Helping you achieve your business aspirations. No BS. Real changes & fresh ideas that can take you to where you want to be, from someone who understands and has been there himself.

Sometimes trying to achieve your business goals can be clouded by the day to day operations or technical difficulties. Matthew can help you with mentoring or one-on-one business consulting. Matthew is extremely skilled in both eBay and Amazon marketplaces and has worked for two auction management companies.

Matthew has a Business Consultation page and you can contact him on his dedicated Contact Matthew page.

Q&A Free Delivery Versus Reasonable Delivery Costs On Amazon

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This is the third of a series of articles where I’m answering several questions that have come in via email in the past few days, that I feel that you’d gain value from hearing the answer too.

Free Delivery Versus Reasonable Delivery Costs

Today’s question is from Christine and is in relation to the having free shipping v’s reasonable shipping costs on Amazon.

The reason why it’s curious is because Amazon is quite different to eBay in the way it organises listing & prices and I’d like to delve into the Amazon Buy Box a little deeper and their prime subscriptions too.

Here’s the question:

Hi There Matthew,

I was just wondering what your thoughts were on Free Delivery versus reasonable delivery costs.

I started selling on Amazon about 1 year ago and have always gone for the reasonable delivery costs option so the actual product price appears a little lower than those who offer Free Delivery.

Even though Amazon calculates the cheapest offer based on a total of product and delivery charges my thoughts are that if a buyer sees a cheaper product cost plus reasonable delivery cost then the perception is that the product is more reasonably priced overall.

However I am considering changing to Free UK delivery for ease of calculating delivery costs etc

Kind Regards
Christine

Price Perception

I feel Christine is right, the perception that a customer would have that the price is good and the shipping is sensible then it would appear as a better proposition overall.

However, we must account for that we would assume this to be logical, but as buyers we’re not logical at all, we’re emotional, plus we are considering the Amazon marketplace here and while this may be true for other marketplaces or on our own websites, for Amazon I don’t think this is true and I’ll explain why.

By the way, if you think I’m wrong, you can let me know in the comments box at the bottom.

The Amazon Buy Boxes

To see where I’m going with this reply, we need to take a look at the buy boxes on Amazon and how the change.

Amazon Only / Amazon Prime

Amazon buy Box No SellersIf we take a look at the normal Amazon buy box on for an item that is being sold by Amazon directly, then we can see it’s very clean.

As a buyer we’re presented with just the quantity option, add to basket as the primary action, the option to login or the secondary action of adding it to a wishlist.

All pretty clean.

3rd Party Seller + Free Delivery

Amazon Buy Box One Marketplace Seller

However if we now look at Amazon buy box where there isn’t Amazon and just a 3rd party seller like us, then we can see that the buy box has the extra details at the top about the seller.

We can also see the item price and the shipping amount and the sellers name, noting that the delivery amount is emphasised as “FREE UK delivery”.

3rd Party Seller + Paid Delivery

Amazon Buy Box With ShippingIn the buy box to the right, we have a product where the seller has a delivery price entered.

In comparison, the “FREE UK delivery” stands out more, but Amazon are not promoting the total price, just that there is extra postage to be paid.

And When We have Multiple Sellers

Amazon Buy Box Multiple SellersThere can only be one winner and if you’re up against an Amazon stocked item or an FBA seller then the chances of you obtaining the buy box on equal total pricing, is remote.

If there are multiple sellers that are eligible for the buy box, will rotate at differing speeds through the buy box and any sellers that are not in the main buy box are shown below.

If we look at the example to the right, then we have a winner that is at £2.65 + free delivery and three others with the same product at various prices, however the last one from TLSS is the one I’d like to point out in more detail next.

Note: If you’d like to know a formula that will get you access to the Amazon Buy box for longer, then see this article which gives you this and it’s proven to work and if you’d like to know more about Amazon’s “Seller Ratings”, the new scoring system for Amazon Sellers you can here.

I’m just a mere customer, not a mathematician.

In the buy box example above we’re given numerous options, but as a buyer I only really care about the total price and also I’m just a mere customer, not a mathematician.

Making a buyer think is a bad thing

If I’m presented with prices that all have free options, then I see the prices as the total price. However if you ask me to compare four prices on one set of terms, they’re all total prices with free shipping and you lob me a price that I need to calculate in my head, then you are making me think.

Trying sum up the prices so that I can either rule in the £1.50 plus £1.99 option when all the others are just prices with free shipping makes me think and making a buyer think is a bad thing.

We need to make it as easy as possible for them to work out if the proposition is a good one or not and if the playing field are using free shipping, then that is what you should follow, free shipping, otherwise we’re making the buyers think.

Considering Amazon Prime Users

Amazon Prime Get Your Stuff FastIf we also account for Amazon Prime accounts, this is where an Amazon customer has paid £49 a year (or $79 in the USA) these are the power buyers on Amazon.

According to ChannelAdvisor’s Scot Wingo last year, there are approximately 10-12 million Amazon Prime users whom he also believes that these buyers account for a 3 to 4 times increase in buying volumes. As such they should not be ignored.

If we consider that it was you that paid £50 to have free next day delivery on items, then you’re not going to be that excited about paying extra for shipping when you’ve already stumped up £50 for an item on the Amazon marketplace where you’ve already made a decent outlay to get free shipping. In short as an Amazon Prime buyer you expect free shipping.

Note: You can gain access to these buyers by using FBA (Fulfilment By Amazon), this isn’t for everyone and doesn’t suit all products. 

In Summary

Me me me me me me me me me me, that’s all the customer cares about. Using a quote from Seth Godin:

Customers want ME-MAIL not Email

So with me in mind (as a potential customer) I have a Amazon Prime subscription and trust me I hate paying postage on Amazon after paying £50 for free delivery and I know what the difference is between marketplace, FBA and Amazon stocked products are!!!!

I bet the vast majority of Amazon customers don’t and they just want simple pricing and the simplest it can be is price + free delivery.

While me and you may know that your postage prices are excellent, 99.9% of customers probably don’t know the latest price of a first class stamp (what is that now anyway?), let alone the different pricing bands from Royal Mail and whether your postage price is good value or not. They just want a total price.

If we consider the case for Christine, then if your competition are offering free delivery, then don’t make your buyers try and do maths, regardless of how simple it is. Customers are like babies, you need to keep it as simple as possible and spoon feed them just enough information so they get what they need to know at that moment in time.

Make it really easy for them and let them see that your total price is excellent.

Make it really easy for them and let them see that your total price is excellent. And if in doing so means you need to combine the shipping prices into the sell price and offer free shipping, then so be it.

In the original question from Christine, Christine was considering moving to a free shipping model on Amazon, the answer now with the explanation why, is yes you should move to a free shipping model on Amazon and I’ve hoped I’ve explained why.

Do You use Free Shipping on Amazon or Another Marketplace?

If you do and have seen a positive or a negative impact to doing so, let Christine know by leaving her a comment in the comments box at the bottom.

What Drives You Nuts? If You Had a Magic Wand…

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Magic WandTime, we never have enough of it and as business owners, we always wish we had more, I know I do!

I’m published this on a Monday on purpose, you’re probably in the thick of it and just imagine you had a magic wand, what task would you like to see automated in your day? I bet there is more than one ;-)

So I have two questions for you and I’d love to hear from you to see if I can help solve them:

  1. Where do you feel you’re wasting time each day?
  2. What’s the one task or challenge, that if gone from your daily schedule, you’d breath easy knowing it was done?

It doesn’t matter if it’s something small or if it’s a huge task, what I’m interested in is seeing if there is a task or challenge that can be solved through some form of automation to make your life easier.

 

So if You had a Magic Wand…

If you had a magic wand, what task or challenge would you make go away?

Name and email are not required, but are handy if I need to contact you to delve a little deeper into what drives you nuts.

[contact-form-7 id=”6954″ title=”What Drives You Nuts”]

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Matt

Q&A: Gaining the Blue Buy Box for a New Amazon Account

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Over the next few articles, I’m going to answer several questions that have come in via email in the past few days, that I feel that you’d gain value from hearing the answer too.

 

Gaining the Blue Buy Box on Amazon

The Amazon Buy boxToday’s question is in relation to scoring the Amazon Buy Box for the first time in a new Amazon account.

As always, there is history around this and the reason why the original account was lost, the point here is that ideally you’d try & avoid this from happening in the first place, but as well all know, sometimes one tiny mistake, can have a big impact.

