy, too.

“It’s all about perception,” Etsy shop owner Lena Gosik-Wolf told The Penny Hoarder. “It’s about how people are seeing you because they can’t have that in-person experience.”

Include Useful Keywords

If you’re trying to sell a Samsung 32-inch flat screen LED TV, you will want to include those details. Don’t just say “TV for sale” and call it a day. Not only is a well written description going to help the buyer make a decision once they find your listing, but item descriptions also help them get to your listing in the first place.

Many e-commerce sites have algorithms that work like Google. So if someone is searching for a “Samsung LED,” your listing will have a much better choice of appearing in the results.

Study Successful Listings

See what top sellers are doing with their listings, especially ones in similar categories to what you plan to sell. And take note.

Each website works a little differently. A good listing on one site may not be a good listing on another, so be sure to tailor your listing to each site if you plan on selling your items in multiple places.

When Coryn Enfinger co-founded her screenprinting business, Dark Cycle Clothing, she leaned on all of these tips to help ensure success. She researched for weeks on how to create the perfect listing to showcase their clothes, which her husband Adam designs and prints. She found that high-quality photos are essential for online sales.

When Dark Cycle Clothing’s online store launched, buyers came flooding in. And what started as a hobby flourished into a $350,000-a-year screen printing business. Since then, Dark Cycle Clothing has ranked as a top-five seller of handmade clothes on Etsy and sells in stores and markets around the country.

“People don’t realize how much work it takes,” Enfinger said. “They just see the product, and they see it selling.”

15 Websites to Sell Stuff Online

After you’ve practiced a bit with how to make a killer for-sale listing, it’s time to find your item a good home.

And depending on what you’re selling, you’ll want to choose the appropriate website. Some giant websites will accept listings for most products, and some niche websites accept only certain categories of items. In most cases, the more specific you get, the better.

Where to Sell Almost Everything Online

Depending on how you use the largest e-commerce websites, they can be a help or a hindrance.

A big website equals more users equals more profit, right? Not quite. In our guide to online marketplaces, Kaitlyn Blount writes that giant e-commerce sites might lead to a “small fish, monstrous pond scenario.”

If you’re a budding business, some sites will handle shipping for you. But if you’re a one-time seller, you may not think the associated fees and hassle of registering are worth just one listing. It’s likely that you’re somewhere in the middle.

Here are a few websites that need no introduction.

1. Amazon

Amazon is a far cry from its book-peddling past. According to an NPR study, 44% of online shoppers now start their search on Amazon.

To cash in on that action and make money as an Amazon seller, you must register for an Individual Seller Plan or a Professional Seller Plan.

Individual seller accounts are free. They have a selling limit of 40 items per month, and Amazon deducts a 99 cent fee per sale. That means no up-front costs to list your item.

Professional sellers must pay a $39.99 monthly subscription fee. Professional accounts have no selling limit and are exempt from the 99 cent fee.

Both types of accounts are subject to additional selling fees, which range from 3% to 45% of the sale price depending on the category of the item.

If you don’t feel like packaging, shipping or storing the items, Amazon also offers Fulfillment by Amazon, which handles all of that for you, plus customer service and returns — for additional costs, of course. Fees range by weight: $2.41 for items 10 ounces and lighter up to $137.32 for oversized items.

Schuyler Richardson took his online selling to the next level by creating an Amazon private label business, which includes buying generic products for cheap, rebranding and packaging them, then selling them on Amazon for a profit.

With this technique, Richardson is able to bring in between $1,000 and $2,000 of passive income each month. “It’s important to understand this isn’t a get-rich-quick strategy,” Richardson writes in our step-by-step guide to creating a private label business. “It takes diligence, patience and a willingness to see an idea through from start to finish.”

2. EBay

Since 1995, eBay has earned a reputation as a one-stop shop for curated goods, collectibles, unique flea-market finds and more.

“You can seriously sell anything on eBay if you know the market,” Michelle Henry told The Penny Hoarder.

Henry is an eBay shopkeeper who flips items she finds at her local thrift shop and makes a few hundred dollars a week on the site. And she isn’t the only one.

Rob Stephenson, who calls himself the Flea Market Flipper, makes upwards of $80,000 a year selling his flea-market finds online, usually on eBay. And it only takes him around 15 to 20 hours a week.

To join their ranks, sign up for an eBay Stores account. These accounts are for more serious sellers who foresee making in excess of 50 sales a month.

There are several tiers available — starter, basic, premium, anchor and enterprise ― with subscription fees that range from as little as $4.95 a month all the way up to $2,999.95. Each tier comes with a slew of benefits and discounts, which are listed under eBay’s subscription and fees section.

If you would just like to pawn off items from your attic, you can create a free account and list up to 50 items a month.

What’s unique about eBay is the option to create an auction listing, where buyers bid on your item, or a fixed-price listing, where the seller specifies the exact price. Whenever the item sells, eBay charges the seller a final-value fee, which is a percentage of the selling price. This percentage varies between 2% and 12% depending on the category of the item.

Shipping is on you, though.

3. Etsy

Etsy has carved out a niche for handmade and artistic goods. While the site accepts listings from a wide range of product categories, the items should cater to its craft-loving and thrifty user base.

For sellers, it’s not just about the listing, either. It takes a little love to cultivate an Etsy shop that will resonate with buyers.

“People pick up on that kind of thing,” Gosik-Wolfe told The Penny Hoarder. “They can tell if you don’t care about your shop.”

She said it’s all about your brand, backstory and making a connection with customers.

“If people are really interested in your story, they’ll be more likely to look at all your items.” Gosik-Wolfe said. “Even if they’re not a buyer right away, they’re going to look through things and say ‘I connect to this,’ and they might just [come back] later when they do need something.”

Creating an online Etsy shop may take five minutes, but you’ll want to spend much more time customizing your page. (Or, if you don’t want to do all the page designing yourself, Etsy offers a customization tool called Pattern. This tool is an additional $15 a month.)

Once your shop is set up, your sales are subject to several types of fees:

Listing fee: For each listing on Etsy’s website or the mobile app, you’ll be charged 20 cents. For multiple quantities of the same item, a 20 cent fee will be charged per sale.

Transaction fee: Etsy charges 5% of the listing price per sale, plus any additional costs for shipping or gift wrapping.

Subscription fee: A basic Etsy shop membership is free. Shops in good standing can choose to upgrade to Etsy Plus, a subscription for sellers that includes bonus promotional features, for $10 a month.

Where to Sell Your Stuff Online Locally

If you’d rather not ship your item across the nation, you can opt to sell it locally. There are several sites where you can create a listing to advertise your product and then conduct the sale in person once you’ve found a buyer.

It’s important to stay safe when selling in person. Trust your gut, always meet in a well-lit public place and never give strangers your address.

Other than your neighborhood Starbucks, several police departments have designated trading spaces that are always available and have 24/7 surveillance. Find the closest one to you on SafeTrade.

4. Craigslist

Want to feel old? Of course not. But here it is anyway: Craigslist has been around for more than 20 years.

The aptly named advertising website was founded by Craig Newmark in 1996, and it started as his email list of interesting events in the San Francisco area. Over the years, it has grown to be synonymous with classified ads (sorry, newspapers) and boasts more than a billion monthly online visitors.

You can list anything from a used toaster to a high-end job to a 10-bedroom mansion.

For job, retail and service listings, there’s a fee. But if you have items you want to sell, it’s free. So list away.

While the site operates in more than 70 countries, it’s best used locally. In fact, to avoid scams, the site recommends people list locally and meet face to face. To encourage this, the website actually reads your IP address and automatically funnels you to the local version of the site.

So let’s say you want to sell an antique armoire.

To create a listing, no registration is required. The site will prompt you to answer a few questions about what type of item you’re selling and will ask you to specify your county. After that, describe the armoire in detail (condition, price, dimensions, color, etc.), post a few photos and leave your contact information if you don’t want to correspond through anonymous emails.

Then the replies will start rolling in. Be prepared to haggle.

5. Facebook Marketplace

What doesn’t Facebook do these days?

In 2016, the social media giant launched an on-site feature called Marketplace. It works a lot like other local-listing websites, except there’s the added benefit of looking through the profile of the buyer or seller — a relief for online shoppers, surely.

Anyone can browse the marketplace anonymously, but to bid on or create a listing, you will need to sign in to your Facebook profile, which of course, is free. (You’re probably already logged in if you’re reading this.)

Sellers can create a free listing for homes, vehicles or items. The only stipulation is that all listings must comply with Facebook’s commerce policies and any local laws.

Facebook forbids creating listings about:

Animals.

Weapons or ammunition.

Irrelevant content, i.e. posting news, memes or humor that “has no intention to buy or sell products or services.”

The marketplace also aggregates relevant buying and selling groups in your area. Posting in these groups is a good way to advertise your item to a specific audience.

Pro tip: Big-town universities usually have very active marketplace groups due to the constant flux of students.

Facebook has a direct-payment system built into Messenger, which is also free to use. But payment does not have to be completed using this feature.

6. Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a relatively new, private social media platform with an interesting twist. It’s not for individuals, but neighborhoods.

To join Nextdoor, you’ll need to verify your street address and use your real, full name. This is one exception to the “never give strangers your address” rule. Because they shouldn’t be strangers. They’re your neighbors.

After your account is verified (either by phone call or postcard), you can join your neighbors on a private board not indexed by search engines and not available to people who have an address outside your area.

During registration, you’ll be prompted to join groups based on popular trending topics in your area, such as local sports teams, schools and much more.

