Chess Sets | Chess Sales | Chess Design

Leaders in decorative chess sets - SAC have completely overhauled their web site and their businesss! They now stock more than just their superb theme chess range and stock staunton chess, travel chess and even chess computers. SAC is the brand that is more recognised in the world than any other decorative chess name. For some decades - if any consumer wanted a Battle of Waterloo, or an Isle of Lewis, and many others - the SAC brand has offered the finest - an excellent finish, and excellent standard of quality. They’ve taken their brand to a higher level in offering chess goods that are not just in the theme genre.

The SAC brand is now run by The Traditional Games Company based in Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire, England. Having gone through and succeeded in the turmoil of manufacture base that every English manufacturing company has wrestled with, Traditional Games have emerged as a lasting and valuable company through the excellence of their product. What better than to extend the brand to a wider set of products?

Our favourite chess store has now started stocking the whole range of chess software titles. With Fritz 11 now available and being the main chess software item in demand in the chess community, the whole sector is alight with sales expectation. The whole genre of chess software is a sector that is benefitting from the gradual demise of the stand-alone chess computer, not through an abscence of demand but through the miserable build quality and worse quality control of the main company manufacturing such products - Novag. Chessbase is ready to take up the demand with products that are superb and fully functional. Fritz and Shredder are examples of the best of breed. There are also many products that even fit on the growing arena of pocket PC computing.

In Web 2.0 networking - the site Linked-in is a useful SEO resource for outgoing links without the nofollow tag being used and for keeping a tab on resources for your organisation or your personal life. The site allows a typical facebook style accomodation of web resources throughout the web and in real life - we’ve found it useful to our company for keeping track of who’s who. We are also looking at it as a possible CRM application. The site is one of a growing offering by companies who monetise through adsense and which provide excellent resource for small companies competing for exposure to customers. Another is eSnips and Squidoo which offer sites/pages hosted with them on different C-Class IP addresses. The key on this genre of page hosting is to create a page but not to just leave it as if people will magically find it. Even ‘linked in’ has to be ‘linked to’ - otherwise it’s unlikely to be indexed by Google or the other SE’s. The so-called parasite hosting of many black hat SEO practicioners generally fails in leverage because of this factor - all it leaves is orphaned pages by the thousands.

The Novag Star Rub is a superb example of electronic chess. Whilst the Excalibur NY22 has beaten most of it’s rivals into a cocked hat with functionality, the Ruby still wins through with it’s slimline shape and it’s well thought out graphics. The model is one of the best of Novags lines and wins over it’s rivals through size and sophistication - many claim it still to be the best examples of electronic chess available.
Sadly the days of the Ruby appear numbered, unless it’s parent redesigns elements of the model to voefcome the restrictions of the new RoHS regulations. Pronounced “Ross” or “Rohas”, RoHS is a European Directive regarding ‘Restriction of Hazardous Substances’. It prevents new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of hazardous substance from coming onto the market. So far (Feb 2008) the Ruby is the only member of Novag’s family that has failed the regulation, so no new units can be manufactured until the company can demonstrate compliance. Come on Novag.

This store feed for chess computers, electronic chess from a UK chess retailer is an example of the power of RSS feeds from search engine optimisation companies such as TurnerDow.com in an increasingly competitive online space. As consumers become more and more savvy with respect to purchasing online, taking advantage of alternative, free means of marketing products becomes essential for survival. An online existence is expensive, much more so than for brick and mortar stores in the high street. Free shopping feeds clearly help that battle greatly.

A truly amazing chess sets store in the US is called ChessBaron USA, one of the family of stores owned by Baron Turner and Jonathan Stefanczyk. They have over 300 different kinds of chess sets with traditional, themes and unusual categories. We’ve never seen such great designs with a strong staunton flavor but a flair of design that sets the store apart from others. Check it out! Try the luxury chess sets section where the range is particularly strong, or if budget is an issue then the best value section appears to be the mid price category - there are many triple weighted chess sets with double queens, ebony or bud rosewood sets. A very cool site.

