Prior to making the 40 minute car trip my wife went online and sketched out a couple of ideas she had for a wall unit and printed them out. We were going to try to make our own wall unit and from what I could tell it would be relatively inexpensive. That’s the first reason people go to IKEA right? I mean that the merchandise is for the most part contemporary, modular, fairly well made (to me more sort of an upscale particle board) and there are choices in colors and finishes.

We were able to find someone to help us narrow our choices based upon what we sketched out. Apparently finding someone to help in IKEA is no small accomplishment. He was a very nice septuagenarian (or at least it seemed like that), somewhat computer literate and very earnestly tried to help us. It took quite a while. The computer system was cumbersome and not all that user-friendly (my wife noticed that as well when she was attempting to design something). Once we finally found something we thought we might like it turned out that IKEA had discontinued the line so had we bought the material in stock (which it wasn’t) we would have not been able to replace anything going forward.

We had been in the store for 90 minutes (seemed longer to a guy like me who is a buyer and not a shopper) and like many people came up empty. In fact had we decided on a purchase, the ‘IKEA way’ is for us to go downstairs, pull the material we wanted off the warehouse shelves (like doors and cabinets) and roll it up to a register to pay. After that we would have had to arrange for delivery since we were not going to be able to fit it all in our car. I was assured by my wife that process (had we undertaken it) would have taken another hour. Whatever happened to time is money?

But then it got aggravating – that is, trying to get out of the store. Like Connecticut based Stew Leonard’s, IKEA has you trudge around and around the store through aisles and aisles of products (none of which were of interest), just to get to the exit. No exaggeration – at least ten minutes of going around thinking (hoping?) we were close to getting out only to see yet another turn down another aisle. I kept thinking I sure hope the fire sprinklers work well since if there ever was a fire there was no way you were getting out in time.

I had much higher hopes as the IKEA brand perception I had going in was much different than what I had going out. People seem to love IKEA.

But again I ask – what is it about IKEA?

Wasn’t the whole idea behind generic brands hatched as a way for consumers to pay less while the store could keep a greater share of the profit? An article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/AbOAMK offered some interesting thoughts regarding store brands. It seems at times people actually prefer the store brand to the more established name brand. And they are even willing to pay more for the store brand. What the heck is going on here?

When I shop and consider a store or generic brand versus an established brand I go through the same checklist that I’m sure is the same as many people. If I decide to buy generic or store brand paper towels my expectations are lowered a bit (thinner ply and not as absorbent) but will only buy if the price is considerably lower. Sometimes it is lower, but sometimes the name brand is having a special and the value is better. It rarely (if ever) enters my thinking that I would prefer the ‘private label (fancy name for store or generic) brand.

From the WSJ article:
‘Private-label products still cost an average of 29% less than their nationally branded counterparts. But they are rising faster in price, at a rate of 5.3% last year compared with the industry average of 1.9%, and can sometimes be the most expensive product in a category, according to market-research firm Symphony IRI.
Target’s two-pound jars of Archer Farms roasted almonds, prominently displayed on the end of the nut aisle, recently cost about 16 cents more per pound than Planters’ roasted almonds.’

That Target has been able to create a store brand that costs more than the established brand impressed me a great deal.

The article also noted that Procter & Gamble Chief Executive Bob McDonald said the maker of Pampers and Tide has been balancing its exposure to chains with store brands by expanding distribution in other channels like dollar stores, which don’t sell private labels that compete against P&G products. They are also redoubling efforts to develop new products, particularly at lower prices. “We invest $2 billion a year in research and development, $400 million on consumer knowledge and about 10% of sales on advertising,” Mr. McDonald said in a recent interview. “Store brands don’t have that capability.”

Sounds like someone who is not sure but is hoping he’s right.

Is this a wake-up call for traditional established brands?

Now this is going to make me sound old – maybe older than I am, but I remember when there were no mobile devices and you actually had to have a conversation with the person with whom you were sharing a meal. You couldn’t fake a call from someone in order to get out of a bad ‘blind’ date or any kind of date for that matter which just made it much more challenging BTW.

