Category: Uncategorized

Every morning I check on my Amazon account to see what I sold the day before and what shipped. May started very strong but then sales really dropped off. The reason? Amazon ran out of the most popular battery pack. Rather than just say they were out of stock, they let a number of third-party sellers offer theirs, at much higher prices. The $25 pack went up to $35 and as high as $49. And for me, sales for that model went to zero for two weeks. I felt bad for visitors and found out that Best Buy had them for $20, so I put in a link to their product page and could tell from Site Meter’s out links that a few people a day were following the link.

Last night Amazon must have re-stocked that product because the price was down to $20 (a new low for them, perhaps to match Best Buy), so I took away the Best Buy link. Already people are following the link again, and I will find out soon if people are buying again.

What amazes me about this is the inefficiencies of capitalism. Theoretically the internet should bring prices in line at a similar low level. While visitors to my web site knew not to buy, I am sure others must be buying from the higher priced affiliates. The Apple Store sells the same product for $50 and there are enough product reviews on that page for me to think they do a pretty brisk business.

I thought Lost’s finale was 2 of the best hours of television I’ve ever seen. Every time a commercial would come on, I would just think “Man, I love this show!” I loved that Desmond was back and that it was his flashback (with Libby giving him the boat, so she finally got some backstory too). I loved Eko telling John “But I *am* going to push the button.” The moment when Michael confessed that he had murdered two lostaways was just incredibly powerful. Finding out that the plane crashed because Desmond didn’t push the button and that the guy he was in the hatch with was the special forces guy that trained Sayid? Awesome. Then NotHenry gets off the Others’ boat and is clearly the one in charge. Even though I saw it coming, it was chilling to see NotHenry again.

Continue reading “Lost Finale”

Yesterday afternoon while I was at work the phone rang and when I answered I got a beep. I’ve gotten fax calls before and if you don’t do something about them, the fax will just keep calling, so I quickly transferred the call to our fax machine. A minute or two later I went to see if it worked and found a letter to the Georgia Secretary of State. The letter was from the CFO of a hair products company in Norcross, Bernard King, and had a contact number, so I called him. Mr. King wasn’t in, but once I explained the situation I was told he would call me right back.

Continue reading “Brush With Greatness”

Last Friday at work, all kinds of memos went out about the upcoming May 1 Immigration Rally to be held at the state capitol. Organizers said there could be up to 100,000 people attending, whereas previously the biggest demonstration ever held at the Capitol was only 10,000. The usual steps were taken when there is a big event downtown: the state patrol was called in, helicopters would be on hand, barricades were placed along some streets, and other streets would be closed. We had a special staff meeting Friday afternoon to let us know what was going on and that we would be open for business (and that anyone who decided not to come in on Monday would have to sign leave). I made a mental note to bring something for lunch so I wouldn’t have to go out in the throngs. Some people decided not to come in rather possibly get stuck downtown in the masses. One of my bosses said it would be like the Olympics again where the streets were turned into rivers flowing with people. I was looking forward to seeing it.

Continue reading “A Quiet Riot”

The quarter ended yesterday, so I got the last of my data this morning. As I said earlier the results were much better than I expected.

I sold 23 Belkin Battery Backpacks, 2 BTI Battery ii’s, 2 Griffin Tunejuice batteries, and 2 iPod travel chargers. I’m amazed that so many people chose the Belkin battery pack, though I guess that’s what I would choose too and Amazon has the best price at $25 (the Apple Store charges the full list price of $50 for the same thing). Combined with a few other items like DVD’s, CD’s (thanks, Jeb!), bass strings, and software that sold, the total was $1,016.71 in sales with a commission of $60.78.

Continue reading “Amazon Q1 Results”