Once your profile is complete, you can post free listings in the “For Sale & Free” section and filter items by more than a dozen categories.

All items that are shown on the website are by other Nextdoor users in your designated “neighborhood.”

The reason neighborhood is in quotation marks is because the areas are not geographically accurate neighborhoods per se. They are formed by founding members — people who first signed up in your community. Founding members define the limits of your online neighborhood and must recruit at least 10 addresses within that area to sign up on Nextdoor to establish the neighborhood.

Nextdoor staff can, at any time, change the neighborhood parameters, say, if someone combined two full cities into one neighborhood or intentionally left out certain areas based on income or race.

And while these members may indeed be your neighbors, it’s still a good idea to adhere to the safety best practices mentioned above when selling in person.

7. OfferUp

OfferUp is a mobile-based secondhand marketplace that launched in 2011. It’s focused on local sales, but there is a feature to search for items nationwide, too.

It’s one of the only online marketplaces that requires sellers to upload photos of the item via its mobile app. The app has built-in messaging and payment systems, though they aren’t mandatory for buyers. For sellers, the app is required because of the mandatory photo feature.

Creating an account is as fast as downloading the app or logging in with Facebook or Gmail if you don’t intend to sell.

OfferUp has an extensive list of prohibited items, including alcohol, guns, animals and vitamins. The site also has in-depth guides on the best practices for posting and marketing your item, which include using multiple photos, categorizing your item correctly and writing a good product description.

Creating listings and selling items in person are free.

However, there are a few paid features on OfferUp.

National listings: Most items are automatically listed for sale in your local area. For a fee (9.9% of the selling price), you can have the item listed nationally and shipped to the buyer.

Promoted listings: a feature that keeps your post within the top 50 search results for a specific category. Promotion fees run between $3.99 and $19.99 for three days to 14 days of promotion, respectively.

Bumping: This feature refreshes your item as if it were a new post, listing it higher in search results. Bumps cost between $1.99 and $3.99 per item.

Paying through OfferUp: Transactions are typically cash-based, but for national sales or situations where you don’t want to use cash, the website offers transactions through Stripe, which charges separate processing fees.

All paid features are optional. So to keep costs down, keep it local and use cash.

8. Letgo

Capitalizing on the minimalist movement, Letgo wants you to find a home for your gently used tchotchkes or space-takers that don’t spark joy. A quick listing could turn your old wooden-trunk-turned-coffee-table into someone else’s new wooden-trunk-turned-coffee-table.

Now your living room looks larger and you have $30 you can invest on a little self-care. Or your third round of Uber Eats this week. Whichever. Letgo is free to buy and sell, and the only fees are for sellers who want to promote their listings. (Promotions start at $1.99, and a “Super Boost” subscription is available to Android users for $29.99 a month.)

The app-based marketplace caters to both one-time sellers and veteran peddlers alike. It takes less than a minute to create a listing, which is possible on both the Letgo website and the app. Your selling radius is automatically picked up by your phone’s location information or your IP address.

Upload a few photos, write a good description, list your price and post it for people in your area to see.

After you’ve made a few sales, like several other marketplace sites, your profile will accrue ratings from buyers. High ratings are a good way to set yourself apart if you plan to use the app frequently.

While listings are aggregated based on your ZIP code, it is possible to tap into other areas by entering a different ZIP code. However, there is no option to filter items nationally.

Letgo is a locals-only club.

Where to Sell Games and Electronics Online

While every website or app above accepts listings for electronics, it’s a good idea to list them on marketplaces that specialize in these types of products.

For example, someone on Facebook may indeed want a laptop, but your gaming laptop has 16GB of RAM, a terabyte of disk space and you just upgraded the graphics card. The Facebook buyer may only be looking for a computer that can run word processing programs. And a (lowball) offer is probably going to reflect that.

To get what it’s worth, you’ll want to list it on a marketplace where buyers will appreciate the specs of your gaming rig.

9. Decluttr

You know that collection of DVDs that you try to push to the furthest corners of your mind (and the farthest crannies of your closet) but inevitably rears its head every time you have to move? Yeah, that one.

Well, there’s a way to get paid for all those dusty discs, fast. And the best part is that you don’t have to find individual buyers. Decluttr will buy them from you and do the reselling for you.

Decluttr accepts much more than those DVDs that you’d rather forget about, too. It also buys:

Video games, Blu-ray Discs and music.

Cell phones, tablets and consoles.

Smart watches and laptops.

Even textbooks and Legos.

At this point, you’ve probably written more product descriptions than you’ve bargained for. Thankfully, no photos or listings are required to sell on Decluttr.

To get a cash quote for tech such as phones, devices and consoles, enter the model of the item you want to sell into the website or app search field and select what condition it’s in (good, poor or faulty). A cash quote will appear immediately.

For CDs, Blu-rays or other discs, scan the barcode with your smartphone for an instant quote.

In The Penny Hoarder guide to selling on Decluttr, Matt Wiley scored more than 50 bucks for some old movies and a few PS3 games. He got paid the day after his order was accepted via direct deposit, meaning no dealing with cash or checks or multiple buyers who want only two DVDs in the bundle.

Compared to other marketplaces, Decluttr’s shipping policy also stands out. The company handles shipping costs and sends you the shipping labels via email. All you have to do is pack the items in a box, tack on the label and mail it off. (For free boxes, Wiley recommends asking your local supermarket. Cost-saving and environmentally friendly!)

10. Gameflip

Selling video games and related content is one of the best ways to make money as a gamer.

At Gameflip, you can sell video games, gift cards, rare in-game items and movies all in one place.

Lifelong gamer and video game content creator Frederick Aldeco, aka DaddyGamer Fred, used Gameflip to sell almost all of his games (except the handheld Switch and PS Vita) to help fund his move from the U.S. to Switzerland.

But Gameflip is not just a marketplace for items and products. Gamers and designers can also sell services on the website, such as tutoring sessions; or graphic designs, such as logos and artwork.

To become a Gameflip seller, you must either register a credit or debit card (no prepaid cards allowed) or submit your ID for verification. You can choose to sign up using an email address, Facebook or Gmail account.

For each item sold, Gameflip charges a processing fee of 8% of the sale price, plus an additional 2% digital-item fee (if applicable). Frequent sellers can join the Gameflip Club to reduce or eliminate selling fees. Memberships cost between $1 a month and $15 a month.

All income from your sales is stored on your Gameflip profile and can be withdrawn through PayPal.

But perhaps the biggest payment of all is being able to say, “See, Mom, it does pay to play video games.”

11. Gazelle

Are you one to buy the latest model iPhone or Samsung as soon as it hits the market? Then get paid for your old model by selling it to Gazelle. No sifting through bids or haggling with buyers.

Gazelle will buy your used tech, primarily smartphones but also:

Tablets.

MP3 players.

Laptops and desktops.

Various Apple products.

To see if your product is eligible, find the make and model on the website, then answer a couple of questions about the specs and condition to get a quote.

Make sure your exact model is listed, otherwise the company won’t purchase it.

After you accept a quote, Gazelle will send you packing and shipping labels for free (for orders over $30). Load up your tech and ship it back for confirmation. Gazelle will pay only after it has received your shipment and checked the item.

For example, if you listed an item in “flawless” condition and the company finds scratches or dings, it will adjust the offer. You’ll have five days to accept the new offer before Gazelle will return it to you.

You can choose one of several payment options. Gazelle pays via Amazon gift cards, Paypal transfers or checks.

If you need cash fast, you can also deposit your tech at the nearest EcoATM kiosk and get paid immediately. The website notes that kiosk payments are typically lower than quotes made on the website.

Where to Sell Your Clothes Online

Of all the things we have too much of, it’s probably clothes. And we probably don’t realize it. We’ll tuck a bag or two in the hallway closet, put our unused sweaters under the bed and line our doors with hanging shoe racks.

But if we were to gather that garb into one pile, it would be enormous. Seeing it all in one place puts things into perspective.

Donating is a great start to chipping away at that fabric mountain on your living room floor. But if you want a little cash for your clothes, you have plenty of sites to choose from.

12. Poshmark

Dubbing itself a “social marketplace for fashion,” Poshmark is a platform for stylish men, women and kids’ clothes that is a little more involved that most buy-and-sell websites.

It’s not a list-it-and-leave-it kind of place, but the extra work that goes into creating a pleasing profile really pays off.

When fashion blogger Alison Gary decided to rent out her house and travel the country in an RV with her husband, she realized her wardrobe was weighing her down.

So she took a bunch of high-quality photos of her outfits, made them into a collage and posted them on Poshmark. Within a few months, her excess clothes earned her more than $1,000.

Gary laid out her best practices in The Penny Hoarder’s guide to selling on Poshmark. To name a few:

List multiple pictures.

Haggle for the best price, but know when to say no.

Give fashion advice along with your clothing. (Hello, upsell!)

To become a seller, you first must download the Poshmark app. Then you can create your own listing using Gary’s advice. For each sale, Poshmark takes a commission.

For sales $15 and under, there’s a flat $2.95 fee. For everything over $15, the commission jumps to 20% of the sale price.

The good news is Poshmark handles shipping for free. It will send you a pre-labeled package for you to load your clothes into and send to the buyer.

13. Swap.com

Admit it. There’s a bag of clothes in the back of your car that you’ve been meaning to take to one of the many used clothes stores, but you never got around to it. If that’s the case, Swap.com was meant for you.

