7 causes of Trigger Happy Social Selling #TENDb4uSEND selling lessons from Operation Bookend

Barely a day goes by when someone presses the ENTER button on their keyboard too hastily and regrets it. You and I succumb to this trigger happy instinct as much as the famous.

Such social media rashness can have all sorts of unintended consequences.

 I guess we should  have expected and possibly reassured  that the Bank of England was working hard at contingency planning for the possibility of a Brexit .

The miss-sent email copied to the Guardian newspaper has been a diplomatic embarrassment for Old lady of Threadneedle Street. The slip revealed Project Bookend.

The Financial Times reported a statement from the Bank on Sunday evening 24^th May

 “It is not sensible to talk about this work publicly in advance,” it said. “But as with work done before the Scottish referendum, we will disclose the details of such work at the appropriate time."

  7 of the commonest causes of sending-too-soon in our social media communications

Since social selling communication is a two way process, pressures to react, respond, transmit and tell in social media effects both seller and buyer.

1. Our concentration can be distracted by noise, visual distractions of screens, movement whilst texting.

2. Sometimes we are just not in the mood for calm read/receive. In our mind  we may think“ I don’t want read all that” “I am not listening to all that” and skip to hasty respond mode.

3. There are  language barriers , foreign language, technical language, jargon and even emojis to interpret. All are fine so long as both parties understand them as wells  the audience of the wider social community. Predictive text, unchecked, can also cause problems.

4.. Our will to listen/receive can also be affected by  our circadian rhythms whether we are early morning larks, afternoon folk or night owls. Tiredness similarly affects  social media communication in our 24 hour business village.

 At the end of a working day in the UK, part of the USA have just woken up and their thumbs and fingers are full of enthusiastic vim and vigour whilst on other part of the world it digit fatigue is more apparent. 

5. Speed of  delivery and response pressure   has led to poor typing and the tweeting equivalent to  mumbling this can confuse or switch off your listener/ receiver. On the receiver/ reader end careless speed reading. So the consequences of live twitter contributions to conferencing on a global scale has challenges. 

6. Misunderstandings can arise from assumptions.  ASS/U/ME 

7. People’s eyes are straining and squinting at screens of notebooks, tablets and smart phone screens more than ever before - as a consequence misreading is likely to increase. 

Most of the time we give little conscious attention to these complexities and breakdowns in communication, we just text instinctively. There can lie a danger.

More channels has not necessarily meant better communication.

In our age of social media ,not only must we 'look before we leap' but tend (in the sense of  watch over)   before we send.


Tend before you send ! #TENDb4uSEND

Related Links

Monitoring, Texting and Integrating social into your mix

3 social selling tips from the Vikings

Building Confidence in Social selling

Should scorn ever be part of social selling ?

#OSCAR winning Selling by #Facebook with their Poster campaign coordinating the power of visual

"As a filmmaker, I wish we didn't have to do trailers at all, quite honestly. I wish we didn't have to do posters. I wish didn't have to give anything away. I wish people could just come in the movie blind. But as an audience member, I respect that you have to tell an audience that this is worth your time."
                                                              Drew Goddard

As  the Hollywood Oscars for 2015 are celebrated, it reminds me of another awards competition for posters , hoardings etc. that used to be held.

The event was promoted by OSCAR  Outside Site Classification and Awards Research.

The Outdoor Media Industry can teach we in selling a lot about designs for our Pop Up stand, posters and  leaflets etc  which we use to promote our offering albeit in our smaller scaled manner

 Back in the day, 1987 the UK  Outdoor Media industry launched OSCAR –

 It was felt that audience claims for posters and hoardings  were overstated and a more objective set of measures was required.

OSCAR involved noting the physical characteristics of all the poster displayed across the country through a comprehensive survey.

 Data collected included :-

·         the direction a panel faced,

·         its height,

·         distance from the road etc.

The number of people passing by a panel could then be ‘netted down’ according to these factors, introducing  better accuracy into audience counts. Eyeballs were countered rather differently to our social media clicks of today.

Coverage and frequency estimates that resulted were lowered

 – 1,000 roadside posters were now predicted to reach about 45% instead of the previous rough and ready guesstimate of 85% 'rule of thumb'. Most in the business considered the estimates to be far more realistic than before.

Traditional Large poster site

I am not sure OSCAR still exists but  if it does, but if I was on the panel of judges my nomination this month would be the blitz campaign of Facebook February 2015.  

