AmigaActive (1346/2059)

From:Eyetech tech assistance
Date:17 Aug 2000 at 09:53:42
Subject:Re: Turbo Print 7.1

Bill Eaves said:

>> And yes all our goods go on a signed-for service, both for tracability
and
>> to avoid the 'it never arrived - I want a refund' claims for unsigned for
>> goods that are, unfortunately, rife in the mail order business.

>But that is bad for the customer. When they are out it is often a long trek
>to go and fetch the parcel at our own expense - an insult after being
>charged for a "better" delivery.

Well thats not true either. You can opt to have delivery at your place of
work, a neighbour etc if you wish provided you confirm your wishes by email
or fax.

And as to bundling carriage costs then that is really not practical either
given the range of destinations which we ship to, and as Neil says, you'd
then end up paying n times the carriage costs for n items in one order.

In fact you are quite right about profitability of most orders under around

costs of order processing etc., However our philosophy is that - provided we
break even on these items - we'll continue to offer to sell them as a
service in the hope of generating/maintaing good customer relations. White
Knight (when he used to advertise) always had a minimum order value of (I
think) £50, which is the other approach of course.

Games software has an entirely different margin structure, with usually
minimal replacement costs if stuff does go missing and little or no support
requirements. So the second-class-stamp-only option (which *does* result in
significant lost/denied orders) can be acceptable to some dealers. On the
other hand there have been several complaints on this list about certain
suppliers who charge no carriage at all on (games) software, but deduct
funds immediately and then ship months later (if at all).

Our philosophy is to try to stock all items advertised and in any event only
charge cards/cheques at time of shipping, with no cancellation charge during
any back ordering period.

This method of working may not suit every customer (such as you, Bill), but
we believe (from the results of our customer surveys etc) that it is the
fairest option for the great majority of our customers.

Hope this helps

Alan

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