Because their support is crap. No, that is not true. As their support is virtually non-existing I’d say it is even worse than crap. Why I think so? Because I am trying for 2 weeks now to get a new nameserver defined for my domain “cybercashflow.de”, which is hosted with Networksolutions. I have serious problems sending and receiving mails (as I have with some mails for cyberworkspace-accounts as well) and I was advised by my webhosting provider Intermedia.net that this might be because of Networksolutions not maintaining a so-called spf-entry for my mail adresses. SPF-entries are obviously usefull for protection against spam, so I clearly see the point in having one. However, Networksolutions is not offering them so I decided to switch nameservers for my domains to Intermedia.net. Should be easy, as they have a web-interface for that. Wrong thought though. Nothing works at all at their site. My odyssee with them started about two weeks ago as I tried to change dns for the first time. It didn’t work so I did send them an email. Got the ticket number via email, but thats it. Never any answer or anything else. Tell me, if they can send me the ticket number, then there should be no problem in coming back to me with an answer to my problem via the same communication channel, right ? I bombarded them afterwards with a mail a day. No answer. I have ten open calls with them. Now, I contacted my hosting provider, Intermedia.net, to help me out. They phoned Networkillusions but are just as clueless as I am now. No change in DNS although the guys on the phone told me three times they would do the changes manually.

There is one scary thing when you have to deal with these callcenter people in the US. They are like robots, only they are more perfect. They never raise their voice. They never get angry or hesitated or anything. They have their program and they run it. You tell them you call for the third time, and they ask you for your mother’s maiden name. You tell them that you will rip their head off and shit in their neck if they would ask that same thing one more time and they apologize but point out that company policies require to ask me for the correct spelling of my last name. Geez. One guy even had the nerves to ask whether I would like to buy a similar domain name why we wait for my record to show up. I said only if the domain would be “Networkconfusion” as I plan to start a hatesite. Not even a slight chuckle. Scary. Really scary.

So, now you know why you should quit in an instant when you are with Networksolutions.com. They are crappy and worse than that they lie directly to your face. When it comes to service and when you are really in need of professional domain provider services, do not even think about going with them. The only question now is, with whom to go instead? If you got any tips, mail me.

Ah, and why did I mention Intermedia.net like a thousand times? Because they are fantastic. We had our ups and downs but overall they have provided the most professional service to me in all those years and soled any issue I reported to them in no time. Like it should be. And no, I am not getting paid for saying that. At least not until now.

What to buy in China

Well, yesterday I promised you to give you some ideas what products to trade when trying to compete with the chinese eBay force. Here you go with the Top 5: MP3 players, MP4 players, IPod FM transmitters, IPod skins and cases and Webcams.

I analyzed about 100.000 positions that had been sold by the competition during the last two weeks and those are the items that were good for 80% of the revenue. For the figure freaks amongst you I got some other interesting news: The average chinese eBayer successfully sells 3 out of 5 offerings. That means e.g., that he gets 6.000 trades from 10.000 products offered in about two weeks. Those 6.000 trades equal around 30.000 EUR to 60.000 EUR net revenue, or around 70.000 EUR to 120.000 EUR incl. postage. Crazy.

So, as we know on what products to concentrate, I will give you an update in 48 hours, what particular brand to chose. Although China seems to produce electronics in extreme varieties, there is really only a handful of “coresystems” involved. All other products are just more or less simple derivations of the same theme. Like e.g. the IPod theme for MP4 players and such. I will provide you with the various criterias and details for which those china products are to be evaluated against.

So, stay tuned and wish for me that my DNS transfer is finally to happen