Let’s hope the reply to this question helps them get back on track.

Good morning Matt,

Your site is great information.   You are welcome to put this in the forums, this was just the easiest for me to email you.

We had a very successful Amazon account with NN,NNN per month  in sales.  Due to some out of stock items, our account was suspended from Amazon. 

We have partnered with someone else in order to get a new account going. 

How do you get the feedback up quickly to get the buyer box. 

We are selling about 1 item per week.  I know it is due to being a new seller and no feedback, therefore we cannot get that little blue box!

Thanks for your help!

The part that is not pleasant is the part where I say, in 3-5 months time. Don’t panic just yet, there is an option that you might not be aware of and we’ll get to that in due course.

Limited Amazon Accounts

Sell on AmazonAmazon to the best of my knowledge sand-boxed new selling accounts. This is where they trickle you sales over a long period of time to see how the business reacts to increasing sales. It’s a good system, that works and this also highlights that Amazon is focused on looking after number 1 in the equation.

No that’s not the shareholders, but the customer. It’s the right thing to do, to protect the site from naughty businesses and the buffer of a few months is generally a good thing. We’re just on the wrong side of her, er Amazon (see note later), that’s all.

Talking from my personal history, Amazon is simpler to list on and you can in some instances sell more product on Amazon than you can in other marketplaces, however it is different and different means you can’t always just bump-in and splash product everywhere and not learn the ropes, this is their way of ensuring that you learn the ropes [and not put in place to intentionally annoy the heck out of us].

Amazon calls this process, “Velocity Limits” and the part that they neglect to mention in their help page is the time factor. (You can read the full details on their help page here)

Along the way of building a new Amazon Seller account, you’ll go through a few emails from Amazon and at least one account review. This typically takes 3-5 months to happen and as I mentioned is designed to build the expertise up in the business over time.

I only now about this as I’ve seen numerous accounts start on Amazon and when the switch is flipped, it is generally noticeable, as you get far higher than normal sales appear from no-where.

Thinking about a conversation last year, it came up that a business owner (again I am doing my best to keep this anonymous as possible) had been selling on Amazon for 4 months, but was saying he still hadn’t got the Buy Box access and Amazon was slow.

So we popped a ticket in with Amazon and they said that this was normal and their account was be activated for Buy Box eligibility as and when their account was reviewed next (or words to that effect).

What actually happened, was the next day, was about 10 times more orders than normal started to appear and the phone call I received was “I’ve got the buy box!“, understandably excitable. So sometimes Amazon just needs a nudge to make the point “Hi, I’ve been trading for a while, I’m a good boy“.

Note: If this is you and you’ve been trading on Amazon for 3 months or more and do not have the buy box yet, open a case and ask them how long will it be and is there anything you can do to aid the process.

Sooo…. coming back to the question, is there anything you can do. Ideally I’d suggest you just wait, take the time to build it up slowly again and earn the trust that was lost the first time around and play the slow game (Amazon is a slow game believe it or not).

Option #1 – Amazon Red Carpet Scheme

Red Carpet Scheme

Much better than just plain-old red carpet don’t you think? Source

That may not be the quick-fix answer you may have been looking for though. But there is another option.

If you’re in the UK and I am unsure about this in the USA, then there is a scheme called the “Red Carpet Scheme”.

This allows you to work with an Amazon representative to load inventory onto the marketplace as an account manager, a free Amazon seller central subscription for a year and crucially gain instant access to the Blue Buy Box (YAY!).

Dave has covered the details on the Amazon red carpet scheme in a post a few weeks back, you can view this here:

http://www.davefurness.co.uk/amazon-red-carpet-scheme-it-does-exist-but-what-is-it

It’s an invitation-only scheme, but it wouldn’t be too cheeky to open an Amazon case and include a message something like this:

“Hi,

I’ve heard about a scheme that can help us with launching our X number of products on Amazon called a ‘Red Carpet Scheme’.

Is this something you can help us with?”

Amazon are not daft bunnies, if the products are unique and they spot that it’s a previously banned account, then making yourself stand-out is probably not the best idea and I’d play low, and cool for a few months and take it the slow route.

Another Note: If you’re reading this and have just started selling on Amazon for the first time, then it’s 100% worth your while to make a call or open a case with Amazon and nudging them to see if you’d be eligible.

Option #2 – Fulfilment By Amazon aka “FBA”

Fulfilment By Amazon - FBA

The other option is that you could leverage Fulfilment by Amazon (now on referred to as FBA as my spelling is pants) to put the more popular products into Amazon and gain immediate access to the buy box.

FBA doesn’t suit all products and I, as Amazon own notes, it’s not sensible to send in ALL your inventory, just the lines that you know will sell in the next 3 months or ideally less.

I’ve not covered FBA to any great degree in an article to date here on the LastDropofInk, so I’m going to leave you with the basics and give you a few links to find out more.

With FBA you send your items into Amazon for them to fulfil orders with, this has several key benefits:

  • You gain access to the blue buy box (the reason for the email)
  • You gain access to the buyers that have Amazon Prime (there are lots of those, trust me you want these, they’re the high-volume buyers)
  • Amazon does the customer services for you (I hear you screaming wooohooo!)
  • Amazon process the returns for you (good & bad)

This would give you the quick win you’re looking for, however there is one key downside. Amazon then handle your products and as such if you’re not welded down with a patent or trademarks, then it is not unheard of (see this thread over at the Wholesale Forums) for Amazon to locate the supplier or manufacturer and go direct, essentially cutting you out entirely.

Note. This thread is also worth reading: No Customer Contact is the Major Downside of Using Amazon FBA

But let’s be frank here (and this is also the contents of another email I answered 15 minutes ago), Amazon and the Amazon marketplace is one great big market research tool.

The key benefit other than the range of products that 3rd party sellers add to the Amazon platform, is that Amazon can then mine the data to see what they should sell themselves. They will do this eventually and there is a very interesting thread in our forums called “Amazon vendor invite“.

So trying to leave this on a positive note FBA could be what you’re looking for and you can find more about Amazon’s FBA schemes at these links:

In Summary

As a direct reply to the question, I’d strongly suggest you play the longer game and reap the rewards in a few months time, exposing yourself at such an early stage could knock you right back. Trees, fruit & nurturing roots and all that.

The Red Carpet scheme might work for you, depending if it’s available in your country and if the products are not too much of a give-away. But as mentioned, if you are a new business selling on Amazon, then this could be a easy way of you expediting access to the buy box.

FBA should also be considered it has many, many positive sides, you get the buy box access you were looking for , it has several other perks and can work out cheaper if you account for numerous items being sent in.

But we must remember:

Amazon, if it was a human, it would be a woman and she would be a ………..

She’d want babies, grand children, a ring, the whole white wedding cher-bang, but she’d divorce you at a moments notice if she found and cheaper or newer model.

(But I love her none the less).

Food for thought….

Excellent question, thank you for asking it and allowing me to reply publicly. If this helps you and maybe someone else too, then the time taken to write this has all been worthwhile.  I’m sorry to hear about the experience, unlike Amazon, the rest of the world is a little more forgiving.

Have a Question?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer, you can either post it publicly in the forums here, the doors are always open or you can contact me directly here.

Alternatively if you can offer any suggestions, words of advice or just a few words of comfort to a fellow business owner that’s had a boot in the knackers, you can let us know using the comments box below.

Are Multiple eBay ID’s Still a Viable Strategery on eBay?

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So is using multiple eBay ID’s still a strategery that is viable on eBay? That’s the question M65 put to me in the forums, the answers are simple, but where it leads, no-one has gone there yet and I explore this with you.

Pull up the chair, grab a cuppa and let’s investigate this further.

 

The Question in Full

So firstly thank you M65 for posting the question in the forums and allowing me to have a stab at answering for everyone. This is what he asked:

I have been reading a lot of content on Matts website, there is a lot, and one of the issues Matt discusses is the ‘multiple id’ ‘multiple account’. In the posts:

http://lastdropofink.co.uk/mar…..ne-ebay-id &
http://lastdropofink.co.uk/mar…..ne-ebay-id

Matt talks about using the multiple ‘niche’ opportunity to sell more, in principle I get this, I used it quite extensively when I had my previous online business. Anyway, I never thought about the possibilities of doing the same on Ebay, and after reading the articles above wanted to explore the opportunity when I launch again on Ebay.

