I would guess as you are reading this article you are either interested in or already have an eBay or e-commerce business. You are doing this to make some part time or full time money to pay those bills. And even if you are not and are just doing this for a bit of fun, you should always go that extra mile in who you service and delivery the orders that you get online.
We are all humans and as humans we like to be treated with care, love and respect, this is just natural and when we do recieve this we talk to our friends and co-workers about it for days. For a minute I want you to stop and think about the last time you went to a shop and bought something. Did the cashout people pack your bags ? Ask how you were, give you a free gift ? Or you stopped in a hotel and each night you had a chocolate on the pillow. Now unless there was a promotion on they did not need to do this, and again I would guess when this happened you told many people. You see by this one person going the extra mile many people heard and came to that shop.
Ok I know you are sitting there and thinking yeah I can see that working for a shop, but how can I apply this extra mile principal in my on line store ? Well believe it or not there are many ways in which you can go that extra mile, and below I have just listed a few :
@ In your item listing you say you post second class, well leave it at that and send the item 1st class your customer will be happy.
@ Keep your customer up to date from the second they buy to the time you send the order out, this will impress them and keep them up to date with what is happening.
@ Include a small hand written note saying “Thank You” for the order. Customers will love this.
@ If you sell things like perfum etc, you may have boxes of samples, just add a few in with the order, this will not add to the shipping costs and may get you more orders.
@ Another way you can go that extra mile is someone buys something from you and email and say look I know it says you only ship on the day, but it is my daughters sweet 16 party at the weekend, please can you send the item out a bit sooner, and we will pay the extra. You email back and say it is Ok, the item has been sent straight away by 1st class and no extra cost. And in the box you include a sweet 16 card.
With all the above apart from time and a small cost, you have gone the extra mile and people will remember this and will buy from you time and time again and will tell all their mates and family why they should buy from you.
