New business online.

martindow

paddyrg wrote: »

And if you are posting stuff out, allow for the extra cost of 'signed for' not as an option but as mandatory on every item, or you WILL get idiots demanding refunds for non-delivery, even if delivered!

I don't agree with this. A free certificate of posting gives the same cover as signed for up to 46 pounds (just gone up from 41 as postage increased today). Signed for is an extra 77p on top of the postage - not worth adding this extra expense. Over 46 pounds you need Special Delivery to be covered.

raineshoe

The last poster suggests this because by law the distance selling regulations say you have to refund a customer if they claim never to have received the item. I had this happen and was certain that the customer was pulling a fast one. I asked trading standards if I could legally not refund, but they said I had to abide by distance selling regs and refund regardless of whether the customer had the goods and was claiming he hadn't. If the parcel is signed for they cannot then demand a refund as the law would see that the person had signed for and received the goods.

A certificate of posting does NOT give the same cover. Trading standards will tell you that if the customer hasn't signed for the item then it will be deemed as not delivered whether you have a certificate of posting or not. The only way to be sure is to have them sign for the parcel.

Unfortunately, if you sell online distance selling regulations are very weighted to the customer.

Paddyrg has obviously had similar experiences to myself and once stung you don't do it again, you get the customer to pay for signed for parcels.

martindow

raineshoe wrote: »

A certificate of posting does NOT give the same cover. Trading standards will tell you that if the customer hasn't signed for the item then it will be deemed as not delivered whether you have a certificate of posting or not. The only way to be sure is to have them sign for the parcel.

Unfortunately, if you sell online distance selling regulations are very weighted to the customer..

The customers need to be confident that they won't be fleeced - it seems a reasonable balance to me. The vast majority of people are honest and reasonable. We see problems on forums but it doesn't mean that in the real world everyone is out to get you.

I send out over 1000 items a year using the Post Office and only had one missing item last year. RM refunded that using the CoP as evidence so I wasn't out of pocket.

Had I sent all of these recorded signed for I would have paid over 700 pounds extra in postage. I would rather keep the money.

benrsmith31077

kezcon wrote: »

Fair enough, just wanted to know is there anything else I should be paying for to get this website up and running? as I said so far I have paid webhosting, domain name, registered company, website and server.

Well you will definitely want to look at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and a decent payment/cart solution.

Put some research into the payment software, google some reviews and have a play round with a few till you find one that is suitable (test on a particularly stupid friend if you have one. If they can use it, you have a winner!)

Also don't dismiss advertising yet. Think of different ways to cheaply get your website name out there. Flyers in pubs, ads in taxis etc

raineshoe

You wouldn't be out of pocket if your customer pays the postage. I don't "fleece" my customers either. I charge them the postage plus packing costs and that's it. We don't knowingly make money out of it. If your funding your 1000 items of postage you will be quickly out of pocket.

I send out thousands of parcels a year for our online business equating to £5000+ in postage. We have loads go missing. Mainly due to Royal Mail who apparently don't vet their staff anymore. You are lucky you were refunded by them as I have a dim view of their activities as countless times even when having a "proof of posting receipt" they have found some excuse to wriggle out of paying or sent a tiny book of 12 first class stamps.

Most customers do not mind paying for recorded delivery if you are straight and fair with them as we are. A colleague also sends recorded delivery for exactly the same reasons the rest of us do.;)

martindow

raineshoe wrote: »

I send out thousands of parcels a year for our online business equating to £5000+ in postage. We have loads go missing. Mainly due to Royal Mail who apparently don't vet their staff anymore.

Most customers do not mind paying for recorded delivery if you are straight and fair with them as we are. A colleague also sends recorded delivery for exactly the same reasons the rest of us do.;)

Have you looked at the threads on the Ebay board regarding signed for and a large proportion of losses?

The concensus there is that there is often a reason for a high percentage of losses and with your volume you should be seeing an average figure of no more than a handful per thousand sent. I assume you do the usual things of checking post codes and addresses for errors and having a return address on each parcel?

Regarding signed for there seem to be widespread problems with these being delivered but no signature taken or items taken back to the depot as the recipeint is out and never collected or RM claiming they have obtained a signature where the customer denies receipt. The problem with charging extra postage is it can give your competitors an advantage in pricing and reduces your margins.

Do you check how many of your items delivered are still listed on the web site as progressing through the system? Some people claim for these in batches and get sent a book of stamps for each one where no signature is taken.

raineshoe

We are an online store completely separate from Ebay. I have no need to go on the ebay forums so cannot speak for people on there. However, I get the impression that there are allegedly frauds for some items bought through Ebay particularly in the electronics/software areas so wouldn't like to comment on chat on the forums.

Anyhow, we send out all our post with documents enclosed envelopes for which an invoice is enclosed showing the delivery address which the person purchasing has entered. Down to the purchasers accuracy. All our parcels have return addresses and in the 5 years we have traded I've only had 4 parcels ever returned using the return address and one redelivered to me using the return address by the stupid PO as being sent to the TO address. Quite clearly marked FROM and quite clear who its to.

We are a niche market and I know all my competitors (most of whom are friends as we often work together in another capacity) and they all post similarly to me for the same reasons. Certain items in the packaging look "appealling" shall we say to certain people, and probably when taken from the system they are not what they thought. One particular item is virtually guaranteed to go missing as its about the size of a large cadbury's bar - says it all!!!

Any parcels that are queried we check with the PO system to see what it says and try and trace as best we can, but its not easy. I personally have my suspicions as to who, why etc the parcels go missing and have told the PO my concerns but nothing changes. I get "we'll look into it". That's the biggest joke going. I now log all missing parcels which are going into a letter to the CEO eventually.

Although with what I sell its not particularly something where we get a lot of fraud, I've altered my business accordingly each time a "fiddle" by someone is attempted to prevent any future attempts. That way I can continue to provide a good reliable service to my very loyal and overall excellent customers.

Suffice to say if I could find a good alternative for posting items out at a reasonable price more reliably I would swap immediately, although they all seem to be much the same - bad. As for the PO this is supposed to be the "improved" PO service :rotfl:

Sorry seem to have hijacked this thread

surfing-mtber

Have been running several businesses online for about 10 years and can offer the following advice:

I know this sounds obvious, but is there a market for your products/service? Interesting hobbies do not always make successful businesses.

Go to Google and put "Google adwords tool" in the search box. Click on the link that starts with 'Keyword Tool'. On the Keyword page, place search terms relating to your website in the search box, as many as you can think of.

You will then get real results relating to potential searchers or the lack of them.

I build and optimise websites for living and so many people think they know their target market, and they do not.

What are your potential customers really searching for?

I agree with the other replies, good SEO is essential to success of a business online. Unfortunately it takes a great deal of time, patience and to a certain extent money. You may have to pay for good SEO.

If you are thinking of integrating a shopping cart into your website and you really should if you are to fully exploit potential business, then I can recommend Romancart. I have no affiliation with this company but have successfully used their cart many times. Why?
Many of the carts available are not search engine friendly, they are constructed using bloated and cumbersome code. This cart has no such handicap and consists of a few lines of javascript (code) which places a Buy Now button next to your product.

Really simple to set up, search engine friendly and you don't even need an expensive credit card agreement to take payments online, it's easily integrated with Paypal, which is ideal to get you up and running.

Hope all goes well. Have patience and get good advice.