What are your tips to getting customers/repeat customers?

[sin-n-dex]

I've got two things I do to help get customers (and keep them coming back).

1. Offer discounted shipping (which is subsidized by me). It's $5.15 if they buy two or more items. If it's 2 small coins, then there's no subsidy and it will run close to my cost. If they buy a big bubble mailer full of stuff, I use the Priority flat rate ones, and postage is discounted a few dollars. The good shipping price is psychological, you just have to make sure your sale prices can cover that couple of dollars you're losing on shipping.

2. My second tip, which works well to get repeat customers, is to have everything packaged carefully, nicely, and neatly for shipping. That means using clean bubble mailers, zip lock bags to enclose merchandise within (for single coins I fold up the invoice to act like a little pouch inside the envelope). Stamps is the best example... they are all packaged on the black stock sheets (which cost $1 USD each, I buy them by the 100 from a USA seller). The customer can put the stock sheet directly in their album if they so choose, but it looks very nice with a big ziplock bag and piece of cardboard to help keep it tidy and flat in shipping.

I look at lots of stamp auctions and am easily turned off by listings which look untidy. I have also sometimes not been too happy with what I've received as a result, but most stamp sellers do try to ship their items carefully.

C.

[duncanvr]

Upon a sale from a new buyer I write a message to them in eBay and thank them for their purchase. I also give them an eta. Then I paste my shop link like below and ask them to bookmark it. I tell them new lots added weekly. That is how many keep buying from me again esp stamp collectors in UK & USA

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/postalhistorylettersandcovers

[byrd69er]

Free items:  If I have more of a certain vacuum tube than I will ever be able to sell, (or care to take the time to sell), I'll add extra tubes to a purchase. Move 'em out and move on!!

Great packaging: Vacuum tubes are fragile inside and out. They require special care when shipping.  I ship many of my vacuum tubes inside prescription bottles, and then I wrap the bottle in bubble wrap. I often get praise for this method of packaging.

[sin-n-dex]

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@duncanvr wrote:

Upon a sale from a new buyer I write a message to them in eBay and thank them for their purchase. I also give them an eta. Then I paste my shop link like below and ask them to bookmark it. I tell them new lots added weekly. That is how many keep buying from me again esp stamp collectors in UK & USA

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/postalhistorylettersandcovers

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I wish I could sell stamps to the UK... first problem, slow shipping (so I had to stop international shipping), second problem, I ship on stock sheets that are 8.5 x 11" with a piece of cardboard, so the cost to ship this is around $12 USD with USPS ($14 to cover the eBay cut and the 65 cents cross border courier fee), so it would have to be really uncommon to sell to the UK (and most of what I buy comes from the UK, so the local buyers don't want it shipped back from Canada).

I do send thank you notes (usually if it's going to be more than a few days before I ship. Come Saturday and Sunday, they get shipping labels printed same day, so unless someone is **bleep** with tracking their purchase, it will seem like a pretty pick delivery.

C.

[duncanvr]

I find most buyers in UK are very good and happy to wait longer for international mail as long as they get it in the end. I don't track most unless expensive orders. I just use stamps from Oz and send airmail. Tracking here is a joke at 21 dollars or more I believe the same high cost in America. I list directly on to eBay UK site and find I get many buyers that way. Queen Victoria stamps like I sell on covers are top sellers for me to Brits. Quiet a lot of American buyers to. A few people had to wait 2-3 months because of Covid and our airport lock down. All were still okay waiting as long as you communicate the delay with them. I am not sure if you could sell stamps the same way but not on stock sheets? There is no protection if tracked in my experience you can lose the order just as easily. Most airmail gets through even to the remotest places on Earth,