Fluffing it
The first rule is always: Be honest. Yes: It is OK, to look a little
bigger than you are, but here is a piece of awkwardness I found on
a tattoo web page:
"Due to the
large volume of orders as of late new machine orders will take approximately
six weeks to ship."
Well: good for
this business
. only there were a few strange things
. If
it looks like bullshit, and it smells like bullshit
. yes: then
it most likely is.
Taking a closer look at that page I found the proudly presented counter
at a little more than 2,500 visitors in total. So let's be generous
and say, that the page has 100 page views per day. My experience is,
that you make a sale about every 500 visits, that is IF you have a
good product, that everybody wants.
This counter was on the main page, not even on the page with the tattoo
machines. But even if every visitor of the page would have went to
the page with the tattoo machines, he could not have sold more than
five. (Knowing a bit about these particular items I dare to say, he
did not even sell two so far.)
His PSP was PayPal, so I went there and right: He was a new member
without a feedback as seller and registered since less than a month.
So he needs six weeks to ship an item, which he probably did not even
sell yet. My guess is, he does not even have it in stock and needs
to order it himself as soon as he gets an order in. But he tells his
visitors about that "large volume of orders".
Apart from the fact that ANY maker of tattoo machines would flip over
backwards at a large volume and get them done in no time, you can
trust me on this: tattoo machines just don't sell like that.
So say it with me: "Bull-shit."
And very obvious.
Everybody who is somewhat net-literate can find out stuff like this
in less than five minutes. If he had said, that he is just starting
up with tattoo machines, and that he has to order them from his wholesaler,
it would have been much better.
Besides that: Six weeks delivery time is a time period, which you
should not even think about. I'll write about this a little more in
another chapter.
Don't hide the
fact that your page is new. If somebody wants to buy your goods, and
only does a small background check on your page, he/she will find
out in less than 5 minutes, that your page is new. So never advertise
with experience you don't have. On the contrary: Make a point that
this page IS new (it does not necessarily mean that YOU are new to
online business as well). You can start with nice opening specials
on a new page and everybody knows, that a new business is always more
eager to please it's customers. Point this out with an extra set of
friendliness and customer service. Answer ALL email requests that
are somewhat serious, take the time to answer emails, even if the
question you get is covered in your FAQs already. (Till this day I
copy/paste a lot from my own FAQs and send it in an email.