Articles For Your Consideration

Odds and ends from a day that began with my annual physical. If you were wondering, I did not ask my doctor if "Plavix" was right for me.

An article from Wharton on retailers not running certain merchandise in stores, pushing the business instead to the web. Put your customer hat on. You get in your car, and drive twenty miles to your local Gap store. You want to purchase size fourteen jeans, but don't see them. The sales associate tells you to go home and buy them online, because the online channel carries all sizes and skus. How do you feel about your multichannel experience? How do you feel when you see a stack of size six jeans sitting in front of you?

If you don't read Bob Bly's blog, here's a chance to be introduced to it. Mr. Bly asks if you, as a consultant or service provider, should charge what the market bears? What do you think is the right pricing strategy?

Are search engines parasites? This DMNews article considers the possibility. I'm not certain they are parasites, but they have taken a seat at your executive table. And you are now utterly dependent on them for growth. And they appreciate taking a small portion of your gross margin from you.

From the "I am in the wrong industry" category, here is a blogger who is Director of Database Marketing and E-Commerce for the Indianapolis Colts. Maybe the Green Bay Packers will hire me to be Vice President of Database Marketing. I could mine Brett Favre's efficiency on third downs.