Postage Problems

One of the problems you will have to get used to dealing with if you are going to earn an income online is postage. What do I mean by that? I mean lost packages, slow packages, wrongly deliverd packages and the rest of the problems associated with the postal service. I’m writing about this topic today because I’ve been getting a lot of flak from some customers because of the postal service.

You can go months without a problem then suddenly they all come together. Over the last two weeks I’ve had three packages disappear and one returned to me because, according to the Royal Mail, the address didn’t exist. I readdressed the package, exactly the same address, and the customer received it two days later. The result is it cost me double postage reducing my margin on the product.

Now I have to be honest and say that 98% of the time, I have no problem with royal mail. Most of my mail is delivered within a day or two. I always post my sales the next day, I like to clear the desk and have nothing pending, so as soon as an order comes in I will post it, usually the next day sometimes the same day. No matter what you do though, once you post a package you are in the hands of the postal service. you have lost control.

I post quiet a lot of items through sales on Ebay and my website and I buy my postage online from royal Mail’s site. This is simple and essential if you are posting several packages daily. I just log into my account, put the weight of the package in and the address and print the label out on my printer. Stick it on and it’s done. If I’m sending an expensive item then I take it to the post offic and send it recorded.

The safest way to send any package is by recorded delivery so the recipient has to sign for it. This is a sure way to guarntee your postage doesn’t get lost. The problem with it however, is that you have to spend too much time queuing in the post office. If you have a full time job like me that’s not a feasible option. It takes long enough when I go with one parcel. I timed it one day. I queued for seventeen minutes. It then took six minutes to complete the transaction. And that was for one parcel. If I went with eight or nine parcels it would take too long.

Online postage is essential to an online business. I’ve read a number of times in the forums about traders who have stopped trading because of the delays in having to use the post office. This is a problem and if you are going to trade online then you will have to deal with it. It’s made worse by the fact that many people think delivery should be instant. I had an order for one woman on a tuesday and by thursday she was emailing me complaining that I hadn’t sent the package. You can never win with people like that.

I have, over the last year developed a stratergy for dealing with delayed post. First class post should arrive the next day, and in most cases it does. There will be times however, for whatever reason, that it doesn’t, and your customer will start to send emails. If the package has not arrived after a week I refund the customer’s money. It’s not worth getting into a drawn out argument over it. I tell the customer that the package is delayed in the system throguh no fault of mine and that when they receive it they can repay me the money.

People may be impatient but that doesn’t mean they are dishonest. I can honestly say that the majority of people I apply this stratergy do pay me when the parcel arrives. Only last week a guy who I had refunded contacted me saying his package had arrived and he placed another order with me. If you treat people with trust and have faith in them, I’ve found they always repay it.

The majority of packages I send are small value of around £10.00 to £20.00 value. Anything above and I send it recorded. In the majority of cases parcels that haven’t arrived within a week usually show up shortly after. Some people may not agree with my stratergy but my reasoning is that I haven’t got the time and can’t be bothered getting into an argument about a lost or delayed package. Give a refund and the argument is over before it has begun. Honest people will see that you are a fair and decent trader and it will inspire them to shop with you again. Your reputation can be enhanced by dealing swiftly with any problems.

What about the dishonest people who will keep the refund and the goods when they arrive? My experience of trading online has proved that this group of people is very small. They do exist and I have suspected that I have been robbed on two occasions. It’s obviously something that you can’t prove. The way I deal with this is by making a note in my database of customers, of someone who claimed they had not received their goods. If they place another order, I always send it recorded delivery to them, regardless of the price of the goods. I will charge more postage for this. If they complain, I explain that because a previous package went missing to this address I’m not prepared to risk it again.

