Selling on eBay: The Importance of Good Customer Service and How to Achieve It

Copyright © Vicki Szeremeta
http://www.amazingathomeopportunities.com

The quality of your customer service and your success on eBay go hand in hand. If you dissapoint too many buyers, chances are that you won’t find your eBay business very successful. It doesn’t take many mistakes with your customers to develop a feedback rating that will cause knowledgable eBayers to stay away from your auctions. It is vitally important to develop customer service strategies that will keep buyers happy and coming back for more.

You should always start with providing an accurate product description. Displaying clear pictures and describing any imperfection shows the buyer what to expect. Just because you don’t think an imperfection is a big deal doesn’t mean that a buyer won’t. A good example of this is in describing collectibles. If you are selling a product in it’s original box, you need to also describe the condition of the box and show a picture of the box. Many times, collectors are looking for packaging that is in mint condition and will pay much more for it, even if the product itself has flaws. If you can offer a box in mint condition and stress that fact in your auction, chances are you will have a very profitable auction. This can happen even if you are only selling the box. If you are selling a screwdriver, the condition of the packaging won’t matter to most people but if you say that the box has a dented corner, you won’t get any complaints from people when it arrives that way. Take plenty of pictures and describe the product as truthfully as possible and your customers will be happy, leave you positive feedback, and come back to your auctions. It is much better for customer satisfaction if the buyer receives a product in better shape than he expected than if you oversell and disappoint your customer.

Clearly state your shipping methods, where you will ship to, and your shipping costs in your auction. Make sure that you offer insurance and make it mandatory for expensive items. If you are running auctions that yield a good profit, consider offering free or discounted shipping as a marketing strategy. Whatever you decide, don’t go overboard with handling charges. People know how much it costs to ship things and which shipping services provide free boxes and parcel pick-up. If you don’t have parcel pick-up and have to drive 30 miles to the post office, go ahead and state that in the auction. It may make people think twice if they feel you have overcharged for postage. Everyone understands the cost of gas. Don’t charge for your time, no matter how justified you feel in doing so. People only want to pay for what actually costs you money and nothing more. Reasonable shipping charges will attract customers, inflated charges will drive them away.

Communicate with your customers. Make sure that your auction winners are notified immediately after the end of the auction. Although eBay automatically does this for you, it is a good idea to send a friendly e-mail reminding your customer when you expect payment by and when the item will be shipped. After you have shipped the item, let the customer know that their auction item has been shipped and give them any tracking number that you may have. Also be sure to let them know to contact you if there are any problems. At this point it is ok to ask your customer to leave positive feedback as a way of telling you that they have received their item and that they are happy with it. Don’t keep asking for positive feedback after that. It is better to receive no feedback than to receive negative feedback for bugging your customer.

Should you take returns? Yes! Having some kind of return policy in place is important. It shows the customer that you stand behind what you are selling and that their satisfaction matters to you. Stating that “all sales are final” and leaving it at that just causes problems because there are always exceptions. It is better to have an actual policy on what you will refund and what you won’t. If your customer doesn’t feel that you have described the item properly or it is defective, they should be able to return it and get all of their money back. For items like clothing where size comes into play or if they just don’t like it, state that you will take returns but that shipping charges are non-refundable. Handling returns is a hassle but it is much better to deal with returns and possibly lose a few bucks than it is to get negative feedback. If you feel that a customer is taking advantage of you, take the return and then block that person from ever bidding on one of your auctions again.

It would be nice to say that customer service strategies on eBay are the same as they are for any online retail site but they aren’t. Because of the fact that your eBay customers can leave you feedback which everyone can read, it makes keeping every customer happy critical. At times, you may have to cave in to customer demands that you normally wouldn’t. I’ve read that it isn’t recommended to order from sellers who have a feedback rating of less than 99.5% so you can see how important it is to keep your customers happy. Honestly though, that isn’t that difficult. Make sure that your auction item is as good as you say it is, don’t inflate shipping and handling, ship quickly, communicate with your customer, and have a fair return policy. If you follow all of these guidelines, you will have very happy customers and a great experience selling on eBay.

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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.amazingathomeopportunities.com
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Avoid Home Business Scams

Copyright © Vicki Szeremeta

Many websites offer home businessopportunitiess and many people make money at home through online jobs offered on a website. The trick is to know which sites are legitimate and which ones are outright scams. How do you know the difference? Here are some tips to help you avoid home business scams.

Use some common sense. If you are looking because you’re short on funds, it can be easy to talk yourself into believing the promises you will read online. Try to look at the offers objectively. Many scams try to convince you that you will become wealthy with little effort, and you might even see on the website that this is some “secret” for making money that is just now being revealed. Much later they reveal the cost for learning the secret. You need to realize that there is no way to “get rich quick”. Any job opportunity that is legitimate will take time and will require work. In order to make any money online you need people to visit your site. Yes, the money IS in the list. Regardless of how easy they claim their offer to be, you have to market your site and that takes time, effort, and money. Sure, sites run on auto-pilot but it takes a lot of work on your part to reach that point. Plan on spending a minimum of 10 hrs per week getting your new business off the ground. Even if you do everything right and have a decent advertising budget, it will more than likely still take a few months to see any significant income.

Don’t get involved in a pyramid scheme. These are programs that pay you to recruit but don’t really have a product to sell. You make money by getting other people to join the system. This only works for those who start the pyramid scheme, and is illegal in several states. Note that this is not the same as home party or similar plans where you get a percentage from what you sell in addition to a percentage from those you recruit.

