Stupid Yahoo!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Eric S

Eric S

Demoted Webmaster
Jul 12, 2005
2,944
2,096
113
Tustin
www.everydayflowers.net
State / Prov
CA
Well I recieved a call today from yahoo asking if I would be intrested in have yahoo sponsered advertising for my site? I said what ads would be showing up on my website. The response was the ads would be content driven. I said so then do I want to have ads from 800flowers ftd or proflowers showing up on my site? They said well you can block competitors ads from showing up on the site. I said so what ads would be showing. They said probally candy or balloons. I said are you kidding me. Next time why don't you look at the website first before calling me and wasting my time.

I also discovered today that my featured local listing was no longer active on yahoo. I think it is time for a in house server for my website this company has really screwed things up with me for the last time.
 
My feature listing is gone. It will not activate again and yahoo says that because I have something with Yellow pages.com that it is conflicting with it. Yahoo says that they did not do anything new at the first of the year (liars) because yellow pages.com has a new contract with yahoo.

I am so upset because this is again another product that will go down the tubes. Four years ago I was one of the first listings on Yahoos yellow pages with a metro listing costing 300 a month. As time went by national ads took over the first page and my listing went down and down and then one day it was cancelled. I tried to reactivate it but because it was terminated I never regained my first page position.

It really sucks that these directories such as yahoo locl and superpages have continued to force the local business out of there directories. The enhanced listing on yahoo let me show many of the pictures from our site as well as a ton of information that was indexed by the search engines.

I am at a lost what to do with the increasing of PPC and the price of having a local listing on these so called yellow page directories.

This is why we need to end this with the Order Gatherers and to end the crap with the Wire Service. Everyone keeps flip floping around here with why we should continue to use a system that making pennies on the dollar for their own business. You think you will out last because you have figured out a way to make money with them and the only thing you are doing is slow ending the local florist.
 
If you really think about it... stop filling for the OG's, and see the snow ball effect it would have:
OG's unable to get orders filled due to greatly reduced coverage.
OG's gradually go out of biz.
SuperPages, YellowPages.com, etc. all lose ad. $$$ due to failing OG's
Opens door for REAL florists to list CORRECTLY and JUST on above online directories.
Yellow Pages directories start losing one of their key segments as florist continue to bail out. OG's gone, so $ gone from the Florist Advertising segment.
Wire services lose $ due to OG's shutting down, sending greatly reduced.
Wire services crawl back to florists in hopes of renewing relations.
One wire service liquidated by parent company.

Florists take back their industry.

...pipe dream???

- H
 
Pipe dream. Yes.

Do you realize that there are florists happy to receive Flowers With Gifted Elegance's orders? Some of them see FWGE's orders as 'some dollars are better than no dollars'.

Are they wrong? Sounds like the same rationale as most shops that fill for other dOGs.

Of course, as you can imagine, those florists aren't usually doing any local advertising and are typically marginal operations. Some are just clueless and think PFN (Preferred Florist Network) is an 'alternate wire service'.

I took a look at our local YP yesterday and under 'Hotels' or 'Motels' not a single 'travel broker' was listed. They're in a separate category called something like 'Hotel Reservations'.

Does the YP separate these out of the goodness of their hearts? Or is it because consumers would find the sections useless by mixing the two? Or is it because they YP publisher could run afoul of city governments over bed tax issues?

Would love to know the answer on that one.....

Eric, I'm in complete agreement. Yahoo continues to disappoint with the way they are intentionally feeding consumers deceptive 'local' information in pursuit of profits.
 
CHR said:
Pipe dream. Yes.

Do you realize that there are florists happy to receive Flowers With Gifted Elegance's orders? Some of them see FWGE's orders as 'some dollars are better than no dollars'.

Are they wrong? Sounds like the same rationale as most shops that fill for other dOGs.

Of course, as you can imagine, those florists aren't usually doing any local advertising and are typically marginal operations. Some are just clueless and think PFN (Preferred Florist Network) is an 'alternate wire service'.
Click to expand...

Yes - I do know some shops who take the OG orders - because it's either that or close up shop. And that's the way it is.........sad to say.

I know of one shop who relied on SOOO many wire in's, that when they finally dropped 800 and TEL, they went under one year later. Hard thing to do...

- H.
 
PhillyPhlorist said:
I know of one shop who relied on SOOO many wire in's, that when they finally dropped 800 and TEL, they went under one year later. Hard thing to do...

- H.
Click to expand...

How does filling tons of 800 and TEL orders help your bottom line? Unless you are sending just as many as you are filling. I guess I just don't understand how you make money doing so.
 
specialoccasion said:
How does filling tons of 800 and TEL orders help your bottom line? Unless you are sending just as many as you are filling. I guess I just don't understand how you make money doing so.
Click to expand...

Just one word...VOLUME.

Years ago, you COULD make money filling 800, .COM, etc. orders. IF you did the volume, you were able to buy in bulk. For ex., we used to buy direct from Syndicate, baket importers, etc. My glass order for V-day alone would be well over 200 cases. Now, I ordered just 55 cases.

With 800 it was fairly easy to make money - back in the day! Assembly line design with cheap design help, only a handful of designs to follow, and LOTS of orders. I think the record for "It's Your Day" bouquets was 46 in one day. 800 had a promo that day, but we still got our $29.99ea. ....oh BOY!!! But, we just mass-produced them, and had all the goods in stock to make them. Funny the things you remember...

- H.
 
bummer

Eric:

I hate to hear about your issues w/ Yahoo!

I have followed your website "development and design" stages and you've done a great job moving from the "ws dependant" to an independant Florist.

It is a shame that you have problems w/ another 3rd party vendor:fdevil:

If Yahoo does not come around what do you think you will do w/ your web hosting? Is godaddy.com a worthy "host"? They seem to have a good product in the registration end of the net. I know there are a lot of options out there but it is hard to make a choice that is so important for our business's. Stability of a reliable "host" evidently is hard to find after reading some others posts. I wonder hard tough & costly it is to set up our own servers.

Anyone have ideas on how to develop internet web hosting strategies that will not be disrupted from time to time?


Thanks!
 
I am looking into my own webserver. This way I have complete control over everything. It won't happen overnight but I just feel that something is holding the website back. I have seen down times like this week with problems with a update early Monday. Didn't realize there was a probelm with the shopping cart until wed morning.

I know it will be a very big challenge and will be in place before any changes are made to our existing website.

I really don't have any advice on who would be better to host with but what I want to do is continue to always do "something different".
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back