Via Preston Blog, the National Retail Association is forecasting 17% growth in 2008 for the Internet sector - with sales ranking in at $204 billion.  While the rest of the retail industry is expecting flat sales, it makes sense that growth will continue online.  As the economy depresses, more people will look to the web for [...]

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Seth Godin says Internet shoe retailer Zappos wants you to use their customer support services:
Zappos wants you to call their 800 number. They want you to order too many shoes. They want you to return (at their expense) the shoes that don’t fit.
This is so diametrically opposite of how many companies function today - and [...]

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Wired is reporting on the recent AdWords CPC increases that have taken a toll on arbitragers and others. The argument in favor of these increases is that it allows Google to display fewer (but more relevant) ads, thus increasing the CTR.  On the flip side, some ad buyers are saying that it simply costs more [...]

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Piper Jaffray added Netflix (NFLX) to its Alpha list, signaling that the stock displays potential for solid near-term appreciation [link]. To back its outlook, Piper cited Blockbuster’s weaknesses and the fact that rent-by-mail currently makes up only 20% of the movie rental market.
I totally agree, in the short term. However, in the long term, [...]

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Matt Heaton, the founder of BlueHost (the firm that I use to host this site) wrote in his personal blog about the difficulty in balancing customer service needs of hundreds of thousands of customers [link].  He writes that the vast majority of folks contact customer service as needed, and don’t exceed the normal unspoken boundaries [...]

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GS has discontinued the practice of free soda for employees.
As Valley Wag points out, this is Silicon Valley’s favorite perk. I guess Wall Street types can’t be lured in with the promise of bottomless sugar water.
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