South Design

The Hidden Truth About WordPress vs Shopify Success: It's All About Maintenance In the world of e-commerce, platform choice can make or break your online business. While many entrepreneurs focus on initial setup costs or feature comparisons, there's a more crucial factor that often goes overlooked: long-term maintenance commitment. The Performance Paradox Here's a surprising truth that many platform comparison articles won't tell you: A well-maintained WordPress site will consistently outperform a well-maintained Shopify site. However, this comes with a significant caveat – a poorly maintained WordPress site will rapidly fall behind even the most neglected Shopify store. Understanding the Maintenance Gap WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility and optimization potential. With the right expertise, you can: - Fine-tune server performance - Implement advanced SEO strategies - Customize user experiences - Optimize code for faster loading - Create unique features that set you apart from competitors But this flexibility comes at a price. WordPress sites require constant attention: - Regular security updates - Plugin compatibility management - Performance optimization - Content updates - Technical troubleshooting - Server maintenance Shopify, on the other hand, handles most technical maintenance automatically. While this limits your optimization potential, it provides a stable, reliable foundation that's nearly impossible to break. The Real Question You Should Be Asking Instead of debating platform features, ask yourself: "How much time and resources can we realistically invest after launch?" Consider these factors: - Do you have technical expertise in-house? - Can you budget for regular maintenance? - Are you prepared for emergency fixes? - Will you actively optimize for performance? - Can you keep up with security best practices? Making the Right Choice for Your Business If you're in a competitive industry and aiming for top Google rankings, WordPress might be your best bet – but only if you're prepared to invest in ongoing maintenance. This means dedicating significant time and resources to keeping your site running at peak performance. However, if you prefer a "set it and forget it" approach, Shopify is your safer choice. While you might not achieve those coveted top three Google positions in competitive markets, you'll maintain a reliable, functional store with minimal effort. The Bottom Line Success in e-commerce isn't just about choosing the right platform – it's about choosing the right platform for your maintenance capacity. Be honest about your resources and commitment level. Sometimes, a well-maintained Shopify store is more valuable than a neglected WordPress site with untapped potential. Remember: The best platform isn't the one with the most features or the lowest price – it's the one you can properly maintain for years to come.

Dear Dropbox: I Take It All Back (Mostly) Back in 2019, I reluctantly parted ways with Dropbox after they made a frustrating and seemingly unnecessary change to how Symlinks worked. For years, Dropbox had been a simple, effective, and reliable tool—one that ran quietly in the background, keeping my files safe and making collaboration seamless. But that change forced users like me into a rigid backup structure, eliminating the ability to create Symlinks to external folders outside of the Dropbox directory. For those of us who had built workflows around this feature, it was a dealbreaker. I wasn’t alone in my frustration. Many users voiced similar concerns, questioning why Dropbox was making things less flexible instead of more. At the time, it seemed like yet another example of a company trying to force users into a system that suited them, rather than maintaining the user-centric functionality that made the platform successful in the first place. So, after years of being a loyal, paying customer, I left. Fast-forward to today, and I’m happy to say that I’ve returned. Why? Because Dropbox has reversed course on that decision. They’ve restored the flexibility that was lost, making it possible again to manage files in a way that fits my workflow rather than being locked into theirs. Whether it was due to user feedback, internal re-evaluation, or simply realizing they had alienated a segment of their most dedicated users, I appreciate that they listened and made things right. Of course, no cloud storage service is perfect. There will always be changes—some good, some frustrating—but what matters most is whether a company is willing to adapt when they’ve clearly made a misstep. Dropbox did, and that’s why I’m back. It’s easy to write off a company when they make a mistake, but it’s also important to recognize when they correct course. This experience has reinforced something I’ve seen time and time again in the world of tech: user feedback does matter. And sometimes, patience pays off. So, while I can’t say I’ll never leave Dropbox again, for now, I’m happy to be back.

A well-maintained WordPress site will outperform a well-maintained Shopify site. However, a poorly maintained WordPress site will fall far behind even a poorly maintained Shopify one. So, the real question isn't, "Which platform should we build our e-commerce site on?" but rather, "How much time and resources are we willing to invest in it after it goes live?" Because if you’re not prepared to spend a lot of time optimising, tinkering, updating (yes, and fixing), then stick with a managed platform like Shopify… Just don’t expect to get into the top 3 positions on Google if you’re in a competitive industry.

