#Pre-Sales and Marketing Operations

[purplstack]

A real estate company will have several things to manage right on time like monitoring the property listing which is listed in different areas and searching for ideal properties to match the new clients, Managing the documentation process, and other transactions.

Hence as a real estate agent/company, you'll be likely to benefit from using a good real estate CRM, or customer relationship management software, which will help you to manage, attract and retain clients; streamline transactions, and close deals on time.

Purplstack helps businesses stay ahead of the curve by seamlessly enabling real-time tracking of leads, sales automation, collection, and customer relationship management trends. It is ready-to-use and highly configurable, therefore, significantly reducing implementation risks and accelerating time to go live enabling quicker business transformation turnarounds and better ROI.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tiktok's enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: for many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It operated a clean and useful search. If you searched for a product, Amazon tried its damndest to put it at the top of the search results.

This was a hell of a good deal for Amazon’s customers. Lots of us piled in, and lots of brick-and-mortar retailers withered and died, making it hard to go elsewhere. Amazon sold us ebooks and audiobooks that were permanently locked to its platform with DRM, so that every dollar we spent on media was a dollar we’d have to give up if we deleted Amazon and its apps. And Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year’s worth of shipping. Prime customers start their shopping on Amazon, and 90% of the time, they don’t search anywhere else.

That tempted in lots of business customers — Marketplace sellers who turned Amazon into the “everything store” it had promised from the beginning. As these sellers piled in, Amazon shifted to subsidizing suppliers. Kindle and Audible creators got generous packages. Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.

This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon.

That’s when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon’s shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing 45%+ of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees. The company��s $31b “advertising” program is really a payola scheme that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to bid on the chance to be at the top of your search.

Searching Amazon doesn’t produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon’s “Most Favored Nation” requirement sellers means that they can’t sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn’t charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for “cat bed” are 50% ads.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

This is why — as Cat Valente wrote in her magesterial pre-Christmas essay — platforms like Prodigy transformed themselves overnight, from a place where you went for social connection to a place where you were expected to “stop talking to each other and start buying things”:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

This shell-game with surpluses is what happened to Facebook. First, Facebook was good to you: it showed you the things the people you loved and cared about had to say. This created a kind of mutual hostage-taking: once a critical mass of people you cared about were on Facebook, it became effectively impossible to leave, because you’d have to convince all of them to leave too, and agree on where to go. You may love your friends, but half the time you can’t agree on what movie to see and where to go for dinner. Forget it.

Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn’t follow. At first, it was media companies, who Facebook preferentially crammed down its users’ throats so that they would click on articles and send traffic to newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Then, once those publications were dependent on Facebook for their traffic, it dialed down their traffic. First, it choked off traffic to publications that used Facebook to run excerpts with links to their own sites, as a way of driving publications into supplying fulltext feeds inside Facebook’s walled garden.

This made publications truly dependent on Facebook — their readers no longer visited the publications’ websites, they just tuned into them on Facebook. The publications were hostage to those readers, who were hostage to each other. Facebook stopped showing readers the articles publications ran, tuning The Algorithm to suppress posts from publications unless they paid to “boost” their articles to the readers who had explicitly subscribed to them and asked Facebook to put them in their feeds.

Now, Facebook started to cram more ads into the feed, mixing payola from people you wanted to hear from with payola from strangers who wanted to commandeer your eyeballs. It gave those advertisers a great deal, charging a pittance to target their ads based on the dossiers of nonconsensually harvested personal data they’d stolen from you.

Sellers became dependent on Facebook, too, unable to carry on business without access to those targeted pitches. That was Facebook’s cue to jack up ad prices, stop worrying so much about ad fraud, and to collude with Google to rig the ad market through an illegal program called Jedi Blue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

Today, Facebook is terminally enshittified, a terrible place to be whether you’re a user, a media company, or an advertiser. It’s a company that deliberately demolished a huge fraction of the publishers it relied on, defrauding them into a “pivot to video” based on false claims of the popularity of video among Facebook users. Companies threw billions into the pivot, but the viewers never materialized, and media outlets folded in droves:

https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/facebook-online-video-pivot-metrics-false.html

But Facebook has a new pitch. It claims to be called Meta, and it has demanded that we live out the rest of our days as legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-poly cartoon characters.

It has promised companies that make apps for this metaverse that it won’t rug them the way it did the publishers on the old Facebook. It remains to be seen whether they’ll get any takers. As Mark Zuckerberg once candidly confessed to a peer, marvelling at all of his fellow Harvard students who sent their personal information to his new website “TheFacebook”:

> I don’t know why.

> They “trust me”

> Dumb fucks.

https://doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video-adbe09319038

Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money, time and energy into:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coercion-v-cooperation/#the-machine-is-listening

Working for the platform can be like working for a boss who takes money out of every paycheck for all the rules you broke, but who won’t tell you what those rules are because if he told you that, then you’d figure out how to break those rules without him noticing and docking your pay. Content moderation is the only domain where security through obscurity is considered a best practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

The situation is so dire that organizations like Tracking Exposed have enlisted an human army of volunteers and a robot army of headless browsers to try to unwind the logic behind the arbitrary machine judgments of The Algorithm, both to give users the option to tune the recommendations they receive, and to help creators avoid the wage theft that comes from being shadow banned:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/tracking-exposed-demanding-gods-explain-themselves

But what if there is no underlying logic? Or, more to the point, what if the logic shifts based on the platform’s priorities? If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you’ll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

The peach-basket is a rigged game. The carny can use a hidden switch to force the balls to bounce out of the basket. No one wins a giant teddy bear unless the carny wants them to win it. Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear? So that he’d carry it around all day, convincing other suckers to put down five bucks for their chance to win one:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

The carny allocated a giant teddy bear to that poor sucker the way that platforms allocate surpluses to key performers — as a convincer in a “Big Store” con, a way to rope in other suckers who’ll make content for the platform, anchoring themselves and their audiences to it.

Which brings me to Tiktok. Tiktok is many different things, including “a free Adobe Premiere for teenagers that live on their phones.”

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-fragments-of-media-you-consume

But what made it such a success early on was the power of its recommendation system. From the start, Tiktok was really, really good at recommending things to its users. Eerily good:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1093882880

By making good-faith recommendations of things it thought its users would like, Tiktok built a mass audience, larger than many thought possible, given the death grip of its competitors, like Youtube and Instagram. Now that Tiktok has the audience, it is consolidating its gains and seeking to lure away the media companies and creators who are still stubbornly attached to Youtube and Insta.

Yesterday, Forbes’s Emily Baker-White broke a fantastic story about how that actually works inside of Bytedance, Tiktok’s parent company, citing multiple internal sources, revealing the existence of a “heating tool” that Tiktok employees use push videos from select accounts into millions of viewers’ feeds:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

These videos go into Tiktok users’ ForYou feeds, which Tiktok misleadingly describes as being populated by videos “ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app.” In reality, For You is only sometimes composed of videos that Tiktok thinks will add value to your experience — the rest of the time, it’s full of videos that Tiktok has inserted in order to make creators think that Tiktok is a great place to reach an audience.

“Sources told Forbes that TikTok has often used heating to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count. This suggests that heating has potentially benefitted some influencers and brands — those with whom TikTok has sought business relationships — at the expense of others with whom it has not.”

In other words, Tiktok is handing out giant teddy bears.

But Tiktok is not in the business of giving away giant teddy bears. Tiktok, for all that its origins are in the quasi-capitalist Chinese economy, is just another paperclip-maximizing artificial colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora. Tiktok is only going to funnel free attention to the people it wants to entrap until they are entrapped, then it will withdraw that attention and begin to monetize it.

“Monetize” is a terrible word that tacitly admits that there is no such thing as an “Attention Economy.” You can’t use attention as a medium of exchange. You can’t use it as a store of value. You can’t use it as a unit of account. Attention is like cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with “fiat” currency in exchange for it. You have to “monetize” it — that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money.

In the case of cryptos, the main monetization strategy was deception-based. Exchanges and “projects” handed out a bunch of giant teddy-bears, creating an army of true-believer Judas goats who convinced their peers to hand the carny their money and try to get some balls into the peach-basket themselves.

But deception only produces so much “liquidity provision.” Eventually, you run out of suckers. To get lots of people to try the ball-toss, you need coercion, not persuasion. Think of how US companies ended the defined benefits pension that guaranteed you a dignified retirement, replacing it with market-based 401(k) pensions that forced you to gamble your savings in a rigged casino, making you the sucker at the table, ripe for the picking:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Early crypto liquidity came from ransomware. The existence of a pool of desperate, panicked companies and individuals whose data had been stolen by criminals created a baseline of crypto liquidity because they could only get their data back by trading real money for fake crypto money.

The next phase of crypto coercion was Web3: converting the web into a series of tollbooths that you could only pass through by trading real money for fake crypto money. The internet is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, a prerequisite for full participation in employment, education, family life, health, politics, civics, even romance. By holding all those things to ransom behind crypto tollbooths, the hodlers hoped to convert their tokens to real money:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

For Tiktok, handing out free teddy-bears by “heating” the videos posted by skeptical performers and media companies is a way to convert them to true believers, getting them to push all their chips into the middle of the table, abandoning their efforts to build audiences on other platforms (it helps that Tiktok’s format is distinctive, making it hard to repurpose videos for Tiktok to circulate on rival platforms).

Once those performers and media companies are hooked, the next phase will begin: Tiktok will withdraw the “heating” that sticks their videos in front of people who never heard of them and haven’t asked to see their videos. Tiktok is performing a delicate dance here: there’s only so much enshittification they can visit upon their users’ feeds, and Tiktok has lots of other performers they want to give giant teddy-bears to.

Tiktok won’t just starve performers of the “free” attention by depreferencing them in the algorithm, it will actively punish them by failing to deliver their videos to the users who subscribed to them. After all, every time Tiktok shows you a video you asked to see, it loses a chance to show you a video it wants you to see, because your attention is a giant teddy-bear it can give away to a performer it is wooing.

