"What will cost a sale for you?" Topic

So you are looking at some cool miniatures.
What kind of stuff is a dealbreaker in the ordering process?

For me, the only thing absolutely guaranteed is if I have to pay with check or money order, if I have to email a credit card number or if the expected delivery time is more than 2 weeks.

The latter has been deviated from once, the money questions never.

No pictures of at least something is a deterrent but I've ordered blind a few times before.

If I think I am being ripped off for postage and packaging then that is a dealbreaker.

I really do not mind paying for P&P. I accept it as part of the deal but I do get upset when the costs are unbelievable.

$5 USD item, $25 USD p$p…

For figures, I have to see them to order them. I also need to order online. No emailing of orders or credit card numbers. Delivery time isn't a show stopper as a lot of what I like isn't available in the U.S.

Excessive postage.

If I have to go through some type of gymnastics to pay you, I can live without your product.

Not having some sort of online shopping cart system. These days it's easy to set up a basic e-commerce system, but I still see niche manufacturers who ask that you peruse their PDF catalog, then email them a list of figures you are interested in, then they will send a paypal invoice…

a] No pictures on website
b] if the the size does not fit with my collection
c] if from the US inability to get the cost and PnP under the magic £15.00 GBP gbp
d] sloppy/cheap 3D printing on the original master not cleaned up for production casts
e] lazy /friday afternoon sculpting
f]incomplete ranges
g]What I call "The Aketon Effect", worse now with the internet: ranges/models promised, sneek peaked that do not appear and no sensible/ realistic schedule

h]This current period of retrenchment/austerity in the UK with the increasing lack of ability to see the product talk to the producer the old school analogue way @ cons.

Old mans rant over

Guy

if the expected delivery time is more than 2 weeks.

If I think I am being ripped off for postage and packaging

You clearly don't live in Australia.

The things that hold me back from buying much at any one time are cost and poor quality production. Fortunately most of what I buy is very well produced.

Lack of pictures

Dear Weasel

When I go up to a major dealer, big name, at a convention and he has two bubble packs of something I really want, but I really want four.

the following conversation goes like this.

Them: "I don't have any more with me."

Otto: OK, how about I just order all four bubble packs from you and you can ship them to me?"

Them: "I can't do that, the manufacturer won't take small personal orders and ship them to me. from me and ship them."

Otto: "Umm OK, how about you order all four of this six of this, five of this" and send them to me.

Them: "They won't ship orders to individuals."

Otto: So basically I get to buy what you got and that is it.

Them: Yes

Otto: "Fine I'll wander over to Dayton Painting Consortium and find stuff to make do with."

The cost is never really a factor unless patently outrageous, poor quality and a "service with a snarl" demeanor is.

No online purchases either. About 25% of phone menu or on-line systems go through federal penitentiaries. Yah! like I'm giving my credit card number, home adderess, and other vital stuff to Two ton tony Galante and Liver Lips Louie.

Clearly this post has triggered a lot of pent up feelings.

Traders take note please.

Excessive postage costs is a bummer but I don't think I've run into it much outside of ebay.

not combining shipping on ebay items. real killer.

If they don't have pictures of their product, I don't buy.

Well, I'm happy to report:

1) We have pictures of most if not all items. In a pinch if it is in stock I can do a quick camera-snap for you.
2) Online ordering, check.
3) Fair postage: what I pay, you pay. 90% of orders ship for less than the "plug" number done by the shopping cart. International orders receive an exact quote before the order is filled.
4) I take cards (online), Paypal and checks/money orders. Sorry no shiny beads.
5) In stock items ship next business day. Delivery is out of my control
6) I back orders out of stocks, ship when I get them, and for US customers they ship postage free.
7) BUT I don't do shows. I lose too much money at them and simply can't afford to lose money on anything. So now I go to shows to play!

Mark "Extra Crispy" Severin
ScaleCreep.com

Postage costs that push 50% of the product price.

All the above plus nothing that shows the website to still be active. Still active may be any recent addition to the site with the date of the addition, a last updated date, etc.

"No online purchases either. About 25% of phone menu or on-line systems go through federal penitentiaries. Yah! like I'm giving my credit card number, home adderess, and other vital stuff to Two ton tony Galante and Liver Lips Louie."

Really?

Ever use your credit card at all?

Every credit card transaction travels the internet at some point in the process whether anyone wants to believe it or not.

It all comes down to the website software, the software certification, and the payments processor for the website owner.

There is a reason some websites can be made for $10 USD a month and others cost many, many multiples of that – software certification and acceptance by card issuers. That all is directly related to security.

