Yesterday was a busy day for anti-fraud newsflow plus some good old fashioned web fear mongering. Don’t get me wrong – web fraud happens and needs to be combated but there is often something shrill and hysterical about the reporting of online fraud, especially in the UK. “Everyone PANIC!” would seem to summarise the editorial [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Ethics & Environment, Fraud, General, Marketing, Matters Webby on November 18th, 2008 | 11 Comments »
Question: What should you expect from a blog post on a flowers blog on a flowers website?
Answer: A post about blog libel, of course!
Why?!: Arena started blogging about a year ago (to understand why we blog, please see this post). One of the great things about blogging is that it’s a two way communication process; [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Ethics & Environment, Matters Webby, Setting up on March 26th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Answer? It was taken at 0410 in Harwich ferry port, on the East coast of the UK when Ronald and myself should have been sound asleep in our beds in Noordwijkerhout, NL and London, UK respectively.
Why? A consignment of box lids that was due to come over during Mother’s Day week didn’t materialise and we [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Distribution, Mega Days, Mother's Day, Operations on March 6th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Hot on the heels of Jackie’s post last week about a customer suing his regular florist for the princely sum of £750k (for revealing his infidelities), today we read this headline: “Interflora website ‘rips off’ customers“. For an industry that brings happiness and joy, love and best wishes, it’s certainly been a grim seven [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Customers, Ethics & Environment, Fraud, Matters Webby on August 21st, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Being an online retailer is not easy, especially when it’s such an interconnected world where making the right connections is the key to achieving objectives. At Arena Flowers we mull over the different online advertising channels every day, reviewing their promises to dramatically boost our visitors overnight. It would be easy if we had very [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Marketing, Matters Webby on July 23rd, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Simple 3 step plan to throw away £229 in less than an hour and a half.
1. 0938: Think that it might be a good idea to put up some PPC, targeting Chelsea Flower Show searches. Set up campaign at default bid levels.
2. Spend an hour wrestling payroll and our online banking system.
3. 1102: Check [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Marketing on May 22nd, 2007 | 4 Comments »
This little credit card thingy is just about the most important widget in our business. We need this smart card to make all our payments – to our Dutch suppliers, to employees, to, well, everyone. It plugs into the side of my laptop. If we don’t use it when we make international [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Finance & Investment, General on May 21st, 2007 | No Comments »
