That would have to be our time.
When it comes to buying things, you really have to factor in your time, taxes, delivery costs, product risks and price to make a good decision.
Some approximations can help a lot. For example, going to the local mega-store is worth it for large purchases. You start a list, based on experience, for each of the big stores, and work on the list over time, before going to the store. You know you can't do all of this in a day, because the ice cream will melt (add you own risk list here). But you can make efficient use of the local Wal-mart, HEB, etc. and do better for your money and time than you can online.
The lists will tend to be big, and you will have to later execute correctly to not waste money. For example, I can get pork cheaper at my local HEB than anywhere else, and it is good quality. If it rots in the refrigerator because I got too busy, I lost out on the purchase. Better not do it.
Hyper-Ad is dedicated to the principle of wasting as little of our customers time as possible. We will get better at this as we go along. We want you to come to our website and get it done! Please help us by both buying from our site and engaging us in intelligent complaint (so, for example, if you know we couldn't help a bad situation, let it go rather than blaming us. OTOH, if you feel we could make something for you FASTER, tell us what you think.)
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Searching for what you need, not finding it
If I had to comment about what I hate most about searching for things needed from big websites like Amazon, New Egg, TigerDirect, etc., it would be the massive number of irrelevant results I have to wade through to get to what I want. There is almost nothing more irritating than typing in something real simple, like the exact name of the product, and getting 5000 results, 99% irrelevant.
What is worse, is that once you think you have "finally" found the page with the product you want, you have to read the entire page very carefully to be absolutely certain you are ordering what you think you are ordering. For example, I recently went looking for a movie DVD, and found a page that looked like it was selling the movie. Something didn't quite add up, so I kept reading, looking for some clear indication of exactly what the page was selling. After 20 minutes, I realized that the page was selling a movie poster, not a movie. Bad, bad, very bad.
What are they thinking? Maybe they have too much time on their hands, like prison inmates, and don't realize the rest of us are in a hurry. Maybe they hire young, overpaid web developers who just don't care about my time or your time.
How much is your time worth? Have you ever bothered to calculate it? Ever noticed how many people and organizations just want to "borrow" a few minutes of your time for ... <insert totally meaningless (to you) purpose here> ? If that does not make you mad as Hell, you aren't paying attention yet. They are stealing your single most important value, your time, from you. The default answer should be: "no, you may not waste my time." Hang up on them.
If I go to the big grocery store four blocks from my home, I can guarantee myself great, super-low prices. No doubt about it. But, I spend a minimum of 45 minutes driving, shopping (even with a pre-written list) and waiting in line to make my purchases. The parking lot is so clogged, I can depend on 15 minutes just to find a parking space, walk to the store, and walk back. Unless I do a lot of shopping at one time, it is usually better to make my purchases online, since I have to plan my purchases anyway.
Time is the fire in which we all burn.
We care about your time. Suppose you can do as I do, and go to a local store and get a particular product for 1/3 the best possible web price, but it costs you $30 worth of your time to shop there, and you really hate going to the store (HEB and Wal-mart have totally great prices, totally horrible parking and checking out processes). What is your best option? Seriously! We have kids to raise, business to do, things to accomplish, and we never seem to have enough time.
We at Hyper-Ad are doing something about this. For every line item product, we give you exactly three choices: good, better and best. Mostly, this is about price and quantity. We also read the page to be sure it is the right product (and that doesn't always work, either). In many cases, you can get a better deal at your local grocery store. Is it worth it to do so?
We also have indexes and various tables of contents to help you narrow down on the things you need as fast as possible. Since there are no search engines available that just get you what you want, we work on browsing as the next best alternative.
What is worse, is that once you think you have "finally" found the page with the product you want, you have to read the entire page very carefully to be absolutely certain you are ordering what you think you are ordering. For example, I recently went looking for a movie DVD, and found a page that looked like it was selling the movie. Something didn't quite add up, so I kept reading, looking for some clear indication of exactly what the page was selling. After 20 minutes, I realized that the page was selling a movie poster, not a movie. Bad, bad, very bad.
What are they thinking? Maybe they have too much time on their hands, like prison inmates, and don't realize the rest of us are in a hurry. Maybe they hire young, overpaid web developers who just don't care about my time or your time.
How much is your time worth? Have you ever bothered to calculate it? Ever noticed how many people and organizations just want to "borrow" a few minutes of your time for ... <insert totally meaningless (to you) purpose here> ? If that does not make you mad as Hell, you aren't paying attention yet. They are stealing your single most important value, your time, from you. The default answer should be: "no, you may not waste my time." Hang up on them.
If I go to the big grocery store four blocks from my home, I can guarantee myself great, super-low prices. No doubt about it. But, I spend a minimum of 45 minutes driving, shopping (even with a pre-written list) and waiting in line to make my purchases. The parking lot is so clogged, I can depend on 15 minutes just to find a parking space, walk to the store, and walk back. Unless I do a lot of shopping at one time, it is usually better to make my purchases online, since I have to plan my purchases anyway.
Time is the fire in which we all burn.
We care about your time. Suppose you can do as I do, and go to a local store and get a particular product for 1/3 the best possible web price, but it costs you $30 worth of your time to shop there, and you really hate going to the store (HEB and Wal-mart have totally great prices, totally horrible parking and checking out processes). What is your best option? Seriously! We have kids to raise, business to do, things to accomplish, and we never seem to have enough time.
We at Hyper-Ad are doing something about this. For every line item product, we give you exactly three choices: good, better and best. Mostly, this is about price and quantity. We also read the page to be sure it is the right product (and that doesn't always work, either). In many cases, you can get a better deal at your local grocery store. Is it worth it to do so?
We also have indexes and various tables of contents to help you narrow down on the things you need as fast as possible. Since there are no search engines available that just get you what you want, we work on browsing as the next best alternative.
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