Just saying…

I've got shiny beads! :)

With me its mainly postal costs, and this is mainly a US costs problem I find some guys very affordable but some and Evil bay making my eyes water. And yes standard PayPal only please.
Weasel your stuff BTW always a pleasure to buy, PDF and downloadable-) wish science fiction would hurry up so we can do that Star Trek replicator nonsense for our gaming needs :)
Cheers happy gaming all.

UPS-only shipping.

If I want to buy the miniatures, I buy them. The only thing that'll prevent it, is bad consumer reviews!

High postage cost is a deal breaker oh resin figures are a no deal for me, plastic is better.

I'm with Cyrus, although extremely high postage cuts into the miniature purchase so may reduce the size of an order.

I really like those who offer free shipping to those who order a certain amount.

Prefer CC over paypal, but not a deal breaker.

Brigade Games' point is well taken. We've had to replace our cards numerous times over the past five years, but it's either been due to a waitress, gas station card reader or major retailer. So far, knock wood--not due to online purchases.

You have money but you don't! I live in the Philippines but have a U.S. bank account and private mail address.

No problem with orders from U.S. companies, most of the time, but if I want something from Europe – rejected everytime.

Their computer says I might be fradulant because I live in the Philippines and does not recognize my Zip code in the U.S. because of my E-mail address. You have money but you don't.

No picture on the site = no sale, plain and simple

ask me to email you my order and wait for for a paypal invoice, or anything like a series of emails to make a payment, no thanks

force me to 'create an account' for anything other than pdf downloads, no thanks

Try to charge shipping as a percentage of my order and I'll do everything I can to order from somewhere else. You'll have to be the only game in town. Shipping should go down as my dollar amount of purchase goes up.

There is a reason some websites can be made for $10 USD USD a month and others cost many, many multiples of that – software certification and acceptance by card issuers. That all is directly related to security.

$5 USD a month hosting will serve most any hobby business except the big boys, Warlord, GW, PP, that sort of thing.

SSL cert shouldn't be more than $40 USD a year

CC processing is the thing that can get you. PayPal will do it for free on their site, but even reading this thread it seems some folks still don't know you can use a credit card with paypal. For $30 USD a month PayPal will let you take credit card on your own site, and people won't even notice, it's pretty slick but a bit expensive for small shops.

Excessive postage which seems to be common on Ebay nowadays…

For me, excessive postage and UPS shipping. If UPS is forced on me, I shop elsewhere.

Why is UPS shipping a hardship?

It's not a deal breaker for me, but UPS is, from my experience, terrible.

As expensive as Fedex but I've had more packages damaged or lost through UPS than I have through Fedex or the postal service.
I always feel like I am paying them a premium to have a gorilla play basketball with my books or miniatures.

$5 USD item, $25 USD USD p$p…

Postage costs that push 50% of the product price.

Suppose the item(s) you bought weigh 5lbs? The seller is supposed to eat that shipping cost?

Weight and dimension = shipping costs

I guess you could have the shipping costs added in but in the example above would you pay $30 USD for a $5 USD even if it had free shipping?

Deal Breakers –

1) Consumer issues such as large backorders, long wait time, etc.
2) Doesn't take Paypal or credit card.
3) No pictures on website.
4) Excessive postage above actual shipping cost.
5) Have to create account/profile with more than name and address.

In NYC, UPS used to require a signature and deliver when I wasn't home. Now they leave it in the hallway. Haven't lost anything yet…

USPS puts the package in a locked box in my building and the key in my mailbox – much preferred.

Deal breakers – many complaints here by other consumers
No Paypal
No pictures
Postage out of line

Buying anything via Internet. Just don't do it!

I have curtailed my buying for lack of funds so price became the issue. Mostly if I could not get it in the US I was not going to pay the exchange and shipping to get it from overseas.
This topic really brought out a lot of strong responses.

I should add, I don't need pictures of everything you make, but I do like pictures of at least a decent representative sample so I have an idea about what I am getting.

Fergal -

Not really the thread to discuss this, but I beg to differ.
Please read your credit card processing agreement. You will be quite surprised. There are lots of restrictions in it and no way is any host running ecommerce software that is certified to run by the cc companies charging $5 USD a month. What then happens is that any breach of security of your site and payments system makes your company liable. Technically, you are also in violation of your card agreement. As a point, if your software stores or collects the credit card details and does not charge the card on placing the order then it is in violation of the security agreement.

And yes I agree, there are many that do not understand that Paypal also takes credit cards.

No pictures of product. We've had this out before, but sorry, if in 2015 you don't have a website with pictures then you don't get my business.