So, I had a look at the examples you mentioned, Barratts, and looked for the ‘Love your shoes’ store (this shop doesn’t exist) and ‘Petit Feet’ (this doesn’t exist), have Ebay cracked down on the ‘multiple id’ issue?

So my first question is, if you create another ID do you have to create another Paypal account to cover your tracks?

Do you have to have separate VAT numbers?

The reason I ask is that if I have a company say X23 Ltd., and I wanted to have 2 or 3 trading accounts, say ‘cheap phones’, ‘expensive phones’ and ‘all phones’ as ids in Ebay would it not be easy for Ebay to see the same details for all, e.g VAT and trading address etc.?

What a stonker! Let’s dig in.

The Quick Answers

Right so let’s jump to M65’s two questions and answer those, because they’re dead simple to answer.

So my first question is, if you create another ID do you have to create another Paypal account to cover your tracks?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. This is not a requirement and I know a multitude of accounts that use the same PayPal account to run multiple eBay accounts off.

Generally the reason is ‘simple’, literally it’s simpler to run from one account.

Do you have to have separate VAT numbers?

Nope, this is not required also. You can have the same VAT ID registered on multiple eBay accounts.

So, I had a look at the examples you mentioned, Barratts, and looked for the ‘Love your shoes’ store (this shop doesn’t exist) and ‘Petit Feet’ (this doesn’t exist), have Ebay cracked down on the ‘multiple id’ issue?

In the original article on multiple eBay accounts I was using these as examples in the web world and was referring to their websites eg http://www.pricelessshoes.co.uk/ & http://www.bigshoeboutique.co.uk/ not eBay accounts. The same for Littlewoods too.

The Full Reply

Now this is where it gets interesting, I got quite a bit of flack for posting those two articles to begin with, but it’s got to the stage where the use of multiple accounts has become commonplace and advocated by account managers within eBay.

It’s got to the stage within quarter of an hour of surfing any category in eBay, if you know what you’re looking for you’ll spot the duplicate businesses. Some do it really well and even I struggle spotting them, but there are always tell-tale signs to what and how they are doing it.

So if you’re wondering if the strategy still works?

Hell yes it does, if it’s done right.

If it’s Done “Right”
Now let’s explore that a little further and what I mean by this. If we just duplicate your entire business and product range, then what value is there in that?

If you’re going to consider setting up another account, then there has to be value to all parties. That’s you, eBay and the customer. So one of the ways to do this is by going niche, so if you break your inventory up into say sub categories, will one of your sub categories support a business “persona” by its self?

The term “persona” is key here as it’s not commonly used so to quickly clarify:

A persona in the word’s everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask.

Its meaning in the latter Roman period changed to indicate a “character” of a theatrical performance or court of law, when it became apparent that different individuals could assume the same role, and legal attributes such as rights, powers, and duties followed the role.

The same individuals as actors could play different roles, each with its own legal attributes, sometimes even in the same court appearance. Wikipedia

There are a multitude of attributes you can tweak in a business, especially if it is a business that you can alter it’s persona on to complement an existing business. The persona defines how it looks, behaves and interacts with the outside world (even if it is the same business underneath).

If we ignore the 90 days of hoops to jump through with new eBay accounts now, it always used to take 3-6 months for a new account to gain traction, now it just takes a little longer to take hold, but it will.

I’ve seen a new account get in, in front of existing business and outstrip the competition 2 to 1, but that was the once and required some very fresh thinking. There were also some existing dynamics that aided this, so this is not the norm.

But what is the norm and what so you be expecting?
The main reason why you want to start a second eBay account as I detailed before, is basic risk management and it also takes time to set up and get running.

Assuming nothing major happens in your niche, you can expect to get close to what you’re selling right now on eBay. In a set of combined articles here and here where I consider why sales could be so consistent on eBay and explored a “Best Match” position bias “hypothesis” so it will even out given enough time.

However, that is what is working today and the problem is we need to focus on tomorrow and tomorrow is not certain.

But the HUGE Unknown

What eBay have dropped in the last update has the potential to completely alter this strategy. What am I talking about? eBay are changing the exposure of the Anchor eBay Stores in Q1 of next year.

If you’ve not read the full breakdown of the updates, you can find those here, but the piece that I am referring to is to do with the “Upgraded eBay International Selling”. This isn’t just the fluffy presentations that are kicking around for “Cross Border Trade” (aka CBT, which I thought was a bike test? anyway…) this has some meat to it and next year we are going to be served a change to the floor-plan and it could change everything.

The eBay Stores at Anchor level are going to allow selling internationally across numerous sites for the same fees. It’s at least 14 eBay sites and there are some other key benefits too:

  • Zero insertion fees for 30-day and Good ‘Til Cancelled fixed price listings on domestic, European and Australian sites
  • $0.03 insertion fee for 30-day and Good ‘Til Cancelled fixed price listings on eBay.com.
  • Final value fees charged according to the site that you list the item on. (You’ll also be charged relevant feature fees.)

Can you see why I’m suggesting this may change the floor-plan of the use of multiple eBay accounts now? It’s simple, if your single business, even with the lure of cross border trade, warrant a single eBay anchor store at £350 a month, then this could be a challenge.

Now if we ignore this for a few moments, if the whole of the EU, Australia AND the United States for peanuts is being opened up, then we have a serious pending issue over data.

Again I’ll explain :) What is an excellent by eBay as it will change the layout of the accounts and somewhat unify them, but what we are faced with a data nightmare. While we’ve experienced some category changes in the past 2-3 updates to make this easier as the eBay categories have become more aligned with each site, what even the more advanced businesses out there are going to struggle heavily with is the data needed to power so many sites properly.

Even if we use the most flexible tool out there currently to be able to do this (eSellerPro) then you’re going to hit some hardcore limitations in tackling the multiple eBay accounts

In Summary

So let me simply what I’ve covered, if you are never likely to hit the requirement to use an eBay Anchor store at £350, even with the extra exposure, then setting up a second eBay account and working on it for the next few months is an excellent idea (once you have defined it’s persona that is).

I did go a little off-track from the level from where you’re probably playing currently in the latter stages of the reply, however I hope you can see why I suggested that it needed more than just a reply in the forums.

My point is simple:

The whole game is about the change and I don’t think anyone has picked up on this properly yet.

Have you got a question you’d like personally answered? Well it’s time to register and ask in the forums and if you have any feedback on the reply to M65 above, let us know in the comments box below.

Amazon UK Release Seller Ratings – You’re Being Scored

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Amazon UK is rolling out a new “Seller Ratings” that scores you bonus points for being good and slaps you hard for being bad.

At the time of writing, I’ve not seen this published elsewhere. I’ve also given the link to the dashboard to numerous people and it appears this is on a controlled roll out. It may not be in your Amazon Seller Central account yet, but it’s coming.

Update: This will be live in all accounts in approximately two weeks from today (26th Sept 2012).

Amazon Seller Ratings - Header I have always suspected that Amazon would have such a system in place similar to this, well it’s not hard to guess what else would power the buy box percentages? And now we can see the evidence that this is the case.

In this article I’ll be looking at the new Amazon Seller Ratings Dashboard, the details behind it and as a bonus, included are the Amazon videos on the new Seller Ratings and also I’ve transcribed them for you.

You can let me know your thoughts on how we’re being rated in the comments section at the bottom, but for now, lets dig in and see what this fuss is about.

Seller Ratings Widget

What Amazon have done is make their scoring system transparent and in the process revealed a few nice extras and cool interface to boot. You can track where you are succeeding and also where you need to focus upon. Amazon Seller Ratings Dashboard Widget If you have this enabled you’ll know. There is a whopping great big pop-up message that appears on the Amazon dashboard after signing in. You’re given a rating and on a sliding scale of Fair to Excellent and in this example we can see this account is “Very Good”.

Note that this rating is appearing above the standard “Account Health” that you find in a normal Amazon Seller Central account, I am assuming this is because this is going to become the new standard for sellers to keep an eye upon.

An Introduction to Amazon Seller Ratings

This is the first video that is being used to inform Amazon Seller Central users about the new “Seller Ratings” and I’ve included the transcription under the video.

Press Play

This is the transcription of the video above and I’ve put the key parts in bold.

