Agreeing With Porter

I agree with Porter about the “Good Relationships Should Impact Your Bottom-line” article on the Diva Marketing Blog. Relationships absolutely win out over pricing. Just as Porter experienced this as true in his internship, I experienced it in my job as a Nordstrom sales representative. Nordstrom is a fairly high-end department store. It is more expensive than Macy’s, but not on the same level as Sak’s or Neiman’s. Based on those comparisons, it is safe to say that Nordstrom has good quality merchandise that is relatively pricey. At first glance, it seems incredible that an expensive store has such a huge following. However, behind the scenes, it is obvious that Nordstrom is devoted to their customers. To aid in the relationship building, Nordstrom uses CRM software called Personal Book in which basic and purchase information are kept on each customer. Nordstrom employees further build relationships by providing excellent service after the sale, such as by sending thank you notes and calling to follow up on delivery of a product. Obviously, customers return to the store for the great products, but also because they have relationships with the salespeople. It is a wonder to me why more stores, such as Bloomingdales, don’t use the same strategy as Nordstrom. Bloomingdales has even more expensive merchandise than Nordstrom, so if it were to train their salespeople as Nordstrom does theirs, I am positive Bloomingdales would be doing a lot better than it is now.

Class Material Post #4: DealCatcher.com

One of the guest speakers that presented to our class was the founder of DealCatcher.com. He explained how his website doesn’t actually sell anything or process transactions. He posts coupons up for companies that can be used at the company’s website. The idea is to attract price-sensitive buyers with these coupons and then they will use them on the company website to purchase a product. DealCatcher.com exposes customers to company websites because they would normally not visit them due to the expensive prices.

I thought this was a great idea, but I didn’t think I would benefit from it. I am not price-sensitive because if I want something, I have to have it! Usually the things I want are higher-priced, and I thought there was no chance there would coupons for such brands on DealCatcher.com. Searching for something to inspire my blog entry, I went to DealCatcher.com just for the heck of it. I looked at the beauty then jewelry coupons and wasn’t impressed. Then, I clicked on the apparel section, and I could not believe what I saw! My favorite brand of shoes in the whole wide world had multiple coupons posted! There were also coupons for Gucci, Bluefly.com, and Bloomingdales. There are other brands on DealCatcher.com that are usually not bought by people who are price-sensitive, such as J.Crew, Diesel, and Apple. I feel DealCatcher.com should increase marketing efforts toward additional market segments because they have coupons for brands that attract all types of buyers.

Rock & Republic Wikipedia Article

The "Rock & Republic article has grown from two sentences to several paragraphs. Much to my dismay, the article still isn’t really an article because the fashion stub label remains at the bottom of the page. Nonetheless, I feel the stub is off to a good start. It evolved from a statement about the founder of the company and Victoria Beckham’s involvement in the line. All of my edits remain, but some of my grammar was corrected at one point. Now, the article includes history, product description, company description, future plans, and some other random bits of information. I would definitely like to continue to contribute to the article. I hope to add headers, so that it may reach “article” status sooner. I also hope to correct the repeat references, so as to tidy up that section of the page. However, finding additional, new information on the brand will be hard, since it is still relatively new and rather exclusive.

Nordstrom Wikipedia Edit

Out of all the articles I edited on Wikipedia, the "Nordstrom" article has the most active contributors. Not only is the article updated multiple times a day everyday, but the users editing this article do a great job checking each other's work. The article has evolved a lot since I began editing it. In the beginning, the article's history section and expansion section were several pages long and extremely detailed. The two sections are all placed under the history header now, and the information has all been greatly condensed. The user who did this said that a lot of the information belongs on the company website and not in the article. My addition to the expansion section about Nordstrom's restaurant concepts did not make the cut in the edit.

Another major part of the evolution of the article involved a list of the store's locations. At one point, a list of every single Nordstrom store was added to the article, but now it is gone. There is a separate article for Nordstrom locations. I must say, the article looks a lot less cluttered without it.

I am happy to see that a section about Nordstrom's diversity statement was added recently, and I'm also glad that my contribution describing the Pacesetter program remains.

