Showing posts with label detailed seller rating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label detailed seller rating. Show all posts

Monday, 12 November 2012

eBay's much anticipated International selling feature up and running

eBay have launched their International Rate Card for eBay store owners who are currently on eBay's Anchor Shop package. 

In the past, whenever a seller has decided that they want to sell Internationally, they had to list each of their products as being available for overseas customers to purchase it. However, the new International Seller Rate Card allows sellers to list their products directly on to a number of different eBay sites within Europe and in Australia. 

This means that rather than a buyer having to come to the eBay UK site and purchasing from there as an International purchaser, the buyer can simply view it on their country's own eBay site as long as they are based in one of the countries within the International Seller Rate Card package. As an eBay seller, it will allow you to dramatically increase the number of users your products are exposed to, most likely resulting in an increase in sales. 

If you are an eBay seller who would like to take advantage of this new feature, you must upgrade your eBay account to the Anchor Shop package at £349.99 a month and then tick the box to "Opt in to eBay International Selling." 

To apply to be part of this new International selling feature you must be a top rated seller. However, should you lose your top rated seller status once you have been accepted, you will not lose access to the feature. Any sales made Internationally will also not affect the Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) that you have in the UK.

Before taking the plunge and upgrading your account to an anchor package, you need to first crunch the numbers in order to make sure that it will be the right move for your business. If you are not already on the anchor shop package you need to check how much you are paying based on the number of products you are listing in the UK as well as how much you are paying to list products on other International sites. For many eBay stores this will be the right move as many businesses are currently paying more than £349.99.

When branching out to International markets, you also may want to look at how you can use ecommerce software to also increase the number of channels your ecommerce store operates in, allowing you to develop your brand image and increase sales. We at eSellution offer a number of different packages to suit all online sellers, ranging from a free ecommerce store to our  Enterprise package.


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Friday, 21 September 2012

Why the customer is always right...well sort of

When running an online store, what your customers think is incredibly important for a number of reasons, the biggest being that if they aren't happy they won't buy and your business won't succeed. While the key to business success is sales, you should make sure that you use your customers feedback and opinions to enhance your performance, whether they are good or bad views.

So how do you regularly use customers views and opinions to improve the running of your ecommerce store?

Customer Feedback Surveys - When a customer makes a purchase you shouldn't just end your interaction once the transaction is complete. As you have their contact details on file, send them an email containing a customer feedback survey, asking them how they found all parts of your service from the product itself, to the ease of accessibility around your store and the entire delivery process. Gaining feedback on these parts allows you to see what your business is doing well and what you need to improve on.

Detailed Seller Rating - If you run an eBay store, you are going to be well aware of the impact your detailed seller rating will have on your store's sales. While you will receive one or two low detailed seller ratings, because sooner or later everyone does, it is important to make use of these negative comments to improve that particular aspect of your business and ensure you don't receive any more for the same reason.

Product Reviews - While these reviews aren't a view of your ecommerce store as whole, they are what your customers will use when deciding whether to purchase a particular product. You should regularly check your products to see what people are saying about them. If you find that your one of your products has received a number of poor reviews, you may have to think about removing that product entirely from your store as them more bad reviews it receives, the more it will start to affect the overall image of your store.

 Social Media Comments - Although you don't want to leave numerous negative images on your social media accounts as they will effect your public image, they allow you to receive feedback from people who may have intended to purchase from your store but then decided against it for a particular reason. This feedback is incredibly important in helping your business grow by allowing you to make improvements that will help bring in more sales. When looking at these messages you need to have the mind set that all feedback whether good or bad, helps your business take a positive step forward. Even though it may be your own business that you've spent a lot of time and money building up, you don't want to get offended by negative comments people have to say. The last thing you want to do is get in a public argument for everyone to see. Simply read the comments, take their views on board and if they are valid criticisms, make the changes to help bring in future sales.

You should also openly encourage people to send you messages to your customer support email address and through your social media sites for you to answer. It may be a case that some people are hesitant to purchase from your store for a number of different issues, answering any questions they may have could help allay any concerns and encourage them to purchase from you.

As all feedback, whether good or bad, is a way to help improve your business, it means in one way or another the customer really is always right.


Get your free ecommerce store now: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html
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Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Biggest problems for new eBay sellers and how to overcome them

With literally hundreds of thousands of people selling through eBay in the United Kingdom alone, online selling is more popular now than it has ever been. While there are thousands of people purchasing products online every day, many new eBay stores face a number of problems that they must first overcome in order to achieve long term success.

Fees

Whether your new to eBay or have been selling on eBay for a number of years, insertion fees are something you are always going to have to pay in order to have your items listed on eBay. However, depending on what you sell and how much you are charging, the amount you will have to pay as an insertion fee will differ. If you sell an item for under 99p it is free for you to list, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, if you list a  product for over £100 then you will have to an insertion fee of £1.30. You can find a full list of all the insertion fees on the eBay website. However, eBay are currently running a promotion for some categories such as "Outdoor Sports" and "Sports Memorabilia," where you will be able to list products for free until the end of the year. 

