All You Have to Do Is Ask

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I recently made a purchase on eBay from a seller in Hong Kong, who reminded me of the very first lesson I learned in my college marketing class.

On the first day of the semester (and before introducing himself, taking roll or passing out the course syllabus), the professor asked what was the single most important thing a marketer could do to get people to act.

“Offer an incentive,” someone said.

“Make a strong value proposition,” another shouted, once it became clear the professor was looking for another answer.

“How about, tell them what you want them to do?” the professor asked. “Or better yet, how about, ask them?” he continued as he began a slideshow of poorly designed advertisements that, he pointed out, forgot to inform the audience what to do.

It seems simple: Just ask buyers to do what you want them to do. But don’t let the simplicity of the idea fool you. Making a clear and overt request can yield significantly better results than leaving it up to your buyers’ intuition or relying on an implied call to action.

What to ask for

As online sellers, it’s easy for us to get hung up on just one thing we want people to do: buy! But once your auction has ended, or a buyer has committed to buy your fixed-price listing, there are still several things you’d like from the buyer. Here are a few things you’d like them to do:

• Leave you positive feedback
• Give you 5-star Detailed Seller Ratings
• Recommend you to their friends and family
• Subscribe to your e-mail newsletter
• Remember your brand
• Contact you with any concerns before leaving negative feedback
• Visit your eBay (or off-eBay) Store
• Browse your other products
• Buy from you again

How to ask

When I received the package from my seller in Hong Kong, my expectations weren’t very high. I had bought a couple of car chargers for my new Palm Pre smartphone. The reason for my cautious skepticism? The total purchase price was less than $3. Even though they were off-brand, it was hard to imagine that my $3 would even cover the seller’s shipping costs. Nevertheless, my package arrived in less than a week, with two perfectly functioning chargers, and something else…

Included in the package was a shipping slip that included purchase details, a courteous “thank you” message and a request in the form of a bulleted list asking me to:

• Leave positive feedback
• Leave 5-star DSRs
• Add the seller to my Favorite Sellers list

Here, by way of a $2.68 transcontinental purchase that I thought could hardly be worth the seller’s time, was a reminder of that lesson I learned so many years before—brought to me by an online seller some 7,000 miles away. Sure, the English was broken, but the message was clear and it provided me a little confidence and information about what kind of seller I was dealing with in the all too often anonymous world of online commerce.  All that from a brief message on a little 8.5-by-3-inch piece of paper that he probably printed up 1,000 at a time.

Crafting your message

What you ask your sellers to do, and in what form you do so, is up to you. Make it natural and befitting your own style. Make it concise, but polite; clear, but humble. Prioritize your list of requests and keep it short.

A simple packing slip is a great vehicle for your requests. Auctiva users have this functionality built into their accounts. Auctiva sellers can include transaction details and a custom message.

I also recently read a post on an eBay community board in which a seller used an offer from VistaPrint for 250 free business cards to ask for positive feedback, share her e-mail address and promote repeat business with a link to her Auctiva Commerce Store. Considering just the few dollars the seller had to pay for shipping on the cards, this investment will surely be well justified by its results.

The practice of including shipping slips with embedded calls to action has become popular enough that some companies offer these as stand-alone products for sale. I prefer the Auctiva feature for its ease of use and integration into the seller’s Auctiva account, which allows transaction details to be automatically included. That’s a time-saving solution for creating transaction-specific slips.

Alternatively, I like the use of the free business cards from VistaPrint for the added touch of professionalism and the increased likelihood that it might be passed along to another potential buyer.

Whatever your preference, just be sure to choose some solution. A few simple requests to your customers combined with a commitment to provide good products and good customer experiences in every transaction will be well worth your efforts. Remember, sometimes all you have to do is ask.