Dealing with the problems associated with postage is inevitable for an online trader. it’s a part of the game that has to be accepted. As your trade increases you will soon discover that spending hours queuing at the post office is unrealistic and buy your postage online. Expensive items should always be sent recorded, make no exception here. it’s just not worth the risk. if you’ve laid out a lot of money then you don’t want to risk it disappearing in the post. Don’t waste time arguing with customers about packages they have not received. Be patient, polite and reasonable. Give them a refund and tell them you trust them to pay you when the package arrives. Most of them will. If you have one of them weeks when a number of packages go astray and you are getting some flak. Breath deeply and think of the long-term goal you are aiming for. Building your pension pot. A little frustration along the way is inevitable.

January Business Update

I can’t believe January has gone already. It’s just whizzed past in a flurry of activity. I suppose it’s a sign of getting old that time appears to fly past. On the business front, I’m pleased to report that I achieved my monthly sales target. The last week was very busy and I achieved my target on the last day of the month. By week three it didn’t look like I was going to make it but I kept the faith and kept plugging away and the sales increased in the final week taking me to my target.

Having the target forced me to raise my game to ensure I achieved the sales to reach it. It also provided me with a real sense of achievement when I reached the target. I am now confident that I will reach my next target for February. Being able to give yourself small pats on the back for accomplishing little targets energizes you to move forward to the next goal.

I’m looking for a 4% monthly growth rate this year. If I achieve this every month, I will finish the year with a bigger business not to mention wealthier than when I started it. After over a year of trading I now have factual data to base my forecasts on. I also have experience about what works and what doesn’t when promoting items.

You can’t just predict a growth rate and hope it will happen. You need a plan of how you are going to make it happen. My plan is simple. I need to become more familiar with SEO so I can promote my website and increase sales from that. I also intend to get more products on both EBay and my website. I’ve been so busy with art products that I don’t have any products in the hobbies category. This is something I am working on now. I have contacted a few wholesalers and will be ordering more items sometime this month. This is where my 4% monthly increase in sales will come from.

It may not seem like much but 4% will, by the end of the year ,represent a large increase in business and I intend to move towards the yearly target in small steps. So I’m ready for action in February, which has already started well. Until next time…

Are You Prepared for Starting a Part-Time or Full Time Business?

Losing your job in middles age in this society is disastrous for most people. The fact is that age discrimination exists whether we want to admit it or not and getting back into decent employment is virtually impossible and in the present environment it probably is impossible. Moving into self-employment may be the only answer.

If you are in employment but have seen your pension disappear in the vortex of the financial meltdown and the destruction of the pension schemes by Gordon Brown then you will need to either save more, (an impossible task for most of us) or establish another income. You can do this on a part-time basis by starting a business. Whichever category you fall into you will need to ask yourself some serious question. I have compiled a list of the most pressing ones that I have discovered during my own part-time business adventure. Here they are:

Do You Have The Stamina?

I don’t mean to put your traki on and do a ten mile run though that would come in handy. I mean do you have the stamina to deal with the day-to-day problems of running a business as they arise, and they surely will. If you are running, an online store as I am this question will soon be asked of you. Can you spend hours at your computer dealing with orders, packaging them and posting them? You will also at the same time have to deal with numerous enquiries and a few complaining customers.

You will have to keep your eye on your stock levels and keep note when things are starting to run low. Keeping a check on stock is crucial. It sounds simple but when you are dealing with stacks of orders, it’s easy to let stock get out of control. You will need to have a good system for re-ordering stock, you need to carry some stock but you don’t want to tie your money up on too many of one item. I do regular four-hour stints at my computer.

Are You Prepared to Learn?

You’d better be. The learning curve is steep but very enjoyable. You will need to learn a myriad of new skills from copy writing, marketing, customer relations and SEO to name a few. You’ll be moving into areas you may not be familiar with and you’ll have to learn fast. You’ll need to buy some books and maybe take a course. If you have to, then do it. You’re investing in your future success. The ability to focus is crucial, the ability to assimilate information essential. After a year of running your business, you will have developed a whole new skill set and probably a whole new way of looking at the world.

If you’ve come from an environment that had strict demarcation lines then be prepared to drop that mindset and become flexible because you cannot demarcate yourself. You will be the strategic planner, designer, sales representative, marketer, and buyer to name but a few of the roles you will have to undertake. No “not my job” here.