On Amazon, buyers have a lot of choices. So, when they are ready to purchase, what makes you stand out? Customers tell us that a sellers rating plays a critical part in their buying decision.

Would it not be great then if there is a rating system that could accurately reflect the effort you put in to making customers happy? Better still, what if the system could help you pin point customer service improvements that will lead directly to better rating and happier buyers?

Introducing Amazon seller rating inspired by and built for sellers. This unbiased, data driven system automatically recognizes your performance on every order. So now, every order counts towards and excellent, very good, good, or fair rating. This rating is based on how quickly you respond to buyers and whether you ship on time, cancel orders, have credit card charge backs, A to Z guarantee claims or negative feedback.

With this new seller rating system, buyers can get a complete picture of who they are trusting with their purchase and you can reap the rewards of all your hard work.
Seller ratings is not just comprehensive and objective; it also gives you more control. The seller matrix clearly points you to areas of improvement. Concentrate your rating on those and watch your rating and customer satisfaction rise. Simple as that!

While we are very excited to release this new system to sellers, we have no immediate plans to make the ratings visible to buyers. This is because we really want your input first before we consider making it visible to buyers.

We also want to give you time to get familiar with your rating, understand how it is calculated and to make improvements.
At Amazon, we know how important building business is to you and we know how important happy customers are to your business. We are excited to introduce this new seller rating system that can help with both.

To check out your rating and learn more, go to the seller rating page or click on the performance tab on seller central.

Seller Ratings Dashboard

To go with this new seller ratings, there is a new dashboard that is easy to understand. Although I have a suspicion that we’ll see this page evolve over time and likely see what we have on the Account health tab (the standard tab for monitoring performance on Amazon) join together into a single tab.

This dashboard is broken down into four key sections and before I walk you through them, it should be noted that all values shown in these images have been edited and may not add up correctly.

My Rating

Amazon Seller Ratiings - Ratings Table Amazon Seller Ratings - Ratings Table FlyoverThis block shows how you’re fairing and where you sit on the scale of “Fair” to “Excellent”. I didn’t notice this until later, but each of these ratings has a score assigned:

  • Fair = 0 to 0.79
  • Good = 0.8 to 0.93
  • Very Good = 0.94-0.97
  • Excellent = 0.98 to 1

We’ll be looking at these ratings in the next section, but for now realise that you’re being rated on a scale of 0 to 1 and you are being expected to perform in the top 0.3 percentile. Well, just like eBay :)

Score

There is a video on the rating system for which we’ll get to shortly, but for now we can see from the dashboard to the below that we (as sellers) are going to be given points. Seller Rating Score DashboardThese points are broken up into 4 sections and there is a bonus too.

  • No problems = 1 point
  • Minor Problems = 0 points
  • Moderate problems = -1 points
  • Severe problems = -5 points

order score +1+1 No problems
If you have no issues with the order being processed and the customer receiving it ok etc… Then happy days we get a point, sweet!

order score 00 Points for Minor Problems
But if you fail to answer an email within 24 hours, you wipe out the point you would have got for an order despatched on time and with no issues. The same goes if the order is late to be despatched.

order score -1-1 Points
If you have to cancel the order, then I’m afraid this is where it starts to hurt, you receive a negative point for a cancelled order.

order score -5– 5 Points for Being Bad
Let’s face it the following four reasons are all bad and Amazon are going to slap you for a 5 points if you achieve any of these. Receiving a charge-back, an A-Z claim, a negative feedback or allowing an order to expire are all not nice to experience as a buyer, let a lone as a seller.

While I’m writing this I am reminded of a Ted.com video I watched a few weeks back. While I’m not going to include it here as part of the article (as it’s worthy of its very own), the dynamics being used in this system absolutely wreak gaming. The video which I’m taking about is here and it’s 10 minutes well spent.

order score +1-10.1 Points as a Bonus
If you get everything right then you’ll be awarded a 10% bonus, well 0.1 of a point for fulfilling your part of the process well, by including a valid tracking number, met the minimum proposed delivery date, had no refund and were delivered within 3 working days. Amazon Seller Ratings - Time Weighted AverageAssuming that most businesses include these details anyway, this could be an easy win.

But it gets better, Amazon has also included a special note to a time weighted average. Something that we all know from eBay with Best Match and the value of recent sales.

Amazon’s calculation favours order history in the past 90 days but still keeps note of your past experience.

We’ll be looking0 at the points system next in a video from Amazon.

How are these Seller Ratings Calculated Video

Amazon’s gone the full hog with this and we’ve got a second video for the seller ratings. Again a full transcription of the video is included with the key points highlighted in bold.

Press Play

Video Transcription

At Amazon we know your rating is important to you and that it helps you build your business. So we want to help you understand how objective data is used to calculate your rating and how by focusing on specific improvement areas, you have the power to change it.

Here is how it works:

Every order is assigned a score. If an order is fulfilled without any problems, it gets one point. On the other hand, orders that have problems loose points.

These include orders that were canceled or expired, shipped late, had increased from buyers that took longer than 2 hours to respond to, had credit card charge backs, A to Z guarantee claims or negative feedback.

Some problems are more serious than others. So, for example, an order gets zero points if it’s shipped late but gets negative five points if it receives an A to Z guarantee claim. If an order has multiple problems, only the most serious one is counted.

You can also get bonus points. An order with truly exceptional service is awarded with an additional bonus of a 10th of a point for a total score of 1.1. Next, the score for all your orders within the last 12 months are totaled and an average is computed by dividing the total points by the number of orders.

Since performance on recent orders is more recent than those in the past, a time weighted average is applied to determine your final score.

Finally, depending on where your final score lies within the pre-determined range, you will be rated as a one of excellent, very good, good or fair. You can identify problem areas and then improve your rating by looking at the order quality report or by focusing on the suggestions on the seller rating page.

Some of you may discover that you do not have a rating. That just means you are a new seller or you have not had enough orders this year to calculate a rating. As your business grows and you have sufficient order history, the system will automatically calculate a rating for you. Meanwhile, you can still view your rating metrics to see how you are doing.

At Amazon, we are excited about a comprehensive and objective rating system that rewards you for all the effort you put in to your business and puts you in the driver seat.

How can I Improve My Rating

How can I improve my ratings This section shows the number of negative feedback, number of seller cancellations and late despatches, that in itself is useful, but what is sat behind this is even cooler and we’ll be looking at the new reporting tools in more depth shortly. Each of the suggestions, link to the same help page on Amazon here, but this may not work for you yet!

Rating Trend

Amazon Seller Ratings - Rating Trends ChartDecidedly un-remarkable currently, this chart over time will track your performance so you can see where your account is going. It gets better… honest.

New Reporting!

Amazon Seller Ratings - Report FilteringTransparency has been a big issues for sellers on eBay, especially for DSR ratings. Some sellers get reports and some do not. Finding out who has left you poor ratings is ni-on impossible for the masses and this is where Amazon have done really well. Their reporting for this new section is amazing.

Well… that is if you spot the hidden side menu that allows you to filter the search results. But that is a tiny niggle. That side bar that says “Search & Filters” is not clear that it exist when you first load the page and I only spotted it by accident.

On opening you can see in the screen shot, there are numerous search filters and also a date range filter that I’ve not included in the screen shot too. But thats just the filters, you wait till you see the report below!

The screen shot below shows an edited version of a orders report.
I’ve put a huge TICK next to the tick box you want to click on as again this is a hidden feature that shows all the good stuff in the report.
Seller Ratings Order Report ExampleIn the report above I have used a couple of colours to indicated the different scores in action. For orders where there has been a screw up, then -5 points have been applied, there are a few -1’s and a few 0’s as well.

What is shown is that there are two 1.1 transactions and while this report gives a good overview of the scores in action, the filters used were to show the the zero and negative values and the vast majority of your account should be +1 and +1.1’s.

Amazon Seller Ratings Summary

Technically we already get the stats for the products rankings on Amazon through the seller reports and sales rank scores. Amazon have now made the variables that they see as important to buyers, ensuring that the customer is happy is now rewarded.

But when the customer is not kept happy, then they’ll slap you & take points away from you. No one likes anything being removed, taken away or deducted and if they play the gaming dynamics on this well, this should see some interesting results given enough time.

Talking of gaming dynamics, here is one for Mr Bezos, making the seller stats public, as much as they’d hate you for it (I’m sure a few of you just gasped at that), would make a massive game that pitches product based businesses against each other on a open(ish) playing field other than just the price race to the bottom.