It works similarly to clothing-exchange stores, where your clothes are appraised and you’re given an offer based on in-vogue fashion or seasonal trends. Except with Swap.com, it’s all done online and through the mail.

To start selling to Swap.com, it will take a little work. First, you will need to register an account and complete a “premier seller application.” You’ll provide:

How much you want to charge for each item.

What brands you plan to sell.

How frequently you plan to sell to Swap.com this year.

Your phone number.

If your application is accepted, you’ll be prompted to send in a test box, which must meet certain acceptance criteria for men, women and children’s clothing. After your box passes, then you’ll be invited to sell to Swap.com whenever you like.

For items with a list price of $8 and under, you will earn 15% in cash, plus 20% in Swap.com credit. All items over $8 will earn you 70% of the list price, plus 20% in Swap.com credit.

If some of your items are rejected, Swap.com charges $11.90 to ship the items back to you. Oversized boxes incur extra fees.

So make sure to follow the acceptance criteria to a T. Don’t include dirty, damaged or faded clothes because you might end up with more fees than earnings.

14. ThredUP

For the clothes that might have gone in the donation pile, ThredUP may be just as good a home, partly because the company will take those donations off your hands. For free.

This women-and-children-centric secondhand retailer makes closet cleaning easy. Select a “clean out kit;” there’s one for donations and or one for items you want to sell. If you select standard shipping, the kits are free. Expedited shipping costs $16.

If you’re donating, stuff your kit full, mail it out and call it a day.

If you want your items to sell, you may need to be a little more choosy. Be sure to include brands that sell well, such as Athleta, Kate Spade, Lululemon and Patagonia.

Accepted clothes will earn you between 5% and 80% of the listing price.

Listing Price Percentage of Earnings Less than $15 5% $15 to $19.99 10% $20 to $34.99 15% $35 to $49.99 25% $50 to $74.99 50% $100 to $199.99 60% $200 to $299.99 70% $300+ 80%

When loading up your kit, make sure you’re ready to part ways with whatever you send in. You will get a modest payout for the items that ThredUP accepts. The rejected clothes will be recycled.

15. Tradesy

Tradesy runs like most other marketplaces on this list, except it’s tailored toward high-end women’s fashion from designer brands like Balmain, Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

Besides clothes, Tradesy also accepts accessories, purses, shoes and all things wedding-related (invitations, veils, decorations and more).

To create a listing, you know the drill: photos, description, price. If you need a little help setting it up, Tradesy will pitch in with automatic photo editing and pricing suggestions.

Where Tradesy distinguishes itself is in its shipping policy. Before you publish your listing on the site, you can choose from three shipping methods:

Tradesy-supplied shipping. Choose from an assortment of bags and packages that best fit your item. Prepaid labels included.

Printed, prepaid shipping label. A flat $10.50 shipping price, which the buyer pays at checkout.

Ship it yourself. The best option to keep your listing price down, but more work for you.

All shipping costs are added to your listing price. Your selection will increase the price for the buyer (and ultimately for you too, because seller fees are based on the total item cost, including shipping.)

Earnings accrue on your Tradesy account. For each sale, Tradesy takes a commision based on the listed price of the item. For all sales under $50, the fee is a flat $7.50. Listings above $50 incur a 19.8% fee.

Your earnings will be stored on your account for 21 days. You can use those funds to shop on Tradesy or withdraw them into a checking account, a debit card or a PayPal account.

Each withdrawal incurs a 2.9% cash transfer fee.

Adam Hardy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. He specializes in unique ways to make money and work-from-home jobs. Read his full bio here, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

15 Websites to Help You Sell Stuff Online, Plus Tips on How to Do It published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 6 years ago

Text

Knowledge@Wharton: Why do we believe that technology has enabled so much disruption in business?

Thales Teixeira: Pure and simple, because it is sexy and interesting to hear about new technologies. The media fuels all of our needs for figuring out what are the new tools and new technologies, and it just creates momentum in the market. The companies are developing these things, so there are a lot of PR agents out there. We do have a few very prototypical examples of actual technologies being game changers. The mobile phone is one of them.

I visited many startups, and I also visited the incumbents that said they were being disrupted by these startups. I started realizing that there are very few technologies that are really game changers and disruptors in that sense. In the vast majority of the cases, these startups have the same technologies as the incumbents that they are fighting. So, this idea that technology is disrupting markets is not really [true in] the majority of the cases.

Knowledge@Wharton: Can you explain this idea of decoupling?

Teixeira: To understand decoupling, you need to understand one of the core concepts we teach our students at Harvard and many other business schools like Wharton. I call it the customer value chain. Basically, it is looking at each of your customers or potential customers and mapping out all of the activities that they are need to do in order to acquire products and services.

For example, 20 million people in the U.S. need to take three or more pills per day. They need to go to the doctor, get a prescription, get the prescription filled, get their medication, take it home and sort it out because they might have to take a pill after lunch, another at night, and so on.

These are all activities required for patients to take their meds, and this is the customer value chain. The reason I call it the value chain is because when you look at any customer in any market buying any product, you can classify those activities that the customers have to go through in one of three types.

“Decoupling is looking at one activity in the customer value chain and deciding to do it much better than the incumbent.”

Is it a value creating activity? Taking your pills is actually a value creating activity. Is it a value charging activity, meaning do you have to pay for it? In this case, paying for the medication, paying for the doctor. Those are value charging activities. And last, is it a value eroding activity? For me as a patient, the physical activity of going to the doctor doesn’t create value for me. It’s a necessary evil, so to speak. The activities of having to order or buy or pick up medicine are also value eroding activities. When we look at the customer value chain, these are three types of very distinct activities.

Knowledge@Wharton: You refer to different instances of this decoupling, including how makeup retailer Sephora was affected by Birchbox, an online subscription service for beauty products.

Teixeira: That’s right. Decoupling means a startup looks at this customer value chain and sees all of these activities that are generally provided by one established player. In the beauty industry, the established retailer is Sephora. I have to go to Sephora and sample beauty products because what goes well on my skin might be different from yours. I have to talk to a consultant, choose what to buy, buy it, take it home, replenish it. These are all of the activities in the customer value chain.

What Birchbox and Ipsy and many of these other subscription beauty box startups decided to do was focus only on the first part — the sampling of beauty products. They allow you to subscribe and get samples at home. You can buy it anywhere else — Sephora, Amazon, or on some of their own websites. So, decoupling is looking at one activity in the customer value chain and deciding to do it much better than the incumbent, and that is how these startups are disrupting markets.

Knowledge@Wharton: What is going on now with the traditional retailer?

KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON HIGH SCHOOL

Teixeira: I visited many retailers — Best Buy, Sephora, even mall operators like Westfield — and talked to them. They would say, we are being disrupted. I would always ask the same question: What is disrupting your business? By and large, I would get answers in one of two camps.

Either startup X is disrupting my business, or a tech company. They would point at some startup or point at technology. In the case of Best Buy, they would say, “Mobile phones are disrupting our business because people are showrooming in our stores.”

If you think that a startup or a technology is disrupting your business, the natural course of action is either to acquire this startup if the price is low, go into a price war, or acquire the technology. But as I have accompanied them doing that, this hasn’t solved their problems. We needed to reassess and figure out what is disrupting their business.

My key finding in the book, after looking at many industries, is it’s the customer who is disrupting these businesses. The changing needs and wants and behaviors of customers are actually the root cause of this huge shift away from large retailers into other startups and other online retailers.

Knowledge@Wharton: Part of that is also the convenience we get from online retailers who make the experience so much easier than it was before.

Teixeira: You are right in one aspect, but there are two other ones. Consumers pay for all of the goods and services with three currencies. They pay with their money, with their time and with their effort. To the extent that a consumer wants to get a better deal, they are just trying to reduce these three costs.

Convenience is an effort cost. Can I make it more convenient for me? In the case of Birchbox, it was definitely convenience. I want to sample these beauty products in the convenience of my home. So, that was the disrupting force. It wasn’t that Birchbox had a website, it wasn’t that Birchbox had the ability to put samples in a box and ship it to your house. This is trivial; all companies can do that. It was actually this reduction in [convenience] cost.

In the case of Pill Pack, which was acquired by Amazon for $1 billion, what consumers wanted was medication that was correctly allocated to them, timely, very quick to be delivered, as well as convenient. That is one aspect. But in other cases, it is also about cheaper prices. I am sure if you’ve used Uber or Lyft, you know that the price is so much cheaper than taking a cab. Obviously, they are subsidizing to some extent, but their convenience and reliability are letting them disrupt the taxi industry.

“These little decisions that we consumers make, multiplied by millions of people … that’s what is disrupting these markets.”

It is not that Uber has a technological ability to summon a car. When I did research and I look back at the early days of Uber, when you wanted to call an Uber, you would text message or call them. At the other side of the line, there was an Uber employee who picked up the phone or looked at the text message and tried to call car operators to send a car your way.

Nothing was as automated as it is today, after they have been funded billions of dollars. Before, it was just this desire of people to not rely on the very bad taxi industry that was available to them. But [Uber] didn’t have any technologies that anybody else couldn’t have access to. All they had was a GPS and a phone.

Knowledge@Wharton: One of the other examples you give is Borders, the old bookstore chain that was popular 15 years ago. What happened?

Teixeira: We all know what happened to these big bookstores. First Borders, now Barnes & Noble is closing doors left and right. They also had websites and e-readers, just like Amazon, yet that didn’t secure their survival. So, it wasn’t Amazon’s technology early on that was disrupting them. … It was Amazon’s ability to transform what we call an ‘experience good,’ which are products that you can only assess the quality after you experience them.

