Mothers Day this Weekend

Don't forget that it's Mother's Day this weekend.  Our Mother's Day newsletter had some good gift ideas, you can see it here if you missed it.

And of course, don't miss the list of Mothers Day Voucher Codes and Mothers Day Gift Ideas.

Happy Shopping!

Sunday Delivery for Mother's Day Flowers

There was a time when you couldn't get your mum her flowers on Mothering Sunday if you had them delivered by an online company.

How far we have come!

Clare Florist are one of those florists that now can deliver on a Sunday. Perfect flowers and excellent customer service. Of course now all you have to do is make sure that your mother is at home to receive them.

So my best advice is: If you must get them delivered on a Sunday do it that way.

But for a stress free Sunday get them delivered to your home or office on the Friday before and deliver them personally on Sunday.

You get the convenience, quality and price from the web - and you deliver that special thought yourself.

Happy Mothers Day!

Shopping in the Long Tail

Anyone who has ever wasted hours trawling through a book shop only to eventually be told 'we don't actually stock that title' will agree that despite what they may claim, the choice of stock offered by most shops is actually very limited. Of course shops that stock a wide variety of different things (such as supermarkets) will only be able to offer a small selection of each product. You are, for example, not likely to find a comprehensive selection of the thousands of different species of edible mushrooms in the 'fresh fruit and veg' section of your local supermarket. Yet as the above example of familiar book shop frustrations demonstrates, we often find that even shops specialising in one particular product frequently fail to stock the specific item that we are looking for. How many of us have walked out of shoe shops without a new pair of shoes in our hand? That will be everyone then.

As inconvenient as this limited choice can be, however, the reason behind it is both practical and understandable. Real 'bricks and mortar' shops - even those that specialise in a particular product - can only offer their customers a small selection of products because they can only hold a finite number of stock. When you then think of the number of books in the world compared to the size of your average book shop, it really is no wonder that you often will not be able to find the title you are looking for! As a result of this inability to stock a large variety of products, it is of course in every shop's financial interests to primarily stock items that are known,or can reasonably be predicted to sell well. If using a bookshop again as an example, it is then for this reason that you will generally only find each author's most famous and/or most recent titles stocked and why you will always be able to buy a copy of Harry Potter!

However, this principle of stocking only 'best selling' items simply does not apply to online stores and it is here that Chris Anderson's 'long tail' theory comes into play. Unlike regular shops, online shops are not limited in the amount of stock they can list as being for sale, which means as well as offering their customers generically popular items such as recently released Hollywood blockbusters and best selling novels, they can also offer obscure old black and white films and unheard of books by little known authors. They will obviously not sell as many of these niche products as they will 'best selling' ones, but if you stock a vast variety of niche products and only sell a few of each of them, you will end up making a rather tidy profit (just look at Amazon!).

Chris Anderson's so-called 'long tail' then refers to a graph that any online store might produce of all of its available products, starting with the best selling items on the left and moving over to the lowest sellers on the right. On such a graph you would see that a small number of the products on the left sell extremely well, but as you progress to the right the line gradually drops, levelling out at items that sell in low numbers. This kind of graph is therefore referred to as a 'long tail' graph, as the number of high-selling products is very short, whereas the number of products selling in smaller numbers is extremely long, yet increasingly more profitable.

Does the British winter make you want to book your summer holiday?

Every year, as December approaches and the yuletide joie de vivre takes hold, we find ourselves yearning for a traditional white Christmas. Three weeks and thirty inches of snow later, we're invariably reduced to the end of our tether. If the winter of 2009 / 2010 was anything to go by, we no longer seem able to cope with those sub-zero temperatures, icy roads and flurries of snow. As we sit huddled around our fireplaces, the national grid stretched to the hilt, we might well wonder whether the old Dunkirk spirit also got buried in the snow.

Soon enough, barely have the Christmas bells stopped ringing and the holiday ads are all over the TV, promising us a cheap escape to paradise by the summer if we book early. How we fall for those tried and tested marketing ploys. Fair enough, if they get us to where we want to be, it is a win-win situation. In any case, the idea of a summer holiday gives the family something to talk about to get them through the post-Christmas boredom and the breadwinner is always more easily persuaded while under the influence of sherry and mince pies.