The video content included by Amazon is excellent and in the video for the how the ratings are calculated, it’s mentioned that the ratings are not going to be shown to the buyers just yet.

I’m not sure that 0.98 really means a lot to buyers. The general public understands percentages a lot more easily and my biggest comment to Amazon is to that convert this number to a percentage and show that to a buyer instead. 0.98 means what exactly? “Is that not even 1 out of a hundred?” You see my point?

Along with keeping it clear to buyers, Amazon has so far kept a clean interface, but even while I believe that the have included is very cool, looks fab and it’s been explained well, I do have my reservations that this may confuse business owners, especially new businesses to Amazon with new seller ratings, if they’re not combined with the existing options quickly.

What do you think?

Do you like the idea of a points mechanism, where you are rewarded for good behaviour and slapped for being bad? Do you think this is a good idea or a bad idea?

Let me know in the comments box below.

5 Things You Could be Missing Out On In eSellerPro

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eSellerPro LogoA little over three weeks ago I asked what you were struggling with and the larger topics I’m covering on the Podcasts we’re holding every Friday, but one of the smaller topics that you mentioned was that you’d like to know what you didn’t know for functionality in eSellerPro.

The following are relatively easy to set up and can save hundreds of man-hours each year. This gets deep really quickly and if you have any questions on these, just ask in the comments at the bottom or in the forums.

Note: For users of eSellerPro Lite who are in the ‘eBay Accelerated Growth Programme’, then you will still have access to the eBay templates, inventory details and also the custom fields sections, so you can use the conditional statements, but without the paragraphs. Also I’ve seen the courier rules set up with the shipping areas, so you may have access to these as well.

 

Using Keywords Inside Keywords & Conditional Keywords

When this first happened, it was deemed a bug. Really you should not put the keyword {{ItemDescription}} inside the description tab of a SKU and then preview or list it, what happens is that you get the description come out around 40 times.

Not ideal, but what it indicate is that you can put a keyword inside a keyword and with a little inspiration a few years ago, this turned into a really cool feature, which when used correctly can help structure your date very cleanly.

Let’s say you have a custom fields group called “Generic”, that group holds generic information about SKU’s, maybe 5 bullet points for Amazon and some other standard fields. If you add a new custom-field called “Description”, but make this custom field a list.

On the values tab for that custom fields group, you can then add values to it. If you were to add a value called “{{Insert:Description_Sofas}}” that just so happens to be a keyword, this keyword is an Insert command to bring in a paragraph block called “Description_Sofas”.

Thus if you assign this keyword in the dropdown box for the “Description” customfield on an inventory record then all you’d need to do is add {{CustomFields:Generic:Description}} to a listing template and wayhey! We now have the description contents being controlled in a custom field and completely separated from the listing template.

But that’s just simple use of custom fields, did you know you can logic test them too? I’ve written a couple of guides on these already and they should not be overlooked. You can make logic decisions if something is valid (that’s an IF clause), decide to do something if something is not valid (that’s an IFNOT) and there are other functions such as IFELSE and also a neat function to SPLIT the values in a data field.

If I’ve lost you with that last paragraph, don’t worry, read these three articles, they all have practical examples in them:

Courier Rules that use Postcode Ranges & Countries

Courier rules in eSellerPro are very powerful, but sadly sometimes they are heavily underused. These rules are business rules, that means that orders that come in with specific courier criteria may leave the warehouse with different information.

A really simple example of this is that a customer may pay for 2nd class on their order, that’s what they saw on eBay, however a business rule may be that because the order total was over £20 and in the United Kingdom then this order is automatically promoted to 1st class.

That is a simple example, but it’s because of what can be achieved through the courier rules, it has for a long, long time made me wonder why on earth people pay 12pence a pop to MetaPack, when obviously the tool you are using to process courier rules is not up to the job and MetaPack needs to step in a bridge that gap (albeit a little steep at that kind of price per package, although there is a compelling argument for redundancy in couriers and MetaPack does provide that).

Courier rules can get deep pretty quickly, so it’s always worth speaking with your implementer or support representative to work out exactly what you need, however the courier rules can be layered and you can create some complex rules that mean you can deliver your orders to customers faster and more cheaply than you ever thought possible, when you consider that you can factor in rules for the following conditions:

  • Order source
  • The method the buyer chose at checkout
  • The order weight
  • The seller ID
  • The order value
  • Quantity of items in the order
  • Shipping value paid
  • And finally the most powerful one of them all, the Shipping Area
eSellerPro Shipping Areas

You may be wondering why there are locations set for both United Kingdom and Great Britain and you’d be right that is a little odd, until you consider that eBay refers to the UK as “United Kingdom” and Amazon refers to the UK as “Great Britain”. Don’t let that one catch you out, I’ve already found that one out the hard way a long time ago.

You can easily create a logical process for your orders with “shipping areas” to filter through so that your orders go via the most cost and time effect paths and your staff don’t see any of the processing!

By setting up groups of locations, whether these be postcode ranges, such as BT for Northern Ireland or all the exceptions for your courier where you’re charged more. Maybe the core zones in Europe, so that your main courier say parcel Force is expensive to Euro 3 Zone, so instead you can easily switch to a different courier for that zone, or pick out a single country, such as Germany and have special rules just for that destination.

Packing Processes

This won’t suit all businesses, but the ones where it does this

will save you huge amounts of time through process control.

In short this is where orders are printed by one member of staff that manages the order queue and then using the document that is printed a special screen called the “Packing Screen” is used to process and despatch orders.

A barcode is scanned off the despatch document and that barcode is the order ID, this is then read in eSellerPro and the order contents are loaded up. Then for each line item the line item is scanned for it’s barcode and as each order line item is scanned it is removed from the order on the screen, until all the line items have been scanned.

Now we have a verified order and when this happens, with our courier rules above and assuming we have the couriers integrated in eSellerPro, you courier label will be printed. Pop the item’s in their package and slap the label on, job done, next.

Also as part of this process you can also scan barcodes, brilliant for refurbished or high value products that need the serial number recording for later verification.

Automatic Barcode Assignments

What is a barcode?If you have your own Barcode range from GS1, then it’s dead easy for this range to be added to your eSellerPro account and then when you send a new product to Amazon that does not have a EAN (or UPC) set, one will be automatically assigned for you.

If you’ve not got the foggy-est on what GS1, barcodes, EAN’s and UPC’s are, see this article, I explain them all.

Water-Marked Images

watermarked imageThe final topic that you probably didn’t know that eSellerPro could do is water mark your images automatically.

Before we go any further on this, it can be tricky to set up and it does mean that you do need to provide eSellerPro with standard sized images, so that the watermark that comes out in the final image is uniform.

This can also be done for multiple accounts too, but does require setting up by your implementer/support.

In Summary

So there we have them, five things you probably did not know that eSellerPro could do.

From stacking keywords inside of each other and then logic testing them, to making sure that your orders go using the most cost and time effect couriers and saving a fortune by not using MetaPack, packing them in a lean and mean despatch process with barcode scanners, the auto assignment of Barcode s from your range and finally, water marking your images automatically.

If you’re struggling with something, no matter how small or if you just have a question you think I or Dave can answer, ask us in the forums here.

How to Get Amazon Feedback Removed

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Amazon Negative FeedbackReceiving a negative comment regardless if it’s on a marketplace or not is not fun, however with this simple to follow guide you can get some of your negative and neutral comments removed.

What Can be Removed from Amazon Feedback?

To set clear expectations this is not going to work for all comments that are left, however there is a certain type of comment that Amazon will remove that doesn’t include the normal reasons such as foul language or if they have left personally identifiable information, like a link, address or name (if you didn’t know those two, they’ve just scored two more).

“The type of feedback comment you can easily asked to be removed from Amazon is the type of feedback that includes a review of the product”

Amazon Neutral CommentAmazon has spent years building up their reviews database, from what started as staff adding their reviews to the vibrant feedback forum it has now turned into with products that receiving decent 4 & 5 star reviews outstripping their competition hands down. The type of feedback comment you can easily ask to be removed from Amazon is the type of feedback that includes a review of the product.  After all a product review should be in the correct section for others to see, not in a sellers feedback profile.

And it’s on those grounds you can ask (where apt of course) for Amazon to remove a product review from your feedback profile on Amazon and if that comment happens to be a neutral or negative comment, happy days.

