Apple shows transparency in China iPod factory audit
In a smart move by Apple, the company has released details of an audit done on an iPod factory in China. The audit came in response to accusations of "sweatshop" conditions by the Mail on Sunday.
According to the audit the supplier was “in compliance in the majority of the areas audited. However, we did find violations to our Code of Conduct, as well as other areas for improvement that we are working with the supplier to address.” What follows in the report is a breakdown of the audit methodology and selected results.
Boo two hit with fines
Two accountants at KPMG were fined £2,000 last week for their role in failed dotcom Boo.com.
As reported by Accountancy Age, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) tribunal also ordered Philip Wallace and Michael McLoughlin to pay £40,000 each in costs.
Web blamed as Powerhouse shuts shop
Administrators of electronics chain Powerhouse have blamed rising competition from e-tailers after the firm closed its UK stores yesterday.
"Internet retailers and increased competition on the high street, coupled with the ongoing deterioration in the UK electrical retail market, has led to Powerhouse being unable to sustain its position in the retail marketplace," BDO Stoy Hayward said in a statement.
Online card payments rise in UK
More than 50% of UK adults made an online purchase with their credit or debit cards last year, according to new research .
Payments association Apacs says 25 million adults (52% of all adults and 74% of internet users) bought goods online during 2005, an 11% rise over the previous year.
Handset ignorance presents problem for mobile industry
A new survey highlighting mobile users’ limited knowledge about their handsets will not have provided any cheer to operators or third party content providers seeking to raise interest in data services.
The study, conducted by market-research company Ipsos MORI in conjunction with LogicaCMG, found that 58% of users are oblivious to basic details of the make and model of their phones.
A 10-point checklist for landing page design
The fallout from Google's new 'Quality Score' is growing, with talk of "mass defections" to MSN and Yahoo, but if you want to stick with Google Adwords then you need to know how to create some quality landing pages.
A quality landing page is one that reinforces ‘conversion intent’. To do this, you need to consider the mindset of your visitor and provide just enough information to persuade them to convert. And no unnecessary distractions… ok?
So what are the 10 things you need to know about designing landing pages? Read on to find out...
Offertrax raises funds, launch set for August
Congratulations are in order for Ron and Ben at Boston-based Offertrax, who have raised an initial round of funding to help them launch their first product in August.
The company has raised “less than $1m - for now” according to CEO Ronald Pruett, who told me that he secured the funds from “private investors from the Boston area with high tech backgrounds and understanding”.
Offertrax is a social shopping site based around RSS technologies. The founders (Ronald Pruett and Ben Carcio) hope that the service will help join up the gap between consumers and merchants, via targeted alerts delivered by RSS. “It is time to put consumers back in the driving seat,” says Ron.
PriceRunner teams up with 118118 to send price information to phones
The shopping comparison engine PriceRunner has this week launched a service which enables consumers to access pricing information from 118118 operators when they are out doing their shopping.Google launches Google Checkout, not GBuy
GBuy is here, only it is called Google Checkout and despite the chief doers of no evil claiming that it “isn’t like PayPal at all”, it is, erm, rather like PayPal, in that merchants use it to process consumer payments.
Google Checkout allows consumers to purchase products by simply logging in to Google – no need for credit card numbers or filling out forms. Obviously you need to tell Google to begin with, but thereafter Google will store your credit card and address data...
The business case for site search
In 2004 we discovered that half of all onsite searches returned no results, despite the fact that products were actually available and could be found by clicking navigation links.
What did this tell us? Well firstly, it made us shudder. Half of all onsite queries returned NO results! Why was this happening? The main problem seemed to be related to poor quality metadata, but we also realised that some of the big retailers had site search tools that were perhaps not up to scratch.
Roll forward to 2006 and we figured that it was about time to investigate the site search market. What tools are available? What are the trends and issues in the marketplace? Why should site search be a priority if you’re selling online?
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
