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Hi Everyone,

I am hoping to get some honest feedback from people about where they buy, and what makes them buy there.

A little about me, and my reasons: I run a small independent stockist in Dorset, England. We are still fairly new, and are just putting the final touches on our new webstore ready to launch. We are currently in negotiation for a lease for a larger premises (as we rent space off of a friends business at the moment), but in the mean time, we are working primarily on the online side of our business.

Having read hundreds of pages of threads, alot of them saying that they dislike waiting 4-6 weeks for a company to dispatch, giving no information etc, and being in this position myself in the past, i can honestly say, i understand.


What i would like to know, is what would make you consider giving the new guy on the block a chance? Would we need to be the cheapest out there? (in all honesty, we cant afford to do 30% off RRP and free P&P) Or would a solid customer service, including consistent communication be the favourable solution?


Any help is much appreciated here everyone.

Thankyou in advance.

Karl

Cheap is not so much of a driver for me; alacrity is. I dislike ordering something that I believe to be in stock and then waiting ages for it to be dispatched.

The problem with customer service in an online environment is that it only comes into play when things go wrong, so if you're on top of your fulfilment then it is kind of an afterthought.

Frankly, my priorities are price of product, price of shipping, speed of fulfilment. I'll try anyone once, but it is those that consistently have what I want at a sensible price and get it to me quickly that I return to.

Examples of good etailers?
Troll Trader, Wayland (most of the time, I think they appear to get as hard a time as they do because of the volume of orders they process) Dark Sphere, Mierce, Miniature Heroes and SnM Stuff will always get my cash as a priority, because they excel in one or more of the priorities I mentioned.

Poor etailers?
Thankfully not too many I've encountered, but Total Wargamer, Arcane and Triple Helix have all done enough to lose me as a customer. (In fairness to Triple Helix, it was the taking over a month to respond to an emailed stock enquiry that dissuaded me from ordering, but they did eventually reply, just massively too slow to be useful)

I'm happy to give people a chance, but there are too many options out there for me to be overly tolerant of anything I perceive as negative experiences with one company, but keep performing well, and I'll keep shopping with you.

For me, getting everything in one place is a big factor - the reason I've used wayland a lot, is because they have a pretty comprehensive website, that's easy to navigate. A reasonable discount helps too. I just wish their stock indicators were more accurate.
I expect a turnaround of a day or two at most if everything is in stock. I don't expect a wait of several weeks. While I appreciate that getting stock to arrive in a timely fashion is out of the sellers hands, it's incredibly frustrating to the customer. Sending an email with an update for the customer from time to time costs nothing but a minute or two of time, but goes a long way to enhancing your customer service.

For me, price trumps everything.

As long as as it's cheap, and it arrives at my door at some point, I don't care.

Live stock tracking and large product range are also good. Shipping is expensive, and being able to buy all the minis and paints you want from one place reduces that expense.

Find a niche (hobby stuff, historicals, skirmish etc.) and do it well.

As the guys above me have said, honest stock levels and good communication are probably most important.

Regarding discount, I think as long as you are at least 10% below RRP and offer some kind of postage offer over a certain amount (Royal Mails prices permitting) you should probably attract a fair bit of trade.

My main concerns are a good range of GW products, the availability of those lines (stock levels, wait times) and price. Usually I'd use either Darksphere (good range, good price, have to pay postage) or GW (full range, higher price, free postage over 20)

What do I want

1. A live stock level indicator is VITAL

nothing worse than ordering a bunch of stuff and having it delayed by a single missing mini that is OOS which the website didn't know (or knew but didn't tell you)

and if you mess up and find you can't send the full order at once because you adevertied something as in stock that wasn't I would expect you to ship what you had, then do a 2nd free shipment once the missing item turned up

2. Communication.

If I email/call I expect to get a response fast... so 1 working day max for email, and get an answering machine for the phone for when you can't take a call

It's fine if you have to say 'no we can't tell you when X is back in stock, but we've placed an order with the distributor', just don't stay silent

3. Price,

low prices are good, free shipping is good (on orders over X if necessary). Regularly changed extra discount on X helps encourage regular website visits, you can use this to shift overstock or promote new releases

4. Range,

the more stuff you have the more likely it is you'll have what I'm specifically after (and the more likely I'll find enough extras to hit free postage of offered)

Companies I've had good experiences: with Troll Trader (fast and smooth both via ebay and direct), Darksphere (quality service), Miniature Heroes (really good coms)

Wayland has great range (but in the past have had real problems with stock level indicatiors and coms but) the new website is much better and my last couple of orders have been smooth

5. The GW problem

They will be a big seller if you stock them, BUT new release are tricky to handle, you may well not get all the stock you order on time (or at all) so you need to find a way to manage this. Keep in touch with buyers many will be patient as long as you talk to them, be prepared to give refunds if you can't supply what you promised on time to those who don't want to wait

Had good dealing with Firestorm Games and Wayland Games; both good quality stores and Wayland stocks a very wide range of material. Firestorm is smaller scale, but generally has good stock and very eager and helpful staff.