Just before posting this article I thought I’d see if I could find an apt comment to use as an example, the very first seller I found on Amazon had one and I’ve included it as a screenshot to the right.

“Little disappointed as the adventures are quite short – one about 20-25 minutes and the other only 15 minutes. Perhaps I didn’t read the info section properly.”

That kind of feedback would be amazing in a product review, if you were buying the product that “AST” had bought and spotted in the customer reviews that they stories were rather short.

That to me is a product review, not a constructive comment for the services provided by the seller and as such is up for removal, Amazon see it that way too in their FAQ section.

Removing Neutral & Negative Amazon Comments

You have to ask Amazon to remove the comment(s) from your profile, they won’t pro-actively check your feedback cards. You can do this by following these steps:

  1. Go to open a new ‘Support Case’ in Amazon Seller Central
  2. Select “Seller Account Settings” on the left
  3. The select “Orders > Customer feedback problems”
  4. And include the details about the comment and clearly state that it is a product review.
  5. Select your contact method at the bottom and press “Send Message”

To help you, I have written you a template you could use when contacting Amazon. If you have had previous feedback comments remove, it’s always a good idea to include the previous ticket number, as it’s unlikely to be the same member of the Amazon Seller Support team that is going to be answering you email

Hello,

We have received a comment from <USERNAME> that reads as a product review in our feedback profile on our Amazon account.

The comment is:

<ENTER THE COMMENT HERE>

As you can see this really is a product review and is more suited towards the product reviews section, can you remove this comment from our feedback profile?

Kind regards,

<YOU NAME>

This is know to work well for comments that are reviews, let me know your experiences in the comments box below!

Free Royal Mail Christmas 2012 Delivery Cut Off Calendar

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In last Fridays Podcast, Preparing for Christmas, we weren’t sure when the last posting dates were for this Christmas. So we looked them up using the online Royal Mail version, but found it was hard to read, we felt we could do better, so we did!

 

Free Royal Mail Christmas 2012 Delivery Cut Off Calendar

We were surprised that the one of the last posting dates was at the end of this month and as Christmas gets closer, 5 key dates are in November, so knowing when they are is super important to not let customers down and being able to update your listings & website accordingly.

You can download a free, clear, simple to read Christmas Despatch Calendar for the last posting dates for 2012 and we’ve included a customisation section so that you can add notes and dates for your own couriers too.

 [Click here to download this free Guide to the last Posting Dates  for Christmas 2012]

Christmas 2012 Cut off Dates 2012 Guide

Print this out and stick it on your office wall, in your warehouse and if you fancy it (and want to live dangerously) for maximum effect stick it to your staff too.

If you have any suggestions on how we could make it better, just let us know in the comments box below.

How to Break Habits, Stop Pointless Tasks & Quit Smoking

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Habits, we need them to survive, I’m also using several to type this article, to sip luke warm coffee at 6am on Sunday morning and you’ve most likely used one or more habits to find this article.

These are good habits, but smoking is bad and so is cleaning out the spam folder 19 times in one day, read on to see how I escaped both.

 

The Habit Routine

Andy lent me a book a few weeks back, it had just been published by one of his friends it was called “The Power of Habit“, it sounded pretty cool so I skimmed it and then sat down and read it back to back in a day. Turned out for me, it’s been one of the best books I’ve read yet.

As Charles Duhigg’s explains in the book, each habit has a queue, routine and a reward. Always in that path. Once you have this simple tool to work with, suddenly things become a lot easier to notice and then to change.

In the video below, Charles explains the process, with his addition to cookies and how he tackled it,

Email Spam & Smoking

At the beginning of last week, I found myself checking the spam folder every few hours and deleting the mail in there. Somehow it felt tidy to so and only once in the past say month I have found an email that I was not expecting in there, so generally in Gmail, spam really is spam.

It was curious, as I realised I was in a habit routine, I would notice the number next to the spam folder in the top left of Gmail and that number, was inviting, I had to click on it, sometimes even if it was just one, it was an untidy folder.

I kept score on Friday, NINETEEN times I emptied that folder in one day, a completely pointless exercise checking, spotting the number next to the folder skimming junk and then deleting it, with a reward that I now had a tidy spam box.

Cue -> Action -> Reward
or
See a Number -> Clean them out -> The feeling I accomplished something

We all know working for ourselves can be tough at times and that little win of empty the spam folder seems like a huge win at times. As Charles points out in his book, if we stop this cycle completely, the cue still exists and the desire for the reward also exists. So you can’t just get rid of them and expect cold-turkey to work.

With the emails, changing the cycle I was in was easy. I was avoiding answering the more important emails, so hiding the GMail spam folder (which you can do in Settings > Labels and then set to ‘hide’), so now the cue was gone, but the desire for the reward was there, so instead, I swapped my attention to the inbox, the folder I was avoiding and now I’ve happily replaced my spam folder addiction with the far better habit of answering the main email queue.

But that’s just one instance of a habit routine I’ve changed through using this simple process, I actually used it to quit smoking as well, by flipping Charles’ process on its head in a way I’m guessing he didn’t envisage.

As Charles explains in the book and in the video above we have a simple 3-step process:

The Habit Cycle

When it comes to smoking, the cue could be anything from a fag butt to a wiff of smoke from a neighbour, for anyone who has smoked and quit, you know all these queues all to well.

Breaking the Habit, with the Process itself!

It’s important to note that I had wanted to quit for some time and was preparing to go cold turkey. Even Charles explains that just stopping a habit won’t work alone, one necessary ingredient is required, that is “belief”. So I had the belief and now the tool to quit, but it wasn’t going to be a normal quit either.

What I decided to do was flip the entire idea of a habit on top of itself and I used Charles’s “habit cycle” process as a habit to replace a habit. Sounds odd? Actually it’s dead easy.

Every time I wanted a ciggy, I recognised that I was at the action stage, this was the previous action was to roll and smoke, now instead I had a process. And in this process I had sometimes missed the cue, but I my new action was that I had noticed that I wanted to smoke and there in lies the final key stage, the reward. I had recognised that I wanted to smoke, and that alone was my reward. I was using the new tool of a process to quit.

I don’t think the process was designed to be used like I use it, actually envisaging the process as a piece of paper to replace the habit process so literally, but the thing it is worked and continues to work. Yes I’ve lapsed in a few places, mainly due to alcohol, but when I did I could see my process falling apart and I hate broken processes so have rarely ventured past the first few drags and it’s been months now.

I use this simple process everyday, sometimes I know I’m in a habit loop, I like coffee and my little habit that I through several times a day, I indulge in and that’s OK. But other habits, they can be bad and now I have a simple tool that I use every day to either indulge in habits or to use them to stop smoking and stop wasting soo much time looking at spam.

You can buy “The Power of Habit: Why We do What we Do, and How to Change” on Amazon for around £8.50 and the Kindle version is around £8.00. For me, a complete bargain as I have my own copy now and I have a tool that I use daily.

I have quit smoking, stopped looking at spam emails and fully indulge in my habit loop that involves caffeine.

Up to 43% More eBay Buyers In 5 Minutes

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eBay Browser CompatibilitiesThis isn’t a joke, it’s certainly not a ruse, it’s a very serious point you cannot ignore and I’ve suffered from it for ages with this very site.

You could be losing out on up to 43% of your browsing buyers because your eBay listings are not being shown to your buyers in different browsers.

Browser compatibilities can be a nightmare and in this article there is a vivid demonstration what not checking your listings in the top four web browsers could mean.

At best you’re not showing off your products to their full potential and at worst, not showing them at all.

Let’s dig in and see what we can do in 5 minutes to identify if we need to take action or not.

 

The Browser Compatibility Nightmare

“What works in one web browser doesn’t mean it’ll work in another”

I sadly found the perfect example this morning of what a nightmare browser compatibility can be. It’s something that drives me nuts with this site, custom edits to listing templates for eBay and pretty much anything on the net. What works in one web browser doesn’t mean it’ll work in another.

To explain where this article came from and the background to why this is important you take notice involves a little story so let’s dive in.

I need a petrol strimmer to tackle the garden, the more I look at them, the more I convince myself that this need is real. I’ve been eyeing up both a normal petrol strimmer with a blade attachment and also looking at the 5 in 1 versions which come with an extension arm, hedge trimmer and chainsaw.

