Think about buying from a non-Amazon site. Maybe your site. Why would I? So, if you’re not Amazon, you’d better have a decent answer to beat my first emotional reaction: simplicity.

What would make me search your site to buy something? There are some reasons I might choose another site:

I’d go to Savvy Auntie because Melanie Notkin will give me advice that would help me buy for kids, where Amazon’s just too big to feel helpful in that regard.

I’d go to Wine Library because Gary Vaynerchuk will take the fear factor out of buying something I’m not educated about.

I’d go to Glynne’s Soaps because I appreciate Gayle and Jennifer’s efforts via social media, so it’s like buying from a friend.

Beating Simplicity and Ease of Purchase is the Goal

Think about that for a moment. We think that price matters. We think that locale matters. We think that having a good shopping cart software matters (it certainly helps). What really has to happen when you think about buying is that you have to beat the current “best in class” for “simplicity.”

It’s not enough to push the “buy local” mantra. It’s not enough to push “homemade” as the big push. You’ll find someone for every one of the reasons why you think they shouldn’t buy from Amazon or Walmart or whoever you consider to be the competition, but to my thinking, the real goal is to instill a powerful reason why someone should buy from you over anyone else.

• Expertise – Melanie and Gary give me knowledge I don’t have.
• Support – Gayle and Jennifer could use some love for all they’ve done on Twitter and Facebook. (But support like that doesn’t last forever, I’d offer.)
• Specialization – Someone like Thinkgeek does a great job of speaking to the nerd crowd.

And there are other ways. Adding value helps. Adding personalization helps. Adding some personality to every order helps.

What do you think? Who’s doing it right? Are you bucking that trend? Are you competing against any of the big guys and how are you doing it?

Photo credit will hybrid

Thesis Premium WordPress Theme

If your nerd friend uses WordPress, I highly recommend a premium WordPress theme(affiliate) like Thesis. I use it for ;[chrisbrogan.com], and your friend will appreciate it for improving her SEO, cleaning up her design, freeing her to create and explore more. I love it.

Star Trek

Yes, he already saw it, but he wants to see it again, plus the outtakes. I bought myself the Star Trek (Two-Disc Digital Copy Edition) and so now I can watch it on my laptop or iPod whenever I want.

Grid-IT by Cocoon

This product by Cocoon totally changed how I store stuff in my bag. I can find everything. All my cords are neatly wrapped. My battery chargers are all there. There are lots of different types of things here, and they cost different amounts, but you’d be hard pressed not to find some cool stuff for under $100 there.

Flip Tripod

All the nerds have a Flip camera. Get her a Flip Tripod to go with it. You might also check out the Gorillapod. I prefer that to the Flip model, but thought I’d show you both.

The Gift of Charity

Maybe she has everything. Give her a great gift by skipping a gift. Swing by Skip1 and “skip” the cost of a gift. The money goes to hungry kids (and you can validate their credibility easily through some online searches). I’ve already donated a few presents into Skip1. Your turn.

Hey, who knows? It’s the holidays. You might want a gift or two for nerds. (Note: buy none of these things for me, unless you want to Skip something.)

Motorola Droid – The Good

I’m a Google kind of guy. My email is gmail. I use Google Apps. I use Google Calendar. The phone is built for this. Calendar, Google Voice, and all the other apps really integrate well. I make my calls via Google Voice. I schedule appointments with the same calendar I use on the web. So with that in mind, everything I used worked really seamlessly between the web and the phone (except, oddly, Google Wave, which says it’s not compatible with the browser).

The camera is 5 megapixels, and does stills and video. It’s pretty decent. The “hard” button is in a silly place, and using the soft button wasn’t very simple. But there were all kinds of 3rd party apps in the store to make this easy. The video is HD quality, by the way, which is nice. Oh, and there’s a flash for stills. Eat that, iPhone.

The app store had lots of apps that I was using on the iPhone, including Evernote, PixelPipe, SnapTell, Shazam, Pandora, and more. I’m using Twidroid right now for a Twitter app, though I’m hoping the Seesmic Android app gets better, as I’d like to support Loic LeMeur.

I love the maps feature, which is a lot more like a full function turn-by-turn GPS and blows away the iPhone built-in maps feature. It’s provided by Google and it’s really a threat to Garmin and Tom Tom and the boys.

The 3G network seems pretty darned fast. I have done some comparisons that showed the iPhone winning, and some showing the Droid winning, but in general, I feel like the Internet runs faster on the Droid. Might be a perception. You be the judge.

Motorola Droid – The Bad

The soft keyboard is silly. It’s messy, not very responsive, and requires a lot of patience. The hard keyboard isn’t as good as a blackberry, but after a while, I got used to it.

Battery life is a hair better than an iPhone, but not much. I like that I can buy replacement batteries and swap them out on my own. The guys at AMD told me a lot of the future wars around computer components would be around battery life. This makes me believe them.

Apps crash every now and again (but then, they did on the iPhone, too).

I have only 10,000 apps and iPhone has 100,000 or something. So, sometimes that shows. Now that everyone and their brother is making an iPhone app, I find myself hoping they’re also making Android apps. It’s never fun to be in the “B” category of software crazes. But so far, that’s not hurting me too bad.

I find there are lots of design elements where Apple did it better. The iTunes interaction is much better than the various entertainment products lopped into the Droid. Meaning, the App Store seems smoother than the Android Market. The iTunes part seems better than Droid’s Music app. So, it’s a little bit of what Robert Scoble said, about it not exactly being as ‘smooth,’ but I’m holding out that there are more options for improvement.

How I think the Droid Compares

I think people who have a Blackberry should think about the Droid.

I think people who are considering the Palm Pre should think about the Droid.

I think people who are tired of AT&T dropping their calls should think about the Droid.

I think the other Android phones are good, but Droid is Android 2.0 and seems a little bit nicer.

So that’s it. That’s what I think. What about you? And are there any other questions?

Gifts range from stocking stuffers to “oh, I can’t believe you bought that for me” level in price. Note that there are 3 categories in the sidebar: books, gear, and DVDs/Music. Click the upper left sidebar to navigate those.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll point out some other ideas, including indie products, charitable giving ideas, and more.
Enjoy, and Happy Holidays. I’ll have something more special soon. : )

Click HERE for the Store

]]> http://www.chrisbrogan.com/gift-ideas-2009/feed/ 22 http://www.chrisbrogan.com/2008-holiday-buying-guide/ http://www.chrisbrogan.com/2008-holiday-buying-guide/#comments Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:34:00 +0000 ceb http://www.chrisbrogan.com/?p=2958 Okay, I tried this the other day, but somehow couldn’t embed it neatly. So instead, I’ve rebuilt the entire guide off-site at Amazon directly.

If you have some social media types on your holiday list, or if you’re looking for a way to spend some of those gift cards that people buy because they have no idea what you really like, and really don’t know you well enough to buy you anything personal, get back at them, by buying your own stuff from this store I set up.

Yes, if you buy $1.5 Million worth of products, I’ll get a few dollars some day. (sorry, Darren).

Here’s my 2008 Holiday Buying Guide.

Anything interesting? Anything catch your fancy? Was it worth it to go through and put all those things together in one place?

(Special thanks to Ed Shaz for showing me this nifty widget:)