Terms of Sale
Doing business in person is often easier. You can explain yourself in spoken words, questions can be immediately asked and answered, and a handshake will seal the deal.
Doing business online is a bit more difficult. We have to spell everything out clearly and trust that our written words sound the same way that they do in our head. The buyer can ask questions, but there is no immediate way to correct and clarify to ensure that both parties are on the same page. And, of course, we have to balance our need to supply information with the need to not come across as a difficult or demanding seller. It’s not easy!
After selling on eBay, Amazon, locally, and on my own website for a decade now, I’ve developed a system that works for me. Hopefully a few of these things will work for you, too!
I believe it is important to include the following somewhere in the listing - not on your About Me page.
- Payment info – How to pay, when it is due, if echecks are held until they clear (or if you don’t accept them – I’m pretty sure that is still allowed), etc.
- Shipping info – How quickly will you ship, what method will you use, can I pay extra to upgrade shipping, is tracking included
- International information – Does it take you longer to ship overseas, do you charge additional for it, who pays customs fees (this one comes up a lot so I think it’s important to put that on your main page)
- Return policy – yes, ebay requires it in their tab, and that may be sufficient for you. However, if you’d like to highlight your great return policy, it will make you appear more easy to work with and may add buyer confidence. If you want to do this, I believe that you need to have your return policy clearly stated within the listing as well.
A few things that are also nice to mention, but might be better on your About Me page so that every listing isn’t cluttered:
- Item source – Some sellers like to state that they obtain their items through a variety of sources like thrift stores, yard sales, personal use, etc. I think it’s fine if you’d like to say that, but since it isn’t necessarily a concern to every seller, I’d move it off the main page.
- Obscure policies -One question that comes up often enough for me to have a policy on, but not often enough to need to advertise, is customs forms. I will NOT mark an item as a gift, and I do believe that it is important to have that written policy. I do think that it can appear overly harsh on every listing, though. Instead I have the following blurb on my About page:
Customs forms are marked as merchandise with amount paid. Please do not ask me to mark a package as a gift. This is illegal and dishonest and I just won’t do it.
- Personal information – If you sell to pay for your child’s medical treatment, piano lessons, a vacation home, or just to buy more boutique clothing, that’s great. If you want to share, go for it. But do it here. On my About page, for example, I talk about how selling online has helped me to be a stay-at-home mom. This is a great opportunity to plug HCTS, also, and use your Affiliate Links!
Finally, a couple of things that I like to include in the packages that I ship:
- Thank you – I believe it is important to send a Thank You to every customer. I do this in the form of business cards that have my store info on it as well.
- Care Instructions – When I sell my handmade garments, I include care instructions. This is a must if you want to appear to be a professional crafter/seamstress.
- Return Policy – If you have a return policy, re-state it here. It makes your business look better, and it helps buyers meet the requirements on time.
- Repeat Customer Info – On our website we offer every repeat customer a discount code. We see these redeemed every day. It makes a difference, and I definitely recommend that you consider offering one as well.
Do you have any ‘must include’ or ‘must exclude’ terms? Anything that you believe helps your business? Terms that you see in other sellers’ listings that make you click back, back, back? We’d love to hear about it!
FLYers, today we are writing down what we hear and turning negatives into positives!
Have a fantastic Friday!
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Wow, so informative! Thank you, Heather. One thing-I don’t think we can still block eChecks. But if anyone knows otherwise, please post instructions because I hate them!! Things have changed so much lately, it’s hard to keep track of what was allowed-then wasn’t allowed-but is allowed again, LOL!
Ive never included terms in my description box, so I asked members of HCTS to think as themselves as a buyer, and what they want to see in a listing in order to be able to click the buy it now button (without having to ask a question).
After that, I added “Smoke Free Seller” to the description field of all my eBay listings. I don’t know why Id never thought to include it before, but it came up a lot in the responces to my question!
The only other “term” I include in all my listings is my combined shipping policy. While I do have combined shipping rules set up in my ebay account, and ebay does display some mention of it in my listings, I want to really highlight it.
So, at the bottom of most of my listings, you will find a link to my “other items” and, a statement such as “Most additional clothing items ship for 1$ to US & Canada (3$ Worldwide).
I feel this encourages people to look at my other listings. When I see a listing state “I combine shipping”, that tells me nothing about what it will actually cost me to purchase additional items, so I am much less likely to look at the sellers other items. (I could ask, but I probably wont bother!)
Thanks, Cindy
WOW – what a great coincidence!!!! You were talking about terms in listings, and then mentioned the Flylady task for today was “turning negatives into positives”.
I did that with the language in my listings, and feel its a “must do”.
Even though my terms were never written in the “do not xxxx” style that some sellers use (a real turn off), I still found I was able to make them MORE positive than they were. Perhaps think of it as turning a neutral into a positive.
Instead of “Pay 1$ shipping for each additional item”, I changed it to “Additional items ship for 1$”. No one wants to “pay”, everyone wants “additional items”.
I also reworded “Buy more items for combined shiping” to be “Continue shopping and save on shipping.” Again – “shopping” has a better connotation than “buying”.
In any case, perhaps try applying the Fly Lady lessons about positives to sales terms (perhaps product descriptions too!)
You can…sort of. You are allowed to block echecks, but not for eBay transactions. It helps if you have your own website or sell through some method other than eBay but still get paid through PayPal.
Since I find their site somewhat unclear to navigate, if anyone wants to look for themselves:
Login to your Account.
Select “Profile”
Under “Selling Preferences”
Select “Payment Receiving Preferences”
Scroll down to “Block the Following Payments”
Great post Heather! And Cindy, I love the way that you worded some of your sentences to encourage repeat buyers or multiple item purchases.
Very helpful post, thanks!! I am going to re-word some of my verbage in my listing!
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Heather.
@Cindy-
You said…
“Instead of “Pay 1$ shipping for each additional item”, I changed it to “Additional items ship for 1$”. No one wants to “pay”, everyone wants “additional items”.
I also reworded “Buy more items for combined shiping” to be “Continue shopping and save on shipping.” Again – “shopping” has a better connotation than “buying”.”
I think your changes are VERY good ones!! Nice job!
I agree Cindy – good call!
This is such a great informations. Thanks for sharing it .