To John Taylor: Re: Snap-eBooks Website

Hello John,

Scott Klement alerted me to the problems you experienced on the Snap-eBooks 
website while attempting to purchase an eBook.

First of all, before I get in trouble with David Gibbs, let me stress that THIS 
IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR BUSINESS!!!!   If it come across that way in any 
manner, then I 
profusely apologize ahead of time and I will remove myself from this list!!!   
I'm only attempting to respond to your original post to Scott about the 
problems you 
encountered on the Snap-eBooks website. And since this issue came up in the 
public forums here, I felt it was important to respond to it where everyone who 
saw the 
complaint could also see the response. 


So...thank you for pointing up the need for a "View Cart" button on the 
Snap-eBooks, Inc. website.  That was a great suggestion! We actually
do have marketing people, but we have them focusing their efforts in other 
areas besides website design (such as shoveling the snow from my driveway,  
running to 
the store for bread and milk, etc..:-) ). 

Anyway,  our website, after all, when it comes right down to it, is nothing 
more than a vehicle to provide a place for the consumer to find and purchase 
the tools
they  need to get their job done. Because of that, we don't spend hours and 
hours and hours agonizing over it's design. We feel that while it could always 
be 
improved, that it gets the job done. I understand that a busy person may find 
it a bit more work to navigate around our amateurish design, but we're willing 
to lose a 
few customers here and there if it allows us to spend more time concentrating 
on producing quality content. I realize that that's not the best business 
philosopy, but
 honestly, we are a very small company and we don't have time to do EVERYTHING 
well all at once. We make mistakes, we learn from them, and we try not to 
make them a second time. And as we grow, we will do better until eventually we 
WILL do everything well, all the time. 

If at all possible, please bear with us until then. We think we are offering a 
vaulable service at an affordable price, but to do that while we're still 
getting our feet firmly planted on the ground, you may have to put up with less 
at times. But we'll get there....we'll get there....You gotta walk before you 
run.

Our company was founded by programmers, managers, operators and folks who 
continue to work in the AS/400 world on a daily basis.  We are an absolute
grass-roots business dedicated to making AS/400 products affordable.  I don't 
know about you, but I'm sick and tired of paying out the nose for an AS/400 
educational tool just because that's become the accepted norm in our industry.  
Whoever said it was "OK" to gouge businesses?  I mean BESIDES IBM? :-)

To keep our costs low, we don't spend tons of money on flashy, fancy web site 
design. We figure that people would rather get a quality product with 
information 
that is direct, to the point, and useful for the majority of our the iSeries 
community, and pay LESS for it than they would for an equivalent print book. 
While we 
could spend our budget on glitzy website design and layouts, we think it's more 
important to put a serviceable product out there that gets the job done, while 
still 
keeping costs low.

We are ALWAYS open to new suggestions and constructive criticism. We KNOW that 
we make mistakes. There are dozens of things that we plan on improving 
upon as time goes by in all aspects of the website and product. And we'll get 
there. In time.  

Our staff works for a living, just like everyone else on the Forums so we do 
not always have time to think of or implement everything. But we feel that by 
working 
full time in our industry as programmers, managers, etc...that we have a better 
handle on what programmers, operators and managers are looking for in learning.

As for the AVS error with your credit card,  we use the Credit Card company's 
Address Verification System (AVS) to verify that credit card numbers entered 
are 
valid and assigned to the person making the transaction. For some reason, we 
were rejecting all credit cards that did not originate with a United States 
bank. Since, 
if I remember correctly, you are from Great Britain, your credit card was 
rejected. 

We have fixed this problem (I think!) now so that non-US banks can purchase 
eBooks from us as well.  If you still continue to experience problems, please 
contact 
me offline and we'll discuss them in greater detail.

Shannon O'Donnell
President, Snap-eBooks, Inc.
sodonnell@snap-books.com
http://www.snap-ebooks.com

Home of the $9.99 AS/400 eBook!