This is just what Twitter has done as part of its march to enshittification: thanks to its “monetization” changes, the majority of people who follow you will never see the things you post. I have ~500k followers on Twitter and my threads used to routinely get hundreds of thousands or even millions of reads. Today, it’s hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I just handed Twitter $8 for Twitter Blue, because the company has strongly implied that it will only show the things I post to the people who asked to see them if I pay ransom money. This is the latest battle in one of the internet’s longest-simmering wars: the fight over end-to-end:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

In the beginning, there were Bellheads and Netheads. The Bellheads worked for big telcos, and they believed that all the value of the network rightly belonged to the carrier. If someone invented a new feature — say, Caller ID — it should only be rolled out in a way that allows the carrier to charge you every month for its use. This is Software-As-a-Service, Ma Bell style.

The Netheads, by contrast, believed that value should move to the edges of the network — spread out, pluralized. In theory, Compuserve could have “monetized” its own version of Caller ID by making you pay $2.99 extra to see the “From:” line on email before you opened the message — charging you to know who was speaking before you started listening — but they didn’t.

The Netheads wanted to build diverse networks with lots of offers, lots of competition, and easy, low-cost switching between competitors (thanks to interoperability). Some wanted this because they believed that the net would someday be woven into the world, and they didn’t want to live in a world of rent-seeking landlords. Others were true believers in market competition as a source of innovation. Some believed both things. Either way, they saw the risk of network capture, the drive to monetization through trickery and coercion, and they wanted to head it off.

They conceived of the end-to-end principle: the idea that networks should be designed so that willing speakers’ messages would be delivered to willing listeners’ end-points as quickly and reliably as they could be. That is, irrespective of whether a network operator could make money by sending you the data it wanted to receive, its duty would be to provide you with the data you wanted to see.

The end-to-end principle is dead at the service level today. Useful idiots on the right were tricked into thinking that the risk of Twitter mismanagement was “woke shadowbanning,” whereby the things you said wouldn’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter’s deep state didn’t like your opinions. The real risk, of course, is that the things you say won’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter can make more money by enshittifying their feeds and charging you ransom for the privilege to be included in them.

As I said at the start of this essay, enshittification exerts a nearly irresistible gravity on platform capitalism. It’s just too easy to turn the enshittification dial up to eleven. Twitter was able to fire the majority of its skilled staff and still crank the dial all the way over, even with a skeleton crew of desperate, demoralized H1B workers who are shackled to Twitter’s sinking ship by the threat of deportation.

The temptation to enshittify is magnified by the blocks on interoperability: when Twitter bans interoperable clients, nerfs its APIs, and periodically terrorizes its users by suspending them for including their Mastodon handles in their bios, it makes it harder to leave Twitter, and thus increases the amount of enshittification users can be force-fed without risking their departure.

Twitter is not going to be a “protocol.” I’ll bet you a testicle¹ that projects like Bluesky will find no meaningful purchase on the platform, because if Bluesky were implemented and Twitter users could order their feeds for minimal enshittification and leave the service without sacrificing their social networks, it would kill the majority of Twitter’s “monetization” strategies.

¹Not one of mine.

An enshittification strategy only succeeds if it is pursued in measured amounts. Even the most locked-in user eventually reaches a breaking-point and walks away, or gets pushed. The villagers of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof tolerated the cossacks' violent raids and pogroms for years, until they were finally forced to flee to Krakow, New York and Chicago:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

For enshittification-addled companies, that balance is hard to strike. Individual product managers, executives, and activist shareholders all give preference to quick returns at the cost of sustainability, and are in a race to see who can eat their seed-corn first. Enshittification has only lasted for as long as it has because the internet has devolved into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

With the market sewn up by a group of cozy monopolists, better alternatives don’t pop up and lure us away, and if they do, the monopolists just buy them out and integrate them into your enshittification strategies, like when Mark Zuckerberg noticed a mass exodus of Facebook users who were switching to Instagram, and so he bought Instagram. As Zuck says, “It is better to buy than to compete.”

This is the hidden dynamic behind the rise and fall of Amazon Smile, the program whereby Amazon gave a small amount of money to charities of your choice when you shopped there, but only if you used Amazon’s own search tool to locate the products you purchased. This provided an incentive for Amazon customers to use its own increasingly enshittified search, which it could cram full of products from sellers who coughed up payola, as well as its own lookalike products. The alternative was to use Google, whose search tool would send you directly to the product you were looking for, and then charge Amazon a commission for sending you to it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/comment/j4znb8y/

The demise of Amazon Smile coincides with the increasing enshittification of Google Search, the only successful product the company managed to build in-house. All its other successes were bought from other companies: video, docs, cloud, ads, mobile; while its own products are either flops like Google Video, clones (Gmail is a Hotmail clone), or adapted from other companies’ products, like Chrome.

Google Search was based on principles set out in founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s landmark 1998 paper, “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/

Even with that foundational understanding of enshittification, Google has been unable to resist its siren song. Today’s Google results are an increasingly useless morass of self-preferencing links to its own products, ads for products that aren’t good enough to float to the top of the list on its own, and parasitic SEO junk piggybacking on the former.

Enshittification kills. Google just laid off 12,000 employees, and the company is in a full-blown “panic” over the rise of “AI” chatbots, and is making a full-court press for an AI-driven search tool — that is, a tool that won’t show you what you ask for, but rather, what it thinks you should see:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23563851/google-search-ai-chatbot-demo-chatgpt

Now, it’s possible to imagine that such a tool will produce good recommendations, like Tiktok’s pre-enshittified algorithm did. But it’s hard to see how Google will be able to design a non-enshittified chatbot front-end to search, given the strong incentives for product managers, executives, and shareholders to enshittify results to the precise threshold at which users are nearly pissed off enough to leave, but not quite.

Even if it manages the trick, this-almost-but-not-quite-unusuable equilibrium is fragile. Any exogenous shock — a new competitor like Tiktok that penetrates the anticompetitive “moats and walls” of Big Tech, a privacy scandal, a worker uprising — can send it into wild oscillations:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/watch-the-surpluses/#exogenous-shocks

Enshittification truly is how platforms die. That’s fine, actually. We don’t need eternal rulers of the internet. It’s okay for new ideas and new ways of working to emerge. The emphasis of lawmakers and policymakers shouldn’t be preserving the crepuscular senescence of dying platforms. Rather, our policy focus should be on minimizing the cost to users when these firms reach their expiry date: enshrining rights like end-to-end would mean that no matter how autocannibalistic a zombie platform became, willing speakers and willing listeners would still connect with each other:

https://doctorow.medium.com/end-to-end-d6046dca366f

And policymakers should focus on freedom of exit — the right to leave a sinking platform while continuing to stay connected to the communities that you left behind, enjoying the media and apps you bought, and preserving the data you created:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

The Netheads were right: technological self-determination is at odds with the natural imperatives of tech businesses. They make more money when they take away our freedom — our freedom to speak, to leave, to connect.

For many years, even Tiktok’s critics grudgingly admitted that no matter how surveillant and creepy it was, it was really good at guessing what you wanted to see. But Tiktok couldn’t resist the temptation to show you the things it wants you to see, rather than what you want to see. The enshittification has begun, and now it is unlikely to stop.

It's too late to save Tiktok. Now that it has been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill it with fire.

[Image ID: Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch's candy house. Hansel and Gretel have been replaced with line-drawings of influencers, taking selfies of themselves with the candy house. In front of the candy house stands a portly man in a business suit; his head is a sack of money with a dollar-sign on it. He wears a crooked witch's hat. The cottage has the Tiktok logo on it.]

[fromtenthousandfeet]

All Cash and No Credit

Let's talk about HYBE's strategy for Jimin's MUSE. It's pretty simple

Maximize Profit - Minimize Success

Let's break down how they're doing it.

Goal #1 is to get as many customers as possible to buy from Weverse instead of regular retailers like chains (Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble) and online sellers like Amazon. When fans buy on Weverse, a HYBE subsidiary, the company keeps not only the wholesale portion of the album sale, but the retail portion as well. This is obvious, right? If not, I'm happy to explain. The company likely makes twice the profit (give or take) on albums purchased via Weverse. AND, they can control when those albums are shipped, and how, when, or if the sales are reported to the music charting agencies.

The fact that Target pre-sales of MUSE is sold out within hours is suspect. This indicates limited stock, just like the strategy used for Like Crazy CD singles. Meanwhile, Geffen is very slow to release the pre-sale links for other retailers. The Walmart presale just went up. Where are B&N and Amazon? Will they have limited inventory, too?

Putting Jimin's Production Diary on Weverse only was a conscious choice. The cost of the documentary was expensive - more than the monthly fee for streaming services, the company kept all the profit (didn't have to share the costs with Netflix or Disney+), and limited his exposure to the general public. I suspect they will operate the same way with MUSE.

Goal #2 Keep Jimin as low as possible on the charts. We've seen this over and over. First, by splitting Like Crazy versions and disappearing sales, no CD restocks. Then we saw the same behavior from BH/HYBE again with Closer Than This being released on the worst possible day of the year and almost zero promotion. You know the details.

HYBE will limit stock. They will likely not report all sales.

MUSE physical albums will not be eligible for UK charts because of a random inclusion. The previous four solo album releases have had specific UK versions with no inclusions. UK fans will have to rely on digital sales for charting purposes unless BH provides a new version. Dirty.

Goal #3 Promote the album just enough to garner sales from fans while minimizing advertising to the greater public. The announcement of the new album is also strange. The teaser video was only on Instagram and only on the BigHit/BTS channel (this didn't stop anyone, though, as far as I can tell) as well as Weverse (I'm getting tired of that platform). TikTok is a far more effective advertising tool when it comes to targeting young people. Why wasn't the teaser posted to TikTok? Either way, "Jimin Jimin" was trending on X/Twitter with over 1.7 million mentions many hours after the announcement of the new album. There's only so much BH can do to suppress Jimin now that fans have taken marketing him into their own hands.

Let's keep an eye on this.

What's different this time around? This time the fandom knows who is behind thwarting Jimin's success. Precious time was lost during the FACE era when everyone was blaming Jimin's sabotage on Billboard and Spotify, rather than the rightful villain - HYBE/Big Hit. This time the fandom knows to watch their every move and call them out on their shady and unequal treatment. That said, tagging Geffen, Big Hit, and HYBE on X is pretty much useless. They have shown they won't change their behavior when fans complain. Instead, fans must start tagging Billboard, Spotify, and media outlets. Media outlets are the most important. HYBE does not care about the fandom, but they do care about their public image, especially after all the damage that's been done to the company and the stock price due to the ADOR controversy and court case.

