Ebay and other online auction powerselling tips and information

My friend and colleague Jenny How has posted a comprehensive list of "50 Strategies for Boosting Your Online Sales." I'd like to elaborate on two of her points - underpromise and overdeliver. What does this mean anyway?

It means that you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. The concept is to have your customer set their expectations lower that your plans for service. 

For example, your shipping policy might be, "Item ships within 24 hours." You might want to revise it to, "Item ships within 3 business days." You may very well ship every day, but life gets busy, unexpected things happen, and from time to time you won't be able to keep that promise. Your customer would rather be pleasantly surprised when his order arrives early, rather than be disappointed that is does not arrive when expected.

Use the 5 Whys to explore the cause and effect of "underpromise overdeliver" as related to your customers. (The 5 Whys is a method used to get to the root of a problem - you ask why 5 times.)

Example:

1st Why: Why did my customer leave negative feedback? Because he was mad didn't receive his item as quickly as promised and it was a gift for someone. It didn't get there on time.

2nd Why: Why didn't he receive his item as quickly as promised? Because I was too busy to ship his order in the time promised.

3rd Why: Why were you too busy to ship his order? Because I have too much to do and can't keep up with all my shipping.

4th Why: Why can't you keep up with your shipping? Because I am trying to be competitive and offer shipping within 24 hours on all orders.

5th Why? Why are you trying to ship everything within 24 hours? Because it sounded like a good idea at the time.

So, good ideas can backfire. Better to underpromise and overdeliver than to have an upset or disappointed customer who is going to leave a negative feedback.