All posts by 400503pb

ShopAdvisor – The value of information

May 17, 2014 400503pb Leave a comment

In the stock market the value and the quality of information is very important. Even if the prices of the stock are unpredictable, past trends and information can help people, especially financiers, to take decision about buying or selling stocks. Information regarding price behavior can be very useful not only to buy or sell stocks, but also for buying other kind of products, not related with the stock market. This information can help people making decisions about buying a product.

Often when you discover a product you are not ready to buy it, because you do not know if the price you are going to pay is fair or simply because you do not have enough money to buy it.

How can you be sure you are making the right decision when buying a product or how can you know that a product is within your budget?

Well, there is an application for your tablet or your mobile phone that can answer to both questions. With ShopAdvisor “consumer’s simply “watch” products they discover and like, and they are saved to one convenient list, accessible anytime, anywhere. Later, when the time is right, ShopAdvisor reminds them – on their phone, in their email, on their tablet. That sweater is finally available in retail. That TV price is finally within your budget. That designer is offering a sample of their new fragrance” (Shop Advisor, 2014) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. ShopAdvisor tutorial.

Besides the alert ShopAdvisor sent you when a product is finally within the budget is also shows you the price behavior of the product since it was launched (See Figure 2). Using this information you can make see if the actual price is a good deal or not. If it is a good deal and you are interested in buying the product ShopAdvisor will show which stores are selling the product and it will redirect you to the one you are interested, in this way retailers are benefited from the app as well. Continue reading ShopAdvisor – The value of information →

Articles, Opinion

Facebook, a powerful customer service tool

May 11, 2014 400503pb Leave a comment

Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, with some other students of Harvard University. The purpose of Facebook back in those days was a social network that allows members of Harvard University to create social relations through the site. Gradually the website, allow users from other universities and finally it was opened to anyone who was older than 13 years old. However, nowadays Facebook is more than just a social network website that allows people to crate social relations. Facebook now, represent a tool for companies that allows them to create a profile, which can be used to promote its products or its services, or on the other hand it can be used as powerful tool to offer customer service to the customer, in which they can add reviews or comments about the services or products that they just purchased or have the intention to it.

Facebook represents a powerful tool to offer customer service especially for companies who sell services instead of products; this is the case of banks or airlines, among others. Since it is not common that they sell their services through a third party website, which is the case of products, and probably the best example of it is Amazon, where customer can add a review of the products purchased; and on the other hand they do not provide spaces for customer review in their own website either. The reason of this might be that Facebook can reach a larger amount of people than their own website.

Continue reading Facebook, a powerful customer service tool →

Business Case

Donors Choose

April 24, 2014 400503pb Leave a comment

According to the Oxford dictionary, Crowdsource refers to an action in which an individual or a group of individuals “Obtain (information or input into a particular task or project) by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet” (1).

Nowadays, there are many types of crowdsourcing, perhaps one of the most popular one is crowdfunding. In which individuals or companies fund their projects by the contribution of small amount of money of a large amount of people, usually via the internet.

One of the most innovative companies in 2014, according to the Fast Company, is DonorsChoose.org, an online charity site, in which teachers from a public school of any part of the United States of America can post a request for materials that students need for their education. Once published in the website anybody who visits the website can contribute to any project.