Monday, June 7, 2010

Ebay - The Anatomy of a Refund

TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!
I think the most frustrating thing is that all of the books that you purchase on the subject of EBay never really tell you anything that you don't know. All the websites and blogs tell you to:

1. Check your attic,
2. Take some pictures
3. Start selling.

After you are done selling all your useless junk and if you escape that without getting a negative feedback now what do you do? How do you make money? How do you become profitable despite all the EBay, Paypal and shipping fees? There are no intermediate guide
s to help the "baby" EBayer. The E-Baby if you will. That's where we hopefully fill a void. We are that place for Affiliate Marketing, Blogging and Ebaying. Our posts will act as a history walk through as we get better at all three on-line money earning techniques. Best of all - we are completely honest. Everything we try at and fail at, we will let you know. We don't care about being embarrassed. We want to build a site where people can come and comment with their experiences as well. A community of lessons learned – which sounds better then A community of dumb-ass mistakes. Either works for us.

MEMORIAL DAY BOOM!
All of a sudden post Memorial Day the EBay site was running on all cylinders again. What we are trying to do is offer a diverse product line up so we could attract many different types of visitors to our store. By calling it a “Gift Store” and having categories with dollar ranges it feels like a place to go if you are looking for a deal. All last week we hadn't sold one freakin thing. That’s the first week I could remember not selling anything at all (out of a 76 item inventory).  Read More
 During slow sales we are always tempted to drop our prices to help move things forward but from our experience, it's never necessary to take a loss. If you have good enough feedback and ratings, and are not priced crazy, eventually you will sell your item.

The first batch of sales from Memorial Day weekend we decided to ship everything priority; breaking even on some items so we could get some great feedback. That feedback is like bait for buyers who could possibly be lurking and observing the site. We cast the line with that feedback worm and snag a few more buyers! Cha-ching! That’s the sound it makes when you catch an Ebuyer!

ANATOMY OF A REFUND
This week we also had a blender that didn't work. The numbers: Blender cost $12.71 including Tax.
Here is the link to the posting. We charged $24.99 (looks better then $25) and $12.50 Shipping. The actual cost to ship it was $12.97 so we incur a slight loss on shipping but we end up making a whopping $9.64 profit on the deal. Wow think about that. We have a $12.71 blender and we end up getting a 75% return on our money. We have sold 12 of these puppies and the feedback has been:” Blender works great and it shipped within days great buy and service”
But then on Friday my cell phone rings with a weird number. “Hello” Hi this is “so & so” and I brought a blender from you and it’s not even spinning.
Now I’m still wondering how the heck she got my number and my name and she is still talking, I haven’t heard the rest of what she was saying.
But you know what? It didn’t matter. I told her to keep the blender and I would refund her money immediately including shipping fees. Here’s why.
  1. I have 100% positive feedback rating. You don’t want to mess that up for anything. People will buy from you over another person, and even pay slightly more because of it.
  2. I believed her, why would you make something up like that, unless you are a real nut job.
  3. If I told her to send it back that would cost her another $12.71 and I would have a broken blender that I would try and send back to the manufacturer. My time is worth more then that.
So I told her, “Maam we have a no questions asked exchange policy – your money will be refunded in the next hour, feel free to put the blender in your driveway and run over it or re-gift it to someone you hate”. She couldn’t believe it – thanked my profusely and hung up the phone. After getting her refund she gave me the following feedback: EXCELLENT SELLER A+++++ REALLY TAKES CARE OF BUYERS AWESOME PLEASANT TRANSACTION

How much am I out: $27.85!! Cost of the Blender, shipping costs, and Ebay seller fees. I think that’s a small price to pay for a great feedback and to maintain my 100% Feedback rating. That feedback alone will get more sales, anyone on the fence about buying from me will read that and feel good.
I recommend a return policy. We have sold over 274 items this year and that’s our first return. Not too bad – and yes it’s worth it.

By the way – the buyer can call ebay and your cell phone, name and address will get mailed to them, you will get a notice, but by then…..it’s too late.
If you would like a EBay pricing sheet: What to charge for an item you purchased to make profit, we can email it to you in an excel file. It’s just a guideline but it works like a charm!

Here’s how our online totals shake out in the last 10 days:
Affiliate Marketing:
  • Traffic Wave (64 member downline) = $0.00 in the last 10 days (Payments received monthly)
  • Traffic Exchanges (over 60 people) = $11.85 (Commissions subtracted from upgrade fees)
Blogging Efforts (Over 4 blogs) = $.01 (We got kicked out of Bidvertiser)
Ebay = $68
TOTAL: $79.86
Added to Previous total of: $1345.54
GRAND TOTAL = $14254.40

1 comment:

  1. I see you added a new icon to your webpage. An icon that size only means that either you are getting paid well for the promotion or you guys are up to something brand new. Can't wait for the details!

    ReplyDelete