I think Jimin is going to a different label for his solo work. That's my hunch. The company is going to squeeze as much profit out of him as possible before he goes, but it's a balancing act because they don't want him to outshine Jungkook. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

[ikram1909]

a new article on a sports newspaper today with an update on gavi: https://www.lesportiudecatalunya.cat/barca/article/2425850-gavi-a-tota-maquina.html

There are only eight days left until the start of the European Championship in Germany, but Pablo Martín Páez Gavira missed this train months ago, when on November 19, at José Zorrilla in Valladolid, the Barça footballer's knee said enough in that fateful match against Georgia, a qualifier for the European Championship, Gavi tore the cruciate ligament in his right knee, an injury that also affected the external meniscus. Six and a half months have passed since then, and on June 6, Gavi is completely focused on one thing: the return. It's getting closer every day. Its evolution is very good.

Yesterday, Barça published a video on its social media where you can see Gavi working at maximum intensity in the sports city's facilities, doing high-intensity exercises in the gym to strengthen the muscles in the affected area. The recovery is going very well, even better than expected at the start, but it is also known that with this type of injury you have to be careful. Unhurried positivism. This is the motto. But it is also true that Gavi's attitude infects anyone with optimism. His character makes him unique, and the intensity and passion he transmits in the field is the same attitude with which this recovery work has been undertaken from day one. Hansi Flick fell in love with Gavi's engagement in the first contact they both had a few days ago in the sports city. Flick also met at the Barça facilities with other injured players, such as Frenkie de Jong and Alejandro Balde, but in the specific case of Gavi he was fascinated by his positivity and his attitude towards work. It is the discipline and fighting spirit that Flick imposed on Bayern and that he will now try to instill in Barça. Gavi already has this built in as standard and is destined to be an important figure in Flick's plans when he becomes available again.

This last season 2023/24, the one from Los Palacios was only able to play a total of 15 games with the Blaugrana shirt (12 in the league and 3 in the Champions League). Xavi and Barça have missed him. Neither the player nor Flick set a date for their return, but Hansi already knows that Gavi's signing will be the big signing of the 2024/25 season. The forecasts are, if all goes well, that the culer midfielder will join training with his teammates in the month of August, and he is expected to play again around the month of October. The president Joan Laporta already warned on Tuesday that this summer the club does not intend to carry out major market operations, only the strictly necessary ones, specifically he said that there would be no major sales or major signings, and in this scenario of minimums, the return from Gavi will be the best reinforcement.

Gavi's profile fits well into Flick's football idea of ​​pressing high up. Flick's football is intensity, and Gavi's virtues fit in the advanced midfielder within the 4-2-3-1 system that Flick has always used. He would also fit in the double pivot, although in this position Flick knows that he would see one of his great virtues diminished, which is the arrival in the opponent's area.

Xavi Hernández has always described Gavi as "a heart with legs". His passion and temperament, never giving up a split ball, make him a treasure for any manager, and everything suggests he will end up being an important figure for Flick as well, even if the player starts at the clear disadvantage to miss the pre-season and the start of the season and lag behind his teammates in terms of pace of competition in the goal of securing a position in the starting eleven. The good feelings that the footballer has at the moment of his recovery phase is the best news for Hansi Flick.

As a curiosity, this coming season Gavi will have the opportunity to set foot again in the José Zorrilla, the stadium of the misfortune of his injury. Valladolid's confirmed promotion to the first division makes it possible. Everything will depend on the calendar, on which day Valladolid-Barça is set and on which Gavi's return date ends up being.

Thank you so much anon you're the best ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

So they're still insisting flick did meet Gavi already and they talked.

I love how this article is basically a live letter about Gavi and his character they're so real for that 😭😭 he's really amazing and I can't wait for him to come back ☹️

[mariacallous]

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy behemoth, has long been a major contributor to the Kremlin’s coffers. The company, which until recently earned the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars annually from gas sales to Europe, reported its first loss in nearly 25 years at the end of 2023. Meduza breaks down the sudden drop in Gazprom’s earnings and the gas giant’s options for turning its financial situation around.

For many years, Russia’s state-owned oil and gas giant Gazprom has rightfully been regarded as one of the nation’s most successful enterprises. It’s maintained profitability through various economic challenges, including the 2008 global financial crisis, the ruble’s plummet in 2014 due to sanctions and falling oil prices, and reduced demand for gas during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The years 2021 and 2022 were particularly successful, with gas price surges in Europe following the pandemic and the fallout from the full-scale invasion of Ukraine collectively netting the holding more than 3.3 trillion rubles ($35.6 billion) in profits — almost returning it to the “golden age” of super-profits of the early 2010s.

Gazprom’s gas business has always been its primary source of income. Its success was based on two key factors: a robust resource base with low extraction costs and well-established connections with European buyers that date back to Soviet times (and are reinforced by long-term contracts). In 2022, Gazprom began a voluntary withdrawal from the European market, sharply curtailing operations and undermining one of the business’s key pillars. The results proved costly; Gazprom’s financials for 2023 were considerably worse than anticipated, showing a loss of 629 billion rubles ($6.8 billion) against a forecasted profit of 450 billion rubles ($4.8 billion).

Gazprom’s report details results from all its operational sectors: gas (Gazprom and Gazprom Export), oil (Gazprom Neft), and electricity (Gazprom Energoholding LLC). Of these, only the gas business witnessed a dramatic fall in revenue, dropping by half to three trillion rubles ($32.4 billion), which is now slightly less than income from oil and gas condensate sales (3.3 trillion rubles, or $35.6 billion).

This decline was driven by two factors: the sharp decrease in sales to Europe (from 62 billion cubic meters the previous year to just 24 billion cubic meters) and the rapid shift in the European market away from Russian gas, which brought export prices back to their pre-war levels. Consequently, the holding’s overall revenue fell by 27 percent to 8.5 trillion rubles ($91.8 billion).

Cosmetic cost cutting

If Gazprom is cutting expenses, it’s not doing so on a large scale. While the company reduced operational expenses in 2023 by 8.2 percent, its capital expenditures actually rose by 277 billion rubles ($3.9 billion) to 3.1 trillion ($33.4 billion), with the majority of this investment directed toward the gas business.

The negligible decrease in operational expenses might be explained by the need to maintain existing infrastructure, but it’s surprising that capital expenditures haven’t been reduced, noted Sergey Vakulenko, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “By the fall 2022 budgeting period, it was already quite clear that export sales would plummet, drilling could be drastically reduced, and spending should also be cut back,” said Vakulenko. “But Gazprom doesn’t operate like that.”

At the same time, Gazprom’s expenses for 2024 are projected to be lower. According to the company’s report, it plans to allocate 2.6 trillion rubles ($28 billion) for capital expenditures this year — down from last year’s 3.1 trillion ($33.4 billion).

Gazprom’s debt has also increased, rising 1.3-fold to 5.2 trillion rubles ($56 billion). The company has set a maximum debt-to-equity ratio of no more than 40 percent, which implies that the holding can comfortably meet its financial obligations at this level. According to Meduza’s calculations, Gazprom’s debt-to-equity ratio is currently at 31.7 percent, providing the company with some leeway to further increase its debt load.

Owing the Kremlin

There’s another debt-related indicator that directly affects dividend payments — the net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio. EBITDA is a financial metric used to evaluate a company’s operating performance, and this ratio shows how much debt a company has relative to its earnings. A higher ratio indicates a heavier debt burden.

By the end of 2023, Gazprom’s EBITDA ratio had climbed to 2.96 from 1.07 the previous year. In December, Famil Sadygov, the deputy chairman of Gazprom’s management board, pointed out that the company’s dividend policy allows the company’s board of directors to adjust dividend payouts if this ratio exceeds 2.5.

Based on Gazprom’s IFRS statements, the dividends for 2023 could amount to 15.3 rubles (16 cents) per share, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant. However, the increasing debt burden and declining revenues in the holding’s core business might prompt the board to suspend dividends.

This is unlikely to please Gazprom’s main shareholder — the Russian Federation. The state controls more than 50 percent of Gazprom’s shares, and dividends are one way to channel the company’s supplementary earnings into the federal budget. In 2022, Gazprom only paid interim dividends, but at a record-breaking 51 rubles (55 cents) per share, with the company disbursing 1.2 trillion rubles ($12.9 billion) to its shareholders.

Another way to boost Gazprom’s contribution to the state budget is through periodic increases in the mineral extraction tax (MET) it pays. In 2022, for instance, this tax was raised by a one-time amount of 1.2 trillion rubles, equivalent to the company’s profit for that period. Starting in 2023, the government raised Gazprom’s monthly MET payment by 50 billion rubles ($539 million), effective until 2026. This means that, under current legislation, Gazprom is obligated to pay approximately an extra 600 billion rubles ($6.4 billion) annually, regardless of its financial circumstances.

Could things turn around?

According to the latest financial data, Gazprom’s parent company reported a net loss of 450 billion rubles ($4.8 billion) in the first quarter of 2024, a significant increase from the 95-billion-ruble (one-billion-dollar) net loss recorded during the same period last year. Additionally, the company posted a first-quarter sales loss of 47 billion rubles ($506.6 million) this year, in stark contrast to a profit of 125 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) in the first quarter of the previous year.

It’s clear that Gazprom needs to implement serious changes in its gas business. The company must either boost revenue and explore new income sources or make substantial cuts to operational and capital expenditures — or ideally, do both. When Famil Sadygov forecasted four trillion rubles ($43.1 billion) in revenues from 2023 gas sales, he specified “growing gas deliveries to China” as a key driver. However, actual revenues fell short by one trillion ($10.7 billion), and it’s now clear that supplies to China and Central Asia can’t adequately compensate for the loss of the European market.

In 2023, Gazprom, delivered 22.7 billion cubic meters of gas to China. Using Sergey Vakulenko’s calculations, the average cost of these gas deliveries was approximately $245 per thousand cubic meters — about $5.5 billion in revenue over the year. To put this in perspective, if Gazprom had sold the same volume of gas in the European market instead, where the average gas price in 2023 was $550 per thousand cubic meters, it could have earned $12.5 billion from these sales — at least twice as much as from sales to China.