Self Discipline

This is crucial. You’re going to need it. Why? Well for starters, you’re going to need to stop spending hours surfing and maybe the games will have to go on the back burner for a while. Once your business kicks off you’ll need to squeeze all the productivity you can from every minute. I was thinking of buying the new “call of duty ” game at Christmas but resisted the temptation because I knew it would consume too much of my time once I got hooked. I’ve promised myself that if I hit my quarter one targets I’ll reward myself by buying it and restrict myself to an hour or two every other day. Hey, you need R & R; it’s not all about work.

Get Organized

Now I’m not a very organised person, too much organization stifles creativity in my opinion. Too little prevents that creativity from taking life as a tangible result. If you’re going to start a business from home whether full-time or part-time, you will need to be organized. Running it from the kitchen table while your partner is sitting at the other end won’t do. This may be a home business but it is still a business. It still has to compete and still has all the day-to-day running problems associated with large businesses. It’s just that you will be the one sorting out all those problems.

You need your own space, a desk or at least a small table, a filing system, digital or paper, ordering system, posting system accounts system. If you are going to be carrying stock, you’ll need a storage area. Here’s a crucial tip; separate your work area from your home area, hard I know but essential to keep you focused on business when you are in your designated workspace. Don’t allow them to overlap or you’ll find yourself nipping downstairs to make a drink and bringing the newspaper back with you. Before you know it, your feet are on the desk and you’re reading the paper. Nip it in the bud before it starts. Work area is for productive work to drive your business. Home area is for, well home.

Don’t Be Shy

If your present job doesn’t involve you dealing with people on a personal level you will have to develop the skills to do so. In your own business, you are going to be dealing with people on a daily basis, by fax, phone, and emails and maybe even face-to-face. You can’t afford to be shy, especially with suppliers. You need the confidence to negotiate prices. Every penny you can save on a purchase is more profit for you on the sale. You will need to negotiate for the best value for your business, whether you are negotiating the price of a website or a reduction for a bulk order.

Ability To Focus

If you’ve been used to surfing the web passively, fluttering from one website to another like a bee, gathering pollen then you’re going to have to learn to focus. Once you start, your business there will be so much to do that absent minded surfing will have to go. I have a list of tasks I need to complete every day. I write out this list before going to bed. When the new day starts, I start to work on these tasks chronologically. I may have to break off to deal with day-to-day business but I always return to the task and focus on it until it is completed. This is the only way to get things done in my experience.

Try to do them all at once and none of them will get done. Whether it’s listing a product on eBay or your website or contacting a designer about your newsletter do them one at a time and tick them off the list once they are completed. This requires periods of strong focus. When you’re running a part-time business things will happen to interrupt you, like now as I am writing this post my wife is shouting me from downstairs. She insists we have to go to the Asda. Ok I’m going, but I’ll be back shortly to re-focus and continue. See Interruptions as a part of the game.

Ability To Stay Calm

If you’re a corporal Jones type of character, who runs around shouting “don’t panic!” at the slightest irritation then this is not for you. There will be days when anything that can go wrong will. Supplies will not arrive when you expected them to. Customers may have a complaint; you’re coming under pressure from all angles and beginning to feel like General Custer that perhaps splitting your force was not such a good idea.

This is life. This is business. You will need to keep thinking clearly and logically under pressure. At the same time, you will need to engage in creative thinking. How are you going to present your next eBay listing? How do you want your website to look? What’s the best copy for this product? What am I going to say in my next newsletter? Keep your head clear and don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed by events, remember it’s all a great game.

Don’t worry if you think you don’t have all these skills because the chances are you do, you just haven’t been able to express them. As for technical skills like computing, these are easy enough to acquire. The best way to learn is to jump in and start swimming.

Putting The Brakes On Ebay

I’ve decided to calm EBay down a little. It’s been keeping me so busy for the last few months that I haven’t had time to put into process other ideas I have for the business. I’ve also being unable to get my stock sorted out. It’s being so busy that my office resembles a war zone, papers and receipts strewn everywhere. I needed to restore some order and regroup so I took the decision to put the brakes on EBay. This was easy enough I just increased my prices up to 20%.

