Has anyone any experience of selling from their own web site? I would
be interested to hear what problems you encountered and if it is
successful.
Richard
Richard; I have been selling from my web site for over three years
now. If you accept credit cards you have to make sure to do the
following: Only ship to the billing address of the credit card. You
have to verify that this is the correct address with the card issuer.
This can sometimes be difficult, especially with cards from another
country.
You also have to make clear your return policy with the customer.
This should be in written form and all transactions should be well
documented.
Joel Schwalb
@schwalbstudio
http://www.schwalbstudio.com
Hi Richard,
I think that perhaps the biggest issue in selling on line is
security. Customers need to be assured that they are dealing with a
“real” business, as everyone is aware, anyone can set up a site and
put up an open sign. My site assures the customer that we are an
established business, and lists our Dunn and Bradstreet number, so
they could check us out before spending. The other issue I think that
is a big one is the site having the ability to sell on the spot,
which means having a shopping cart program with very good security to
back it up. Having an e-mail address or a phone number that a
customer must respond to in order to purchase something will
inevitable mean lost impulse sales. The third thing is good photos,
scanned in to move quickly but still have a crisp look is important. I
am amazed at the high end sites that have photos that make one wonder
if it is a stone or a hole or ??? that your looking at! I believe in
teamwork, there is power in numbers, so a group of artists will draw
more interest that a lone artist…my opinion. Check out our site :
www.westcoastmetalart.com it’s new, we’re due to open in a week or
so, after a year of research and homework on the subject. Good luck.
HI Richard and all, I have been selling from my website for 3 or more
years and it’s very successful.I totally love it. Occasionally someone
wants a refund ( or the husband wants it!) and that’s the worst . I’ve
never been burned and all payments are received before the order goes
out unless it’s a regular collector. You need to have a credit card
merchant account I use authorizenet.com they seem okay.
http://www.authorizenet.com/ I also take checks and MO’s be careful
with international funds that can get tricky. One way to get people to
your site is to exchange links with other websites I have a links page
and would be happy to exchange links with anyone with an appropriate
page.You get MOST of your traffic from links. I also do Ebay all the
time which can be seen by millions of people and brings people to
your page too, I get about 1000 website visits a week which I think
is allot.There are other auctions too.
Sign in or Register | eBay Other ways to
get people to your site are to have contact in other areas of your own
interest. i.e. I am a Dylan Fan and have a Bob Dylan inspired art
gallery and write reviews of concerts.I get tons of Dylan fans
trucking thru about 700 a week, I don’t know if they buy anything,
maybe I should make a “tangled up in Blue” guitar pin or something.
http://www.wendygell.com/wendylan/bob1.htm I also belong to the
African Grey parrot groups and get the parrot people in and do parrot
jewelry, the more varied and interesting your site the more it has
“stickiness” they call it, making people want to say and return
again.All these interest groups have lots of subjects you can post to
. You can post about the topic and not your website you don’t seem
self serving, just use the site link with your signature.You can find
interest groups at egroups.com http://www.egroups.com/ You can also post
to the news groups too.That takes a bit of experience to know where to
post. And of course the search engines are important.Yahoo etc. I am
opening a sto re on Yahoo , which you have to pay for , (it’s $100 a
month kind of expensive but I wanted to try it. ) Here’s my new site
not too much inventory yet
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/wendygelljewelry/ anyway I LOVE having my
website I see more people then at any show or store and don’t need to
interact with them till they have a question or want to buy something.
So for example I can take this letter elaborate on it a bit and post
it on my website. Then I can invite people to see a story on how to
promote a website and get them in , so it goes on and on. also check
out about.com
http://costumejewels.about.com/hobbies/costumejewels/mbody.htm This is
the richest source of material I know.I especially like at about in
the designer jewelry field. This is my links page it’s good to
separate it to interest groups.
http://www.wendygell.com/links/links.htm good luck and write me to
link! Any other ideas on how to promote your site I’d love to hear
them. Love Wendy http://wendygell.com/ PS I didn’t design my site I have
a professional do it. It has to be maintained too and updated
everyweek.There’s a lot to it.
Hi Wendy and all, Thanks for all the info, it’s really helpful. I make
small quantities of jewellery and have looked at
http://www.worldpay.com/. This is a British based company. They charge
4% per transaction. They make a $200 a year charge for the service.
They also supply a shopping cart free of charge. I would be very wary
of taking cheques. I assume that using credit card transactions is the
same wherever the buyer comes from. I would also need my stock
situation to be shown to the potential buyer so that they can see how
many items are left. This would provide situation where there is no
over ordering. I think this is one reason that scares people off
Internet trading. One of the great advantages of Internet Trading is
not having to pay a middle man’s charge. This can be 100% or more,
making the ex workshop price often difficult to achieve, cutting down
the makers profit. I take your points about using links and sites like
Ebay. They all generate more interest.
Richard