Ebay is a different beast as I tend to go there for older stuff rather than new; so I tend to trade with a wide range of people. There are a good selection of reliable stores there (Troll trader is popular but not the only store). Ebay is honouring all sales now and the feedback options mean that its pretty much a very safe place to trade with the protections whilst at the same time being a good place to pick up old (metal) models (discount isn't as good as it used to be since everyone knows about ebay now but you can still pick up the odd good deal here and there - esp if you are willing to paint strip).

I use dark sphere now, used to use total wargamer alot, but long waits and no communication meant they lost me as a good customer.

I would say price and honesty are top of my list, followed by communication (as only really need this when things go wrong). Not fussed about having to pay postage as long as it isn't extortionate and is going to get to me when I'm told it will.

I use Gifts for Geeks. It has decent savings and the website looked professional, which is what attracted me to using it. A good looking website to me, says that this is safe to use. I used it one time and had no problems. Same goes with the other ten-or-so times I've used it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so I carry on using it.

But the lack of free shipping does annoy me. Even if it was free shipping over £X, I would be inclined to make fewer, but larger orders, to get rid of the shipping cost. I'm sure this would be beneficial for the company too.

Price is important, but they need not be the cheapest for me to buy, but they need to show up within a week or two.
I have stopped using a few suppliers that regularly kept me waiting for over three weeks, (Darksphere, Total wargamer, Wayland)
If I want something quickly, I do not mind paying full price, so much so that I have even started to use GW to order from.

Darksphere.

I would just like to thank everyone for the honest feedback. I will have a talk with the webdeveloper, and talk to them about an option for a Live Stock indicator (we didnt originally have it planned in - so may come post launch. Will look at the options for getting to tied into our EPOS systems to prevent us selling it in a store, giving a false reading).

At the moment, to be completely brutally honest, our stock holding is reasonably low (around £4000-5000 of stock in our store at any one moment), and we stock the primary ranges - GW, Privateer Press, KR, etc, but we are intending to expand (using all profits to increase both ranges and quantities).

I am also completely confused as to why some of the others out there would need you to wait 5 weeks until they dispatch a product range. If they are consistantly selling £10,000/week, then why is there stock holding not reflecting that? (the same as we currently sell around the £1000/week mark, so our stock range is big enough for that). Or are they just not keeping on top of orders/ordering at every possible chance?


Again, thankyou to everyone. Any more advice is greatly recieved - having worked in retail and retail management for most of my working life, i know a fair bit about how retail works, but true customer feedback will always be the best indicator we could ever ask for.

One point I neglected to make - the stock notice for Wayland games is tricky; they don't life live stock but instead list "in stock and 1 week order" now that's fine when it works, but if (for whatever reason) they can't get something in then suddenly you've two or even three weeks wait for an order.

If you're going to have live stock it must be accurate live stock (so link it up to your stock take setup so that its accurate). IF you can't get it accurate don't have it and just shift to showing a green light on regular order options.


Another thought for the web designer is to put in a warning (for yourself) so that any order that goes over its estimated/ideal dispatch time gets flagged by the system. That helps you to draw attention to an order that is late and thus to be preemptive with informing the customer what's going on (even if its just to state that you're still ordering the item). Nothing's more annoying as a customer than feeling that you've got to hound a store or that you've been forgotten.

K3 wrote:
I am also completely confused as to why some of the others out there would need you to wait 5 weeks until they dispatch a product range. If they are consistantly selling £10,000/week, then why is there stock holding not reflecting that? (the same as we currently sell around the £1000/week mark, so our stock range is big enough for that). Or are they just not keeping on top of orders/ordering at every possible chance?

It's sometimes a store not keeping on top of it's orders (so you can avoid this with good staff)

but it's equally likely the distributor (or company) they are ordering from just don't send what they order in a timely manner.... you order they say 2 weeks, it doesn't arrive, they say sorry give us another week etc (a huge problem with GW for new releases).

There's not a huge amount you can do here, just keep in good with your distributors/companies you buy from (even if they let you down you're probably stuck with using them depending on what stock you're after)..... just make sure your customers are aware of any delays and be prepared to refund and cancel your order if they can't wait

MAKE SURE you can cancel orders that don't arrive on time so the customer goes elsewhere, distributors may try and give you T&C meaning you can't leaving you stuck with unwanted stock (you may not able to avoid it if you want something obscure and tricky to get that they have to order in specially, but for stuff they regularly carry you should be ok)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

just make sure your customers are aware of any delays and be prepared to refund and cancel your order if they can't wait

Again, reasons for not doing this just confuse me.