They have kept it simple. 

Few words, a logo and a Photo and a   like-tick in the box.

Keep it simple salespeople KISS

Less of a kiss perhaps,more a knock-out combination of advert punches I’d say

What makes for good poster design ?

The poster design needs to convey the message  yet at the same time appeal to the aesthetic tastes of your audience.

Behind a good poster should be a message or idea.

The Imax 3D Cinema on the Southbank of Thames

It must communicate something and should reach everyone.

The design should be consistent with the details

At night on the Imax

The same font should be used for the titles of all the series for consistency.

The core skill is learning how to balance a composition, and looking at how the viewer's eye will see it.

Balancing the font  type and images is essential as you want people to notice the image.

In a nutshell it must be readable, legible, well-organised and succinct.

When creating an effective poster it is very important to remember that less is more

Video Clip below :The huge screen over the platform entrances at London's Waterloo mainline railway station - the facebook campaign movie !

Display at Waterloo station

1. Try not to clutter your poster and make it look to busy. 

2.  Keep the writing as short and to the point as possible 

3.  Choose a simple colour scheme and stick to it 

4.  Do not overpower the poster with graphics and tables etc.

With this Facebook campaign you sense they tested everything that they used, tried out different font styles and sizes and ask for other people’s opinion.

Lessons for we in selling with our smaller scale posters, leaflets and flyers in selling.

When you have decided what information and graphics you want to use, print them out, cut them out and lay on to the poster sized template, so you can move them around until you think it looks right.

This way you can see what it will look like when finished, and not just up on your computer screen.

Illuminated sites along the Cromwell Road - the Great West Road.
 Repeated along both sides the length of the road

And of course

Location, 

Location,

Location

Illuminated sites along the busy Cromwell Road - the Great West Road

Links and Further Reading

Social Selling Attention Tips from the OSCARS

Positive Media Marketing's tips for Poster design

Route Outdoor Media Analytics -interesting pdf to download

IPSOS paper on measuring effectiveness- written by Andrew Green - Zenith Optimedia 007

Selling and @FIFAWorldCup #Brazil2014 , Social Media and the shadow of 2022

"Obrigado Brasil pela recepcao calorosa", which translates as "Thank you Brazil for your warm welcome" read a banner held by the England football squad at their training centre in Rio.

 They were then serenaded with a version of 'We Are The Champions' and traditional music from a samba band from the Bola Pra Frente favela. 

Yet it was FIFA, the body responsible for the beautiful game of soccer who headed our football news last night. This story about alleged wrongdoing over the 2022 bid has emerged just as the soccer festival begins in Brazil.

The alleged bribery story was exposed by The Sunday Times.

 One of the FIFA Corporate Partners Sony has demanded an investigation into the alleged bribes.

Sony stated  "As a FiFA partner, we expect these allegations to be investigated appropriately."

"We continue to expect FIFA to adhere to its principles of integrity ethics and fair play across all aspects of its operations," it added.

Sony, Adidas ,Coca Cola. Hyundai / Kia, Emirates, Visa are the six main FIFA sponsors who collectively paid around $180m last year. Most have now followed Sony’s lead.

Their statements have stressed  “principles of integrity, ethics and fair play across all aspects of FIFA’s operation”.

Sony's sponsorship agreement expires this year, which gives it particular leverage as it negotiates a new deal.
“We expect FIFA will take the appropriate actions to respond to the report and its recommendations,” said Melissa Cassar, a spokeswoman for Foster City, California-based Visa, in an e-mail. “We will continue to monitor its internal investigation.”

Hyundai Motor Co. is “confident that FIFA is taking these allegations seriously and that the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee will conduct a thorough investigation,” the South Korean FIFA partner said in an e-mail.

“Anything that detracts from the mission and ideals of the FIFA World Cup is a concern to us, but we are confident that FIFA is taking these allegations very seriously and is investigating them thoroughly,” Alison Brubaker, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Coke, wrote in an e-mail.

Anheuser-Busch inBev NV also is monitoring the situation, Laura Vallis, a spokeswoman for the Leuven, Belgium-based company, in an e-mail. “We expect FIFA to take all necessary steps to address the issue”

The real world factors of the marketing model PESTLE will still play crucial role for the main sponsors. The world cup in Brazil and after will be affected  by factors such as politics, economics, society, technology,  legal issues and environmental which will bubble on during the tournament and beyond.

