by: The Localmart Advocate

This is the first of series of blog posts regarding Localmart (Localmart.net) vendor guidelines.
      One of the benefits of creating a website (that hopefully will draw interest) is that you get to implement policies that satisfy your long simmering “pet peeve” grievances. Admittedly, these grievances do not quite rise to the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” level. However, it is satisfying to be a curmudgeon in creating certain standards for vendors who list their products and services in the Localmart Marketplace. Here is a list (some of which is just ranting):

1. Prices such as $9.99 or $99.95
   Gosh, that’s way less than $10.00 or $100.00 so I guess that I can afford it.
   Please don’t insult your customer’s intelligence in pricing your products. Round it up. If penny or five pennies is the breaking point for a purchase decision of that size, then your customer probably doesn’t need it anyway. (You might even use $10.01, just to be the “anti $9.99” curmudgeon).
2. Monetization Optimization:
   This is our “corporate speak” phrase for “How can we squeeze the most money out of any product or service, any page on a website, or anything that moves, or doesn’t move.
   These are some examples that we can’t do anything about (yet):
   -Ads on and in busses, on shopping carts, park benches, and seemingly everywhere – even on our clothes!
   -Renaming of iconic sports stadiums with dull corporate names
   -During sports broadcasts, cleverly sneaking in an ad or plug based on almost any event or opportunity (“Here we are in the Hawaiin Airlines broadcast booth at Oracle Park and when it’s time for a (pitching) change, think Speedee oil change and auto repair.”)
   These are some examples that we can do something about:
   -So many ads, popups and videos on your computer or phone screen that it looks like it’s going to crawl out of your computer screen or phone. At Localmart, we want to give vendors the opportunity to broadcast their offerings with tasteful and limited ads (and yes, the revenue helps), but we’ll try to keep it reasonable.
3. Techno-Illusion-Optimism (TIO)
   This is our term for the tendency to try to solve the problems that technology has created by using more technology. (Try: carbon sequestration) Instead of breaking things and then trying to fix them, let’s just try to break less and do more with less, e.g. less transportation of products, more reuse of containers and packaging, less disposal, more opportunities for individuals to “find your inner entrepreneur”, and a simpler and more community oriented way of life.
   That’s it for now, but we will no doubt find more pet peeves. (I get more cynical every day, but just can’t keep up!)

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