Good news for e-sellers in the Philippines

There is some great news for people who want to do business in the Philippines over the Internet!  Paypal is already available for Philippine merchants!  That’s right, now you can send and receive money with Paypal, even if you live in the Philippines.

This has been a major issue in the past.  Remember a couple of months ago, I was writing a series of articles about selling on eBay?  Well, the issue of how to get your money was the number one item that most people asked questions about or made comments about.  With Paypal now doing business here in the Philippines, this issue is now solved, or nearly solved.

I just went and checked out the Paypal site, and it is still not perfect for sellers in the Philippines.  They are still looking for a USA Bank Account to verify the account and to receive your money.  However, they are moving in the right direction, and it is pretty obvious that things continue to improve.  I believe that Paypal will only continue to improve for users here in the Philippines.  I believe that anybody who is really determined to get going with Paypal can now make it happen.

Good luck to all sellers who are ready to get started!

Who’s going to be the Next Internet Millionaire?

Have you caught it? You know what I mean…. the new reality show? No, it’s not on TV, this is a show on the Internet! It’s a one hour TV show that airs weekly, and it’s called “The Next Internet Millionaire.”

The show is a reality show loosely based on shows like “The Apprentice” “Survivor” and such. A group of 12 people have been chosen to participate in the game, in which they will face challenges to determine who will participate in a Joint Venture with host Joel Comm. Comm is a long time Internet Marketer who has built up quite a name in Internet Commerce over the years, and he hosts the show. In the first episode of the show, the 12 contestants are divided into two teams of 6, and they are given the responsibility of coming up with two competing internet campaigns for one of the show’s sponsors.

It’s quite an interesting show. Most of the stuff shown in Episode 1 was not a revelation for me, but there were a few things that caught my attention and think about the possibilities. But, for somebody like most readers of this blog, who are not seasoned e-commerce people, they would probably learn a great deal from watching the show. I do expect, and hope, that future episodes will be more advanced and offer new ideas that I had not considered before.

Who is your favorite competitor so far? After just watching one episode, my favorite so far is Thor Schrock, but that could change as more episodes pass.

Take a few minutes, or an hour, and watch Episode 1. Tell me what you think of it!

The final step in an eBay transaction

OK, so you have purchased items to sell on eBay, you’ve listed them on the site, gotten bids, sold them and shipped the items to your customers.  It sounds like everything is complete now, right?  Not quite!  The final step in the auction is perhaps the most important of all, and that is feedback!  eBay has a system where you can leave comments about the seller or the buyer in any eBay transaction.  These comments are all archived and are used to create your feedback profile on the site.  Your overall rating in this feedback will determine just how successful you are on eBay.

If you get much negative feedback at all, people will start shying away from your auctions, and will buy from somebody else instead of you.  Let’s face it, almost any item on eBay can be found from other sellers too, unless it is something that you made yourself.  Even then, perhaps a similar item can still be found, even if not exact.  If you are showing a track record of negative feedback, people will just stop buying from you.

How do you get positive feedback?  Let’s look at some tips:

• Always be honest with your buyer.  No matter what the question is, always tell the truth.  Even if the truth is not positive, don’t hide it!  As a matter of fact, if the item you are selling has some kind of flaw, be sure to list that in the auction, so people will be aware.  The simple fact that you are willing to point out the flaws will make people trust you more!
• Always answer every e-mail within a reasonable time.  If you are selling on eBay, it is expected that you will be available for questions and such.  If somebody e-mails you, don’t hide!  Answer the e-mail as quickly as you can.  If you wait and wait before answering, it will anger your buyers, and when they leave feedback, they will likely ding you for that!
• When you spell out on the auction what you will do, follow it!  If you say that you will ship the item within 2 days, do it!  If you say that you will e-mail the tracking number for the shipment, don’t forget!  Whatever you say on the auction, follow it!  Same for the items you list, make sure that the item you send is exactly what you said it will be!  Don’t ever send something “similar” because it will kill you down the road when it’s time for feedback!
• Always be friendly!  No matter if your customer gets angry, and makes you angry, when you e-mail them, be friendly!  Remember, you are running a business, and one rule of business is that the customer is always right - even when you know they are not!  So, be friendly, be accommodating as much as possible, and  never get angry!  An angry customer will often become disarmed when you respond to them in a kind way!

One of my sacred rules of leaving feedback is that I never leave feedback first!  In my auctions I put something like “I guarantee to leave you appropriate feedback when the transaction is complete.”  Now, for me, the transaction is not complete until the other person has left feedback!  Sometimes people ask me why I don’t leave feedback first.  I say that the transaction is not “complete” until I am certain that I have done everything I need to do to make the customer happy.  I can’t be sure that the customer is 100% happy until they have left feedback for me and said that they are happy.  If the customer doesn’t like that policy, I simply don’t leave feedback if they have not done so.  The main reason for this is that some customers will leave you negative feedback for little or no reason, and they also will not even e-mail you to try to work out any possible problem.  For example, let’s say that you have shipped an item to a person half way around the world.  When the item arrived at their doorstep it was broken.  I do not feel this is a case where negative feedback should be left by the customer, because if the item broke in transit, that was beyond the control of the seller. A more appropriate way of handling this would be for the buyer to contact the seller and see what can be done.  Perhaps there was postal insurance on the item,which will pay for the damage!

So, remember, always do everything you possibly can to obtain positive feedback from your customers!  The more positive feedback you can get for your account, the more people will be willing to do business with you!  Also, if you get a negative feedback rating from a customer, don’t lose sleep over it.  It’s rare to have a perfect record!  Just learn from the mistake, and try to improve your performance on your future transactions!