For the 2014 tournament it is expected there will be a big increase in brand promotion via social media.

Artist Paolo Ito's powerful mural - ethical/political  dilemma of the World Cup 2014

Courtesy of Paulo Ito at www.flickr.com/photos/pauloito/13998946669

A number of social media pundits suggest Digital consumption will be central to the 2014 World Cup. Paolo Ito's mural went viral.

Twitter and football go hand in hand : in the UK specifically, research from @globalwebindex shows that

•         90% of Twitter users in the UK will be watching the World Cup

•         Over two thirds of UK users use Twitter for something football related

•         43% of people on Twitter in the UK follow football clubs, with all 20

PremierLeague clubs active on Twitter

•         54% of football lovers say that news breaks fastest on Twitter

•         40% of UK users tweet when there is a goal, and 61% tweet post-match

Apparently Brazil is  Facebook's second largest market and provides YouTube with its second most unique visitors. There will a tsunami of engagement   which sponsors will no doubt be geared up to exploit.

Yet brands are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of showing the public they are aware that there is a social aspect to being a sponsor for such huge sporting extravaganzas.

Some of the Brazilian political protesters may see an advantage of pointing the finger of guilt around the World Cup costs onto the sponsors if conventional strikes and protest don't get media coverage.

The sponsors have paid anything from an estimated £8m to £120m to have their names associated with what is one of the biggest events in global sport.

Meanwhile, FIFA has  benefitted. Selling the rights

 By selling the rights for firms to be associated with the event, it is estimated to make some £850m over a four-year World Cup cycle, making up the majority of its non-TV revenues during such a period.

With the 2014 tournament just days away, it means it is not just the 32 national teams competing that are fine-tuning their plans, but also the 22 corporate sponsors. FIFA will want to kick the 2022 bid issues into the long grass...........( depending on announcements from Sepp Blatter or Mr Garcia )

Good luck to Roy Hodgson and the England team (especially 'Lamps' if he plays) on Saturday, against Italy in Manaus, Brazil. 

Let's rejoice in joy of  football and Brazil not forgetting  the  sponsors  Vauxhall, Mars, Budweiser, McDonald’s,   and William Hill, Carlsberg, Nivea for Men, Samsung, Lucozade Sport, EE, Marks and Spencer for the team England!!!!.

Good selling ,Good Samba, Good Football

Better get some cachaca for those Caipirinhas folks ! 

Social Selling today

  Think about this for a moment - Whenever you are on line there is an opportunity to amplify and reinforce your corporate brand and its value to your clients.

People buy from people, not companies 

People trust individuals, not corporations 

It’s the way business has always been done,

So how,  one might  ask does social selling 3.0  come into all this?

Clara Shih in Harvard Business Review suggests that social business complements traditional methods and allows for companies and their employees to manage and measure this engagement at scale.

She suggests that social business has developed in a series of waves.

The first wave of social business was all about employee collaboration, giving rise to products like Yammer, Jive, and Salesforce Chatter

Then came the next wave, external social business, rooted in customer service, corporate marketing, and communications. Many companies are still working through this stage by managing all social media at the corporate level. Here many in selling would associate where they are with social selling at present.

During last year, there was already executive commitment and discussion around turning internal social media projects into strategic imperatives owned by lines of business. Instead of discouraging employees from social media or making it optional, companies are making social business mandatory and part of the “standard issue” of communication just as email accounts became standard issue a decade ago.

In 2014, more and more companies will usher in the third wave of social business by empowering everyone across the organisation to participate. While corporate marketing teams continue to use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for brand awareness,

What this means for Selling

 Sales teams and other customer-facing roles will increasingly tap into social networks for ways to authentically reach and engage their customers and prospects, build their credibility as a trusted advisor through value-added content, and provide higher levels of service – all to ultimately  increase business  and deepen relationships.

 Even for Non-sales employees in non-customer facing roles, the expectation will be that they represent the company whenever on line to amplify and reinforce the corporate brand and its value to customers.

To make it all work, Clara suggests companies instituting standardised operational procedures social business by

 (1) enabling and training employees to effectively use social media for business,

 (2) creating social business programs and guidelines,

and (3) applying key business metrics to turn grand visions of social media into real business 

process and ROI.

