Tag Archives: food

More Sushi, Please.

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I never thought I’d eat Sushi.  I’ve tried it from time to time, but never really found it very palatable… until now. My sister in law recommended Won Won Wok in Saratoga Springs. So Fran and I went and checked it out. Great Chinese food. I took the guys at work back later the next next week and one of then Got a Sushi plate. I tried one- it was delicious. So next time I got some Sushi for myself. Amazing. And I’ve been in love with the Won Won Wok’s sushi ever since. I’m especially partial to the Spicy Tuna, Avocado and California Rolls. I even use chopsticks.

A Brief Overview and Welcome

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This is my first post! It’s actually just the content from the “About Cam” page but I’ve ingeniously used it again here as a blog entry. Allow me to welcome you to my newest blogging venture: Cam on Commerce. I’m your host, Cam. I’ll be talking about- you guessed it (and if you didn’t then you may want to bail here)- Commerce!

I’m using this website as a venue to collect innformation I hope to use in a book one day.  At this point the book doesn’t have a name or anything fancy like that. I’ll frequently make references to the “book” so you have to pretend that what you’re reading is printed material (and you you want to print out this blog you have my blessing).

Feel free to send me questions about ecommerce subjects- I’ll do a Q&A section for some posts (and then cleverly work the into my book to create the illusion of substance!). So, without further ado, let the “book” begin.

First things first: I want everyone to know who this book is for. Far too often people pick up a book and they scan page after page desperately hoping the book can help them. They buy the book, they read it, and discover that they are not the book’s intended audience (It turns out “Asymmetric Cellular Division” wasn’t about why AT&T and Cingular sucked).

This book is for anyone who has any interest in ecommerce (specifically geared toward smaller private endeavors- not things like Amazon). You may be curious about what running an ecommerce website entails. It may be your first time setting up a commerce oriented website or it may be your second or third (indicating you need this book). You may already be successfully running an ecommerce website (you still need this book, dammit). You may have a brick and mortar store and be considering and Internet presence. Again, it’s for anyone with any type of entrepreneurial ecommerce itch (not to be confused with a tick bite).

I try to cover anything relevant to small scale ecommerce. I start at the beginning with “the urge” (which is the initial idea that eats at you until you do something about it). We move onto product or service selection and competitive advantage. We work through creating an identity, building a website, creating a fulfillment framework and then cover advertising and website traffic. Finally we talk about what to do if success hits, what to do if success is MIA and touch on growth strategies and exit strategies. If this sounds dull go find yourself a comic with some pictures.

So what makes me qualified to talk about any of this? I have a computer, some spare time and can type pretty darn fast with only two fingers. Also, for the last five years I’ve been involved with the development of ecommerce software and I’ve started several websites (using that software) that are now multimillion dollar companies. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but if my claim to fame was that I’d spent the last five years eating oatmeal in a sensory deprivation chamber to achieve inner peace I might be the wrong guy to listen to. Toot toot.

About Me:

My name is on the front of this book. I’m not so self centered that it needs to be repeated here (after all it’s on the front cover of this book! Just getting myself psyched up- remember I said this was going to be a book). I’ve been programming since I was fourteen. Unfortunately I can’t program any better now. Luckily this book isn’t about programming, it’s about commerce, specifically ecommerce. I’ve been involved in commerce since I was seven years old. How about that?

My grandmother used to operate a health food store. For some reason I thought if I drew pictures of Grimace, the purple McDonald’s character of years past, hiding in the forest people would want to buy them. I put them for sale in the health food store. No takers. Not much later I got a copy of Print Shop for the Apple IIe and tried my hand at designing birthday cards. Nope. So I began printing out signs advertising my willingness to mow lawns for spare change. Nothing. Weeding? No. Babysitting? Nada. It wasn’t until I began hauling my sister’s toys down to the street corner and selling them to kids who were coming back from school that I found my calling. Retail.

