Intervino is a company that you’ve probably never heard of but everyone in the country will have seen their products and probably bought one.
They were propelled to stratospheric growth when they were selected by Coca-Cola to deliver their highly successful Share a Coke campaign, Intervino specialise in personalised products so if you found a bottle of coke with your name on then you’ve them to thank.
Their latest projects are Mcvities and Marmite – Want a box of Jaffa Cakes with your name on, you can have them. If Marmite’s your thing then you can get a jar of Marmite with your name on (or any message you like so long as it’s no more than 12 letters long).
Selling personalised products on eBay
There’s no doubt that we love personalisation, but what happens when it comes to marketplaces? There have always been issues selling customised goods on eBay. It’s too easy to order and buy, but getting the copy or even worse the images to the seller isn’t quite as easy.
Text isn’t quite so difficult as it can be sent via eBay’s My Messages, but send images through eBay’s system and the resolution changes and for many purposes become unusable. Even informing the buyer how they should send you their images isn’t straightforward according to sellers I’ve heard from. Whereas once upon a time you could rely no buyers reading the descriptions, today with the rise of mobile many people never read descriptions. Even once the images are processed and proofs are ready the seller has to communicate with their buyer again requesting them to approve the proof so that the goods can be approved.
It might sound like a lot of trouble to go to, but the truth is that sellers of customised goods are used to the hassles of selling on eBay and largely take it in their stride, albeit with the odd negative feedback from buyers who didn’t send in their images or approve a proof and didn’t get their personalised invitations in time for their party.
Personalised products and eBay On-Time Delivery metric
There’s a new problem for sellers of customisable gifts however and that’s eBay’s On-Time delivery metric. Sellers are checking the new dashboard and discovering that they’re failing miserably. Yes they can for many products ship today via a courier for delivery tomorrow, but only if you’re ultra responsive, get the photos to them when you place the order and approve the proof instantly. Most people don’t and if the goods aren’t ready they can’t be shipped and eBay then mark this down as a late shipment.
If you sell customised goods how are you stacking up against the On-Time delivery metric. Do you offer an extended handling time to take account of slow responding buyers but disadvantage yourself in search with loss of premium service, or do you offer speedy delivery and take the hit on your On-Time delivery metrics?
We’d love to hear how sellers of custom items are coping with the changes coming in February and what you think the best way of selling under the On-Time delivery metric will be.
2 Responses
Please don’t forget us auction sellers. Half of my buyers request that I hold their purchases so they can take advantage of combined shipping. I may hold goods up to 30 days (occasionally longer), and quite a few of those buyers still pay me whilst they continue to bid. I now have to inform any new customer, that if they wish to do it this way, then please do not answer eBay’s question regarding the delivery metric, or simply lie and say it did arrive within the dates provided.
Unfortunately every new ebay initiative since the introduction of TRS 6 years ago has favoured BIN sellers. Auction sellers are the unwanted. ebay know what their buyers want!