Jun
23
Written by Adam Stafford | Filed under Latest News | No Comments
My Repeats won the Business Development of the Year Award at the Chemist and Druggist Awards last Wednesday evening at the Grosvenor Hotel in London!
Fresh Egg have been instrumental in developing the Online Repeat Prescription Service for My Repeats.
The pilot was launched in Worthing with great success - now receiving up to 3,500 orders per month.
MyRepeats.com has now been launched as a national service offering independent pharmacists the ability to compete online for this new service - giving their customers the opportunity to place their repeat prescriptions online.
Business Development of the Year - Paul Howie and Dave Roberts, photo from www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk
Jun
07
Written by Lee | Filed under General | No Comments
“Can you get me a remote cotrol for a Cello DVD RW”, to which I replied “a what?”.
This is how it started………..
It’s Friday evening, and after getting in and settling down with my dinner the phone is ringing hot.
It’s the father-in-law and he is after me, but why is he after me? Does he want to take me for a beer? Does he want to give me some money to take his daughter out? Was he ringing me to ask if I would like a new 42″ TV? No, no and no!
On this fine Friday evening he wanted me to find a remote control for a DVD ReWriter. Now here’s the problem, we are not talking about any old DVD Rewriter, this was no Sony, Toshiba, Samsung or Panasonic DVD Rewriter. Oh no, that would have been too easy.
No this was a……. wait for it…….
A Cello DVD Rewriter
Say that again?
Yes, you did hear correctly, A Cello DVD Rewriter.
First question, what sort of brand is Cello? I have never even heard of it? It turns out my Father in Law has only been down to our local Co-op where a fire sale had been taking place on electrical equipment after Co-op decided to stop selling electricals.
Here’s the catch, he bought the DVD at such a cheap price it came with no remote control. Now his mate who turns out to be your main man when it comes to TV’s and the like told him flatly that NO universal remote control would work with this particular DVD Rewriter.
Faced with this rather bleak news my Father in Law was on phone to me, “If I can’t find the correct remote control, I’ll have to sling it!” Then he said “If anyone can find one, you will be able to” - No pressure then!
And that was it, conversation ended and there we were again; the trusty trio on another mission - Myself, the laptop and Google
I won’t bore you with my searching habits, but surprise, surprise, within a very short space of time I was in the zone and whittling away the sites which were leading me up the wrong path. My flow when I was interupted and I had to go off and do a few family bits, so I put the quest on the back burner.
A couple of hours later I was back to my mission. I adjusted my search term and bingo, I found one! Excellent, that’s my family inheritance secured.
Once I had completed the order, it really was satisfying to know that in little over 10 minutes I had tracked down a remote control for some obscure Chinese DVD Rewriter.
Visiting your local electrical store
Can you imagine going down to Currys or Comet or even an independent electrical retailer and trying to source one of these controls? Simply put, it ain’t going to happen. Not only that, it is the time required to do so, plus the petrol money and the inconvenience.
Why we love Google and Internet Shopping
And there you have it, at some obscure hour of the morning I was able to find and order a product which by rights should have taken me an absolute age to track down. What baffles me, is why people are still using shops? Why go through all that hassle? Why go through the torture of driving on over-crowded roads and then having to park? Why, why, why?
Delivering the good news
Having just spoken to the Father-in-Law, he was delighted that I had secured a remote control, but then he asked, “Can you get an instruction leaflet?”, Back to the laptop, Google here I come……….
Jun
05
Written by Lee | Filed under Latest News | 1 Comment
Should the web world trembling today? The BBC is reporting new law is being introduced to police fake business blogs and that local trading standards officers are going to the the ‘corporate blog police’.
Think terms such as ‘Sock Puppets’ and ‘Astroturf’, is that what you are? If so you could be finding your way into one of Britain’s fine HMP establishments.
Trading Standards
Well without meaning to sound offensive, when did trading standards ever actually do anything?
Whenever I have sought the help of trading standards they have been ineffective and toothless. So what they are going to be able to achieve in the anarchy that is the Internet is beyond me.
The ruling (which came into force on 26th May) will tighten up on businesses not planting blogs and bloggers to promote their business? Well is this not just the same as a television commercial? It’s all advertising, it’s all hype, it’s all spin, and we live in a world of spin.
When you are researching a product you have to look at all angles, where there is a postitve there is likely to be a negative. Take Trip Advisor, one travelers heaven is another travelers hell, you can see the good reviews as well as the naff reviews, but you pay your money and you take your chance.
Look at the reviews on Amazon, if a product is that good, it is going to get high reviews, it is easy to sniff out the kippers, unless of course you are so stupid you believe everything you read.
This new legislation is going to make those that practise ‘flogging’ to go underground and hide their tracks, it will also make floggers push the boundaries harder and further.
It is also fair to say that Trading Standards are a government department which ultimately means they will be under resourced. Perhaps Trading Standards would like to take the UK government to task for failure to deliver rather than a few bloggers simply earning a crust.
I do agree that a site that is set-up to sing the praises of a singular brand or product could be construed as misleading. But, and there is a but.
As buyers we have loyalty, is this law going to stop a fan boy from bigging up his favourite gadget such as an iPhone, PS3 or XBox?
Poor Policing
My question is how can Trading Standards police this?
For example, I have both feet in the PS3 camp. I love the machine and who is to stop me from setting up a blog declaring my love for all things Playsation and the games? I would not buy an Xbox if you paid me. (OK, I might be tempted if Bill Gates gave me half his fortune)
I have no loyalty to Sony Playstation other than it floats my boat, so why should I not be allowed to share this experience with others? Is this deemed unnacceptable. Haven’t Sony brought me in another way?
Yes, the major difference is Sony would not be paying me for the privelege, but that is the only difference as far as I am concerned. So in my own little way I could be construed as flogging.
If you are going to be stupid enough to have a blogger extolling the virtues of beauty product that does not work, then you expect to be shot down in flames.
Trading Standards will only want the top catches in terms of this practice. This will so the spin-masters will be able to trumpet how super they are, the case that have already been proven include:
Sony, L’oreal and Wal-Mart.
Where does this leave us?
So does this now mean that football supporters are not allowed to praise their clubs? After all there is nothing more tribal than a football supporter and there is no three-dimensional outlook on a football supporters blog, it is one-way traffic. If you support Liverpool you will throw traffic to Liverpool FC, the same if you support Manchester Utd, Brighton or even Dover Town.
It is as one-sided as a blog is ever going to be. Yes I know fan blogs are just that, fan blogs, but they are also completely biased publications fuelled by a passion that no marketing flogger could ever produce. The club though has brought the fans loyalty.
I can see why the law has been brought in, the public rightly needs proptecting from clever marketing, but as with most laws, there are grey areas and it is open to interpretation and manipulation.
See the full post on Will fake business blogs crash and burn? on BBC Business News.
