Do you have cake for colleagues’ birthdays? Vending machines in your break room? Cookies at staff meetings? Did you know that between one-third and one-half of Americans working today are in jobs where they are sitting for most of the day? With unhealthy foods and lack of activity, your workplace may be an unexpected obstacle to your health and fitness.When I started teaching at Rutgers University in 1995 there were three options for lunch within a 5-minute walk from my office on campus: Pizza Hut, Dunkin’ Donuts, and a vending machine. To compensate for my pizza and doughnut diet in those early years, I started working-out at the gym on campus. My workplace gym ritual didn’t last long. All too frequently (usually at the very moment I was struggling under an embarrassingly-light bench press), a student from one of my classes would say “hey professor — is that you?” with a smirk. The day I heard “hey Prof, do you need a spot?” marked the end of my workplace work-outs.What are your challenges to healthy behaviors at work? Nationwide Better Health, a subsidiary of Nationwide, conducted a survey of American workers on their workplace eating habits and physical activity. Their study revealed that 72% report eating an unhealthy snack more than once per week at work (13% snacking on unhealthy food at work 5 or more times each week). Only 42% of those surveyed reported that their company offered healthy food options. (I am happy to report that my workplace did add a deli with healthy food options next to the pizza and doughnuts.)Are you searching for ways to improve your workplace eating habits and level of physical activity? If you would like to read more about the steps you can take toward better health and fitness at work, I’d recommend reading the two-page article from Nationwide Better Health Survey entitled “Source or solution?: The workplace’s role in an unhealthy lifestyle”.
Benefits of Online Shopping Directory Services
With the rapid growth of the Internet, one of most prominent services made available through the Internet is Online Shopping. Regular shoppers, who used to go to a physical store to search for products and compare prices, are now rushing to online shopping stores due to the inherent advantages they provide. For these online shoppers, the tool that helps them to perform an effective online shopping is Online Shopping Directory services. Some others identify these services as Price Comparison Services.
Similar to any other directory service, Online Shopping Directory lists products which are available to be purchased online. These product listings represent different vendors, categories, brands, etc. The benefit of an Online Shopping Directory is twofold. While these services help shoppers to easily find the products they are looking for, they also help sellers to list their products. It is worthwhile to find out what benefits these services provide for shoppers and vendors.
Benefits for Online Shoppers:
The online shopper, who can be a veteran or a newbie, will find an Online Shopping Directory a very useful service to search for the product that they are looking for and perfect to assist their home shopping. Before the final purchasing decision is made, an average shopper spends a considerable amount of time searching for the product having an affordable price, acceptable quality. Not only price and quality, many other factors like guarantee terms, return policy, warranty, and delivery time are also critical to make the final decision. Shopping directory will provide most of this information with varying degree to the shopper to make an informed decision.
Since there are many different products available for the specification that the shopper is looking for, the shopper has a greater flexibility to cross compare these similar products using various aspects such as brand, quality, price, user ratings, warranty, etc. This will drastically reduce the effort and time to find the right product and also make online shopping a pleasurable experience.
Any online shopper would like to find the best bargain available for the product they are looking for. Online Shopping Directories again become handy to find the best bargain since they provide the best online shopping deals available on the Internet. Make a note to find a directory which has regular updates so the deals you will get are up to date.
Benefits for Vendors:
Vendors will also find that online shopping directories are an ideal place to list the products available from their online shop. One of the key benefits is the user base of these directories. By listing a product, vendors will instantly get access to this large user database which will definitely increase the traffic to vendor products. Since online shopping directories provide searches for shoppers to filter the products they are looking for, there is a higher possibility of getting your product information indexed to potential buyers.
Another benefit of an Online Shopping Directory is the indirect exposure of your product listings through the affiliate services provided by the Online Shopping Directories. These affiliations will expose the products listings of the Shopping Directory through the affiliate web sites making a network of listings. This will again increase the chances of selling your products.
To harness these benefits, vendor must make sure that the product details such as short, long descriptions, features, benefits which are provided to the online shopping directory are properly articulated. Also verify that the keywords which you think your product should be listed with are included in the descriptions. By having the right content as well as adhering to the online shopping directory submission guidelines, the traffic to your product listing can be increased.
Can all these benefits be gained at an affordable price? The answer is yes. In fact most Online Shopping Directory services provide free listing of products and services. If you are owner of any number of online shops, it is worthwhile to consider these benefits and harness the true potential of an Online Shopping Directory to market your products.
To conclude, Online Shopping Directory is a great way to list products as well as to search for products to buy. If you are a regular shopper or a seller, the best practice is to spend some time to find the best Online Shopping Directories out there on the Internet having a wide range of products, larger user base and up to date information. Some online shopping directories are targeted to specific shopping market segments such as online shopping UK, US online shopping, etc. By knowing what market segment a particular online directory focuses on will help you to find the product or to sell your product easily.