Plixi is a scam The 'Instagram Growth Software' company Plixi is nothing more than a scam. But don't just take it from me, consider their Trustpilot rating (claimed to be 4.9 out of 5 on the website, but is actually only 1.7 : uk.trustpilot.com/review/plixi.c…) with 87% of reviews giving it the lowest 1* "Bad" rating. Here's my review: Plixi offer a “24hr trial” - although it’s not a true trial as you’re unable to do some of the more advanced options until you opt for a paid subscription. On their pricing page they have 3 account levels: $29, $59 and $149.. of course these “Monthly” prices are not actually monthly, this is only the cost if you pay upfront for a year then average it out over 12 months. No the real cost per month is either $49, $99 or $249 (40% higher). The $249 one is interesting - this is the “ExpertsTM” plan (not sure how they were able to Trademark the word “Experts” - perhaps if the Plixi sales team are reading this they’ll be kind enough to forward the Trademark reference number for validation?) Anyway, the “Experts” plan gives you “Fully-managed growth & content creation by your dedicated Instagram Expert.” … which is all well and good, except underneath all these options is another add-on, for only an extra $300 where you can let the Plixi team manage your Instagram growth… Strangely, it doesn’t mention why you’d pay a total of $549 per month, for something that it says you can also have for $249? So It’s unclear why you’d go for this option, especially if you’d already selected the cheaper “Experts” plan… I raised a question about this with pre-sales support… they replied “We are checking it now, thanks for letting us know.”… I followed up 5 days later - still no reply. Perhaps they are still checking? Anyway, foolishly I plumped for the Pro plan, and then this is where things started going very wrong. Features listed on their “Pro Plan” pricing page stated that account level also had the “AI-Powered Growth Engine”. However this was NOT actually included, and this was again, another false claim. The AI Growth Engine option was an extra $129 per month - but you only found that out once you’d paid for the subscription. (If you’re keeping score, the $59 Pro Plan with the included AI Growth Engine is now actually $99 + $129 = $228 - oh, and that doesn’t include the Automation features that they promote, as that’s not working yet). Ah yes, the ‘automation’ feature - this is a ‘killer feature’ for this type of software, and they make sure to promote it lots on their website. Indeed their main headline states “10x Faster Instagram Growth. Automatically.” What they fail to mention however, is that this feature was still in Beta, and not available yet. Quote: “We apologize the automation feature is currently in beta and not accessible to everyone yet.” - my followup question about why they state it as a feature when you sign up remains unanswered. I tried to contact support (this is the support team that apparently has teams in “LA & London” however they were never available until mid-afternoon UK time). One suspects the claim to have UK support team is yet another ‘embellishment’ . But even contacting the US support was challenging. For the two days I had an account, the support chat window button wasn’t working. Then when the chat support window did open, the only option was to search the Knowledgeable, rather than start a new request. At this point you have to wonder why they bother having different account levels, if all the good extras have to be added on anyway. - It’s a bit like buying. BMW in the 1990’s when event the steering wheel was an optional extra you had to spec and pay for! If you were stupid enough to sign up to Plixi after reading this, you might as well go for the cheapest account level as you have to pay for the other features anyhow. On the signup page I opted to pay an additional “$75” for ‘expire configuration help setting up the account. It was only after the money had been debited and I was able to login that it showed up as being an extra $75 each month - not just a one off. Quite why anyone would need help setting up and configuring your account each month was never really explained. Again this extra cost was not stated as a monthly charge before signup. Avoid paying Plixi any money - they are nothing but Grifters. Plixi smacks of an app that’s been launched way too early, with features and support severely lacking. What’s worse is that they don't appear to care and have zero inclination in fixing the numerous issues with the system, support and even the pre-signup info. The app itself is simply not where a commercial release should be - especially one that is asking users to pay for. But it’s the levels of subterfuge, trickery, and downright fraudulent claims from the signup pages that users really need to be wary of. I have since requested a full refund, only after having access for less than 48 hours. Of course Plixi Support are fobbing me off, trying to get me to delay, but I've since raised a dispute with my credit card company, so they'll have to refund as well as pay the chargeback fee. Im also taking steps to have their Merchant account revoked due to fraud so that they can't take anyone else's money.