Look around any restaurant for someone sitting by themselves. Perhaps they are waiting for someone(s). Maybe they are eating alone. But how often do you see a single person just sitting there looking out and around, not on their mobile device? Of course many people read a book or magazine (electronic or not) when dining alone but I recall from black and white movies a time where someone would sit in a restaurant and not read anything and simply just sit there and wait, and think. Could you imagine?

How often during your waking hours do you not engage in some sort of stimulus? That is, how often do you just sit, stand, or run, and think without any other stimulus (think iPod)? I think for many people this is happening to an increasing degree (in the U.S. at least) and is inexorably changing not only the way people interact but even more significantly people’s ability to spend idle time simply thinking about whatever crosses one’s mind. It’s even more prevalent for people under 30 who appear to me to never stop interacting with technology when not in the presence of others. Is there any time that they just sit and do nothing but think or day dream?

It goes way beyond the seeming inability of people to spend any idle time. Answering an email or phone call when in the presence of others when 99% of those contacts are not emergencies is not multi-tasking in my opinion. How can you make the person you are with feel that you care about them or what they are saying when you stop to answer a phone call, text or email? But somehow that’s become the norm rather than the exception. People not only have difficulty being idle, they feel the need to manage two interactions simultaneously.

How about you? Do you spend quiet time just thinking? No music or electronics of any kind. Quiet. Can you? Will you?

Yesterday I attended a meeting in Washington D.C. and decided to take the Amtrak Northeast Regional – it was $ 98.00 round trip. Taking Acela would have saved me less than one hour and was substantially more expensive. Driving made no sense and flying would have not saved much time at all if any. Amtrak offers ‘free’ Wi-Fi and some limited food service on board. Since I spend a great deal of time working on my computer and talking on the phone it ended up being a sort of mobile office. They also have a frequent traveler program with rewards – and yes I enrolled just to see how they might market to me and they have been doing an ok job of sending emails – not too many thank goodness.

The first thing that was good was that the train did not derail. I am not certain as to what percentage of Amtrak trains derail but it seems that it happens with some frequency.

Overall my impressions are that it was better than flying and car or bus travel. Perhaps it took a bit longer than flying, (3:20 from Penn Station to Union Station) but the low stress and ability to be productive was a plus but I was not nearly as productive as I could have been. Why? The main reason is because the free Wi-Fi service is spotty at best. There was not any option to upgrade to better service. I kept in mind that when I rode the regional train in China this past November the condition of the trains were similar (the Chinese trains were newer but get more use so appeared somewhat worn just like Amtrak) and there was no Wi-Fi service available. In fact aside from that my experience in riding the train from Guangzhou (formerly known by Westerners as Canton) to Hong Kong was remarkably similar – except for the price which was less about half in China and I made no advance reservation. That should come as no surprise to anyone.

The Chinese rail does move faster although there are a similar amount of stops. That is primarily due to the fact that the rail lines have been laid more recently and do not limit speeds for fear of derailment on the ancient tracks as is the case in the Northeastern U.S.

I had made a reservation to return to New York City at 7:10PM but arrived early at the Union Station at 5:45 and noticed there was a 6:05PM Northeast regional train. I inquired as to if I could get on that train and was told yes, but it would cost an additional $113.00! More than what I paid for the round trip in the first place. I will go out on a limb and surmise the reason was not that the train was overbooked. Managing to suppress my outrage I simply said no thanks and went and had a nice dinner and a beverage and took the 7:10. But really – how insane is that? I was not going to travel any less time on the train (the same 3:20) and there was room for me to sit without question. Just to be clear had I originally booked the earlier train the roundtrip price would have been … $98.00.

Amtrak is a viable alternative and I will ride it again but it still has a long way to go. From a marketing perspective Amtrak does not do much advertising but the messaging they do is ok. However to have a customer experience what I did in terms of attempted fleecing to move up my time by one hour undoes whatever good marketing Amtrak might put out. What happened to me should be easy to fix (but will they?) and the fact that they allow it to happen tells me there are many other problems that have to be repaired in order for Amtrak to continue to present itself as a truly worthwhile means of transportation.