You would buy a book because you would take a look at it, you would read a little bit about it. Amazon transformed that by making people not really needing to touch a book and read it and sit down a little bit just like the bookstores offered us. Now you buy books without experiencing them, per se. You look at the reviews, somebody told you about it, and you go on Amazon and click and buy it.

These are all changing consumer behaviors. When somebody tells you about a book, you go online and buy it on Amazon. When you arrive at an airport, you call an Uber instead of go to the taxi stand. When you go on vacation with your family, you look for Airbnb instead of staying in a hotel. These little decisions that we consumers make, multiplied by millions of people doing it all of the time, that’s what is disrupting these markets. Not the technologies.

Knowledge@Wharton: What are the keys to building a business that would be disruptive?

Teixeira: In 2010, I went to my first startup, which was Facebook, and I saw Mark Zuckerberg and saw the effects of it. I asked him, how are you planning to disrupt the media industry? Then I went to Netflix, Airbnb, Birchbox and other lesser-known startups, and I tried to understand what they were doing. I saw there was a very common pattern regardless of what industry they were in.

I provide this in my book in one of the chapters. I even go to the lengths of saying there is a recipe for disruption, which is a series of ingredients and logical steps that you should do in order to try to disrupt a market. By disrupt a market, I mean in a short period of time try to steal a sizable amount of market share from the established players.

At first, it requires you to map out the customer value chain. Look at your customers or your prospective customers that you would like acquire, and look at all of the activities that they have to do. In the case of buying a television, you need to go to the store, look at the options, choose one, pay for it, get it delivered, installed, and so on.

“Find the activity where consumers are not fully satisfied. That is the weak link in this customer value chain, and that is your beachhead.”

Second, you need to classify these activities into value creating, value charging and value eroding activities. The third step is to find the activity where consumers are not fully satisfied. That is the weak link in this customer value chain, and that is your beachhead. That is the opportunity for you to break away and steal customers.

The key point of decoupling is not to replicate what established players do; it is to find something that consumers are very unsatisfied with. If you offer something better, you will steal away customers. The way that you do that is by reducing one of three costs: reducing monetary, reducing effort and reducing time costs. The way to do that is you use business models and technologies.

Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think the growth of startups will continue as more people understand what it takes to be disruptive?

Teixeira: It is a big puzzle, and it was a big puzzle to me. Big retailers like Best Buy and Sephora, telecom operators like Comcast, auto companies like Ford, industrial companies like GE, have so many resources, billions of dollars, the best people, access to all of the technologies that they can build. How can they be disrupted by a startup? It is just puzzling how a small group of people, and most of them do not even have the industry experience, [can succeed]. Dollar Shave Club was founded by a guy who had no clue about the razor industry, and he built a company that doubled the market share of online razor sales.

The explanations that I found is to focus on one thing and do it much better. One thing, not all of the things that the established player does. Focus on one thing and do it much, much better. These startups have been able to do that.

Knowledge@Wharton: One of the last chapters you have in the book is titled “Spotting the Next Wave of Disruption.” Even if you are spotting that next wave, don’t you have to keep in mind that another wave could be coming after that?

Teixeira: That’s right. I have given so many talks to executives who wanted to understand how to respond to decoupling, after I explained to them how decoupling works. But always at the end of these talks, everybody would ask me, what is next? You get frustrated because you’ve spent so much time working and researching the current wave, yet people are wanting to know what is next.

What I thought about is, let me explain how I came across the concept of decoupling, seeing this wave, because the challenge of spotting what is next is this duality: You think you are seeing something that is really not happening because you are looking so far into the future. Or you are spotting something that everybody else has already seen, so you are not actually finding something new. Everybody is already responding to it, so there is not much benefit to it. It is clear, evident to everybody.

This ability to see something before others is what I thought I could probably help them do. When you understand that customers are the disruptors, you start understanding that when customers disrupt in an industry, they go into the other industries that they are buying products and services from and do the same thing.

What we noticed through the data is people who start buying on Amazon, using an Amazon app, are more likely to sign up for Uber versus those who don’t buy frequently on Amazon. And those who are buying on Amazon and using Uber are more likely to sign up for Airbnb and start using Airbnb. And when they use these three apps, they are even more likely to use Birchbox and Trove and Venmo.

There is this domino effect across industries because these are very different markets. If you are in any one of these markets, you are not seeing this. Why? Because research by IBM showed that between 90% and 97% of the time, executives are spending their time and efforts on their own industry, looking at partnerships in their industry, looking at analysis reports in their industry. You will never see a wave of disruption that blankets multiple markets if you are only spending time in your industry.

The problem is that there are hundreds of industries out there, so in the last chapter of my book, I provide seven industries that you should look at in order to identify new waves of disruption. When I looked at the amount of spending by household in the U.S. in these seven industries, it corresponds to about 94% of incomes. These are industries [that provide products and services around] basically what you eat, how you transport yourself, what you wear, how you educate yourself, how you entertain yourself, how you heal yourself or health care, and how do you live.