Why I ditched DropBox (Originally posted Oct 2019) It's been a faithful friend. The small blue box icon, busily whirring away in the background. Keeping all my important files safe. And although I rarely had use to call on the backup features, I was glad those few times it bailed me out by easily restoring a deleted or corrupted file. But alas, no more. You see DropBox has been steadily moving away from a simple, robust file backup and sharing tool, to an overweight app that's forgotten it's key role in life. It's got bigger, but not any better. In fact the complexity has made it's once simple UI a whole lot worse. But I still didn't want to give up on it. Colleagues use it, and file sharing is very secure (and up until the latest update, was very easy to manage also). So what was the final straw? Almost unnoticed, DropBox slipped out an email last week quietly saying that they were changing the way Symlinks work. Now for those of you who don't know what these are, think of them like 'aliases' or 'shortcuts'. They allowed you to select any folder on your computer, and create a link to it inside DropBox, so that folder would also get backed up. This was a Godsend. It meant that we were no longer constrained by having to have files just inside the DropBox folder – we could spread the security over more of our HDs! But no longer. DropBox have mandated that they know what's best for me, my system and my backup strategy, and now the only things that will get backed up are those in the location they say. Very poor. I reached out to DropBox support to ask for a solution, but they said I'd have to move any folders I wanted to backup inside the main DropBox folder – Clearly unaware that you can't move the Mac Desktop folder, and even if this wasn't a 'Clifford' sized example of the 'Tail wagging the Dog' then they'd know it was unwise to move the User's "Documents" folder to anywhere the Mac OS would not be expecting to find it. So my time of being a loyal, fee-paying member of the DropBox clan has ceased. They're not the first software company to add in too many features no one will ever use at the expense of the original ones that grew the company, and I doubt they'll be the last. Such a shame.

Tim Cook’s Transatlantic Tax So it's arrived (almost). The new Apple iPhone 8, and it’s accompanied by a Superhero friend called ‘X’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the new technologies are huge leaps into the unknown, but I can’t help feeling somewhat underwhelmed. That's hard for me to say as I’ve been a huge fan of Apple kit since the early 90’s when ceaseless mocking from 'Windows’ colleagues was a daily occurrence. So you can imagine how it feels to know that Apple’s iPhone business alone is now larger than the whole of Microsoft. But I just can’t roll out the bunting for these new handsets just yet, and for one main reason. The Transatlantic Tax. You see, I object to being ripped off by the price a phone would cost in the UK compared to the US price. $999 versus £999 – That smarts a bit Tim – and i’ve been a loyal customer for over 25 years. But are Apple’s UK customers really being ripped off that much? Well no, it’s not quite as bad as it sounds – let’s look at the numbers. The initial reaction is to think that $999 would convert to about £750, and thus we’re being diddled out of an extra £250... But those raw numbers don’t have taxes into account. US prices are listed without state or local sales taxes, where as UK consumer prices normally include VAT at a rate of 20%. US State and Local sales taxes vary, for example Delaware has zero State or Local taxes, but Louisiana taxes add 10% to the price. Looking at a list of the sales taxes you can see that the combined median is about 7%. Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UK is currently 20% and has been since the former Chancellor George Osborne raised it from 17.5% as a "temporary emergency measure" back in 2011… (“temporary” eh George?) This means that the pre-tax cost of the new handset would actually be £799 ($1060) not £999 ($1326). The real costs. So what we’re left with are two sets of numbers: ‘Pre-Tax’ and ‘Inc Tax’ How does the price compare now? (*Conversion rate 13th September 2017) The figures below were calculated using the median 7% sales tax rate: Pre-Tax: $999 (£752) vs £799 = UK iPhone £47 more (+6% difference) IncTax: $1069 (£806) vs £999 = UK iPhone £193 more (+24% difference) Of course we need to allow for a small buffer to insulate against currency fluctuations and conversion costs, but once you've done that you can see that a UK consumer will be paying about 20% more for their new iPhone once taxes are included in the price. So there you have it. The Transatlantic Tax is real… but it’s not being levied on UK customer’s by Tim Cook and the Cupertino team. The blame for this gross pricing inequality lies squarely at the door of the UK Treasury! Sorry Tim. Keep up the good work!

MediRegs includes MHRA Licensed Wholesale numbers in search results Wikipedia describes ‘Software as a Service’ “SaaS” a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS applications have many advantages over traditionally delivered software including; Cost, Platform independence, Scalability / integration, and of course ‘New releases/upgrades’. MediRegs has been developed to be a ‘customer led’ application. That is to say that the future roadmap for development will largely depend upon what it is the customer’s need. I’ll give you an example; Last week one of our customers asked if there was a way to search based on WDA Licence Holders, rather than WDA Site IDs. Up until this point we had only listed individual sites, rather than the licence-holding parent company. However with a small amend to the database we were able to include the ability to search the WDA, or WDA(H), into the Supply Chain search page. MediRegs users will now see that the search field lists: • Licence Number • Site Number • Site Name • Postcode As the standard options inside the MHRA Wholesalers / Distributors search tab. So, for example, if you were to enter “41713” then you’d see results from the parent Licence Holder (in this case Pearl Chemist Ltd), as well as any individual Sites and licenses each of these sites held. Then simply click “Add” to view more info and include them as part of your Supply Chain. Of course because MediRegs is centrally hosted, this change was instantly applied to the accounts of all other subscribers, and at no extra cost. If you’re using MediRegs and you have an idea for an upgrade that will improve the system for the whole community, then please get in touch: uk@mediregs.eu