Related Links

Inarticulate Social Selling 3.0

Inarticulate Social Selling 3.0 – Sales jargon

“Ours is the age of substitutes:
 instead of language, we have jargon:
 instead of principles ,slogans:
and instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas.

 So wrote Eric Bentley British-born American critic, playwright, singer, editor and translator.

Today we might follow the entertaining writing of Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times and for any fellow insomniac devotees to her broadcasts on BBC Radio World service. She invites readers of her column to vote on her yearly Golden Flannel Awards.

 She lampoons jargon used by corporations particularly their euphemisms for sacking and hiring ( transitioning and onboarding).

I guess we all quite enjoy laughing at HR’s attempts to try and sugar such testing communication medicine.

Yet we are ALL guilty of picking up and using jargon.

 For salespeople this is perhaps a particularly perilous habit, since we are trained to empathise more , relate to our prospect using their language. Many salespeople consider it right to not only mirror buyer’s body language but also “parrot” or “echo” the client’s vocabulary.

One category in Lucy Kellaway’s Jargon Awards are the entrants for the Communications Cup.

”This is awarded for the most awful way of suggesting that two people meet, email or talk.”

Since meeting, talking on the phone and emailing are a central part of what we in selling do, perhaps we should take note of entrants for the Golden Flannel Awards Communication Cup.

If for no other reason, we need protect ourselves from buyers mentally ticking their Bullshit Bingo boxes when we utter such rubbish. Such inarticulate expression does little to earn the trust of our clients or build a professional impression.

Meeting, talking on the phone and emailing are all pretty straightforward, so you wouldn’t have thought we need new words  to describe them

Previous winners have included: 

to reach out,

to circle back

and to revert. 

“All three are terrific” Lucy sarcastically suggests, and all are still in use.

 However, in 2013 there have been many additions of which the best (worst) are:

To connect.

This is deceptively simple, and sounds innocuous. But it is the new way of saying “Let’s do lunch”, only without the promise of any lunch. So it’s “let’s connect in the NY”. And “would be great to connect going forward”.

To sync-up.

As in “Shall we sync-up for lunch before Xmas”? This one is very popular with consultants Lucy Kellaway suggests

To loop you in.

If you are looped in, you are therefore in the loop.

 Lucy Kellaway comments “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been looped in this year. All I can say  is I don’t like it.”

When would be a good time to reach out to arrange a telecom?

This arrived in a message from a PR last month to Lucy Kellaway. It has made the shortlist as it is a variant on meetings about meetings, and is innovative in the use of the word “telecom”.

Should we avoid all these pitfalls and properly communicate with our client , may we share “insights” or should I say “genuine ideas”  a la Eric Bentley ? !

Selling to yourself first is the best Sellfie – developing a positive mental attitude for selling PMA

To Selfie or Sellfie ? that is the question

“The word of 2013”, according to the Oxford Dictionary ( On-line) is SELFIE.

It should not be too much of a surprise to us all, yet we may not all feel quite so comfortable about it. It does rather smack of our very human vanity.

Imagine for a moment that you are observing people at the party after a wedding ceremony. The photographer has already developed the first prints and displayed their portfolio on a table in the vestibule at the entrance to the wedding banquet room.

As the guests approach the table of photographs before entering the dining room, you might see them perusing the gallery of photos with puzzled expressions. Soon  you might notoce that instant relief which comes over their faces as they find a photograph where they recognise themselves wearing that “Hat” “ ‘Coat”, or with those ‘Shoes’ and “Gloves”” !.

Of course some of them deftly disguise this instinctive behaviour like a skilled conjuror by distracting your observing eye by swiftly gesturing to another part of the photograph or even another photograph “Oh  doesn’t the bride look beautiful”, or “ the groom look handsome?

But when you think back and consider, you realise that the first look they made was for themselves.

Looking out for No. 1

It’s human nature; we are number one in the photograph

I guess even in that now famous selfie of the Holy Father with the youngsters , the young folk would have looked for their own face first ,wanting to ensure they were captured in the company of the famous Pope Francis. Perhaps even the Pope himself looked for himself in the first fractions of a second as he looked at the selfie.

Such instant portraiture can be subsequently edited or airbrushed. Few of us have Oliver Cromwell’s courage and honesty to be painted ‘warts and all’.

Yet for professional salespeople taking a long, hard and  honest look at oneself is an important self discipline – arguably it should be done daily.

