Nickname: Samantha Rufo

Review: Aren't you comparing apples and oranges? Although a brick & mortar store may not stand in your way when you leave, there is usually only one door. On the web, with so many "doors", it's important to find a way to re-direct visitors away from them as much as possible (in a positive way). Especially when web surfers all suffer from ADD and plan to only give your site about three seconds.

Date reviewed: Apr 26, 2006 12:17 PM

Nickname: Alex Genov

Review: The idea of companies projecting confidence is incredibly important. Nevertheless, it is very hard for top executives to embrace it. A lot of big and powerful companies still rely on marketing gimmicks to sqeeze out short-term profits from customers instead of satisfying customer needs, even if this means giving customers options.

Date reviewed: Apr 23, 2006 2:43 AM

Nickname: dejayajay

Review: Reverse psychology is a very powerful tool.

Date reviewed: Apr 15, 2006 10:56 PM

Nickname: Jeffrey Antisdel, CMO, The Working Person

Review: Blogs are not in the business of retailing, so sending users away and having them return is no huge surprise. Blogs simply facilitate the process of foraging and gathering of information, not products. More to the point, I see very few retailers offering directions to competitor's stores in the brick-and-mortar retail world. Indeed, if a retailer is doing the job properly, the retailer would be doing his customer a disservice to send them to a competitor who's offering would be, at best, equal or inferior to the retailer's own shopping experience. Bottom line: Trust and loyalty are not facilitated by placing links to a competing retailer. These are gained by delivering fanatical customer service and highly competitive price/value proposition, (not by beating a pathway to a nearby online/offline competitor). The end game is in meeting customer expectations. Do that, and customers not only stick around, they'll reward you with a wonderful lifetime relationship.

Date reviewed: Apr 15, 2006 5:05 PM

Nickname: James Doig

Review: A very sensible thesis, but do you have any real-world supporting examples? Anecdotally, AOL seems to make it difficult for users to leave their service and for years has almost denied the existence of the outside Internet. But one wonders how difficult and successful your strategy would be for them.

Date reviewed: Apr 15, 2006 10:55 AM

Nickname: AM

Review: Well said.

Date reviewed: Apr 14, 2006 6:20 PM