MediRegs and the MHRA – How SaaS reacts to changes. For the last few years we’ve been moving our business away from the traditional ‘one time sell’ model, over to developing Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. SaaS offers many advantages – and not just for the developer who aims to get more regular recurring income! Take MediRegs for example - our new software solution developed to help pharmaceutical companies comply with GDP guidelines. Last week we read a blog from the industry regulator the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which detailed updated guidance in terms of obligations placed on Pharmaceutical Wholesalers by the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 Regulation. What the advice stated was two-fold: 1. Wholesalers must be aware of issues that could affect their suppliers’ continued authority to supply 2. There should be a procedure that ensures there are documented checks made at least twice a month of MHRA’s list of suspended licence holders Essentially WDA licence holders are not only expected to check the list of suspended sites every 14 days, but they also need a procedure in place to document and prove that these checks are taking place. MediRegs already had a detailed reporting section which shows: • When you (and your sub-users) have logged in • Which registration numbers were searched, and by whom • If you invited any sub-users (and what activities they did to your account). But now we’ve added the ability to monitor how often users check the Suspended and Revoked license pages. What’s more, if any user hasn’t visited those pages for 14 days, then they will receive an email alert with a link requesting them to do that. This is then recorded in the User Activity Archive, and an account manager is easily able to export the report and prove compliance. In total this new development took less than 3 days from start to finish, and was rolled out to all live accounts at the same time. This is the real strength of the SaaS model - the ability to adapt and change to any new requirements and make sure your customers get those benefits long before it would ever be possible to update installable software, or even update your internal policies. Check out MediRegs mediregs.eu for more information.

Just what is the point of the Yellow Pages? I’m not trying to be flippant, I genuinely want to find out if it’s still of any use to anyone… Ever? This morning I found it there, lying rather clumsily on the doormat. Wrapped in a distressed layer of protective clingfilm and looking rather sorry for itself. I stared down at this inch-think ‘tome of uselessness’ and wondered “Why?”. Why would any company go to the trouble of hacking down a rainforest each year, pulping the fibres into a collection of thin, vomit-shade pages, then filling them with acres of monotone adverts for things like waste disposal companies or sewerage experts… Though I suppose they’re not the only ones pumping effluent around at least. But I just don’t get it. Sure I can understand that before the days of the internet it might have been useful at times, but now we have verifiable information at every fingertip. Need to find a plumber? Ask Google or Check-A-Trade.com. What about a new conservatory? - Simply review your local manufacturers and check out feedback from real customers. How does a one-way weighty yellow slab even begin to compare to that? Perhaps I’m just looking at this from the wrong direction. Maybe the Yellow Pages business model was never actually about advertising, but instead it’s a Machiavellian plot by a secret cabal of Chiropractors hell-bent on forcing people to deliver twelve tons of directories to each street, and then charge them extortionate fees for fixing the resulting aches and pains? If that’s the case they’re just as cunning as the evil Chiropodists behind the Lego empire, whose sole business goal is to supply young children with small angular plastic bricks so they can leave them in the carpet for poor, unsuspecting adults to step on. But either way, the print version of the Yellow Pages is on its last legs. It’s the Town Crier of advertising in a digital world, and deserves to be consigned to the recycling bin of history!

“Ding dong the Desktop’s dead…” OK, so it’s perhaps an overly dramatic headline… But if not dead, then it’s certainly on it’s last legs, having already been given the Last Rites and signed the organ donor card… Well, At least as far as advertisers are concerned anyway! I’ve watched the growth of the mobile browsing space over the last few years - and it’s been quite spectacular. Some of you might remember a time where you designed a website for a client so it looked great on their desktop machine, and if it also worked on a mobile, well that that a nice extra! But mobiles became larger and more competent, then tablets burst onto the scene. All of a sudden we started to see mobile usage break the 10% barrier, then higher and higher. Indeed we now regularly see mobile rates (phones & tablets) making up well over two-thirds of site traffic - and that’s not sites that are particularly aimed at audiences that might be mobile. So it’s clear that ever since Twitter released Bootstrap v3.0 back in 2013 as a “Mobile First” framework, everyone else needed to adopt the same mindset too. But how's this affected Digital Marketing? Well it’s been an enormous shift. Indeed we’ve just finished analysing the stats from a recent campaign, and the traffic bias is staggering: 98% of all served traffic was to a mobile device Let me say that again. Almost all the advertising we bought ended up being served up to either an iPhone, tablet, or Android phone. Only 2% was displayed on a traditional desktop machine. And this wasn’t a campaign aimed at a younger demographic, or for a product that was specifically for these devices. We didn’t weight the distribution at all, we simply left it up to the demand. So Twitter were right couple of years ago when they adopted the “Mobile first” strategy, but times have continued to change, and now I’d suggest that “Mobile Only” is the best cost-effective strategy. So here are a few of things to consider: If you’re running Ads that take the viewer to a video, you must ensure the video player works on mobile. If you have any text overlaying the video, then it must be a relatively large font so the user can read it on a small screen. If you’re directing traffic to a sales page, or signup form - it must be a responsive page, and ideally not a popup as these are not universally supported To be blunt: If you’re paying for CPC advertising and you’re not optimised for mobile traffic, then you're throwing 98% of your ad budget down the drain! And even a scarecrow without a brain could work that out!

