February 19th, 2010 jeniii
Do you ever dream of having your own shoe stylist? Does the thought of receiving monthly gifts excite you? Well, turn your dreams into a reality and join ShoeDazzle “The World’s Premier Shoe Society!” For a membership of $39.95 per month, you will receive one pair of shoes with FREE shipping. These shoes will be hand picked for you by ShoeDazzle’s shoe fashion experts with 100 years of combined experience. They are guaranteed to be the hottest up-to-date trends. There are three easy steps to get you on your way to your ShoeDazzle membership:
Step One – Take a little fashion survey. This is so the experts can get a feel for your fashion sense of what you like and dislike. They want to make sure they are catering to your needs, rather than having them tell you, what you like.
Step Two – The experts will send you a recommendation of 5 shoes to choose from. With your membership you are able to receive one pair with free shipping. If you decide you want all 5 pairs of fabulous shoes, additional fees may apply. It’s a small price to pay for shoes picked with you in mind.
Step Three – If you decide you are not satisfied with your order, feel free to return them in the pre-paid shipping label that is provided for each pair of shoes.
If you are still a little hesitant, here is the FAQ’s page to answer all of those questions.
It’s seriously that simple. Kim Kardashian (LOVE her!) is the Founder and Chief Stylist a.k.a. brains behind it all. She oversees all styles, looks and quality of each design. If you know her, you know she’s all about style.
Since it’s still February, American Heart Month, ShoeDazzle introduced their limited edition Wynn deVelle red pump to all of their members.10% of each purchase will benefit WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. Purchase for a good cause; because looking great shouldn’t be limiting.
Posted in advertising / marketing, business, coupons / deals / sales, fun, gifts, good value, shoes, women | 2 Comments »
July 17th, 2009 admin
From buzzfeed:
“The recession isn’t so bad when you think about in terms of what we’re getting rid of. I like to think of it as a form of Spring cleaning. Here are 14 things that are hopefully going to be by the end of this recession.
1. Crocs! Say goodbye to Crocs! Last year the company lost $185.1 million, slashed roughly 2,000 jobs and scrambled to find money to pay down millions in debt. Now it’s stuck with a surplus of shoes, and its auditors have wondered if it can stay afloat. It has until the end of September to pay off its debt. “The company’s toast,” said Damon Vickers, who manages an investment fund at Nine Points Capital Partners in Seattle…
2. Deal Or No Deal Unfortunately, the show will continue in a syndicated version, but will now be shot in Connecticut due to a 30% tax cut incentive. Currently it’s filmed in Culver City, California, and is cheap enough to produce because few big cash prizes have ever had to paid out so far. It is a little surprising to see this cheaply produced show get the ax by NBC. It could be because of ratings, but either way, say goodbye!
3. Life & Style Weekly Sales of the celeb gossip magazine are down 44.1% . We don’t need anymore celebrity gossip magazines!
4. Read the rest of this article
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May 8th, 2009 admin
This article is from the wall street journal:
“A lot of Americans think they’re eating a healthy diet these days. But it’s easy to be fooled by our assumptions and the ways that food manufacturers play on them.
Take chicken. The average American eats about 90 pounds of it a year, more than twice as much as in the 1970s, part of the switch to lower-fat, lower-cholesterol meat proteins. But roughly one-third of the fresh chicken sold in the U.S. is “plumped” with water, salt and sometimes a seaweed extract called carrageenan that helps it retain the added water. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says chicken processed this way can still be labeled “all natural” or “100% natural” because those are all natural ingredients, even though they aren’t naturally found in chicken.
Producers must mention the added ingredients on the package — but the lettering can be small: just one-third the size of the largest letter in the product’s name. If you’re trying to watch your sodium to cut your risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, it pays to check the Nutrition Facts label. Untreated chicken has about 45 to 60 mgs of sodium per four-ounce serving. So-called enhanced or “plumped” chicken has between 200 and 400 mgs of sodium per serving, almost as much as a serving of fast-food french fries.
Adding salt water became widespread when big discount stores began selling groceries and wanted to sell chicken at uniform weights and prices. Plumping packaged chicken helps even out the weight. But that means consumers are paying for added salt water at chicken prices — an estimated $2 billion worth every year, according to the Truthful Labeling Coalition, a group of chicken producers that don’t enhance their products….”
Read the whole article
Posted in advertising / marketing, business, dangerous foods, family, food and drinks, food industry, gross, health, parents, truth, warnings | No Comments »
September 23rd, 2008 admin
Stay tuned for Google’s announcement today of their highly anticipated competitor to the iPhone!
Posted in business, electronics | No Comments »
September 22nd, 2008 admin
Although many of us do not want to admit it, the U.S. has become a weak link in the global economy due to governmental mismanagement by obvious players. The 5 largest American investment banks don’t even exist anymore! Why? Whose fault is it? Does BUSH ring a bell? How ’bout the American government? Anyway, while the U.S. is withering away in power on various levels (and has practically become a “Banana Republic” no thanks to Dubya), China has suddenly gained an enormous financial and social level, never before experienced in history. Their power sort of crept up on us, didn’t it? Pretty amazing, huh?
I find it very unpleasant that this has happened and I am fairly bitter that China produces practically everything on earth and the quality is crap, and sometimes they decide to put toxic chemicals in foods and baby toys, furniture etc., but whatever. The world allowed this and so must assume its actions. What’s to do now?
Adjust to it, whether reluctant or not. China is here to stay and if we can’t accept that, we’ll have to move to another planet. For businesses, I’d think something like language learning would be in order. Billions of people on earth speak Chinese, and to grow your business internationally, you would be remiss to avoid China. That being said, they have a reputation of working unethically and dishonestly. That happens everywhere, so if you do your homework, you should be able to locate the best people to work with you and your company. While English is a language of business, many Chinese people do not speak it and so if you’d like to do business with them, you will have to take the initiative and learn Chinese. A few courses can do wonders.