Looking ahead to 2025, Gazprom’s remaining European exports are expected to decrease by half again, to 12 billion cubic meters per year, if Ukraine doesn’t extend its gas transit agreement with Russia. (Kyiv has already said it plans to let the agreement expire.) On today's European market, gas slated for 2025 delivery costs an average of $400 per thousand cubic meters. This means that with the loss of sales through Ukraine, Gazprom stands to lose about three billion dollars in revenue each year.

Another potential source of revenue is domestic gas sales within Russia. However, expanding this revenue stream wouldn’t be feasible without a significant increase in gas tariffs, which could lead to public backlash, and without active gasification of regions, which would require substantial investment.

Gazprom’s subsidiaries often form the backbone of local economies in regions where the primary industry is resource extraction. The company’s ability to cut operating expenses is constrained by its social obligations, the expectations of contractors used to high payments, and a large workforce. By 2022, Gazprom’s staff had grown to 500,000, nearly half of whom are white-collar workers.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve heard rumours the Amazon books isn’t doing well and might be shutting down. What do you think this would mean for indie authors, authors who require the print on demand?

Indie Publishing and the Current State of Amazon

A lot has happened with Amazon in the past year, and unfortunately it's causing a lot of rumors and unnecessary confusion, so let me break it down and see if I can dispel some of the confusion.

Amazon vs "Amazon Books"

I want to start by your use of the term "Amazon books" which is immediately confusing for a few reasons: #1 "Amazon Books" was actually the name of Amazon's short-lived brick and mortar bookstores that operated from 2015 to 2022. The failure of this venture has little to do with Amazon's overall health and does not relate to or impact its ability to sell or publish books online or to produce print on demand books.

#2 Amazon sells far more than books... although it began as an online book retailer and holds the dominant market share (60-70%) of online book sales, that makes up only 10% of Amazon's global revenue, so it's important not to think of Amazon as "Amazon books."

#3 There is no part of the Amazon company referred to as "Amazon books" that could be shut down. Amazon could decide to stop selling books, but there is no evidence that this is being considered or evidence that it could occur in the foreseeable future. Amazon vs Book Depository Book Depository was a global online book retailer that was acquired by Amazon in 2011 and shut down last month. Book Depository had nothing to do with Amazon's own online book retail, publishing division, print on demand, or sales numbers. It was simply an acquisition that they chose to jettison as part of overall corporate streamlining, which we'll talk about in a bit. Kindle Direct Publishing vs Amazon Publishing

There are technically three ways to publish with Amazon: #1 APub or Amazon Publishing - This is Amazon's own publishing house which oversees several imprints. This works like any other traditional publisher and has nothing to do with Amazon's book sales or Kindle Direct Publishing. #2 Kindle Direct Publishing (E-Books) - This is Amazon's e-book publishing platform which allows authors to self-publish e-book versions of their books. #3 Kindle Direct Publishing (Print on Demand) - Formerly called CreateSpace, KDP also allows authors to self-publish print versions of their books. Is Amazon, APub, or KDP in Trouble? The closure of Amazon Books (the brick and mortar stores), Book Depository, and the recent announcement that Amazon is cutting 18k jobs may make it sound like the company is struggling, but in actuality this is just necessary streamlining that occurs when companies get bloated. One important reason why this streamlining is occurring is because Amazon doubled the size of it's operations during the pandemic due to a 220% increase in sales. More people were shopping online to avoid exposure to Covid, so Amazon hired thousands of new employees and expanded their warehouse space to meet demand, but now online sales are returning to pre-pandemic levels, so it's necessary for the company to scale back. Rather than cutting every new job or new warehouse they added during the pandemic, they've looked to other ways they can streamline the company, and that may well be one of the reasons Book Depository was jettisoned. At this time, Amazon book sales are continuing to do well, and there's no reason to believe Amazon is looking to cut its Kindle Direct Publishing platform, either in terms of e-book publishing or PoD publishing. What Would a KDP Closure Mean to Indie Authors? Even if Amazon did eventually shut down Kindle Direct Publishing, it's unlikely to have much of an impact on indie authors, as there are numerous other options for publishing e-books and print books besides KDP. IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, BookBaby, Barnes and Noble Press, and Lulu are just some of the online publishing and PoD options indie authors commonly use.

I hope that answers your question and gives you some reassurance!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[rmrkbl-marketing]

Maximizing Ecommerce Success: A Comprehensive Guide to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Introduction

In the dynamic landscape of online retail, performance metrics are the compass guiding businesses toward success. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) serve as crucial milestones, directing ecommerce entrepreneurs to navigate the complex realm of sales, marketing, and customer service. In this comprehensive guide, we at RMRKBL Marketing delve into the intricate world of KPIs, offering profound insights to empower your business decisions and drive unparalleled growth.

Unveiling the Essence of Performance Indicators

A performance indicator, a beacon in the data-driven journey, is a quantifiable measurement aligning with specific goals. Picture an online retailer aspiring to boost site traffic by 50% in the next year – a noble ambition. Key indicators could include daily unique visitors, traffic sources (paid advertising, SEO, brand advertising), or the holy grail of customer lifetime value.

Decoding Key Performance Indicators

Amidst a plethora of potential metrics, the crux lies in identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) – impactful data points succinctly reflecting progress toward defined goals. In this pursuit, Shopify's robust reporting and analytics emerge as invaluable tools, boasting over 60 pre-built dashboards to illuminate trends and catalyze informed decision-making.

The Significance of KPIs

Why are KPIs as vital as strategy and goal setting? They transcend mere statistics, offering actionable insights that propel strategic decision-making. Without KPIs, businesses risk navigating uncharted waters, relying on intuition rather than data-driven precision. Harnessing KPIs fosters a deeper understanding of your business and clientele, fostering informed strategies for online sales growth.

Classifying Key Performance Indicators

KPIs, versatile in nature, span qualitative, quantitative, predictive, and historical dimensions, permeating various business operations. In the ecommerce domain, KPIs elegantly align with five core categories: Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Manufacturing, and Project Management.

Sales: A Symphony of Success

In the realm of sales, mastering KPIs is akin to orchestrating a symphony of success. Ecommerce retailers can fine-tune their performance through vigilant tracking of crucial metrics such as total sales, average order

size, gross profit, average margin, and more. Each metric unveils a facet of your business, from understanding customer behavior through conversion rates and shopping cart abandonment rates to strategic insights on product affinity and competitive pricing.

Unlocking Sales KPIs

1. Total Sales

Ecommerce success hinges on understanding sales patterns. Monitor sales on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis to discern trends and capitalize on peak periods.

2. Average Order Size

Delve into customer spending habits with the average order size, a pivotal KPI reflecting the typical expenditure per order. This insight informs pricing strategies and product bundling opportunities.

3. Gross Profit

Measure business efficiency by calculating gross profit – the difference between total sales and the cost of goods sold. A nuanced understanding ensures profitability and strategic decision-making.

4. Conversion Rate

Efficiency in converting visitors to customers is paramount. The conversion rate, expressed as a percentage, illuminates the success of your ecommerce site in turning visitors into buyers.

5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The heartbeat of sustainable growth lies in the customer lifetime value. Nurture long-term relationships by understanding how much a customer contributes over their engagement with your brand.

6. Revenue per Visitor (RPV)

Evaluate the effectiveness of your site in converting visitors into revenue. Low RPV prompts a deep dive into analytics, optimizing the user experience to drive more online sales.

7. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Strategically invest in customer acquisition by deciphering the cost of acquiring new customers. Analyze marketing spend breakdown to ensure efficient customer acquisition.

8. Inventory Levels

Maintain optimal stock levels by closely monitoring inventory metrics. Insights into stock turnover, product velocity, and sitting stock guide inventory management strategies.

9. Competitive Pricing

Benchmark against competitors by scrutinizing pricing strategies. An agile approach to pricing ensures your business remains competitive and attuned to market dynamics.

10. Product Affinity

Uncover cross-promotion opportunities through product affinity analysis. Identify products frequently purchased together, fueling targeted marketing strategies.

11. Product Relationship

Strategically plan cross-selling tactics by understanding which products are viewed consecutively. Leverage this KPI to enhance product recommendations and elevate user experience.

12. Churn Rate

Customer retention is paramount. The churn rate reveals how swiftly customers are departing. Swift action can mitigate losses and foster sustained loyalty.

13. Cost per Click (CPC)

For paid advertising success, track the cost incurred for each click. Optimize ad campaigns by aligning CPC with conversion rates, ensuring a balanced marketing budget.

Marketing Mastery: Unleashing Potency Through KPIs

Marketing KPIs wield immense power in sculpting the success story of your ecommerce venture. From driving website traffic to deciphering customer behavior, these metrics guide strategic marketing endeavors.

Navigating Marketing KPIs

1. Website Traffic

Website traffic serves as the heartbeat of ecommerce success. Monitor the total number of visits to your site, interpreting trends and refining marketing strategies accordingly.

2. New Visitors vs. Returning Visitors

Distinguish between first-time visitors and returning patrons. This insight aids in assessing the efficacy of digital marketing campaigns and tailoring strategies for diverse audiences.

3. Time on Site

Evaluate user engagement by analyzing the time visitors spend on your website. A deeper engagement with blog content and landing pages signals brand affinity.

4. Bounce Rate

High bounce rates demand attention. Investigate the reasons behind visitors exiting after viewing a single page, optimizing user experience and content relevance.

5. Page Views per Visit

Navigate user journeys by understanding the average number of pages viewed during each visit. Balance engagement with ease of navigation to enhance the user experience.

6. Average Session Duration

Dive into user behavior with the average session duration. Longer durations indicate profound interactions with your site, particularly with blog content and landing pages.

7. Traffic Source

Decipher the origins of website traffic through the traffic source KPI. Channel-specific insights guide focused marketing efforts, whether from organic search, paid ads, or social media.

8. Mobile Site Traffic

Optimize for mobile success by monitoring the influx of users accessing your store via mobile devices. A mobile-friendly site ensures a seamless experience for a diverse audience.

9. Newsletter Subscribers

Harness the potential of email marketing by tracking newsletter subscribers. Analyze demographics to tailor content and maximize reach, ensuring alignment with target audiences.

