eBay Selling Secrets by Andrew Lock, the ‘Renegade eBay Auction Seller’

I’ve had it with airport security staff. I’m convinced that many TSA workers take some kind of sadistic, ‘power hungry’ delight in dominating innocent travelers. I’ll tell you about 3 incidents that may or may not shock you. Luci and I were travelling a day or two after the announcement about the restrictions on carrying liquids, gels and aerosols had first been made. I had a small tube of toothpaste in my hand luggage which was removed by a TSA employee. He told me about the 3oz limit. Puzzled, I pointed to the label which clearly showed: ‘1.6oz’. “It’s under 3 ounces” I said. The carefully thought out reply was: “well, you can’t have it.” “Why not?” I said. “Because it’s not in a clear, quart size, zip-top approved clear plastic bag” came the response.” “How does the bag change it?” I asked, realizing I was pushing it but I was also genuinely puzzled. “The bag measures the total quantity of liquids you’re allowed to take” said the officer (or whatever they like to call themselves). I couldn’t help myself, I blurted out, “but, it’s obvious that my mini tube of toothpaste would fit 10 times into a bag like that!” The reply: “I’m sorry sir, that’s our policy” Just at that moment, a fellow passenger came through behind us and she’d obviously heard the ‘exchange of words’. She passed me a clear bag, a spare. I thanked her, opened the bag up and gestured with my head for the TSA guy to drop the toothpaste into it, which he did. “Okay Sir, the toothpaste is safe to go now.” So the act of placing the tiny tube of toothpaste in a clear bag suddenly made it approved. Without that bag it would have been confiscated because they couldn’t be sure it was under 3oz and within the total allowable volume allowed. That was incident number one.

Next, Luci and I were going through LAX recently and the TSA guy who stood behind the ‘archway’ metal detector was shouting instructions to passengers waiting to go through. “Listen up. Hold your boarding pass with both hands against your chest, directly below your chin, as you walk through.” I’m not kidding. As we were waiting patiently for the line in front of us to clear, a guy failed to follow the ‘required’ position for his boarding pass, simply offering to hand it to the guy instead. Guess what happened? He was sent to the back of the line like a naughty school boy. We could hardly believe our eyes.

Now incident number three. The very next week I was passing through St Louis airport and as usual I unloaded my laptop into one of those grey bins, along with my shoes. Because my laptop is so small, the two items fit in one bin easily. A TSA employee told me to remove the laptop and put it in a separate bin.

Before I tell you what happened, you should know that in the past year I’ve travelled through more than 22 different airports and have never been asked or required to do that, so I politely showed him that there was nothing touching the laptop, it was completely isolated from any other objects, and he interrupted me to repeat the same order in an even sterner tone. I complied with a slight rolling of my eyes to make my point of how ridiculous this was. His response was: “DO NOT ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME, YOU MUST COMPLY WITH OUR ORDERS.” Give me a break.

By pure coincidence, I tell you this at the exact time when TIME magazine issued a survey that revealed TSA agents have a shambolic record of detecting fake bombs in blind tests.

At LAX, 75% of simulated explosives were missed by TSA screeners. At Chicago O’Hare the figure was more than 60%. Can you believe those figures? They should scare you.

By contrast, at San Francisco, which employs privately hired and trained screeners, only 20% of fake explosives were missed. Obviously that’s still not good, but the comparison speaks volumes about the state of the TSA.

I realize that security is a serious issue, and although it’s an inconvenience when you fly, it’s obviously necessary. What I object to is the power trip that many TSA screeners seem to be on, feeling that they can do whatever they want, making unreasonable demands on passengers seemingly for their own amusement or perhaps because they don’t understand what it means to be discerning and reasonable.

Like so many frequent travelers, I’m educated and responsible, and I object to being treated as described by someone who derives pleasure from dominating innocent passengers.

I’m not saying they’re all bad, in fact I’ve met some extremely efficient and pleasant TSA staff, but the ridiculous actions of a few are giving the group a bad name, and if you consider the news report about their efficiency, there’s no silver lining to be seen. They’re hopelessly inefficient as an organization, and they can be manipulated. For example, explain to me why it’s now okay to take a lighter on board, and books of matches? Last time I checked, they produce fire. Really, the TSA should be saying, “the tobacco lobby successfully got us to lift the ban on lighters.” So now they’re saying ‘lighters are not a serious threat’ but apparently toothpaste, shampoo and water are? I’m no expert on aviation safety, but I’m not stupid either. I know what I see.

As you can probably tell this is a subject that gets me worked up. I hate corporate bureaucracy, inefficiency, and misuse of power by those in positions of trust.

There is a lesson here for all of us. Examine your own business to see if there are any areas where processes or procedures irritate your customers unnecessarily. Every business needs procedures, but are there rules or regulations that are outdated, inefficient, or need reviewing? If you have staff that interact with customers, are they consistently friendly and helpful even if their work is potentially confrontational, such as having to collect customer debts? In your eBay listings, do you penalize the majority by having a long list of ‘I will not tolerate x,y & z, because of the bad actions of a few unethical or devious buyers? Are customers treated as guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven ‘guilty’? These things matter. I know a number of people who now refuse to travel by air because of the TSA chaos. Don’t allow your business to be boycotted in a similar way. It’s entirely avoidable. There you go, end of rant.