Say for example, someone orders 2 x space marine hunters off me, but i am out of stock. Why would i not just order them in, if they get delayed, send the customer an email. 2 minutes of my time (less if it is a generic template - which i am sure most use), and if the customer decides that they cant wait the extra week, just refund them. Worst case, i end up with 2 hunters in stock, and i sell them without any delay to the next person asking for them.

Maybe i have been a consumer in this industry for too long.

I know of quite a few people that will only order online if they can use paypal, they say that is their main deciding factor when choosing where to buy as well as just price.

 Rayvon wrote:
I know of quite a few people that will only order online if they can use paypal, they say that is their main deciding factor when choosing where to buy as well as just price.

I have to thank you for a second time today.

We were planning on just using Sagepay for our processing (due to previous personal issues with paypals policy to just refund every claim regardless of stupidity),and we didnt expect this to be an issue, but i think i may have to reconsider this if there is sufficient need for paypal.

I'll be honest I've not heard of nor used Sagepay before. Paypal might have some annoying policies, but its got the bonus that they have one of the largest market bases. Many people trading online have a Paypal account and feel, as a customer, safe using them.

I'd get Paypal on the books - you can offer other payment options, but make sure you've got the big names up there so that you both let your customers choose and don't make them jump through hoops to buy from you.

Just placed my first Dark Sphere order last night, glad to hear some good comments on this thread. I'll report back with my findings, i went for Parcel Force deliver as it was a big order (£200+) as advertised it should arrive by next weekend.

Dark sphere.

Dispatched next day every time I've used them, tracked delivery as standard taking the advised 2 days each time.

Decent price.

Good communication when amending an order after placing it, still sent next day.

My Main online store was Maelstrom, which I used as they offered a discount, had a wide selection of stuff & offered cashback on orders.

I've also used Wayland & Gifts for Geeks, as they also offered discounts & had a large selection of stuff.

I also use GW & FW sites, but only for stuff that I might have a problem getting elsewhere.

I don't buy a huge amount of hobby stuff anymore, but if I do it's mainly online, and I primarily look for a discount (any size), choice & reliability. Speed of delivery is not such a factor as I never need stuff urgently, but I don't want to wait months either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stargasm wrote:
Just placed my first Dark Sphere order last night, glad to hear some good comments on this thread. I'll report back with my findings, i went for Parcel Force deliver as it was a big order (£200+) as advertised it should arrive by next weekend.

I've been toying with placing an order with Dark Sphere - also due to the positive comments about them on here & other forums.

I look forward to reading about your experience.

It's been touched on with references to live stock levels etc, but I think it's worth mentioning separately that for me the design of the site is the most important thing after price of combined items + P&P and stock availability - the site itself should be visually pleasing, which most aren't, and nothing turns me off faster than difficulty finding the things I'm looking for, inconsistent search results between different pages, messy product pages, missing or mistyped info, descriptions that don't fully match the item, etc.

I work in walking distance to DarkSphere and have used them a few times. I'll bypass the postage costs and also receive the best reductions by ordering online then picking the stuff up.

They really are a good bunch in there (I was surprised how many staff they have) and the shop is over two units as well.

If anything there site is a little basic but the search function works fine so it does what it has to.

Price would always be the most important factor with me and making sure I actually got the items with as little fuss as possible.

For me the three main factors are:

Getting everything I want in one place
Getting some discount (10% is fine), otherwise I will go direct for the added piece of mind
Good shipping. I would rather pay for royal mail/UPS than get free Yoddle.

Ensure your stock levels are accurate and be sure to notify the customer ASAP if an out of stock item is going to be holding back their order.

I've sat around expecting my items to arrive only to find out a week or two later that they haven't even been dispatched..... all because some $4 paint or 1 mini was out of stock, holding up the order.

Also I've found that stores who don't offer the lowest prices will often greatly benefit from holding a one week sale that does offer a better discount. You may just break even or perhaps lose a tiny bit of cash, but you'll have given customers a chance to test your store out - generating future business.

Another option is to have "item of the day" sales in your web store which are offered at a better discount than your standard rate. This is a great opportunity to clear out unsold stock and temp potential customers to go for the featured item (hopefully adding several regular priced items to their shopping cart to justify the shipping cost).

Well my FLGS is close and quite welcoming. I jump on the bus to the station ands then walk from there to the store. It also offers a 10% off GW and warmachine products.

If your ever in Preston then check us out-just look up Harlequins HQ on Facebook(sorry, im at college so no quick links)