So the Brits are gloating over their “superior” medal haul at the Beijing Olympics.

A total of 47 medals, compared to 46 for Australia. Wow, one extra medal (5 more Gold, 2 less Silver and 2 less Bronze). Yet if you look at it compared to population numbers, they have nearly three times the population — 61 million Brits versus 21 million Aussies — but nowhere near three times the “superiority” on the dais.

From another perspective, Great Britain is made up of four separate countries (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), versus just one country (Australia).

Australia competes on its own at both the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games — so why don’t England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

I’m stunned that in 2008 a federal politician can still be so wrongly advised (and accept that advice) about the internet!

Here’s the article in today’s Herald Sun:

1.8m Check Out Grocery Price Site

It starts off with this:

THE new GROCERYchoice website received 1.8 million hits in its first four days, showing consumers are interested in the information it provides, federal Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen says.

1.8m HITS does NOT mean 1.8m VISITORS! Idiots!

In fact, I checked out the grocery site and noticed on the home page alone there are 22 hits — without me visiting a single other page on the site.

So 1.8m divided by 22 equals less than 82,000 visits — assuming only looking at a single page (which has no useful info).

If an average visitor looked at 2 pages — that means no more than 41,000 visitors (I clicked on my state — Victoria — and that page had 21 hits) … and at 2 pages, I’ve still not got any useful info.

So that 40,000 figure is more likely no more than 20,000 — if that — and I’m not even allowing for use by the government and public servants!

So 1.8m eh, Mr Assistant Treasurer? The real number of visitors is more likely to be no more than 20,000 or so … a massive difference.

That’s also forgetting that unit pricing has ALWAYS been around — if you’re smart enough to be able to do some basic maths in your head. Whether it’s on the shelf or not, it’s not that hard to work out.

Is the federal Assistant Treasurer really that stupid and ignorant about the internet? Based on this “news” he has no idea what he is talking about!

It staggers me sometimes to find out how much effort some people will put in to think they’re actually saving a few dollars.

Case in point: in an article in today’s Age (Hundreds queue for cut-price fuel), a petrol station dropped the price of petrol in McKinnon, a suburb here in Melbourne’s south-east, by 10 cents per litre.

It was reported that motorists came from as far away as Melbourne’s west — a 45 minute drive EACH WAY — to buy some of the fuel.

A “saving”?

Not in any way for this particular motorist.

According to Google maps, a trip from McKinnon to, say, Sunshine in Melbourne’s west, takes 34km and 47 minutes.

So a round trip is around 68km.

Let’s be generous here an assume the motorist is driving a reasonably fuel efficient 4 cylinder 2.0 litre powered car, such as a Ford Focus. According to online reviews, the Focus gets around 8.0 litres per 100km fuel efficiency.

So that 68km costs around 5.4 litres in fuel. Even at the discounted $1.497 price, that costs $8.

We’re not even taking into account here the 20 or 30 minutes the motorist probably sat idled waiting to fill up!

Even if we assume the driver let the 55 litre fuel tank run down to empty (improbable, given the risk of a 45 minute trip — but we’ll stay on the conservative side of this example), the $0.10 saving would save only $5.50 (absolute maximum).

So they’re AT LEAST $2.50 out of pocket just on recovering the cost of fuel in getting to the location!

We’ll forget about the car’s maintenance and running costs that would probably add a couple more dollars to the cost of the trip.

We can assume the driver avoids Melbourne’s tolled City Link, with a trip cost each way of $5.30 (from the Westgate freeway through the tunnel).

Now, on the matter of “time” spent on this saving. Let’s assume the driver had to wait only 10 minutes once they arrived in McKinnon (in actual fact probably a lot more, given the “chaos” this little saving caused and the “hundreds” that queued).

The time is around 1 hour and 40 minutes … let’s be ultra conservative, assume he drove straight in, filled up, paid and drove straight out in 5 minutes. The exercise probably took two hours, but we’ll stick with 1.75 hours to be generous to the driver in our calculation.

They’re already out of pocket, so what value do they put on their time?

According to the latest government info, the Full-time adult total earnings as of February 2008 was $1173.50.

If that accounts for 40 hours of work, then it equates to $29.3375 per hour … or $51.35 for 1.75 hours.

So … cost of fuel for the trip is $8, plus car running costs, plus over $51 in the value of the time … around $60 in total — to save, according to the article an average of $4 to $5.

The true cost of the trip is more than 10 TIMES higher than the saving!

The incredible lesson here is how much the “hip-pocket nerve” affects decision making — the “opportunity” to save $0.10 per litre was so overwhelmingly powerful that, at least in one case, it overtook the logic of accounting for the cost of taking up the opportunity.

An interesting behaviour to keep in mind, whether in politics or marketing.

eBay Australia’s decision to force all sellers to ONLY accept PayPal (with few exceptions for cars, motorcycles, aircraft, boats, caravans, trailers, trucks (commercials), services, real estate and businesses for sale) seems like an extremely bad strategy to me.

eBay own PayPal.

Imagine going into a supermarket and then only being allowed to pay with a credit card from that same chain (so the supermarket can make some extra fees)… that’s not much different to what will happen on eBay over the next couple of months!

Not only are competing payment systems like Paymate and others removed from the payment options, even cheques and money orders will be banned.

Isn’t it strange that eBay don’t mention they make NO extra fees when you use these competing payment options like direct bank transfers or money orders, but they do make LOTS of extra fees when you accept PayPal?

I didn’t see any mention of their increase in profits from forcing you to accept PayPal in their sales push for the changes.

Surely the banks — who do make money from online transactions and cheque accounts — and Australia Post (who make money off money orders) will have something to say about their payment methods being banned.

And about PayPal vs banks — is it more trustworthy? PayPal is owned by eBay — are they regulated and watched closely like the banking industry?

And if it’s such as good idea, why do eBay say they have no plans for a PayPal-only model in the USA?

eBay spokesperson Nichola Sharpe said the new policy applies only to eBay in Australia. “There are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in the US and we haven’t announced any other markets at this time.”
– http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i10/s01

eBay tell buyers that PayPal is “free” — but sellers have extra costs with PayPal and undoubtedly they will be passed on to the buyer.

Right now sellers can accept fee-free payments: not once this new policy is in place!

Also, doesn’t it work with PayPal where there may be a dispute, that PayPal can not only take the money back out of your PayPal account, but if you don’t have enough there, they take it straight from your bank account?

PayPal horror stories abound.

And that’s not all.

This from eBay’s own site:

To further reduce the number of buyer disputes, PayPal may delay the release of funds for up to 21 days or until the buyer leaves positive feedback.
– http://pages.ebay.com.au/useprotection/changes-sell.html

Most buyers don’t leave positive feedback until the goods are received… so you have to send them before you even get the funds released!

On the same page, they also say “This is targeted at a small percentage of items which pose the greatest risk; the overwhelming majority of sellers will not be affected.” — but don’t explain any further.

Wouldn’t forcing customers onto a single payment method be anti-competitive? Especially when you have over 5 million customers and you dominate your category.

There is of course COD cash on delivery. But how many eBayers transact that way though? Many sellers even ban you from picking up items, and charge a small forture for shipping even in your own city.

You don’t have to bid of course. Nor do you have to be part of eBay. But eBay claim 1 in 3 Australian adults as members — now they’re forcing their own payment system down your throat.

eBay claim it’s all about trust and safety … and that it’ll be good for everyone (surprise surprise). Strangely they neglect to say it’s also very much about their profits!

Marketing lesson: if you rely on one marketplace, you’re at the mercy of the changes in that marketplace.