New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
2021 Black Friday / Cyber Monday Official Megathread + Flash Deals ⚡
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Actually, this last point was something I was wondering about, and whether providers actually do see a benefit in this style of event.
If I was a provider, I'd be doing loss-leaders primarily to get people to learn about my products and have a look around at what they might be interested in for the future. So, at a minimum, I'd want people to know what it is I normally sell and why it's already good value, and then then do some giveaways that will convert more people into regular paying customers.
This model, where you don't know what's on offer before hand, and literally you have enough time to read the headline whilst clicking on the link drives people to make snap decisions like "yeah, 2 cores $2m a month, great... click" with no consideration whatsoever as to who the provider is. And if you actually stopped to read all that, then you'd not get the deal anyway. Afterwards, it's all "too bad I missed that, I'll just get ready for the next one". So, it's fun and keeps people engaged, but I'm not sure how much benefit providers get out of it.
I know the two deals I got weren't flash deals, and were priced a little higher than most of the other deals, so I had time to consider them, compare them to other products from their range and their competition, and decide that actually yes I did want them.
Of course, part of why the traditional BF retail thing works is by creating that sense of urgency so that people will just snap up stuff they don't need or maybe even want because it's a good deal. But in a traditional retail environment, you wouldn't get a refund on it if you changed your mind, and you're also trapped inside a shop so you might buy other things while you're there too.
We spent almost a month prepping capacity as we had the V10G launch too a ~week ago.
This was tons of fun, and money was only part of the equation. I think we had a superb win-win overall, despite the few fraudsters.
Personally I don't think I am a good team player so maybe that's not an option, the process of interacting is also kinda fun because I get to know more providers and be aware of the market across different regions.
Perhaps I just need to better allocate my time and set a hard deadline next time. Two is not always better than one since there's another layer of communication overhead.
I could never tell if the grudges or real, but in any case, his drive to get retailers to offer specials with purple daddy promos codes was one of the funniest parts of this thread!
We already discovered on the other thread that @virmach is your alt account.
You are too technical here. Yes, you are right, but that communication overhead is irrelevant because BF/CM is about chaos and speed and hype. People get together for the same fun.
But if we were to manage the deals for providers, we will need to make sure it is correct, even a small mistake on specs can result in a different story where people start making noise.
I have seen and re-check each deal at least 3-5 times to ensure it is working as intended, the specs listed is correct and I will also make sure the coupon is configured properly (eg. not applicable to other products, people cannot get add-ons for free etc)
It's not racism if it's true
joking aside, the most visible chinese are the scammers and fraudsters. Does not mean all of them are bad, scammers or fraudsters, but it's well known in industry that chinese might not steal, but they will absolutely scam you. This is what a person handling corporate outsourcing to china told me.
Negative stuff is also most memorable.
I would think MJJ then actually just means chinese scammer/fraudster/con-artist. Nothing racist about it. Every population has that kind of people, having special word just for certain part of the world for those people is not racist.
but yeah, let's stop it there before all the woke people and sjws have a hissy fit
Totally agree on that. We have to keep in mind that this place it clearly run for profit be it coming directly from money paid for ads, or indirectly by profit made by some ColoCrossing ressellers like the the Purple Guy that make a ton of cash during some of these events (and get a steady income from LEB). A big chunk of this cash goes straight to CC. It would be totally fair to pay @FAT32 and other folks heavily involved for their work.
I am not sure why I spending so much of my brain power
Let's wait for deal from @PulsedMedia patiently
Hard disagree. Getting someone on board takes a bit of time but that can be sorted months ahead of an event.
I'd suggest the following rules to make events smoother:
Use Google forms or a new support form on support.lowendtalk.com to accept offers for events like this.
Have the public process for applying to LET documented somewhere, publicly so that you don't get out of band requests. Make it sufficiently clear that requests from other media (PM, discord and so on) are not supported and if someone does reach out via these media, direct them to the official method selected in step 1.
From your comments, I guess even providers don't like to read so maybe get raindog308 to make a short 5 minute video with him, stating the rules and the application process, with a note that out of band requests won't be allowed, politely and firmly. You can even make this look like a plus for the provider, "Hey xyz provider, are you considering a BF/CM event? You can do this in less than 10 minutes, just watch this video and fill out the form!" (along with the usual sell to entice them, if required.)