10. Email Open Rate

Elevate email marketing effectiveness by scrutinizing the percentage of subscribers opening your emails. Test subject lines and maintain list hygiene for optimal engagement.

11. Email Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Drive traffic to your site with a high email click-through rate. This KPI measures the percentage of subscribers clicking on links, a pivotal factor in conversion success.

12. Social Followers and Fans

Measure brand loyalty and awareness through social media metrics. The number of followers and fans on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter signifies audience engagement.

13. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Evaluate ad campaign efficacy by gauging the revenue earned for every dollar spent on advertising. ROAS serves as a compass, steering advertising strategies toward profitability.

14. Cost per Click (CPC)

Unveil the cost incurred for each click on paid ads. Efficiently manage marketing budgets by aligning CPC with conversion rates, ensuring optimal returns on investment.

15. Social Media Engagement

Quantify brand engagement with social media followers through the social media engagement KPI. Active interaction signals a vibrant community and potent brand-consumer connections.

16. Clicks

Track the total number of clicks across various platforms – website, social media, email, and ads. A holistic perspective aids in refining content and optimizing engagement strategies.

17. Average Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Measure user engagement with the average click-through rate, revealing the percentage of users clicking on links. Optimize content placement and messaging for heightened effectiveness.

18. Average Position

Ascend the search engine ranks with insights from the average position KPI. Understand your site's SEO and paid search performance, striving for the coveted top position.

19. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Traffic Volume

Evaluate the success of PPC campaigns by tracking traffic volume. Strategic adjustments based on PPC insights ensure targeted traffic influx to your site.

20. Blog Traffic

Uncover the impact of blog content by isolating blog traffic metrics. Compare blog traffic against overall site traffic for a nuanced understanding of content effectiveness.

21. Number and Quality of Product Reviews

Harness the power of social proof with product reviews. Track quantity and content to leverage customer feedback for SEO, brand credibility, and business refinement.

22. Banner or Display Advertising CTRs

Optimize banner and display ad performance by scrutinizing click-through rates. Insights into copy, imagery, and offer effectiveness guide strategic adjustments for enhanced engagement.

23. Affiliate Performance Rates

Leverage affiliate marketing with insights into performance rates. Identify successful channels, refining strategies to maximize the impact of affiliate partnerships.

Elevating Customer Service through KPI Excellence

Customer service KPIs stand as sentinels, guarding the gateway to customer satisfaction. Scrutinize these metrics to ensure your support teams exceed expectations and cultivate lasting customer relationships.

Pioneering Customer Service KPIs

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Quantify customer satisfaction through the CSAT metric. Harness customer feedback to refine service strategies and foster a positive brand perception.

2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Measure customer loyalty with the Net Promoter Score. Identify brand advocates and detractors, directing efforts toward building a robust community of brand enthusiasts.

3. First Response Time

Efficient customer service hinges on swift responses. Monitor the time taken for the first response to gauge support team efficacy and ensure timely issue resolution.

4. Ticket Resolution Time

Expedite issue resolution by scrutinizing ticket resolution times. Streamline support processes based on these insights to enhance customer satisfaction.

5. Customer Retention Rate

A flourishing business thrives on customer retention. The retention rate KPI illuminates the success of your efforts in cultivating lasting relationships with clients.

6. Customer Complaint Resolution

Transform challenges into opportunities by mastering customer complaint resolution. Evaluate resolution times and customer feedback to fortify your support ecosystem.

7. Service Level Agreement (SLA) Adherence

Set and surpass customer expectations with SLA adherence. Track the percentage of support requests meeting agreed-upon response and resolution times.

8. Customer Effort Score (CES)

Simplify customer interactions with the Customer Effort Score. Minimize friction in customer journeys, fostering seamless and enjoyable experiences.

9. Contact Volume

Analyze contact volume to understand support team workload. Proactive adjustments to staffing and resources ensure consistent service excellence.

10. Customer Service Channel Performance

Decipher the effectiveness of various customer service channels – live chat, email, phone. Optimize resource allocation based on channel performance to maximize customer satisfaction.

11. Agent Performance

Empower support teams through insights into agent performance. Identify top performers and areas for improvement, ensuring a high standard of service across the board.

Conclusion: Mastering the Art of KPIs for Ecommerce Triumph

In the intricate tapestry of ecommerce success, KPIs serve as the warp and weft, weaving a narrative of progress and prosperity. Unleash the potential of your online venture by embracing the nuanced insights offered by sales, marketing, and customer service KPIs. Propel your business forward, navigate challenges, and sculpt a legacy of unparalleled success in the competitive realm of online retail.

FAQs

Why are KPIs crucial for ecommerce success?

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, provide quantifiable insights into the performance of various aspects of your ecommerce business. They guide strategic decision-making, enhance customer experiences, and drive overall success by aligning actions with specific goals.

How can I use KPIs to improve my online sales?

Analyzing sales KPIs such as total sales, average order size, conversion rate, and customer lifetime value empowers you to optimize pricing strategies, understand customer behavior, and implement targeted marketing efforts for increased online sales.

What role do marketing KPIs play in ecommerce?

Marketing KPIs, including website traffic, engagement metrics, and return on ad spend, offer actionable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. These metrics help refine strategies, boost brand awareness, and drive targeted traffic to your ecommerce site.

How do customer service KPIs contribute to business growth?

Customer service KPIs, such as customer satisfaction scores, first response time, and ticket resolution time, play a pivotal role in fostering positive customer relationships. Meeting and exceeding customer expectations leads to increased loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, and sustained business growth.

Can KPIs really help in inventory management?

Absolutely. Sales KPIs related to inventory levels, product affinity, and competitive pricing provide crucial insights into stock turnover, product popularity, and market competitiveness. Effectively managing inventory based on these KPIs ensures optimal stock levels and minimizes wastage.

Are there specific KPIs for evaluating the success of PPC campaigns?

Yes, monitoring KPIs such as pay-per-click (PPC) traffic volume, cost per click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS) provides a comprehensive view of your PPC campaign performance. These metrics help optimize ad budgets, refine targeting, and maximize the impact of your advertising efforts.

Can KPIs help me understand the effectiveness of my social media marketing?

Certainly. Social media KPIs like social followers, engagement metrics, and click-through rates provide insights into the impact of your social media efforts. Understanding these metrics enables you to refine content strategies, build brand loyalty, and expand your social media presence.

How often should I review and update my KPIs?

Regular reviews are crucial to adapt to changing market dynamics. Consider monthly reviews for short-term KPIs and quarterly or annually for long-term goals. Adjust KPIs based on business priorities, industry trends, and the evolving needs of your ecommerce venture.

[chatbot-marketing-with-botsailor]

Become a Leader in Chatbot Marketing with BotSailor’s White-Label Solution

The marketing industry is rapidly changing, and staying ahead necessitates embracing innovative technologies. For example, chatbots have become essential tools in digital marketing for interacting with customers and increasing sales. Therefore, chatbot marketing is one of the most promising trends, and BotSailor's white-label solution enables you to be a leader in this exciting field. This provides a special opportunity for marketers, agencies, and entrepreneurs to take the lead in chatbot marketing.

Do you want to become a leader in chatbot marketing? If you are interested, this blog is for you. In this blog, I’ll discuss the BotSailor Reseller Program.

What is BotSailor’s White-Label Solution?

BotSailor offers a white-label solution that includes a pre-built chatbot platform that can be rebranded and sold under your own brand. This allows you to offer advanced AI chatbot technology to your clients without needing wide technical expertise or incurring significant development costs. Regardless of whether the chatbot is for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, or Telegram, BotSailor's platform is designed to deliver smooth and efficient chatbot experiences across these channels. Essentially, it serves as a comprehensive social media marketing toolkit.

Key Features of BotSailor's Reseller Program

White-Label Customization: Resellers have full control to brand the chatbot platform as their own. The white-label solution allows customization of logos, domain names, and branding elements, ensuring continuous integration with existing business offerings.

Multi-Platform Chatbot Support: BotSailor supports various platforms, including WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Telegram, providing resellers with the versatility to cater to different client needs and enhance customer engagement.

Dedicated Admin Dashboard: Resellers are equipped with an intuitive admin dashboard to manage client accounts, monitor chatbot performance, and track usage. This feature simplifies customer management and enhances operational efficiency.

Flexible Pricing Models: The program allows resellers to set their own pricing strategies, enabling them to tailor packages based on their target market. This flexibility supports scalability and maximizes profitability.

User-Friendly Interface: The platform is designed to be intuitive, making it easy for you to build, deploy, and manage chatbots without needing extensive technical knowledge. This lowers the barrier to entry and speed up your time to market.

24/7 Technical Support: BotSailor provides around-the-clock technical support for its resellers, ensuring they can quickly resolve any issues and deliver uninterrupted service to their clients.

Revenue Growth Potential: With a robust chatbot solution that’s in high demand, resellers can tap into new revenue streams. The program’s scalability enables them to grow their business and meet increasing market demands.

Applications of BotSailor’s Reseller Program

Digital Marketing Agencies: Agencies can integrate BotSailor’s multi-platform chatbot solutions into their existing digital marketing services. From lead generation to customer support automation, these chatbots provide enhanced client engagement across platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.

E-commerce Businesses: E-commerce companies can implement chatbots to modernize customer service, provide personalized shopping experiences, and automate order updates. Resellers can offer tailored solutions to businesses looking to improve customer engagement and retention.

Customer Service Providers: By reselling BotSailor, customer service outsourcing companies can offer chatbot solutions to clients seeking to automate customer inquiries, FAQs, and ticketing systems. This enhances client satisfaction through faster response times and 24/7 availability.

Social Media Managers: Social media managers can use BotSailor’s chatbot solutions to automate replies, enhance customer interactions, and schedule posts across platforms. By offering chatbot automation, they help clients improve their social media engagement and streamline communication.

Benefits of BotSailor’s Reseller Program

New Revenue Streams: Reselling BotSailor’s powerful chatbot platform allows businesses to tap into new income opportunities. With chatbots in high demand across industries, resellers can capitalize on the growing need for automation and AI-driven communication.

Brand Customization and Ownership: The white-label option allows resellers to completely rebrand the platform, giving them full ownership of the service they provide. This enhances credibility and integrates smoothly with their existing product suite.

Smart Integrations: BotSailor offers numerous built-in integrations, and the list is continually expanding.