Something happened last month that NEVER happens to me. I opened a package from an eBay order to discover that not only had the item been superbly packed with ample bubble wrap to protect the contents, but there were a bag of M&M’s sitting on the top of the bubble wrap. I whipped out my camera so you could see what I saw. Here it is:

The gift was so unexpected that it caught me off guard. I teach this stuff, and it still caught me off guard. Why? Because it never happens! Think about it. When was the last time you received a package that contained a special gift, something special that you didn’t order and were not expecting? I’m confident that most if not all readers will have to think long and hard about that one.

Anyway, I was so taken aback that I later analyzed how I had felt when I opened the box. What surprised me was that even though I teach people to include a gift, when I opened this box, I had a grin from ear to ear, I had a smile on my face, and my opinion of the seller skyrocketed. I thought to myself, ‘what a kind and thoughtful gesture, this company obviously values my business.’ That reaction I just described should make you think very carefully.

If a simple gift like a bag of M&M’s could elicit such a powerful response from ME, when I TEACH this approach, how much more effective it must be when directed towards ‘normal’ buyers.

This begs the question, what are YOU doing for your customers that’s unexpected? Do you send out a free gift with every order?

What kinds of things can you sell if M&M’s aren’t appropriate?

Magnets, pens, keychains, calendars, mousemats, and cookies are all good options. Some of those items can even be branded with your businesses details, to further promote your products or services long after the sale.

I know of one seller of movie DVD’s on eBay who includes a free bag of microwaveable popcorn with every order, without letting customers know. The gift is completely unexpected.

Would YOU order again from such a seller? Of course you would!

Most people are short-sighted to only look at the up-front cost of buying items like this. If only they realized the lifetime value of each customer that results from using gifts with orders.

“Renegade eBay sellers use free gifts to provide an outstanding customer experience.”

Like I said before, because no one does it, it’s a HUGE deal for customers. They feel special, valued. They’re FAR more likely to order from you again, and they’re FAR more likely to be a loyal customer. An experience like this sticks with the customer, they remember. It’s sad that what we’ve reviewed here is a ‘renegade’ (unconventional) strategy. It shouldn’t be.

If you’ve been in business for awhile, you’ll have experienced occasions when everything goes wrong. Despite your best efforts, circumstances beyond your control conspire and some of your customers have a bad experience.

What do you do? Bury your head in the sand? Leave the country for a couple of weeks? Change your phone number?

Well, you could, but that won’t solve the problem.

Earlier this year, one of the most popular airlines in the USA, JetBlue faced such a dilemma, and we can learn a lot from how they dealt with it.

What happened? Well, there were some major weather problems which had a knock on effect at JFK airport in New York, until the airline experienced a major melt-down.

Many hundreds of passengers were stuck on airplanes for as long as 11 hours, without going anywhere. And apparently the subsequent effects continued to be felt for about a week, with countless flights badly affected.

The news media latched onto the story like a bulldog and they wouldn’t let go. That meant that the airlines woes were VERY high profile.

What did they do?

The passengers who were stuck on planes for many hours on the ground were in constant communication with the captain of the plane, who kept them fully informed. Also, when it was clear that the problem was serious, they were immediately informed that they’d receive a full refund of the price of their tickets PLUS a free round-trip ticket for future travel on the airline. It’s worth noting that that gesture went far beyond their legal obligation, most airlines won’t do anything for you under similar circumstances surprisingly enough.

Also worthy of imitation was the companies swift email response to their entire customer database. They didn’t shy away from the issues or try to cast blame on other factors (like most airlines do), but they took full responsibility for the shambles that had occurred, and promised to implement immediate drastic changes to try and prevent it from happening again.

JetBlue also gave specific information. They didn’t try to blind customers with jargon or airline industry lingo in the hopes of trying to confuse passengers, but rather they openly talked about the circumstances that led up to the delays, and explained how they had already hired more staff to cope better in the future.

The email from the airlines CEO, David Neelman, started with:

“We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.”

What an unusually frank and honest response! No passing of the buck, no excuses. They took full responsibility AND said sorry.

I have a lot of respect for JetBlue for their actions during this period, and personally I’m still happy to fly with them. Their honest response and apology was appreciated by their customers because they’ve not experienced any major fallout from that incident, or since.

The lessons here should be obvious to you. When things go wrong, customers don’t care who’s to blame, and it really shouldn’t matter. If it was a supplier, take the issue up with them, but don’t get the customer involved.

Don’t fall into the trap of casting blame anywhere but at your own doorstep. Ensure that your employees have the same mindset, too. Everyone needs to be attuned to taking responsibility and wanting to fix it when something goes wrong.

When you make a genuine apology and fix the mistake, customers appreciate it. Sometimes, they become more loyal because they saw how you treated them.

Like all businesses, we screw up from time to time. But we do try and adopt the attitude that every customer is important to us, we will take responsibility for our mistakes, and we will make it right. I encourage you to do the same.
And don’t just deal with the symptoms, fix the root cause of a problem whenever possible to prevent the same thing happening again.

Customers are generally very tolerant of mistakes, but they can’t be expected to tolerate the same mistake over and over again.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•