Top 10 list on Shopping With and For a Purpose

Top 10 list on Shopping With and For a Purpose

 

Shopping for many is easy…they head-out to the store…try a few things out…and they either come home with something new or not. Bada-bing bada-boom! Done!  For others is not that simple.  Many shoppers take their time and look through every single item, try everything and anything, compare one store to the other, one price to the other, one quality to the other, etc… and they either come home (much later) with something or they don’t, but yet their minds are still at those stores shopping!

 

Which ever type of shopper you are, here is my TOP 10 list of shopping “with” and “for” a purpose:

 

1. This is the most important one: Leave the Husbands at home! J
2. List your items.  Before heading out, make a detailed list of what you want/need.  Make sure you go for specifics and not just general. For example, if you are looking for shoes…what type, brand, color, size, etc… This will make sure you are focused in what you want/need to get.
3. Online first. Take that list and go online to get some prices in the virtual world.  Go to price comparison site such as shopzilla.com. Then, make a fictitious purchase to see if there rare hidden fees.  To do so, add the article in your “shopping cart” and complete your purchase right up to giving your credit card information.  This will allow you to see the full purchase price!
4. Sign-up.  There are great shopping portals that as you become a free member and join their newsletter, your will receive weekly deals that are out of this world.  Some weekly saving could reduce or give free shipping, promote percentages off (I have seen up to 70% off), give away bonus gifts, etc… And these rebates are only given for online shopping.  You will not see these in the physical stores so join one today! Here is a great one: https://www.goodwillmall.com/membership.php
5. Shop with purpose. Of course we want the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) when shopping, but what if you could also give back as you shop!  Many stores support causes which help the world. From the fight against cancer to the environment!  So investigate the stores you shop at and find out what they support (if any)…this way you can feel good shopping knowing your money goes towards something other then yourself.  Another way to shop with purpose is to look for an online mall that provides a chance to give back to charities.  There are three main one that I am aware of igive, benevolink, and my favourite https://www.goodwillmall.com. They all have their benefits that helps you the shopper and the world!  Check them out! 
6. Set your budget. Many times we tend to go shopping without a budget in mind.  Two things can happen with this…you under-spend (very rarely) or over-spend (most likely)!  This can cause unnecessary stress in your life.  So before heading out, make a budget on the amount that you can and are willing to spend. Stick to it and never go over no matter what. Even if the deal of a century is right in front of your eyes, stick to the budget, there is always a deal of a century around!
7. Choose your shopping partner wisely. Have you ever gone shopping with someone that keeps telling you “oh, that looks great, you should buy it!”, “wow look at that useless gadget, you should really have one of those”, “did you ever get me anything for my birthday?” yet never buy anything for them selves?  These people are called “nit” (no intention to) shoppers.  They have to intention shop, buy, or even pay a dime when to go out to the stores with you.  They get their fix from YOU shopping and spending money.  STAY AWAY from shopping with these people; you’ll come home with all kind of useless junk!
8. Gifts. If you are going to buy a gift for someone, follow this gift chart:

    