7 Easy Ways To Achieve A 7% Response Rate Back the good old days of CMYK and Heidelberg Speedmasters, when “DM” meant ‘Direct Mail’, rather than ‘Digital Marketing’’, and “DTP” wasn’t sneeringly referred to as the “Dead Tree Press”, Creative Directors and lowly Account Managers would do backflips if a campaign managed to achieve a 3 or 4% response rate... How times have changed! Now a traditional DM campaign (if you can find one) is lucky to achieve 2%, and Digital Marketing has all but taken over. But what do the experts say you should aim for? 1% Yep, a measly, tiny, almost insignificant 1 out of every 100 communications - So how come marketing experts will tell you that 1% is a great effort, and a job well done? It’s not. Not by a long way. Quite simply, we should expect a lot more from Digital than we do from Traditional - a lot more. But most people seem to think the opposite. Why? On the one hand online advertising is everywhere and people get scores of marketing emails everyday - they’re ubiquitous and hence no one really pays much attention. But if it costs the same to send out 200 emails as it does to send 2000, then the logical argument on a 1% response rate is to send out 20,000 and you’ll have more customers then you know what to do with. QED. Except it’s not like that - and anyone who’s been lured into parting with a slice of their advertising budget by someone who presented such an idea is probably reviewing their T&Cs right now. Shotguns Vs Lasers That’s the quickest way I can summarise the difference. Simply put, an old fashioned DM campaign (or even a broad Digital campaign) is like using a shotgun. Bang - you pull the trigger and small lead particles are hastily distributed over a wide area. If you're lucky you might occasionally hit something. It’s lazy, ineffective, and just means that the vast majority of people switch off even sooner and fail to engage. But modern Digital Marketing offers you the tools to be laser-focussed on your perfect audience, so there's no reason why you should have to put up with 1% 7% CTR for a ‘cold’ campaign Yep, that’s what I aim for - a whopping 7% - 700% higher than what a normal agency will regard as a success. Or, to put it another way, the same results for only 14.3% of the same budget - it’s up to you how you view it. And this isn’t a campaign to an existing custom audience, a known list, or a retargeting campaign either. This is 7% to a cold audience! So today I want to give you 7 simple tips for getting a 7% CTR (for those of you who have just arrived at this page and skipped straight down to this section, welcome ;-). 1. Use Facebook Ads. Forget what you thought about B2B vs B2C platforms, Facebook is winning in every demographic. Simply put, you cannot get the same results through Adwords for the same cost. 2. Forget images, use Video This is the fulcrum - it’s what takes your campaign into double-digits. Right now (and probably for the next 12-18 months) video on Facebook is outperforming every other possible ad method. In fact video on Facebook is even more cost-effective than video on YouTube! 3. Get the audio right What do you pay most attention to when watching a video? - Clue: it’s not the video – it’s the audio. A beautifully shot video will mean nothing if you can’t hear the person speak or if there’s too much background noise. Luckily there’s some very simple methods to ensure your message comes over crisp and clear. Invest in a cheap lavalier mic - around £7 on amazon. Then process your video using Apple iMovie. Inside iMovie there’s controls to reduce background noise and increase speech levels. Do these things together and it’ll sound perfect. 4. Forget what you think about video time limits Marketeers will have you believe that an ad needs to be short & snappy. It needs to get the point over quickly and then get out of the way. Whilst I agree that the point of the advert still needs to be made clear in the first few seconds, there really isn’t any limit to how long the video should be. Look at it this way. An ad on YouTube costs you money when the user either clicks, or watches the video for 30 seconds. On Facebook you pay for the click (if using CPC rather than oCPM). So if advertising on FB, which of these two options do you think is best: You promote a short advert which gives the viewer a brief overview of your product, then invites them to click to find out more, or You promote a longer video which tells the viewer everything they need to know, then invites them to click Both clicks will cost you the same, but which do you think sends you the most engaged lead that’s more likely to make a purchase? Yep, it’s the second one. This is why the CTR (Click Through Rate) is the metric to watch. 5. Shoot the video to an acceptable standard Here’s more good news - you don’t need to shoot in 4k for an online advert - no one is ever going to be able to view it that size. But only two years ago you’d have needed to spend a small fortune on video kit to get you up to a HD ‘pro’ level. Canon broadcast-ready digicams were essential and the post-processing cost a small fortune. Now all you need is an iPhone (preferably iPhone 6 or newer - the software behind the camera is a lot better than in the v5). These tiny hand held devices shoot full HD, and it imports into iMovie so even a newbie can get professional looking results very quickly. Make sure you use a tripod or, if shooting on the move, invest in a hand-held Steadicam. Again these are only about £30 from Amazon or Ebay. Whilst phones do have anti-shake software, it’s always better to not get the shake in the first place! 6. Use Facebook Power Editor to build your ads. Facebook gives you several ways to get an advert up quickly - but the old adage about 'more haste less speed' applies here. Take time to learn the Power Editor, to understand the multitude of targeting options, and then to build multiple versions of each campaign with small changes to each one in order to test for effectiveness. 7. Set tracking and retargeting pixels. These tiny snippets of code can increase your sales exponentially. Not only do you see which pages your visitors are landing on (or leaving on!) you can also use them to create a Custom Audience afterwards. I mean, you’ve paid for that traffic once already… There’s no need to buy it again! Just by using these 7 simple methods, we managed to build a stable campaign that’s generating warm traffic from a cold audience (size 2.3 million) at a rate of about 7.5% . That means it’s getting leads to a business for as little as 8p per click - or 22p per click to website (Facebook now records which clicks are ‘likes’ and which are traffic going to the destination site) - the latter is clearly more valuable. If you want to find out a bit more please take a look here: south.co.uk/digital-market… and download our free “Rapid Growth Blueprint” to see if ‘DM' can help your business. Or get in touch for a free analysis of your competitors internet marketing strategy.

