Don’t Take Feedback At Face Value Only – There’s More To It Than You Think
For many eBay users, positive feedback has become the Holy Grail of a member’s credibility. But there’s more to feedback than meets the eye. This article looks at a couple of points to bear in mind.
Ask most eBayers what they look for when dealing with a seller or buyer and they are likely to say one word – ‘feedback’. This magic number has attained the status of a near-obsession matched only perhaps by the kudos of powerseller status. Yet what does feedback really show?
Okay – it shows how many times buyers or sellers have left their vote for a member when they are good eBayers – doesn’t it? Well, that’s not quite correct. The easiest way I can show you is to go by my own feedback and explain what it means.
At the time of writing, my feedback number – the one alongside my eBay username – stands at 694. I’m not a powerseller and compared to some eBayers I’m a beginner, yet the figures still tell their own story. Say you wanted to find out a bit more about me – you’d click on the number, revealing the Feedback Profile page associated with my username. There’s my feedback score – 694 – but hang on, what’s this other number mean, the one by the side of ‘all positive feedback’?
This number, in my opinion, should also be shown by a member’s name. Why? Simple – it shows the true numbers of eBayers who have left feedback for me. In my case it’s 1061. This means that customers have made more than one purchase from me – any number of them between 1 and 367.
This indicates that (without blowing my own trumpet), quite a few buyers have seen fit to make repeat purchases from me. Unless they were crazy, they wouldn’t do that unless I had won their trust and they knew I sold good items. This figure also includes people I have brought from and here the same applies – by leaving repeat positive feedback they are indicating that they are happy with my buying from them.
So how about my positive feedback percentage score? No secrets there, it’s 99.9%. What – not 100%? How can I be trusted if I don’t have a perfect score? Truth is that a lot of sellers now – in effect – manipulate their feedback score to avoid negative feedback. How do they do this?
Easy. They simply do not give feedback to a buyer until that buyer has left them, the seller, feedback first. I call it ransoming – they hold the buyer ‘hostage’ with the threat of negative feedback. Unless the buyer returns positive feedback – regardless of the fact of it being deserved or not – they will not leave at best any feedback and at worst will leave negative feedback in a ‘retaliation’ strike. Beware of sellers like this!
Personally I always leave feedback for a buyer as soon as payment is received. If they pay quickly then I figure they deserve it! If I despatch quickly, sell good items and give generally good service I expect them to give me the same. However, I don’t hang on to that 100% figure as a lifeline – my eBay activities (and yours!) ultimately depend on the goodwill of buyers and sellers. This means that, if I screw up – and it has happened! – I want to know so I can put it right. If I do, I figure I still rate positive feedback. If I don’t – I deserve what I get!
So what does that 99.9% figure really mean? It means that I have had one – that’s right, just one – bad feedback in over 1,000 transactions. Guess what? It was a ‘retaliation’ strike when I dared to complain about a faulty item! And let’s face it – a seller with a feedback score of 20,000+ won’t mind the odd negative strike – it isn’t going to change their percentage score worth a damn. However, for a relative newbie with a score of say 10 that single bad result would plummet their percentage score to 90% – to my mind totally and utterly unfair. The big sellers know this – hence ‘ransoming’.
So next time you look at a seller’s feedback score, don’t just take it for granted they’re good – take a look instead at their overall rating. You might just get a shock!
Steve Dempster writes informative articles for the web and is also a confirmed eBayer. To learn more about levering your eBay sales, take a look at http://www.anewlife4u.co.uk/ebayshop.html or visit his eBay shop at http://www.theinvisibleedge.co.uk/page5a.html
The Joy of Online Shopping
Have you ever tried shopping with a screaming baby, a tantrum-ing toddler or in the rain? Don’t have a car? Don’t have the energy to try to tackle an overcrowded or understaffed shop? Tired of running to the shops every day for a couple of items or having to schlep bags and bags of groceries in from the car? Online shopping could be the answer to all your worries.