As I just mentioned in my previous replies: don't have a single person handling everything; have a few moderators help you.
We need VPS deals from him
That's why some companies don't like transfers much (like hosthatch). When you sell cheap you can get a lot of cash quickly, and if some folks don't use their VPS (i.e. they bought because of the "urge" to get it while it's available, FOMOing on a great deal) it's great: they won't overload your nodes. Dunno what the percentage of idling is on special deals, I assume it can get big enough to totally change the way you allocate resources. Some users will not need the VPS at all, while others will only have a very slight use of it (or bought way more resources than what they really need, because it was cheap.)... Only a minority will use their VM to it's full potential.
This kind of sale is a pretty good way to make some cash to invest in your company IF you can make sure that you'll be able to keep growing "organically" at your normal pricing for the rest of the year (you have customers coming from other channels). Also keep in mind that at some point it can be cheaper to rent a whole rack than a bunch of servers; same goes for bandwidth. Growing, even without making much profit on it can be economically worth it for some providers. It's also a good way to hoard on ipv4...
We allow transfers and refunds, both without fees.
But that checkbox thing might be a good idea ... But alas WHMCS is closed source so no such customizations
Sorry I don't have too much brain power left but Google Forms / Support Forms make the whole thing too serious and formal.
A lot of my discussion with providers are informal and it is easy to have back-and-forth messages discussing about deals and this is one of the most important key to get many good deals.
If it is one-sided (provider submit deals), you will most likely get a lot of very normal deals and even some that are already public on their website because there's no negotiation happening here.
You can go and look up each offers that I consolidated this year, I can guarantee 90% are carefully crafted by providers to ensure they are either the same or better than their offers in any time of the year, and some really exclusive just for this megathread event.
It is easier said than done, how about you try to do it next year?
BF felt a tad more personal this year with Nekki's return and the regulars + a few new characters hyping up the event.
I still remember my first time participating in BF last year seeing deals I never thought would be possible, it was magical. Really glad I stumbled upon LET last year.
Seems something is going to happen again?
I didn't get any deals really (other than Clouvider) but I had fun. I think that's the point?
i don't even know what all this purple daddy thing is -- i just have a gut feeling this refers to something which is usually made of soft material and looks a bit like a rocket
Missed purple daddy promocodes tho, but found the stuff from friday/saturday funny too
Case in point, I spotted this on one of my things this morning:
Why are things so serious and sad all of a sudden? My dumb brain can't handle this!
I think it's time for me to run away...
Hell we barely knew what we had to sell 2 days prior. Sorry for being so late, just had no clue what we had to offer.
But that's also where the chaos comes, creating new promos on the fly was tons of fun and creative. Some may or may not have been a bit too good deals tho lol
Nah that's perfectly fine, you sent me a 3 months deal only at first and only after I pushed a bit a recurring offer happens
Yes it is fun but it can very easily cost the provider by selling too many unsustainable offers, plus not all providers can decide on their own (some providers have multiple people managing it - and requires some time for confirmation)
No no, GIFs are good, I like GIFs
There is will another megathreads on New Year isn't it ??
Wow, that's deeper than I expected. I expected something about progress of technology, community building, or something reading like an open source white paper, and possibly something very vague hiding that you're financially benefitting in some way other way. That's a very nice answer and unexpected on a tech forum.
I think that will be Christmas & New Year megathread
Anyway, good talk. My starting point is always about bringing the best deal in any ways possible, so I am willing to sacrifice time and efforts to talk to the providers. Some providers might not be proficient in English too which I will then explain slowly using basic terms.
The key thing here is I am not optimising my time and efforts, but optimising the outcome, I want the best deal possible regardless of what it takes.
There's also providers who has given up on LET market due to our toxic behaviour, which I encouraged them to join us again, give us another chance and have a try. - This all cannot be done in the form of Google Forms.
oh yeah instead of catching up on thread, perhaps i should get on with that lol
ANOTHER NEVER BEFORE SEEN SEEDBOX SPECIAL: 3 YEARS 39,99€ SEEDBOX
Full series info: https://pulsedmedia.com/value250-seedbox.php
These are old servers, expect an migration during that 3 years to an Debian 10 server.
but wait there is more ... in a while, on the same series of servers. will release that in 30mins or so
3.99€ per month btw.