The reason for this is that the first sale one makes, is to oneself.

 For this you need to develop a positive mental attitude.

First thing in the morning you may wish to use an ‘old skool’ selfie  in the form of a bathroom mirror.

As you look at the bathroom mirror of a morning, look at the face and ask how excited it looks about it’s day’s work and what it will offer to the market?

Is it the face of one who is rearing to go because you’re totally confident that what you have to say/offer is something of great value that your clients need or want?

Or does that morning face look back at you like one expressing  just another day and, at some point, you’re going to have to try to convince some people that what you have to say/offer is something they need?

The difference between those two different attitudes/perspectives is significant.

Those with high PMA usually get to enjoy all the rewards that are earned by those who lead their field, while those in the other camp usually tend to struggle and wonder why they can’t achieve what the winners in the sales team are achieving.

One solution to this problem is to practise “The first sale is to yourself.” A “Sellfie” if you like

SEllFIE  PITCHIE -Your Daily Selling Credo

 What this means  is that you  begin EVERY DAY with the deep rooted belief that you have value to bring to your customers.

In other words, if you don’t wake up feeling this way, your  number one task is to “sell to yourself”  what you have (or your company has) to offer the market.—that you have something of great value that you would be remiss if you didn’t offer to others.

When you really believe this to the core of your being, it’s amazing how that changes everything

As the late Steve Jobs of Apple once wrote :-

““For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

That first sale of the day

• isn’t about a sales technique.

• isn’t about a sales process.

• isn’t about a new tactic or strategy.

 but it is about what goes on in your head.

 And once you have “sold” it to yourself, it makes it infinitely easier to “sell” it to others.

How’s it going today?

How are you doing on this?

 Are you totally convinced day after day that what you have to say/offer is something of great value that the clients in your target market really need/want—and that if you don’t offer it, they’ll be at a loss?

If not, and you’d like to do a better job of making the first sale to yourself, here’s an idea you might try.

Create a “My Daily First Sale Pitch,” for yourself? In other words, instead of writing a sales script to sell one of your products or services, why don’t you create a sales script to sell you on you?

For example, you might start with a line like this.

“The people in my target market will want to listen to what I have to say (or want to buy what I have to offer) because of …”

Then write a long list of reasons why you (or your company) are the perfect match for the people in your target market (a minimum of 10 reasons, but 20 to 30 are better).

For more ideas on this see  the link at end of this post.

Make this your affirmation list. Boost yourself up. Be your own greatest advocate!

And keep working on it until when you read it you think, “Anyone would be bonkers not to use me (or my company).”

Finally, if you want to get the most from this, Read your list every morning (hence the title, “My Daily First Sale Pitch”) until it sinks in and you really believe it to the core of your being.

Why?

 Because if you do, you’ll find that a month or two from now, you’ll be in a radically better place.

 Because the first sale is always to yourself.

So take an imaginary sellfie each morning and make the first sell of the day to yourself.

Focus on what is important

Capture the good times

Develop from the negatives

And if things don’t work

Take another shot

 And who knows , maybe the #Sellfie or #Pitchie will be a future contender for the Oxford Dictionary’s  word of the year !

Related links

DVP

http://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/3-key-parts-to-dvp-tuning-into-buyers.html

Twitter and its Antisocial Social Selling Challenge

Are your 140 characters a taz , a slogan and does that really matter ?

Maybe it is still early days for Twitter.

Of course the launch on the NYSE profitably underwritten by Goldman Sachs  (GS) making Twitter a more conventional business..

 GS did a good selling job but the world of investor finance is a mile away from the day to day world.

Have the old business rules changed ?

We used to be told :-

Sales turnover is vanity
Profit is sanity and
Cash flow reality

Sales statistics like 80 million sign ups over three months but only 3 million daily users would suggest quite a wasteful sales funnel or leaky leads bucket.

77 million dormant accounts look a little worrying.

(However maybe the sign ups are ‘listening’ to the twitter sphere first before entering any ‘dialogue’.)

Twitter has some major selling challenges we can all relate to

• Protecting exciting customer user base

• Expanding within that customer user base

• Developing new customer user business.

The overall spectacular and growing  numbers of free subscribers and users still seem to excite investors on the advertising potential but how to insert more advertising without ruining the user experience will be a challenge.

Twitter is a real time broadcaster deriving 65% of revenues from mobile .