Online shopping involves purchasing products or services over the Internet. Online shopping is done through an online shop, e-shop, e-store, virtual store, webshop, Internet shop or online store. All the products in online stores are described through text, with photos and with multimedia files. Many online stores will provide links for extra information about their products. They often make available, safety procedures, instructions, manufacture specification and demonstrations. Some will provide advice or how-to guides. As you are already on the Internet, you can search for product reviews that other consumers may have posted. Some online stores have place for these reviews on their own sites. Many allow users to rate their products. Advice such as this from other consumers, about a product, would be unavailable in a conventional store.
There are many advantages involved with online shopping, the most obvious of which is convenience. As long as you have a computer, online shopping can be done from home or from work. There is no need to take the time to travel to a conventional store. Also, online shops typically operate 24 hours a day so you don’t need to rush to get there during business hours. Particularly if you have a broadband Internet connection, browsing online can be done very quickly – in fact, it can be quicker than browsing up and down the aisles of a physical shop.
With online shopping, there is no need to wait in queues at the check-out once you have your items. You are not required to lift any heavy or awkward-sized and shaped packages. Your shopping is collected with the click of a button and “deposited” into your shopping trolley by no physical effort on your part.
You will often be given a choice as to how to receive the merchandise you have bought – either it can be delivered to you or you can go to the store to collect it. This flexibility can be very useful depending on how soon you need the item or when you will be home.
Search engines and online price comparison services are useful for finding sellers of a specific product. You can also, very quickly, find good deals on various items. Some items will generally be cheaper if bought over the Internet due to the smaller size of the “brick-and-mortar” store, reduced stocking costs for the seller and significantly lower staffing overhead. On large orders (as determined by the retailer), shipping costs may be waved. There are also many websites that compile information on coupons and discounts.
With the takeover of the market by big retail chain; variety of specialised items continue to diminish; goes with that is also the choices from a consumer perspective. However, Internet shops have taken over this niche as many are operated by small retailers who understand this need. This means you can search on the Internet and it is very likely that someone is selling that specialised item that you have been looking and more importantly without the need to run around the town or ring anyone.
Online shopping is becoming more and more widespread and accepted due to these many conveniences.
Patrick Tang is the author of this article. His passion for good quality gourmet food and gifts has driven him to setup Fabulously Gourmet (http://www.fabulouslygourmet.com.au) for the Australian Community.
Exponential List Building with Viral Bait
The key to relationship marketing is building a list and then developing trust. In the Mortgage business I don’t expect to get a sale today, my product sells for thousands of dollars and my clients have a problem I can solve every 3 years on average. So I have to be in the long term relationship business which means that I treat everyone on my list as a future client or referral source.
For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to focus on building the list through viral marketing. Viral marketing is often thought of as a joke email or a chain letter that gets blasted around the web. In the business world, viral marketing is the Holy Grail. A small media seed can grow into a fast moving sales message that multiplies exponentially without additional cost. The viral bait becomes the first of many conversations that we hope will lead to a sale.
Over the years I have researched and developed information products (the bait) that I give away online in exchange for an email address. Once I have the email address and permission to communicate with the new contact, I can begin robotic trust-based selling campaigns that position me as a trustworthy service provider. This type of push/pull marketing is simple. However, creating a viral campaign that spreads without continuous pushing is not easy and often takes trial and error.
Creating a robotic list building system contains 3 main elements:
1. The viral bait – This has traditionally been an information product or other ethical bribe that is given to someone in exchange for permission to communicate with them about your product or service. You can easily create an ebook that provides valuable information about a subject related to your product or service.
2. An ongoing conversation – Communication can take on many forms (i.e., email, teleseminar, webinar, newsletter, promotional advertising) and works as a sifting and sorting tool that makes your prospects identify themselves as potential clients.
3. Conversion – For my business conversion is typically handled over the phone but many lower priced items don’t need an explanation and can be purchased directly online by building the demand (benefit selling) and lower the barrier to the sale (guarantee or discount).
