Sep
30

Online Retailers! Please Use Proper Packaging!

By admin Posted in Rants | Comments Off

I seem to be so busy these days and so I tend to buy books, clothing and presents online as it’s so much more convenient. I’ve always been one for time saving ideas and just
being able to sit at the computer and order what the family needs at any given time is a real relief. There’s nothing worse than having to spend your Saturdays shopping for
school clothes, when you’d rather be enjoying a barbecue in the garden – as for shopping on Sundays, don’t get me started.

Having just extolled the virtues of online shopping, only this weekend I was confronted with some of its problems. I’d ordered a couple of books from a new bookseller and some
new school trousers for my youngest son. The books turned up in torn paper packaging and the cover of one of them had been damaged. You can imagine how I felt; it shouldn’t
be too much of a problem for booksellers to send out their stock in proper book packaging and bags. It’s not as if padded envelopes and proper book boxes are that expensive.
To top it all my son’s trousers arrived the same day, again badly wrapped, they looked as though they’d been dropped in a mud bath. had words with the delivery man and
explained that I was going to return the books and the trousers. We’ve got to know each other quite well over the last couple of years and he is often a mine of information about
things. He agreed that they should be returned and then he said that it was quite a common occurance with that particular company, adding that he thought they would have done something by now given the costs involved. I guess perhaps they had a standing contract with a not so great supplier. As it happens my friend runs a small Ebay business and said that she had similar issues with some suppliers but eventually found this site selling affordable quality packaging supplies. Having looked at the prices on that site, I dont really see why anyone would cut corners on their packaging, not when it can have such an impact on their business. If I receive any more items delivered damaged due to poor packaging in the future I will make a point of suggesting they use a company like Davpak, as well as a different delivery company!

That is my second gripe, some of the delivery companies used are terrible. There was a time when Parcel Force was the standard for many online retailers, but many now use smaller cheaper firms who do not have depos nearby, and who… you guessed it, are not open for collection on Saturdays!

Sep
30

Selling My Old Car

By admin Posted in Ramblings | Comments Off

This last week has been a real pain for me as I am trying to sell my old mini so that I can buy a new car. It just never occurred to me that newspapers and auto magazines would
charge such high prices just to advertise a second hand car. I tried the local paper first of all and that wasn’t a good idea as those advertisements tend to attract a load of time
wasters. The first two guys who came to look at my car wanted to beat me down on the price by £100. I said that as I had already advertised it at below its market value, there
was no way I was taking less than stated. One of the potential buyers said he understood but that his budget was less than I was asking. So why come? I can understand that
people might want to try to knock something off the cost, but not to turn up knowing that they didn’t have enough money to buy the car in the first place. The second caller wasn’t
amused when I told him that I wouldn’t sell below the price I’d asked for and went off muttering about menopausal women.

Advertising my car in a couple of the auto trader magazines had cost me considerably more than the local paper, but it did at least bring out a better class of potential buyers
– apart from the one who complained about the size of the vehicle, what did he expect from a mini? In spite of the cost of advertising my car for sale, I didn’t find a buyer who
was prepared to pay the asking price. A friend of mine suggested that I think about part exchange if I wanted a new car. I took a look online and found a site called UK Car Broker (a rather apt name dont you think!) who gave me a really good deal on a brand new Fiesta.

So far Im really happy with the car. I have had Ford’s in the past and found them pretty reliable, but also, when they do go wrong the spares are always pretty cheap too, and usually in stock at the garage. Hopefully this one will last me a few years and prove a good buy. If it doesnt, I will be sure to post back with any complaints!

Sep
16

Adverts are very annoying!

By admin Posted in Rants | Comments Off

There’s nothing more annoying than adverts on the TV at the moment – and they seem to be getting worse.

It appears that the secret of a good advertising campaign is to make the advert as annoying as possible so people will remember it. And also to turn up the volume of the adverts so that we all jump out of our skin when a program ends and have to leap for the remote control – every time.

The problem I have with adverts is that they take themselves too seriously. Occasionally you get an advert that’s genuinely funny, but most of them are either over the stop serious or cringingly bad.

The meerkat adverts are one example of how advertising should be done. The basic formula is don’t take yourself too seriously, make a funny advert and then capitalise on it when it starts to go well. It’s amazing how such a simple idea has gone from being a single advert right through to a separate website, toys, and a number of adverts that are mostly pretty funny.

Some of the worst adverts are those for quick loans and things like that. I don’t know how anyone can trust the amateur ads that you see for those type of things – usually they try to be a bit funny and end up failing completely.

My least favourite adverts have to be car and perfume ads though. They are 100% serious most of the time, without giving you any information about the product or what it does.