“I’ve got 4 narrowed down in My eBay and I’m almost ready to buy, but….”

Identifying branches and bushes that would look so much better with this multifunctional device, but it’s a considered purchase as they’re generally over £200, there is no way that’s sneaking past the wife like the last toy I bought and saying “it’s for the kids”.

I’ve got 4 narrowed down in My eBay and I’m almost ready to buy, but…. the web browser I use is Google Chrome. I use Chrome because it is sooo fast. FireFox used to be fast, but Chrome just wipes the floor with it now.

  • But what difference does my choice of web browser make to me buying an item online?
  • How can my choice of browser impact my final decision on which item I finally purchase?
  • Really it does not matter does it? 

Actually, it matters a lot.

Exactly the Same eBay Listing, but in Different Web Browsers

In the screen shots below you’ll see why checking your listings in different browsers is extremely important. This is exactly the same eBay listing, but in different web browsers I checked on this morning (and yes I’ve emailed them to let them know).

An eBay Listing Example in FireFox

The below screenshot is how the listing was originally intended to look. You’ll see that the images are showing and also the gallery function works as well when you click on the thumbnail images on the right.

eBay Listing in FireFox

An eBay Listing Example in Safari on the iPad

The screen shot below shows the same listing on the iPad. Surprisingly it displays fine as the Safari browser can be quite odd with templates at times too. All good so far, let’s move on to the next browser.

eBay Listing in Safari

An eBay Listing Example in Internet Explorer

Now this is where the compatibility issues start to show. The bulk of the template and product information is showing, however the main image is missing and the right gallery options don’t work in IE8. But it get’s worse, lets continue.

eBay Listing in Internet Explorer

An eBay Listing Example in Google Chrome

And we’ve hit worse case scenario here, in Chrome the entire description area is not showing and it was the same for all the other listings as well in Chrome too when viewing them this morning.

eBay Listing in Google Chrome

We’d love to think that because somethng works in one web browser, that it’ll work in another and generally that is true.

But each web browser has it’s own quirks and interpret the HTML standards in different ways, especially when it comes to what it should take notice of and what it should not with different versions and what to do when the HTML code it’s provided has errors in it.

I asked Mark Withers, a certified eBay Store designer who has completed over 750 eBay projects over 5 years what his views were on the topic of checking for compatibilities between web browsers on eBay were.

Mark Withers

“Just like any website, it’s important to ensure that your eBay listing is supported across media platforms, such as the iPad, iPhone and the five main web browsers.

A level of markup standardisation and compatibility checking should be demanded by any web designer, and ensuring that you aim to use no CSS hacks for your layouts.

You’ve got to keep checking your web presence, as browsers are updated frequently. In summary HTML and CSS compatibility checking ensure the future stability of your eBay listing templates.

Work with your web designer to understand the standardisation and to ensure all cross compatibility checking is carried out before you list on eBay.” 

Sometimes you’ll run into cross browser compatibility issues and what looks fine in one browser, can fail to appear in another and it’s because of these of the differences between web browsers, it could simply mean the difference between sales and no sales.

The Web Browser Usage Statistics You Cannot Ignore

Looking at the latest browser usage statistics from W3Schools in the image below, we can see that Google Chrome is commanding a whopping 43% of all browser hits now.

IE has taken a battering and is now as low as 16% and Firefox is a close contender at 34%.

web browser statistics July 2012

With the recent hype that eBay are expecting some obscene amount of increase in sales through mobile devices, looking at the overall picture we can see from the table below that mobile operating systems are only accounting for a tiny amount of the overall page views on the internet and that the desktop is still king.

Operating System statistics July 2012

Source: here

Check Your Listings Now

Download the four popular web browsers using the links below, they’re all free and won’t take a few minutes to install. Once you have them installed, pick one of your listings and view in it on all four of the web browsers.

Make sure that all the key features in your listings work, such as image galleries that work when you click on the thumbnails, links work and so on.

Generally the differences are only minor, but sometimes they can be major and major problems could mean that a large proportion of your potential buyers don’t see your product details in the full awe that they should be seen in.

For the sake of 5 minutes, do it now.

Your Browser Download Links

Update!

In the comments section below John suggested we just check that might be Adblock that is blocking your entire description.

Adblock PlusIn the case of the example listing above, that was the case, the innner division that contained the entire eBay listing description is called “ad_container”. If you were an “AdBlocking” piece of software, you’d block that division too!

To add to the testing above, it’ll take two more minutes to add the two common “Ad Blocking” extensions to Chrome (see here) and FireFox (see here). There are other blocking extensions, but these two are the largest ones around.

So in conclusion it could be as in the case as it was for this article, the entire description area was being hidden just because of a single division being named in-aptly or there really could have been another critical issue with the description causing it not to show. Or as we found in the Internet Explorer example above, the image gallery failing to load, which is not as bad as the description being hidden, but still hardly ideal.

5 Tips to Make Attending a Trade Show a Success

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Make Trade Shows a SuccessThe corporate version of dating & relationships, Trade Shows can be brilliant places to locate new suppliers and re-enforce existing relationships with suppliers and their staff.

However, there is a huge difference between just attending a Trade Show and making the event super productive, leaving with new supply leads and your existing suppliers thinking you’re fab!

This how-to-guide gives you five practical topics and plenty of tips that you can use when you visit your next trade show to make it truly rock!

 

Tip #1 – Be Prepared

Be PreparedNope no scout badges here, dib-dib-dob-dob… but the saying is true, “be prepared” before you attend.

This is not just the day before, this is two weeks before.

Almost all trade shows now have online sites which include exhibitor lists. Print them off or copy them to excel and identify which ones you wish to visit and speak with and which ones are existing suppliers.

Similar to the exhibitors list, it’s very common for there to be a floor plan available too, after all the exhibitors pay good money to speak with you and they are assigned blocks of land rented for the duration of the show.

Print the floor plan out and work out where each supplier is going to be based, put stars on the suppliers on your print out, one colour for existing and one colour for new suppliers.

Your Check List:

Follow these tips to prepare before the event so you know where you are going and who you need to see while you’re there.

  1. Print out the exhibitors list
  2. Print out the exhibitors floor plan
  3. Identify which exhibitors you need to visit
  4. Mark them on your floor plan with stars one colour existing suppliers and one colour for new suppliers

Matt’s Note:
If this is a new trade show for you and don’t have any existing suppliers, that’s OK, you’ll just have one colour of stars on your floor plan print our and take special note of special section that follows shortly for doing your homework with new suppliers.

Tip #2 Use the Cafe Area as a “Base Point”

It’s important to locate where the cafe/rest areas are too. This isn’t because of my obsession with coffee, this is is because you’ll need a base to work from.

After working through a couple of suppliers, take a break for a few minutes. This allows you to be composed for the next meeting, take notes from previous meetings and just take a break from all that chatting.

Trade shows can be really busy events and if you can help a sales rep or account manager break away from the stand for a few minutes, they’ll drop their guard down and move partially away from their business mode and move into social mode.

Don’t be afraid to ask others to meet you at the cafe area for a soft drink.

We want the buyer-seller relationship to be a personal one, the moment you can turn it into a social one too, even if it is a few minutes over a drink, you’ve just broken the normal “business cycle” on the stand and helped them escape, all for the price of a cup of tea or a bottle of coke.

Your Check List

  1. On your floor plan, circle the cafe area
  2. Use this circle to invite an existing account manager or sales rep to join you, if not straight away, later at a set time.
  3. Try and keep the meeting’s as one on one, two at most.
  4. If you are a smoker, take chewing gum!

Matt’s Note:
If it’s just one or two people on the stand, do them a favour, go get them a drink and bring it back to their stand.

Favours are repaid with favours (see this book for why), this is something I do at every public event I go to, try it and they’ll remember you for it.

Tip #3 Existing Suppliers First, Then New Suppliers

If you’re anything like me then talking to new people can be scary, so instead, stick your toes in the water by speaking to existing suppliers first.

“Oh I just saw the new products X at lunch/over coffee with Supplier XYZ”

You already have relationships with them so it’s much easier to speak with them and remember your sales rep or account manager is going to be in the same situation, they’ll prefer talking to existing clients for short periods of time because you’re familiar to them.

As a bonus of not only getting you warmed up, if planned correctly, arrange lunch or coffee with an existing sales person or account manager for later that morning, so that you can use this as a reference point in conversation with a new supplier.