Feedback 

For a new online store, feedback from your customers will make or break your store. Feedback comes in the form of your detailed seller rating (DSR). A high detailed seller rating shows not only high levels of trust to the customer that they will be able to carry out an honest transaction with yourself, but also tells the customer that the items they will purchase from your store are of a good quality. However, when starting a new eBay store, you are kind of in a catch 22 situation. As you are a new store, you have no feedback, which means that in order to get this trustworthy rating that will entice customers to purchase from your store, you must first have people actually purchase items from you.

In order to get the positive feedback needed to make your store a success, you must make sure that all aspects of your store keep the customer happy throughout their purchasing experience. This means that not only should the product be of a good quality, it should be dispatched in a reasonable time and be delivered to them within the delivery time you stated on your store. If any of these aspects of the purchasing experience fail to live up to the customer's expectations, it is going to result in having a lower feedback rating. Once you have achieved a good feedback level, you will see traffic and sales levels for your store increase. 

Selling Restrictions

If you are do not have an eBay store, but are simply someone who sells products on the marketplace through a regular account, you may find that you have selling restrictions placed on your account, meaning you can only list a maximum of 100 products a month to the value of £3000. In order to remove this restriction, you must get a good feedback level through sales, as I explained in greater detail in the earlier "Feedback" section. However, there is another way around this. If you have another eBay account that you have previously used to sell different products in the past, you can contact eBay and inform them that you have two accounts and they will then remove the restrictions on your account so that they match the limits on your other account. 

Delivery

The delivery process for your ecommerce store is important for a number of reasons. Obviously, the most important part of the delivery process is ensuring that any items purchased by customers are delivered to them on time in order to make them a satisfied customer, who will turn into a repeat buyer. When choosing the delivery company for your business, it is important that you choose a delivery company that has their deliveries tracked. Although the majority of customers are honest when it comes to purchasing items, there are some who will look to essentially scam you. If you use a delivery service that doesn't offer tracking, it will mean that after a few days the customer could claim that they never received the item, even though they may have done. This will result in Paypal refunding the price of the product to the customer and then taking the cost from you. This will leave you without a product and without the money from the sale. If you have a tracked delivery service they will be unable to do this as you will have proof that their product was delivered to them. 

Get your free ecommerce store now: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html

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Thursday, 16 August 2012

The unappreciated strength of buyer promotion

A number of articles I have posted over the last few weeks have stressed the importance of creating a positive customer experience, as it is these customers who will determine future success of your ecommerce store.

However, once you have created these great customer experiences that will result in others talking about your store, you simply do not want to just sit back doing nothing, waiting for customers to come to your store. You can look to be proactive and make use of these satisfied customers by placing testimonials from those customers on to your store for future visitors to read. If you are unsure that a tesitmonial is, it's basically a short sentence or paragraph produced by a customer that states how they found their experience with the store. The great thing about a testimonial is that it is positive advertising but from a third party, unbiased source. This is important for two significant reasons:

  • Trustworthy - Rather than you posting content about how great your store's service is, a testimonial doesn't sound like it is from someone trying to sell them something. For this reason, their opinion will be much more trustworthy in the eyes of visiting customers, as they have nothing to gain by providing the comment. 
  • Great Tiebreakers - If you have a customer that is on the fence, it could be the smallest thing that makes their mind up as whether to purchase from your store or not. A good testimonial could be just the thing to push a customer off the fence and make them purchase a product.

While all positive testimonials will improve the standing of your store from the stance of a customer, some testimonials will be more effective than others. For this reason you need to take your time when selecting your testimonials, ensuring that you select ones that will not only put your online store in a positive light, but also highlight the many benefits a customer can gain by purchasing for your store. Whatever you do, don't edit a testimonial so that it says what you would like. If a testimonial isn't 100% truthful and honest, it shouldn't go up on your site. 

So you've selected the testimonials which you think will best showcase your store to visiting customers, the next question you should ask yourself is where do you place them? When a customer visits your store, most of the time they will do so by visiting your home page. For this reason, you want customers to see these positive endorsements, as it encourages them to delve further into your site, rather than bouncing straight back off the page. Still, you don't want to just have testimonials solely on your home page. Place them throughout your site, allowing customers to read different options as they navigate through your various pages.

What you should also remember is that if you run an eBay store you already have a ready made source of customer feedback in the form of a customer's DSR review. If you find that your seller rating feedback is rather low, you can look to combat this negative feedback by placing more positive testimonials throughout your store. What this will do is alter the balance of positive and negative views, allowing you to continually portray your store in a positive light no matter other feedback may suggest. However, this is only a quick fix solution. If you do have a number of negative customer comments, you need to review your own store and service to determine why you are getting these negative views.

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