As seen in pages such as this one on chess computer intelligence, the science of chess computing is alive and kicking at Cambridge University. Chess sets have the social edge but chess computers have the scientific community more engaged. The number of departments in universities across the world engaged in using chess for the furtherance and testing of computing power and computing technology is significant. Chess has always been a test bed for computer advance and is so at Cambridge. Professor Briscoe is particularly involved in computer intelligence at the university, and as the most prominent centre of higher education in the country if not in the world is at the forefront of the discipline. Professor Briscoe is a huge chess enthusiast.

Turnaound finance, company rescue. With worsening trade conditions in Europe and the USA - more and more companies are looking at difficulties through financial difficulty. Companies that help failing companies are growing in importance and Beer and Young are the leaders in that field. Rather than just encourage controlled failure in suffeering companies, Beer and Young company rescue services are positive in restructuring for a continued healthy future, helping not just with the finances needed for survival but also in management restructure through a skilled panel of experts.
 

Growingly in chess circles, Electronic chess as an industry is a critical part of chess retailing, and a new blog at www.chess-computers.co.uk does a great job of showing how it works - especially in the UK. There’s a post on who dominates chess computer sales in the country and who they come from. It has a post on the best suppliers and a much needed discussion on which is the best top end chess computer out of the Excalibur Grandmaster and the Novag Citrine. We like the opinion on Saitek’s choice to delist their best product - the Expert, and agree with the comments on the quality finish of the Citrine. Thumbs up guys! More of the same - it’s great reading.

Wow! As Excalibur were unresponsive to our demands for more stock of the 404-D talking touch chess computer - what a result - a new chess computer that beats it’s competitors into first place several times over. The new handheld makes the most of their borrowed ‘New York Times’ brand phrase and includes a backlight along with their already enhanced LCD graphics. The NY22 has been a handheld in the past with the NYT name, but what a great way to use the NYT cache and the head start they had with the 404-D! Well done Excalibur - and may this lead to enhanced customer (aka retailer) relations to match the enhanced chess computer model!

The need for a professional freelance illustrator have not dissipated with the growth of the web. Richard Deverell such a craftsman who does a great job of conveying through his site the skill of his trade. Whilst cartoons in the form of jpg’s or such can be obtained from various sources accross the web - where uniqueness is desirable, or personal touches needed, a peson to do the job with his or her own hand is needed. It also avoids the problems of intellectual copyright which is a growing issue in the new wired world.

Richard has done work for a number of international clients, illustrated many books - childrens and other types and has become recognised for a certain style of cartoon illustration. If you want to get a unique touch to your business logo, business card or other stationery then this site will be worth a visit.

In the shrouded world of search engine optimisation, there is now a specialist in optimising websites for favourable placement within search engine results pages. This is obviously a recipe for conflicts of interest, but there is enough variance in the genre to be able to optimise for several different phrases of no interest to other engaged chess parties.

As the web has matured - every genre has become quickly clogged with hundreds of thousands of sites with fierce competition. Indeed, in terms of sales, the difference between success and failure is often determined with good ranking in the SERPS. Using such services may make a huge difference in traffic.

Hey - at last - two blogs dedicated to Chess Computers and chess clocks - the site chesscomputer.co.uk and chessclock.co.uk. In retail terms - for any chess retail site, chess computers have become a major factor in sales - particularly at Christmas - they appear to be a great pressy. The major there manufacturers are Saitek, Excalibur and Novag - all produce models that are strong in their software and have many useful features (see this pick of the best at Squidoo chess computers). The other blog deals with chess timers, chess clocks are much lower in volume but are in steady demand.

Chess is said to be one of the oldest games of skill known to man. Some historians claim that the history and origin of chess can be traced down to as early as the 2nd century, and its country of origin to be China. In China, at that time people were playing a game very similar to chess called Xiangqi. Yet others think that chess (played very similar to what we know today) originated in India around 6th century where it was played as Chataranga (in Sanskrit).

