BizStratBlog2

CompUSA going out of business

CompUSA has decided to close or sell all their bricks and mortar stores after being sold to an investment firm that intends to liquidate it's assets.  They are attempting to sell stores in major retail markets, and close them in markets that are not profitable.  The local CompUSA in Rochester is already starting it's going out of business sale with discounts of 5-20% on everything in the store.  Popular and expensive products like Apple, HP, Audio Visual etc. are at the lower end of the discount range while products that have typically carried higher margins such as power supplies and computer cases are closer to the higher end of the spectrum.  Since they are selling fixtures I'll assume the local store is to be closed.

So what does this mean for the average consumer?  Well for one thing - if you know EXACLTY what you want and are happy with the manufacturer's warranty on it you can save some dollars buying during their "close-out sale".  No doubt discounts will deepen as the end approaches, and some real bargains can be had (current discounts just bring the price of the retail products down to roughly what you'd pay online for them).  But these discounts come at a cost.  Every receipt is tagged "no refunds, no warranty service" - you cannot trade the item back in if it's the wrong thing or not what you expected.  In addition, there will likely be no one on the other end of the phone to assist you if you have problems installing it or configuring it with your system.

It also means anyone who bought extended warranties from CompUSA directly will likely be out of luck. Once they close their doors - there will be no one left to fix anything.  Similarly if you have an item in for repair - better be sure you get it back within the next week or two - whether it's fixed or not. 

Dell sees the light...

Dell, in a move to recapture market share lost to HP, has decide to provide their products through brick-and-mortar retailser such as Staples.  You can be assured that this won't be a permanent exclusive arrangement.  My prediction is that Dell will eventually become another channel and direct model supported computer vendor - just like HP.

The fact is that, though computers have become commodities, they are complex commodities.  As such, people continue to feel more comfortable purchasing them from people or stores that they know, and knowing there's a local service organization to back them up.  This is especially true in the Server market where buying mail order is only for the technorati that already know what they want and how they're going to configure it.  I can't tell you the number of times that for employees of my clients, relatives, friends and sometimes casual strangers in restaurants will ask me "What computer should I buy".  For some of them I simply log onto the site and shop side-by-side with them for that new Dell or HP laptop.  That gives them the warm fuzzy and the inexpensive prices all wrapped into one.  For my clients I typically charge for this service - its reasonable that if they're tapping my expertise on what to buy - that has a value which I should be reimbursed for (since I'm getting no margin, kickback, or other compensation).

Windows XP given reprieve until June 2007

The popular Operating System Windowx XP will continue to be sold until June 2008, rather than ceasing sales in January 2008 as originally planned by Microsoft.  This means that for those of you considering Vista you have a little longer to evaluate it and get it up and running.  You can see in my next "This is IT" article my current evaluation of Vista.  Having made the leap myself I am very pleased with Vista's capability, stability and features.

So this reprieve means you have a bit longer to consider how you're going to move to Vista - but the change IS inevitable and you should start testing and planning sooner rather than later.

Cheers,

Lee Drake, www.os-cubed.com

Office 2003 - RIP

Microsoft is no longer selling retail or OEM versions of Office 2003.  If you want Office - you need to buy Office 2007.  Is your organization up to date and ready to deploy Office 2007?  OS-Cubed, Inc. recommends 1GB of RAM on a Windows XP machine or 2GB of RAM on a Vista machine for Office 2007 to run well.  In addition, you'll need to deploy the office compatibiity pack to allow your Office 2003 users to read and write the new 2007 format.

Be sure to pick the right Office suite for your needs.  Here is a handy matrix of what each one contains.

If you're going to upgrade your office en masse you should probably consider buying licenses instead of retail or OEM versions.  Contact your local Microsoft reseller for information about what license types are available and are right for you.

Are you throwing your money away on web advertising?

Recently a potential customer called me to ask "Why isn't my web advertising working?"

He was spending around a hundred dollars a month on targetted Google Advertising, and had actually done a pretty good job of working out what keywords were the right ones for his business. But he was getting no results - no new calls, no new orders, no new sales.  What was he doing wrong?

In analyzing his situation we looked at two things - the advertisements themselves, and the website. The ads weren't all that bad - but they were very sales oriented. This is a common error that marketing people make when they create an online ad - they think in terms of print advertising. In print, radio, and TV advertising your goal is to get the advertisement reader to buy your product NOW, or remember you and buy your product LATER.

In search-based web advertising the ONLY GOAL is to get the user to click your link and go to your site.  You can sell them all you want on the site but you need to get them to click through first.

Click through on the post continuation to see what to do to optimize your web ads, and what this customer's second mistake was...

Eyes on The Future followup

This week Greater Rochester Enterprise (GRE) and the Small Business Council (SBC) will announce some conclusions and the next step in the Eyes on the Future program.  In the meantime we'd love to get feedback on the event.  What did you feel was great about Eyes on the Future, what could have been improved?  Leave your comments here.

Things are looking up for Rochester.  Being declared number 1 for quality of life in the country by EM Magazine is a bigger deal than you might think - thousands of business owners looking to locate their businesses read EM Magazine.  In addition, our 70 page insert in US Airlines magazine means thousands of travellers a day are seeing the best of our city and region.

How are you and your company going to take advantage of this momentum?  Are you reaching out to companies outside the region - as an ambassador, a dealmaker, a recruiter? 

What if your users could update their own data

With Access 2007 you now can! MS Access has added a new twist in their 2007 program.  You can now select a table with an email address as a field, and create an "email merge" that will send out data from the table in a form that appears in the users browser. The user presses "reply" and they can (optionally) update or just confirm the data. When the return message hits your Outlook 2007 emailbox - the date is automatically updated in the database with the updated information. If there are conflicts or validation issues they get taken care of at the time of update.

This allows you to keep mailing information up to date and correct. It also would allow you to conduct simple email surveys. Imagine if you linked this up to a project management database and sent everyone out a request for update that they could just reply to. Or you used it to manage a joint task management system or calendar.

This is just one of the cool new features in the new Office 2007 suite.  Enjoy!

"All Marketers are Liars" - Seth Godin speaks at Google

Some of you got a chance earlier this year to attend Seth Godin's presentation here in Rochester, sponsored by the Rochester Chapter of the AMA, RAMA.

Recently, Seth Godin, author of six bestsellers, including Permission Marketing, an Amazon Top 100 bestseller for a year and a Fortune Best Business Book, spoke to an audience at Google about their success, what they did that was unusual and creative, and how to avoid a future implosion.

If you didn't get a chance to see Seth speak earlier in the year - this is definitely a video you don't want to miss. If you DID get a chance to see him, this is a great refresher on the contet he presented here in Rochester, with an interesting twist.

This video is part of the Authors@Google series.

Paradigm Shift - are you ready for it?

My good friend Andy Drago from The Aurora Group sent me this video the other day - asking if I was ready for the paradigm shift we're all in the middle of. 

I can't vouch for all of the statistics in the video (they didn't give reference materials) but I think the message is fairly clear - not only is the world changing quickly, it's changing even more quickly than we imagined it could change.  As a reader of science fiction none of this comes as a big surprise to me - but put together as it is in this video it certainly drives home a series of linked events in a way that is powerful and persuasive.

So the next question is - what do we do about it?  How do we prepare ourselves for this shift in the world order:

glumbert.com - Shift Happens

It's monday - do you know when your appointments are?

It would be a good idea to check your appointments - both on your calendar, and on your smartphone, palm or blackberry today.  Be sure that your clock (in the lower left on your desktop if using Windows XP) is set to the right time (that it properly rolled over to DST) and that your appointments are all where you expect them to be in your calendar.