clhyer@hom.net ("Cal Hyer") wrote in
<007d01c0a663$3d09cf00$35242ed8@hom.net>:
>Al, thanks for your input. A sellers perspective would, I expect, be
>somewhat different from a buyers. And, there is really no way to
>measure whether you have lost business or not when you limit your sale
>to certified funds. I can say that in most ebay auctions, if the buyer
>only accepts certified funds that I normally do not bid - because of the
>hassle of getting a m.o. or trip to the bank. As a seller, you may not
>have lost the sale, but you may have lost some money.
>
>As to my post, I was hoping for more discussion than has been generated.
> I am a bit underwhelmed by the response! I thought maybe some of the
>folks who have had problems would speak up and offer some comment.
>
(I apologize in advance for my reply, I had a little trouble preventing myself
from rambling!) :-)
Cal, (and everyone else of course)
I did notice your post before, but was running out the door at the time
(actually, that's what I'm doing now, but decided I'd take a few minutes to
reply) and figured I'd see what others had to say first. Speaking from a
seller's viewpoint, I would personally not have a problem if someone wanted to
purchase something through me via an "escrow" arrangement. However, I would
expect any additional expense incurred to be picked up by the buyer. (Though I
suppose if the shoe were on the other foot and a seller had a buyer they
weren't completely sure of, an escrow arrangement could work in the favor of
both parties...) I don't want to come off as a cheapskate, so let me explain
my reasoning. :-) We small guys don't make a whole lot of profit. (In fact,
my recent startup has yet to break even...) Although it may sound like a small
amount, a little here and a little there can really add up! I have people
telling me all the time that I should charge more for my stuff, but I set my
prices where I can make some money for my time and effort, but still keep the
prices low enough so as to make my products available to a wider range of
people. I believe this will work for the benefit of everyone in the long run.
Who knows, maybe this isn't such a hot idea, business-wise, but at heart, I'm
still the same guy who wants to get the best price I can on every mod, and I
suppose I have a hard time picturing a buyer as anything else; I just have to
go by, "if I were interested in this product, how much would it be worth to
me?".
There are definitely risks in doing business, especially when dealing with
small outfits, which have the potential to be "fly by night". (No insult
intended to anyone, my outfit is me, myself, and I; it doesn't get any smaller
than that!) I think the best indicator of the future performance of an outfit
is to look at its past. That's one really good thing we here on the DML have
going for us; we're a close knit bunch of folks who aren't afraid to let
everyone know when we've had a bad (or good) experience. :-) My personal
business philosophy is to deal honestly and fairly with everyone. Integrity
and "doing the right thing" comes foremost; I'm not here to rip anyone off, I
set up my outfit with the intention of helping my fellow DMLers to improve
their Daks and hopefully earn enough cash to improve my own! (Still waiting on
that second part.) ;-) When I first read your message, my gut reaction was,
if a seller isn't trustworthy, do you really want to do business with them at
all, escrow notwithstanding?
In the same vein, let me throw this idea out there... What about making it
easier for the "word of mouth" principle to work? I have seen some web sites
for mailing lists where members who sell things are listed, and people who have
purchased from them can post comments about that person (positive or negative).
Prospective purchasers can then check out these sellers and determine for
themselves what sort of risk they'd be taking in doing business with them.
(Such a tool might also be used to help a buyer decide wether or not they might
want to make their purchase through some sort of escrow arrangement.) Would
something like that on the DML home page be beneficial? Something like this
could even cover non-DML sellers, such as Summit, JC Whitney, ProGlass, etc.
anyone that sells Dak stuff. Perhaps it could be broken down into sub-
categories as well, such as experiences dealing with sales, after sale service,
shipping speed, etc. This probably wouldn't be too hard to set up, I should be
able to recycle my existing code for the dealership rating resource. (see:
http://www.dakota-truck.net/dealer for that, and to get an idea of how it might
work). Any thoughts?
---Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ----- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@twistedbits.net ------. | Affiliations: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA; Rec & UL Pilot - SEL | | '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 | `------------------------------ http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ----'
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