Online Selling: Keeping Sales Secure

Selling online is a lucrative way to make more money, apart from what you already do. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, you may soon find that more sales get pulled in through your online business arm, than your brick-and-mortar business. The Internet is a great avenue to conduct business, and the possibilities only expand with time.

Keeping your online sales secure is an important point that no one would want to miss. Consider the losses and the opportunity costs when you seal a deal and it goes bad. I have been guilty of being a bad customer before, though those incidents were purely unintentional. Because of my experiences, I learned a couple of things:

• Make sure I have the cash on hand when I want to buy something.
• I should never commit if I’m not sure I can pay for the item if the seller says “yes” to a date.

But as a would-be seller, I believe I have learned a couple of things too:

• I shouldn’t let my life depend on what I am about to sell.
• If the buyer of my item keeps extending the date, I would extend the utmost patience, but give an ample time frame of around a month.

I think that as a seller, you should keep a couple of things in mind when conducting business online:

• Conduct your businesses with integrity, no ifs or buts.
• Always abide by the rules of the web marketplace you are a member of.
• Keep all legalities in place, including disclaimers. The FTC is now making sure that consumers are protected. So make sure you follow rule #1.
• As much as possible, do meetups. Or else, if you’re selling to someone whose geographical distance makes a meetup impossible, get his/her payment first and send your customer the item in the best condition, and as you advertised it. Again, refer to rule #1.
• Don’t be afraid to hurt sales by declaring the condition of your item in all honesty. It will save you from gaining a bad reputation later if your customer was surprised to get a bum item when he/she expected only the best.

To wrap up, every business done online is incumbent on however you conducted it. Remember that when you are less than filled with integrity when you are selling, you only risk harming your business. Besides, a crook will never prosper. :p

For the intro post to this, see my other money making bloggie. :p