Do cheap data-rates harm the mobile web community? It seems a pretty straightforward equation doesn’t it. If you want to encourage people to use the web on their mobile phones, then reduce the cost of data streaming, and more people will use it… Well no, it’s not quite that simple. I’ve returned from a month long holiday in Canada – one of the richest, most developed countries in the world, yet in terms of mobile data usage they are decades behind Europe. This is primarily because their infrastructure has not been de-regulated, and the largest provider (Rogers Telecom) has a stranglehold on 3G services. If I’d wanted to use mobile internet, the cost was astronomical! In other words, each email would have cost about $1, and uploading a pic to Facebook would have cost more than the flights out there. So you’re probably assuming that no-one accesses mobile data services, right? Er no – data usage over there is prolific! Are they all mad? Well no, actually they’re quite cunning. You see Canadians know that having a mobile connection to the web is extortionate, so en mass, the whole nation has seemingly ditched that idea, and everyone offers free wifi instead! Thus neatly circumventing the virtual cellular monopoly, and allowing everyone to use each others routers. Brilliant. Anarchic and rebellious perhaps – but brilliant nonetheless. So from Banff, up through the Rockies, then down through the interior, across to Vancouver Island, then onto the city itself, at every place we visited there were coffee shops, malls, hotels, even private houses with signs promoting “Free WIFI” I was never once stranded offline (much to my wife’s chagrin!) But could it happen here? or is the fact that our data rates are considerably cheaper, actually removing the necessity for us to help one another? Perhaps we’ve all been scared by the UK thought police into what might happen to us if a ne’er-do-well were to use our connection to logon to an unsuitable URL? But the fact remains. Getting online in the Canadian outback (a place I still maintain is a cellularly repressed country!) Is easier and cheaper than in the UK. We could learn a thing or two from those bear-chasing lumberjacks you know!

