I saw your product cheaper on ebay .....

[daisyflower]

Just wondering what you guys would do in this situation.

We sell our own uk manufactured goods.
We also sell them on ebay and amazon at £18 cheaper than what is on our website.

Mainly because we have to compete with cheap chinese imports on a similar (but inferior) product.
If they wearn't there our products pricing would be the same

However

I have just received an email from a customer saying that she bought goods from my website this morning, and wants to know why they are £18 cheaper on ebay.

Im tempted to just say - 'everythings cheaper on ebay' but thats not a very good answer, nor is ' should have looked harder' or 'unlucky'

What would your answer be .....

 

[paulears]

I'm in exactly the same position, and don't have an answer that works - the real reason is the same as yours, on my web site I can make more money!

 

[deniser]

I wouldn't sell the same product on Ebay for less money otherwise you are devaluing your own goods.

Why don't you use Ebay just for ends of line etc or just put certain products on Ebay. Or do your Ebay sales from a different name so it's not obvious you are the same business.

 

[daisyflower]

The problem is .....

we have unique selling points that our goods are bigger & better and made locally.
we have been selling on ebay & amazon for 6 years

The other seller has started importing a similar product from China, and making a small profit on it
(by small profit Im talking about £15) we still make £35 on each of ours.

ours are £10 more expensive than the competitors, and we sell 20 to their 8 on ebay and its probably 15 / 10 on amazon (simply because we can't get a good sales page on amazon)

If I sold the goods at the same price as my website, they wouldn't sell on ebay, so I stay competitive, hoping that eventually this other seller will see that its not worth importing the goods and go away

thats the only reason, if she wasn't around i wouldn't sell so cheap (she makes £0.09p on 1 product)

so my reason is truthfully - Im selling cheaper on Ebay because I'm competing directly with imported goods.

If the customer had phoned me before she made the sale, I would have given her the same price (I always do) as on ebay but she purchased direct, and has now realised that its cheaper elsewhere.

what reason do you give

would you refund the difference (the goods have already been dispatched)
ignore it - or what ?

 

[The Panda]

Tell her the truth and that you are forced to sell at a very small profit margin against inferior imports but then I would not use the likes of EBAY any more either to buy or to sell. Amazon yes but not EBAY.

Could you not set up a totally different company name to use on the likes of EBAY and Amazon then this would not be an issue.

 

[daisyflower]

its a good point - sell through a different name.

 

[dedwardp]

I agree that I'd find a way of differentiating the two products or business names or whatever - to sell it at different prices in different places under the same name as the same product seems unfair and if I was in her position I think I'd look to get the cheaper price too.

 

[deniser]

Give her the refund otherwise she will forever quite rightly feel aggrieved.

I don't understand how you say your competitor is making £15 but you also mention 9p?

 

[csaba]

There are a number of things you can do with this opportunity, two major strategies:

1, Explain a competitive advantage for items bought on your website, that your e-bay customers don't have. Extended warranty, faster delivery, moneyback guarantee, any of this would do. Alternatively, explain that your website adds operative costs (SEO, marketing, maintanence) to your business that it has to recoup.

2, Give a "finders keepers" reward for the customer, by either paying back the difference, crediting her account for the difference (to be spent on your site) or giving a 10% discount for her next purchase

Don't ignore it, though -the general idea is to do something, that might snowball into a story that she tells to her friends / family; that's the only way you can turn this problem into an opportunity.

Hope this helps.

 

[csaba]

There are a number of things you can do with this problem opportunity, two major strategies:

1, Explain a competitive advantage for items bought on your website, that your e-bay customers don't have. Extended warranty, faster delivery, moneyback guarantee, any of this would do. Alternatively, explain that your website adds operative costs (SEO, marketing, maintanence) to your business that it has to recoup.

2, Give a "finders keepers" reward for the customer, by either paying back the difference, crediting her account for the difference (to be spent on your site) or giving a 10% discount for her next purchase

Don't ignore it, though -the general idea is to do something, that might snowball into a story that she tells to her friends / family; that's the only way you can turn this problem into an opportunity.