Don’t pay to stuff envelopes or make products. In fact, don’t pay to work for anybody. This is not the same thing as paying for access to lists of companies looking for people to do data entry or take surveys. There are several very legitimate programs on the internet involved in those areas. If you have doubts about any program look to see if they are members of the Better Business Bureau or a similar agency. There are also several revue sites that spend all of their time researching work-at-home programs.

Avoiding home business scams means avoiding anything that offers easy wealth. Yes, it has happened but just like the disclaimer on weight loss commercials, “results are not typical”. It also means avoiding paying to work for somebody. Don’t expect anything online that doesn’t make sense in the real world. Don’t get scammed.

Source
My own experience and
http://homeparents.about.com/cs/homebusscams/a/bus_scams.html

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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.amazingathomeopportunities.com
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Getting Started: Creating a Business Plan

Copyright © Vicki Szeremeta

You’re excited. You have a great idea for a profitable online business. Maybe it is an original idea that has not been marketed online before or maybe you have come up with a new spin on the ordinary. Whatever it is that has influenced you to start your online business, be sure that you have a plan before you begin. This is not the time to “pick it up as you go”. These are some basic things that should be included in your business plan.

The business summary should give a brief description of the entire business and is an integral part of the overall business plan. After you have completed the business summary you should begin to list the objectives or the goals that you want to accomplish through the business. Next and perhaps most importantly, you should develop your marketing plan. The marketing plan will address all the specifics of the business. When developing the marketing strategy you should consider the following:

The target market. The target market is the customers that you expect to see visiting your site. For example will your product be more appealing to college students or those who are in retirement? Knowing who your target market is will help you develop your marketing strategies and influence where you will advertise.

Consider the competition for your product when determining the marketing strategy. Choose a product that will be seen as unique and useful. Visit sites that are offering the same or similar products. Find out the cost, and how they are marketing their product. Find out the pros and cons of their business and try to improve your product based on their flaws.

Research the various methods for advertising online and offline. You should become educated about search engines and how they work since each one is different. Be sure that you know how to submit your site to search engines. Also familiarize yourself with traffic exchanges, ezines, and pay per click advertising. Although there are plenty of free advertising methods, you should be prepared to spend a fair amount of money on advertising. Done correctly, this will be money well spent. Offline advertising can be anything from putting flyers on car windshields to hosting a party.

Think about pricing. Again, look at the competition and see what similar products are selling for. Pricing can play a big role in the success of your product since selling a product well below the average price may lead customesr to think that there is a problem with the product or that it is not of the best quality. However, pricing items too high could also detour customers. Decide what your guarantee and return policy will be. If you will take returns but will not refund shipping and handling charges this needs to be stated. Try and think of every scenario of why somebody would want to return your product and cover yourself with clear explanations of your return policy. Having a return policy in place will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Determine the shipping method. Be sure that you know how products will be shipped so that you can have shipping details clearly posted on your site. Decide if you are going to charge a flat rate or if you will charge based on your customer’s zip code. If you are shipping things of great value, you will want to include shipping insurance. Also think about shipping outside of the country that you live in.Your customer base will be significantly larger if you ship out of your home country. Don’t forget to consider adding a handling charge to your shipping charges. How much does it cost you to sell your product and get it shipped?

Think about the different methods of payment that you will accept. If your business does not accept credit cards, you should be ready to give up half if not more of your sales. If you decide to accept credit cards will you use a merchant account or will you use a third party credit card processing center? Both will help you get started and the third party processing center will handle all of the business so you don’’t have to. You should decide which you will use and also if you will accept checks or money orders. It is essential to have a secure server when taking credit cards.

These few things will help your online business to become a great success and also provide you with peace of mind knowing that you have thoroughly thought about and planned for the opening of your online business.
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.amazingathomeopportunities.com
—————————————————————–

Tax Benefits Of Operating A Home-Based Business

Copyright © Vicki Szeremeta

A big advantage of starting your own home-based business is the tax benefits of operating a home-based business. Basically, working from your home allows you to deduct portions of bills that you are already paying to live there.

To take deductions for a home office, you must have a room that is used regularly and exclusively for your business. This room cannot be used for anything else. Figure out how big that room is in proportion to the house, and you can deduct expenses using that percentage. Deductions will be different if you own a day care business, meet clients in your home, or have an area set aside for storing inventory. For this article, we are speaking about a business that is operated only out of one room in your house.

In general, you can deduct that portion of expenses that directly relates to your home office. Some expenses that you may be able to deduct are the business portion of real estate taxes, mortgage interest, rent, utilities, insurance, depreciation, painting and repairs. If you have expenses attributable only to the portion of the home used in your business you can deduct the entire amount. For instance, if you add a second phone line for business purposes you can deduct the entire cost of the second line.

Keep in mind, if your gross income from your business is less than your total business expenses, your home office deductions will be limited. If this is the case, you will be able to take the deductions next year.

The deductions for office equipment are a bit more complicated and are best discussed with your tax advisor.

Do not forget to deduct any expenses for furnishing and decorating your home office.

As you can see, there are many tax benefits in having a home office. Make sure that you keep all receipts and bills associated with your home office and discuss your allowed deductions with your tax advisor. You don’t want to miss anything! Your tax savings is yet another benefit to owning your own home-based business.

Source
http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq-kw82.html

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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.amazingathomeopportunities.com
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