   Person to buy for	Price Range	# of gifts	Type of gift
   Spouse (random acts of kindness)	$10-$50	1 per month	Flowers, restaurant, chocolates, hallmark card
   Husband birthday	$50-$100	1 per year	Whatever he hints to you
   Wife birthday	$50-$100	1 per year	Whatever she hints to you
   Spouse (Christmas gift)	$10-$200	Minimum 2	Pick-up hints throughout the year
   Your children (random acts of kindness)	$5 and under	1 per month	Dollar store items, YOUR TIME, books and magazines from yard sales
   Your children birthday	$50-$100	1 per child	Pick-up hints throughout the year or take them on a trip to Toys-R-Us 1 month before their birthday and ask them to pick something out that their friends would love (for fun). Write it down and then go get it when their not around.
   Your children (Christmas gifts)	$10-$100	2 per child	Pick-up hints throughout the year
   Wedding anniversary	$100-?	Max 2	It could be anything from jewellery, to a getaway trip, to a new car! J
   Newly weds	$50-$100	1-3	Look for their “gift registry” list
   Graduation	$100-?	1	Briefcase, new suit, it could even go as high as a car (if you can afford it).
   Friends (random acts of kindness)	$30 and under	1 per friend per year	Restaurant, movie, YOUR TIME, clothing
   Friends birthday	$30-$50	1 per friend	Ask them
   Friends (Christmas gift)	$30-$50	1	Do a friend gift exchange or else it gets too expensive.
   Parents (random acts of kindness)	Under $20	3 per year	Parents have done so much for us, let’s not forget this! Movie, flowers, lottery tickets (my mom loves them). Most importantly, as they get older…SPEND TIME with them or call them regularly.
   Parents birthday	$20-$50	1	BooOverall ks, puzzles, crafts
   Parents anniversary	$100-?	1	Depending on the year, I would say this could vary.  If they get to 50 years together…a party uniting friends and family would be recommended!
   Parents (Christmas gift)	$20-$50	1 per parent	Get hints throughout the year.  Depending on the family size, I suggest a gift exchange as it can get expensive.
   Siblings (random acts of kindness)	$20-$50	3 per year	Movie, outing, YOUR TIME
   Siblings (birthday)	$50-$100	1	Ask them what they want or a prepaid Visa/MasterCard is really good.  This way they can buy whatever they want wherever they want!
   Siblings (Christmas)	$20-$30	Max 2	Get hints throughout the year.  Depending on the family size, I suggest a gift exchange as it can get expensive.
   Nephews and Nieces (Christmas / Birthday)	$20 and under	1	Depending on the size of your family, this can get expensive. Ask the parents for ideas.
   Other	?	?	You decide…but make sure you follow some of my tips to get the your shopping done with and for a purpose!

    

    

    

9. Overall cost and benefits. With the price of gas being so high, you need to start calculating the total cost of your shopping.  Take a look at the distance you need to travel to get to the physical mall.  What does that translate in gas cost to you? Add it to your bill. Then, what is your time worth? Calculate how much you make (income) an hour and multiply that 3 (very conservative) to get a true worth of your time. Now estimate the amount of time you will spend shopping (either online or physically), then multiply your “time” by the amount of time shopping.  Add that to the bill. Will you need to eat out? Add that to the bill. Now take a look at your cost of shopping physically and the cost of shopping online. What are their respective cost and benefits? By comparing both, you will get a clear picture where your next shopping experience will occur. For me, it’s online all the way!
10. Your new bible. Now that you have my top 10 list on shopping with and for a purpose, please share it with others and make sure to follow it each time you go shopping, it will save you time and MONEY!    

Article by Vigceo
VIG Member

 

If you would like to know more about IG (important giver) and VIG (very important giver) membership, please visit our web site at:

 

http://www.goodwillmall.com
Buy More, Get More, Give More!

 

 

If you would like to learn about blogging for profit and get a FREE 50 page ebook, and start getting a blogging coach, please click here:

 

http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=824649&u=http://www.blogmastermind.com/coaching

 

 

Thank you!
Vigceo…where it’s all about GOODWILL!

10 Blog Traffic Tips

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn”t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you”ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn”t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I”ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won”t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=824649

Learn the “How” To Making Money Blogging (Without the Monkeys!)

 

I’m new at this “blogging” thing…and let me tell you, IT’S ADDICTIVE! But just like anything new, you have to know how to do it right, and want to do it right!  Otherwise, it’s just something that you occasionally tackle when you have spare time or just a hobby and don’t think much of it.

 

But for those interested in seriously making a contribution based on your life experiences, acquired knowledge, wisdom, and/or niche expertise…then this is a way of life for you to explore! It will be of great benefit for others (and surprisingly for yourself as well).

 

Let’s start by answering your foremost pressing question…what can I blog about?  Well, this depends on your life! What I mean is you need to step back and think about what type of activities, events, learning, and paths that you have journeyed throughout your life.  Now note some of those down!  Once you have a complete list written down, take each one of them and try to break them down further.  For example, let’s say you have “skiing” because you went to the Alps Helicopter skiing. Then break it to down to “Down Hill Helicopter Skiing”.  Now think about the blog you could create on that topic!  Plus, it’s very specialized and unique. There’s a lot more to this step…but I will talk about this later.

 

The next questions you probably have are “how do I start a Blog?”, “how do I get people to read my blog?”, or even “is there money to be made with blogs?” The answers to these questions need a lot more attention then just a quick response from an article.  Like me, the best way to do this is through learning and applying the best techniques.  Sure you can search the web and see how others do it.  You can trial and error by yourself and perhaps succeed. But the best way to do it is with Yaro!

