The traditional skiing holiday with its early twenties enjoying boozy apres ski activities well into the early hours was clearly the format that worked 25 years ago. However, those 20 somethings are now in their mid 40′s and their expectations, wants and desires have changed. While listening to the local reps rant on about their apres ski activities, consisting of pub-crawls, pub-quizzes and boozy ski-trips I had already switched off and was looking around at their target audience.

Being late forties I wasn’t the youngest there but there were many far older than I and they had also switched off. Oblivious to their audience (customers) the reps continued their talk. Less than half way through I got up and left. Apparently we (me and the wife) were the only ones that voted with our feet.

This particular operator was desperately keen to get our feedback as it was important for them to learn from us, ‘particularly in these difficult economic times‘. That’s a great start, however, listening is only the first part of changing. Tour operators, like all businesses, need to actively listen to their customers then act and respond to their comments and needs. It’s not good enough nor acceptable to group, package and label our customers. Customers are human beings and each has their own needs that have to be satisfied in a way that they want. Our recent welcome party was a stark reminder that many companies, and probably industry sectors, still have a long way to go.

Yell.com are seeking to refinance £3.8billion (that’s £3,800,000,000!) and, at the same time, are looking to raise a further £660m (that’s another £660,000,000 ) from its investors.

For most business owners these figures are incomprehensibly large.

At its simplest level Yell.com provide directory services to businesses and generates revenue through advertising. That’s a simple enough concept for most of us to grasp and makes one wonder why, therefore, Yell.com are in such difficulty.

The simples answer is, of course, The Internet and the shift in consumer habits in relation to local search ( I do, however, accept that there are some complex issues behind the current difficult financial situation)

Personally, I can’t remember the last time i looked at the Yellow Pages so I took a quick straw-poll of my friends to see what they thought. Not one could remember the last time they used Yellow pages (nor yell.com for that matter) to find a local product or service over using The Internet. Not one could remember the last time they dusted off their copy of Yellow Pages and tried to find their local drain unblocking service, removals company or dentist.

And there’s the rub: More and more frequently, consumers are turning to the Internet as their first point of call for local search and, with some 90% of the UK market, Google will be the main deliverer of results for those searches.

As businesses catch onto this situation and turn to direct, online, niche search, they will benefit from reduced advertising costs and improved conversions. Where though does that leave Yell.com, its debt and investors?

Here’s the story. As only the Monty Python cast could tell it…

The serious side of this is the power of free and it’s ability to generate a huge following. The Monty Python’s decision to give away all their archive footage has developed a new generation of Python followers and has relaunched their dvd collection to best seller status.

Whether you’re a fan or not, go grab yourself a coffee and take 15 minutes to browse around their channel. Come back and tell me if you didn’t get a smile on your face. http://www.youtube.com/montypython

As a husband of a top author (check out www.theharcombediet.com), I was equally excited about the prospect of being able to help her find an additional route-to-market for her writing skills.

So with massive enthusiasm I jumped in to order my Kindle and get to work on Zoe’s Kindle books.

Now the reality:

Kindle will be available worldwide as of 17.10.09 but it can only be purchased from Amazon.com (in the USA).  The price tag of $279 makes it ok value but when you get to the cart, you get charged $20.98 shipping and $45 import tax. Total price $344.98. mmm strange that wasn’t mentioned in any press release.

Ok, so hardware sorted, how about the publishing side? An early claim from Kindle was that it will change the world of publishing, making it easier for authors to get their works published without needing to find a publisher (echos of itunes here…).  So after reading all the technical requirements for publishing, which seemed relatively simple if you can manage some basic html, I set off to publish.

Unfortunately, what Amazon don’t tell you is that to have an author account to publish to Kindle you must have a US dollar bank account, a US social security number and a US postal address. Basically, you need to be an American living in America.

So, Kindle is available to the world, you can download any of their 250,000 titles in under 60 seconds each, anywhere on mother earth. Great, as long as you want to read American literature.

Jeff Bezos (Founder of Amazon)  states their vision for Kindle is  “…to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds”

Jeff, if you’re reading this; please, please, please sort out the Author accounts so that authors worldwide can start to add their works. You’ve managed it for Createspace (Amazon’s self-publish service)  when will the same be available for Kindle?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to provide an estimate or quote for a slug of work – When I know what I’m expected to be quoting for.

Would the people that ask me these questions expect a considered answer under these circumstances?

How much for a car?

How much for a flight?

How much for a suit?

How much for a meal?

How much for a house?

I could go on, but you’ll have the idea by now.

The cost, price, value of a product or service clearly depends on factors that are pertinent to its characteristics. A car can cost as little as a few hundred pounds in Newport auction or a quarter of a million for a Bugatti Veyron. Similarly, I can jump on a RyanAir flight to Spain for a tenner while a first class flight to NZ will set me back £15k. A bag of chips down Caroline street is about £1.20 these days and a meal at a half-decent restaurant in London will likely set me back £100, for two.

Not surprisingly, the price I would expect to pay in these circumstances will set my expectation as to the quality of the goods that I would receive. But that’s a different posting for another day.

The concept described here is surely not that complex for anyone to grasp; Different things cost different amounts. A ‘Simple’ brochure website (if there is such a thing) will be less costly than a full blown bespoke ecommerce solution with loads of clever widgets for SEO and product upsells. A full day’s photography that requires sets and back-ups and models will cost more than a head shot for a press-release.

The important point here is; I cannot tell you ‘how much will it cost?’ until I know what it is I am expected to be doing.

Financial Times recently revealed that it’s looking at a pay-per-article model which is an extension of its current subscription service. They, quite rightly, state that quality journalism costs money and has a value to the reader. The evolution of this thinking is that readers will, therefore, pay for it. Quite a reasonable view to take in isolation however, with the vast majority of Internet users expecting content to be freely available, how will Mr Murdoch and News Corporation monetise this?

They are certainly looking at the current monthly visitor stats as an opportunity to sell but are they recognising that their current figures are so high because their content is free? Mr Murdoch has a habit of getting these things right; sometimes through clever intuition and marketing, other times oughtright bullying consumers.

Most Internet trends reach the UK from the USA. The demise of traditional newspaper revenue models resulting from free Internet content is already taking place in the USA. I’ll be interested to see how NewsCorp’s brave new step will be accepted on this side of the pond.

Whereas high street retail sales have only had a positive growth in one month in 2009, online sales have shown an average 14% year on year growth.

Key sectors showing the most growth were clothing accessories and footwear with 63% and 25% year on year growth respectively and the health and beauty sector also experienced a 31% change over the same period.

Although overall sales have increased, individual website conversion rates continues to drop. This sugegsts that online shoppers are being far more selective in their purchasing and browsing more for the best prices. website conversion rates have declined from 7-8% in 2007, to 5-6% in 2008 and to the current 4-5% in 2009.