letters to the editor

MORE SERVICE WOES

Loved the Op-ed (Pushing the Envelope, May 1). I was amazed at how little service was available at some retailers, too.

After one baby shower, I went to Burlington Coat Factory’s Baby Depot. I had a few duplicates I wanted to return, and then I was going to buy a lot more stuff. They refused to take any exchanges without a receipt, even though I told them I was there to spend at least $300. So we loaded up our duplicate gifts and went to Toys ‘R’ Us, where they gladly scanned them in and gave us certificates to use at the store. We ended up spending about $400 that day, so Baby Depot totally missed out.

We haven’t stepped foot in Baby Depot since, even after kid No. 2.
Gennifer Chenault
Manager, Market Research and Development Ingenix Inc.
Reston, VA

CAUSING A BUZZ

“SEO Outperforms Overture” (Direct.com, April) is an interesting article for a different reason — a whole bunch of search engine optimizers have been discussing the story and the two parties. Anyone who researches the client company and its multiple Web sites will realize that this was the wrong way to do SEO. I feel sorry for the client (Norman Noble Inc.) that paid $79,000.

Clearly, the publicity has caused someone else to report the problem to Google. The norman-noble.com domain has since been penalized by Google and ranks 0/10. That domain is owned by the featured SEO company whose own site seems to have been removed from Google (PR = blank).

I would imagine that the publicity Direct gave it was worth this inconvenience.

Those interested can check out the discussions about the article at www.webmasterworld.com and www.searchengineforums.com.
Ash
Melbourne, Australia

IS SPAM BILL A MISTAKE?

Ray Schultz can support the revised CAN-Spam bill introduced by Sens. Wyden and Burns if he must (Direct Hit, May 1), but he shouldn’t expect it to have any appreciable effect on the amount of spam that greets him every morning, which could continue to arrive in undiminished volume with zero-to-minimal changes in many spammers’ current technology or operating procedures if that bill becomes law.

[The measure’s] well-meaning intentions are easily frustrated or defeated by those who don’t play by the rules, as is the case with those who bring Ray the spam he wrote about. Meanwhile, Direct’s readers who do play by the rules will bear new costs and burdens.

I wonder about such things as whose interests are truly served by this bill — it almost certainly won’t even make a dent in the problem Ray describes, which burdens and vexes us on a daily basis — and whether it’s a charade or a mistake.
John L. German
Director
Non-Profit Computing Inc.

TIMING, TIMING…

I am a faithful reader of Beth Negus Viveiros in Direct and just wanted to write to say congratulations on the birth of her son and all its newfound direct marketing implications!

My wife and I became parents a little over 19 months ago and I do remember being amazed at how quickly our name flew through databases near and far and wound up on the labels of so many offers that were targeted at new parents. There also were a few gaffes — offers that arrived too late and offers we would have accepted had we received them. (And where was that invitation to subscribe to American Baby?)
David Juhl
Director of Circulation
American Nurseryman Publishing Co.
Chicago

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