Can you guess why there are no posts recently?

There is tremendous response from my readers giving me ideas on how I can improve the site. Some important features are suggested and as expected, some readers pointed out a few unimportant/ not so user friendly things to remove.

With my full time job and lot of things to do on the blog are at hand, I could not post regularly. I have been spending an additional 2 hrs for carrying out these changes, making it to a total of 4 and half hrs per day. At this rate I can bring out live all the new changes by early next week.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Give me some breathing time. I personally thank all of you for encouraging me.

BTW, guys at illaka.com have removed their buggy feature.

Some areas of improvement for 4 deal aggregation sites in India

In my previous post I have mentioned various online ventures dealing with offers and deals in Indian context. In this post I am listing some of my observations, as an ordinary user. This is simple stuff. A little care can avoid these to surface.

It is unfortunate that human nature itself limits our ability to think from other’s perspective. It’s tough to know what’s wrong with what we are doing, until our well-wishers proactively tell us. Had some one told me the mistakes I was doing (but could not recognize), in my early entrepreneurship days, I would have saved a good fortune. I am seriously looking for some experts who are willing to criticize my blog (and suggest me how I can improve it).

If you observe why some online ventures fail, particularly if they require frequent user interaction, you can recognize some silly mistakes. They creep in wihout our knowledge. Great ideas, lot of hard work and commitment but fails to create good opinion in the public. If you want to know the areas of improvement, talk to people who can criticize your work and act immediately to correct your mistakes. You will win.

1. Giving wrong information to (or trying to fool ?) readers – http://www.ilaaka.com

The below statistics (showing how successful they are) never change – I may be wrong, every week they get exactly the same number of registrants (1377). If you want to know why, you can click the given link in the homepage of their site. If you understand the reason please let me know.

2. Avail deals of the past -- www.dealmaadi.com

Deals and discounts that last for ever (at least 3 -4 months) are not actually deals. On the home page (top 10 recommendations from the site) are at least one month old (on the date and time of writing this post). If they have conditions apply (like valid till stock lasts) they become useless and not worth trying.

I guess some more traction is needed.

3. Want to earn easy money? Or do you want offers that end after (valid till) 6 months?
– This site attracts you -- http://www.offersforshoppers.com/

Lot of powerful ideas, fancy words and design that can attract many (teenagers ?). The site is incomprehensible to me. But I understand that content do not change often. In the last two months I see the same offers in Bangalore. They will expire in another couple of months. The funny thing is, they recommend users to Hurry!!!!! to avail these discounts.

Come on guys, you have powerful ideas.

4. Search fails -- http://www.saleraja.com

There is a search button with an example. I tried the same example ("janak puri", "koramangla") and found that there are no results. Initially after seeing the example, I thought they have a powerful search engine that can also correct the spelling mistakes. In the above example Koramangla spelling is incorrect. After seeing the results I tried using correct spelling, but no results found.

Whats stopping them in giving an example that works.

If my opinion hurts some of you or the founders / people behind these ventures, please pardon me. I feel happy if my criticism is taken as an area of improvement. If you are looking for praise, there are many tech startup review sites that can up lift your spirits.

I encourage entrepreneurship and creative ideas. I hope my readers will take my comments in the right perspective.

My best wishes to you all.

Is any one out there willing to criticize(share your opinion) my blog? Thanks in advance.

Offers / deals / discounts / sales every where in India Tech Startups

I have never thought that, a small hobby of noting down some useful ads on offers is it self a big niche. As of now there are around 20 companies (Websites) catering to offers in India. Some of them give offers/ deals as one of their services, while some sites are exclusively for deals and offer. Again some give both offline (to avail in a shop) and online (to avail while shopping online) offers.

Here is the list (If I am missing some thing please let me know)

Websites

http://www.allindiadeals.in
http://www.allindiadeals.com
http://www.saleraja.com
http://www.bargain17.com
http://www.explocity.com
http://www.ilaaka.com
http://www.compareindia.com
http://www.dealaajtak.com
http://www.dealmaadi.com
http://www.offersforshoppers.com
http://www.onlinedeals.in
http://www.sulekha.com
http://www.discountsindia.com
http://dealz.nfshost.com/
http://www.dealheadlines.com
http://www.currentoffers.in
http://www.singdeals.com
http://www.sastaSauda.com
http://www.indiadeals2buy.com
http://www.givebestdeal.com

blogs

http://offersgalore.blogspot.com
http://plentyofoffers.blogspot.com


In the last week I came across offersGalore, a blog on available offers. It is run by Shiva from Chennai. Apart from the simple design, Siva writes elaborately on each offer. He tries to give first hand information by opting for some of the offers and trying out them on his own.

Am I missing any other company (website) or blog? Do let me know.
You can comment here or send me a mail at plentyofoffers@gmail.com

My weekend notes –I

A good collection of RSS buttons. Over 50 images. If you want to change your RSS icon, you can refer it here.

Have you tried any psychological techniques to get more visitors to your blog? I have not tried any thing like that, except trying out various hacks and designs, I found on the net, from blog gurus and experts. The article “Perception - A Blogger’s Secret Weapon” found here made me think, does blogging need this much analysis? For me blogging is “sharing your passion”. If you find people with a similar passion; you can enrich your knowledge and share your thoughts openly to all of them. If you did not find, then it shows you are unique. Both are good to me.

An amazing blog on to-do lists. I personally use to-do lists to organize my work and achieve productivity. The lists I have help me in prioritizing my work and keep me focused on every thing I do. Frankly I never thought a blog can be run on to do lists.