So far it seems to be working, sales have slowed and I’m restoring order. Things I’ve being meaning to do are finally getting done and I’m feeling a lot more relaxed. One of the things I’ve being meaning to do is go through all my eBay listings individually and examine them to make sure I am making profit I want from each item.

Over the last year I’ve been caught out a few times selling below what I would have liked. This was done by mistake in the rush to get items listed on EBay I overlooked some important factors. Now having gained a year’s worth of heavy trading on EBay I’m more confident and more efficient, I also know what I want from EBay.

What I want is simply profit. I’m not interested in turnover for the sake of turnover, I don’t want to be a busy idiot, if I am not making a decent profit I don’t want to be busy at all. Afterall this is not some ego trip I’m embarked on but a focused and determined attempt to earn enough money for a decent retirement.

I’m going through all my listings and ensuring every single one returns me the profit I am looking for, also ensuring the postage charge is right. Considering how long it takes to pack and the cost of the packaging. The decision to increase prices in an attempt to slow ebay down was not taken lightly. I’ve worked out that by increasing my prices by 20% I can afford to take a big hit on sales and still make the same money. I realise I will lose some custom but the drop would have to be substantial before it hit the bottom line.

Anyway I needed some time-out from eBay so I could work on other parts of my business. Namely getting the website optimized. I’ve been studying how to use Google ad words as a way of marketing the website. I intend to use this method after Christmas to promote my website. I would prefer to sell from my site because it doesn’t cost me anything, unlike EBay which can be expensive.

I also wanted to get away from my computer a bit and pick up a book. I think it’s important we don’t allow ourselves to get sucked into a maelstrom of business activity at the expense of our family and recreation time. So I’m looking forward to a quieter December where I can read a few books, relax and recharge ready for the new year. Well I’m off to lay on the couch with a book for a few hours.

See you later.

New Times, New Thinking

New times require new thinking. New ways of doing things. New ways of looking at problems. We are living through changing times and our old belief systems are starting to crumble. Let’s be honest, the world we believed in has disappeared bit by bit over the last thirty years. We joined the workforce with a set of beliefs that have being undermined by changing social conditions and increasing technological advances that have made the world smaller.

Does anybody in their fifties believe they will be looked after by the state when they reach retirement age? I don’t. What is there to look forward to twenty or thirty years of trying to survive on a state pension that will barely cover living expenses. The whole idea of retirement is now being questioned. The sixty-five year old cut off date, when you are supposed to become idle after a lifetime of working is looming towards many people like a dreaded tsunami.

They view it with horror. What is retirement anyway but enforced inactivity. I know many people look forward to leaving the daily grind and travelling the world, of taking life easy and that’s fair enough if that’s what they want, good luck to them. We have to appreciate though that many people want to keep working for as long as they can. Many wont have any choice but to continue working because their pensions have disappeared. Destroyed by the corruption in the system we live in.

The recession we are heading into is looking worse every week. The predictions from the “experts” are becoming more dour with every utterance. Remember, it was only six months ago that our leaders were consoling us with the lies that Britain is better placed than any other country to whether the recession. Now, in six short months we are now told that we are in the worse position than any other country to whether it.

Who knows where we are heading. One thing is for sure though. We can’t trust the same politicians and business leaders to get us out of this mess. It was after all them who got us into it. Their short-term planning looking for the quick profit or fast vote regardless of the long-term impact on society their policies would have, have led us to the brink of economic meltdown.

We have to take care of ourselves. It’s up to us to make plans for our future. It’s up to us to take action to protect our livelihoods. As businesses start to shed many of their long-serving middle-aged workers, self-employment will be our only option if we want to stay active and secure our financial future. It will need a new way of thinking, jettisoning old beliefs that are no longer relevant. No more blind trust in the state, bankers or business leaders. They should be made more accountable. Change is coming and we need to prepare for it.

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