ETD: 909 Poor Site Planning; The Taxman Cometh; Not So Luxury Market
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Aug 4 01:57:41 GMT 2005
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0909 August 4, 2005
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Poor Site Planning
[3] The Taxman Cometh
[4] Not So Luxury Market
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Looks like the taxman is coming. Starting October 1, eighteen U.S. states
will begin collecting sales tax on Internet sales. If you sell retail
online, you better get prepared.
List member Javilk has some input on site planning. John is a genius when
it comes to search engines and site planning. I learned a lot from him,
and I'm sure you would have or will also.
Pam Danziger always has stuff on the luxury market - her speciality. But
what about the not-so-luxury market? The market for singles and/or
apartment dwellers? What do you think?
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Poor Site Planning
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Our moderator wrote...
> I also tried to explain how search engines don't like JavaScript. The
> search engine spiders cannot read Javascript, can get hung up, and can
> possibly leave your site. Search engines like pages that have actual body
> content as close to the top of the source code as possible.
Gee George, where did you first hear about that. Could it have been me,
back in the dark ages of the mid 90's?
The top 3K of your home page is THE MOST important piece of text anywhere,
for it alerts the search engines of your site and helps them determine how
to index your site and where to crawl in it.
Splash pages are a mistake
Scripted navigation, where it obscures the URL itself, is the kiss of
death, unless other navigation exists.
More and more people, fed up with pop-ups, mal-ware, and just ads blasted
in their face, turn java and javascript OFF! It's the first thing I show
clients how to do, so they can keep it off everywhere except where they
absolutely, positively have to turn it on.
Flash is unindexable.
PDFs are for printing. As web pages, they are awkward, burn CPU time (and
laptops don't like heat). PDFs, what some of us call pod-finks, are enough
of an anathema that GOOGLE provides a link to a translation for PDF pages
-- a translation that's nowhere near what a good webmaster can do with
HTML. Get the hint?
Don't put too much in your meta tags. Anything in the keyword tag should
occur again in viewable content within the first 3,000 bytes. Yet how many
tools put their advertising in the head section, robbing you of the most
valuable text space on your web site?
And of course, Frames... frames are a web crime!
> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="externalfile.js" ></script>
RIGHT!!! And make sure you can use your page if the js file is
missing. Because if your visitor has turned his javascript off... It's not
going to work even if it is in the page. Temporarily moving that js file
is an easy way of testing the page for search engine crawler and non-java
visitor access.
-javilk- mall-net.com
------------------- IMAGINEERING --------------------
----- Advice, Analysis, Strategies, Development -----
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+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
Of course I thought of you with this stuff. You are the guru.
BTW, I don't seem to be getting your excellent keyword use list
anymore. Are you still publishing? It is the greatest resource available
for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
George
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[3] The Taxman Cometh
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States Create Voluntary Online Tax System
Beginning Oct. 1, at least 18 states will collect taxes from online sales
voluntarily, offering a year of amnesty to companies that have not reported
online transactions in the past.
The action falls under the auspices of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project,
which began five years ago and has been pushed along by a series of
lawsuits from states seeking taxes from online and mail sales. Over the
past five years, 40 states have shaped this initiative, meeting frequently
with retailers to decide on incentives to bring businesses into the
voluntary program.
The 18 states have contracted software vendors to create free tax
collection and remittance software for online merchants participating in
the program, starting this fall.
Retailers Signing Up
Online merchants will collect and remit taxes for sales originating in any
of 11 states that have fully amended their state laws to comply with the
project's standards. In the other seven states, collection is optional
until their tax codes are brought into compliance. In either case, taxes
that retailers collect are based on the rates in effect where the buyer
lives and retailers will be compensated for the cost of collecting and
remitting that revenue to the states.
More than 30 major retailers already have agreed to join the program, Diane
Hardt, of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, told United Press International.
"There's more of them at the meetings than us," Hardt said. "This is
perfect for stores that have a physical store, but an online presence as well."
One of the main selling points of the program to businesses is the offer of
one year's amnesty to companies that may not have been reporting their
sales diligently, Stephen Kranz, tax counsel for the Council on State
Taxation, an industry trade association in Washington, D.C., told UPI.
"I think there are a fair amount of companies who will want to get involved
because of the amnesty," Kranz said. "The first wave will be the 'bricks
and clicks' people and companies who have traveling sales people. Those
companies are the ones who have the most to gain by having their past
mistakes forgiven."
