what this blog is all about...

Do you sell stuff on-line? Interested in it? Well, this blog might be for you. Don't expect lots of news stories or other stuff you can easily get. I want to give you the ugly side...the practical, the-stuff-they-don't-warn-you-about side of on-line retailing for the small seller.

I've been selling on-line for about 9 years. And I'm happy to share some of my experience and knowledge with anyone who has the patience to trudge their way through my random ramblings!

Search This Blog

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Shipping and handling: model 5 - profit center

Some sellers price their items at whatever they can to undercut the competition.

Some sellers just try to squeeze out any penny they can from their customers.

So, what to they do? Simple...charge higher shipping.

People will gladly pay $3 rather than $6 for a cable on ebay, even if shipping is $5 for the $3 cable and free for the $6 cable. Or, maybe they just don't understand that they need to add the shipping cost in.

And some people will gladly pay a high shipping amount for an item they either really REALLY want or the item is just hard to find and are willing to pay anything for it.

Hence..."shipping as profit center" was born.

If you don't already know where I stand on this, please...let me repeat: don't do it...find another way to sell...find another way to make money...don't make the rest of us look bad.

To me, making a profit off of shipping is like Best Buy charging you to walk through their doors, or your local grocery store charging a $1.50 to use their shopping carts. It's a service that you provide when you sell your product. Unless you are a professional packer or shipper, it should be as free as you can make it. Otherwise the customer will eventually feel that you ripped them off.

And they likely won't return. That hurts you.

And the likely will be turned off by the whole on-line buying experience.

And that hurts all of us.
Posted by Rich D.
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Privacy policy

Privacy Policy for funkybloggys.blogspot.com

The privacy of our visitors at funkybloggys.blogspot.com is important to us.

At funkybloggys.blogspot.com, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit funkybloggys.blogspot.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files
As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons
We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on funkybloggys.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies
We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey). DART uses “non personally identifiable information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

AdSense Privacy Policy Provided by JenSense