A day in the life of an iPhone advert I’m not too ashamed (yet) to admit that I’ve always had a bit of a penchant for Apple goodies. My first mac was a Classic II circa ’86, and it’s fair to say I’ve always been a fan of the way the Mac operates (particularly since OS X). So you’ll not be surprised to learn that I was an early adopter of the first generation iPhone back in 2007. And I quite liked it too. Granted, I never really understood the whole iPhone App hysteria, after all back in 2007 I only used mine to send text messages, and even take the odd call on occasion (not that it was particularly good at that as the speaker was dreadful). But at least it meant I no longer needed to carry a phone and an iPod, it could all be done by the same gadget, which was – to be fair – the sole USP for me anyway. So when the newer, faster versions came out, I looked at the specs and didn’t really see the point, and I continued on with my old model and watched from afar as the wave of AppMania rolled on without me. But then necessity eventually caught up with me. Over time I found myself discovering more and more uses for the device, and on a trip last month I suddenly realised how dependant on it i'd become. I was due to attend an important meeting in SW1, so using the National Rail App, I checked the train times and arrived at the station in time. A relatively comfortable transit ensued where I was able to keep answering emails, and do some website edits, and even a few results on Google Webmaster Tools. Shortly before arriving at Paddington, I used the Tube Status App to check which lines were running ontime, and as the Circle and District lines were showing delays, I hopped on the Bakerloo to Piccadilly instead. Emerging from the underground – and because I’d skipped breakfast – I realised I was now getting a bit peckish. Regular readers will know that I’m making a few feeble efforts toward a health kick (no, this isn't Groundhog day, thank you), but sometimes you just fancy throwing caution to the wind and grabbing a McDonald’s instead. But where was the nearest one? Once again, the App store had the answer. The official (and free) McDonald’s finder was hastily downloaded and installed, then using the built-in GPS it gave me directions to one of their fine establishments which, it turns out, was only 250 yards away. Hence it was, that only a few minutes later my appetite was satisfied (well partially at least) by an exotic and finely-balanced fusion of E-Numbers, gelatine & industrial-strength preservatives that can only be purveyed at the ‘Golden Arches’. Exquisite. So onward to my meeting, guided of course by Google Maps. Then during the meeting it transpired that the companies wifi code was only known to one person – who of course was away. No problem, I’d already set up Bluetooth tethering, and continued to demo the software without a glitch. The return journey was much the same. Though once on the train I took the opportunity of a brief pause in email traffic to check the evenings TV listings, and noticed a political documentary that I wanted to see. However I’d not set the Sky+ box to record, and there wasn’t anyone at home to carry out this menial task for me (quelle surprise). Unsurprisingly, the iPhone came to the rescue yet again and within a few seconds the free Sky+ App had found the listing, and commanded our set-top box into action. So here I am, once again riding at the forefront of the technology wave. Yes it’s true, I love my new iPhone. Some phones are like girlfriends, you keep them for a while because they do have some uses, sometimes they break down and you have to move on. Occasionally you’ll miss out on an upgrade because it’s not really worth the hassle, and sometimes you may even borrow your friends one just to try it out (ahem). But the iPhone's tight integration to my work and home life changes everything, and opens your eyes to what a technological relationship can be like if you have the right partner. In the gadget/girlfriend analogy, the iPhone is your wife, your soul mate, the mother to your children, the one whom life wouldn’t be worth living without. Plus, it has a mute button too.

"Please release me, let me go…" ISPs are everywhere. You can’t move online for the likes of eNom, Go Daddy etc. All vying to be the one who gets to liberate a small sum from your wallet for the privilege of registering a domain name for you. So, with such competition, you’d think they’d put more effort into the single differentiator: Quality of Service wouldn’t you? Well, some do – others most definitely do not. For years we’ve used the excellent people at Daily.co.uk. Sure they’re a few pence more expensive than the big box-shifters, but their control panel offers full DNS control and their phone and email support has been excellent anytime I’ve had to call upon it. If you’re in the market for a new domain name, I’d recommend checking them out. If, on the other hand, you’re already got your domain and are holding it the awful Register.com – you might as well give up now. For the last five weeks I’ve been trying to migrate some domains away from them on the instruction of their owner. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy my Monday Morning Rant In response to the latest act of service stupidity from them: "Just what on earth is going on over at Register.com? How hard is it to transfer some domains away?? My client [client name] is the legal owner of these domains. We have been trying for over ONE MONTH to migrate them away from Register.com, and yet you seem to be holding onto them for what, I can only assume, is an underhanded way of extracting more money from him. Can please can you help me to decide something? Your Prices are significantly higher than other ISPs, this is why we are moving. But I can’t quite decide which is worse. Your pricing structure, or your method of doing business? Perhaps you’d like to let me know which you’re most proud of? In the meantime I’m giving you a very simple instruction. PLEASE RELEASE THE DOMAINS LISTED BELOW FOR TRANSFER. If you like I will ask [client name] to confirm this message on the off-chance that during any of the last twelve times we’ve communicated you’ve not quite understood our objectives yet. Alternatively I can try getting the message across to you by Morse code, Semaphore or perhaps carrier pigeon? Or if you’d like I can see if I can hire a barber shop quartette to sing a rendition of “Please release me, let me go”down at your offices? So, for the final time, please could you pass this email onto your team of domain release monkeys, and ask them to fire up their typewriters in the hope that today might be the day they hit the right combination of keys and we can finally extricate ourselves from what is probably the poorest example of customer service I think i’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter."

