Hi everyone,
I'd like to hear your experience about recommendations/suggestions/ideas to let vendors trust store owner.
In case of simple wholesale, how to build trustworthy relationship between sellers, buyers and store owner.
Thx for everyone,
Hey Sumaya,
Just to share some of my experience, as an individual seller (not multi-vendor).
Most people these days are wary of buying from unknown stores, because of personal experience with a bad seller, or stories from their friends buying from bad sellers.
Trust will take time, I've had my site for years, and in the start, I offered Cash on Delivery/Collection. Something I found, is that if you gave them a discount for online orders, they would still prefer to pay cash on collecting the item. But as more people buy, and recommend to their friends, this will start to pick up as you become familiar. I sometimes find people asking on forums "Have you bought from this store before". In the beginning - most answer were "No, have to be careful these days". But now, some do reply saying They've bought from my site, and they were happy with it. So yeah, these things will take time.
Of course, it does depend on the price of the items as well. They would take the risk for a cheap item, but not for expensive ones.
Another way to earn this, is to offer a more personal interaction. If you have an unknown website, with no face to it, it is hard to build trust. So try to at least include a phone number for users to call. A lot of times people may call even if you have all the necessary details on the website, just to know that there's someone who is available to attend to them, and also to verify that store is still active. The best way is to include a "The Team" page with a short profile and contact for the different people working. (I don't have this, since I'm a sole trader).
Whether a store is active is also a concern. These days, it is easy for a domain to be registered for multiple years, a store created, then the owner decides this isn't working and just abandons it. So having a phone number will help, but also try to include regular blog posts, that's also easy to see when browsing your store. It can be simple posts like a photo gallery of "Unboxing" or "Testing" the different products. Ideally, have a link to the relevant post directly from the product page.
A really effective way will be to get your customers to submit a feedback. Most wouldn't bother, but you can try to entice them with a free gift. A small one for those who comment their experience on the website, or social media, and a larger free gift for those who add photos to forums and link to your site.
These are the ways I've used when you have little/no marketing budget. If you had a marketing budget, then using ads would be useful - just to get people familiar with the name at least.
Hope these help!
Hey Sumaya,
Just to share some of my experience, as an individual seller (not multi-vendor).
Most people these days are wary of buying from unknown stores, because of personal experience with a bad seller, or stories from their friends buying from bad sellers.
Trust will take time, I've had my site for years, and in the start, I offered Cash on Delivery/Collection. Something I found, is that if you gave them a discount for online orders, they would still prefer to pay cash on collecting the item. But as more people buy, and recommend to their friends, this will start to pick up as you become familiar. I sometimes find people asking on forums "Have you bought from this store before". In the beginning - most answer were "No, have to be careful these days". But now, some do reply saying They've bought from my site, and they were happy with it. So yeah, these things will take time.
Of course, it does depend on the price of the items as well. They would take the risk for a cheap item, but not for expensive ones.
Another way to earn this, is to offer a more personal interaction. If you have an unknown website, with no face to it, it is hard to build trust. So try to at least include a phone number for users to call. A lot of times people may call even if you have all the necessary details on the website, just to know that there's someone who is available to attend to them, and also to verify that store is still active. The best way is to include a "The Team" page with a short profile and contact for the different people working. (I don't have this, since I'm a sole trader).
Whether a store is active is also a concern. These days, it is easy for a domain to be registered for multiple years, a store created, then the owner decides this isn't working and just abandons it. So having a phone number will help, but also try to include regular blog posts, that's also easy to see when browsing your store. It can be simple posts like a photo gallery of "Unboxing" or "Testing" the different products. Ideally, have a link to the relevant post directly from the product page.
A really effective way will be to get your customers to submit a feedback. Most wouldn't bother, but you can try to entice them with a free gift. A small one for those who comment their experience on the website, or social media, and a larger free gift for those who add photos to forums and link to your site.
These are the ways I've used when you have little/no marketing budget. If you had a marketing budget, then using ads would be useful - just to get people familiar with the name at least.
Hope these help!
Thank you so much for your advice.
Great advice, definately a phone number is critical.