Recently I’ve been posting about hiring employees and I’m quite grateful for my customer service manager who has now taken over 100% of my customer services for my online business. It’s ok to receive a few emails each day that need your attention however when your business begins to increase, customer service can become a full time job for someone. The goal is for ‘that someone’, not to be you.

Of course customer services is an extremely important part of eBay and ecommerce and it needs to be supervised and managed however you shouldn’t be the one doing it.

If you are serious about your business, your time is worth much more.

I can’t tell you how much time it has saved me and to be honest how much of a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Customer service is not difficult (no disrespect to customer service people), because it is time consuming and requires effort and can drain your brain when you are constantly keeping customers pleased.

That brought me to another problem. I have customer services covered and as I mentioned in a previous post ‘How much is your time really worth’ my fulfilment is managed externally. That leaves me with more time to grow my business. I’ve had success with a customer services manager however finding and keeping a good web developer is another animal altogether.

I have hired and fired 4 web developers in one month and hopefully the guy I have working on my websites now will be the one, ‘fingers crossed’. Apparently it wasn’t totally the fault of the 4 guys I had to let go. You see hiring employees was relatively new to me and I was looking in the wrong places for that type of qualified worker who I could rely on.

How do I know?

Because I asked an expert. I asked a mentor and coach who had already been there and done it a successfully a thousand times over.

Did I pay for that advice?

I certainly did.

I believe there is a lot of good free information floating around out there, but how do you know who to trust. How do you know they really have been there and done it. Another thing is valuing your time. I value my time and instead of wasting hours trudging the forums, I would much rather pay up front for the right information when I need it.

I wish I had taken my own advice and asked an expert BEFORE attempting to hire 5 web developers.

OK, so my point is..

Save time and pain by asking an expert who’s been there and who can answer your specific questions right when you need them answered. There are many eBay sellers and e commerce businesses who ‘spin their wheels’ far too long and the Personal One-on-One eBay coaching is available if you find your climbing boots are glued to the starting line.

Like I do, If you need a question answered that could save you months and want to get traction, find a coach and get the answers you need right there and then. A coach not only provides the answers, an accountability partner can prevent temporary insanity in the sometimes ‘crazy’ world of the internet!

To Your Success!

WYSIWYG Shopping Cart Templates are templates you can use to upload to a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) website builder.

I have built a few wysiwyg ecommerce shopping cart websites and I was recently looking at the pros and cons of using an all in one ecommerce package like 3dcart or, to build a website and add links to a back-end shopping cart like 1shoppingcart.

I’ve always had a problem with the limitations of not being able to change the layout or positioning within an all in one ecommerce software package so I have always used wysiwygwebbuilder to make the website and then used 1automationwiz.com to manage orders, the customer database, email marketing and affiliate program.1automationwiz is the same software are 1shoppingcart but at the time of writing this you get a 4 week free trial if you sign up through 1automationwiz.com

This way I have total flexibility of the layout and style of my website and my website is not ‘tied in’ with an all-in-one package in the event I ever wanted to move my website to another shopping cart platform or even sell it on.

I have included a free WYSIWYG shopping cart template for you to download and use with wysiwygwebbuilder. Most of the templates you can get for free are simple one page samples but I have created the entire website for you. Actually it is a website I built for one of my shopping cart stores.

So, to save you all the time and hassle of building a wysiwyg shopping cart template from scratch you can download your website template below totally free.

You might be asking why am I giving you this for free?..

Well, the templates are totally free for you to use to create your shopping cart websites. All I ask in return is if you do use the templates, that you simply leave a comment below and if you do use the back end shopping cart software like 1automationwiz or ultracart that you use my affiliate link so I would receive a small commission for recommending their services.

You can even use Paypal to add your shopping cart links.

Here are the template screen shots..

Download the templates in a zip file here

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I once heard an eBay executive say that people who visit eBay like cheap products.
And I believe this is true, but it depends on your own interpretation of the phrase ‘cheap products’.

To me, the word ‘cheap’ could be interpreted in several ways.

Cheap could be interpreted by some to mean rubbish! So, is the eBay executive saying that to be successful on eBay you need to sell rubbish tat that falls apart after one use?

I don’t think that’s what he actually meant but I would have thought he would have chosen
his words a little better, don’t you?

What he was getting at is that people want to find ‘bargains’ on eBay, the place to go to
get a good deal.

That’s all well and good, but it inst really the big ‘HURAH’ eBay sellers want to here.

I mean if all the sellers get into a ‘Race to FREE’ price war with each other, profit
margins will fall through the floor and there isn’t be much point selling on eBay..

OR is there..

I don’t know about you but joining the race to FREE is not my idea of good business practices
so I wont be participating in that race. Instead, what I will be doing is ADDING VALUE to
my products and offers. In fact, that is what I’ve always done and I believe is the methodology
of increasing the buyers perception of value in exchange for the price paid.

Whilst everyone else is currently cutting their prices and earning less and less, I’ll be putting my prices UP!

Yes you read that correctly. In fact I increased the price of one of my best sellers just last week and
guess what..

It made just as many sales, If not more sales than at the lower price point.

I also added value to the offer not by sending more products but by amending the image and the
item description. I ‘INCREASED THE BUYERS PERCEPTION OF VALUE’ and the buyers are still coming back to eBay
and getting a bargain in eBay’s eyes.

So, when an exec at eBay mentions the word ‘cheap’ you could look at it in a bad way or a good way, but it’s
how you add value to make your products appear as bargains that will ultimately determine your return on investment.

So no more of this ‘cheap talk’ please Mr eBay executive!

By the way, if you do want to buy products ‘cheap’ to resell on eBay, you will find lots useful information in my newsletter and video series..

Sign up for the Auction Guerilla Newsletter and Video Series here