The Putler did it! Oh PayPal, what am I to do with you? I love you, I hate you. You give me all the eCommerce facilities a person could ever need, then you hide them away behind your wicked and cruel interface. I’m taunted daily by your glacial login speeds just to get bulletproof transaction handling, yet I keep coming back for more. I just don’t know how much longer I can see us lasting…. but each time I start to look for a younger, more attractive solution, you go and surprise me – sometimes I think we’re only together for the money… If this describes your love/hate relationship with the world’s largest payment handler, then you’re not alone. PayPal is the 800lb gorilla in the room, and when your criteria are things like wanting a trusted brand with payment and fraud protection, and one-click payments with millions of merchants, then it’s a pretty small room. And if we’re honest, there’s only really one animal in it anyway. Dammit. However it’s not all bad. Over the past couple of years PayPal’s been giving us some very clever toys. The most impressive of these is it’s Adaptive Payments API’s which allow merchants to split payments on-the-fly. We use this system with some clients, and frankly the site wouldn’t be possible without it. Top of the list of course is the API itself, which allows developers to write apps that interact with the base application itself. This is where Putler comes in. Theres really no other way to announce it, but Putler is a game-changer. Using the API, Putler brings in all of PayPal’s functionality into a well designed Adobe Air application which is so simple-to-use you’ll never need to login to PayPal ever again. It’s like having Margaret Thatcher’s brain transplanted into Kelly Brooke’s body. It’s perfectly clever. Putler’s good at multitasking too, and this is where it starts to get really good. Putler can handle more than one PayPal account at the same time. No more logging in and out, then in again to check transactions from different accounts, Putler places them all on the same page so you can see all revenue streams or individual sales from any account. In ParkShare we use two different PayPal accounts. One to process amounts over £10, (well £9.38 to be exact – don’t ask!) then another to handle smaller amounts using a PayPal Micropayments account, of course in ‘PayPal land’ it’s not possible to do both of these things in one account (that would be far too sensible) so you have to switch between the two. Anyone who’s ever tried refunding charges across different accounts will tell you that’s an experience which is clunkier than tap dancing in a pair of concrete clogs – and more likely to result in an injury too. So if you value your sanity, then head over to Putler.com and take a look, you can even download a free trial complete with dummy data so you can have a play and see how it works. Putler costs between $9 – $29 depending on account level, and comes highly recommended.

PayPal Micropayments – and when to use them Thanks to PayPal Adaptive Payments suite of APIs you can choose how you want to be paid online. But the real question is, how should that payment be processed? PayPal launched a new service a couple of years ago called PayPal Micropayments. This was a new type of account that you have to apply for (you can’t just accept micro payments on your standard account – not yet anyway!) So what’s the benefit of Micropayments then? Quite simply, it may offer offer lower transaction processing charges for you. And that’s the crux of the matter “it might” – it all depends on the amount of being charged per sale. Bear with me here, it’s about to get a bit technical… PayPal’s normal processing fee (for the UK in £) is 3.4% + 20p per transaction. Now that seems relatively reasonable if you’re selling an item for £100, it would mean a total fee of £3.60… (or 3.6%) However, if the value of the item you’re selling is only £1, then your fee is 23.4p (3.4% +20p) which works out at a colossal 23.4% as a transaction fee. PayPal Micropayments charges a higher percentage, but a lower transaction fee (5% +5p). Clearly Paypal is better suited to larger amounts, BUT trying to find what the threshold was, had proved quite difficult – no one seemed to know for sure! So, I spent a little time creating the attached graph (Please click here to download the original Excel doc). What this shows is the constant line of cost-per-value of Micropayments (the purple line) then above it, running left-right are lines showing the total fees for £, $ and €. Now, where each of these lines crosses the purple line, that is the threshold at which it’s better to switch from Micropayments to PayPal Standard. So, for those of you who are arriving here from a Google search for “What is the threshold for using PayPal Micropayments”… Welcome, the numbers you’re looking for are as follows: UK (GBP) £9.38 US/CAD $11.91 EURO €18.75* *The Euro one is a slightly different as this figure is based on transaction fees of 3.4% + 0.35. From my research it seems this fee structure is the most common throughout the Eurozone countries, however there are some individual nations that are charged 3.4% + 0.25, so if you’re only selling to one EU nation state, then you’d be wise to check what rate that country is. Of course, that’s not the only story though. Because PayPals fees are weighted depending on monthly volumes. However the break points are the same. So the first tier (which all these stats are built using) is based on a monthly revenue of between £0.00 – £1500.00 (for USD and EUR just swap the currency denomination, not the figures). The next tier is from 1.5k – 6k, then 6k – 15k, 15-55k and finally 55k+ at which point the percentage fee has reduced down to only 1.4%, meaning that on an individual sale of £100, the total processing fee would only be £1.60. I’ll look forward to updating this post with a new graph based on 55k pcm sales as soon as I need it!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year 2025