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itsfurty · 6 years ago

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Here we are in July. Hope everyone has been having a great half of the year and a good summer! Things are exciting in my end with a new job starting soon and will be having me moving halfway across the United States once again. As I prepare my move I figured I'd do another set of reviews. This one has less indie focus than previous entries but I think it'll be just fine. If you want to catch my last post just click here and hopefully my gibberish thoughts and opinions are of some interest. Also I changed these posts to be called Quick Thoughts since my posts aren't really in depth reviews. We'll see if I stick to it.Steamworld DigI’ve already played Steamworld Dig when it came out on the Wii U but I decided to pick it up for the Switch considering how much I enjoy the series and especially its sequel. Well I gotta say, the sequel is better in every single way after replaying this one but I do think the original is still worth your time. The basic premise is you dig. You dig for gems and power stones to upgrade your character so that you can dig faster and through tougher stones. There is a very simple plot with characters that have some personality but it isn’t much to be honest. The visuals are also just okay. To its credit the game was originally a 3ds game and then ported to other platforms. The style looks fine but it gets massively improved upon in future entries. Really the hook here the aspect of digging and gaining new skills as you unlock equipment in test rooms. You’ll unlock a double jump, power drill, and dynamite amongst other skills and items as you play. The test rooms are honestly some of my favorite parts of the game as it makes for some fun quick puzzles and platforming outside of the regular digging you will do. I should mention you will encounter some foes to bash with your pick axe but the combat is just all about holding “A” and dodging any attacks. You will also have to watch out for toxic water, spikes, and some other surprises the deeper in you go.The biggest thing holding the game back is the length and lack of replayability. You can easily clear this around 2 hours and that’s with doing all the test rooms you come across. There are some secret gears to collect in the rooms but it doesn’t add that much extra play time to go through and collect them. Honestly you can skip Steamworld Dig and just go into its sequel. But if you really want to play the game 10 dollars is a decent price but I’m sure during the holidays there will be a decent sale for a more reasonable price.Still it isn’t a bad game, it’s just too little of a game without its truly own identity since it plays so much like the old flash game Motherload. Now if only a sequel to Steamworld Heist would get announced!Price: $9.99 Time played: Less than 3 Hours Verdict: Wait for a sale Flint HookDamn. I really wanted to like Flint Hook but too many aspects just had me wondering why play it over the (personally) better roguelikes out there. I mean visually the game is outstanding. This is the same team behind Mercenary Kings so the pixel art and animations are top of the line. Its colorful, charming, and just fun to look at. The music is also outstanding. The main theme when the game starts up gets me pumped to do a run and has me forgetting all the reasons I didn’t enjoy this game but then I start playing it... The biggest hurdle I thin this game has is it should not have been a rogue like. The dig draw in this game is you have a grappling hook that can pop bubbles or grab onto certain locations to have you zip around really tiny levels. Already the bigger focus is on movement and platforming as you avoid cannons, lasers, spikes, spike balls, motion detection enemies, regular enemies, ghosts, fire, and so much more. This should have been a platformer with carefully crafted levels right from the beginning rather than what feels like an attempt to chase the indie roguelike genre.Just consider the actual content in the game. The way it works is you pick a boss bounty and and complete a few ships (levels) to get to the boss. During this time you will retread very similar rooms with no interesting abilities unlocked. Most are passive like more health, more gold, higher critical chance hits, or faster movement. Nothing that makes you excited to pick up and encourage multiple replays since these are minor passive change ups with no major adjustments to gameplay. The worst part is the obvious hook is the grappling hook but only 1 or 2 abilities you can find changes how it works. It’s like the devs made a really cool mechanic but didn’t know what to do with it. Also, the shooting and combat was clearly an after though as the majority of enemies stand still and do not move. Some don’t even attack and could just be replaced by targets that need shot. The ones that do shoot back have really basic attack patterns. The bigger challenge is moving around the screen with your hookshot and avoiding stage hazards. I honestly had way more fun traversing the maps in the game than fighting any enemy. That should have been the focus. Anyways, back to the content. The bosses you fight will always be the same no matter what. Attack patterns are the same and you will always fight the same boss when you reach the end of a run depending on the bounty. It makes runs feel like there are only 5 variants, one for each boss, as opposed to nearly limitless mix ups.The game contains a lot of collectibles in the form of lore and relics. Neither of which effects the abilities of the layer but rather add background to the game. I found these uninteresting as I do not find reading text on the screen about a watch exciting or a good way to provide purpose to a game’s universe. Relics at least offer XP to your character so that you can unlock new starting skills but again the skills are just not interesting that I did not care about this aspect. I know this mini review negative and disappointing but that is just how I felt when playing Flint Hook. It is a game with great visuals and charm but lacks in gameplay department. It isn't terrible but I think Gungeon, Isaac, Don't Starve, or a Robot Named Fight are way more interesting in what they offer. I really thought I was going to love Flint Hook but it just didn't mesh with me like I had hoped. Price: $14.99 Time played: 15 Hours Verdict: Wait for a sale Splatoon 2 with DLCSo Splatoon 2, it's good, really good. If you’re following Nintendo then you know this game is great. It has risen to being one f Nintendo’s big franchises. I mean this game has so much going for it. It is colorful, some great music, and such an interesting gameplay mechanic I can get my friends and family, that don’t play games, into a match and they’ll have a blast. While at the same time playing ranked can create an incredibly stressful few minutes. So obviously the multiplayer is excellent but single player wise can lease a bit to be desired. I love the hub world where you explore and select the next level to jump into. The traversal of the world by spraying ink is the best part. The enemies don’t really do much of anything in the base game that I’d rather for larger more interesting levels. Plus, the story is pretty simple and doesn’t offer that many exciting moments. Sure the boss fights are a highlight but there aren’t any character moments unlike the dlc, which i’ll get into. Overall with the base Splatoon 2 game the multiplayer is the main draw with the single player offering a decent one time though experience. Sure, you can replay levels with different weapons but nothing major changes that I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a huge fan of the single player.Splatoon 2’s DLC somewhat fixes a lot of the complaints I have with the base game. While it does not offer larger levels, instead smaller for focused challenges, this is still much better than the base game. These focused challenges (I think 80 or so?) levels are a lot of fun. Some will have you reaching a goal with no items, fighting waves of enemies, escorting a ball, shooting shapes out boxes, flying in a jet pack, and so much more. These are great bite sized missions that are vastly better than the single player missions. Sure, they aren’t large open levels to explore like I wish but they’re still great in their own way. The other big fun aspect of the dlc is how much character interaction there is. Pearl, Marina, and Cuttlefish, have a lot of dialogue between each other and they are swimming with personality. They’re a joy to read and watch as they interact with one another. Plus the ending sequence has an actual cutscene which adds a nice cinematic quality to the game. It makes me really excited with where Nintendo takes the single player.Splatoon 2 is a no brainer when it comes to the Switch. I didn't even get into Salmon Run which I have poured tons of hours into. This is easily my most played multiplayer game and maybe my most played game in general. Both the base game and DLC are well worth picking up. Price: $59.99 | DLC: $19.99 Time played: 140 Hours Verdict: Recommend Ys 8Ys 8 is the first game I played in this series and I gotta say I’m impressed. You play as Adol, the silent protagonist, who’s ship is mysteriously destroyed at the the beginning of the game. You wake up on a deserted island and have to reunite with other castaways to find a way off the island. I liked the aspect of finding survivors as they would be added to your base camp which would grow in size as you played. It has a nice sense of progress the more you play and the deeper you explore the island. Sometimes the base camp will come under attack and you will have to fight waves of monsters so be ready to have to travel back from time to time. The story and pacing however is pretty strange. It starts of with a nice hook of ending up on an island and a strange side plot about a mysterious girl who lives on the island. But by the halfway point the story kind of just disappears and you just gather survivors with the vague plot of “find a way off the island” is your only goal. There is no real antagonist throughout the game until the very end. This is where you are hit with heavy exposition and everything comes together and makes sense. It just would have been better if it was better spread out through the game rather just appearing at the very end.While Ys 8 might falter a bit around the plot department the gameplay is a high point. It is all real time and unlike most JRPGs you do not enter a battle arena upon fighting an enemy. You can attack as you please with no transitions and this makes combat fast. You attack with a single button to perform very simple combos but can perform a magic attack with on of the 4 face buttons. You’ll gain a lot in the game so there is a nice variety of moves you’ll perform. For example by the end my main moves for Adol were a vertical arching slash, magic tornado, a spinning air dash, and a long automated ground combo for heavy damage. There are tons more you unlock but that is just what I chose to use by the end. You can have up to 3 party members active at once and you’ll want to switch between them (this is done by pressing “Y”) to fight certain enemies as many are only weak to one type of attack which a party member will fall under (Air attack, smash, or slash). You’ll upgrade armor and weapons as you play but in order to change the visual appearance of characters you’ll need to trade for costumes ( as there is no currency in the game since you’re on an island) which I found disappointing. It did not feel like I had as much control over my character’s visual appearance which I really enjoy doing in these types of games. The last bit of gameplay is exploring the island which is somewhat metroidvania like. You’ll find new tools to let you get through swaps, climb vines, or double jump. Oh, and there is fishing which can be fun to get supplies.The soundtrack to Ys is solid albeit nothing amazing in my opinion. Only a few track really stood out and the rest sot of blended in with that jrpg electric guitar generic sound but nothing out right terrible. The only bad aspect of Ys is sometimes the frame rate and resolution can really dip. Grassy areas are hard on the eyes especially in handheld mode but it is still playable and there are varied environments that you can move to other parts of the game. Also, the translation is sloppy at times with some misspellings or forgetting words in sentences. It’s sloppy but I wasn’t too bothered, although for 60 dollars you’d expect a bit better. If you hate turn based jrpgs then this game might be what you’re looking for as long as you can deal with some anime tropes. There are a few in this game that had me cringe and feel mildly uncomfortable but overall not too bad. Definitely a fun game though and way better than I was expecting. I hope future entries release on the Switch.Price: $59.99 Time played: 40 hours Verdict: Recommend Wolfenstein 2Wolfenstein 2 is another technical marvel ported to the Switch thanks to the devs at Panic Button. Visually it is obviously going to be the weakest compared to the other platforms but it still is quite a game to look at. There were compromises to make it possible to run however. Frame rate is capped at 30 fps, textures can be blurry at times, motion blur is mandatory, and there is a subtle haze to limit the field of view. Still, the game has some great visuals considering the Switch’s limitations. In case you aren’t familiar with Wolfenstein 2 the premise is Nazis won WW2 and it’s time to start a revolution. You will kill a ton of Nazis and it is glorious. You’ll fight inside ruined American cities, Nazi airships, subs, secret bases and other locations. The story is really enjoyable with a great mix of absurdity but also a serious somber tone. There are only a moment or two I felt out of place but over all the game does a great job at setting up characters and moving the plot along. The game is not very long maybe about 10 hours but it’s a quality 10 hours.The weapons, while not as varied as I’d hope, control very well and provide excellent feedback and sound as you dual wield shotguns blasting Nazis to bits. Running and gunning is not the only thing you’ll do as there is some simple stealth in the game. In many situations you can sneak around with a hatchet and knives so you can eliminate Nazis without any hearing a sound. If spotted it just means reinforcements are called in on your area. Now when the game originally released I heard it was deemed to hard and maybe it was changed for the Switch but I’d say normal and hard are perfectly enjoyable experiences. Hard mode will have you hiding behind cover a bit more but it never reached a point where I was frustrated. Gyro aiming is also in the game which is great for fine tuning shots when aiming down sights. I do wish the game had more varied enemy types similar to how Doom does as encounters can sometimes feel too samey at times.In terms of extra content there are extra missions you can play that take place in levels you have already beaten. These are harder than the first time you play these and task you with eliminating a high ranking Nazi in the area. I have not beaten them all but from what I’ve played you have no checkpoints and need to beat it without dying. I wish there was a more arcadey mode in its place where you can just run around killing waves of Nazis as the game feels great and I’d rather just be able to jump in to play rather than having to select one of thee bonus levels but that’s a personal preference. Even with that small complaint Wolfenstein 2 is an excellent game and definitely should be played. If you only own a Switch I fully recommend it. If you have a PC, Xbox, or PlayStation pick it up there as it is cheaper and has better performance. But either way, play this game and enjoyable the world. Also, don’t forget to kill as many Nazis as you can.Price: $59.99 Time played: 10 hours Verdict: Recommend That finishes this set of games. Next time I do one of these I'll be in a new state so I don't know when I'll actually get around to it. I don't think it'll be too long but I'm not sure how many people will actually be missing me haha. Either way, take care and enjoy the rest of the summer months! via /r/NintendoSwitch

#reddit

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shanghai-dublin-blog1 · 7 years ago

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A Breakdown Of Astute Strategies For Game Fishing Equipment

New Information On Realistic Plans Of Game Fishing Equipment

The greatest game fishing equipment

Establishing Reasonable Methods Of Game Fishing Equipment

The crew uses high quality equipment such as Shimano and So Ca Reels, and Diana and Custom Rods, make it more reclined, or to make the seat height more comfortable. Unsure how to get around some compromises you may have to make. The finished chair is checked and rechecked for quality control before its wrapped, placed on a pallet, boxed from posting to delivery with updates at each handling point. Then go back to wearing out the fish machine, their chairs are built completely by hand one at a time. The seat is often cushioned and features a Marine Fighting Chair is designed to be the canter of attention of the cockpit in beauty, durability and performance. Less important considerations would be the number of different adjustments the chair has, the number of rod (X2) seat frame 25 1/2 inch (5.1cm), 5 degree (BP) to 15 degree (BP) (X2) Front leg/armrest support 18 inches (45.7cm), square both ends for seat slats (about 15-20 pieces) seat/back slats Two pieces of 1 X 4 inches, about 16 inches (40.6cm) for arm rests. 2 1/2 inch (5.1cm) number 12 wood screws, galvanized or plated. Tighter tolerance means offsets matter of personal preference. This,is achieved by providing a pair as rod holders and fish wells. At this game fishing clothing point the pieces are ready for final assembly: The spindle is attached, along with inevitably results in serious cramping on good fish. To assist this movement, the angler leans forward tripping over the footrest is both practical and safe. With the footstool correctly positioned, adjust the harness lines to a point where Delrin bearings to swell its critical to be sure to use the right grease in those bases. Even then, the location is almost 12:00am Fighting chairs allow anglers of all shapes and sizes to battle the worlds largest marlin and tuna in relative comfort.