Lilly Pulitzer Wikipedia Article

The Lilly Pulitzer article has not evolved much since I began editing it. The majority of the article was written this past fall, so my edits were somewhat minor compared to the massive contributions made during that time. However, I do feel that my edits were significant in showing how Lilly Pulitzer has been working to expand its product lines. Since I interned at Lilly Pulitzer in high school, I know the company is focusing a lot of its efforts on coming up with concepts for Lilly Pulitzer books. Therefore, I feel my edit that clarified the book titles was the most helpful and most significant out of all my contributions to the article. All of the edits I made were not changed, so I suppose the Wikipedia community is content with my edits, as well.

O-m-g, i-n-b-d!

I found an article from Slashdot that I can really relate to, and I'm almost sure every one of my classmates can, too: "For Texting Teens, an OMG Moment When the Phone Bill Arrives". The article discusses the text messaging craze among teenagers and how it is burning holes in parents' pockets. Cell phone companies have come out with new packages to ease the price and accomodate teens' frequent texts, but the monthly text message allowances continue to not be enough. The best plan for texters has proven to be one that includes unlimited texting.

The article also attempts to explain the reason for text-message popularity. Referring to text messaging as a "crutch," the article speculates teens choose texting because it eliminates face-to-face contact and you have a while to think about what you want to say since you don't have to respond promptly. I disagree with the reasoning. My friends and I are frequent texters, but I know we would all rather speak to each other in person if we had the choice. The reason for my texting is to amuse myself during idle time, such as if I'm studying in the library or riding on a bus. Lastly, I feel text messaging is so popular because it allows you to talk to a lot of people at the same time.

Conestoga High School Wikipedia Article

The "Conestoga High School" article on Wikipedia also receives fairly regular contributions and has evolved somewhat since I became involved in editing. However, it is frustrating that the majority of the users are current students who think they know more than Conestoga alumni. There haven’t been any new sections added to the article, but each section has been elaborated upon. Unfortunately, a lot of the edits were devoted to the controversy section of the article, rather than being devoted to updating and adding information. There seems to be a divide between users that want a description of the incident to appear on the page and users who do not think it is necessary to mention. I don’t think there should be a controversy section because I don’t want Conestoga to be defined by the incident that occurred. Most of my edits remain in the article. However, I was disappointed that my trivia edit was deleted because some 9th grader user doesn’t think that white should be included in the school colors. I’ve chanted “garnet, gray, and white” on the football field and basketball court for years, so I’m certain it should be included in the school colors. Other than the two disappointments, I feel the Conestoga article is coming along nicely, especially in terms of content about notable former students, trivia, and references.

Rock & Republic Wikipedia Edit #3

I am eagerly awaiting the promotion of "Rock & Republic" on Wikipedia from "fashion stub" to article. I wonder if the stub needs to have different section headers, such as history and the like, to be considered an article.

For my third edit, I updated the part about the article that previously described how Rock & Republic was going to come out with shoes by the end of spring. The season's end is here, and so are the shoes. I mentioned the launch of the product and gave a short description of the shoes' style. I also added how the brand caters to a variety of audiences by producing men's, women's, children's, and maternity clothing.

Article #4 from Required Blogs

On ClickZ Stats, I found a very interesting and surprising article about kids and the internet. "Kids' Chores Turn Wired" discusses how parents are assigning children to various tasks that are performed on the internet, such as looking up driving directions. I was absolutely shocked to read that 14% of children (ages 8 to 14) have helped parents complete their taxes online. I would never trust a child with my taxes, and I know my parents wouldn't trust me doing theirs, either. The statistic that was the most surprising to me was that 77% of kids have shopped online, and 10% have a credit card they shopped with. I have definitely purchased items online before with my parents' credit cards, but I didn't know it was even legal for such young kids to use one. Lastly, I was also intrigued by the fact that 26% of kids spend 3+ hours online per day. I loved going online when I was in that age group, but I also had a decent amount of homework and sports practices that filled my time.

VoIP

In several of the class lectures, we discussed web-based products that benefit from network effects. One of the products metioned was Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). We learned that the service can be provided for a very low price, some providers offer it for free, due to the cost structure of web-based products (high fixed costs, but low variable costs). VoIP interested me because who wouldn't want a product that is inexpensive and becomes more valuable to each user as the number of product users increases? To answer my question, I decided to search for disadvantages of the product.