Your Check List

  1. Arrange at least one meeting in the cafe area with a known supplier representative, even if it is for 2 minutes
  2. With your print out of your existing suppliers, work around these first and tick them off as you go

Matt’s Note:
Make sure the supplier you are visting knows that you are going to speaking with their prime competition. If you have just visited their competitor(s), then ensure that you have one of their flyers, catalogues or business cards right on the top of you clipboard.

Tip #4 – Go to Meet People, Not Companies

Let’s put the corporate facade to one side for a moment. All business is conducted between individuals, granted they may be groups of individuals, but they are single people none the less and what do such individuals like the most in the world? Themselves!

All we now need to do is locate the right people in their team to meet

LinkedIn LogoSo let’s say you’ve done your research in the previous tip’s and know exactly which companies you wish to approach, that was the ground work. What we now need to do is locate the right people in the team to meet.

We need to know their name, their history and what they’re role is within the company and we don’t need to know just one person, we need to know at least two.

The first person is going to be our primary contact, this person should be the one that you connect with before the meeting, however we should not let “chance” ruin what is going to be an excellent day or few days out of the office, so we need a backup contact person too.

“Turning up on their suppliers stand, whether a new supplier or an existing one and asking for a person by name, is far superior than saying I’m interested in X, even if that person is not free.”

You can use the relationship that you may not even have made yet with the contact person to form a new relationship with the person you’ve just met, they know the original contact name and because you’ve mentioned them by name, they expect you know that person in some shape or form.

Much better than turning up and stammering, like I have done in the past, don’t you agree?

Your Check List

  1. For each supplier, existing or new, make contact with them before the event.
  2. Tell them that you are attending and ask for a name of a representative that is attending so you can meet them on that day.
  3. With this name, find them on LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter. As these sites have profile pictures, see what they look like and find out their work history.
  4. Now find out who they work with and see if you can have at least one other name from the same department as your primary contact.

Matt’s Note:
If you find that the contact name you have been given has moved from one supplier to another, this is an excellent question to ask them at the meeting.

“I saw on LinkedIn that you moved from company X to company Z, what happened there, was it just time for a move?”

We’re not trying to put them on the stand or appear as a stalker, phrase it in a conversational way and where you found that information to. You never know you might find out the real reason why they moved or maybe a contact name of someone there who they’re friends with. Even more leverage for you on that meeting!

 

Tip #5 – Remember They NEED Your Business

It’s never been better or easier to find new suppliers

They need YouTimes are apparently tough (they always are though!), leverage this to your advantage and remember that they need your business.

Don’t let red tape or visual appearance of suits get the way, having already worked out which person to speak to, on the day and a back up person just in case the other person is not available or not attending you are primed to start up a relationship with the company right from the beginning.

You don’t have to place an order there and then, speak to contact person, see if you like the person you’re dealing with and what the products and pricing is like. Use the personal relationship you are making with them to get around any awkward topics such as opening new accounts, maybe on a cash only basis to begin with is more suitable.

If applicable, just be upfront about not wanting a credit account and that you can see potential in thier products and want to start small and build up.

Make it easier for your sales rep by not asking for a “credit” account

Creating credit accounts can be a barrier for some companies and ironically you could be making it much easier for the sales rep to create an account for you, by not asking for credit. But make sure you do your homework on the companies you are meeting and check over any account types they offer by checking their website, asking or reading any application forms.

Matt’s Note: 
Make it as easy as possible for the sales rep to make you an account. They not only want your business, they need your business never forget that.

And Finally….

Remember to follow up the meetings with a email or call to the person you met at the trade show. Even if you don’t intend to buy from them, open the account anyway, you can use it as a leverage point for another reference to another supplier.

Step away from the freebies!!!

Avoid picking up tat from stands and end up carrying around bags and bags of corporate junk. It looks much better for anyone and everyone that you do intend to be working with, resist and you’ll not be instantly dismissed as a tat-junkie.

To summarise what we’ve covered:

  1. Be Prepared
    Be prepared and do your homework on the trade show before attending, know who you are going to be meeting, where they are and what their history is.
  2. Set Your “home” for the Day
    You’re in a different environment for the day and we need somewhere familiar. As soon as you’ve checked in, make the cafe your base point and the moment you need a break, escape to the base point and take a rest for a few minutes.
  3. Make it Easier For Yourself
    Meet with existing suppliers first, it makes making new relationships with new people (notice how I’m not saying “suppliers” here) later in the day as you’re warmed up.
  4. Remember You’re Meeting Real “People”
    If have a decent relationship formed, ask if they’d like to join you for a coffee or soft drink in the cafe area, make the relationship a personal one, not a corporate facade.
  5. They Need You!
    You know how customers make your business tick. Guess what, in the buyer-seller relationship, you’re the buyer and you are more important.

These simple, yet effective tips to making the most of the next Trade Show that you attend can make the difference between attending a trade show and a trade show that rocks for you and your business.

If you have any other suggestions or comments on how I can improve this guide, let me know in the comments box below.

Tesco Marketplace Update: Not Enough Big Name Brands?

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The launch of Tesco’s Marketplace has been very quiet, first it was launched very silently in April with  just two 3rd parties, Maplins and Crocus and now according to this article Tesco has postponed its launch campaign. So is this the end of Tesco marketplace already?

Tesco Marketplace, the only viable new challenger to Amazon in the UK Marketplace as both a retailer and a Marketplace, noting that eBay is not a retailer as well, well “as yet” at least.

Sears MarketplaceWe’ve seen this done to varying degrees of success in the USA with Sears marketplace being the larger one of them and back in April we saw the statement in another article from the BBC that Tesco were looking to increase the volume by two, from 40,000 to 80,000 lines for their own supplied inventory and add more than double that through third parties with an aim of 200,000 by Christmas.

When I looked at the Tesco Marketplace back in April, we could already see signs that it’s launch had not been that well thought through and data was weak in some places and only a handful of merchants had signed up and were listing their inventory on Tesco Direct.

 

Current 3rd Party Sellers on Amazon

Looking at Tesco marketplace today, the current list of brands are as follows:

  • Crocus
  • Fred Aldous
  • Mamas & Papas
  • Maplin
  • Normans Musical Instruments
  • Purely Gadgets
  • The Nutri Centre
  • Thompson & Morgan
  • Trove (Hughes Electrical)
  • Wayfair

If we count the number of products that these new merchants have added to the marketplace, we come in with a total of 45,582 new products.

Hardly a dent in the target 200,000 products expected by Christmas and considering that it’s taken 5 months to get this far and 4 months to go December, then it looks unlikely that Tesco Marketplace will be anywhere near the expected volume of inventory.

Digging into Mamas & Papas

mamas and papas on Amazon

Looking at one retailer, in particular “Mamas & Papas”, they were said to be “a huge online shopping destination” for Tesco Direct, however, I’m wondering how flawed this is.

Checking their fully branded Amazon presence here they hardly scrapping 71 feedback comments, which means they’re only really seeing 700 orders a month from the Amazon marketplace.

It does make you wonder why Mamas & Papas even bothered with Tesco Marketplace in the first place

If we look to eBay where there is no direct presence by Mamas & Papas, there are over 5,500 items listed, showing that the secondhand market is strong (as it is second hand here as no primary presence by the own label brand) and an estimated monthly sales volume of £271,000 according to Terapeak.

It does make you wonder why Mamas & Papas even bothered with Tesco Marketplace in the first place, as an over quarter of a million pounds work of a kit a month in secondhand only goods raises the immediate question, why are we not seeing them on eBay already, after all eBay see’s more visitors each month than Tesco and has the same or greater potential than Amazon does.

What Do You Think of the Tesco Marketplace?

In the original article that I wrote at the beginning of this year called “Part 1: Battle of The Giants – Tesco V’s Amazon – Who Will Win?” it was correctly noted in the comments that Tesco only need to make a small dent in Amazon to have an effect.

What I had not realised is how little this dent is going to be, now with their marketing campaign for the site being postponed, you’ve got to wonder if we’ll be seeing anything like the formation of a new marketplace that I know many of you have longed for.

So one question for you:

Do you think the Tesco Marketplace is ever going take off and are we likely to see the ~180,000 businesses from eBay and the estimated 100,000 from Amazon move over? Would you?

You can let me know your thoughts in the comments box below.