Well i don't mind EFT transfer , BUT then the company must make it "sensible" like a certain other shop i use
http://www.sybaritic.co.za .
How they work is, you place your order but you don't pay yet, then they first check stock levels and confirm the time it will take to get it from suppliers..THEN they mail you and say "pay within 24 hours to get your stuff within [type of postage] days " . This gives me plenty of opportunity to cancel AND/OR change my order if i think it's taking too long without hassles.
With a CC setup you usually have to pay "in advance" and thus i've found companies stretch the "time it takes to actually ship" as far as they want. With EFT , there is no reason to require me to pay before an -exact- shipment date etc...and that's why i sometimes actually enjoy doing EFTs ..however not all companies seem to work like this.
If I understand you correctly, that is how I work ... as soon as I get an order ... I send you an e-mail telling you that before you pay, let me just phone and check if they have stock ... when they tell me they do have stock ... then I tell the customer that he must pay, and that he can expect delivery x days after the amount reflects in my bank account. I also tell the customer if it is taking longer than normal to reflect, and I also tell them as soon as it reflects so that they know what is happening, and don't think I ran away with their money.
There are only certain items I can obtain before I receive the actual payment, because I don't have credit at most of my suppliers. Only the one. And even then ... I will only get the item when I see the proof of payment to make sure I'm not stuck with it.
Sometimes though, a customer will pay before I have a chance to e-mail them ... and in those cases, I offer them alternatives, a back order ... or a full cash refund.
I try my best to make the customers experience as stress free as possible ... and a nice method to use especially for brownie points is to always understate yourself than over state. I don't know if you have been to hellopeter.com but I had to attend a talk by him from the company I work for on the weekends, and he gave some good service advice. If a customer knows you give good service ... then your product is more valuable then XYZ competitor as far as they are concerned.
And because my company is new ... and I want it to stay in existance for a long time ... I've implemented an internal policy of Customer Service over Customer Profits. There is only one case where I am making a loss and that is not my fault ... but rather a very big issue with a very expensive credit card ... and I'm trying to give my customer the best service ... and the suppliers are making it extremely difficult.
For some products such as a celeron CPU ... I am only making a R30 profit ... which is in terms of business rediculous ... but once again customer service over customer profit.
Thats a big reason why its taken me so long to get a developer to redo my site ... its expensive, and I couldn't afford it ... but now that I have made a bit of profit ... I can ... I don't take any salary or anything out my company ... and all year end profits are all going back in.
At the moment I'm a BCom Accounting student, and started this company to teach me all about business ... but at the same time ... I want to make this company big over the next few years ... I've only been around for 5 months so there will definately still be hiccups.
I think because I am still a student ... I know sort of what the trends are and am trying to get that to make the company successful. Guys like Digital Planet and them are already too big, and have forgotten what its like to be on the other end of the line ... I haven't.
But thank you for your insite ... I will look into adding a sentence on the checkout confirmation screen once the site is finished that says "Before payment is made, please wait for me to confirm stock" ... or something like that ... what do you think?
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... woohoo ... you guys gave me a sale ... For the one guy who I know (Storejet OTG), I'm gonna give you the affiliate DigiBucks that I promise to give customers who refer other customers. Thanks a mil 