Sunday, December 27, 2009

What to Sell?

I strongly recommend items with low return rates. For example pots and pans. I also suggest items without many parts and accessories that can break. For example, headphones can arrive not working. By contrast, a quality chess set that may have dozens of peices, is unlikely to arrive broken. Personally, after selling board games for 2 years, I never had a single missing peice, or dissatified customer. The real problem there was mcuh time spent on inventory, and low sales.

Something like a game or application on CD will likely arrive without scratches, but a game console itself is just begging for problems.

Choose wisely.

People Piss Me Off

I'm not sure who upset me more, employees who lead to expensive mistakes, or customers who are pains in the ass.

I think the customers who are pains in the ass.

Please note: customers that annoying on the front end of the sale, will likely be annoying on the back end of the sale. If the sale ever does start heading south, due to the customers fault, just give the money back (if needed) and walk away.

I had someone who wanted to buy a phone, buy was being a bit overbearing before the sale. I tried to justify it in my mind, and went ahead and ordered him a new phone based on his request. I took a deposit (always get a cash deposit to get them financially involved), and ordered the phone. 2 days ago he picked it up. At that time, he started whining about it not "Being New". I told him he was buying a phone off CraigsList from someone's driveway. The phone works, don't bust my balls about minor flaws. He agrees, pays and leaves.

2 days later (today) he calls up saying the phone works fine, but they want a new one. This guy just pissed me off, and out came my dark side, that would otherwise get me fired. Since I could not remember exactly what I said to him, and I knew he was going to be a jerk, I just told him I would refund it. When he got here, I handed him his money back, took the phone and walked away, all of 3 seconds. I don't think I really needed to say anything else.

Since I prefer to correct future situations when something goes wrong, I made up a small sign that people will see during purchase:

Our Refund Policy: Please Choose Carefully. We don't give refunds if you simply change your mind or make a wrong decision. You can choose between an exchange ot credit where goods are faulty, wrongfully described, different from a sample shown to you or don't do what they are supposed to do.

I have a similar one on my website, because people would be all "oh, I dont like it, it's too thick". Well, too bad. That's why I don't sell on Amazon.com. i would spend more money on dumb shit like that,

Here is the thing, while I do belive a customer should have the right to exchange or refund, the reality is that when it cost someone small like me money to aquire the goods on your behalf, refunds and exchanges cost me over $100 each time, and that really adds up fast. that is why no cell phone place will do that kind of thing. It's also why stores like Circut City are not with us anymore. Dumb customers drive businesses out of business.

I took a huge hit earlier this month due to one problem or another. It simply needs to stop. No more nice guy.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Nissan.com is not Nissan?

I was looking for a car, went to Nissan.com and was shocked to see Nissan Computers instead. I followed the threads about Nissan Motors assault on the domain name and I really must applaud the stand taken by Mr. Nissan to hold onto his family name from the corporate machine. Go take a look, then follow the link about the court case. It was quite amazing what the guy had to fight through. Glad he won the case. I hate corporate anything....

Thursday, December 24, 2009

How Will I become rich?

I think, in the end, it comes down to trial, and error. I had evaluated what I tried, and how it worked, then kept what worked, and dropped what didn't. At the very least, seeking alternatives.

It should be fairly obvious that I have not posted in a month because I have been totally slammed with Christmas orders (and Christmas Fraud). So, business comes first.

About a month ago I hired a receptionist for $30 per week. I don't get that many calls, but sometimes they are sales, but mostly they are people I dont want to talk to anyway. Like, she saved me from the screaming customer because of a shipping error days before Christmas. It was fixed, and she has her present, but only after she called up swearing. That call alone was worth the $30 to avoid.

I also dropped my old supplier. They pissed me off for the last time. The new one isn't perfect, but so much better than before.

In the end, this month was likely the busiest I ever had from single sale customers. A little annoying, but a necessary evil.

Into the next few months, I have a few tricks up my sleve that I expect will make a huge difference, as they are deviations, yet compliments, to what I already have going on.

For webstore owners, I recommend LiveZilla for a chat program. It's amazing free software. So much so, I can even watch people's screen as they are browsing my website. Really neat stuff.

Anyway, gotta run. Enjoy the holiday. Let's do something different next year. It will be fun.

First Data Merchant Services

Abssolutely sucks. Always have, always will. Slow deposits into my account, getting information is like pulling teeth, and you need to be a year of problem/solution ninja-like experience to figure out their LinkPoint software when something isn't quite right. Terrible, just terrible.

What prompted me to post about it? I was out and needed a phone authorization on a credit card, which I got. I came home, went to process the actual transaction (which I would not have known about, if I did not happen to know it), and I need the actual credit card information. Call First Data, and they have no clue for 5-7 days what that information was. Nice....
Web Statistics Online Marketing