Who has time to learn a language? I know, it takes time but if you get excellent language learning DVDs, you can work with your own schedule and Learn Chinese at your own pace
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Posted in DVD, business, efficient, good value, spare time | No Comments »
September 2nd, 2008 admin
From smartmoney:
“1. “Our branches are there to sell you, not serve you.”
In the late 1990s bank branches were considered outmoded relics soon to be replaced by ATMs and Internet banking. But just the opposite happened: In 1998 there were 89,000 bank branches in the U.S.; by 2007 there were 97,000. Why? The industry realized consumer banking was profitable and that despite the predictions of Silicon Valley wonks, the main criterion consumers use in choosing a bank is proximity, says SNL Financial analyst Jennifer Payne.
But branches aren’t just about convenience; they’re a bank’s primary sales floor. Brochures for services as varied as retirement accounts and home loans are on display, and everyone from the teller on up is trained to make a sale. That’s because in the current low-interest-rate climate, it’s harder to generate revenue from interest alone. Many players in the industry have been trying to boost fee- and service-based income, so if a teller sees you have a mortgage, he might suggest you meet with a loan officer to discuss a home-equity loan. Says Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, “The more products a customer has with a bank, the more likely he is to stay with that bank.”
2. “Our fees will only go up.”
With the economy slowing and big losses looming in the mortgage market, banks are looking for reliable revenue streams. Hence punitive fees — for overdrawing your account, say, or using a competitor’s ATM — are increasing. The average ATM service charge doubled between 1998 and 2007, and overdraft fees brought in $17.5 billion in revenue in 2006, up from $10.3 billion in 2004, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Rubecca Hegarty, a married mother of three in Woodridge, Ill., says she often pays upwards of $100 a month in overdraft fees to Chase, since, like most banks, it changes the order of purchases so that large debts get paid first — increasing the likelihood of incurring fees on smaller purchases. JPMorgan Chase says it does this because big payments like a mortgage are more important to consumers, so they get priority.
Revenue from penalties can be addictive for banks, says Harvard Business School Professor Gail McGovern, but “they’re going to face problems from angry customers, which leads to big call-center bills, employee dissatisfaction and turnover.”
3. “We change our interest rates all the time.”
Regardless of what your credit card agreement says, you can never be sure how much interest banks will charge you. For example, nearly all cards have a default rate — as high as 30 percent — which banks apply when you’ve done something wrong, usually after two late payments in 12 months. But some banks have cut that to one, says Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com.
Banks can also change the terms of your agreement, raising rates when they like (though you can opt out and pay off the balance at the old rate as long as you never use the card again). Bank of America did that recently, upping many cardholders’ rates from 10 or 12 percent to 27 percent or more, even though they’d done nothing wrong. “There’s no clarity on what criteria can lead a bank to raise interest rates,” says Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “It’s a black box.” A Bank of America spokesperson says the company periodically reviews the credit risk of its accounts and adjusts rates accordingly, adding that in the past year 94 percent have had no increase.
4. “College campuses are a gold mine for us.”
Students are the customers of the future, and banks are increasingly courting them, sometimes right on campus. More than 120 universities have cut deals with banks to issue student-ID cards that are also ATM and check cards. Schools can make millions from these deals, sometimes even taking a small cut of individual purchases.
tudents are also a hot market for credit card issuers; banks will make private deals with alumni associations to get contact info for students, parents and even ticket buyers to university athletic events. Card companies cut deals to set up booths on campus, and Chase even inked a deal with Facebook to display ads and set up a Chase group on its Web site.
The problem? Mounting credit card debt among college kids, for one. “Universities don’t negotiate on behalf of students,” says Manning. “They’re negotiating the best deal for the university.” A spokesperson for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities says don’t blame schools — banks would market to students anyway, and universities at least try to get the best rates they can for students.
5. “In debt? The courts won’t help.”
Since the late 1990s banks have been including mandatory arbitration agreements in their contracts for many of their products, including auto loans, checking accounts, home-equity loans and credit cards. Such agreements prohibit you from suing and instead require you to use an arbitrator — someone picked by the arbitration firm named in your credit card contract to hear the dispute and decide the outcome.
While these clauses were originally designed to thwart class-action suits, the banks have also been using them for debt collection, says Paul Bland, anattorney with consumer-advocacy group Public Justice. There are even times when consumers, often victims of identity theft and unaware of the debt, aren’t present when awards are handed down against them.
A recent suit against an arbitration firm brought by the San Francisco city attorney noted that arbitrators ruled in favor of banks in 100 percent of the 18,045 California cases brought against consumers from January 2003 through March 2007. “From the consumer perspective, it’s a nightmare,” says Bland. If a bank brings arbitration against you, hire a lawyer and request a hearing — in person…..” Read the rest
Posted in banks, business, family, parents, people, truth, warnings | No Comments »
August 28th, 2008 admin
Leave marketing strategies to professionals because experts know best how to help you get your company’s brand noticed. Specialists like Avrett Free Ginsberg in New York helmed by Frank Ginsberg, can take an ad campaign by the horns, and get people to focus on your image, your brand and your products. What takes place afterward is obvious: your product becomes stamped on the minds of consumers creating a brand recognition effect, which will lead to more interest in your products, which ultimately leads to an increase in sales. It takes great marketers with great ideas to create a campaign that will sell your product, no matter which industry you take part in. As time goes by and competition becomes fierce, the world presents itself in a way where differentiating your company is necessary. Modern times call for innovative and evolving advertising and marketing strategies, and with the help of ad agencies, your company will quickly follow the road to success.
Posted in advertising / marketing, business, people, practical | No Comments »