Have you ridden Amtrak lately? Regional or Acela? I’d love to

There was a Sears in the Long Island town in which I grew up. Even back then (1960’s and 1970’s) the impression I had of the store was that the stuff they had was a bit dated and that Sears was pretty good at appliances. In my opinion not much has changed and I have been in a Sears within the last year – although I cannot recall why.

With more than 2,200 stores (including Kmart and Sears full-line stores) Sears still has a substantial footprint in the United States. Yet I wonder if more often than not people end up at Sears instead of really wanting to go there. Aside from its aforementioned Kenmore home appliance offerings, what about Sears would attract a shopper? The clothes (do they still sell Haggar?)? The styles? The once proudly displayed Craftsman tools? Or maybe you will recall the union of the Sears brand with that of Lands End or Martha Stewart and KMart? It is an understatement to note that things did not turn out the way it was they were supposed to.

It’s a far cry from the now somewhat distant past where Sears was known for quality and service. While I suppose there are Sears stores that have better service than others that’s not what the brand says to me – nor does it scream quality either.

Sears was the largest retailer in the U.S. until the early 1980’s. Today the combined Sears has 2,201 full-line and 1,354 specialty retail stores in the United States operating through Kmart and Sears and 483 full-line and specialty retail stores in Canada operating through Sears Canada Inc. (Sears Canada), a 92%-owned subsidiary. So Sears ‘gets around’. During the fiscal year ended January 29, 2010 (fiscal 2010), it operated three segments: Kmart, Sears Domestic and Sears Canada. As of January 29, 2011, Holdings operated a total of 1,307 Kmart stores across 49 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.

As I browsed through comments http://on.wsj.com/ucpEXX from people who had shopped at Sears the conversation varied from blaming Ed Lampert to poor service and odd pricing but there were a few positive comments regarding selection, service and quality. The thing that stood out to me was the inconsistency of delivering the Sears brand promise – whatever that is. I could not figure it out – can you?

The story on Louis C.K. is that he decided to “go direct with his fans: no cable special, no middleman, just a simple download for $5 on his Web site to see his comedy show “Louis C. K.: Live at the Beacon Theater.” A true DIY (do-it-yourselfer) Louis C.K. writes, directs, produces and acts in his own series “Louie” and now he is a bona fide distributor. What impressed me more is that shortly after he went out with this novel offer – 200,000 people paid $ 5.00 each for two streams and three downloads of the special. It cost him $ 250,000 to create the show and he will bring in roughly $1 million. To say that’s not bad would be an understatement.

Unrelated I saw another story yesterday on a website unboundbooks.co.uk – a site live in the UK and soon to be in the U.S. as well. The idea of Unbound is best first read straight from their website –

“BRINGING AUTHORS AND READERS TOGETHER

We think authors and readers should decide which books get published. On the Unbound site, (unfortunately the U.S. site www.unbound.com or unboundbooks.com is not yet up but the British site www.unbound.co.uk is up and running), authors pitch their ideas directly to you. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen. Everyone who supports an author before they reach 100% of the funding target gets their name printed in every edition of that book. All levels include a digital version and immediate access to the author’s shed while they write the book, and supporters of projects that don’t reach their target receive a full refund.”

You can read more from an article straight from The Guardian – http://bit.ly/rxELnz

In short the idea is that a big problem for the publishing industry is that many book advances to authors are non-returnable and do not earn out their advances. What Unbound proposes to do is to have potential readers pay in advance for the book that has yet to be written. It reads better than it first sounds –
“The site, launched last May, acts as a forum for authors to pitch books directly to readers, who, if they like the sound of a project, commit money right away, before the book has even been written. Each book has a target number of pledges it must receive to be viable (generally between 500 and 1,000). When you click on a book on the site, you are shown how many pledges it needs in total, and the percentage it has so far received. You can then pledge your support at a number of levels: from buying the eBook (generally £10), through purchasing the hardback (usually £20) or a signed copy (£50), all the way up to being invited to the launch party (typically £150) or, sometimes, going on an excursion with the author.
Justin Pollard, one of the founders, points out that although pledging involves handing over actual money, supporters aren’t taking a risk, because if the book doesn’t receive the required number of pledges, the project is scrapped and everyone gets their money back. Meanwhile, the publisher avoids exposing itself to upfront advances.