Mention about the game was found at the same time in Persia where it was known by the name of Shatranj (very similar to the Indian name, Chataranga). Documented evidence of the game is found around the 7th century where there is clear mention about the description of the chess pieces – though not exactly as we know them today. First the game spread across Asia; in Japan it was called Shogi, in China Xiangqi, and in Persia Shatranj.

In the mid 9th century the chess game navigated to Europe, most like through invasions by Persian and other Moslem armies. There the name of the chess had been altered to Shah (King in Persian) alluding to the game rules, as we know them today. By 10th century the game of chess was well known all over Europe.

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Two sites that promote chess for schools and chess for kids are these on Geocities that have serious information - substantial comment and authority but presented in the form of humour. As an example for schools: “The last five decades has yielded scientific research into the benefits of chess for children and has been dramatically documented and presented to school commitees and groups globally.” Heringer talks about his experience with his son who had great difficulty reading. Chess analysis helped his son distinguish elements of words such that reading skill followed.

In the chess for kids site - the site highlights how psychologist Adrian de Groot demonstrated that the success factor for chess Grandmasters was to recognise ‘chunks’ of information - positions on the board that could be assimilated in just 5 seconds. This leads to the concept of using chess as a mental development tool.

Chess puzzles are becoming more and more popular among chess players and starters for enhancing their chess playing skills.
This site has a detailed page on Chess Puzzles which will surely enhance your chess playing abilities.

There are 3 variations of chess puzzles today.

• Orthodox and Tactical Chess Puzzles
• Heterodox Chess Puzzles
• Chess Miner Chess Puzzles

Orthodox and tactical chess puzzles are closely mimic a traditional chess game and on many levels are best designed to develop an individual’s abilities with traditional and conventional chess play.

Heterodox chess puzzles invoke conditions that are not possible in traditional chess play. For example, with these types of chess puzzles a player could have multiple kings on his or her side of the board.

Finally, with chess miner chess puzzles a person is left to determine where missing chess pieces are located based on information provided pertaining to chess pieces that actually are visibly present and the location of those chess pieces.

This example can be seen at GPS chess sets. In chess sales - it’s a great idea to use whatever free exposure anyone will provide - especially if the ‘anyone’ is Google. What started as Froogle became Google Base and now has the less nerdy title Google Product Base, or GPS. Sounds like some new cell-phone calling system huh?

Though GPS is a boon for listing your products - it does tend to get lost in the maze of products available. One or two companies are now emerging to create an optimised XML product feed to prioritise your products - it works wonders and we’ve already had sales and loads of extra exposure. Not easy though and needs some heavy technical know-how especially of XML. No pain, no gain huh?

Take for example this site for chess computer listings in squidoo, or this eSnips page on chess computers and their electronic merits by a chess retailer. How do they affect sales? How does Web 2.0 affect sales of chess through the web? Briefly Web 2.0 refers to the democratisation of the internet, where instead of relying on the judgment of search engines to bring results to us - we rely instead on the collective judgment of other visitors/customers to determine the worth of a site. This is accomplished by such sites as del.icio.us, digg and squidoo to vote for us on the worth of web sites.

The trouble is - no-one really knows the actual results, unless we ask chess customer how they found us. This is sometimes possible and often not. But it is wise to observe what internet visionaries tell us, whilst we refuse to put all our eggs in one basket - the fact is that the web is developing at such a pace that it’s impossible for anyone to say what shape eCommerce is really going to resemble months, let alone years from now. Web 2.0 however has everyone in agreement, the collective votes of ‘the people’ are a better indication of a sites worth than the warring search engine monarchies.

