ReliaBlog

Clipping Coupons and Increasing Sales

During the holiday season when everyone is rushing to find just the right gifts for those people on their lists, why not give previous customers an added incentive to search your listings?  Another third-party service provider, Andalé, has launched a new addition to their Andalé Checkout program, allowing buyers to enter a coupon code while checking out for discounts. 

Coupons.  What a marvelous way to attract and reward repeat buyers.  And during the holiday season, everyone is looking for a bargain, so take advantage of this opportunity to bring previous bidders back to your storefront and listings.  Depending on the size of your business and the diversity of your listings, targeted direct mail pieces may be the most effective way to reach past buyers and provide them with a discount coupon.  And while the nice thing about emailing individuals is that you are reaching them while they are already online, the large amount of SPAM mail these days may cause your information to get lost or filtered. 

Stay tuned for our November newsletter for more tips on how to increase your sales this holiday season!  If you aren't already on our mailing list, it's simple and free to join!  Just enter your email address on the left-hand sidebar.

Let Us Deal with the Crazies

Just like in offline life, most people you run into are normal and law abiding citizen, but occasionally you will run into those who are not. The ones who are a little crazy. Most of the time this insanity manifests itself in online "flaming" or someone sending you obnoxious emails. But, sometimes those things can go a little too far. I was just reading my morning news and saw this article about an online argument that took a dangerous turn offline.

While the dispute in the article did not come out of an eBay dispute, I would not put such a thing out of the question. When I sold on eBay I had a number of accounts that just turned nasty, including one where I had to notify the police about the other party's threats. I wish a service like ReliaBid had been around then, so I could have just turned the account over and removed myself as the point of communication.

The primary value of ReliaBid is in our ability to deter non-paying bidders- or, in effect, to stop unpaid items before they happen. However, another key value, and one that is often overlooked is that ReliaBid can become the middle-man in dealing with folks that harass you about paying for your auctions. If someone gets obscene or rude in their emails, you can just turn the account over to ReliaBid and let our service handle communication with them and getting payment for you. You not only take yourself out of the loop and prevent yourself from being subjected to undeserved ridicule, but you let a professional team be the "bad guy," rather than you or your business. ReliaBid works with trained collectors that are used to dealing with hostile debtors and trained to maintain a professional "cool" in order to work towards one goal: getting you paid. If you aren't already using ReliaBid in these types of situations, you might want to consider it.

International Buyers Swarm eBay US

In response to a press release issued by ComScore Networks, Lissa McGrath recently published an article on AuctionBytes.com regarding the high amount of international traffic to US sites such as eBay.com.  With the holiday season approaching this could mean that sellers who limit potential buyers to those in the US and Canada may be missing out on huge sales.  According to the study by ComScore Networks, approximately 70 percent of the unique visitors to eBay.com are from outside the US.  The high number of international visitors to the site may be attributed to the lower cost of goods on the US version of the site as well as a larger selection of items to choose from due to the longstanding prevalence of the site.

For many sellers though, they still see selling internationally as a huge risk.  Steps for sellers to take in order to avoid fraud of this manner include requiring payment through an online payment website prior to shipping the goods.  Sellers should also obtain tracking information for the goods they are sending overseas in order to provide estimated arrival times to their international customers.

With such a large opportunity for sellers to expand their reach to international consumers without leaving the eBay US site, the question must be asked--is it worth it for sellers in the long run to risk NOT selling to those overseas??

Online Seller Would Make Dog the Bounty Hunter Proud

One woman has taken receiving payment for the items she sells on eBay to the next level.  Connie Lang of Naperville, Illinois recently made a cross-country trip to track down her money after selling her family’s RV camper in an online auction for $11,000.  The winning bidder sent a deposit check for $500, which cleared quickly and thus assuaging any doubts Lang, a new online auction seller, had about the transaction.  Two weeks after a driver came to Lang’s home to pick up the camper and drive it back to Albuquerque, where the winning bidder, Ken, lives, Lang found out from her bank that the check for $10,500 bounced.  After a few additional weeks of run around from Ken, Lang decided to take matters into her own hands.

By gathering all of the details she knew about Ken, Lang managed to piece together a very accurate picture of the situation—Ken was to be receiving a bank loan soon for a down payment on a new house.  From the details she acquired from their discussions, Lang knew the name of his bank, and through a bit of detective work, determined the day and time when Ken was scheduled to meet with his bank loan officer to receive payment on his house loan. 

A quick call to the airlines and a few frequent flier miles later and Lang was landing in Albuquerque filled with a vigilante’s determination to receive payment for her camper.  Arriving at the bank and sitting in the lobby with an oblivious Ken and his daughter, Lang made small talk while waiting for him to be called.  When the loan officer called Ken forward, Lang rose and introduced herself as well.  After explaining the situation to the bank loan officer, Lang received a check for the amount owed, plus $100 for her troubles, from Ken’s house loan.  Within 24 hours of leaving Illinois, Lang had flown to New Mexico, received money from her non-paying bidder and headed home.

While this is a bit of an extreme case—most sellers do not travel cross-country to receive payment on their items—it is still a very common problem in the online auction marketplace.  Most online sellers have become accustomed to a portion of their items going unpaid due to non-paying bidders and have accepted this as a cost of doing business.  Imagine if every seller tried to physically locate and in-person demand their money from their non-paying bidders—the time and money they would spend doing this would destroy their companies. 

For suggestions on how-to avoid these cross-country missions to receive payment for your goods, please feel free to contact our seller support team.