I call my lawyer today (about B&O taxes, not for that impending insider trading lawsuit). During our small talk that I hope I won’t be billed for, he says something about Christmas would have been better if he could have found a Wii somewhere. I had heard they were sold out of all the stores in our area for at least 2 weeks, so I asked if he had tried the internet.
“I don’t trust buying over the internet.”
Are you kidding? I could have strangled him. Not because fear of buying over the internet is irrational – it is not. But because he has always impressed me as a man of reasonable intelligence and logic, yet he asked told his internet marketing client that he doesn’t trust buying over the internet. Know your audience! Lie to me for pete’s sake!
But unlike the truly irrational approach some pundits in my area have taken to the internet and all things new (duck your head in the sand and wish yourselves back to the good ol’ days), I saw this challenge as an opportunity.
So I said to my soon-to-be-former attorney, “I know – I always like buying locally, too. The best is when they have sites for me to research at home before buying online or going into the store to buy. But when I can’t buy locally, I buy online.”
“Yeah, Justin, but I’m an impulse buyer. I want to take it home with me right away.” How economically sound from a man with both law and accounting degrees. I said, “Just humor me as I do a quick search.”
Wookin’ pa Wii in all da wight pwaces
So I typed “wii” into Google and got this as the top pay-per-click result:
Immediately in the ad, two of my lawyer’s three concerns are immediately overcome.
- They’re in stock and ready to ship today!
- They should be fairly cheap, given the url of the site (lowestdeal.com).
So we clicked through and found a Wii in his price range with all the accessories needed to make his family’s season a wee bit merrier.
The Wii: Be a Better Father
Yet, he was still concerned about the Web site and whether he’d get ripped off. It wasn’t like he was buying from the online store for Target or Amazon (which are both also advertising via Google AdWords for the greatest invention since at least the polio vaccine).
Side note: I have never Wied (ski is to skiied as Wii is to Wied?), but I don’t get it. I mean adults are flipping out over this thing and buying it “for their kids” as an excuse to play at night. Whatever happened to my old college girlfriend (right)?
To reiterate, his fear about getting scammed, is very legitimate. I don’t know lowestdeal.com – it could be selling your information to Nigerian phone rooms, or it could simply be a place that gets it hands on hot (not “hot” that way, well maybe not) stuff and sells it (allegedly) fairly inexpensively. Is it the new cyber-Wal-Mart?
The only thing I do know about the site is that it knows what it’s doing with Google AdWords. The ad text is great and it’s capitalizing on a very in-demand product. They better know what they’re doing. I don’t know what they’re paying, but I’m sure advertising on “Wii” right now is costing them more per click than what it costs me to take my old girlfriend out for a spin.
I won’t get into what they could have done to allay my lawyer’s concerns here. That would be a whole separate post on reducing anxiety, an incredibly important part of getting people to submit information online whether it be for the end conversion goal of a sale or simply submitting an email.
I will say that I did pass on a couple sites to him to check credibility: bizrate.com, a fine shopping comparison site, and one of my personal favorites, badbusinessbureau.com (also called ripoffreport.com). A mixed record from this quick check: no listing in bizrate and one complaint on ripoffreport that didn’t necessarily seem all that bad. Also one complaint that I could find in Yahoo! Answers, again that may not have been completely fair to the company.
If you haven’t checked out your company on ripoffreport, do it today.
Again, no endorsement here – that site could be the future inventor of the beer-wich or it could be shipping weapons-grade plutonium and illegal immigrant cats inside a Wii console shell. Shop at your own risk, people!
$100 / Barrel Oil
Finally, related to absolutely nothing other than me wanting to brag, I took 2 cents off my dad today. We set up a bet about a year ago as to whether oil would next hit $100 or $40. I am brilliant! (I don’t count the time I said the Colts should take Ryan Leaf over Peyton Manning, or expected great things for Ronnie Paulino in 2007, or didn’t see how Goto.com – the granddaddy of paid search marketing – would be successful (ouch!!!), or…).
This article has 3 responses
They’re also relatively rare in dear old England, but my sister did manage to get one for her menaces – the 7-year-old one opening it up and asking if it was an xbox 360 then rolling his eyes with a “That sucks” on being told that it was a Wii. I wonder where he picked that turn of phrase up from?
Still, no child should be playing Halo and it really wasn’t too long before everybody was bouncing up and down tanning each other’s backsides at various games incorporated in Wii sports. The kids were beating the adults, girls were beating boys, and even my 89-year-old Gran was talking about getting one. (Apparently she’s heard an old people’s home has them for the elderly folk residing there, or something!) And my initially disappointed nephew was loving it the most – the 360 but a number.
If I could find one at the proper asking price of $259 I’d pull the trigger right away – they’re almost magical. But, the problem lies with the fact that most of the places trying to sell them online are bundling the things with games for prices above $500.
Your lawyer would be well advised to check somewhere like slickdeals or techbargains which keep on top of daily tech deals and will post when anybody has the Wii in stock. Then he can buy from more “well known” retailers, either by purchasing online then picking up in-store or by shooting on over and hoping they have them lying around.
Whether you’re willing to buy online or not there’s no excuse for not doing your browsing online. I’ve yet to see a Wii in-stock anywhere when I’m out and about, only online.
You gotta shop smart!
Paul,
Why did the 7 year-old member of your clan think a 360 was cooler/better than a wii?
I think he has a buddy whose elder brother he’d seen playing Halo 3.
I suspected that as soon as he saw the Wii in action he’d forget all about a 360 – and that proved to be the case.
Kids, eh!