No Language Barrier: You can rewrite the BotSailor landing page with your mother language.

Low Investment, High Return: With flexible pricing models and low entry costs, the program offers a high ROI. Resellers can set their own pricing, creating packages that suit their client base while optimizing profitability.

Enhanced Customer Engagement: By offering chatbot solutions, resellers provide clients with a tool that significantly improves customer engagement. Automated responses, real-time interactions, and multi-platform support ensure faster, more efficient customer service.

Ongoing Support and Resources: Resellers benefit from continuous access to BotSailor’s technical support, training, and marketing resources. This ensures they can confidently manage and scale their operations, providing excellent service to their clients.

Scalability: As businesses grow, BotSailor’s flexible reseller program allows them to easily scale their offerings, accommodating larger client bases or expanding into new markets without heavy infrastructure investment.

Advanced Automation: You can automate tasks like lead generation, customer service, collecting user information, appointment scheduling, email marketing, broadcasting etc. freeing up valuable time and resources. Besides, you can build personalized marketing campaigns like sequence message campaigns that tailor messages and promotions to individual customers.

Why Choose BotSailor?

With BotSailor, you can benefit from a fully hosted solution, eliminating concerns about server costs. This allows you to redirect your focus towards expanding your business, as BotSailor team takes care of the technical management, ensuring painless operation through 24/7 system monitoring. By entrusting us with the management tasks, you can concentrate on developing your marketing strategies and acquiring customers, knowing that we provide dedicated support to ensure your business's success. For more details, click here.

You may also watch BotSailor YouTube Videos or visit BotSailor Blog Site.

Ready to Become a Chatbot Marketing Leader?

BotSailor's white-label solution is a powerful tool that can help you take your marketing agency to the next level. Visit BotSailor today to learn more about becoming a reseller:- https://botsailor.com/reseller .

How to Get Started

Sign Up: Visit the BotSailor website and sign up for their white-label reseller program.

Buy & Add SSL: From the Pricing page of BotSailor, you have to take the white label package. Now, you have to point your domain or sub-domain to the BotSailor servers. Then, you’ll send an email number to the BotSailor support team to add SSL into it.

Customize: Personalize the chatbot interface to reflect your brand’s identity by following the step-by-step instructions from here.

Deploy: Start offering chatbot services to your clients and control the platform’s automation features to enhance their marketing strategies.

Analyze: Use the analytics tools to monitor performance and make data-driven decisions to improve outcomes.

So, setting up your BotSailor White Label Reseller package is a straightforward and swift process. By following a few simple steps, you'll soon be set to provide top-tier WhatsApp marketing services under your own brand, providing exceptional value to your clients and positioning yourself as a key player in the digital marketing space. So, embark on your journey today and capitalize on the thriving market for WhatsApp marketing and chatbot solutions with BotSailor and drive your business to new heights. Becoming a leader in chatbot marketing has never been easier with BotSailor’s white-label solution.

For more information, visit BotSailor’s White Label Reseller Program.

Important Blogs:

(i) https://botsailor.com/blog/top-10-uses-of-whatsapp-chatbot-for-ecommerce

(ii) https://botsailor.com/blog/choosing-the-best-whatsapp-marketing-tool-botsailor-vs-competitors-a-comprehensive-comparison-for-2024

[zenkor123]

The Black Market of District 13 Part -2

As long as people can bend the rules some people will not all of district 13 are drones. They need narcotics for comfort, luxury food, drab grey can get boring and youth rebel. But narcotics are hard to fome by, but morphling, and other medical drugs are stockpiled. And they have an important ally, Alma coin the number one user of luxury goods. Many in the underground despise Alma coin but by securing the existsnce of the black market this prevents the underground from moving on coin. It is in areas sealed off during a flood in the 50s and never reopened, In the long dead Graphite mines, abandoned warehouses, the forests of district 13 that the underground lives. There is 900 active members of the underworld and 3,000 passive members. It has existed since 30 years after the demise of the old 13, many wanted to live as close to their pre dark days life style as possible . Many luxories and traditions from old 13 persist illegally through crime. Luxuries like makeup, lipstick, meat from hunting(miles away from the underground complex), Morphling are the produce of crime in 13. The Morphling is made in secret labs in a cave in District 13, meat from the forest 40 miles away from the bunkers, lipstick, jewelry, makeup from the ruins of district 13. They were divided into cells of 20 and there were 45 total they only met on small occasions and exchanged goods once a month. Black market dealings were slow in 13. There were couriers 200 couriers from both active and passive members that aided in communication between the groups. There are 20 leaders of couriers that move the goods around, they are the leaders of the mafia in District 13. The goods come from scavenging, laboratories,and buying excess goods from corrupt officials the currency used is barter and counterfeit credit. Morphling is a form of cave fungus but it needs to be processed and turned into a gooey fluid, sugar is added to Morphling to make it taste great. The wild Morphling fungus is grown and collected by 13 gardeners in the caves of D13, then is transferred in the dead of night to District 13, further Morphling is processed via siphoning of District 13’s supply. Black market sale of goods takes place in offices of abandoned warehouses of 13 meetings arraigned in the day and occur at night and goods are smuggled in the clothing of smugglers who are separate from couriers in the underworld of district 13. Salespeople identify people interested in the products based on close observation and requests by clients. Credits are sometimes requested as payment increasing the wealth of the cartels and the money is stored in the personal accounts of the cartel operatives. Many cartel operatives have hidden rooms with false walls where goods can be stored. These are usually additions to the closet or the sanitary pipes of District 13. The movement of goods via sanitation pipes is a common method of goods and information between the operatives of the cartel. Alma coin’s predecessor Lucius Nero almost wiped out the cartel but the cartel revived itself and one cell serves coin by giving her black market goods. The operatives live completely different lives in all parts of district 13 when not involved in the cartel and are everything from wood collectors, to sanitation workers, guards, soldiers, chemists, growers of medicinal plants and fungus, foresters, and metal smiths. Luxury foods(cooked in the forest with natural ingredients as well as meat come from the foresters). Identification came from secret handshakes and passwords. Johanna and Peeta joined the cartel for Morphling. They were both recruited into the “victors cell” by operative Ash Brown, a guard in the hospital, their cell consisted of the following members. Due to Morphling being so prestigious in district 13 the bottles for Morphling were often ornate. The cartel was not only about profit and believed that the goods that they sold should be legal, had enjoyed by 13 since before the dark days and did nothing to harm 13, they regarded themselves as the preserver of pre dark days traditions.

The victors cell specialized in Morphling from the hospital

Ash Brown, guard of forester lineage-salesperson

2. Peeta Mellark, Morphling siphoner and packager

3. Johanna Mason, Morphling Siphoner and salesperson

4. William Stone-Chemist

5. Artemis Dollar-courier

6. Galena Dollar-Courier

7. Fire Brown-Salesperson

8. Helena Stocksbridge-Keeper of records

9. Arlo Stockbridge-Keeper of the den

10. Samanthan Nuka- Keeper of the Den (doctor)

11. Michael Nuka-Chemist

12. Harold Nuka-Producer. (Via the hospital garden)

13. Velma Brown-packager.

[ashen-crest]

a stats report on the rk ashwick books (as of April 2023)

some folks responded positively to the idea of seeing data on how my books have done (for indie author research and benchmark purposes), so here you go!

I'll put everything under the cut:

📚 What do I write?

Cozy fantasy romance under the pen name R.K. Ashwick.

📚 Why do I write?

Because I love it. I have a full-time job that isn't related to writing, so I write in my spare time. I should also note that I do not have dependents, am not a caregiver, and I do have anxiety and ADHD. I am not certain that I want to be a full-time writer, given the financial instability and the joy it could take away from writing. However, I want my books to be and perform the best they can, so I try to be professional about my product and methods.

(To me, this is all important context to be up-front about. Finances, family size, and health all have a huge impact on an author's goals and strategies.)

📚 How many books do I have out?

The Stray Spirit: released August 2022. First in a planned trilogy.

A Rival Most Vial: released March 2023. First in a planned trilogy.

📚 Online Visibility

Here's what I have going on:

Paid:

Website (requires $ for hosting)

BookFunnel for newsletter promos, sales promos, and ARC distribution (site requires $ to join)

Unpaid:

Newsletter (currently managing on free version of Mailerlite, since I'm under 1000 followers)

Facebook page (not consistently maintained, mostly for SEO)

Instagram, posting 5x/wk

TikTok, posting 5k/wk

Tumblr- hi!

using things like LibraryThing, GoodReads forums, Reddit, and FB pages to find more ARC readers

I was doing Amazon ads, but recently nixed them, as I didn't feel they were really getting me anything. I'll likely return to them once I have more books out.

A Note on Follower Count: I have, like 10 FB followers, 400-ish Insta followers, 1500 TikTok folders, and almost 1600 Tumblr followers. I've been on Tumblr the longest and TikTok second longest. TikTok had the fastest growth, Insta the slowest. However, general advice is that engagement rate is more important than follower count. I'll be real, I'm not doing that hot on that front. I'll consistently get around 20 likes on Insta posts and TikTok often caps my video views at around 200 or 300. The videos that do the best on TT often aren't the ones related to my books. Fun times.

A Note on Newsletter Stats: I have a pretty consistent open rate of 25-30%, which I think is okay. I'd like for it to be closer to 40%. (It's also hard to actually track open rates, so that number isn't entirely reliable.)

A Note on ARC Reader Stats: I got 100 readers for TSS and almost 200 for ARMV. This resulted in a ballpark count of 20 reviews for TSS and 30 reviews for ARMV around release time.

📚 Other Marketing Strategies

What you see above under Visibility is my ongoing work. I also do more limited-run strategies, like:

occasional free book giveaways on social media

pre-order gifts for my book

I sent out around 20 pre-order gift envelopes for TSS and 45 for ARMV. I operate the pre-order gifts at a loss, but I really enjoy doing it, so I'm okay with it. I also have lots of leftover stickers and bookmarks that I can bundle with giveaways.

📚 Distribution

I distribute wide through:

Amazon: both ebook and paperback

IngramSpark: paperback only

Draft2Digital: ebook only

📚 Orders & Royalties

So, what did all this work and shennanery get me?

