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I also include a thank you note telling them that I have left positive feedback and would appreciate feedback in return.
Katie
Brian
no reminders or incentives given, my feedback left when shipped.
I leave feedback immediately when the order is paid. And most orders contain a letter where I ask to mark the order as received and say that I would appreciate if they find a moment to leave feedback.
Renate
I tend to leave feedback in bulk once a month. Haven't asked for feedback for a while now.
I've stopped giving feedback to my buyers as there is not much to say anyway. They immediately paid when placing their order. Instead of saying thank you in feedback I prefer to handle their order with care and make sure it gets to them safe and in a speedy fashion. This approach seems to work: I have lots and lots of returning buyers.
Hellmouth, I think leaving feedback for buyers is still a good idea. If nothing else, it gives an idea to other sellers if the buyer is totally new (and might therefore require guidance), or if he's an experienced buyer.
I ran this through my time=$ calculator and liked the speed of assuming the best.
No worries either way, I never used to leave feedback early, I've just currently rationalized in this direction.
Side note: I did not factor in packages in route or combined shipping orders to my percentage, somewhat higher doing this.
(This is meant as a positive observation.) My sales have been slow in materializing, and I had begun to worry that I had left a reliable, although not exhilarating sales venue, to come to a new, eager, but fairly lonesome startup. The sales have started and now are about equal to the results on BL. ALSO, with the response on the percentage of feedback/sales, it is easy to back into reassuring sales numbers for many of the mid- to large-sellers.
Summary analysis: BrickOwl is REAL and worthy of consideration as an alternative selling venue.
I make the assumption that MORE sellers ==> (eventually) MORE buyers. Therefore, I am encouraged by the new sellers who choose to sign up.
Before jumping, I read most of the forum posts. I will admit that the lack of self-promotion and claims of success, etc, slowed my decision. I suspect that more sellers might join with a little more evidence of success (e.g., short personal stories of success, hints on how to successfully migrate with minimal pain, generalized reports on 'typical' sales expectations, etc).
I'm very curious how others made the decision to "jump" or at least to co-exist on both sites.
I'll be doing my part to help shortly... (synchronization software now standing at over 10000 lines of code, writing everything from scratch in raw C takes longer but it seemed more fun somehow
Comparing to BL, I get 5 times more orders here in the same period.
Average order value is similar on both sides.
Isabel
on BL it turns around 85%.
I do add a note in each order (nicely explaining about FB) and also run a customers loyalty program, reason maybe I'm a little over average %-wise
... it gives an idea to other sellers if the buyer is totally new (and might therefore require guidance), or if he's an experienced buyer.
It's not just only that, it is also 'showing' the new buyers how it works by a leaving feedback: they will see their own number grow and realise there is a feedback system. As usual there is always a % of buyers that will never leave feedback, but the others can be 'learned' along the way. The small buyers now can become the bigger ones and so it is in everyones advantage to leave feedback, even if one doesn't get one in return.
It will take some time (and maybe a little approvement from Admins side), but % will grow over time I think.
I agree we also need to be a bit more of a community around here, to be honest I have read many posts the past few months, but didn't particulary go into getting 'in' the threads. The past week I've been trying to do that a little more, and I think it is in the advantage of the site we all do so.
The growth of BO depends on it, buyers will come to the forum to seek information or help, but if there is no one around with aquick answer that won't do any good.
As a sidenote: From my point of view, and the comments made by others in this thread, things are running quite well, and what we need to concentrate on it to help buyers find the things they are looking for. One major issue is the lack of images on older items, from what I can tell Admin is doing huge efforts to keep the catalog up to date with new items, but the site needs help on all the 'missing pictures' and descriptions. And that help needs to be provided by the sellers, remember your future sales will depend on it.
A number of people (including myself) are doing efforts to do this (and I can tell it helps, as I recently sold some Fabuland items and Belville items here after putting in some pictures or after others had put in pictures). It means there is the same potential market as on BL, and buyers also searching for those older items and not just the new 'hot' items. But it simply can't be done by a handfull of people and others sitting on their chairs and do nothing... If we want this site to grow it requires **everybody's** effort into doing so, partculary from the sellers. Bl has a nice database, but it has been build by hundreds of contributors, not just by 10 or 15...
Admin is offently busy with 'site' issues and is also taking care of approvals and adding new things in catalog, so bugging him all the time won't be of much help to that. I'm offering full support to anyone who has questions about items, adding pictures (and editing them) and guidelines (as much as I have figured out so far offcourse LOL), so welcome to PM anytime
Eric
I recently added some Scala pictures, I don't collect it, but I don't mind buying them when I get the chance, because I know somewhere there is someone who needs some of it. Once the pictures where in, I added the parts (mainly clothes and such) to my inventory here and on BL and not half a day later one sold (on BL however), so there is a potential for each and every part.
Fabuland and Belville where a random example because I recently added a few pictures and so did Renate. And it lead to BO orders (in my case). But it works for all things you know, printed and stickered items, heads, torsos, minifigs etc. There is still a huge bunch missing and people do have it in their inventory (I can tell when I add pictures), but apparently they are not being bothered by it and simply await when someone else adds a picture :-(
People who downloaded their inventory can easely match parts from their BL inventory and their BO store data, so it's quite easy to fill some gaps and add a picture (even if it's not a very good one). And people who are good with descriptions also could simply add some, while browsing the catalog. And there is a lot of other data that needs to be added or checked, like sizes (a lot of 'real' sizes are not correct due to the simplistic conversion from bricksize to metric sizes) and weights as well.
So a huge job, but it can't be done by a few... because the few don't 'have' it all and because they also have other occupations (like filling orders or adding to the store). The more people who spend time (and it doesn't need to be much) adding data, the faster it will grow for all of us...
At the end of the day, the database and sales will only be what we put into it
**Side note to Admin, would it be possible to add a change log to the Catalog for people to see updates as they flow through? Thanks!