Hope this helps.

 

[RBS]

What would your answer be .....

It does cost us much less to sell our products on eBay compared to run our online shop, so we can pass that saving to customer on ebay. We have to pay monthly fee to our online shop provider etc.

Something similar....

 

[bjg123]

I wouldn't just refund the difference unless you rely solely on repeat custom. Maybe offer the difference plus an extra 20% off her next order and explain why you have to do it - just be truthful, people react better when they're not patronised.

 

[I Love Spreadsheets]

It does cost us much less to sell our products on eBay compared to run our online shop, so we can pass that saving to customer on ebay. We have to pay monthly fee to our online shop provider etc.

Something similar....

This is a brilliant answer and it is something insurance companies use all the time.

When you phone for a motor insurance quote, they will ask you where you found out about them and the answer you give will effect the premium you get. They know certain methods of attracting clients is far more expensive than others and they pass it on to the clients.

However I think it would be worth adding extra value to your higher prices by including things like a longer warranty

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Mainly because we have to compete with cheap chinese imports on a similar (but inferior) product.

we have unique selling points that our goods are bigger & better and made locally.

Therefore, they are not the same.

Have you tried selling them at the same price on ebay?
Do you highlight your features and benefits on the listing?
Do you offer an incentive to buy from your site? e.g. free delivery?

 

Just wondering what you guys would do in this situation.

We sell our own uk manufactured goods.
We also sell them on ebay and amazon at £18 cheaper than what is on our website.

Mainly because we have to compete with cheap chinese imports on a similar (but inferior) product.
If they wearn't there our products pricing would be the same

However

I have just received an email from a customer saying that she bought goods from my website this morning, and wants to know why they are £18 cheaper on ebay.

Im tempted to just say - 'everythings cheaper on ebay' but thats not a very good answer, nor is ' should have looked harder' or 'unlucky'

What would your answer be .....

why don't you just refund the difference to the customer.or any other customer that makes this query.:|


that way you don't have a problem.

Earl

 

[daisyflower]

Thanks for all the helpful replies

I did actually refund her the £18 difference.

I am going to do a test and lower my website prices to those of Ebay - and see if it makes a difference in sales

 

[RBS]

It means you admit your tactics of charging £18 more on your website... I would be VERY angry. Con.
Some bla bla bla would make it more soft.

 

[InPrintImaging]

I suppose you could offer extended customer service, maybe add a warranty for the items sold over your website, to add to the percieved value. Doesn't really help for the items already sold, but you might consider it for the future.

 

[deniser]

If you're not getting the margins you need, switch to a different product.

Starting a price war on Ebay or elsewhere is not going to make good long term business sense IMO.

 

[RBS]

If you're not getting the margins you need, switch to a different product.

Starting a price war on Ebay or elsewhere is not going to make good long term business sense IMO.

eBay is price known price killer. Sometimes I wonder where on earth sellers get their products to sell so cheap.

 

[OnlineMenusCornwall]

I wouldn't change anything. If you're getting sales from ebay and your website and are happy with the numbers then just refund the difference whenever someone complains.

Ideally you need to distance yourself from your ebay store somehow so customers don't connect the two.

 

[dragonflies]

I get asked this question all the time in my day job (not my own business). My employer operates a very successful ebay page and a company website.

But people are cottoning onto the fact that the prices on ebay are about £10 cheaper than the prices on the company website and they ask me why. The stock answer I am given is that ebay is a much cheaper alternative of selling, i.e. it is fully automated with paypal and the fees from paypal for a transaction are much cheaper than the card processing terminal we use for telephone orders as a result of the website and the worldpay fees with transactions directly thru the website.

My boss has to pay myself and another person to man the phones and give technical advice to people who ring up wanting to know the inns and outs of the product and then order. With ebay its far less labour intensive and thats why they get it cheaper.

But we do operate a policy that if a person finds it cheaper on ebay and points it out, we give the product to them at the ebay price and not the website price.

It is a very hard question to answer