Business Ideas

[disneysteve]

Someone that can rescue on-line seller’s listings, terms of service, etc. from horrendous spelling and grammar. I see this a lot with the co-called ‘Chinese sellers’ that I don’t care if they can’t sell due to their writing ability, but lots of US based sellers have real trouble and they would have a much better chance at selling if things were written coherently. They seem oblivious to spell checkers.

I see so many spelling and grammar errors everywhere, online and in real life. I don't know what it says about our education system. Or if it is just that everyone is always in a hurry and doesn't take the time to check their work.

Just today at work, our manager posted the "Empolyee of the Month" on the bulletin board. Later, she also posted a list of "Birthday's". I told her about the "employee" error but didn't have the heart to tell her about the "birthdays" mistake, too.

[james.hendrickson]

I see so many spelling and grammar errors everywhere, online and in real life. I don't know what it says about our education system. Or if it is just that everyone is always in a hurry and doesn't take the time to check their work.

Just today at work, our manager posted the "Empolyee of the Month" on the bulletin board. Later, she also posted a list of "Birthday's". I told her about the "employee" error but didn't have the heart to tell her about the "birthdays" mistake, too.

Sometimes even using a spell checker doesn't solve these issues. In some cases, spell checkers provide a word that is incorrect for the context of the sentence and a lot of people just blindly accept the incorrect word.

[disneysteve]

Sometimes even using a spell checker doesn't solve these issues. In some cases, spell checkers provide a word that us incorrect for the context of the sentence and a lot of people just blindly accept the incorrect word.

And it's gotten a lot worse due to smartphones and auto correct. I see emails, texts, and social media posts that are comical and sometimes unintelligible.

[Gailete]

Sometimes even using a spell checker doesn't solve these issues. In some cases, spell checkers provide a word that is incorrect for the context of the sentence and a lot of people just blindly accept the incorrect word.

Even with the spellcheck I know I make a lot of goofs, but part of that is due to dyslexia. My autistic son however, is a champion speller. I'm not sure if he has ever made a spelling error. I think he takes after my mom who could never quite understand why I had such trouble spelling things.He used to work at the grocery store here in town and just about every week found spelling errors in the ad, and not the intentional ones like ‘nite’ for night.

What I have found to be really weird with sellers is when you mention that they might want to consider not capitalizing every word, or capitals a few words, or to have spaces after periods along with all the spelling errors, and to not have everything in one, long run-on paragraph, they are like ‘It doesn’t matter, this is how I do things’!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m sure that IBM, GM and the like made it to the top of the heap over the years, partly do the well-constructed printed materials that they sent out.

I think that is what appalls me the most, is the lack of caring. I try and I try hard to get things right and to have jokers just not care but then not understand why nothing sells and you try to tell them and they blow you off as if you don't know a thing.

[disneysteve]

What I have found to be really weird with sellers is when you mention that they might want to consider not capitalizing every word, or capitals a few words, or to have spaces after periods along with all the spelling errors, and to not have everything in one, long run-on paragraph,

When I see garbage like that, I just move on. I wouldn't buy from them and certainly wouldn't waste my time contacting them to suggest they use better grammar and sentence structure. If they don't care, I see no reason why I should.

[james.hendrickson]

Totally want to echo disneysteve here, if people don't care enough to spellcheck their written material, then they may not care about other aspects of their business - like customer service or product quality.

You don't see well run companies like Schwab or Fidelity putting out stuff that's misspelled.

So, incorrect spelling is definitely an indicator of poor quality.

[Gailete]

I normally wouldn't care either, except they are selling on the same venue as I am. As Ebay, Etsy, and even Amazon seem to be trying to implode on themselves, some of us are working hard to got our venue to be the best it can be. If the only thing that a person might see of eCRATER is a bozo's listing they might not come back which is a disservice to the good sellers there.

[GrimJack]

Here are a few more:

1. Develop lo-jack technology for bicycles or scooters market and sell it. Market to bike manufacturers as an add feature.

2. Attachable GPS units for dogs/children. No more dogs or kids loose in the neighborhood. Market via late night television.

These 2 seem to be synergistic.

I mention this on occasion - figure out a way use toilet paper with no inner core on current home units. Shippers cry real tears when they think of the wasted space in just one container of TP.

[Gailete]

Here are a few more:

1. Develop lo-jack technology for bicycles or scooters market and sell it. Market to bike manufacturers as an add feature.

2. Attachable GPS units for dogs/children. No more dogs or kids loose in the neighborhood. Market via late night television.

3. Start a bike rating website - get money from affiliate commissions

4. Develop and market an animal recognition app - just take a picture of the animal on your smartphone and the app will identify it for you. Sell for less than $5 dollars via the apple store.

5. Develop and market a "who is this person" app. You can just take a picture of the person on your smartphone and the app can search social media to tell you who that person is. Could have law enforcement and business networking applications. Sell for less than $5 dollars via the apple store.

James, I don't fully understand what all lo-jacks and GPS on children and pets can do, but have you seen the latest commercial for a gadget called 'TILE'? I had seen them on the Amazon Vine program but didn't see it as particularly helpful in my life, but they are amazing! Well thought out commercial that in my mind was a home run hit out of the ballpark. A little girl loses her teddy bear while getting into a car in a huge city. Via the technology of Tile, dad is able to find the bear laying in the gutter. He allows the little girl to take it immediately and hug the stuffing out of it (no mother in their right mind would have done that as they would insist on washing the bear first!). A charming commercial and just in time for Christmas so parents can check into it for those things that are precious/expensive as well as on pet, bicycles, kids, etc. and perhaps those very irritating Tickle me Elmo’s. Now that is a commercial that makes me shudder!

[Gailete]

These 2 seem to be synergistic.

I mention this on occasion - figure out a way use toilet paper with no inner core on current home units. Shippers cry real tears when they think of the wasted space in just one container of TP.

I have actually seen that one of the toilet paper companies have done this. In their commercials they show all the toilet paper rolls that are thrown away each year. Some crafty folks make projects for their homes with them and some even sell their spare rolls (something that I consider rather unhygienic). But haven't seen one of those commercials for a year or so, so maybe people didn't like it and so they stopped. One of the ways that big company's stay big, is when they see the writing on the wall they pay attention!

[disneysteve]

I have actually seen that one of the toilet paper companies have done this. In their commercials they show all the toilet paper rolls that are thrown away each year. Some crafty folks make projects for their homes with them and some even sell their spare rolls (something that I consider rather unhygienic). But haven't seen one of those commercials for a year or so, so maybe people didn't like it and so they stopped. One of the ways that big company's stay big, is when they see the writing on the wall they pay attention!

We toss our tubes in the recycling bin but it is such a waste. I wish our brand would switch to a much narrower tube (or none at all). I'd happily buy whatever adapter we needed for the dispenser to accommodate those.

[Gailete]

We toss our tubes in the recycling bin but it is such a waste. I wish our brand would switch to a much narrower tube (or none at all). I'd happily buy whatever adapter we needed for the dispenser to accommodate those.

We burn our trash so hubby likes them as fire starters when needed. If we were on a garbage pickup I don't know what we would do as we get so many Amazon shipments in, that we always have boxes stacking up. They would probably give us a surcharge. My mail lady's hubby also sells on line and she was happy to take a lot of my spare used boxes, air pillows, etc. But there is a limit to what a person can reasonably use!

[Randomsaver]

Stock market investing. Do it ala-401K, the blueprint of success.

This means
- mutual funds only (diversifies risks)
- contribute regularly (smoothes fluctuations)