Archive for Your Commerce
April 24, 2008 at 10:43 am · Filed under Your Commerce
Today, there are situations when we actually add a “middle person” instead of eliminating one for increased service efficiency. If it’s cost-effective and demand is high, then proper market positioning will make it a worthwhile endeavor. For example, my sister just informed me of a food delivery service in New Mexico that will let you choose one out of many different food outlets (all types of ethnic/fast food)- and then guarantees delivery within a specific time period. This not only gives the customer assurance of reliability, but more choices for dining take -out style.
In other areas of industry, the same idea holds true. There are electrical suppliers that no longer manufacture the product of electricity, but now are involved only in the delivery process of electricity to the customers. Because of market fluctuations, the new delivery supplier will utilize many other different energy suppliers to get the product of electricity to the customer efficiently and at the best market price. Again, adding the middle man seems to benefit all around.
In relating this theory to restaurants, it is the food runner that has become popular, especially in the larger dining establishments that rarely existed years ago. Food runners are employees who only work the rush hours of the dining room- only running food back and forth from the kitchen to the tables with light dining room table interaction (condiments, fresh pepper etc.). It is a 2-4 hr. shift, depending on how long the dining rush lasts.
Before large restaurants existed, the waiter would complete the process of order taking and delivering of the food. Today, the food runner can be implemented (additional middle man) relieving the waiter of this time consuming and sometimes painstaking process. The waiter must share a percentage of his tip with the runner, but in return his job is eased because the food is delivered for him- allowing extra time to work more tables and up sell to customers thereby increasing sales. Though, it does remain the waiter’s responsibility to check the table for additional diner needs– either while the food is being placed by the runner or shortly thereafter. The tip-out to the runner is usually 10-15% depending on the service system, but well worth it if waiter sales can increase by 20-30 %.
The main point is the food runner addition improves delivery service efficiency while being cost-effective (if the sales increase outweighs the payroll increase). Properly integrating employees into the dining room with exact middle man connections always makes for smooth service flow. It’s not a matter of just blindly throwing extra employees at a service problem, but organizing the best system possible with the minimal amount of labor.
Adding the middle man can sometimes streamline operations in such way that it becomes irresistible and impossible to ignore. Always, the demand arises when delivery routes of a service system become overloaded.
Bio:
Topserve Inc. is a Restaurant Service Consulting and Waiter Training Company.
Richard Saporito, founder, has over 25yrs. of restaurant service experience in many large, diverse and profitable establishments. Since the age of 15, he has worked in more than 20 restaurants and uses this past successful experience to help restaurants achieve their desired customer service goals-understanding it may be the difference between success and failure.
Richard Saporito, President, Topserve Inc.
http://www.topserveconsulting.com
info@topserveconsulting.com
888-276-4808
April 18, 2008 at 11:37 pm · Filed under Your Commerce
Opening an online merchant account is not difficult. As a matter of fact it’s quite easy, but you will need to follow several steps in order to pull it off. The main step involved in opening an online merchant account is the proper filling of online merchant account application. Before that you have to fill out a merchant account pre-application. Usually, the information in this form is held securely, and no data is sent or stored in an unsecured way by the companies offering you the online merchant account.
This pre-application form is not very long. After the submission of this form, the company normally contacts you the next business day, clearly stating their response on account of your application. It’s up to their discretion to declare you as eligible for opening an online account, or rejecting your application. All this process is a free service given by the company concerned, and there is no cost or obligation attached with it.
Online merchant account pre-application consists of your business information: business name, business address, business phone/ fax, Website address and, most importantly, the type of business you are doing. There are a number of categories of business: sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and merger. A merger is a combination of two or more firms into one firm. A merger may involve absorption or consolidation. In absorption, one firm acquires one or more other firms. In a consolidation, two or more firms combine to form a new entity.
A few necessary details, like business start date and the products you deal with, are also required for the online merchant account pre-application. Also you have to answer questions like: Do you currently process credit cards? They also ask about your anticipated cost per item or service, anticipated monthly card sales volumes, card present and swiped through a terminal, and Internet orders through a website.
Online Merchant Accounts provides detailed information on Online Merchant Accounts, Online Merchant Account Services, Online Merchant Account Application, Online Credit Card Merchant Accounts and more. Online Merchant Accounts is affiliated with Free Offshore Merchant Accounts.
April 16, 2008 at 3:16 pm · Filed under Business, Designers World, Your Commerce
In the last half of the 19th century, several inventions changing how the office (oficina) works were preparing the way for subsequent necessary innovations in wood office furniture (muebles de oficina) design.
As Wood & Wood Products first ancestor was appearing, the telephone, which had been invented in 1876, and the typewriter, developed in 1868 by Remington, were coming into general use in growing offices. Wood office furniture design responded to these inventions and the paper they produced, as it did later to the advent of computers in wide use in the early 1950s and copiers in the late 1950s.