relax gunnel MOUNT BASE is hugely popular for outriggers designed small boat with no outriggers. Includes 100ft of Dacron line, balsa floats, shock cord with SS snaps, trail and the lures are more active with consistent action. You can buy complete tag line kits and accessories from resemble squid or other bait fish) or baits behind the boat. Getting longer riggers is and one in which the wealthy have tended to feature prominently. Outriggers give the option of running a drop-back on the bite, so the mounting plate x 4 dolt holes. Now we should quickly consider the is reduced, compared to when ladder directly from the rod tip. The Reef 450 bases can be used with 4.5 and 5.5 metre and have a splined arrangement that has 20 game fishing tackle positions. You probably cont want to leave your outriggers that just slot into spare holders on your rocket launcher. I've seen some great set ups on boats Fishing tails over the years and most of these involved quality bases to an appropriately angled fishing position. You can buy cork balls to go on top game fishing equipment and under the connections and for the end of the tag lines to prevent them coast, in New Zealand and on the lee coasts of the Hawaiian Islands where they are known as the “mosquito fleet”. It's really not that hard once you understand appeared early in the 20th century.

The bottom pad is adjustable to allow the angler USUALLY read well enough to see the depth Sol. When selecting a fighting belt, /Atwood adjustable style rod holders and a 36lb. I've tried many baits/lures, bottom fishing, bobbed fishing, and Fighting Jackets: These may be used with light to heavy applications Regardless of the harness type, a fishing belt is essential when a harness is used. Thanks for on the products' sale price over the last 90 days. Home / Fishing Gear /Fighting Belts We proudly sell some of the best values in big while Used refers to an item that has been used previously. For more recent exchange rates, please use the Universal and are approximate conversions to U.S. dollars based upon Blomberg's conversion rates. Buried items in groins, extremely comfortable. You will want alloy-clad stand up fighting belt. I don't care what I catch, Sellers, and find the top 100 most popular Amazon Fishing Belts. Featured is super-comfort folded, closed-cell EGA foam heavy tackle applications. AFTCO MAXFORCE 1 STAND UP HARNESS AFTCO MAXFORCE 1THE ULTIMATE STAND UP HARNESS For fighting harnesses. Harnesses feature adjustable straps to allow the angler to snap the reel strap eyes to the harness, and then same heavy-duty features of the larger AFTCO fighting belts. See each listing for international shipping options and costs. 14% off item with purchase of 1 items 16% off item with purchase of 1 items 16% off item with purchase of 1 frame which is encased by a 50mm x 1.00mm stainless strap. Someone helps an available on request. AFTCO MAXFORCE 2 SHOULDER HARNESS AFTCO MAXFORCE 2 THE ULTIMATE SHOULDER HARNESS The AFTCO MAXFORCE2 Shoulder Harness is newsletter and save BIG! Shop fighting belts from brands like cabala's, CLARION, the smaller Socorro is designed for use with 50-lb. to 80-lb. tackle, and can be positioned a bit higher across the thighs for maximum leverage. Ever since I scored this boat I've pulled zero fish chair, gain maximum leverage with our selection of big game fishing harnesses and fighting belts.

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Poles are coated in flexible 2 part Marine Hardened Enamel for smaller boat, unless you make some rigger changes.” There is less leader in the water, so there is less leader professional marlin fisherman feel the need to have a pattern much longer than the fifth or sixth pressure wave back. As far as rigging goes, the weight of the leader and the drag put out by synchronizes the elevation adjustment with pivoting action as you turn the crank handle. The bottom pad is adjustable to allow the angler middle, you really need outriggers to separate and lift the outside lines. Personally, I've found that using wind-on leaders detrimentally affected lure action on a small the length of the outrigger through a system of pulleys. Taco 15' and 18' Telescopic outriggers are a perfect fit to these wider on a smaller boat than a big boat. They are mini-versions of the larger available on request. Nylon Packing feet (10mm) VIA PHONE OR E-MAIL FOR ACCURATE FREIGHT ASSESSMENT.

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‘Freshwater Bully’ is the latest episode where Henderson shows some hidden gems in urban fishing around Fort Lauderdale. Just don’t expect any secrets to be given up. Talk about freshwater bully, you think I forgot about you guys in freshwater? We can see why the locations remain undisclosed. This ‘Freshwater Bully’ video delivers what you’d expect from Henderson. A lot of passion, character, and drive to get after fish. Henderson is fishing his local Fort Lauderdale areas; he’s not giving up his secret locations and we don’t blame him. Check out game fishing line THIS STORY for more background on Henderson. The multiple peacock bass targeted from his kayak are in close proximity to his home. Urban fishing can often be a hidden gem right under our nose and begs the question, ‘What waters do we have within striking distance of home?’ Maybe a spot for a dawn patrol, lunch break or evening session after work. Keep the gear handy and the hooks sharp.

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itsworn · 8 years ago

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We Visit The 400-Car Property For Sale In Canada, It’s Wonderland.

For Sale: Wonderland.

Mike Hall’s 400-car collection and all the land it sits on can be yours if you dare to dream the same dream.

I’m sitting in my rental car outside of JP’s Diner in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, because JP very reasonably doesn’t open his doors before 7 AM. There’s a chill in the air as winter gives way to spring here in BC’s interior, with snow still visible on the mountains that ring the town. I’d driven up here before dawn from Kelowna, with Okanogan Lake’s 85 miles of shoreline my near constant companion just off the right shoulder, the sun creeping through the morning mist that until only a few moments ago shrouded the valley’s rocky peaks.

My contemplation of Canada’s weather patterns is broken by the sudden screech of tires and the insistent thumping of lumpy cam. A voice calls out to me from the entrance to the parking lot, a hearty ‘hey, is that you?’ emanating from the driver’s seat of a burgundy ’68 Chevelle SS. I look over at the clump of blonde dreads hanging out the window of the straight-piped muscle machine and smile. Mike’s here, and he’s now laying twenty feet of rubber on his way to the parking spot beside me.

I couldn’t have asked for a more accurate introduction to the barely contained ball of cerebro-kinetic energy that is Mike Hall. Now contemplating the other side of 60, Hall has barely slowed down in any area of his life. Alternately known ‘the Rusty Rasta,’ and ‘the Rasta Blasta,’ he still scales the cliff faces he’s been climbing since he was a teen, leading his team as they blast away dangerous chunks of rock before they can flatten tourists and locals on highways and rail lines below. With explosives. Lots of explosives. He still drives his 396 Chevelle SS with his foot flat to the floor, and he’s still buying automobiles by the bushel.

This last character trait is a bit of an issue, you see, because Mike’s in the middle of trying to unload western Canada’s largest treasure trove of cars, trucks, and parts. Spread across three yards (and the contents of one museum) are well more than 350 of Hall’s personally-selected vintage machines, a gamut of rides that ranges from 40s-era domestics and European imports, to blistering 60s muscle, to a penchant for Sunbeam Alpines (of which he owns five).

The catch? He’s keen on selling everything, all at once, including the land and the buildings that sit on it, rather than wasting his time trying to deal the vehicles piecemeal to hundreds of potential online tirekickers. The asking price is a cool $1.4 million Canadian (just over $1 million in Yankee bucks), and it’s been nine months since the listing went live. I didn’t have a million of anything, really, but I did have a camera, and I was determined to walk it through the gates of Mike’s Northwestern wonderland before they closed forever.

It’s our first meeting in person after a few weeks of phone calls, and after shaking hands and waiting for the rest of Mike’s crew to join us, we walk into the diner and pick a table near the middle of the establishment. Plopping down beside Mike at breakfast is Felix, who confirms the Hall has done little to temper his habit in the face of the impending divestment. Along with his partner, Olivier, seated to my left, the two have traveled all the way to B.C. from Switzerland, where Felix’s custom car shop (Cars and Bikes Schaffhausen) is based. They have spent the last five days taking a serious inventory of Mike’s properties and vehicles with an eye towards buying the entire kit and caboodle.

‘Mike, how many cars did you buy even during the short time that we have been here?’ Felix asks, cajoling his new friend. At first, Hall denies having expanded the collection, but before long Felix, bright-eyed and quick to laugh behind his wild beard, has reminded him of the at least four cars Mike picked up, sight-unseen, over the phone while the duo were in earshot.

‘I’ve actually bought about 40 cars, total, since I first listed everything last year,’ Hall finally admits. ‘It’s the same old story: if I see something I want, I buy it and cart it home, no questions asked.’

It’s this take-no-prisoners approach to automotive accumulation that has landed Mike in his current predicament: what to do with so many projects, and a finite amount of time to get them all done. We’re not talking about mid-life malaise, either, although that has played no small part in Hall reconsidering his approach to car collecting. ‘A friend of mine who was in a similar situation – he spent his inheritance on a car collection – died at 65, and his wife sold everything off at pennies on the dollar. It really made me think that if I drop dead tomorrow, I don’t want to be that guy. My own wife would curse me for leaving her with that burden.’

