Watching Logs

I think Amazon has stopped speaking to me. In their last email, two days ago, they said that if we vendors wanted our prices to take account of VAT, we would have to put our prices up accordingly. Judging from the tone of their communications, I think they hoped that no-one would notice. However, in my view, they are responsible for creating a lot of ill-will. They should have just made an announcement that their European prices included the tax from January 1st and that would have been an end to it.

It was stupid to suggest that sellers charge it if they like and pretend to customers that we had decided to change it. It is the law. It is not up to us, the tax has to be collected, and it should be from the purchaser – that is clear.

I personally think that Amazon made a pig’s ear of the affair because they were miffed at the European governments insisting they pay some tax in the first place, but the way they have chosen to go about it, they haven’t made any friends.

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I have noticed a strange phenomenon on this web site by studying its logs. The readership of this blog has always been predominantly American, followed by Italy, Canada, China Germany, Ireland, and Ukraine, but this month Saudi Arabia and the Philippines have shot into second and third places with no competition. Everyone is welcome here, needless to say, but I would especially like to welcome our Saudi Arabian and Filipino visitors, while I try to work out from my logs why all of a sudden. I’m not complaining, welcome on board.

The basic stats from the logs are:

January: us, tl, il, it, cn, fi, fr, gb, tr, nl

February: us, tl, ph, cn, sa, ca, it, ua, eu, at

March: us, tl, ph, sa, de, ru, fr, ua, eu, cn, ca

SA=Saudi Arabia had a few hundred visitors in Feb, but well over three thousand in March so far, same with the Philippines.

The US continues to dominate with 70-80% of all visitors.

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This is not connected to the paragraph above, although it may seem that it is, but this afternoon, I came across an app that analyses text. It says that non-native English speakers should find it particularly useful, but at first glance, I think that some of us native speakers might too.

It is free and works on a computer, but I’m not sure whether it does on a phone or tablet as well. You can find it here:

http://www.expresso-app.org/

All the best,

Owen.

Podcast: Watching Logs