Legal Action
Major retailers tied up in legal battles over whether they owe sales taxes
for online purchases also will be among the first to take advantage of the
amnesty, he said.
On May 31, a California state appeals court ordered Borders.com, the online
division of the bookseller Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) , to pay US$167,000 in
back taxes, because the company allowed customers to return products at
their physical stores.
Illinois sued Barnes and Noble, Blockbuster, Gateway and several other
major retailers in 2003 for failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes on
Internet sales. Wal-Mart.com, Target and its affiliate Target.Direct, and
Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) settled those lawsuits in December 2004, paying
the State of Illinois $2.4 million.
States supporting the plan hope others will join their initiative and press
Congress to pass legislation to overturn a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, in
which the justices ruled that mail-order merchants -- and, consequently,
online merchants -- did not need to collect taxes in states where they did
not maintain a physical presence. Because of the extremely variable tax
laws in different states, the court reasoned that tax collection would be
an undue hindrance on interstate commerce.
Legislators introduced bills in 2000 and 2003, but they did not reach the
House or Senate floor. A revised bill is being offered and Hardt said she
would count a hearing as a victory this year.
Revenue Lost
Online sales accounted for more than $104 billion in 2003 and state and
local governments lost an estimated $15.5 billion in revenue, because they
could not effectively collect sales and use taxes on e-commerce purchases,
according to a report commissioned by the National Governors Association
and the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Full members of the project include Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and
West Virginia. New Jersey will become a full member Oct. 1. Arkansas, North
Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming are associate members. Nevada and
Hawaii are in negotiations to join, Hardt said.
Article at...
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/44785.html
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[4] Not So Luxury Market
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Pam Danziger moderator wrote...
> These shifts highlight major changes afoot in the tabletop market as
> affluent consumers pick up their spending on dinnerware, but not
> necessarily in the luxury end, but toward 'casual luxury' that they use and
> enjoy, not store away in cabinets and hutches.
There's another market there. The single mealers. We (gasp!) eat out of
our pots and pans because we eat alone. Some of us are single, some
divorced, some just having an evening snack, and some eating at our desks
at work. (At $39 for a microwave oven, it's an office accessory.)
Corningware had some elegance; we didn't feel so guilty about eating from
it. But Corningware is no longer made cooktop safe, and with the
inevitable explosions the new junk produces on a burner, it has lost that
upper class cachet it had in our parent's homes.
Over the years, there have been some elegant pieces, but they are few and
far between. And hauled between home and work often, they break.
What about us? How do we look good when someone drops in to our office at
lunch time? How do we assuage our guilt without burning too much of our
valuable time? Because time, not culture, is what most of our busy lives
are about. We miss the culture. So give us some hints, and we'll both
profit from it.
-J- (John, Javilk at mall-net.com)
CAUTION: I'm no chef, I only tell computers what to do.
Nothing in this document should be construed as culinary advice.
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
I'm truly happy you aren't dispensing culinary advice :-D
I understand your dilemma completely. I still have two kids who are single
and living alone. And you need a market where the dishes are either
disposable (perhaps nice plastic) or wash themselves. It's amazing how
many dirty dishes one can put in a sink ;-)
There are also travel issues for many ethnic groups who need special food
when they travel, i.e., Orthodox Jews, Muslims, etc. There is a market for
travel food for these people, and they are used to paying premium.
There is another market that folks are missing - the apartment. Apartment
dwellers need apartment-sized furniture and stuff. In NYC they do have
planners for apartments and they take advantage of everything. I had a
friend who used one service and they even provided a shower curtain with a
lot of pockets in it where you store things - shampoos, et.al, and other
inside and towels or extra supplies on the outside. It was actually quite
clever.
Right now we live in a condo and had a difficult time finding approved
coverings for our balconies. Carpet or tile won't work, since they absorb
moisture, which destroys concrete. We finally found something at Ikea -
"tiles" that resemble a boardwalk or deck. We also had a difficult time
finding furniture for the balconies.
Ours is a 562 unit building. Here in Northern NJ we have what is
affectionately known as the "gold coast" - many high-rise condos with
probably 50,000 units (or more) in total. That's a market. And they are
all over the country - one of the fastest growing areas of real estate.
George
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