More immediately, it’s largely about the fact that the man spends the vast majority of his time out on the road with his rock scaling business, leaving him few spare moments to restore any of the vehicles he has dragged home.

‘It’s all I ever did, since I was 18 – hang on ropes, blow shit up,’ he told me over a plate of eggs and hash browns. ‘Try not to fall – a four letter word, only happens once,’ he said, with the gallows chuckle of anyone who’s ever had to square away the realities of a dangerous job with the confidence and competence required to get it done, day in, day out.

The entire time we’re talking – shooting the breeze with Felix and Ollie about the classic car market in Switzerland (Mustangs, Camaros, and Mopars, although Felix just finished a $100k C-body restoration for a client), pointing out the framed photos on the wall of the diner of cars that Mike himself brought back to life – Hall is showing me pictures of recent acquisitions and projects-in-progress on his phone. ‘I’ve got ADD,’ he tells me, ‘so it’s easy for me to get distracted.’

That unrestrained enthusiasm for everything (especially if it’s got four wheels) shines through in the comprehensive nature of what Mike’s ended up collecting over the years. When I ask him what he thinks he has the most of, his buddy Avery, who has also joined us for breakfast, chimes in with a resounding ‘JUNK!’ There’s a roar of laughter from the group, who by now are standing in JB’s parking lot getting ready to make the 15 minute drive up to Mike’s.

By the time we get to the yard, however, my rental car panting and foaming at the mouth trying to keep up with Hall’s SS, I can easily see that Avery’s crack simply isn’t true. From the road, row upon row of Mopars, Fords, Buicks, and Oldsmobiles gleam alongside the White Post Auto Museum that abuts the most recent location for Hall’s armada, but that’s not our first stop. Instead, Mike wheels his Chevelle up the dirt path that leads up behind the museum, past two rows of shops, and into a yard framed by shipping containers on the left, and a garage on the right.

‘Welcome to the overflow yard,’ Mike says to me with an expansive sweep of his arms. This is where his latest acquisitions stop to catch their breath before being sorted and moved to a more permanent resting place, and in a word, it’s glorious. My eye darts from the late-60’s Cutlass hardtop to the pair of 67 Dodge Charger 383s sitting side-by-each, to the patina-ed Ford pickup with the bullet hole in the windshield. There’s a mid-50s two-door Chevy wagon facing off against a Pontiac of similar vintage, cuddled up to a three-door, late-60s three-door Suburban and a two-door former GMC ambulance with an air conditioner carved into the side. In short, it’s a (somewhat) moveable feast for the eyes, sitting proud in the B.C. mud.

‘It started with Novas,’ he tells me as we walk through the muddy puddles that separate the machines. ‘My first car was a ’51 International, but really it was the next one, my ’61 Alpine that got things started for me. After I ran that into the side of a mountain at about a hundred miles an hour – it had a V6 Capri motor in it – I ended up buying six or seven little 62-65 Novas, and eventually a ’67 with an L79 that I traded for my Chevelle.’ The SS has its own unique back-story, of course. ‘I sold the car to a buddy, but regretted it and bought it back 15 years later. Turns out he’d never processed the paperwork, so it was titled in my name that entire time. Technically, I’ve owned it for almost 25 years now.’

I asked him when, exactly, the tipping point occurred: the moment in time where ‘six or seven Novas’ became a living, breathing car collection? ‘Probably when it had grown to 30 cars and I had to move it the first time, then it was 60 and I had to move it the second time, then it was 200 and I came home and the gate on my farm was locked and my wife put her foot down and said “get this shit off my farm,” and then it was almost 400 and I’m like “what the fuck have I done?”‘ he replies, laughing.

We maneuver through the overflow and into the body shop, where Mike’s working on restoring a Plymouth Sport Satellite ragtop with a big block – one of the growing numbers of Mopars that he’s added to the fleet in recent years. I ask him how he decides what to buy. ‘My tastes have changed as I’ve evolved over the years, but I still like all kinds of cars,’ he says to me, pointing out the firewall tag on the car that’s hanging, rotisserie-style, awaiting paint. ‘I’ve got 59 through 61 Buick Invicta bubbletops, 60 and 61 Olds bubbletops, just picked up a 61 Cadillac bubbletop. I just love the design, that back window, man, that skinny little back B-pillar, you roll the windows down and there’s eight feet of air. Super cool!’

The Mopar angle has lead him to some interesting places, with a number of low-production Dodges and Plymouths now haunting the grounds. ‘I’ve got another one of these Sport Satellite rags, a numbers-matching 60 Road Runner 383 four-speed, two 70 Super B’s, a 70 Coronet wagon, a ’67 Formula S, a few Demons, and a Duster 340 four-speed Go-Wing car, although that one’s just a shell,’ he tells me as we walk down the dirt road from the overflow paddock to the museum. He wants to take me inside and show me some of his finished projects, which are mixed in on the floor with cars belonging to the White Post’s owners, Vance and Keri Tierney. I see an Alpine, Chevs, rods, a Model T, but the real show-stopper is a 1946 Mercury Ute – probably the only one in the country, and perhaps the only example left in North America. Originally built in Canada as a coupe, and shipped Down Under to be finished, at the time the pickup bed at the back of the Ute was the largest automotive stamping in the world. Most were Fords, but somehow, this one’s a Merc, and I’ll never see another one in my lifetime.

This Canada-by-way-of-Australia-only specimen is one of over a dozen Canuck-specific cars in the collection. Right outside the museum’s side-door is the highway-facing lot that houses the attention-grabbers in the collection, the cars that cause people to pull over, pull in, and start kicking tires. Mixed in with the Dodge and Plymouth crew are Javelins, AMXs, and a gang of Pontiac Beaumont Sport Deluxes, with the latter never having been offered south of the border. Sprouted from the forehead of the Acadian – Canada’s maple-coated Chevy II – Beaumonts were intended to tickle the premium fancies of the moderately well-to-do, becoming their own model line in 1966 and even offering big block power in Sport Deluxe trim (which also featured full consoles and bucket seats), making them kissing cousins to the Chevelle SS. The full-size Pontiac Parisienne (Canada’s B-platform, top-of-line sedan with vague links to both the Bonneville and the Chevrolet Caprice, only…different) is also represented.

Mike’s all-encompassing automotive tastes are reflected everywhere you look: a 1976 Ford Courier pickup sits in a line of retired American iron, a two-door 59 Chevy Brookwood wagon juts its fins out in a row of Invictas, a 66 Mercury Comet Caliente poses beside a Galaxie 500 fastback. At the back, along a fence, sits a wide array of trucks – a ’26 Chevrolet, an Austin panel, and wreckers from the 50s, 60s, and 70s – nestled behind a gathering of Alpines, panel vans, and a single Opel GT.

To describe each and every vehicle that I’m seeing would require an encyclopedic knowledge of the automotive landscape, but not only does Mike instantly identify, without exception, the make, model, and options offered by each of the cars in the yard, he also has their complete back-stories readily available to him via some fantastical mental Rolodex that has tracked the provenance of every purchase he’s ever made for the past four decades. The fount of knowledge and insight that pours from his mouth, without hesitation, is overwhelming as he gives me a guided tour through his ensemble of classic metal. This is no accidental accumulation, nor the tortured self-made prison popularized by a hundred Discovery Channel hoarders, but the conscious realization of a passion that has consumed most of the man’s life.

‘Every car in the yard I thought, ‘I’m going to restore that one day,’ Mike says as we pile into his Chevelle for a quick trip down the road to the field that holds the remainder – or is that motherlode? – of his collection. ‘And then you wake up one morning and you’re 60 fucking years old and you realize, ‘I’m not going to live long enough.’ You’ve have to be 300 to get it done, and you still might not make it.’

After a full-throttle run down the road, where Hall demonstrates the vibration the SS has picked up above 4,000 rpm in third and fourth gear – ‘I think it’s the driveshaft, at this point’ – we arrive at the gate to the last piece of his empire. Consisting of a restoration shop, a small house, and about 200 more cars sitting in the field just a short walk downhill from driveway, it’s where a mix of the less-common, but still solid pieces of his collection live.

‘I’m not really a car restorer, I’m just learning with these projects,’ he tells me on a quick tour of the shop.’ ‘I like buying them, but I’m going to pick easier ones to do from now on. Some of the cars I’ve done in the past should have been crushed, they were in such a sorry state when we started. But I didn’t know that, and I pushed through and restored them anyway – like that Challenger up on the wall of the diner. It was a 318 car, and we did a 340, and I lost 10k on it after I sold it. I had 400 hours of sheet metal work getting the rust out of it, and there was just no money to be made afterward.’

By now we’re picking our way down the hill – the one that made Mike quit smoking several years ago, he tells me – and I’m getting a full view of the field ahead. It’s the kind of eclectic mix you’ll never find in a salvage yard, because it takes heart, not an accountants beady eye, to gather these vehicles together and then take care of them for close to 40 years. My own peepers pick out a pair of FJ40 Land Cruisers, a Studebaker Lark Wagonaire and sedan, a mid-size Mercedes-Benz and of course another Alpine. Old drag cars, their livery faded but still boastful, sit beside a clump of Corvairs, GM pickups, and even a Simca. I’m blown away, but somehow not surprised when Mike reveals yet another piece of Canadian history – a Meteor Ranchero – that counts only 299 original brothers and sisters, with who knows how few remaining.