From July 2022-April 2023 (10 months):

Books Sold: 575

Total Royalties, paid and unpaid: $1543.49 ($2.68 per book)

📚 Is that good or bad?

I have no idea!! And I think in the end, it all depends on your goals.

If my goal was to make a living: welp, it's def not enough.

If my goal was to break even: between website set up, DBA set up, cover cost, editing cost, illustrator cost: nah. I'd have to make about $4,000 more to safely say I've broken even.

If my goal was to get strangers, and not just family and friends, to read my books: oh hey, I did that!!

I hope this information helps you set a goal, so you're not mentally wandering around like I am.

📚 Other Notes

A big factor in having a financially successful indie book is fitting genre conventions in your chosen subgenre, or 'writing to market.' I will say that A Rival Most Vial is more written to market than The Stray Spirit is. The Stray Spirit sort of straddles cozy, historical, and academic fantasy without actually leaning in to any of those things, so it's a little harder to market.

I also spent a lot on cover, editing, and illustration. That makes it harder to be a financially viable business, but it's what I wanted to do to have a strong finished product. I am lucky in that my full-time job can cover these expenses.

I'm not very good at social media. I've never had anything go viral on any of the sites.

The most rewarding part of all this is seeing how people react to the book: reviews, videos where they're almost crying over the book, podcast invitations, and [something a bit bigger than I'll announce in the summer.] At the end of the day, if I have a small group of buyers who are vocal in engaging with my books, that's far more rewarding than a large group of buyers who don't engage.

📚 Parting Thoughts

I'm happy to talk about any and all aspects of my self-publishing experience. If you have more questions or want more details, feel free to reply, send an ask, or DM me!

[the-monkey-ruler]

Beautiful Monkey King (2009) 美猴王

Director: Chen Jiaqi / Geng Shaobo / Shao Jianming / Wu Hanqing / Ma Hua / Ni Jun

Screenwriter: Wu Chengen

Starring: Hao Youyue / Liu Xiaoyu / Zhang Biyu / Li Jinyan / Gao Feng / more...

Genre: Action / Animation / Fantasy / Adventure

Official website: http://space.tv.cctv.com/podcast/mhw

Country/Region of Production: Mainland China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Premiere: 2009-05-26 (Mainland China)

Number of seasons: 1

Episodes: 52

Episode Length: 22

Also known as: Monkey King

Type: Retelling

Summary:

The 52-episode large-scale cartoon series "The Monkey King" created by CCTV Animation Co., Ltd. over the course of three years will meet with young friends during the winter vacation. "The Monkey King" is the fourth animation blockbuster produced by CCTV Animation. The film will be broadcast on CCTV's "Animation City" program starting from January 25, 2010. In addition, starting from January 26, CCTV Children's Channel will also broadcast the film at the same time. This powerful three-dimensional broadcast mode will allow children who have been looking forward to the film for a long time to enjoy an all-round animation feast during the holidays.

"The Monkey King" is an inspirational and growth-themed cartoon with a strong sense of the times. The scenes of the film are beautifully drawn, and a large number of three-dimensional visual effects are used, reflecting the first-class level of domestic animation production. The whole cartoon uses the well-known classical literary image, the Monkey King, to tell the growth process of a young man who overcomes himself and discovers himself. While inheriting classical themes such as the pursuit of justice and bravery, the film embodies more spirits of the times, such as growth, friendship and teamwork. The team spirit, setback education and self-improvement involved in the story have an important enlightening effect on today's children. 

It is understood that in order to make "The Monkey King" a double harvest in both ratings and the market, CCTV Animation adopted a brand-new operating concept and successfully held the first "Monkey King" brand authorization auction, making China's original animation on the market for the first time. auction table. The auction integrates industry resources such as animation, books, audio-visuals, and toys, as well as various social resources such as the government and the Toy Association. The number of participants, the intensity of publicity, and the enthusiasm for participation are all unprecedented in the field of animation licensing. Related pre-sales are as high as 1,700 ten thousand yuan. 

While cooperating with the main winning bidders of the "Monkey King" brand authorization auction, including People's Literature Publishing House * Tiantian Publishing House, to integrate and develop the "Monkey King" book, audio-visual, and toy industry authorization, "The Monkey King" The development of related products and related industries, as well as the derivative chain of the animation industry of the film are also being fully expanded. It is reported that CCTV Animation will also sign an agreement with Walt Disney Company on the broadcasting of "The Monkey King" on the Disney Channel in Asia. broadcast platform. The projects signed on the same day also included the movie "Monkey King" and the touring project of the stage play of the same name.

Source: http://chinesemov.com/tv/2010/Monkey-King.html

Link: https://m.bilibili.com/video/av12784222 https://www.youtube.com/@monkeyservant4164

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log:The Toy Job

And now for the series original run's second-to-last episode. Title-based prediction: Corporate Mandated Christmas special and/or beanie baby speculative market based episode. --- Amateur thief tries to steal from a research department. (company name seems to be poggio, which, im fairly certain based on the shows original runyears is a reference to the OG POG's. Not the later return of POG as a slang term.)

Christmas tree in the brewpub cause it is the christmas episode. Toy is a choking hazard, cant be allowed to get on the market.

mark is a former armsdealer (also his name is "hazlit" which I think is meant to be a sound-alike to HAS-bro). This means he knows how to set up competent security. The raports are on a drive thast in a safe in a double-walled room, and its a safe good enough that Parker says drill it rather then going for a finger-feel. (we need a distraction, and we need it loud enough to overcrowd the sound of a drill)

--- they're arguing christmas gift protocols. (must be hard deciding a reasonable limit when you're all billionaires). Sophie suggests limiting the spending budget, and Nate negotiates her down to $50 per person. (which probably means, per person per gift, everyone gifting everyone 1 gift. So $200 total) which would be more likely to work if you werent all thieves. Like we all understand the punchline here... None of you are gonna spend a cent on each others gifts.(and im shocked as hell that Hardison spent money on that motorcycle for Parker.) --- He forged the paperwork, but its nice to see an episode where we acknowledge that most of the times (off screen) their jobs end up with a simple "Parker gets in, gets out and the billionare cries in prison". Its kind of like the Anthropic principle. "the only realities humans can observe are those whose fundamental principles allow for observation by humans" also known in media as "Johny bravo gets laid all the time, those stories just dont make good episodes". But its always nice to have a show allude to the "boring" adventures that are its shows day-to-day. --- "we're gonna steal christmass" boo Chaos already pulled that line in season 3! --- Nate does not like the "whirly-glee-glee" as a name. And we're about to steal toys from children in underdeveloped countries.

Parker sees the whirly box, and a box labeled "Baby Joy Rage" and makes an executive decision. (i think she's right, kids need a toy with at least some edge or personality to get truly hyped about)

--- Sophie's on the radar, Hardison did some stats on neighbourhoods that have historic trend-setter influencer potential. Elliot is giving the dolls away for free (ultimate move in loss-leader strategies) Sophie puts it in the bag of a child-star, Hardison does a paparazzi photo, and I absolutely hate how simple yet plausible this entire endeavour is. --- Sophie's actors are being brought in to call-center mode. (I like Zachary) Cant con a 6 year old, but you can con the parents. (love the little joke about "get on the mommies")

Nate hates "baby feels a lot" more then he ever hated Whirly-glee-glee. He's also the episodes obligatory "christmas sceptic".

Hardison sees a picture of a bloggermom and is suddenly a lot more interested in operation "get on the moms". Like Elliot suddenly has a Sophie level of depth for his con-character prepared.

Dead mom, single father, slighlty outdated sense of childrens gender identity but clearly demonstrated potential for growth. Man Elliots Dad-sona is just putting on the schmaltz. --- Elliot trying to keep Hardisons stories realistic, Nate stuck between the two. Back to Sophie and this Gil is signing this deal memo without looking at it. He's too busy socialising to actually watch what he's signing. Around Sophie you might as welll be signing your own death-warrant. --- Oh most of the data is in online pre-sales nowadays? Reservations on the internet, that a hacker with a botnet could rig? Like taking candy from a baby. --- Sophie makes VP at Poggio Parker gloating about her executive decision. Fake a gas-warning to clear out the factory for Nate --- Nate putting a final stretch on the sale of the trojan horse make the mark feel FOMO. Sophie is absolutely repulsed by this man (unfortunately he does not feel mutual) --- Oh the mark has counterplayed them by making a knock-off product. Well this guy just went full on Narcissus --- Oh, thats funny. Not only does this Gil guy who owns the shelves not watch what he's signing, Look who also doesnt pay attention to that stuff. --- Client gets a new job, Nate owns a boat? (i mean its not a shock that he owns a boat, its not out of character just dont think it was ever properly established, i've never seen him on a boat and the only time he was near a boat was saying goodbye to his father in the Three Card Monte job).

Introducing the character who's spent the last season ominously leering at retirement as a boat-owner in the second to last episode feels like maybe he wont die, in that it introduces a prospect of retirement as a thing he's thought about. But also it introduces "one day to retirement" as well so i dont actually know if his survival chances went up or down just now. But the reminder of Sam's sickness itself (a sickness that is still ominously vague, nameless and nebulous) in the second-to-last episode... I know i was wrong when i said it seasons ago, but is Nate dying? Also peaking at the name of the next episode... (long goodbye), yeah thats ominous. Im gonna say, next episode features a health scare, Him and Sophie retire for his health and he passes the torch. (to the 3 collectively in general, Parker in specific) and I think he will die between series and sequel but not in the finale itself. His death between the series and sequel puts Sophie back in the game, which then opens up space for the "lawyer" to slot into the sequel series without bloating the cast to a rather unwieldy 6. --- Good episode and unintrusive as holiday specials are concerned.

[screensrefurbished]

How Smoothly Do Online iPhone Screen Refurbishing Services Work?

The demand for iPhones in the market is exceptionally high. The sales and number of iPhone users are evidence of this. However, every iPhone user fears just one thing, i.e., screen damage. Once the screen of their iPhones gets damaged, it shakes up the entire unit. It influences the functions, ruins the face ID feature, and so on. All these issues are quite concerning. However, iPhone users can feel relieved as they can go for refurbished iPhone LCD screens that are readily available today. In four easy steps, people can get excellent online services. Here is how it works.

