How long would you stand in line for free love?

Reading an excellent book on the psychology of free: Predictably Irrational

The New York Times had an article on the author and some of the research that is going on around the idea of free. Apparently we are not all that rational when it comes to shopping - who knew?

In a study on how free shipping affects online shopping, Professor Bell and his colleagues found that when people are offered free shipping on their order if they reach a particular spending threshold — Amazon, for example, provides free shipping on certain items if you buy $25 worth of goods — “they increase their average order size and also increase the time between shopping trips,” Professor Bell said. So it may balance out, right? More is purchased at one time, but less frequently?

Read the rest of the article

Neuromarketing article

What would Jeff Bezos say?

Over at Harvard Business Review Anita Elberse has published a critique of the long tail based on a study which looked at sales figures from online music vendor Rhapsody, on-demand video vendor QuickFlix, and Nielsen VideoScan and SoundScan services, as well as performing less rigorous analyses on Amazon and other online “entertainment and publishing” vendors.

Needless to say there is a lot of debate going on around this article not to mention a dialogue between Chris Anderson and Elberse both on Anderson’s blog and the HBR site. Over at O’Reilly Kurt Cagle has got into the mix with his own insight into the ‘complex, multivariate structure of the long tail. He has this to say about Elberse’s finding:

This, in fact, conforms remarkably well to William McPhee’s Formal Theories of Mass Behavior, publishing in the early 1960s, which describe the traditional blockbuster pattern of marketing consumption, which argues that statistically, the top 1% of most large segmented markets (such as those found for entertainment products) typically does as well or better than the top 9% after it, and that there is a dramatic logarithmic falloff that makes the tail generally unprofitable.

Harvard Business Review

Spot the problem:

I'm reading a neat book on the "Cult of significance" . So there is this idea of the "sizeless sciences" the "statisticians" the "doctors" the "scientists", "econonomists", whose quest involves finding statistical significance at the 95% level of confidence - no matter what!

anyway
spot the problem in this statement:

In the next census, you will find that about 30% of people are getting a college education and many more are getting advanced degrees because of something as simple as learning to read at an early age.

To me, I don't think I know what census - I assume America. So too say learning to read at an early age resonates with me, I still don't see why you have to jump to that as the correlation. I am sure based on absolutely no data, that learning to read at an early age is important, (if it is in the right language), there may be other variables involved, like next census where?

The Observer staff combed the stacks to choose 10 enticing summer books:

Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewsk

Rites of Spring (Break): An Ivy League Novel, Diana Peterfreund

Somebody Else's Daughter, Elizabeth Brundage

When We Were Romans, Matthew Kneale

Schooled, Anisha Lakhani

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running , Haruki Murakami

Pharmakon, Dirk Wittenborn

The Wrecking Crew, The Wrecking Crew

Waterstone' s up 3.3 on same-store sales:
UK chain Waterstone's reported sales for the fiscal year of 564 million pounds, up 3.3 percent on a same-store sales basis and 5 percent overall, while income remained flat at 16.3 million pounds. In the continuing process of absorbing Ottakar's, the chain took a charge of 4.6 million pounds to cover the closure of 11 stores. (Only one new store was opened during the year.)

The company says "the biggest single initiative to help build links with our customers has been the Waterstone's multi-channel loyalty card, which launched in September 2007, and now has 1.5 million cardholders." They also highlight "the successful introduction of new children’s departments and a high quality range of gift stationery into 100 stores, where these new ranges have performed well."