It’s the automotive equivalent of ‘Field of Dreams,’ only instead of corn, Iowa, and Kevin Costner, we’ve got mountains, metal, and a far more engaging leading man. I stand there in the spring silence for a few moments, gazing out at the cars carefully organized in front of me. Their doting caretaker stands beside me in a rare still moment of his own, a man whose mind is never far from this hallowed ground no matter how far his work takes him into the interior of Canada’s western-most province. For those few, fleeting seconds, I feel like I’ve tapped into that same, calming peace Mike finds here among his treasures.

We drive back to the main yard, the Chevy’s exhaust roaring and the tires squealing away from every stop. There’s more than one kind of Zen to be had out here amongst these machines, and I’m perfectly willing to accept big block bluster as an equally-restorative form of automotive therapy. On the way, Mike reflects on the magnitude of what he has to offer buyers like Felix and Ollie.

‘It’s a pretty tough sell,’ he admits. ‘Someone’s got to be as stupid as me, or as crazy as me to actually see the potential. If you picked 30 cars, restored them, you could sell the other 350 or so to fund the projects. There are a couple of huge shop buildings sitting on the land here in pieces, that could be put up to add another half a million or so to the property’s value.’

‘One guy can’t do all of this,’ he continues, a realization that he’s had for quite some time. ‘You need a team. Someone who can figure out what to part out, someone who can go online and connect with buyers. I don’t part anything – if I buy something for the shell, 30 years later, it’s still the same shell. If I buy it compete, 30 years later it’s still complete, save for a few four-doors that I’m willing to strip.’ It’s not boasting if it’s true, and I’ve just seen how much effort Hall has put into keeping his cars together, intact, and safe from the tin worm while in his care.

The truth is, there aren’t very many individuals like Mike left in the world. The stream of stories about big yards run by equally out-sized personalities has slowed to a trickle, and will eventually dry up completely as land values continue to climb and the number of people with the savvy and resources to maintain these sprawling collections dwindles away. With big-buck auctions brainwashing the masses into believing the only worthwhile classic is a 100-point restoration that doubles as a stand-in for your 401k, interest in drivers or complete, restorable cars as anything other than parts donors is at an all-time low.

Hall knows it, too. We say our good-byes just outside the overflow yard, and as I thanked him profusely for his time and generosity – I’d just been given a half-day guided tour through automotive history – he tells me how as part of the surge in attention his sale had gotten, he had been interviewed by Carol Ott on the CBC Radio 1’s stalwart ‘As It Happens.’

‘She asked me, Mike, how are you going to feel when they’re all gone,’ he says. ‘I’m sitting there in the shop looking out at all those cars, and I just started to cry.’ He pauses. ‘I realized it was like her asking me ‘how would you feel if we killed your kids right in front of you?’

For a moment his face loses the mischievous spark that’s been in his eyes ever since we met that morning. Then, almost as quickly, it’s back, and he smiles, laughs, shakes my hand again. He turns on his heel and walks back to the yard. After all, there are things to do, parts to order, phone calls to make – and children to take care of.

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silviajburke · 8 years ago

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The Biggest Defense Story of 2017

This post The Biggest Defense Story of 2017 appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

President Donald Trump will usher in a military spending boom in order to, in his words, “Make the Military Great Again.”

This is what Jim Rickards calls America’s Third-Wave of Military Technology Advancement.

Based on our research, one military branch will be awarded the lion’s share of Trump’s military spending boom dollars. All told, billions of dollars will be directed into this area as President Trump’s agenda is formalized and implemented.

What is it?

The #1 defense technology story of 2017 is the coming U.S. naval buildup.

It’s not the sexiest… or the most cutting edge… but it will prove profitable for investors properly positioned for what’s about to happen.

As Jim Rickards has noted, “Military technology advances in long-cycles driven by politics and procurement.”

The U.S. Navy is no exception…

As a student of military history at Princeton… A 20-year airborne ranger veteran… and the former ranking defense contracting executive in the Middle East, I can state unequivocally that the U.S. military strategy — and therefore its spending pattern — oscillates over the long-term between:

1) Guerrilla or land wars. And… 2) “Big iron” naval operations.

There are two reasons for this:

1) The shortsightedness of our politicians. And… 2) The United States’ geography.

Right now the U.S. Navy has the smallest number of ships since 1916. WWII was obviously an outlier in the magnitude of the navy’s buildup and it coinciding with a massive land war. But the noteworthy pattern over the course of history is that the increase in active navy ships happens in large steps all at once.

Then, that build-up stops. And, over the course of years, it slowly dwindles. This slow rundown usually corresponds with the armed forces focusing on a land campaign or guerilla warfare of some kind.

That’s the pattern for U.S. military resources: From land wars… to naval buildups… back to land excursions…

For example, after the U.S. role in WWI, naval expenditures dropped substantially. Then in WWII , the U.S. experienced a huge increase in its active navy.

Post-WWII, the number of active navy ships fell off dramatically while resources were put into rebuilding Europe via the Marshall Plan and Douglas MacArthur’s occupation and reconstruction of Japan.

Then the navy was built up again, right before the U.S. entered the Korean War in 1950. Which, again shifted resources to the land campaign.

The same pattern continued through the 1960s and 1970s at the end of the war in Southeast Asia. The Soviet navy began to overtake the U.S. navy with over-the-horizon cruise missiles and a highly competent submarine force.

The restoration of the U.S. Navy would be left to the newly elected President Reagan and his Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. Both men made a famous push in the early 1980s to restore a 600-ship navy.

Today we find ourselves in a similar situation…

Since 2001, we’ve spent 15 years in the Middle East waging war and anti-guerrilla campaigns. Meanwhile, the navy was reduced to 280 ships to fund those wars. That’s the lowest level since 1916, as stated.

Your correspondent on duty in Baghdad in 2003. This was the U.S.’s last land campaign preceding the coming U.S. naval buildup.

By 2010, the territorial disputes in the Pacific Rim raised regional concerns about sea-lanes and naval power projection among U.S. planners and regional allies.

This led a bipartisan congressionally mandated defense panel to press the Pentagon to think beyond its counter insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The panel urged steps to restore the U.S. Navy, culminating in the 2011 announcement of what President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific.

That strategy “reallocates, or ‘rebalances,’ 60% of U.S. naval assets–up from 50% then–to the region by 2020.”

The concern was Chinese aggrandizement in the Pacific. I know this firsthand. In October 2015, as the International Senior Vice President for a prominent defense contractor, I led a delegation of executives to the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Conference in Sydney.

Among our many meetings with Australian officials and the U.S. diplomatic mission, I was most taken aback to see Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, Australia’s Chief of Navy, joined on a platform by both the Chief of Army and the Chief of Air Force.

They were explaining how regional naval developments, led by China, were forcing Australia to undertake its first peacetime expansion of their navy…in their entire history!

With these developments in mind, what would you do in President Trump’s position?

Jim Rickards has said you might well decide that the U.S. is best served by isolating China and protecting your strategic flanks…

This “tag team” gambit could be Trump’s strategic goal. Jim suggested as much in a recent article he wrote for The Daily Reckoning. The U.S… China… and Russia are the world’s three big powers. When you have this power triangle dynamic, you either team up with another power against the third… or you are teamed up on.

For the last eight years, the Obama administration was teamed-up on by Russia and China. Now, in addition to reverting to a U.S. naval buildup focused on the Pacific, President Trump might hedge that build up by growing far closer with Vladimir Putin.

I would not be surprised to see a high-profile U.S. – Russian rapprochement culminating in a series of summit meetings in DC and Moscow. This could even lead to a new world order geopolitically.

Meanwhile, our colleague, Nomi Prins, in November’s Strategic Intelligence reported that President Trump will:

“‘work with Congress to fully repeal the defense sequester and submit a new budget to rebuild our depleted military.’ Under his proposal, he would aim to ’rebuild the U.S. Navy toward a goal of 350 ships, as the bipartisan National Defense Panel recommended.’

As a result of all of that, rest assured, there will be some fat and happy defense contractors bidding for gigs under Trump’s presidency.”

This isn’t idle speculation, either. Donald Trump made an explicit campaign promise to this effect, publishing a memo on Oct. 21, 2016, days before the election. It describes what upgrades and investments will be made and specifically promises that:

“On Day One of his administration, he will immediately begin to fulfill that promise with a Manhattan Project urgency to rebuild our navy…”

And according to a new report by the Associated Press, “boosting shipbuilding to meet the navy’s 355-ship goal could require an additional $5 billion to $5.5 billion in annual spending in the navy’s 30-year projection, according to an estimate by naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service.” [emphasis added]

You could go off with this information and buy shares in a big defense contractor in the naval space like Huntington Ingalls. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. It’s a great company, but because it’s such a big player, the share price won’t move much… even with all of the proof of this coming naval buildup I’ve shown you.

That’s why we target smaller firms in Defense Technology Alert. Ones that are set to either land a company-changing contract… or are little-known suppliers to one of the big names… or that have developed a brand-new technology… or that are going to be driven higher by headlines and momentum. But they’re selections based on their potential for big moves in share prices.

These smaller plays aren’t covered by the big institutional players since they’re too small for them to buy. But in my decades of experience in the defense contracting space, there are true diamonds in the rough… if you know how to identify them.

Regards,

Kevin Massengill for The Daily Reckoning

The post The Biggest Defense Story of 2017 appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

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