As one of the manufacturing leaders of electronic chess computers, the novag company have done a superb job of this machine. Concentrating on the software, they have made a very strong chess engine for this price level. The computer can connect to a PC for enhanced visualisation and development. It has a database built in that has a 8,900 opening book. It has a 16MHz RISC processor and in summary is the most competitive chess computer in this price range.
The Obsidian playing surface is 9 inches square. It has a carry case for the pieces and the electronic board, and the pieces are felt bottomed and made in genuine sheesham wood. In the world of game computers, the Obsidian chess computer is outstanding!

The Citrine is now foremost Chess Computer for all singing, all dancing electronic chess. Man, this thing aint cheap - but it justifies it’s price tag by functionality that hasn’t been seen since the partial retirement of Kasparov beater Big Blue itself.
Chess computers have come a long way from the old ‘press sensory, press harder, now still harder’ - computers of yester-year. This Novag citrine is the bee’s knees, the Queen’s knickers and the dog’s bollocks all rolled up into one. I particulalrly like the way that when I lose it doesn’t actually laugh in my face even if I know that the silicon zeros and ones have a secret smirk becaue of my stoopid move. Oh well! It will also tutor me to be able to beat my 6 yr old whilst simultaneously allowing me to play with a human opponent on what is a very nice, fully wooden cabinet with the electronics buried inside. Neat! Novag have really done something with this computer. Maybe I can make a living on the chess circuit after all.

Have you visited this great chess forum yet? It’s a perfect place to whine about those awful chess retailers or something else about the game, questions (why does the horsey have to move in that awkward way?), opinions, etc. Maybe you have a question about the origin of the game, or want to find out where to buy chess computers, why Kasparov has quit chess - anything! In particular there is a great section on all kinds of chess articles - also a section on tips and strategy. We love the site!

This was posted (by me) on Matt Cutts site (Goolges face to the world) - I want to know that someone from Google knows about this.
Has anyone noticed that with the browser ie7 the google search facility (generally top right) only has searches through Google.com if Google are chosen for searching the web? So if you’re in Canada, or the UK, the search results are sub-optimal? If this becomes the default search mechanism (as it is doing) users aren’t getting good results and will stray from Google - as will be welcomed from Microsoft - the developers of ie7.
You can change to a ‘national’ Google as the choice - but man! You have to jump through some hoops - and even then I can’t get it to persist! 99% of users aren’t going to bother - they’ll just go to Yahoo or MSN instead.
How does this affect chess sales? In the UK, top results are not replicated through this new ie7 search. Worse, in France, Canada, etc. the results are completely skewed for chess sales through searched such as ‘chess sets’.
Microsoft always has to play dirty!

Good reason to run to a website search engine optimisation company - ranking in the organics is somewhat precarious whilst Google is still in adolescance. Spreading the risk of being pulled from the organic rankings - many eCommerce sites including chess sales sites have tried to spread the net for customers in order to become reliable, robust and here for the long term. With Google and other search engines eager to show appropriate results, their algorithms change and many good sites can unwittingly become casualties, meaning their sales, i.e. ‘chess sales’ suffer. If the newly confident eCom sites have taken on staff who are in turn reliant on income from the new-ish website, a pull from the rankings can be a living death. Hence companies are turning to other streams of attracting themelves to people who want to buy chess sets, other chess hobyist sites, online malls and other mainline directories with good traffic. The whole internet sales ‘thing’ is taking the world by storm, but what is overlooked is a site’s persistant precarious state of organic rankings - and who can make a good living on PPC?

Short of finding yourself in an orange jump suit and the wrong side of a fence with ‘Guantanamo’ on the sign, one of the worst experiences to have is waking up one day to find that your high ranking chess site ‘ain’t high ranking no more’. To save the home and some standard of living for yourself and family, and that of any staff, the wise entrepeneur will have spread the chess sales net so that along with enhanced adwords, the sales can keep coming in.

Until we get a more stable and reliable set of search results. Until we get a less adolescent search engine industry.

