links for 2009-07-31

Easy mobile phone portability in Spain

If you have a mobile phone line contract that you want to end and you don’t want to lose time waiting for a call-center worker sorting things out what you might consider is making a portability from your contract to a pre-paid mobile phone deal. In order to end a contract you might need to send a certified-fax (burofax) which costs itself nearly 24 euros. Then you might need to wait for several weeks that your wish should procede until your line is cut and the contract ends. I have read on some forums about some cases that lasted several months. This is boring.

On the other hand, as I’ll explain, making a portability was the best solution for me when I decided to end my contract with Yoigo 10 days ago. And it worked even better than what I was expecting. I have chosen to move my line to Simyo, as they don’t have any monthly extra charge for pre-paid users. (Yoigo charges 6 euros every month. If you charge your line with 10 euros of credits and don’t use it in 2 months your 10 euros would be disappearing. Stupid.)

Anyways, the process was easy. Simyo has a foolproof online sales process which yield things convenient. I have applied through their page on 21st of August and in less than 10 days things were sorted out. (It costed me 10 euros but they turned it back as a credit on my line.) I didn’t have to call any customer service call-center. I received 3 sms messages related to the portability process and shipment. The contract ended and I still keep my number. I have 10 euros credit to spend and afterwards I’ll probably let it go.

This process could be repeated even if you change the company names. I have chosen Simyo because I wanted to avoid Orange, Vodafone and Movistar and I was unhappy with Yoigo’s 6 euro monthly charge. You should check with the company that seems nice to you if their online sales platform permits you start mobile phone portability process and if they have rational pricing policies.

links for 2009-07-29

“Perception isn’t everything to shoppers”

I had written previously about a study held at California Institute of Technology about how the perception of taste of wine might be affected due to the price paid for it. (You can read it here: “cheap wine or expensive wine?

Now, I just read another article published at inc.com talking about another study on a similar issue held at Cornell University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

According to the observations of the researchers, “More expensive products might be perceived as more attractive — which could increase demand — but they are also more expensive, which turned out, in our study, to decrease demand by much more.”

By the way, I would also like to mention what one of the readers of the article (DeniseCorc) left as a comment:

“…neuromarketing experiments (which scan the brain as consumers are making buying choices) show that relative price — not absolute price — is what drives buying behavior. In this experiment, my guess is the “perceived relative value/prices” probably did not change and hence why the findings.…”

links for 2009-07-22

Üzümünü ye, şarabını sorma!

Teksatir.com´da söyle bir bilgi okudum. Not olarak buraya da ekliyorum:

2009 yılında Türkiye, şaraplık üzüm üretiminde; İspanya, Fransa ve İtalya‘dan sonra dördüncü sırada… Dünyada 65–66, bizde 4 milyon ton üzüm yetişiyor, ama onlar %90’ından, biz %2’sinden şarap yapıyoruz. Dünyadaki bağların 1/12’si ülkemizde; ama AB vatandaşları yılda 30 litre, Türkler 0,9 litre şarap içiyor. Ve 150 milyarlık pazardan 4 milyon dolar pay alabiliyoruz.

links for 2009-07-20