1) Offering free delivery
It might sound obvious but offering free delivery is already a sign of good service and a big advantage when it comes to customers decisions to make an online purchase.
Use your own buyer experience, seeing a free delivery sign on a listing is more attractive than seeing £3.50 delivery.
Free delivery does not mean money loss, you can simply include the price of the delivery in the actual sale price.
2) Accepting returns
Accepting returns means that you are ready to go to the next level with a customer to meet their expectations, even when the transaction does not go the way you want.
Even if you do not wish to accept returns, in most cases Ebay or Amazon will literally force you to accept your item back. It is a requirement nowadays for a business in 2016 as lots of customers will expect or assume that they can return the item up to 30 days after purchase. Regarding the price of postage, it will depend on the reason of the return: faulty items returns will be at the sellers costs when unwanted items will be at the buyers expenses.
3) Buy/sell only through PayPal (for Ebay)
With the expansion of the online industry, a lot of opportunities have come up on the Internet. Unfortunately scammers are more and more present in most popular marketplaces.
This is why I personally recommend to only use PayPal to purchase or sell an item.
You will benefit from the Buyer/Seller protection at all times. This will prevent you to lose money after a terrible experience. PayPal is the most secure payment method at the moment, I have been using it for years and I have never been disappointed a single time.
Buyers have up to 180 days to open a claim and sellers are guaranteed to get the money no matter what.
4) Customer service
What is going to make a real difference between you and your competitor is your customer service skills. If a customer contacts you and receives a professionally written answer within a few hours, it will make a huge difference. Making sure your answers are impeccable is very important such as being friendly and responsive to the customers needs. Anticipating the needs of a customer and meeting them should be your main objective. When a problem is raised by a customer, always try to address the matter and solve it immediately.
5) Be ready to lose money
Like in every business, you need to take into consideration that there will be a part of loss. Sometimes it is better to give away a small amount of money to avoid having an unhappy customer. The part of loss could come from faulty items, broken items, genuine errors etc..
It is not a bad thing to lose money as long as the loss does not reach more than 2% of your profit.
6) Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction should be the number one rule of any businesses. Without customers, there will be no business. Making sure customers are returning is extremely important as it will allow to build a customer base and get more regular sales.
Keeping the customer happy could be done in many ways:
By offering more value to your item, excellent service (fast dispatch and delivery) or dealing with complaints like a pro. The key of a successful business is good customer feedback; You will need to build a reputation up in order to get notoriety and gain trust from potential customers.
For example, when a delicate situation comes up (any big complaints), I would advise to give a full refund to the customer and apologise for any inconvenience caused. By acting this way, the customer will see you more as a trustworthy seller rather than a money-making machine.
This understanding skills and human side is a key towards a successful business.
7) Stock management
Keeping a close eye on your physical stock might sound basic but can avoid you serious troubles. It is really easy to mess up your stock, an input mistake is easy to make.
A good seller needs to oversee his stock on a daily/weekly basis in order to be most accurate with the quantity of products you are offering to your customers.
Avoid order cancellations at all costs, it will bring you a bad name and unhappy customers.
If a problem arises, I would recommend to buy from another retailer and get it delivered directly to your customer (obviously informing the customer before).
By taking action and apply from now on my 7 tips, I can guarantee that you will build a successful and sustainable business !
Thank you for reading and I hope to see many comments and likes.
Take care.
Joseph
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