UPS shipping across borders means automatically getting hit with customs and taxes – I'm OK with that in principle (but don't mind when regular mail misses customs) but I object to UPS charging me $20 USD or more in brokerage charges for the privilege of paying customs. Usually it is $30 USD or more.

"Try to charge shipping as a percentage of my order and I'll do everything I can to order from somewhere else. You'll have to be the only game in town. Shipping should go down as my dollar amount of purchase goes up."

This really, really bugs me. It's galling putting together a large order and seeing the notional 'P&P cost' ratchet up well beyond the actual cost of postage.

If that's how the retailer needs to balance their overall books, then fine, but just be honest about what you're doing and increase the list price by the 10% or whatever you want to charge extra, so your £7.50 GBP pack is listed as the £8.25 GBP it will actually cost.

Increasing the list price is fine but… you would need separate list prices for each postal area. From the UK, basically separate charges for UK, EU, Rest of World. Easier to charge different postal rates instead of getting 'it's a rip off because you charge Americans more than you charge Brits'.

Postal charges go up as the order size goes up because the size/weight of the parcel goes up – and the post office doesn't give discounts.

Personalised postal charges sounds good, realistically though you would spend too much time working them out. Not really practicle in the case of many companies.

Brigade,

Not sure if you are the UK or US Brigade I can never remember who is who, but in the US my host if $4 USD a month if you pay for three years at a time, dedicated IP address for SSL is $4 USD a month (which I don't use as I process through paypal and NOTHING secure happens on my site, it happens on PayPal, I just get notified that it went well and the money is there).

An SSL cert is an SSL cert no matter what host it is on. You should never have access to peoples credit card numbers at any point, that's just silly.

This again is for small fry operations. If you are processing 100's of thousands and have multiple employees, you costs would/should be larger.

Oddly enough (at least to me)no one mentioned scale/figure size as a problem. The biggest problem I have in buying figures is a lack of common scale between manufacturers.25mm/28mm seems to mean vastly different things to different people. Obviously, this is not a new problem, but despite consumers complaining about it for years nothing seems to change.

I have tried inquiring from manufacturers if their figures are compatible with such and such manufacturer's figures. The lack of response amazes me.

Doctor X nailed it for me. Those are my turn offs.

I'd like to see documentation or links to confirm this statement by OSchmidt "No online purchases either. About 25% of phone menu or on-line systems go through federal penitentiaries. Yah! like I'm giving my credit card number, home adderess, and other vital stuff to Two ton tony Galante and Liver Lips Louie."

Postage costs plain and simple. Pics can also be an issue if I cannot find any on the internet, but yeah it's postage no question.

Christopher

Unfortunately in my neck of the woods there is only one hobby store that sells miniatures and then only sporadically. The owner is a bit of a curmudgeon and a jerk and has ed me off on more than one occasion so I have to order most of my figs online. I must say that I've had great service from just about every online vendor I've dealt with over the years. High shipping rates are a real deterrent though. Esp Ebay. Getting really out of hand.
It's funny – I would have ordered more from the local store but was made to feel like I was an inconvenience. Probably because I wasn't into RC model planes or trains maybe. Or automobiles for that matter. ;)
You would think that a store would try to be a little better with its customer service given that there are so many places online where one can purchase just about anything model wise.
I thought it was just me until I read a review of the store that stated the same things I found problems with.
Sorry for the rant – kinda off topic but feels good to vent a little.

What will kill a sale for me? Two things:

1. No pic, no purchase. If I hear one more mini dealer moan about how digital cameras are too expensive or too difficult to use, I'm going to smack them upside the metaphorical head. Drag your hindquarters into the 21st Century.

2. If I have to put my information at risk: I was at a show and wanted some minis that the vendor had sold out of. He gave me a copy of his catalog and told me I could order them online, following up the statement with 'Just send me an email with a list of what you want and your credit card number.' When I balked at this the person responded with 'If you're concerned about security just send two emails, one with half your credit card number, and the other with the other half.' when I asked if he had secure ordering (you know, like the entire rest of the world) he responded 'oh, I prefer to interact with my customers.' Needless to say he never got any of my money.

Let's be honest about something dealers: you are working in retail. You are there for the buyer's convenience, not the other way around.

1. Making me buy blind (for figures)

2. Resellers who say, "I don't know who the manufacturer is": Give me a break--they're in your possession. Don't make me guess based on bad photos.

2. Making me create a membership to order something.

3. No shopping cart (hello, 1987 was a long time ago; time to join the rest of us here in 2015)