EBay was thrilling for me. From the moment I learned of its existence I was an avid user and proponent. This was my first real experience with ecommerce. I sold anything I could get my hands on and became quite obsessed with the whole idea of Internet retailing. I decided at the early age of fifteen that my destiny involved some type of ecommerce retail business. I used eBay for years until one day I read something about webstore technology. How wonderful! I could bypass eBay, the seller fees, the non-paying bidders, the lack of control in my listings. I enlisted the help of a good friend and we created our first website for selling pocket knives (sell what you know).

Our original website was incredibly basic- we could showcase items and people could add them to a cart a checkout. We kept track of orders on a spread sheet and everything was a wonderful mess. We spent a considerable amount of time looking for more powerful ecommerce software but really didn’t have any luck. And then it hit us! We would build our own ecommerce solution and our website could be the perfect testing ground. People who actually used the ecommerce software they designed to run a retail Internet store! What a novel idea.

Park City Corvette Caravan

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A scenic drive to Park City, fine dining at Park City’s premier Italian restaurant, and the companionship of eight other Corvettes screaming along beside you the whole way. Who could ask for more? What about the company of your beautiful wife? That’s right… the perfect evening. Almost.

On Saturday a group of us met up in Pleasant Grove and drove to Park City for Dinner.  It was a blast to cruise along with eight other Corvettes and I think it was the first time my wife got a glimpse of my other social circle.

We ate at Ghidottis. It’s expanse is formidable, its food delicious and its service somewhat lacking. The menu was over-sized (I wish I had a picture- I’m not kidding, it was huge) and difficult to decipher. I ended up getting plain old Fettucini Alfredo. It was probably the best tasting pasta I can recall eating but for the $21.00 price tag the portion was undersized (“just right” my wife pointed out).  At the end of dinner the waitress refused to put the meals on separate checks. She forced us to try and calculate how much we individually owed and offered to run our cards for that amount.  After numerous unsuccessful attempts and nearly 45 minutes after finishing our meal we were able to leave the restaurant. Geez.

The picture above is where we met up. The guy in the picture is Shayne, who coordinated the dinner effort (thanks Shayne). I’m the third car from the left (black). It gets harder and harder to find time to do something fun so I’m glad we were able to take a break and and go for a cruise.  

Watch Out. Dangers of Business Diversification.

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 I thought it might be interesting to talk about a business puzzle I’m facing. I’m going to map out a bit of my business theory (and I have no illusion that what I’m going to write will be unique, per se) and apply it to a situation I’m dealing with at work. To be very specific we’ve started adding some watches to our store and I’m trying to decide if it’s a good idea, a bad idea or neither. Hang on while I launch into some background business blabbering (this will probably end up boring everyone).

What follows is not a mathematical formula, merely an relationship. Desire fulfillment (DF)= revenue acquisition (RA). If you can fulfill a/the desire of an individual by selling him/her a product/service then you can acquire revenue from that transaction. Example: Company “A” sells food. Individual  “B” desires food so they purchase it from Company “A.” Very simple.  Things to keep in mind: 1) Desire fulfillment could be considered “utility” for those who are more familiar with that term. 2) The differentiation between needs and wants is irrelevant to this particular thought process so it will not be discussed. 3) Granted, some desire fulfillment does not result in positive revenue, but we’re discussing transactions/resolutions which do.

So then, it’s a pretty easy jump to the idea that More (M)(DF) = More(M)(RA). Company “A” sell sells food and clothing. Individual “B” purchases food AND clothing from company “A.” Consumers, in general, have a budget (whether self imposed, or created by financial limitations). Shoppers are going to spend “X” amount of money. “X” amount may include funds for clothes, food, books, hobbies, recreation and so fourth. The more needs you (as a provider of goods/services) can fill the more of the consumer budget you can expropriate. This is a generalization, of course. To reiterate: the higher the frequency of DF you can successfully convert, then more RA potential you have.