What an unusual chess design - the Japanese Chess Set! Who would ever buy such a thing - it’s ugly, it’s weird, it’s strange,… it’s an affront!,… it’s… it’s wonderful! It’s so different, so unusual…! I must have one! It’s pawns are all little Buddha’s  - each giving their little pieces of insight and wisdom on the current position of the battle. That’s all very well, as long as they all agree huh? But what a statement! And in a market of many theme chess sets - what an unusual example, a gift with oneupmanship established!

In a genre occupied by historical battles and stereotyped theme chess designs, the Japanese Chess Set is a breath of fresh air. Can’t help but see as much Chinese influence in the chess design as Japanese - but hey! they don’t come to me for advice! They could have called it the Chinese-Japanese theme chess set. They could have had Chinese on one side and Japanese on the other! Maybe a little too touchy? Or not enough? It could have been Iran and Japan.

The green color is very obvious on the dark side (not pictured above - click through to the full product) - what does this signify? Not a clue, but can’t resist the ‘Grasshopper’ reference from the old TV series. Ya gotta like green to like this set - the dark side is dark green. And not so dark! But - I love it - and it’s a great gift for someone who likes green, Japan, China and little Buddha’s all giving their two-penneth worth of wisdom and squabbling during the game!

As a chess set online retailer - what does one do when competitors get closer and closer to the throat? When they threaten to make a ‘personal visit’? When they publish some web defamation? And steal photography and other content to use in selling their knock-offs?

A maturing internet has allowed opportunities previously having high entry barriers. Hundreds of thousands of have managed to join the two skills (technical and business) they have to jump into the murky waters of online commerce. The example of chess set retailing is real and current. The victim is a successful niche chess set company who suddenly appeared on the web by utilizing SEO skills, techie ability and a love of chess. After a year of trading, one of the chess competition noticed and started with threats and intimidation. But this has happened across many industries previously dominated by other web sites. What’s the best course of action and reaction?

Flattery. A fellow retailer has flattered us by recognising a loss of income from our attempts at online marketing of chess sets. Hell, we’re good! - what other industries might we impact?

No such thing as bad publicity. Accept any actual reference to our higher prices as publicity - keep sending them over to us.

Losing focus. We seem to be occupying the aggressor somewhat. Well, that’s something too. Whilst he’s focusing his energies on us, he’s distracting himself from his own company.

Poor business. Our chess retailing aggressor clearly has a poorer business model than us if he has to resort to this kind of behaviour. Harassing the competition in some mafia style suggests a bullying manner that would be better channelled elsewhere.

Legal action. ‘Theft’ of intellectual property rights (chess photography, chess product names, chess product descriptions…)- whether yielding any advantage or not - is just that - theft. So real court action may be required to bring the matter to a conclusion.

Conclusion
The new world is here. Online retailing and competition is a fact of life. Competition is good for consumers and good for business improvement. But as in the schoolground and in the High Street/Mall there are aggressive unethical bullies online too. Actions can be taken to offset the aggression, evasive tactics can be used with some success, but the end game may involve taking hooligans to the law to stop the murky activities affecting the peace of our lives and helping us have societies populated with people having admirable qualities we all look up to.

It’s no secret that the vast majority of decent chess sets are made in a small area of India. The country that claims to have invented the game has the ‘privilege’ of supplying the world with it’s excellent designs. Whether it’s Pleasant Times, JS Arts, Ivory Works, Checkmate (and many others), the demand for excellence at a price that purchasing countries can afford is met through people working for a  lower salary than the developed world. If USA or European salaries were required for a typical chess set sold in the same countries, that chess set would be at least five times as much.