The disadvantages of VoIP are few, but serious. First, the service does not work during power outages because internet connections require power. Therefore, no calls can be made or received during such an emergency. VoIP fails to provide perfect service during another emergency situation, as well. The origin of VoIP calls to 911 cannot be traced, so developers are working on a standard called e911 as a solution.

Although there are still technical glitches, VoIP has a very promising future. The service is gaining more and more users every year, and VoIP is expanding into other industries, such as video games.

"The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using VoIP" is an excellent article from Ezinearticles.com to read and learn more about the service.

Stiuqxela

I thought that by holding off to blog about the search engine optimization experiment, my page would show up on the top of the results. However, after learning about search engine optimization in class, I found out that I was very much mistaken. I learned it takes frequent posting as well as several other techniques in order to have a site with the most "google juice."

Currently, the first result that appears after searching "stiuqxela" is an article from a website called Ezine Articles (Stiuqxela Article). The article finally answered my burning question about the significance of stiuqxela. Flipped backwords, stiuqxela reads "Alex quits" (Alex Brown is the professor of this class). The following results are classmates' blogs. Before the class began blogging about stiuqxela, the only result that appeared when performing a search on the term was the Green Bay Packers site. Here is the link: stiuqxela.

Nordstrom Wikipedia Edit #3

In my third edit of Wikipedia's "Nordstrom" article, I added information about Nordstrom's "Pacesetter" program in the customer service section. I thought my addition was a necessity to the section because the article boasts about Nordstrom's customer service, and the program helps to explain why that is the case. I began my edit by mentioning how Nordstrom provides initiatives for their employees to provide such great customer service. I explained how Nordstrom pays their employees on a commission of sales basis, and continued by going into depth about the Pacesetter program. Basically, a Nordstrom employee becomes a Pacesetter if they sell a certain amount each year. The Pacesetter is a very impressive title to earn because a salesperson must sell hundreds of thousands of dollars. I also mentioned how the Pacesetters are treated to an awards ceremony and receive many perks, such as an increased employee discount and business cards.

Lilly Pulitzer Wikipedia Edit #3

For the third edit of Wikipedia's "Lilly Pulitzer" article, I updated the clothing section. At the end of the section, the article mentions how the company came out with two lifestyle books and two desk calendars, but it did not mention the books' titles. I added in the titles of the lifestyle books, Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Entertaining and Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Holidays, and the titles of the calendars, Essentially Lilly 2005 Social Butterfly Engagement Calendar and Essentially Lilly 2006 Party Animal Engagement Calendar.

Rock & Republic Wikipedia Edit #2

For my second edit of Wikipedia’s “Rock & Republic” article, I contributed a brief description of the brand’s collection. I mentioned items the company plans on releasing and discussed how Rock & Republic’s popularity is primarily attributed to its line of denim. I also included a quote from the company’s website, which describes the reasoning behind the brand’s name. Somewhat self explanatory, the name explains how the design of the clothing is meant to reflect rock and roll and is meant for people who live the lifestyle.

Conestoga Wikipedia Edit #3

In my third edit of Wikipedia's "Conestoga High School" article, I made grammatical changes throughout the text. There were many run-on sentences that I corrected by inserting commas. The other major grammar problem was sentence structure. I rephrased several of the sentences to make them flow better and replaced repeating words.

Article #2 from Required Blogs

According to the article "Gaming is for Grown-Ups" on ClickZ Stats, one third of adults spend more than 10 hours per week playing games compared to only 11% of teens. The article speculates the reason for the gap is because teens have less free time. I also feel adults spend so much time playing games because it is something to do when they are bored at work, and they usually have access to PCs right at their desks.

While adults prefer to game on PCs, teens log in more playing time on consoles. I was very surprised to read that teen girls make up a large portion of multiplayer gamers. Even though I was a teen only 4 years ago, I knew very few girls who played online or video games. However, more girls game now in general. Also, games geared towards girls encourage multiplayer involvement. For example, a popular game among girls is Dance Dance Revolution where players can compete in “dance-offs.”

I was drawn to this article because I have always been very curious about “gamers.” I thought they were a small group of teens, mostly male, who were completely obsessed with gaming, fantasy, sci-fi, and so on. However, my opinion has completely changed, and I, too, may be a gamer someday since the most female gamers are in the 25-34 year old age group.