Real World Application (RWA): My company sells Knives. I don’t carry just one line. We have knife brand “1” and “2” and “3” and so on. If I only carried brand “1” people would only be able to purchase brand “1.” This is not in my best interest. We stock as many products as our Niche (more on this in a second) allows. Subsequently people often simultaneously purchase selections from numerous brands, thus increasing our revenue. Our current “M” factor isn’t too bad.  A big “whoohoo!” to us for our ability to fulfill multiple consumer desires (sarcasm is lost in text so I will state its application). However, we have what I call “Niche Syndrome” (NicSyn- like the president… good thing, bad thing) which will be discussed later.

An important tangent: One thing a company must have in order to be successful (and I use this term loosely) is a perceived advantage (ADV). It’s as simple as that- there must be something that your company appears to do better than another company or people will not purchase products/services from you. The perceived advantage can be almost anything: lowest price, best looking pictures, largest selection, most intriguing product descriptions. It doesn’t matter- it just has to be an advantage. There are two polar types of retail/service outlets. The  “megastore” and the “niche store”. Both of these business models serve as a type of advantage.

Walmart is the classic megastore. Their DF level is through the roof. A consumer can get nearly anything from a Walmart store. Their RA is phenomenal. And their ADV is size, selection and price. It’s a hard combo to beat. The good news is that there’s no reason to fight it. The niche store exists solely because consumers DF requirements are not limited solely to one ADV. Other advantages incorporated by niche establishments can create plenty of DF.  Niche stores offer things like “specialization,” “customer service” and “trust” to offset their limited (in comparison to a megastore) inventory (a DF component). A store’s RA can be impacted significantly by their ADV. So ADV(NF) = ADV(RA) is also true.

 Megastores have a huge advantage over niche stores in one area in particular. That area is diversification (DIV). The NicSyn mentioned before stems from the limited inventory potential of the Niche Store. If you sell kitchen items, you probably shouldn’t sell engine oil. In theory the same person who might need a set of kitchen knives does drive a car and may need the oil you sell, but this kind of retail mismatch tends to make people uncomfortable. NicSyn does not allow for extreme diversification and so the product potential is somewhat limited. The question becomes how much diversification can a niche store have before it impacts sales? How will the sales be impacted (positive, negative, no change)?  Not discussed here is the Meganiche store and the myriad of other hybrids that exist- once more, not relevant in this instance.  We’re now heading back from the tangent to deal to deal with my RWA.

We sell a diverse selection of knives on BladeHQ. But we are, ultimately, a niche store. Our DF level is probably very high in regard to people who have budgeted for that we sell. We have some significant advantages (bear with me folks- what follows is not supposed to be a gloat fest, I’m merely trying to illustrate one of my earlier points): A comprehensive selection, a visually appealing website, nice pictures, fair prices and good customer service. So for us the result so far has been that M[ADV(DF)] = M[ADV(RA)] .

The questions are: Will (M)(DIV)[ADV(DF)] = More revenue for us, where DIV= Watches. Can we acquire more of a customer’s budget and raise our DF level by diversifying our selection? Do knives and watches go together well enough to help our RA rise or will it have a negative impact? Will people buy watches instead of knives (this would create a neutral effect)? Maybe that’s a lot of unnecessary discussion to arrive at such simple questions…

We’ve actually added some watches to the website already, but have not actively promoted them to date. I’m somewhat apprehensive about this new project. Eventually the plan is to create a whole new niche store that sell watches exclusively, but in the meantime I’m hoping for a positive result with this experiment. We’ve had some luck with out other website (BladePlay) branching out into self defense products.  Somehow lower end knives and personal security seem to have a tighter relationship then high end knives and watches. Still, my hope is that people who buy high end knives also buy watches and we can fulfill some of their watch DF in addition to their knife DF. Fingers crossed. 

Our plan is to try and make the watch section of BladeHQ unobstructive. It will, in effect, be it’s own watch store embedded within our knife store. We don’t want want to affect the knife shopping experience, we want to enhance it. Off we go, fingers crossed, time will tell.