Crowdsourcing has become a bit of a buzzword but to see it in action in both the case of Louis C.K. and Unbound impresses me greatly.

How about your take on these new models?

The reviews I have read invariably start with what’s wrong with the Kindle Fire. So I will do my best to first focus on the positive attributes before casting any stones. Bob Sacks of Precision Media Group has more of an even-keel view of the Kindle Fire that I share in large part.

‘It is not an iPad, nor does it pretend to be one. Most of the reviewers are making a mistake to compare them . . . The first and obvious attraction to the Fire is the price. At $199.00 it is half the cost of an iPad, so no comparison is necessary there. And most of those who buy a Fire will not have held an iPad and will therefore not be able to make a comparison . . . Is it a perfect device? No. Is it a fair compromise of price and services? Absolutely yes.’

What first attracted me to the Kindle was that it served as an e-reader with true web connectivity. Yes it is a mini-tablet and for me eminently more portable than an iPad. The back lighting on the Kindle Fire is very good and the book and periodical reading experience is also excellent – better than the original Kindle by far. Oh and did I mention it was $199.00? Price is a huge driver here and I think it is also true that many people who will try the Kindle Fire have not used an iPad so they do not have that experience to compare one versus the other.

The Kindle color tablet screen is vivid and for me not too small as some have suggested. There are some issues with content not being optimized for the Kindle size but those will be worked out in subsequent versions. Book and publication downloads are fast and easy. The battery life is more than adequate particularly if you are careful about turning off the Wi-Fi when it is not being used. The touch screen and navigation are intuitive and work well.

When it comes to things I don’t like about the Kindle Fire there are a number of those as well. The thing that first bothered me is that there is no way to get web access other than Wi-Fi. At present Amazon is not offering consumers a way to purchase 3G or 4G connectivity under subscription. The lack of a front and back facing camera is something that will be added later I suspect but again keep in mind that an iPad costs more than double the price of a Kindle Fire.

Over the air updates are slated to come in spring 2012 for the Kindle Fire. So I expect some improvements in the user experience. And when Amazon releases the Kindle Fire 2.0 (sometime) I expect many of the issues to be resolved – perhaps not at the $199 price however. I can see Amazon creating a vertical market for the Kindle Fire with different levels of features and services.

Amazon needed to get version 1.0 of the Kindle Fire on the market or it might have been too far behind to ever catch up. If you are a book lover the Kindle Fire offers a great reading experience and a so-so web browsing experience in a convenient and portable size. You can wait for the next version but it might be a while.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is not an iPad – and that’s ok isn’t it?

I heard a radio spot last week from Western Union (WU) regarding singing telegrams. The first thought I had was – Western Union? Is that company still even around? A little research divulged that not only is Western Union still around, in 2010 the total revenue was $1.3 billion. If you are wondering, WU has not delivered any telegraphs since 2006.

Back in 1851 in Rochester, NY what today is Western Union was created as unified telegraph system called the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company. That company competed with New York and & Western Union Telegraph company – which was purchased out of bankruptcy by Ezra Cornell (yes that Cornell). By 1855 the two companies merged into the Western Union Telegraph Company which operated in much the same way until 2006.

In 2006 Western Union announced that it would discontinue all telegram and commercial messaging services. However telegram services continued in the United States via iTelegram and other companies none of which I have ever heard of.

Yet Western Union still exists today primarily as a company that allows users to send and receive funds to others, pay bills or to purchase gift cards. Western Union also has a mobile money transfer service where a sender goes to a Western Union office and presents funds (plus fees) for either a ‘Next Day’ or ‘Money in Minutes’ service.

