Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Foster and Smith has pulled out....

Foster and Smith has ceased [affiliate] operations. This is in response to the pending legislation taxing internet sales.

The problem is that the merchant - the seller - has to keep track of where the stuff was sent, and pay the local sales tax on the sale.

This puts undue pressure on the merchant to keep track of local sales tax rates. In my state, this means each county. How can a merchant know which county a person lives in? By zip code?

Anyway, the nightmare of reporting and paying the taxes is driving out several players in the online product sales game. The expense of tracking these sales is more than most merchants want to deal with.

Expect to see more merchants pull their products and programs over the next few months.

I fully expect that if this legislation passes, online sales may completely cease. You won't be able to buy anything online. Contact your legislators to stop this - unless you want your choices to be completely limited to what Walmart and it's ilk have in stock.

That means that if they don't carry it, you can't get it. Period.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Christmas may be over, but...



This is a bit cute, even if it's not Christmas anymore. The cat is very patient...