We all hate the cold, the driving rain, the wind, the fog and the snow and ice, not to mention those dreary January mornings when all we want to do is hibernate until Spring. So does the British winter make us want to book our summer holiday? The travel industry would answer a resounding yes, with package holiday sales reaching their peak in the post-Christmas period year upon year.

On the other hand if you are going to wait until summer to take your holiday, you might just miss out on the very best time to visit some of the world's most exotic locations. Visit Thailand in September for example and you are likely to make more use of your umbrella than your swimsuit. The same goes for India in July and Kenya in May. Head to the Caribbean in August and you may just be blown away, not by the stunning palm-fringed beaches but by the latest hurricane. Also if you hate what humidity does to your hair, avoid Costa Rica in May. Generally speaking, Europe and the Mediterranean are a safe bet in the summer months, leaving many exotic locations at their best at times such as February or November, which can be a disadvantage when we want to space out our precious work-breaks as evenly as possible.

The moral of the story? When the sun-drenched ads beckon, do not book hastily, under the influence of that winter-propelled desperation. Choose your destination with thought, which means researching exactly when the climate will be right for you, whether that be the lowest level of rainfall, the most comfortable temperatures, the lowest humidity or a combination of everything. Your annual holiday is probably the biggest investment you make each year and nobody wants to be in the wrong place at the right time, or worse still, the right place at the wrong time.

"Goods I Bought Online were Confiscated by the Police!"

Online shopping has grown in popularity over recent years, as consumers have become familiar and in many respects dependent on the convenience and simplicity of buying goods over the internet. At Christmas, the urge to buy gifts online is encouraged by discount prices and fast delivery options, whilst the current winter cold snap has also driven many people away from the high street to the relative warmth and comfort of their computers. However, shopping online continues to pose a significant risk to consumers in a number of ways. Credit card theft and rogue traders are among the most pressing concerns, which is why some consumers have failed to take to internet shopping as many others have done so. The decision of these apparent Luddites is occasionally vindicated when major online retailers are compromised by hackers, but by far the most worrying aspect of shopping online is whether the retailers themselves can be trusted.

A friend of mine bought his wife some Ugg boots before Christmas.  They were her main present, so he was extremely disappointed when they didn't arrive in time for Christmas.  He couldn't get in touch with the retailer at all, and was starting to get worried when a letter form the police arrived.  It told him that the goods he had bought were couterfeit, and they had been destroyed.  And there was no chance of a refund.

As we now inow, police in the UK carried out the biggest operation of its kind in order to crack down on rogue online traders. In total, the Metropolitan Police shut down 1,219 websites that were either fake, fraudulent or dealt with counterfeit goods. In many cases, customers who had purchased products from the rogue websites either received nothing at all or had their credit card details stolen, whilst the more unfortunate consumers experienced both. The Metropolitan Police decided to close down the sites at the start of what is traditionally seen as the busiest shopping period of the year, just a few weeks ahead of Christmas.

Working with Nominet, which is the organisation responsible for issuing and managing domain names in the UK, many illegal websites were closed down that were actually based in foreign territories. In particular, networks of criminal gangs in Asia and Russia, who are estimated to generate millions of pounds from fraudulent websites in the run-up to Christmas, were thought to be behind many of the websites closed down by police. As such, tracing and apprehending those in control of such websites is anything but straightforward, so consumers who have lost out to them must rely on their credit card providers for refunds; although, as most victims of credit card fraud and rogue online trading will testify, the route to redress is far from uncomplicated.

The Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit shut down domains such as Australiaugg4shop.co.uk, hotlinksshop.co.uk and etiffany-shop.co.uk, which hardly have the appearance of respectable traders but were evidently convincing enough to fool many shoppers. It is always important to note that, before buying from a website, its security and authenticity ought to be clearly demonstrated. In this respect, only those sites that offer secure transactions (SSL), clear returns policies and customer contact details should be used..

Among the 1,219 fraudulent websites closed down by the Metropolitan Police, more than 400 advertised the popular and fashionable Ugg boots. However, in many cases the boots on offer were counterfeit items, whilst other sites simply lured customers in with too-good-to-be-true discounts without ever supplying the boots (genuine or otherwise). In fact, during the past 12 months, customs officers have seized around 20,000 pairs of counterfeit Ugg boots and, with the January sales approaching, this figure is expected to rise substantially.

I asked my friend if he'd found the site on Shopsafe.  Of course, I already knew the answer, so when he said he hadn't, I reminded him to make Shopsafe.co.uk his starting point for online shopping.