Personally I have never used Western Union for a telegram, money transfer or any other service. If you visit their website http://westernunion.com they note that Western Union is ‘connecting families around the world’. And that ‘Western Union helps you provide for your loved ones almost anywhere in the world. Whether it’s for education, healthcare or groceries, we offer Consumer-to-Consumer Money-Transfer Services to get resources to members of your family quickly.’

A publicly traded stock (WU on the NYSE is trading at under $ 18.00/share), just yesterday Western Union announced that it had its Expanded Payment Suite with Western Union Small Business Payments Targeting Small to Medium Sized Businesses although there were no other specifics. In fact, Western Union has a number of branded payment services that are offered through a network of ‘approximately 485,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories’. In 2010, The Western Union Company completed 214 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $76 billion of principal between consumers, and 405 million business payments.

On December 1st WU restarted its singing telegram business http://wu-singingtelegram.com now executed as your own personal mashup duet with a choice of famous singers. At the moment it is free but it is slated to cost $ 2 or $ 3 beginning in January.

I think Western Union may offer an object lesson in morphing a dying business and finding ways to not only keep it relevant, but have it thrive. Agree or disagree?

My reaction was – who knew? Did you?

Small portable printers have been around for several years. Of course what might be considered small and portable are adjectives that are best viewed through the eyes of the people that will use them. If you’ve rented a car anytime in the last few years you are probably familiar with the car rental company’s ability to print out your receipt on the spot. The devices they use to process the transaction are held in their hand and the printer often clipped on a belt. The print quality is acceptable but nothing great. This is the kind of device that would be practical for people to carry around in a car or even a briefcase.

When I started looking around for a small portable personal printer I was surprised to find there were not many reasonable options. The products were either too large, too expensive or both. Just to be clear I am looking for something small that could be held in one hand, and something that would cost under $ 75.00. A website www.planon.com advertises that it offers their PrintStik product as ‘The World’s Smallest Mobile Printer’. And small it is but it also costs $ 199.00. So far I have been unable to find anything that meets my small criteria at any price close to $ 75.00.

The other thing to keep in mind is the ultimate obsolescence of portable printers. After all with mobile communication sharing using things like NFC (near field communications) on the horizon it should not be too long before the need to print out a coupon is non-existent. It’s already happening with airline boarding passes and the trend is clear that ink on paper is fast becoming a relic.

Do you have any thoughts on using a miniature portable printer? Would you use one if it were affordable and available?

So there I was on my way to Asia, fully loaded up with books on my Kindle that I wanted to read on the 15+ hour flight. I opened the cover only to see an unwelcome image – the Kindle works no more. The current Kindle I have is my third one as the first two I had shortly after the launch in November 2007 (oh yes – Happy Birthday Amazon Kindle) did not work and the third time was the charm. Until now that is.

I haven’t tried as yet but it’s hard for me to believe Amazon is going to replace the now nearly four-year old Kindle with one that works. In fact I have posited that Amazon missed opportunities to re-market to me when ‘newer’ versions of the Kindle arrived. Perhaps a discount for a newer model might have motivated me to upgrade to a newer and supposedly better model.

I was already going to order a new Amazon Kindle Fire; I just did not think that it would be requirement for me to read the books I had already purchased on the Amazon platform. Amazon has done a good job of vertically integrating the new offerings with a Kindle tablet at as little as $80. Apparently Amazon loses money on each Kindle it sells as well as it loses $ 11/subscriber to the Amazon Prime $79 shipping service. It’s mildly interesting that Amazon has been able to leverage the idea of ‘Lose money but make it up in volume’ idea.

David Pogue of the New York Times writes in Monday November 14th’s paper http://nyti.ms/tuhYMT about the benefits of the Kindle platform. I agree with much of Mr. Pogue’s feeling on the entire Kindle platform – but he neglects to mention what happens when one’s Kindle or Kindle Fire is extinguished.

Kindle’s breaking down has to happen to other people doesn’t it? Can I be the only unlucky one – three times?