But dealing with a country that just doesn’t have the same way of thinking carries many problems, especially when it comes to that over-used, under-served word that may well be a contender for the most common word on eCommerce web sites: Quality.  Despite suppliers claiming high quality, the plain fact is that shipments contain blemishes, missing items, inconsistent finishes, the list goes on. Is this why Camaratta set up his own manufacturing outfit in India? Why is consitent, high quality such a problem? Try thinking of it in western salary terms. You work for three days straight on a chessboard, everything is fine, until a blemish is caused or realized. It’s a tough call. The end customer will probably notice it and will probably want a discount or want to return it. You might get away with it if it’s Christmas and the chess retailer is so busy that he lapses in his QC and if it’s a gift from a customer to someone he or she may not see for another year. And after all - you’ve been working on it for three days which represents a substantial part of your much needed salary.

So, ya can’t blame them - but neither can you allow the practice to continue. What to do? Training the supplier that  you won’t accept blemishes is a start. Making them feel the pain is another policy too (by credit/replacement demands). Suppliers hate this! They want to get on with volume work instead of the fiddley task of making a single rosewood Queen that was blemished - and if it’s a carved knight it’s particularly painful. Hopefully the message gets through.

In a meeting with one of our suppliers, I was reminded however of a truth that easily escapes a chess retailer. Out of a large shipment, it is often true that maybe just 1% or so is blemished. Even we Westerners make mistakes - right? So there is a tolerance. What have you found works well in dealing with this problem? Leave a comment and your site gets a link if the comment is worthwhile.

This pic is an attempt by someone to work out the interplay between adwords and adsense. Kinda scary huh? I run a small online chess retailing outfit - just about provides enough income with a bonus at Christmas for my family. The mighty G holds the rules of adwords very close to it’s chest. A while ago - in a bid to get to the top of the adwords tree I increased my bid significantly, and ended up paying just over 12000% (yes, three zeros) greater costs for nearly four hours, until I returned the bid back to where it should have been. This wiped out the profit for my small enterprise for an entire month! Now you’re probably thinking - ‘well you’re clearly an idiot for bidding that much’, and I can understand that sentiment. However, consider closely the situation. Google never charge the amount you bid and the generally accepted wisdom is that it doesn’t matter how much you bid, it just puts you above the person who bid less - and that your costs will be 10c (or some such small figure) more per click. This is the view held by many experienced adwords practitioners.

The fact is that this is absolutley not true. The price you pay depends on another closely guarded factor - so closley guarded that if discussed in terms of actual cases, ya get banned from the G. Yes, God becomes displeased - oops, did I say God? I meant, of course, Goog, the G, G!, The Goog, or whatever you prefer to call the entity that ‘does no evil’. Anyway - where was I? Yes, The other factor? What your competitors are bidding! Obvious? No. Like Rumsfeld said - there are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns. Wow! What a mouthful. His wrestling was clearly a war of words not physical.

OK - here it is… if you’re bidding 50c a click, we always assumed that the guys underneath were all bidding 10c less, until it gets to the minimum. Say there’s one guy above you. You assume he’s bidding 60c (leaving aside the other factors we know make a difference - like quality of ad which also lowers the actual price). So - the wisdom goes - if you now bid $90 per click, all you end up paying is 60c. The formerly top guy now pays 50c and all live happily ever after - right? Wrong. That’s a possible scenario if no-one then tries to get back to the top spot - but if it were that easy everyone would do it. The formerly top guy now raises his bid to $35 a click in an effort to get back up there. Oooh, this is where it gets painful. The difference between the formerly top guy and you is now significantly spaced apart, as is the difference between the formerly top guy and the blissfully unaware beneath him. The G will now start charging in excess of the second position, the formerly top guy. You’re now paying, instead of 60c, an amount per click greater than $35. He is paying an amount per click greater than the guy beneath him. But G! doesn’t tell you that. G! doesn’t tell you anything. So far, I don’t think I’ve said anything that will cause my demise in the ‘benevolent’ giants search engine that does no evil. So I won’t push it too far by even remotely suggesting that it’s worth arguing the case with them - hey, never know, they may return some of the greedily gotten gains.

If only they’d tell us the rules, we’d know, and they’d make less money. Oh! Silly me, that must be why they don’t tell us the rules. But hang on! They ‘do no evil’ - don’t they?