 

Yaro Starak is a blogger’s dream come true!  He is a great mentor with great tools.  His coaching methods and systems platform to support it all is out-of-this-world! If you are serious about becoming a full-time blogger and would seriously like to make money, then check him out:

 

http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=824649&u=http://www.blogmastermind.com/coaching

 

‘Twas the nights before “Giftmas”

I don’t know about you folks out there, but I thought Christmas was celebrated on December 25^th!?  Growing up, due to family traditions, I celebrated Christmas mostly on December 24^th where my parents would wake my brother and I (close to midnight) to open up our well deserve (yah right!) presents.  And as the years went on, the “wake-up” time became earlier and earlier until we would open every present by 9 p.m.  I have heard of people celebrating Christmas in and around December 25^th but now it has gone too far!

 

Would you believe it if I told you there is a Christmas in July? This is the most popular of none “December” Christmas where people enjoy shopping and give one another gifts.  I have just recently heard on the radio that a there would soon to be a Christmas in September in my area.  When will the madness end?  Just a quick reminder to everyone…Christmas is actually to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and should be considered a religious celebration. Not an excuse to go shopping or receiving gifts!

 

I have a great suggestion to put out there…we should start naming the December 25^th Christmas “The day of Christ” and make it purely a celebration to those who are believers!  None of this crazy “I buy for you, you buy for me” gift exchange ritual.  In exchange, we could name the other Christmas days out there “Giftmas” to be celebrated by a showering of gift exchange, tree decorating, and eggnog.  This way, there would be no confusion!

 

Now I know that many fundraisers use these non December “Christmas” to have fun and raise funds for some very special needs.  I understand that our society relates Christmas to money and spending as oppose to the birth of Christ.  I know that the word “Christmas” lost all of its original meaning a long time ago.  My goal is not to change any of this, but to gain the meaning and true reason behind December 25^th…to give back the respect and appreciation it so deserves and currently lacks.

 

I for one will start this tradition for my family and will be celebrating both The Day of Christ and Giftmas!  So until December 25^th, I wish you all a happy “Giftmas in September”!

The Latest in Online Shopping

The Online Shopping Craze

Fuel-up to SHOP or shop to SAVE fuel?

 

With gas prices being so low…uh I mean HIGH (almost got you there), people are starting to wonder which is better, to stay home and shop on-line or to get in my car and head to the store.  Let me start by giving you some online retail information.

  

According The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2008, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $33.8 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±1.0%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. Total retail sales for the first quarter of 2008 were estimated at $1,024.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent (±0.2%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. The first quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate increased 13.6 percent (±1.2%) from the first quarter of 2007 while total retail sales increased 2.8 percent (±0.2%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.3 percent of total sales. On a not adjusted basis, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2008 totalled $32.4 billion, a decrease of 16.9 percent (±1.0%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. The first quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate increased 13.4 percent (±1.2%) from the first quarter of 2007 while total retail sales increased 3.7 percent (±0.2%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. Click here for more information: http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/data/html/08Q1.html

 

Now, you may think that with only 3.4% of consumers shopping online that the trend is negative and not very popular. Let me put things in perspective for you…it was only 0.6% in 2000!  So although it is clear that physical shopping is still the preferred method of shopping, virtual shopping is on the rise.  With gas prices always rising, online security improving, shipping cost reducing, and online “special” becoming very aggressive…you may be the next person joining the online shopping growth!

 

Here are a few tips for shopping online: there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing the right online store. 

 

1. Check their security.  Do they have a certificate (https://) or hacker proof?
2. Read their policies…don’t just click “agree”.  Some policies are not clear and very misleading. 
3. Look for a purpose!  I found that many sites give you ways to shop that are very rewarding. 

Take a look at our mall for instance: www.goodwillmall.com, you can shop while giving to charities (up to five).  Plus you get great rebates, access to brand name stores such as Land’s End, Office depot, etc… And you also accumulate points (for other purchases or donations).  This is online shopping at its best!!! And let’s not forget our blog www.blog.goodwillmall.com which has articles and ideas on goodwill, donating, volunteering, fundraisers, and much, much, more!

Shopping And Saving Money - Tips On How To Do Both!