northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) (02/24/90)
Amiga Mail Order Survey
I've seen a number of comments and complaints about Amiga Mail order companies
on the net over the last year or so, but I've neglected to keep track of them.
It occured to me that perhaps a survey of comp.sys.amiga on this topic would
be useful to the Amiga community, so I'm volunteering to conduct such a survey.
Once I've got enough results to be able to come to some kind of conclusion,
and once the input I get has slowed to a trickle, I'll post the results of this
informal survey so everybody can see them.
The survey is short, because I think all we really want to know is who to give
our business to. So I don't ask about details (prices, delivery time, etc.);
I only ask about the overall "quality" of the service.
In order to make it easier to summarize the data, I've phrased most of the
questions so that answers fit into a scale from 1 to 10. If you've done
business with more than one company, you should send me more than one copy
of this survey.
If you're willing to participate, send your completed survey(s) to:
northrup@wpi.wpi.edu or
northrup@wpi.bitnet
1. Name of Mail Order company: _______________________________________________
2. How much business have you done with this company? ______
1 = I've made one purchase there.
2 = I've made two purchases there.
...
9 = I've made nine purchase there.
10 = I've made ten or more purchases there.
3. On the average, how has the service been with this company? ______
1 = The service has been very bad on the average.
(For example, you feel ripped off.)
5 = The service has been adequate, on the average.
(For example, you weren't cheated but they weren't friendly either.)
10 = The service has been very good on the average.
(For example, the service was friendly and fair.)
4. How consistent has the service been? That is, if it's bad on the average,
has it been bad every time, or has it varied? ______
1 = The service has always been either very good or very bad.
5 = The service has varied a little, either mostly good or mostly bad.
10 = The service has varied greatly. Sometimes it was very good, sometimes
it was very bad.
(If you have only made one purchase with this company, answer "1".)
5. Do you have any additional comments?
Comments:
In order to tabulate these results, I will sum up the answers to
question (2) in order to determine the total number of purchases made with each
company. In order to rate the service of each company, I will use a weighted
average of your answers to question (3), weighted on the number of purchases
you have made with that company. (In other words, the opinions of somebody
who has done lots of business with a company will be weighted more heavily.)
Your answers to question (4) will be used to compute a "deviation" from the
average given by (3). I will also compute the statistical standard deviation
for question number (3), as well as its weighted average.
At the end of the survey, a good Mail Order company should have a high average
rating with a low deviation. I'm counting on two things to make this survey
work: (a) lots or respondants, and (b) honesty on the part of the respondants.
Thanks in advance.
--
Jim Northrup northrup@wpi.wpi.edu
Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences WPI, Worcester MA 01609sk2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sun Kun Kim) (02/25/90)
What are you doing?? Where were you when I was asking for help?? You
said that you have scanned the NET for couple years and heard of lot of
complaints...but have you checked the NET the last month or so?? I
did a similar project back in November and posted the results last
month. It is called ODeaN and I hope to put out another list pretty soon.