Configuring the Repair:

After visiting an online iPhone screen refurbishing website, you first need to configure the repairs. In this step, you need to choose your iPhone model along with the delivery speed you prefer. If you want your iPhone back sooner, you can select the delivery speed accordingly.

Online Booking:

Once you have selected the delivery speed and your iPhone model, you need to move to the next step. Next, you have to enter the delivery address. You can add your home or any convenient address where you can receive your iPhone back.

Device Posting:

Online iPhone screen refurbishing services allow you to post your device through two simple methods. First, you can choose to post the device using the pre-paid packaging services offered by the service provider. And secondly, you can post the device using your own posting method. These two easy options allow you to go with your preference.

Refurbishing and Returning:

Once the device is received at the refurbishing centre, the technicians start working on it directly. They take better care of your iPhones and try to stick to quality services. After refurbishing the screen, the device is returned to your address in as good as new condition.

Why Choose Screen Refurbishment?

Screen refurbishment is clearly a good choice. It is one of the most affordable options for all iPhone users. Along with this, it focuses on sustainability as well. So, make a wise choice and choose refurbishment over replacement.

About Screens Refurbished:

Screens Refurbished can be the first choice for you for iPhone screen refurbishing service. The company takes care of all the iPhone screen refurbishments and tries to enhance the value of your devices. Once you get these services, you can conveniently restore your device's operations.

You can get all the pieces of information at https://screensrefurbished.co.uk/

Original Source: https://bit.ly/3vjj8BA

[qposrestaurantbillingsolutions]

How to Increase Bakery Sales?

Running a successful bakery requires more than just delicious treats. To maximize profits and attract a steady stream of customers, bakeries must implement effective sales strategies. We’ll explore seven proven tactics that can help increase bakery sales and ensure long-term success. Let’s dive in!

Elevate the Visual Appeal:

First impressions matter, and for bakeries, that means presenting mouthwatering delights in an enticing manner. Invest in attractive displays, use eye-catching packaging, and decorate your storefront with tempting visuals. A visually appealing bakery will draw customers in and encourage impulse purchases.

Offer Diverse Product Range:

To satisfy a broad customer base offer a diverse range of products. From classic cakes and fresh bread to gluten-free options, vegan treats, and seasonal specialties, having a variety of items can attract different types of customers and boost sales. Regularly introduce new and innovative creations to keep your offerings fresh and exciting.

Focus on High-Quality Ingredients:

Superior ingredients are the backbone of any successful bakery. Using fresh, high-quality ingredients not only enhances the taste of your baked goods but also showcases your commitment to providing the best to your customers. Highlight the use of premium ingredients in your marketing efforts to build trust and loyalty.

Implement an Online Ordering System with QPOS:

In today’s fast-paced world, convenience is key. Set up an efficient online ordering system, powered by QPOS, that allows customers to pre-order their favourite treats for pickup or delivery.

With QPOS’s integrated online ordering feature, you can offer this convenience to your customers seamlessly. This addition not only increases sales and attracts customers but also streamlines your bakery operations by automating order processing and ensuring accuracy in transactions.

Leverage Social Media Marketing:

Social media platforms are powerful tools for promoting your bakery and engaging with your audience. Create visually appealing posts featuring your appealing creations, share customer reviews, and run special promotions to invite new and existing customers. Encourage user-generated content by photo posting on social media and tagging the shop along, expanding your reach even further.

Host Events and Workshops:

Engage with your community by hosting events and workshops at your bakery. Consider organizing baking classes or festival themed events. These experiences not only provide additional revenue streams but also help build a loyal customer base that will spread positive word-of-mouth.

Implement Loyalty Programs:

Reward loyal customers with a well-designed loyalty program. Offer discounts, freebies, or exclusive access to new products or events. A strong loyalty program can incentivize repeat purchases and turn one-time visitors into dedicated patrons.

Increasing bakery sales involves a combination of smart marketing, high-quality products, and exceptional customer experiences. By implementing these seven strategies – elevating the visual appeal, offering diverse products, using high-quality ingredients, implementing online ordering, leveraging social media, hosting events, and creating loyalty programs – you can drive growth and ensure your bakery’s success. Stay consistent, stay creative, and keep delighting your customers with scrumptious treats!

To increase bakery sales and stay competitive in today’s market, adopting QPOS, a smart restaurant management software is crucial. Integrating Restaurant Business Intelligence and analytics and Cloud Kitchen Management can provide the tools you need to optimize operations, enhance customer experiences, and boost your bakery’s profitability.

[cool-in-denverco]

Regen Revolution in Denver, CO

Many people are searching for Denver stem cell therapy nowadays. If you’re one of them, you can try researching about Regen Revolution. Regen Revolution offers cutting-edge, non-drug, and non-surgical solutions for Peripheral Neuropathy. For additional information, they shared that peripheral Neuropathy can lead to numbness, tingling and pain in your feet or hands. Besides, an estimated 20 million Americans experience some type of nerve pain or nerve damage. The specialists at Regen Revolution address numbness, tingling, and pain in hands and feet. Moreover, they provide a comprehensive approach to treat symptoms and underlying causes, aiming to restore nerve function. Read more about them, here.

Denver, CO

If you’re preparing to travel for vacation in Denver, CO area, don’t forget to check out future events. Let’s discuss some of the pre-planned activities in Denver, CO then. First, there will be Vegan Street Fair Denver 2023 - Premium Passes & Perks this coming Saturday, September 23, 2023, at around 11:00 in the morning. Besides, the exact location for this activity will be announced soon. Moreover, the Thrift-Pop: Monthly Denver Market Presented by ThriftCon is scheduled on Sunday, September 24, 2023, at around 12:00 PM at Denver Central Market Parking Lot. Lastly, the Friday Night BAZAAR: RiNo will take place this coming Friday, at around 5:00 PM at 2424 Larimer Street.

Denver Zoo in Denver, CO

Many people from across the globe visit Denver Zoo in Denver, CO. After all, it is also a famous place for children. Well, Denver Zoo is an 80-acre nonprofit zoological garden located in City Park of Denver, Colorado, United States. The said tourist spot was founded in 1896. Besides, it is operated by the Denver Zoological Foundation and funded in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District or SCFD in addition to ticket sales and private donations. Moreover, it is the most visited paid attraction in Colorado. Lastly, it houses species from all over the world, including hoofed mammals, carnivorous mammals, primates, and more.

Flash flood warning issued for Cameron Peak burn scar in Larimer County

Just recently, there are shocking news reports in the Denver, CO location. Recently, there was a topic about the National Weather Service that issued a flash flood warning for the Cameron Peak Fire burn scar in central Larimer County on Sunday afternoon. Besides, the alert was issued at 2:56 in the afternoon and lasts until 6:00 in the evening on Sunday. In addition, the NWS said doppler radar indicated thunderstorms are producing heavy rain over the Cameron Peak Burn Scar area. Aside from that, excessive rainfall over the burn scar will result in debris flow moving through the Buckhorn Creek drainage.

Link to maps

Denver Zoo 2300 Steele St, Denver, CO 80205, United States Follow Denver Zoo Rd to E 23rd Ave 1 min (486 ft) Take E Montview Blvd and Quebec St to E 1st Pl 14 min (5.0 mi) Continue on E 1st Pl to your destination 23 sec (322 ft) Regen Revolution - Chiropractic Care & Stem Cell Therapy 125 Rampart Way Suite 300, Denver, CO 80230, United States

[chizuudraws]

How Can I Purchase Windows Keys For An Affordable Price?

Do you want to save a few bucks for the cost of Windows keys? You're not alone! There are many people searching for low-cost alternatives to purchase Windows keys. There are many methods to locate Windows keys for a reasonable cost.

In this article, we will examine the online marketplaces that allow you to find discounted Windows keys, alternative options in obtaining Windows keys, locating authorized resellers at affordable prices using promotions and sales. In addition, we'll give you tips for finding authentic and genuine cheap windows 11 keys for a cheaper price.

In case you're eager to cut costs while maintaining the high-quality the performance of the quality of Windows key, continue reading!

Explore online Marketplaces to find discounted Windows Keys

Check out the online markets for great deals on Windows keys!

The platforms provide a vast range of options, allowing you to compare costs and select the most suitable deal for your specific demands.

There are genuine Windows keys at popular websites including Amazon and even specialized ones like Kinguin.

Be sure to check reviews before choosing a reliable seller in order to have a smooth deal.

Look into alternative Windows Keys

Explore other options to get the Windows licenses you want. Open-source systems such as Linux can be trusted and are free alternatives to Windows.

Another option is to purchase pre-installed computers with a valid copy of Windows.

You can also explore options for schools or nonprofits that offer discounted or free Windows licensing.

Alternative options may help you save money but still get a solid operating system.

Searching for Authorized Resellers buy software keys

Check out authorized resellers to get great discounts on Windows licenses. Microsoft has authorized these resellers to provide authentic Windows keys for discounted prices. By purchasing from authorized resellers You can be sure that you're getting a legitimate product and stay clear of the risk of buying from unauthorized sources.

A lot of resellers provide specials and discounts, which means it is possible to purchase Windows Keys for an affordable price.

Promos and discounts for Windows Keys

Utilize promotions and deals to score amazing bargains on genuine Windows licenses at authorized resellers. Discounts and promotions can provide significant savings over the usual cost of Windows keys, making them more affordable for those with a tight budget.

It is possible to purchase a Windows license at a discounted price when you keep your eyes peeled to these deals.

How to Find Genuine Windows Keys for a Low Price

To score genuine and legitimate Windows licenses at a cheaper price, keep your eyes peeled for promotions and discounts which can help make these highly popular keys more affordable to smart shoppers such as yourself.

Be on the lookout for sales, such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday in which retailers typically give significant discounts on their software.

Consider also looking into reputable online marketplaces or authorized resellers, who may offer affordable prices for genuine cheap windows keys.

Make sure you are able to verify the authenticity of the seller before making a purchase online.

Summary

Locating affordable Windows keys can be a challenging task that requires diligence and careful analysis. On-line marketplaces may offer discounts on alternatives, however be wary of illegitimate sellers.

Explore alternative operating systems, such as those that are open-source. Benefiting from discounts and sales, as well as researching authorized resellers can also offer cost-effective alternatives.

Be sure to use genuine windows key to ensure optimal performance of your system.