It’s revenues have doubled in 2012 and is expected to repeat this feat for 2013-11-11

But it will have to achieve solid user engagement with actual advertising revenues sooner or later.

As the old proverb of 91 characters goes

“When all is said and done, more is said than done”

For ‘said’ read  tweeted’

Related  links
Twitter-microblog-of-selling-slogans?

Twitter the microblog of Selling Slogans ,Graffiti Taz and Gos

Twitter we are told in selling, is best used for  ‘listening to customers’ and ‘interacting with them’ yet the majority of tweets I see from suppliers do not ignite that many true conversations.

The tweets are in the main, a one way communication. Telling is not  always the same as  selling despite the public stereotype.

Maybe many of us still don’t really ‘get’ social or we don’t have time or just don’t want to make the time to be ‘social’.

The minimal effort required to ‘ retweet’ , ‘Share’, ‘follow’ and ‘like’ etc is deemed sufficient.

Yet even a simple request to retweet ( RT) can backfire as in the recent campaign of Kellogg Cereals and the unintended consequences of  #'1 RT =  1 breakfast for vulnerable child' tweet.

This was a most unfortunate unintended consequence for  breakfast cereals manufacturer Kellogg and their charity campaign for breakfasts for vulnerable children.

 It  might quite  possibly  a problem for Twitter as Twitter looks for increased advertising revenues after its spectacular NYSE launch.  

A client advertiser that has been 'once bitten twice shy ' as big as Kellogg is not good for the microblog site..

Commenting on twitter takes more effort – just take a look at twitter log entries and its proportion of written comments to re-tweets, shares etc. Few of us have a talent for eloquent tweets.

Twitter rely a lot on their mobile audience so for cack-handed all thumbs folk like me  mobile social  is too difficult and too much hassle. – maybe an age thing !

To the purists in social media and quite possibly Twitter itself all this one way communication is a misuse or poor use of the microblog.

I am not entirely convinced by the purists' argument  yet.

The one-way  so called ‘mis-use’ still gets you out there in the twittersphere and just as with junk mail , flyers etc  some messages do stick to the wall.

Maybe most business tweets are nearer to Graffiti Taz than  professional advertising hoardings slogans but  if integrated with other media perhaps it works sufficiently.

But as with most sales key performance indicators  in the end it is all about ROMI (return on Marketing Investment)

Effective Tweets have many similarities to  sales slogans

An effective sales slogan

• conveys product benefits (or brand benefits) for users (or potential buyer)
• differentiates  your product from the competition
• makes a simple, concise, clearly defined, and appropriate statement
• is eloquent, witty or takes on a distinct "personality"
• gives a credible impression of a brand or product
• makes the consumer experience an emotion; or creates a need or want
• is hard to forget — it sticks in your brain

Related links

Twitter and its antisocial social ways

Rise of the Ottoman Empire ? Browsing by lounging about (BLA)

Perhaps the Ottoman Empire is set to rise again in 2013. 

Not the Ottoman Empire fronted by Rageh Omaar on the BBC’s recent series  but perhaps the sales of Ottomans ? (settees or sofas).

Customers are moving to more comfortable furniture to make their purchases. Apparently consumers are abandoning their chair and PC set up to the comfort of their sofa/ottoman/settee/couch.

Part of the HSBC poster campaign that greets visitors
 to UK in Gatwick North Terminal

Apparently the word 'sofa' is from Turkish derived from the Arabic word suffa for 'carpet' or 'divan', originating in the Aramaic word sippa for 'mat'.

 The word settee comes from the Old English word, 'setl', which was used to describe long benches with high backs and arms, but is now generally used to describe an upholstered seat.

The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium in collaboration with Google searches for desktop computers were down by 10% in the last quarter compared to the previous year.

More customers are turning to the web to browse  from the comfort of their settee.

Source :BRITISH RETAIL CONSORTIUM

Total on line retail searches up 12%

Tablet searches up 100%

Smart phone searches 58%

On line sales up 13.4% in September

Searches for Overseas companies up 33%

Overseas consumers search for UK retailers up 23%

Apple has  launch its new Tablet offerings  World tablet sales are predicted to explode this year with shipments increasing by over 40 %. Tesco have their new new tablet offering called the Hudl

Related Links

The Ottomans: BBC Series  with Rageh Omaar

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03d0d5d/The_Ottomans_Europes_Muslim_Emperors_Episode_1/