Sun...northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) (02/25/90)
In article <0ZtnI5C00WB84HJ3hT@andrew.cmu.edu> sk2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sun Kun >What are you doing?? Where were you when I was asking for help?? You >said that you have scanned the NET for couple years and heard of lot of >complaints...but have you checked the NET the last month or so?? I I just scanned all of the back comp.sys.amiga articles from the last few months at my site, keying on the string ODeaN. This is the only posting rn found. Did you do this survey on comp.sys.amiga? It's never made it to this site. >did a similar project back in November and posted the results last >month. It is called ODeaN and I hope to put out another list pretty soon. Hmmmmm....they didn't make it to this site. Geez, sorry, didn't mean to make anybody mad. It just occured to me that this would be a good thing to have. I'm not intending any mail order purchases any time soon, but I thought that in lieu of the complaints, netland would like such a survey. We can read magazine articles, for instance, to recommend hardware and software, but magazines can't afford to rate mail order distributors for fear of losing advertising. In this case, we have to act as our own consumer advocates. My survey has been out for less than 24 hours and I have about 20 responses so far. Great! Thanks! Keep it up! Maybe by next weekend I'll have enough responses to be able to post meaningful results. -- Jim Northrup northrup@wpi.wpi.edu Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences WPI, Worcester MA 01609
JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) (02/27/90)
In article <9092@wpi.wpi.edu>, northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) says: > >In article <0ZtnI5C00WB84HJ3hT@andrew.cmu.edu> sk2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sun Kun >>What are you doing?? Where were you when I was asking for help?? You >>said that you have scanned the NET for couple years and heard of lot of >>complaints...but have you checked the NET the last month or so?? I >>did a similar project back in November and posted the results last >>month. It is called ODeaN and I hope to put out another list pretty soon. I see this list being very much different than ODeaN. Correct me if I'm wrong, but ODeaN is a list of local dealers for the purposes of where should you buy your Amiga, get your current Amiga serviced, or buy Ami accessories/software LOCALLY. His Mail order list is just that - MAIL ORDER. That is why I responded to both of you separately and differently - I submitted my local dealer's info to ODeaN (which, by the way, I didn't see included - did you lose some data?), and I submitted my mail-order experiences to the new list. They both have a purpose. Kurt -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- || Kurt Tappe (814) 862-8630 || "This town needs an enema." || || 600 E. Pollock Rd., #5705 || - Joker, "Batman" || || State College, PA 16801 --------------------------------------|| || jkt100@psuvm.bitnet or jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu || || or jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 QLink: KurtTappe || ----------------------------------------------------------------------
sk2x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sun Kun Kim) (02/28/90)
I think you misinterpreted what ODeaN is. When I asked for the information,
I asked for local AND mail order. If you have seen ODeaN, you can see that
most of the dealers on that list are mail order.(most of the responses I got
were mail order) I am not trying to *flame* him(the guy who is doing the
suvey at wpi(?)) for doing this, but to inform him that there has been an
attmpt at what he is doing and that I wish he came forth when I was asking
for help.
Sun...northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) (03/09/90)
Here are the results of my Amiga mail order survey. There were a total of
24 responses, which isn't great, but it's all I got.
Average Satisfaction: respondants rated the mail order companies on a scale
from 1 to 10. 10 = good.
Polled Variance: respondants described how much the quality of the service
varied. 1 = didn't vary very much
Computed Deviation: the standard deviation of "Average Satisfaction". In
principle, it should correlate positively to "Polled Variance", but the
small sample size skewed that a lot in some cases.
Goal: you want your mail order company to have a high "Average Satisfaction"
and a small Variance/Deviation. Because there were so few respondants, it's
hard to trust these numbers. And of course, your mileage may vary.
Number of Number of Average "Polled Computed
Company Name Responses Purchases Satisfaction Variance" Deviation
====================== ========= ========= ============ ========= =========
Lightspeed Distribution 3 13 9.54 4.60 0.50
InterComputing 2 6 9.12 1.00 1.86
Go Amiga 5 27 8.26 2.07 1.24
Briwall 3 5 8.20 5.41 1.47
Computer Mail Order (CMO) 2 7 7.14 1.67 2.47
Abel Supply 4 21 7.24 2.71 2.07
SINGE RESPONSES
Computability 1 1 10.00 1.00 0.00
Software Discounters 1 1 10.00 1.00 0.00
Software Hut 1 10 10.00 2.00 0.00
Fast Micro 1 2 7.00 5.00 0.00
Montgomery Grant 1 1 1.00 1.00 0.00
--
Jim Northrup northrup@wpi.wpi.edu
Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences WPI, Worcester MA 01609bryan@cs.utexas.edu (Bryan Bayerdorffer @ Wit's End) (03/18/90)
In article <9506@wpi.wpi.edu> northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) writes:
=-Here are the results of my Amiga mail order survey. There were a total of
=-24 responses, which isn't great, but it's all I got.
=-
Pitiful. Come on you 40,000+ readers of com.sys.amiga, send Jim your
mail order experiences. Jim, post the questionnaire again, now that I've woken
them up. :-)
=-Average Satisfaction: respondants rated the mail order companies on a scale
=- from 1 to 10. 10 = good.
Is this weighted by number of purchases?