I came across a nice quote by Seth Godin “Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt.” In Cntrl+Z at startups article. The analogy of enterprenuership to swimming is worth to note for every startup company, at least for new entrepreneurs. Anjali you put my consciousness at ease by your article.

I read a small post about coolhotmail.com here on Microsoft’s new strategy to push live.com services in India. Making [hot] mail cool. On this site you can get email ids for cities rocking and blessing, clubs for film stars, ids for describing who you are, expressing your love for food and sports and what not, you can get ids where you don’t fit. Watch it at www.coolhotmail.com

Wonder Bra - Cadbury Spoof

Cadbury gave an ad in which a gorilla patiently waits to play drums section of the Phil Collins ‘In the Air Tonight’ song. Wonderbra commercial replaced the gorilla with a beautiful lady clad in a bra and plays the drum section causing a significant amount of breast bouncing. The action matched with the lyrics "well I've been waiting for this moment all my life, oh Lord, I can feel it coming in the air tonight" is worth watching.

Tips to identify a good offer

(How this blog can make you smarter and richer?)
I am afraid; you become smarter after reading this.

If you are new to this blog, I request you to read this open letter. I started this blog to track some offer / deal related advertisements in India. After a couple of months of blogging, I am trying to better understand what and how I am posting. Here is what I find on how my blog can help you.

1. Know the message of an advertisement. By removing the glitter (images, celebrities, fancy words etc.) from the post, you will come to know the proper contents given in an offer advertisement.

2. I read the * first before publishing an offer. Know what conditions apply on an offer. Advertisers keep them small and unreadable (most of the time). By highlighting the conditions, I try to provide transparency on the offer. You will not fall in the traps of the advertisers’ tricks.

3. Know the contact numbers. Call them up and find out if what you are looking out is available in the store. This helps you save lot of time in traveling. When is the last time you got your favorite color and brand from the first store you visited?

4. See other offers available in the same store or category or city. This makes you knowledgeable about the market rates going on. When you know the price in the other store, you cannot be cheated.

5. Big brands offer big advertisements, small brands offer small advertisements. The size and number of repetitions of an advertisement is a matter of their budget. The ground rule is every one wants to sell their stuff. By treating every offer as equally important and competent, this blog saves you from the Show off of the biggies. This helps a genuine offer to come up and stand out.

6. See all the offers advertised from a store. This is the only blog/ website that tracks all the offers placed by a store. Have you spotted a store which advertises “last two days only offer”, but says it every week?

7. Know what others say? The very purpose of this blog is to enlighten you with the opinions of others regarding a particular offer or a store. Can you vote on a few offers and give a couple of comments on the offers published? The more you say, the more you get.

8. Never miss a good offer. Give your email address and hit the subscribe button. Don’t be scared, you will not get any other mails except the posts in this blog. You can access the posts even it is blocked in your company.

9. As of now (11th November 2007) this blog published plenty of offers from around 200 stores covering 20 categories in four cities. Check it frequently, you will always find some thing useful.

10. Do you know how to impress your girlfriend/ boyfriend or even your spouse? Know the deal, be smart and don’t burn your pocket. They will be impressed. All the best.

How to bargain for discounts

For many of us bargaining is a tough task. It becomes tough when the shopkeeper says

"No discount sir, all are fixed rates".

You might have come across this situation very often. How do you tackle? How do you make a successful bargain?

You should always remember the thumb rule. Shop is opened only to sell, we go there with an intention of buying some thing. Only thing that needs to be done is communication. The more we communicate our intention of buying for discount, the more chances of getting the discount.

Let us analyze the above statement by the shop keeper. It is to stop communication for bargaining.

There are two reasons for this.
• He wants to take advantage of the not so confident attitude we have on getting a discount.
• It is his stores policy not to give any discount.

Most of the times the reason for such a statement is the first one above. To tackle this you need to be more confident and have the right attitude to have a successful bargain. In cases when you are confident and asked the bargain in the right attitude, shop keepers make a statement like this.

"We don’t get much margin on the product, so we cannot give the discount you asked for."

To tackle this you should be smarter. You should be knowledgeable of prices and offers for the same product from other shops in your city. Any knowledge you possess about the product regarding prices will help you in defending the point of low margin.

To cut short the article length I have put some tips below for a successful bargain.

Don’t feel uncomfortable while bargaining. Be comfortable. The more comfortable you are, the eaiser to get discount. Know that smaller stores expect a bit of bargaining, while at a larger stores it is a bit difficult though not impossible.

Always ask for discount. Just ask it. It won’t hurt to ask for a lower price. You may fail initially but the more practice you have, the more better you will do over time. Know the truth that many people always get away with discount. You can also do it with a little practice.

Incase you don't get a lower price you should be willing to walk away. With out second thought you should walk away. You try at another shop. Here you should compare the discounts with the previous shop. Walking away with out purchase will help you particularly in situations when you are not aware of the actual price for the product in market. In this case the first two or three shops you should always walk away. This gives some idea about how much it costs in the market and gives you better control in bargaining. You won't get the best price, if you're not willing to walk away.

Never show an attitude that you are there only for discounts. The seller will be more guarded and hesitant. You'll have a better rate of success when you politely ask for lower rates or discounts.. The reason you go to a shop is to buy some thing, not just to bargain, right?

There is another trick that works many times. Just say Is it the last price you can offer? It gives a tone that you are willing to walk away if it is not discounted. The seller comes down and offers a discount. Remember all stores say the hiked prices expecting a bargain. If you bargain, you will get. Happy bargaining.