The key to the system working virally is identifying the right bait. It took me years to figure out that people only care about mortgage information when they have an immediate need for a mortgage. You may be thinking to yourself, that’s great, a prospect that has an immediate need is closer to buying what you offer. However, even though I provided useful information that differentiated my services and positioned me as a trusted source, I didn’t have the time or resources to build deep relationships with the prospect. Ultimately I acquired a list of people who could only compare my service on the basis of price.
Besides price, the other downside to my mortgage campaign was that it never became viral. My bait was so specific to a problematic niche that there was no perception of universal value to others. So the chain stopped with the last respondent. In order for the leads to keep coming I had to keep spending. My marketing costs had a linear relationship to the response I received, not the exponential response I was hoping for. With conversion rates slowing in the mortgage industry, the ROI was low and not worth the effort.
So within the past year I re-created my bait to have broader appeal and my campaigns have been viral and achieving 10X the opt-in rate compared to the previous bait. I have completely cut-off my advertising campaigns and the leads are still coming in. That is the power of viral marketing.
If your list building has not met your expectations or is not bringing an effective ROI, go back to step #1 in the robotic list building system. Bait is the gate keeper to the system and the key to viral marketing success.
To see the viral bait that I utilize to build my list, visit http://www.squidoo.com/xlrevshare
Brett Nordin is a business consultant and entrepreneur with a passion for various business topics including sales, marketing and business development.
Efficiency and Effectiveness…Get Organized for Business Success
Every business owner is a simply great businessperson. Just ask them and they will tell you. After all, spending years and years in a corporate position, learning all about management, leadership, and how to achieve unparalleled success paves the pathway of success.
Thunk!
Welcome to Reality 101. Sorry to break the news, but with no guarantees in life, there is no guarantee that anyone is going to be successful as a businessperson.
Consider this. Even with the best Business and Marketing Plan, a heavily capitalized and well-managed roll out, and superior experience, knowledge, and street smarts, one might be successful. Or not.
Even the best entrepreneurs in the world can fail miserably. And it is not necessarily because of flawed ideas or they lack new and exciting concepts. History bears out that some of the best minds, the most pioneering individuals, have developed dismal track records of failure across the landscape of their success. The train wrecks of previous business owners who believed they had a sure thing are easily visible to those who simply search them out.
Today, a successful entrepreneur must ask him or herself, What must be accomplished faster, smarter, and at less cost to be successful in this venture?
One key element to proven success is to search for methods to achieve unparalleled efficiency.
Efficiency in a business offers a key which allows every element of business to be harmonized and focused, allowing faster success within the venture. Organization is paramount, and there are a variety of tools available online to increase efficiency.
One of the newest tools available is an online organizer. A variety of online organizers are available, offering different features to meet the needs of most businesses.
Look for an organizer which is not simply a paper organizer, digitally enhanced. Seek out an organizer that offers many different features, and choose the features needed to help meet the specific needs of the business.
It is not just what the online organizer accomplishes in terms of improvements in efficiency, but it is more how it changes small and medium-sized businesses into dynamos of communication. Imagine being able to manage a contact database that can be expanded to as many as 5000-10,000 contacts. Wherever, imagine the ability to connect to the Internet and have full and unlimited access to all contacts, access to image and document libraries, management of multiple email accounts seamlessly. Create a website or a blog.
The most useful attribute to Small and Medium Businesses, however, is the ability to create newsletters, send them to identified databases of contacts, utilize an autoresponder, and measure email campaign results with the use of a complete suite of E-Management Software. Close sales with automatic precision and increase both profits and connectivity. Build relationships with ease.
Worried about the cost of an online organizer? Some are free, but even the most advanced models cost less than $3 a day. That is less than a brand name cup of coffee in many markets. Is it worth adding this type of efficiency to a business for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day?
Alan Guinn owns and operates an Award-winning worldwide Consultancy which focuses on Marketing, HR and Seminars/Webinars. His world revolves around clients and new ideas.
Visit http://www.theguinnconsultancygroup.com.