[James]

Originally Posted by pdadave

[but seems like the bussiness plan doesn't always work quite right. Well, I guess it is working for you Jason!

What business plan does work right? By all conventionall business knowledge, Amazon.com should have been out of business ages ago and the dotcom rocket would have exploded on the launch pad - not 2 years later.

[James]

Originally Posted by pdadave

[but seems like the bussiness plan doesn't always work quite right. Well, I guess it is working for you Jason!

What business plan does work right? By all conventionall business knowledge, Amazon.com should have been out of business ages ago and the dotcom rocket would have exploded on the launch pad - not 2 years later.

[Dave Conger]

True...Amazon is always surprising me with the low prices and their still in business company! Hopefully the economy will pick up and pick up the internet economy with it.

[James]

Originally Posted by pdadave

True...Amazon is always surprising me with the low prices and their still in business company! Hopefully the economy will pick up and pick up the internet economy with it.

The economy should be heading back up before too long, but I suspect the internet economy will be a long time getting back to what it was - if ever. The companies that survived are likely to do very well after the recovery, but I doubt we'll IPOs regularly hitting 1000% ever again. At least Amazon finally turned a quarterly profit. Be interesting to see how long it takes 'em to make a real profit and payback all their loans.

[Kre]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

...They profit in the end!

Yeah, by selling your name, home, work, and email addresses, phone numbers, and any other personal info that you`d have printed, to any and every outside party for a profit in exchange for some nice, pretty business cards.

How else could they wake up everyday and decide to make free business cards for total strangers for `free`, the cost of which comes out of their pockets, and pay Jason and whoever else a buck on top of it all?

Nothing is free. There`s always a catch. No company could hope to survive by spending money out of their own pockets by going through the labor of printing business cards for free for the masses, while basing profits on the hope that they would return to have more printed for a fee. That would be a foolish way to go into business for oneself. I`m sure they would realize this, so selling peoples` info for a profit would cover these losses.

So for me, I have to say, no thanks.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Kre

Yeah, by selling your name, home, work, and email addresses, phone numbers, and any other personal info that you`d have printed...

You're entitled to believe what you want, but in the business world it's called a "loss leader". You lose money on it to get them in the door in the hopes that they'll order more products from you in the future. Besides, most people ordering the "free" cards will end up spending $5-$10 on extras like removing the VistaPrint name from it.

I didn't notice an increase in spamming/telemarker calls after I ordered them. If I had, I would not recommend them to my readers.

[OzBert]

Yeah, I ordered the free ones for my mom, then heck while I was at it ordered some for me as well already paying s&h.

Additionally some address labels for my mom, which I wanted to buy anyway someplace else but didn't get around to do so.

If I am satisfied with the first shipment I can also see myself ordering more.

"Not feeling suckered in", Oz