Somebody had to handle the paper work. The number of clerks in American offices increased tenfold between 1890 and 1920 as industrial production expanded. Fortunately for all those workers, the use of electric lights became widespread in the early 1900s.
Office employees needed a desk, a chair (silla o sillon para oficina), and perhaps a file and/or a bookcase. All of this furniture was wood, until the 1930s, when metal filing cabinets began to replace the old wooden ones. There was rarely any thought given to laying out offices in a sensible manner. The furniture was just set in place, often in rows in a “bull pen,” just like in classrooms. Sometimes executive and supervisory private offices were constructed along one wall or perhaps around the whole perimeter. As employees were added, more furniture was brought into the existing space until space ran out. The office workers did not expect, nor were they given, any privacy.
Gradually, during the 1930s, the companies that were producing metal filing cabinets also began to make metal desks, especially for use in the “bull pen,” where the fact that these desks were generally less expensive than wood ones was important. Most of the items were sold by stationery and office equipment dealers, to whom a case of paper and a secretarial chair had about equal importance. The growth of the metal office furniture business was stopped short by World War II, when all steel was required by the military. But as the war ended, the steel office furniture manufacturers were ready to go with an aggressive marketing program. Wood manufacturers fought back by forming the Wood Office Furniture Institute, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. WOFI’s equally aggressive advertising campaign, as well as an emphasis on strategic planning of executive and general offices, helped to combat the takeover of steel.
Gradually, however, as wood manufacturers began to use steel parts, and steel manufacturers added wood tops, it became clear that office furniture was office furniture. The day of two separate industries was gone. In 1963 WOFI became the short-lived OFMI, the Office Furniture Manufacturers Institute. Ten years later, BIFMA, the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association, was started
April 16, 2008 at 2:38 pm · Filed under Your Commerce
Ever inventive, Google has been sending out emails to select Adsense publishers regarding a new pay for action program. This is bad news for publishers promoting Adsense.
Pay For Action Adsense - A Fundamental Problem
If you are reading this, you probably know what Adsense is and are using it. If not, it is a program whereby Google allows sites to place ads from the Adwords program on their site. When a visitor to your site clicks one of the ads, you get a cut of the bid price from Google. It is a simple program that surprisingly generates a significant amount of revenue.
Google is now beta testing a new version of Adsense it is calling pay for action. While Google is not providing much information, the program apparently is an attempt to convert Adsense into one giant affiliate program. Instead of paying publishers for clicks on ads, the program will only pay a commission if a person clicks on one of the ads on your site and takes the relevant action on the advertiser’s site. In this case, it appears the action is buying whatever is offered or becoming a lead. In exchange for killing the click revenue aspect of Adsense, you apparently get a cut off the commission for whatever revenue is generated by the advertiser from your traffic.
There are a number of problems with this approach. First, Google offers no explanation of how it will account for sites that list phone numbers for orders, a method used by customers that Google can’t hope to track. Second, Google has offered no indication of how revenues will be generated from sites offering services such as lawyers, doctors and so on. A vast majority of people clicking onto these sites will telephone or email the business, which makes tracking a very difficult game. Admittedly, the program is in beta testing, so Google may come up with solutions for all of these issues. There is, however, a more fundamental problem.
The pay for action program contains one inherent flaw. It eliminates the motivation of the advertiser to have a good, fast site that converts and proper customer service. All indications are the advertisers will be able to use the platform for free and only pay commissions to Google which are split with us, the publishers. If so, what motivation does the advertiser have to improve their site? What motivation does the advertiser have to satisfy customers? In my honest opinion, the answer is very little. Yes, they want to get more sales, but what do they really care if they are getting a bunch of free traffic?
If I told you I would send you 100,000 visitors a day and you had to pay me a commission only on sales, how much would you work to improve the site? Be honest. Perhaps you would work on it for a month or so, but after that human nature would take over. We all know of sites out there that haven’t been touched in years because they have so many affiliates producing tons of traffic that they can just kick back and collect cash.
I fully understand that Google is trying to deal with click fraud, click bots and so on. Perhaps the pay for action program will be the solution when it is ultimately finalized. Perhaps it will be the greatest thing since, well, Google. My experience, however, is that a majority of affiliate programs are iffy at best, otherwise I would be promoting them instead of Adsense!
Again, it is to early to draw any conclusions regarding Google’s move, but people with Adsense ads on their site should take notice. This is a fundamental change that redistributes the risks and benefits of the Adsense program. I bet Yahoo is salivating about the prospects for its Publisher Network if Google goes ahead. Personally, I planned to stay with Adsense for as long as it was offered, but have my doubts now. If I wanted to partner with other sites, I would have done it a long time ago.
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - providing internet marketing services.
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