Rock & Republic Wikipedia Edit #1

Currently, the information Wikipedia contains on Rock & Republic is considered a "stub." My goal is to develop the stub into a full article. Originally, the stub contained three sentences stating the brand's founder, owner, and celebrity co-designer. After my first edit, the stub is now two paragraphs. I described the founder's background in fashion design, named celebrities who wear the brand, and listed the stores that carry it. I also listed two references in the reference section I created.

Conestoga High School Wikipedia Edit #2

When visiting Conestoga's homepage, I noticed an announcement that the school was selected to receive the 2006-07 Siemens Foundation Award for Advanced Placement. I added this accomplishment under the Advanced Placement section in Wikipedia's "Conestoga High School" article. I also noticed on the school's website that two of the staff heads changed for the 2006-07 school year, so I updated this information on Wikipedia, as well.

Nordstrom Wikipedia Edit #2

My second edit of Wikipedia’s “Nordstrom” article corrected many grammatical errors in three of the article’s sections. One of the corrections I made was adding necessary commas after introductory clauses. There were also several compound sentences that either lacked commas or had unnecessary ones, which I corrected. There was one sentence that was originally repetitive because the word “about” was used twice, so I replaced one with the word “regarding.” In addition, there was a run-on sentence, which I separated into two sentences. I must admit I am quite embarrassed because I spelled “repetitive” wrong in the comment section beside my one of my edits.

Lilly Pulitzer Wikipedia Edit #2

For my second edit of Wikipedia’s ”Lilly Pulitzer” article, I corrected numerous grammar errors. There were two introductions to sentences that began with “In (a certain year)” that lacked a comma after the phrase, so I made those additions. There were also multiple comma and quotation errors. Originally, the period or comma was outside of the quotation marks surrounding a phrase, so I made corrections by placing either the comma or period inside the quotation marks. The article also contained a few wordy sentences, so I deleted unnecessary words. Unfortunately, I forgot to check the box at the end of the edit page stating that this was only a minor edit.

Customer Feedback Sites

In one of his posts, my teammate, Chris Leone, mentioned customer feedback sites. I 100% agree with Chris when he says that it is wise for businesses to “give the customers what they want.” Providing them with online information to aid their purchase decisions will definitely provide for happy customers. I, myself, am a fan of such feedback sites. Before I make any online purchase, I always read customer reviews. Even if I don’t purchase online, I usually read customer reviews or product information before going into stores. The reason I value customer feedback sites so much is because I do not trust salespeople. I know that certain salespeople will say anything to you just to make a sale because I worked as a sales representative on a 100% commission salary. I was often faced with the ethical dilemma of telling the truth or saying what the customer wanted to hear.

Search Techniques

Recently in class, we learned about marketing research online and how search is a valuable way to find information. We discussed several techniques that can be used to refine a search and get better results. One technique is entering a minus sign in front of a keyword that is not wanted, which solves the problem of words with double meanings. I admit that I have a guilty pleasure for celebrity gossip, so the first word applicable to this situation that came to mind was “Paris.” I wondered whether there would be more sites about Paris Hilton or Paris, as in the city, if the just the word “Paris” was googled.

I began my experiment by googling “Paris.” The first three results were websites about the city (the link is the site that was the first result). However, the fourth listing was the Wikipedia article on Paris Hilton. Then, I used the technique we learned in class by searching “Paris –city.” The first result was a casino site, the second was the same Wikipedia article about Ms. Hilton, and the third was the Wikipedia article about the mythological character named Paris. The majority of the rest of the results were sites about Paris Hilton.

To go along with another topic of class discussion, I feel my search experiment supports the idea of the Database of Intentions. The fact that a Paris Hilton website is fourth on the results page of a “Paris” search shows that society is quite absorbed in celebrities' lives.

Teammate Comment

One of my teammates, Chris Leone, commented on my vanity search entry. He did not post a comment on my blog, but his comment can be seen in an entry in his own blog.

Slashdot: "CD Music Sales Down 20% in Q1 2007" post

On one of the required blogs, Slashdot, there is a post
commenting on the article "Sales of Music, Long in Decline, Plunge Sharply" from The Wallstreet Journal's website. According to the article, compact-disc sales have declined by 20% as compared to sales from the first quarter in 2006. The main causes include increases in illegal downloading, lower prices of CD's, and specialty music retailers, such as Tower Records, closing down stores.

Both the article and post focus on the fact that “big-box retailers,” such as Walmart and Best Buy, take customers away from the specialty music retailers by offering lower prices. At the same time, these retailers carry much less of a selection than the specialty retailers, and some “big-box retailers,” notably Best Buy, are now reducing CD shelf space.

Even though it is already obvious that society is moving into a digital age, which is a prominent theme in our BUAD477 class, the article is further proof of this transformation.

Nordstrom Wikipedia Edit

In my first edit of Wikipedia's "Nordstrom" article, I made changes to the company history section. Before my edit, there was a description of how their "in-House Cafe" was discontinued. However, according to Nordstrom's website, the cafes still exist. Therefore, I deleted the sentence about the discontinuation.

I also noticed that there was mention of Nordstrom's coffee shops, but nothing about their restaurants. I added a very brief description of the Classic Café, Marketplace Café, Café Bistro, and Nordstrom Grill.

Lilly Pulitzer Wikipedia Edit

Today, I completed my first edit of the "Lilly Pulitzer" article. The article mentioned how Lilly Pulitzer clothing is carried in major department stores and listed Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's as examples. I decided to edit the article and include Neiman Marcus alongside the other two stores. I felt it was very important to include Neiman Marcus because Lilly Pulitzer takes pride in being a brand of choice among the affluent. While Nordstrom and Bloomingdales sell products of similar price and quality, Neiman Marcus is considered to be above the two stores. With more expensive and higher-end brands, Neiman Marcus competes with stores such as Saks.

Also, in the clothing section of the Lilly article, it describes how Lilly has expanded its product line to include Lilly bedding, men's clothing, jewelry, accessories, and so on. As a former intern at Lilly's corporate office, I know for a fact that Lilly Pulitzer has also introduced children's clothing and, even more recently, shoes. I added the two categories to the list of Lilly's new merchandise.

Vanity Search

The other day in class, Professor Brown gave a lecture about security and privacy on the Internet. He introduced the term "vanity search," which is when you enter your name into a search engine. He advised everyone in the class to do a vanity search because interviewers will definitely "google" your name.

I never knew there was actually a term for running a search on your own name, so I had unknowingly done a few vanity searches in the past. I was relieved to find that my name only showed up in a roster on my sorority's website. However, I only looked at the first page of results. Today, for the first time, I conducted a thorough vanity search and was surprised with the results. First, I searched my real name. I was happy to see that my blog was the second result on the first page! A few pages later, my name appeared on the University of Delaware's school newspaper website in an article describing a contest I had won. When I searched my nickname with my last name, the sorority roster was the first result and my profile on a friends networking website was the second. The third result was a website that I never agreed to be featured on, but my name and picture were on the website with several other girls from my school. Apparently, we're all going to be in a calendar that highlights dates important to UD.

I am so glad I took the time to do a thorough vanity search because after I get the one website issue sorted out, I will be prepared for any interviewer to "google" me.

First Wikipedia Edit

The Wikipedia article I contributed to was "Conestoga High School". I selected this article to edit because I attended Conestoga for all of my high school years, so I feel that I am a valid source of information for the topic. The first addition I made to the article was a correction of the school colors. The article orginally stated that the school's colors were garnet and gray. However, white is one of Conestoga's colors as well, so I added it in. The article also contains a list of the universities that the class of 2006 chose to attend. I added Carnegie Melon University, Villanova University, and Drexel University to the list. My source of information was a few girls who were in the class of 2006 with whom I grew close to from sports.

Purpose of Blog

Now that I have introduced myself, I would like to explain the purpose of this blog. I am currently enrolled in a class called Information Technology Applications in Marketing, which is a requirement for all marketing majors at the university. This blog is one of the course's projects. Throughout the semester, I will be posting weekly on topics such as content from the course and edits of Wikipedia articles. I hope this blogging experience will help me to understand why blogs are a necessity for businesses.

Here is the class blog.

Introductory Post

Hi!

My name is Caitlin Winters. I am a junior and a marketing major at the University of Delaware. I am a member of Alpha Phi and hold the position of Director of Incoming Correspondence.

Happy Valentine's Day!